Meet Don Joseph Goewey:
Don Joseph Goewey is the director of the Center for Spiritual Exchange, the official archive for the works of Anthony De Mello, regarded as one of the great spiritual minds of the 20th century, influencing the likes of Eckhart Tolle and Thomas Moore. Don Goewey recently edited a new book published by Simon & Schuster entitled Stop Fixing Yourself / Wake Up, All is Well, based on Anthony DeMello’s practical spirituality. He is also the author of the Amazon bestseller, The End of Stress/Four Steps to Rewire Your Brain. He has committed his life to helping people understand and quiet stress and anxiety, navigate life’s challenges more creatively and live happier, more fulfilled lives.

During this video Don share's Anthony De Mello's process for dealing with inner turmoil.

Rough Transcript - Don Joseph Goewey

[00:00:00] Don Joseph Goewey: What De Mello is telling us is. As I said, he's, he's when he would be asked the question, what do I need to do to fix myself? What do I need to do to change myself? His, his answers, you don't need to do anything. And it would surprise people. You know, we we're, we're really taught to be change agents.

We're really taught to be dissatisfied with ourselves and to judge ourselves and Understanding doesn't come out of any of that. And it's understanding it actually produces change within us, but you can't understand what you don't see. And so awareness is a way of bringing it into, into focus. And so the very first part of the awareness practice that De Mello teaches is get in touch with those negative feelings.

Get in touch with those forces that you feel like are overwhelming. You get in touch with that stress. That anxiety, that depression and just let it be there. Don't try to change anything. And he says, you know, the more you try to change it, the worst it gets, you know, the people will use try to change a negative thought to a positive one.

And, you know, the research shows it doesn't really work.

Rod: Just question on that Don. Like, how do you. I'm sure people resist that right away. Like they, they don't want to go into that. That fear, you know, they don't want to feel that anxiety. So, you know, how do you help people with those initial stages?

Don Joseph Goewey: Like just to let them know that it's going to be okay. And that they're safe people to do is to understand they're not going to let. I mean, who likes to feel right? And so the second thing I tell them is as you step into it, be conscious of the being afraid of being afraid, just start right there. I'm afraid of being afraid and then get, and then what you begin to notice is this resistance comes up with you and it's always been there and it's blocking you.

And yet if it's strong enough that you would just assume, you know, pull the covers over your head and go back to sleep. Right. And so hang in there. But my, my next piece of advice is just hang in there and be with the resistance. Don't don't try to change that. Be with whatever is happening.

And, and so De Mello would tell you too, is that as you do that, as you move into it, you know, first you put your little toe in the water, then your leg, then you pull it back out, you put it back in again, and eventually you step in.
You step into it. And De Mello invites you, as you step into it, to pull back in Zen Buddhism. They call it stepping back, step back from it and look at it almost as if you're looking at this fear was happening in some other person or this depression is happening in some other person or this anger, whatever, the negative emotion that you're going through.

Get some distance. Get some objectivity from it, you know, and then be aware of how there, there's another part of it that is going to come through, which is you judging yourself. You condemning yourself for being this. You know, and that's, that's one of the, the, the real, you know, mind benders of what society has done.

First of all, they've programmed this into a false belief that we cannot be happy unless we fulfill all of the demands that they say that we're supposed to fulfill to be a success and look at all the ways in which that turns into demands. We place on other people. You know, and then how frustrated we get with other people when they don't live up to our expectations, you know, the whole thing that we go through.

And then at the end of it, when it's turned us into, you know a bundle of stress, we turn around and we blame ourselves. And we're not to blame. I mean, who would put, who would put themselves into a bundle of nerves that's full of stress and, and can hardly hardly get through the day nobody would do that.

It's their programming, the way we've been programming, it's done that. And so if you understand that it becomes easier to move through this process. And so don't you, when you notice yourself, judging yourself, condemning yourself for how can I be this way? What's wrong with me. Observed that as well, take that in and Mo and keep moving through the process.

And then you'll reach a point where you're you're this energy, this negative energy. That's the result of this programming. It's an important step to say this is happening in me, not because of me, but it's happening in me. It's not happening to me. This the whole part about wake up all as well is that reality is fine.

You know, when you really think about reality, reality is neutral. So that, you know, like for example, you plan for a picnic like I did yesterday and we had this torrent of rain that came through the rain and we had this picnic, we're all going to go on. And as I looked out the window I realized we're not going to have any picnic.

And the first thought I had was that I, you know, what I used to do is I blame. You know, the rain is ruining by rain is why I'm upset right now. I know the rain is right. It's just the rain. The upset is coming from you and, and you need to eventually come to understand where it's coming from. But right now, just own that it's coming from me.

There's nothing wrong with me, it's the way I've been programmed. And then as you get to that point, If you just breathe with it, or as my grandson was a surfer, does, if you just ride the wave, eventually all of this activity, this emotional upset will pass. And we all know that everything passes and once it passes, you're free.

And in that moment of freedom, if you really let go to it, what you will experience, what you will see with your own eyes is that this happiness, this feeling of wellbeing, this feeling of peace, this feeling of. I'm really. Okay. Life is really okay. You're located in the present moment. Now you're home.

And so what De Mello says is you do this practice for as little as two weeks, you know, you, you do it seriously all day long. You're you're as you go about doing whatever you do, you're in touch with, with how you, how you're being on the inside. And so when a some kind of upset comes up, you're in touch with. And so that's his first, his source and get in touch with those feelings, those upsetting feelings, and then write them out in this way, in this process.

And it's all outlined in this book back there as you write it out, it'll pass. And eventually you'll come to understand that you are okay. But all that you really are, and you've always been okay. It's been run by this program in this it's been indoctrinated and wired into your brain. And one of the things we've learned in neuroscience is a thing called neuroplasticity, which means that a change of mindset.

That changes, your experience literally changes the way your brain is wired. And so those synapses that have been firing rapid order and taking you over before, before you even knew what happened, begin to shrink, and they don't disappear altogether, but they begin to shrink and now they get you to choice.

You know, they, they flow, they slowed down enough where you can go, you know, like you've, you've gone down that dark alley of negativity and fear and stress 10,000 times. And now you're there looking down the alley and you're looking down, you say, you know, I don't think I'm going down there today, or at least this moment now you're free.

And the more you do that. The more, you have that experience of how it, how, how this turmoil inside of you passes and that there's nothing in you that needs to change. There's just these things you need to get out of the way that's blocking your basic nature, your basic fundamental happiness in what you were created.

That creativity that makes life fun comes on board. The feeling of love for other people and for life itself. And then that sense of separateness begins to crack and crumble. And, and you, you know, you can look out a window and fill that one with what the sun is doing, encouraging the grass to grow, or you know, I had an experience of being in grand central station where I'd missed the train that was leading to a very important appointment.

And I was all upset that uses the awareness process. To work my way through it. And, and as I, it past the upset past, I looked around and I just was aware of how beautiful this architecture was and how amazing the human activity in it was and how beautiful all the people were and what this enormous diversity that we're all living in.

And the energy of it all. It was mind blowing to me and it, and I went from this snarled up face, condemning myself for being late to a meeting to this wide open human being. And I'll take a change like that any day.

Connect with Don

WEBSITE