[Music] so I'm going to start with a story this couple walks into my office Marty Susan they seem like a nice couple they've they're seeking psychotherapy because they're having trouble with their teenage daughter Ashley who's spending too much money on clothes and Susan I'm thinking this is gonna be a pretty easy case I'll just teach them how to set some limits you know they'll probably blow it the first couple of times but then they'll come back in we'll work with them and we'll be done you know maybe a month maybe a month and a half so Susan starts the action off she turns to Marty and she says I promised Ashley I wouldn't tell you what she did Marty says see doc this is the problem I want to solve the problems she just wants to hide the problems solve problems you are the problem your temper is the reason I had to promise Ashley I wouldn't tell you she's stole money from my purse our daughter is turning into a criminal and and you keep it a secret from me this is why a whole house is out of control he says he doesn't want any secrets but every night he goes out to the cod clubs he Gamble's away our life savings and what are you doing at night dragging a tub of ice cream out of the freezer I only started gambling so I wouldn't have to watch you stuff your fat face so this is gonna be a tad more difficult than I had initially anticipated everybody in the prop in the family had a problem with self-control Marty had a temper gambler Susan had a eating problem couldn't stop herself from confiding in her daughter and their daughter Ashley was really falling through the cracks I mean she was spending too much money she was also lying and stealing so things were beginning to fall apart so why am I telling you all of this besides the fact that I need practice on my accents I'm telling you this because everybody in this room everybody in the entire world has a problem experiencing impulses that they can't control yours might be updating your Facebook page or mine is checking political news every five minutes it might be buying stuff that you don't need or your impulses might come in the form of reactivity like flipping people off in traffic or overreacting when somebody disses you now what I'm gonna do today is teach you a tool that will enable you to restrain to control your impulses whenever they come up and in order to learn the tool what I want you to do is pick an impulse that you generally have a hard time with so just close your eyes for a moment and pick an impulse that you typically give into it's hard for you to resist it might be eating sweets texting while you're driving calling an ex-lover when you're lonely whatever it is just pick one for right now and recreate the impulse right now as if it's happening in real time and feel the impelling quality of it and you can open your eyes when you're ready so I just like you to share with me what impulse did you choose and he told me about his day how great he's doing in school it'll be secret that Astrid you're trying to be crazy and how about you do you is there any air and impulse that you actually experience you're where you have a hard time controlling yourself oh it was these were your cigarettes ah it's really hard for you to restrain your reaction got it okay thank you for clarifying and what is the price that you pay when you give in to that impulse does it create an argument between the two got it so you're kind of hitting him with something negative when he's trying to that's great that's a that's a great example it's also a really good example of how despite the price and you kind of know because it's happened before we still give in to these impulses my daughter has [Music] like when she starts yelling at her brother or sometimes were out at a restaurant and she can't sit still for the point where you know drinks get spilled and things like that it's really hard for me not to impulsively you know my boys doing the program right right should I repeat that okay so his daughter has ADHD sounds like it's it's difficult she's impulsive she gives in to her impulses easily and he has a problem containing his own impulse to get down on her and to punish her or impose consequences when he should be following the program that the therapy is is recommended and what is it what is the price that you pay for giving in to that impulse right okay so the price is it's he's not getting the results that he wants because it's not effective with an ADHD kid to come down on them that hard and then he also feels bad about himself for for giving in to the impulse those are great examples and you know most of you most of us all are aware of the price that we pay for impulses if you ovary you endanger your health if you party too much you wake up exhausted the next day and you can't get much it done if you are oh and almost all impulses carry with them the price that you pointed out which is when we give in to them very soon afterwards we feel terrible about ourselves because it's kind of like why why couldn't I control myself I know that's the wrong thing to do know if any of you who have ever had the experience of getting drunk at night and then the next morning it's like oh I hate myself you know kind of thing it's very classic so what I want to point out is that there's also a more subtle price that we pay for giving into impulses see we typically you know in the case of a donut or a cookie or whatever we typically think what's the harm I mean one extra slice of cake isn't gonna kill me and there's truth to that obviously one extra sake of slice of cake is not gonna kill you however the pattern of giving into one harmless urge after another has a serious effect on your life what it really does is it diminishes your future now that might seem like an exaggeration but think about it everybody in this room has things that they want to accomplish in the future they have dreams and aspirations anything that you want to accomplish in the future requires you to delay gratification in the present so I treat a lot of Hollywood screenwriters if you want to write a screenplay you have to not switch over to the internet and look at cute cat videos if you want an intimate relationship and build a relationship that's really honest and open you have to not secretly whack off to pornography if you are in a race to create a startup and you're getting drunk every night and the other guy isn't he's gonna win the race all right so to put the whole thing another way the pattern of giving in to impulses is dangerous because no one impulse looks like it's gonna destroy your future but you're what you're really doing is making your life about self gratification rather than about self actualization actually bringing your ambitions to fruition if you want to say it another way self-indulgence is a kind of an invisible acid that eats away against your aspirations so given the price that we pay why do we give in and this is a question that's always interested in me you know I'm a smart person I know that sugar cookies are not good for me they're like they don't do anything good for me and yet when I want one I take one despite that knowledge you want an even better example Anthony Weiner a guy with a hundred and forty or 150 IQ who despite he must have known that he was going to destroy his political future and yet he gives in and texts pictures of himself to a young woman it's it's kind of crazy that impulses have the power to override our rational mind so what is it that gives impulses so much power well the answer is gonna sound a little strange but just keep an open mind every human being has an emptiness inside of them now talking about a physical emptiness but I'm talking about a psychic emptiness like a psychological emptiness a feeling of incompleteness some of you may have been aware of it at least in adolescence or young adulthood where you just felt like you weren't enough and you needed validation friends hits on your social media page money whatever it was to fill you up inside and make you whole and complete does that make sense to you so either way whether you're aware of this inner emptiness or not it's this inner emptiness that makes us give in to impulses what we're really trying to do is fill ourselves up in the outside world to fill up this hole that's inside of us if you don't and by the way think about it if there weren't this inner emptiness that I'm talking about we wouldn't feel impelled No the same route as impulse we wouldn't feel impelled to get what we want it would just be a choice rather than an impulse it would be like I can take it or leave it now if you don't believe me watch a little kid who's been told he can't have something that he wants whether it's a sugary drink or a toy that he wants another ride on your back when a little kid gets no for an answer he falls apart the angst and the grief and the sadness and the panic and the anger and the frustration that's his way of saying I need this to fill me up I must have it I'm not gonna live without it now obviously unfortunately adults have learned to repress that reaction it would be unfortunate if we didn't but it's still down there and if you don't believe me try sometime to stop yourself from getting something you really want and not letting yourself have it and just use it as a self exploration exercise you'll see those little kid feelings of frustration come up and that's evidence of that of that inner emptiness so the takeaway from all of this is we are impelled to get or to do things in the outside world again impelled to do them because we're trying to fill something up inside now and by the way with all due respect for Nancy Reagan who I'm sure was a really nice person cause the prescription just say no loss industry that's worth over a hundred and seventy-five billion dollars we'd all just start saying no and put it out of business right away right impulses have a tremendous power that completely overrides that rationale just say no attitude okay any questions so far by the way please feel free to interrupt me my answer to that and I'm gonna get into this you know much more deeply later on there's living in the present and living in the present in other words living in the present doesn't have to mean that you give in to every impulse you get in the present living part of your responsibility living in the present is choosing which impulse or instinct you're going to follow in the present some of those impulses you just know are really bad for you others may be creative ideas or instincts that will create something in the future but that give you pleasure doing it in the present I mean I love public speaking I would never indulge my impulses right now but I love what I'm doing because I'm sort of fulfilling my life's purpose and I'm totally in the present I'm not even thinking about the future even though doing this may build my prospects in the future in some way does that make sense to you you can live in the present without giving in to your impulses in the present if you want to put it another way part of your responsibility living in the present is to work on yourself and to be aware of what your doing and whether it works in your interests were not in your interests any other questions yeah the emptiness that you're referring to is that the correlated with the person's frequency of engagement everyone has some sort of emptiness inside of them I've never met anyone who doesn't you know in some sense obviously we do a really good job of covering for all of us even from ourselves but I do believe because I have treated hard hardcore addicts who have spent their entire lives filling that emptiness that they have a bigger hole because they've been trying to fill it in the wrong place the more you try to fill it in the outside world the deeper and the more empty you feel inside if you've ever met a really hardcore addict it's so sad because what initially they thought was going to give them so much pleasure and did for maybe the first time at first five times or whatever has now just become it's just enslaved them they have nothing inside given that impulses are fueled by this compulsion to fill ourselves up inside how the hell do we control them I mean they have this tremendous power behind them well let's just talk about what doesn't work which is the way we normally try to control our impulses we get into a power struggle essentially with ourselves I want it I can't have it I want it I can't have it I want it I'm not gonna let myself have it okay notice that that approach keeps us focused on the thing that I want let's say a sugar cookie and I either succeed in controlling myself or I fail but even if I succeed and I don't have the sugar cookie I haven't dealt with the hole inside of me so very likely if you're me the fact that I've succeeded this time means the next sugar cookie I'm gonna say now I get a reward because I control my I was so good last time okay so long-term this does not work as a way of controlling yourself sheer willpower I'm nothing against willpower but it doesn't work is a program for truly controlling your impulses so what would happen if instead of struggling over the sugar cookie I said I give it up it's never gonna fill me up inside after all it never has if I have one on Tuesday I still want one on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday so what if I just gave up on the outside world anything in the outside world ever filling me up inside and instead what if I shifted my focus inside and just stared into the emptiness no I don't that sounds very weird and probably a little scary or depressing but that's where the magic starts because it turns out if you stare into the inner emptiness long enough it's not empty there's stuff in there in fact there's so much in there that you can start getting filled up from the inside now I know this makes no logical sense whatsoever so what I'd like to do is have you actually try to experience it because that's the best way to to start to actually believe these things so try this close your eyes and just like in the last exercise pick an impulse that you feel really intensely and imagine feeling it right now you know one that's hard to resist again sweets checking your email running a red light when you're in a hurry now imagine that you are absolutely prohibited from getting what you want you just simply can't have it and make the feelings of deprivation as intense as you can just like those little kid feelings we talked about before now let go of the thing that you want forget about it completely it's as if it does not exist and as you do imagine that the entire outside world disappears it's never going to gratify you and instead shift your focus inside and just visualize a vast empty space stay calm remember to breathe resist the temptation to look back into the outside world and if anything just be curious about what's down there and you can open your eyes when you're in most people interestingly enough actually start to sense some movement down there now even if you didn't don't worry about it if you do this a number of times you'll see you'll actually start to feel like how strange there's something down there Frederick Nietzsche said if you stare into the abyss long enough it will stare back into you it's like there's something down there so which raises the question how can nothingness turn into something this yes yes yeah I mean I didn't get it from that but it is consistent with the notion that there let me explain it my way and then I think you'll see the connection to Buddhism which is because a more Western way to explain it is it's consistent with our notion of the unconscious think of the unconscious as a realm that has things in it but you're not aware of it when we think of our unconscious well we can't see it we can't taste it smell it we don't know what's down there and yet we know that it's down there because when we go to sleep at night we have producers dreams when we're creatively frustrated we try to work at something work at something where is it suddenly something appears it comes from the unconscious so this idea of something coming out of the nothingness is completely consistent with the idea that there are parts of ourselves that we don't know but that can actually feed us and fill us up with things now that's really important because if you can tap into this unconscious resource that you have inside of you then you're free then you not only you don't have to just deprive yourself of the things that you want you won't really need them that much you'll feel whole and filled up from inside for example [Music] Oh God let me make sure I'm understanding your question because the question seems to do have to do with motivation if you're always satisfied with what you have right now I think what you're asking is will that remove my motivation to create anything in the future for myself or to fulfill any ambitions that I have for myself yes it in my experience people are not only good at it they know it instantly they know pretty much instantly that you know having a doughnut everyday is not gonna help them fulfill their ambitions or smoking or texting constantly when they should be buckling down and concentrating on something or you know distracting themselves or overreacting to somebody because they're aware that they're paying a price for those things that actually thwarts their long-term ambitions you're you're right that to some degree we use impulse power to fuel our motivation and I think you're right about that but in my experience and ie I've been doing this for 35 years when I teach someone to control their worst impulses what really happens is they get in touch with some part of themselves that wants to achieve it doesn't necessarily feel compelled to achieve but it just wants to it wants to create something new in the world or fulfill itself in some way through art or you know whatever it is it's not that we are devoid of motivation without impulses it's that we're devoid of that must have you know quality that really in a way it kind of defies reality I mean you can say I must have but you can't always get you know kind of thing or the getting can really be destructive for you does that answer the okay great so again let me say it again this is really important if there's a way of converting the emptiness into something that can fill you up inside then you're really free again it transforms an impulse into a choice it's like I'm not compelled to get the cookie I can take it or leave it which is a much nicer way to live all right did you have a question so when you do this exercise and everything that you want sort of disappears and you yeah do you encounter situations where individuals in the ng have something negative appears it gets billed with something negative that's that's a great question does it ever happen when you stare into the emptiness that something negative comes up instead of something positive sometimes what comes up is just feelings of insecurity of incompleteness of emptiness what I'm going to do is teach you a tool that has a specific procedure that essentially negates that it doesn't it prevents that from happening in essence but what you're asking has larger connotations which is when you work on curbing or controlling your impulses a lot of times what comes up or just real childlike feelings so like wanting and not being able to have things that we haven't really been aware of either because we've given in to the impulses or because we've repressed those feelings and those feelings you have to own those and not act on them essentially so or explore them if they have other implications in your life okay does that make sense okay good so in order to construct a tool that would actually help people control their impulses what my co-author and I had to do was come up with a symbol for this fullness that comes up from the emptiness inside of you and the symbol that we chose with a symbol of a black Sun it's just the Sun at the moment of a total solar eclipse where the moon has passed in front of the Sun so the disk is dark but you can see the corona you can see the sun shining from the you know corners of the disk and I'll explain after I teach you the tool why we chose that as a symbol that's probably obvious but but I'll explain that more but just so you know that's that's what the tool is about so close your eyes and I will walk you through this tool this is a tool that you're going to use whenever you feel impel old to act on an urge so start with the little kid feelings of deprivation you want something really badly and you simply can't have it you're gonna deprive yourself and feel those feelings of deprivation as intensely as you can then let go of the thing that you want and with it let the entire outside world disappear it's just so no longer available to you as a source and turn your attention inside yourself now there's no deprivation there's just this inner emptiness just like we did before stay calm and just stare into the void now from the deepest part of the void imagine that a black Sun begins to ascend expanding slowly it begins to fill you up with warm and limitless energy let it keep coming up until you become one with it and then turn your attention back to the outside world and as you do imagine that the black Sun energy overflows and bursts out shining on everyone and everything around you just spend a little bit of time in this state where the Black Sun energy is coming up inside of you and just pouring out of you out into the world it's almost in a sense like you have become the son and you can open your eyes when you're ready any questions or comments on that could you feel it yeah anybody's skeptical cuz feel free because I was completely skeptical of this stuff when I learned it like 30 35 years ago I thought it was a crock of yeah so let me let me talk about that next let me let me go through the tool in fact step by step and explain each step just to reinforce your understanding of it when I get to the Black Sun I'll explain why we came up with that particular imagery because that's unusual it's really it's like I wouldn't have expected that if I were you so the first step of the tool is always to deprive yourself always to say no to the thing that you are that you feel impelled to get if you're unwilling to deprive yourself what you're really saying is I can't live without it it's the only thing that's gonna fill me up inside if you want to say it another way you're kind of refusing to grow up you're giving in to those little kid feelings of deprivation so the first step is always to say no the second step is to turn inward is essentially to give up on the outside world ever filling you up and instead have the courage to face the emptiness that exists in every human being now if you're patient and you can just stay calm what starts to happen is this black Sun begins to ascend from the depths now why the Sun and why is it black we chose the Sun as a symbol because it's a symbol of infinite energy light and life if you were the Sun essentially what you'd be aware of is I'm just giving energy out and I don't expect anything back I'm only getting back my own reflec like so it has this quality of infinite potential infinite energy something that can fill you up from the inside we decided to make it black to remind you that you have essentially eclipsed this Sun for most of your life because you've constantly looked for what you need from the outside world essentially the you allowed the outside world to eclipse this Sun it's not to make you feel guilty it's just to remind you oh yeah this is a resource that I constantly forget about I've plunged it into the darkness and as the Black Sun rises it suffuses you with warmth warmth is actually a very significant and underused symbol in in modern life coldness means you're alone alone in a completely mechanistic universe warmth means there's something inside of you that has life in it something inside of you that can actually help you you're not alone trying to control your impulses so the warmth just gives you that feeling of oh there's help essentially the overall arc of the tool is very very important because think about it think about how the tool starts and then how it ends what it does is it reverses the flow of your energy you start the tool by wanting to take something in you end the tool by putting energy out this is really important because it reveals a secret of human nature which is that the solution to our endless quest to get more is actually to give more just to give more of ourselves in 12-step groups which are really the most successful groups in curbing addiction they codify this principle in the idea of service they ask their members to be of service to one another and a larger community because what they've discovered is the more I give to others the less I need the more I'm filled up from within essentially so that's another very important principle in the tool is we're shifting from a an incorporative materialistic mode of I mean completed and I need more more more more to actually don't need more to the extent that I get more it's great I'm not gonna be unhappy about it but I don't need it you know kind of thing and that's the key to taking the sting out of out of impulses now I have a couple of tips for just getting the most that you can out of the tool first obviously you have to kind of memorize it before you try to use it or else you forget you'll forget especially in the face of an impulse so it doesn't take long but if you remember you can buy the book coming alive or if you email us we can send you a handout to it but it's it's easy to learn you practice it a bunch of times and and then you can use it and you want to use it as soon as you're subject to an impulse so I want the sugar cookie I want to overreact whatever it is that's when I use the tool now start with small temptations if you're an overeater you don't want to use the tool for the first time in front of an all-you-can-eat buffet because you're just setting yourself up for failure start with little things I started with just imaginary temptations things that I imagined I would be subject to or would want an hour from now or tomorrow or whatever just to build up my facility with the tool another tip tools don't always work the first time there are some impulses that are so powerful that I have to use the tool five times in a row to stop myself and there's nothing wrong with that that's not a failure if you use it ten times in a row and stop yourself to giving in to an impulse that's a victory and finally even then even if you become an expert practitioner of the Black Sun tool it won't work 100% of the time there is nothing that works 100% of the time with impulses all right but if you can even use the Black Sun tool the next month and give in 50% less than you do now you'll see huge changes in your life and I what I'd like to do is spend the next bit of time just talking about the benefits of self-control so what can you expect to get if you learn this level of self-restraint that I'm talking about let's just remind ourselves that we don't usually think of self-control as rewarding we think of it as the best I can hope for is I feel really frustrated that I didn't get what I wanted you know kind of thing we end up feeling deprived the Black Sun tool teaches us something different it's saying that there is so much potential energy lightness inside of us that we won't actually end up feeling deprived will actually end up with benefits we end up feeling more fulfilled and I want to talk about three specific benefits the first is a sense of freedom the second is a sense of confidence and the third is leadership which I'm simply going to define as the ability to have a positive impact on the people around you so let's talk about freedom first self-restraint sets you free now I know that sounds like a Zen koan or some neologism from Orwell's 1984 or a you know war is peace ignorance is strength but it's true self restraint sets you free now why does it sound so strange because we think of freedom as we get to do whatever we want whenever we want to essentially we think of freedom as freedom from outer rules and restrictions anyone who's ever gone 90 miles an hour on the way to Vegas knows this feeling it's I'm free I mean it's fabulous okay the problem is you might get killed you could get incarcerated but even worse next time 90 ain't gonna do it you got to go 95 and the time after that you got to go to 100 this is the strange demonic paradox of that type of freedom which is it doesn't end up creating a sense of freedom it actually ends up enslaving you think of a drug addict starts off like I can do anything I want ends up I just need it every day so this is the strange paradox of the way we think of freedom because we've missed defined it real freedom is not freedom from outer rules and restrictions inner freedom is inner it's the freedom from impulses think about what an impulse is it is a compelling force that tells you you must do something or must have something well if you must then you're not free so as strange as it sounds the more self-control you exercise the freer you actually feel if any of you were interested in philosophy like I am there's philosophical precedent for this in Frederick Nietzsche's the the German philosophers concept of the ubermensch which was horribly Mis translated into the Superman and made for some bad times in Nazi Germany when it was misappropriated and exploited terribly but what Nietzsche who read Nietzsche in the original what he really meant by the ubermensch was someone who could master the lowest parts of himself someone who could overcome the worst aspects of himself and in the freedom that he gained from his own lower parts he could become the person he was meant to be it was inner freedom inner mastery now closely related to the idea of freedom is the idea of confidence let me demonstrate that this way it's almost 1st of January January 1st New Year's we all make resolutions on January 1st let's say my New Year's resolution is I'm really going to cut down sugars and carbs this year this year this is the year I'm gonna lose weight I'm really gonna watch what I eat okay and let's say on January 4th I have a doughnut and on January 5th I have five doughnuts and by January seventh I've forgotten resolution which is usually what happens right how confident can I be think about it a big part of confidence is self credibility do I believe the commitments I make to myself if the answer is yes if I make a commitment I am going to carry it through I will be confident but most people sadly can't say that if they're honest with themselves they'll admit and make a commitment to myself I'm good for a day maybe two days by day three I'm already cheating and I'm by day five I've forgotten I even made the commitment it is mathematically impossible to have confidence in yourself if you can't even carry out the commitments you make to yourself and it's impulses that he rode your ability to carry out those commitments because they stop you I have a couple of quotes on this that I think are particularly you know pithy about it Leonardo da Vinci said you will never have a greater or lesser Dominion than that over yourself the height of a person's success is gauged by his self mastery the depth of his failure by his self abandonment so it's mastery over self mastery over impulses Lao Tzu the founder of Taoism said it even more succinctly he who conquers others is strong but he who conquers himself is mighty that's the true strength and finally leadership again I'm going to define leadership as just the ability to have a positive impact on those around you whether it's your family your co-workers or the community at large and I'm going to give you a micro example and a macro example a micro example brings us back to Susan and Marty the crazy couple that I introduced you to at the beginning these were parents who were trying to get their daughter to control her impulses when everyday she saw them giving in to their impulses so obviously they could not be good leaders so as a therapist I said we're not working on your daughter I'm sorry but we're working on you you have to use the Black Sun tool Marty to control your temper to control your gambling you Susan have to use the Black Sun tool to control your your your eating and your confiding in your daughter and fortunately with their daughter's life at stake they worked really hard on themselves so pretty quickly they actually gained some control over themselves that also enabled them to talk to one another without constantly getting into an argument and then they could agree on limits that they could set with their daughter and their daughter could feel that they were actually credibly setting those limits because they weren't reactive or impulsive they were simply look this is the rule if you steal money you spend too much money you're your allowance disappears you know whatever the limits were so they became leaders within their family and you don't have to have a family to witness this happening I recommend that you use the Black Sun tool every single time you have an impulse and watch the people around you over the next two weeks or four weeks you will see them paying more respect to you and you'll even see them emulating you even if they have no idea that you're using this tool they'll just get the vibe of a person who has more authority I've seen it over and over again now let me give you a macro example this is an example of a movement that because it had an extraordinary degree of self-restraint was actually able to have a tremendous impact on the whole society I'm talking about the early civil rights movement of the late 50s and early 60s I've studied this because I've met with one of the leaders of that movement Reverend James Lawson who brought Gandhi and nonviolent techniques to the civil rights movement he basically taught those techniques to Martin Luther King and John Lewis and what's amazing about that movement is that it was its success was because it was incredibly disciplined there were absolutely no spontaneous demonstrations every single demonstration was meticulously planned participants were vetted and sometimes rejected or moved to other positions if they couldn't control themselves the goals of the movement were kept very limited of course they wanted to desegregate the entire South the schools the neighborhoods the government everything instead they picked one lunch counter in one department store in one town and decided to have a sit-in there and they picked the department store based on the fact that a lot of blacks shopped at that department store because they knew they were gonna end up having to boycott that department store so very limited targeted goals that then they were able to expand to other goals and the most dramatic example of self-restraint was that they trained themselves to not respond to physical and verbal assaults not only from white bystanders but from the police they remained polite and soft-spoken at all times you want an even more dramatic example Gandhi ins Gandhi's movement in India an entire nation national movement of millions most of whom had never met Gandhi remained for the most part peaceful and nonviolent and they brought down the British Empire the bottom line here is if you want to have an enduring impact on the people around you your family your co-workers or the society at large you must practise self-restraint you must learn to control your impulses and when you do you not only improve your own life you actually send out a rippling wave of self-contained energy to those around you who want to emulate that now I want to spend a little bit of time just about our society and where we're at because let's be honest the impulse control is kind of at an all-time low and I shouldn't laugh but it is kind of ridiculous I mean in in preparation for this workshop I tried to think of one single major cultural or governmental institution that hasn't been infected with the disease of self-indulgence and I couldn't think of a single one organized religion you've got Catholic pedophilia you know scandals sports you've got doping Penn State pedophilia violence against women banking I remember when I was growing up in the 50s bankers were like I thought they were those is the most conservative people in the world I mean if I'm gonna start a rock band I'm calling it Wells Fargo in the Wolves of Wall Street it's just this crazy government didn't want that it's just a cesspool it's accessible whatever and whatever you think of Trump he cannot restrain himself from these early morning tweets even when they defeat his own cause that's lack of impulse control I'm not sure why anyone ever looked up to the entertainment industry but the entertainment industry is again a kind of a cesspool the press there have been sexual harassment scandals at Fox NBC NPR I didn't even know they had sex at NPR just like who would think of it my point is that every institution that we might want to look up to as role models is already infected with the disease it looks like we're gonna have to be the antibodies okay clearly the change isn't gonna come from top down in a sense the change has to come from us or isn't as Gandhi said it we must be the change we wish to see in the world now the good news is if you believe Carl Jung we are all connected to one another this is inherent in his notion of a collective unconscious that there's a realm in which all of us sort of share the same mythologies the same imagery the same the same sense that we're all connected which means that if we can work really hard on ourselves when they actually affect the rest of the society what Margaret Mead said about this by the way is that never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change an entire society and she added it's the only thing that ever has so just as an end exercise here I want to give you a taste for what we as a group could create in terms of the spirit of self-restraint so close your eyes and I'm gonna run you through the Black Sun to a one one last time and then I'm gonna add some stuff at the end so once again start with the feeling of deprivation those little kid feelings of not getting what you want and feel them as intensely as you can now let go of the thing that you want and with it let the entire outside world disappear and redirect your attention inside yourself face the void be calm just be curious about it and imagine the Black Sun begins to ascend from the deepest part of the void expanding slowly it fills you with its warm and limitless energy now redirect your attention back to the outside world and let the Black Sun energy surge out of you in a flow of infinite giving to everyone around you now I'd like you to imagine that everyone around you is also using the tool so they're generating light encouraging you to shine brighter and your light is encouraging them to shine brighter now what I'd like you to imagine next is that the light coalesce is and essentially forms a Sun rising above the center of the room more powerful than anything that we could create each of us on our own and imagine that that Sun can reach beyond this room and shine on the entire society now in a few minutes we'll disperse and go our own separate ways but imagine that the power of this Sun remains available to all of us as we battle our own individual impulses on our own in a way it reaffirms an enduring truth which is we are never completely on our own and when you're ready you can open your eyes thank you so much for coming I really appreciate it [Applause] you