The Moment The Mind Cracks

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Most of us live from the neck up. We think our way through marriages, through careers, through grief, through entire decades of our own lives. And then one day something cracks open. Our diagnosis, a loss, a moment of stillness. And we realize the mind alone was never going to take us where we want it to go.

Meet Sue Paulson And Her Quest

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome back to Healthy Mind Healthy Life. I am Yusuf, and today I'm joined by Sue Paulson, a writer, speaker, and student of human life who has spent the last nine years exploring one quiet but enormous question. What does it mean to live as a magnificent human being? Sue's path has been anything but tidy. Two divorces, two bankruptcies, a near-death experience in 2007, and two bots of cancer have all carried her into a deeper inquiry about who we really are and what we are here to remember. Today, she's here to share what she's found and what she wants anyone still searching to know. With that, I welcome my guest to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yusuf, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Absolutely now.

When Success Still Feels Like Lack

SPEAKER_01 1:36

So so before we go into the bigger picture, I love to start somewhere very simple. So when you first sense that the way you were living, no matter how successful or busy or or full it looked from the outside, was not yet the life you were really here for.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Oh boy. Well, in some ways it seems as if I've lived more than one lifetime. So there's phases throughout one's life where we think, oh, I think I have it all together and and everything's working fine. But there's that inner underneath sense that, well, what if it's not enough? What I haven't done enough. What else is there? And so you're right, on the surface, things can look, whoa, she has your act together. But underneath, I still felt like the little duck that that swims calmly on the surface of the water, and then the feet underneath are just paddling away like mad. Well, it felt like that probably a lot of my life, whether things were going really well or whether they weren't. And so there was this sense of somehow I don't think I'm measuring up.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Okay.

Defining Human Magnificence

SPEAKER_01 3:18

And so you spent nine years now exploring the idea that humans are magnificent beings. But for someone hearing that for the first time, what does magnificent actually mean to you? Because I think it can land as either grand or vague unless you you ground it.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

You're right. It was a huge word for me when I first came across this concept. So it was as a result of the healing I did not only from the near-death experience that I had, but also moving through the cancer journey, where I was seeking answers about purpose and what now and so on. And this phrase about magnificence and being born magnificence kept surfacing. And it's interesting that I see in other people their own magnificence. So I and and and I love it because people have this infinite capacity to create, to love, to make progress, and and think amazing thoughts and so on. And I see that in people, but quite frankly, I didn't see it in myself. And it felt too big. So when I began to boil it down to an a little more, well, how would I define that? Well, it it went right back to very simple things about the way we view ourselves and the way we love ourselves. And of course, in our grandest version of ourselves, where we think we literally do have our act together, you know, that we're we're in the flow, we're creative, we're happy, we're productive, we're loving, all of those sorts of things all contribute to the vast pile of things that make up our magnificence. And so that's what I'm learning about all of that.

The Real Cost Of Forgetting

SPEAKER_01 6:09

And what is the cost in real life of forgetting forgetting that about ourselves? Like what does it look like in someone's everyday existence?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Oh my goodness. One simple word, suffering. So if we don't pay attention and honor who we really are, then we come from a position of lack. We come from a place of never ever going to get there because we're starting from the wrong place. So if if we were so we're not a self-improvement project. As human beings, there's nothing to fix. There's there's there's nothing, quotes, wrong with us. It's just if we look at ourselves as shining facets of the largest diamond that you could ever imagine. Well, that's us. That's us in all of our magnificence. We came here into human form with that, but because we forgot, then we took on the conditioning and the belief systems of those who came before us that, oh well, you have a lot of work to do to measure up, and and there's lessons that you have to learn. And all of a sudden, life felt a little bit like a lot of punishment and not much pleasure, a lot of pain and effort and suffering and struggle. And well, what is there good about life? And you look at the the levels of depression in people throughout the world, you know, young people as well as older people. Well, that's the cost of not seeing how magnificent we really are.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Wow, that is important because if magnificence stays a word, it stays out of reach. But if we can recognize its absence in our own lives, suddenly the whole conversation gets personal.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yes, yes, absolutely. Well, and there's one simple starting point, and it and it's called self-love. It's called how you view yourself. Now, I was brought up that it wasn't proper to think good thoughts about myself, that uh to congratulate myself for something good I'd done or or honor myself for a talent I discovered or whatever, because it was considered bragging. And and so other people were supposed to do that for you. Except I never found that they did that often. And so, in fact, the opposite was encouraged to keep working on your weaknesses because there's things that are wrong with you that need fixing. Well, how do you love yourself if you're so focused on what might be wrong with you?

The 100 Things Self Love List

SPEAKER_00 9:44

So I give a little exercise to every audience I come across of writing up on a page, you write the numbers one to a hundred, you start at number one, and you write down something that you like or love or admire about yourself. And it can be anything, it can be a personal attribute, like, well, I'm very kind, as an example. It could be, oh, I like my hair, so it could be something physical. It could be my smile, um, it could be my enthusiasm, it could be my talent for baking a cake, it could be anything, and and so there's no limits on it whatsoever. It's your list and it's what you think about you. Now, let me ask you, Yusuf, if I said, okay, I want you to write a list of a hundred things that you don't like about yourself, how quickly do you think you could have that done?

SPEAKER_01 11:03

The only time that I'll take is writing, not thinking about those.

unknown 11:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Well, to flip that around, so to change your mind about how you see yourself, you start writing the list of the things that that you like, love, admire, or hope you can like and admire. And you get help from trusted family members or loved ones or friends when you get stuck, because inevitably I sure got stuck several times. But by the time I got to a hundred, I'm going, whoa, there's more to me than I thought. And there's more to like about me and love about me and admire about me. Well, when we come from that perspective, isn't that a better place to come from than a sense of, well, I'm not enough. I don't measure up.

Let The Heart Direct The Mind

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Is is that activity connected to your idea of the heart first and then to the mind?

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

So can you explain about that?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

So I'm a little bit of um a Star Trek fan, and remember they used to say uh to go where no man has gone before. So there's this journey that we're all taking. But of course, we tend to think in the initial phases of our own journey that it's to journey outward, to look at what's beyond us, when in fact the the real undiscovered and fascinating territory is within. And what's within, well, the soul of each of us resides in the heart. So, and and what most people don't realize is that there is an exact duplicate of our brain that resides in our hearts. So it's actually our heart that runs the show and directs the brain to do whatever the heart says if we allow it. Excuse me, but of course, most people think it's the other way around. Think it's, oh well, I I it's my thinking that runs the show. And and it does to a certain extent, because we haven't given the heart of us enough exercise, enough understanding, enough basically playtime to work its magic from within. So, so that's the real journey is going within. And of course, the more we love ourselves, because that's where love comes from, is from our hearts. Well, then the easier it is to bring that out into the our minds and and change our minds about how we see ourselves and how we we respond accordingly.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

And you know, that is so true, and it is one of those reversals that sounds very simple, but actually undoes most of what we were taught in a negative way.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Exactly. It it's not an easy, you're right, it's simple. And and you think, oh well, everybody should get this. I've worked a lot to transform, to move from here to here and to embrace my own, and I'm still working on it, of course. It's it's it seems to be kind of a lifelong thing. And uh, but it does take some acknowledgement from us that, well, what if I am more? What if what if what I was taught or told or I experienced as a child, a lot of that behavior is is not true. And and a lot of what um uh we go through, I don't know, it's different.

Adversity As A Courage Gym

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Your story itself is you know not a tidy or a story of roses only. You had two divorces, two bankruptcies, a near-death experience, two bots of cancer. So I want to ask this carefully and with all due respect, what does what did those experiences teach you about being human that you don't think you could have learned any other way?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Well, what one of the things they taught me was that um there's very little I have control over in this life. As hard as I tried to control and make things go the way I was determined I wanted them to go, they didn't always go that way. And so there were lots of I call them two by four experiences, you know, a a two-inch by four-inch piece of wood comes wham, right in the middle of the forest. And it woke me up and got my attention. And so it in the scramble to say, well, uh I think the situation is out of my control. What do I have control over? Well, I have control over how I deal with it, what I think about it, how I frame it, uh what heart do I have in it. And so adversity at the outset, while it's painful and it can be a huge struggle to get through, it taught me, it helped me find my courage. It helped me find my and emphasize that determination is a big strength that I have. That now some people would call it stubborn, but I call it determination. Well, we all have it. It we all have courage, we all have determination, we all have hope, we all have faith. Well, those four are inherent muscles that we're born with that can take us right through any adversity and give us the strength to get through it and come out better on the other side.

Where To Find Sue And Final Words

SPEAKER_01 18:27

So, for people who want to connect with you or want to learn more about your work, where can they do that?

SPEAKER_00 18:35

So if people want to know more about magnificence, you're welcome to go to my YouTube channel at Sue Paulson or visit my website because I've posted videos there and there's articles there as well. So that's SuePulson.com. And everything's there for free. And if you have time and a desire to listen, well, it's all there for you.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Perfect. And to everyone listening, all these links are in the show notes, so just go and check those out. Sue, is there any last message that you want to leave us with?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Love yourself, make your list of a hundred things, and when you're finished a hundred, go on to the next hundred so you get 200. And I think you'll find your attitude and your sense of yourself will just increase beautifully.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Wow. Thank you so much, Sue, for coming here and sharing your message with this much beauty, this much penis, and this much love. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

My pleasure, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

And to everyone listening, if something Sue said thought reached the part of you that's been waiting to be heard, don't rush past it. Sit for a minute, put a hand on your chest, let the heart that's been quietly carrying you finally have a turn to speak. That is where it begins. This has been Healthy Mind, Healthy Light. I'm Yusuf. Take care of your mind, listen to your heart, and I'll see you in the next conversation.