244: How Shifting to a Spiritual Perspective Can Help You Find Clarity and Balance in Life: A Solo Episode with Light Watkins

In this special solo episode of The Light Watkins Show, Light dives deep into the idea of looking at life from a broader, spiritual perspective. Drawing from over 20 years of experience as a meditation teacher and spiritual practitioner, Light shares insights on how to shift from the everyday “ground-level” view of life to what he calls the “spiritual perspective.”

He explains how the ground-level perspective focuses on who did what, when, and why, often leading to stress, anxiety, and judgment. In contrast, the spiritual perspective allows you to see the bigger picture—helping you become more empathetic, patient, and understanding of life's events. Through meditation, breathwork, and other inner practices, you can develop this wider view, which can transform how you navigate relationships, challenges, and your personal goals.

Light also introduces a new YouTube series called The Spiritual Perspective, where he will tackle real-world issues like conflict, relationships, health, and purpose through this lens. He encourages listeners to explore how adopting a spiritual perspective can reduce worry, increase gratitude, and lead to a more fulfilled life.

Whether you’re new to inner work or a seasoned practitioner, this episode offers valuable insights on how to move beyond day-to-day struggles and start seeing life with more clarity and peace. Tune in for a practical guide to connecting with your deeper self and living with more purpose.

Transcript

LW: “From a spiritual perspective, there are no victims. There are no villains. There are circumstances and situations that allow you to learn more about yourself. And that, take away that you may have from the experience is, Oh, I've been playing the victim. Or I didn't have strong enough boundaries. I have done that to someone else before in the past, and now I get to see what it's like to have it done to me. So that's the broader perspective to an ordinary life situation. It's not that you're bypassing what happened. It's that you're just looking at it through a larger, broader perspective lens and this is a very intentional thing that we can do. And, oftentimes when we read quote spiritual books, a lot of times these books will echo the same general principles. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And they resonate deeply. We hear it, we read it and we go, yeah, that's right. That's definitely how I would like to be. It's aspirational. But in day to day life, we tend to get caught up in the ground level.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Hello friends, welcome back to The Light Watkins Show. I'm Light Watkins, and I love to interview ordinary folks just like you and me who've taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they have identified as their mission in life. And in doing so, they've been able to positively, impact and inspire the lives of many other people who've either heard about their story or who've witnessed them in action, or people who've directly benefited from their work. And what I found after conducting hundreds of these interviews with luminaries who have found their purpose in life, is that there is usually a moment where they hit upon some sort of internal crossroads where they could either go in one direction of fitting in or they can go in another direction of being themselves. 

And 99. 9 percent of the time, the people who ended up finding their calling are the ones who chose, sometimes against all odds, to be themselves. It's really that simple. And I think we need to hear these stories over and over to build up the courage and the confidence to do the same thing in our lives, to keep choosing to be ourselves, because it's not just about making one choice in order to find your calling and to properly see it through to the end, you're going to have to make that choice hundreds, if not thousands of times.

Because the older you get, the more you realize that the world is not set up for people to be themselves. So it's an extremely scary and uncertain process to choose yourself over and over and over. And I know from experience how much you're going to constantly question yourself and your path. But if you can stick with it, eventually you become the model for what it looks like when someone follows their heart. And that's when people want to write books about you and your experiences. That's when they want to invite you onto their podcast to hear your story. 

Today, I have a solo episode for you. I haven't done a solo in a while, but I hopped on and I did a solo about the spiritual perspective on life. I'm going to go over the differences in what I call the ground level perspective, AKA the sort of normal way of seeing the world and the spiritual perspective, and how you know when you're experiencing the ground level perspective and how you know when you're experiencing the spiritual perspective.

And as many of you may remember, I've been a spiritual practitioner for about 20 something years now, starting with yoga practices back in the 90s. And then that evolved into meditation practices. And then I started teaching meditation and I continued experimenting with a bunch of other inner practices.

And so, I very much stabilize this, this sort of what I call a spiritual understanding of things. And there's an awareness that one begins to experience with extensive spiritual practice that gives you access to what I consider to be a broader perspective on life. And so I want to speak to that.

I want to talk about what that looks like, what it feels like, so that as you continue down your path as a spiritual practitioner, you know what you're experiencing when you're experiencing it because the counterintuitive aspects of it are allowing you to engage with things in a way that you can see multiple sides of it.

So it doesn't really bother you in the way that it may be a bother you in the past when someone did something or there was an experience that you witnessed because you can see multiple sides, multiple angles, multiple perspectives. 

And it's not because you have to convince yourself that this is not annoying. It genuinely doesn't bother you because you are able to embody this new perspective that's a lot broader than what most people are experiencing. So you become less judgmental, you become more empathetic, you become more patient. And so I'll delve into all of the nuances of that quote spiritual perspective.

I look forward to sharing that perspective with you in this episode. I want to hear your thoughts if you have any to share with me. And I'm also announcing a new series that I'm going to be publishing on YouTube based on the spiritual perspective. So I'm going to give you some information about that at the end of this solo episode.

But for now, let's get to it. Let's get into the anatomy of the spiritual perspective.

[00:05:41] We are back with another solo episode. It's been a while since I've done one of these solo episodes, so I'm excited to come back here and to talk about a new project that I'm going to be starting very soon. And maybe by the time you're watching this, the project has already started. But just a little background, I've been investing a lot of time and resources into building out my YouTube channel.

[00:06:11] About, I don't know, a year and a half ago, we started posting the version of this podcast on YouTube and it's gotten such an amazing reaction. It's grown very quickly that I have I've just been excited about putting more resources into this podcast. And to YouTube because it adds a different element when you can actually see the conversation versus just hearing the conversation and I'm also moving closer in the direction of creating an in person studio here in Mexico City where I'm based, and starting to record live sessions, as opposed to doing it on remote platforms, which is how I've been doing them pretty much exclusively. 

[00:06:58] It's funny because the first podcast that I ever did was a live session. I just did it from my phone. And now obviously so many podcasts are doing in person sessions that it's become the new norm for the higher tier, meaning if you're not doing it in person, then it's going to be very hard to get to that higher tier where you're able to attract the guests that you see doing the rotation of the higher tier platforms. 

[00:07:28] We've even had a lot of guests that we reach out to reply back to us hey, when you're doing an in person show, let me know and I'm happy to do it. Otherwise I'd rather not come on to a podcast with a remote interview. So it's something that's definitely in the zeitgeist and people look at it as a form of content creation as well, because you get these really beautiful clips that you can post on your social media and help to spread your message.

[00:07:53] And let's be honest, that's part of the deal with hosting a podcast is you're not doing anyone a favor, and they're not doing you a favor. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement where you get to have these amazing conversations and share insights with your audience. And that audience stays with you and ultimately converts to maybe buying the book that you publish or enrolling in the course that you have, and the guest gets content, they get to share their message, and so everybody gets something from the transaction, which is a beautiful thing. If there's going to be a transaction, you may as well be getting something beneficial that's positive, that's leaving the world a better place. 

[00:08:41] So creating the best possible product is definitely one of my goals simply because it's better for you, you enjoy the content better. And then it's better for the guest. And ultimately it's better for me and my team because we get to operate at a higher level and a higher standard for ourselves. So that's pretty cool. 

[00:09:03] And one of the initiatives that we're creating is a new series on my YouTube channel, which is going to be called the spiritual perspective. 

[00:09:16] As many of you know, I have been a long time meditation teacher and practitioner. Over 20 years now that I've been practicing meditation, nearly 20 years that I've been teaching meditation . So a lot of the content that I put out there and to a large extent, my perspective, even when I'm giving interviews, it's coming from more of a spiritual context, meaning I've been in this mindful slash spiritual slash transformational space for so long that's how I see the world now. It doesn't mean that I'm not able to understand more I'll call it ground level perspectives of things, which is more of a sort of linear approach.

[00:10:04] For instance, if we're talking about relationships and I'm giving relationship advice, or if we're talking about politics, I'm giving political advice or whatever the situation is, the ground level perspective is what happened. Who did what to who, who's being affected by it, right? That's the ground level perspective. Who, what, when, where, and why. 

[00:10:28] And if you don't address everybody's unique life experience, a lot of times you'll get feedback in the comments. Oh, that's limited. You didn't mention this, that, or the other exception, and they use that as a way to put into question the whole argument. 

[00:10:48] Whereas from a spiritual perspective, you're taking more of a broader perspective, right? You could call it the 30, 000 foot view of any given situation. So while someone may be. experiencing the role of the victim and someone else may be experiencing the role of the perpetrator, from a larger spiritual perspective, there are no victims. There are no villains, right? There are circumstances and situations that allow you to learn more about yourself.

[00:11:24] That take away that you may have from the experience is, Oh, I've been playing the victim. Or I didn't have strong enough boundaries. I have done that to someone else before in the past and now I get to see what it's like to have it done to me. So that's the broader perspective to an ordinary life situation. It's not that you're bypassing what happened. It's that you're just looking at it through a larger, broader perspective lens and this is a very intentional thing that we can do., oftentimes when we read quote spiritual books, like the power of now by Eckhart Tolle or the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Or. Conversations with God by Neal Donald Walsh and or the Bible or the Torah or the Quran. A lot of times these books will echo the same general principles.

[00:12:24] Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And they resonate deeply. We hear it, we read it and we go, yeah, that's right. That's definitely how I would like to be. It's aspirational. But in day to day life, we tend to get caught up in the ground level experiences. Which is that this person did this horrible thing to me, and that was so screwed up because it stopped me from achieving whatever my, my goal was for that day.

[00:12:57] And I don't like that. And therefore, our conclusion is that person is the bad guy and I'm the good guy. And we can read do unto others as you'd have been doing to you. And naturally we just automatically assume that person is representative of an obstacle that I need to overcome and I need to get them out of my way. And if they do something horrible enough, then I'm going to put them on my crap list and it's going to be very hard for me to forgive them and because it was unnecessary, whatever they did was unnecessarily bad. 

[00:13:31] Again, I'm just generalizing here, but that's basically how we tend to interpret those experiences. And it gets reinforced by our friends and by the media, they're the good guys and they're the bad guys. And so we don't see anything usually inappropriate about that interpretation of what happened. And so reading those books gives us an intellectual understanding that maybe there are deeper laws that are governing all of this and that maybe there is a purpose behind the situation that happened to me that would allow me to see a different side of things and if it's just a matter of reading the books then that's pretty much where it's going to stay is as an intellectual concept, which means the next time it happens, we're going to react in the same way, probably because we haven't embodied. These principles.

[00:14:31] And so at some point when we call ourselves spiritual practitioners, we need to practice these concepts. We need to practice incorporating them and, or at the very least, we need to get rid of the things that are stopping us from embodying them. And the umbrella term for those things that are stopping us is stress.

[00:14:51] Stress is what keeps us from feeling like I am connected to the other person or to the situation. Stress keeps us from seeing the bigger picture because literally, the stress reaction in the body puts our nervous system in a state where we don't have access to the part of our brain that gives us the ability to see the bigger picture.

[00:15:15] Because that's been genetically hardwired to not happen in the event of legitimate danger, which means we're being chased by some predator. And if we stop running, see the big picture, Oh, this is happening for me, not just to me and all that. We get eaten by the predator. We get attacked by the predator.

[00:15:38] We potentially die. die. So our ancestors who escaped from those predators were the ones who could run the fastest and fight the hardest. And so those Genes are the ones that we ultimately inherited. We didn't inherit the person's genes who was trying to negotiate and reason with the tiger. We inherited the person's genes who was up in the tree, the fastest and who fought and maybe who used some sort of clever manipulation tactic to get away from the tiger at the expense of someone who wasn't as clever who was used as a decoy and got attacked and killed by the tiger.

[00:16:18] So that is It's our inherent nature, meaning the nature of the physical body that we incorporated when we came into this plane of existence. We got these bodies that have already been programmed for reacting to perceived, stressful, dangerous situations. High pressure situations, high demand situations in a fight flight capacity.

[00:16:44] And when that is running on autopilot, then it reinforces the idea that this person is against me. This person is trying to kill me, trying to attack me, trying to stop me from Surviving from thriving from being alive from having all of the wonderful benefits that life has to offer and it's a dog eat dog world and zero sum and nobody cares.

[00:17:13] And so all of these. Truths that it's very hard to deny if all you ever experience in life is the ground level perspective and so enter practices like meditation, breath work, gratitude, et cetera. In other words, The umbrella term for all of that is inner work. So enter inner work into our lives. You could even add, plant ceremonies and stuff like that medicine journeys. 

[00:17:45] What the whole point of doing inner work on a consistent basis. is to give us access to a new perspective, to a quote, spiritual perspective, to a higher, broader perspective on life. And so when we go into our meditation practice, when we do our breath work, when we sit and list the things that we're grateful for, when we engage in the medicine journeys, we are able to shift in our awareness away from the ground level perspective, where it's who, what, when, where, why, dominated and we go into a broader perspective. 

[00:18:22] And that broader perspective gives us the ability to see threads of connection. It gives us the ability to see patterns and themes and cause and effect. When you're walking around and you look down on the ground and you see this little ant and you imagine this is.

[00:18:43] Is. In the ant world, the ant is going across the grass or the blade of grass or the cement or whatever, and that blade of grass must look like the whole world to that ant. Or the cement must look like the Atlantic Ocean to that ant, but from the broader perspective You can see that the ant is crawling towards, you know Another patch of grass or it's coming from this other patch of grass You can see the ant farm perhaps that the ant came from you can see where the ant is going You can see what obstacles are there Are going to be along the way and you can see things that the ant may not be able to perceive from that ground level perspective that could be beneficial to the ant or could be detrimental to the ant.

[00:19:33] And so when we talk about the spiritual perspective, it's the same thing. Instead of being a force outside of ourselves, That is able to see our individuality on the ground. It's like it's an higher aspect of ourselves. That's able to project the broader picture and see where we're going and see what obstacles may be in the way to see what opportunities may be around the corner that we would never be able to perceive otherwise from the ground level.

[00:20:09] And that's the power of doing inner work. Now, you may be asking, how do you know, how does it happen? And the reality is, I don't know. I don't know how it happens. I don't know the mechanics. I don't know how you would even measure that scientifically. To find out how you're able to tap into this broader perspective from closing your eyes for 15 to 20 minutes a day and sitting quietly or from breathing, deeper than you would normally breathe, but with intention on a daily basis, or from sitting down and writing out 10 things that you're grateful for in your normal everyday life.

[00:20:46] But somehow, some way, when you engage in those kinds of activity activities. It opens your awareness up to be able to perceive things about yourself, about other people, about life, that you would never be able to perceive otherwise, if all you ever experienced was the ground level perspective. Of life, right?

[00:21:13] Your day to day going around doing your to do list, scrolling through social media reading people's captions and watching television and gossiping and driving around and just exercising and doing all the things that's great. There's some wonderful benefits that can come from all of that, but you will never have the level of access to the larger themes in your life that you would have.

[00:21:42] When you dedicate a meaningful amount of time out of your day to doing your inner work and that's the power of the inner work and it's like trying to describe to somebody what a strawberry tastes like who's never even had fruit before. It's impossible. You just have to taste it for yourself.

[00:22:00] And so I've been fortunate enough to, I've crossed paths with lots of really bad teachers, meaning they were probably having an experience for themselves, but they weren't able to show me how to be able to have that experience. for myself. They complicated it in other words. And I've, I would say that's still a good situation because it helped me appreciate the good teachers that I've met.

[00:22:31] I met a few really talented teachers who were able to show me very simply how to tap into this inner world and and teach me practices to be able to continue accessing it without needing them around for me to have that experience. In that sense, from the spiritual perspective, there is no such thing as a bad teacher, right?

[00:22:54] Because the bad teachers help you appreciate the good teachers. So the bad teachers are as. I would even say fundamental to your process as the good teachers are. The bad experiences are as fundamental to your life as the good experiences are because you won't appreciate the good experiences without going through some rough and rocky experiences.

[00:23:17] And so again, that's just a, that's just a little sample of the spiritual perspective from the ground level perspective. Yeah, that teacher sucks. It's awful. And you spend all this time and energy focusing on how bad the experience was without realizing that this experience is going to come into play one day when I meet someone who's very talented.

[00:23:37] And I'm going to be even more engaged in the talented teacher because I had this really awful experience with. The bad teacher. And so in that sense, there is no such thing as a bad experience. Good and bad. These kind of binary terms are functions of the ground level experience. So if you're using that a lot in your day to day language, it's because you have mostly only been exposed to the ground level experience, and maybe an intellectual understanding of a spiritual perspective, a broader experience.

[00:24:12] And so it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity to seek out more of that broader perspective just to give context. To the things that you're experiencing again, not for the sake of, having this sort of Kumbaya relationship with things, but for the sake of making yourself more present to what is around you, because when you're focused on what's not happening for the most part, you're missing out on so much on so many other things that are happening and that's what it means to see around the corner. That's what it means to see the themes and the patterns in your life. You can't do that if you're so hyper focused on what's not happening. And that's how most people are living their life from day to day. They're just focused on what's not happening.

[00:24:59] They're worried about what may or may not happen. All that means is they don't have access to that broader level perspective. So this is not some kind of woo airy fairy aspiration. This is a very real world practical benefit. So that you can reduce the worry. You can reduce the anxiety. You can reduce the depression if you can see where you're going and know why you're going there, if you can see and know why, then you, have less of that sort of childlike temper tantrums. 

[00:25:29] When you have children and you're driving around with young children, all they think about is they want to play. Oh, I want to go to the toy store. Oh, I want some ice cream. I want some candy. And look, there's a time and place for all of those things. But as the adult who's actually driving the car, you know that, okay, we're going to, this desk, we're going to grandmother's house. We're going to this destination. All of that is going to be there that they're looking for, but they keep getting distracted by what it's what's glittery outside of the window as the car is moving in that direction. And all they're thinking about is short term gratification. 

[00:26:08] And as the parent, as the more mature person in that scenario, they also want to stop and go and play or whatever, but you know that you have to keep moving the thing forward so that everybody gets whatever they need from that situation. So you're not just thinking about yourself. You're also thinking about their needs. You're thinking about their nutrition. You're thinking about their development as children. And so you're having to make sacrifices that they're never going to understand. 

[00:26:37] And so to say that someone is spiritually mature means that you learn how to do that for yourself. You learn how to parent yourself away from short-term gratification. Sitting there and scrolling through social media for two hours. And instead, towards understanding your long term nurturing needs, right? I'm going to carve out some of these two hours that I would otherwise be scrolling through social media for my inner work.

[00:27:06] Because I know that allows me to expand my awareness and when I expand my awareness, I'm less distracted. I'm less anxious. I'm less depressed. I'm more present and I'm more grateful for the things that are around me and I'm able to see how life is happening for me and not just to me. So I'm able to have the benefit of the ground level perspective and the empathy that comes with that and the relatability that comes with that and that broader 30,000 foot view perspective at the same time, right? That's master level experiences. So it's not even just enough to have the broader perspective, but you want to have the broader perspective that's integrated within the ground level perspective, because if you only have access to the broader level perspective with not a lot of ground level perspective, then you end up getting crucified for that. 

[00:28:01] I'm using that term loosely because that's essentially what if you read the Bible, that's what Jesus experienced, right? And this is, again, this is not, I'm not anti Jesus or pro Jesus or any of that kind of stuff. I believe that a lot of what was written about Jesus still resonates with me and with a lot of other people today as truth. As a sort of a higher level truth doing to others, all the beatitudes and sermon on the mountain, all these wonderful things.

[00:28:32] And at the same time, one could make the objective argument that Jesus had separated himself from quotes, normal people so much that normal people can no longer relate to what he was saying. And so when that happens in life, whether it's 2000 years ago or today, whenever someone stands out in that way, because they're not as relatable, the byproduct of that is usually people want to induce pain within you to see if you are like them or not. And that's what I mean by saying, you get crucified. 

[00:29:12] So it could be your views that get crucified. It could be your body that gets crucified. It could be all of it that gets crucified. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't be more Christlike or more like Martin Luther King or more like Gandhi or more like Malcolm X or more like Cesar Chavez or whoever is out there who's trying to make the world a better place in their own way. But there's a consequence that comes with that will introduce elements of pain into your life that probably would not happen if you were more, quotes, normal. And that's one of the things that Martin Luther King said to his lieutenants in the later parts of his life, which, he was assassinated when he was 39 years old. So this happened when he was like 37, 38 years old. 

[00:30:01] He told his top lieutenants one day, he says that you can't truly be free. I'm paraphrasing. You can't truly be free until you overcome your love of wealth and your fear of death. If you're still attached or overly attached to wealth in order to be comfortable, in order to be happy, in order to feel fulfilled, then you're never going to be free. 

[00:30:28] Because what he was ultimately saying is that happiness and fulfillment are inside out phenomena. You have to cultivate it from the inside out and typically that happens from putting yourself in a situation where you're doing what you feel is the right thing. And then fear of death. If you're afraid of being crucified, you will never give yourself permission to stand out, to speak up, to separate yourself from the pack too far because that's what happens.

[00:30:57] People will resist you. People will rebel against you. The very well meaning people will do very bad things. In the name of justice, right? And that's why we can all go see a movie like Avatar and we can all be on the side of the avatars. When you see the mean corporation coming in and trying to destroy.

[00:31:22] Their natural environment to look for natural resources. We can all agree that, oh yeah, those are the bad guys and the avatars are the good guys, because we're hearing the story of the avatars is told from the perspective of the avatars, right? 

[00:31:39] But in real life, it's much, it's a much more gray type of area because you'll have for instance, what's happening in the middle East in 2024 starting on October the 7th in 2023, you have people who are supporters of Israel. You have people who are supporters of Palestine and both feel like they are on the side of the good guys because of the stories that they're telling themselves mainly from the ground level perspective. So who's to say if they're right, if they're wrong, if they're missing this, if they're missing that.

[00:32:18] It's all up to your subjective experience, right? If you're a black person in America and you've been subject to discrimination, probably you are going to empathize with the Palestinian cause. And it'll be very hard for you to understand the cause of the Zionists, likewise, if you, if your grandmother was in the Holocaust if you have lived in, Israel and you've experienced that culture and the Shabbat dinners and stuff like that, probably you are going to empathize with the side of the Zionists and the protection of the Israeli culture and, all of these things.

[00:32:56] And it's not to say one side is necessarily, or it's, I should say inherently good or bad because, Both and all sides really are a function of the stories that we've told ourselves about what those sides mean. So it's hard to identify who exactly is the villain and who's the victim, especially in real time from the ground level perspective.

[00:33:18] So our opportunity as spiritual practitioners is to tap into this sort of broader perspective and here's how you know you're able to do that. You're not assigning one side as the good guy, one side as the bad guy, you're able to see various qualities in both sides, right? You're able to see various qualities in both sides. You're able to empathize with different aspects within both sides. Because what you're actually seeing when you're looking at it from the spiritual perspective is you're seeing multiple sides of yourself. You're seeing sides of yourself where maybe you feel like you were disenfranchised, perhaps as a woman, as a black person, as a poor person, as a disabled person, as an uneducated person, right?

[00:34:16] As someone who is addicted to something. So that aspect of you allows you to relate to the disenfranchisement. And then the other aspect, people who have taken the time and the care to cultivate their identity and their culture, they've escaped some bad experiences, they've empowered themselves, right?

[00:34:37] It's aspirational. And so maybe a part of you is able to understand that as well. Having people taken away from you and held in captivity, whether in abusive relationships or it could even be emotional captivity. So the point is not to assign blame, but just to identify with various aspects. And then within that, you may be experiencing some sort of calling, some sort of directive, right?

[00:35:04] In other words, how can you personally, individually contribute to the conversation from the perspective that feels most aligned to who and where you are right now? And that may be you posting on social media. You starting a conversation that may be you writing a screenplay or writing a play that could be you writing your memoir and sharing your perspective.

[00:35:33] I have a friend who I actually interviewed on this podcast. Her name is the Dean. The Dean was. In the Rwandan genocide, and she was a teenager when all of that happened, and, many members of her family were slaughtered, many of her friends were killed, and she fortunately survived that horrible experience, and she ended up writing a book about it, she ended up giving talks about it, and now, that's what she's known for, is someone who, Is the voice of, what happens when we see the worst in each other and how to overcome that.

[00:36:17] And she is credible because she's actually been through it. She's had the experience. She wasn't the only one who had the experience, but there was something within her that called her to document her real life experience and to speak about it. And I'm not saying it was easy to do that. It's not easy to write a book. It's not easy to give a talk. But when you have that calling and you do something about it, you're not assigning one side as good and the other side as bad. You can see multiple sides of a situation, right? You can see sides of it that are positive and constructive, and you can also see sides of that situation that are negative from a ground level perspective and destructive. But there is no overarching good or overarching bad, and that just becomes the way you can see these situations.

[00:37:16] And again, I know a lot of people may translate that as, oh, you're spiritually bypassing. You're purposely not focusing on the, Aspects of it that are not not serving your sort of spiritual woo airy fairy understanding of these things so that you don't have to do something about it. And that last part is really, that's where the spiritual bypassing comes into play is in thinking that there's nothing to do about it because I've convinced myself that. there are good elements or good aspects to everything, and it's definitely not what I'm trying to communicate, right? Some people, just again, using this conflict in the Middle East, some people feel called to do something when they watch the news and they see what's going on over there.

[00:38:09] But at the same time, they may watch the news and hear about, what's going on in Sudan? They may hear about what's going on in Myanmar. They may hear what's going on in the Congo and they feel nothing. They feel, oh, I'm sorry that those people are having to experience that. But it doesn't drive action in the same way that hearing about what's happening in the Middle East drives action.

[00:38:33] And why is that the case? Because when we talk about concepts like purpose and passion, they are linked to our own direct experience karmically, right? There's something in our karma that is causing us to feel like we should respond in a certain way to specific situations. situations. But karmically, we don't have that same connection to other situations that may be just as detrimental, if not even more detrimental.

[00:39:07] Do you know the main cause of death on this planet? The main cause of death on this planet is not war. It's not people doing mean things to each other. The main cause of death on this planet is starvation, right? Starvation. In other words, more people are dying of starvation than anything else. And it's not even because there's not enough food available on the planet. The reason why more people are dying of starvation than anything else is because there are not enough distribution channels for that food and there's probably all kinds of other nuanced aspects of the food supply chain on planet Earth, probably having to do with capitalism, probably having to do with politics, probably having to do with even things like religion that are causing these bottlenecks to occur around the world, and you have massive populations of people who are on the brink of starvation, who are not getting enough to eat and who are ultimately dying of not getting enough to eat. 

[00:40:11] And yet, even though you just heard that , you may not be compelled to do anything different because of that. And so, the spiritual sort of understanding of this is that. You don't have to try to fix everything because that's a aspect of your ego that makes you even feel like, oh, I can fix all of this. 

[00:40:37] From a spiritual perspective, this is the broader perspective, now, the understanding is that, oh, that's not an isolated event. That's a pattern. That's a theme. And in some way, it ties to my day to day activities, the way that I spend my time, the way that I spend my money. And so instead of me feeling like I have to put on a cape and go out and try to solve the whole problem in the world and putting that kind of pressure on myself or putting that pressure on any one individual, what I can do is I can be more mindful.

[00:41:14] Of how I spend my time. I could be more mindful of how I connect with other people. I could be more mindful of how I respond to what I see on social media. I could be more mindful about how I spend my money, right? And in that way, we sort of integrate within our day to day moment to moment activities, a solution that works for us and that allows us to continue doing the things that we are most excited about, because you're here. And this is, again, this is the spiritual understanding. You're here for a broader purpose that may be exciting to you, but it may do nothing for me. It may, I may hear about it. I go, huh, that's good for them. I have no desire to, and this is just an example. I have no desire to go to a soup kitchen and serve soup to unhoused people. I have no desire to go and work at a animal sanctuary. 

[00:42:16] But some people, their heart lights up so much at the idea of working with certain populations of people, of working with animals, cleaning up the beach. 

[00:42:28] What excites me is this doing podcasts, creating content that helps to inspire people to find their purpose. Like, I literally will go to bed at night and wake up in the middle of the night because an idea came to me for something that I can post on Instagram that I think can help give people a greater, a broader perspective of life and I will literally pick up my phone in the middle of the night and open up my Notes app and write it down so I don't forget it. And that happens to me multiple times throughout my day, right? That's what lights me up. 

[00:43:07] But someone else may think, oh, there's no way I'm going to pick up my phone in the middle of my sleep and write down some idea to post something on social media. Like, why would I ever do that? I may pick up my phone and scroll through the social media to entertain me, but I'm not going to pick it up in the middle of the night. So that I can write down a quote that I want to post, that sounds ridiculous and that's fine For that to sound ridiculous to them that can exist, right.

[00:43:34] And that's another part of the spiritual perspective is that multiple truths can exist. They can coexist in our awareness all at the same time without one having to necessarily cancel out the other one. 

[00:43:46] In my book, Knowing Where to Look, I talk about that concept of multiple truths existing. For instance, and I use an example of the ocean. And I say, someone may say the ocean is very wavy and it's liquid in nature, which I think most of us would agree with, but someone else may say, no, actually the ocean is flat and it's still. And it appears to be solid.

[00:44:09] Now, you may ask yourself what do you mean the ocean is flat? Obviously, it's not flat. Obviously, it's not still. It's definitely not solid. But it depends on where you're looking at it from. 

[00:44:20] If an alien was in orbit around our planet, and that was the closest that they came to the planet. It's just being an orbit being 100,000 miles in orbit around the planet, they may see that blue object as a still solid object because from space, it looks like it's still, it looks like it's solid. You cannot tell that it's liquid, right? Even from an airplane, 30, 000 feet up, if you're flying over the ocean, it looks solid. It looks still and it does not look wavy or like liquid. But from a ground level, or in this case from the sea level, obviously, it's not solid.

[00:45:00] It's not still, but let's say you were a microorganism and you are in one of the water molecules, right? That was a part of the ocean. You may consider the ocean to be solid, right? 

[00:45:13] For all we know, the Earth is a molecule in a larger universal ocean that we can't see or experience because we're too small to see or experience.

[00:45:22] So the point is it depends on the perspective that will tell you what the nature of a thing is. And all you can really speak for is your perspective. You can't discount or invalidate someone else's perspective. And that's one of the other key tenants of a spiritual perspective is that it's the understanding or the acknowledgement that truth is different in different states of awareness. 

[00:45:51] So someone could be watching an event unfold and they're in one state of awareness, which means they have access to more than just the ground level state of awareness. And they're able to see things and feel things and experience things that someone else who's maybe only able to experience the ground level perspective is able to see, feel and experience.

[00:46:13] And so the report of quotes, what happened between those two people may be different Usually what the ground level person is going to end up doing is getting into a a fight or disagreement with the person who's able to see multiple layers. Of experience, and if that person who's able to see multiple layers is mostly at the ground level, and that's been dominating their experience, then the idea of fighting may seem like a very useful, necessary way to spend their time.

[00:46:50] But if you've been stabilizing higher perspective, that broader perspective, the 30, 000 foot view, and you still have access to the ground level perspective, then the best. The idea that you have and how to respond to this person trolling you or trivializing or invalidating your perspective is important.

[00:47:14] Silence, right? It's not worth your time or attention and you're just going to let them have their experience and you don't have to get in the comments and invalidate their experience and tell them how wrong they are because they're not going to probably understand anyway because they only have access to that ground level who, what, when, why, where type of experience and awareness. And that's and that's fine. It doesn't have to be anything other than that. And that's another thing. When you have that broader perspective, you don't have to put a judgment on it. You don't have to call them stupid. You don't have to call them ignorant. You don't have to call them anything.

[00:47:52] They can, it can just be what it is in the same way that you may observe the ant or the spider or the grasshopper. You don't have to get into personality flaws, the character flaws of the grasshopper or the ant, because it seems like they're walking in the wrong direction, right? Because they're just having their own little innocent experience from the ground level.

[00:48:14] And again, another spiritual understanding is that everyone, all of us, we're all moving in the direction of greater and greater evolution. So no matter what level we're experiencing life at, we're all moving in the direction of greater awareness and what life is doing is it's continuing to meet us at whatever level of awareness we have currently stabilized.

[00:48:40] So it's not like you get to graduate from the challenge of life. It's that you're the things that are challenging you will. Evolve beyond whatever's going on at the ground level to whatever's happening on those more expansive levels. So maybe somebody in the comments trivializing you or invalidating you used to get you upset.

[00:49:05] Now it doesn't really get you upset anymore, but the idea of not enough people having food in the world gets you upset enough. To maybe step your way towards some sort of, local solution to that. And so that's what you start to put your attention on and people can say whatever they want to say on your social media posts.

[00:49:28] It doesn't really matter to you where someone who's stuck at that ground level, they're spending a lot of their time and attention going back and forth with whatever people's opinions are around. The things that they're doing on a day to day basis which is better than physically fighting them.

[00:49:44] So maybe they've evolved beyond that. So we're all moving in the direction of our own personal growth and evolution. And that's another understanding that we have from a spiritual perspective. 

[00:49:54] So all that to say, my new series on the spiritual perspective is going to address the differences in the ground level and the 30, 000 foot view on a variety of topical issues such as conflicts, such as politics, such as relationship dynamics, such as personal goals, such as health, wellness, in all of the things that I typically don't talk about because I tend to talk about things from that perspective, and I feel like it needs to have its own sort of container.

[00:50:28] So that when you're consuming the content, you understand that you're going into this unique perspective. And it's not necessarily going to align with whatever the more conventional understanding is, which is, Also a good thing because it's just going to give you a different perspective and it's not necessarily going to be one that you agree with, but maybe one day as you continue doing your inner work, maybe you will start to appreciate the nuances of that spiritual perspective as you understand it, as you relate to it and and maybe you'll even have something to add to it or contribute to it because everyone's, Access to that spiritual perspective is going to be a bit different and certain people are going to pay attention to certain things like when we're all in an airplane and you have, 200 people looking out of a window.

[00:51:24] Everyone's looking at different things. Some people may be looking at the clouds and studying that. Some people may be looking at the Stratosphere and studying that some people may be looking at the wing of the plane and studying that. And so depending on what you personally feel called to study is that's going to inform how you contribute to the conversation and how you participate in the conversation.

[00:51:48] And so far, I haven't really seen that. I've become a big fan of YouTube and YouTube channels over the last few years, and I haven't really seen a lot of people offering what I consider to be the spiritual perspective in a real world practical way. You got your woo woo types and your airy fairy types and all of that. And that's fine. There's a time and place for that. There are people who look for that, who love that kind of content. 

[00:52:13] Personally, I consider myself to be the healthy skeptic in the room when it comes to spiritual concepts and practices. I always identify as a sort of meat and potatoes, a spiritual practitioner slash meditation teacher. So I'm looking forward to bringing that to the conversation and inviting you to come and participate to whatever extent you would like to, but yeah, talking about all of these subjects through the context of real world concerns, real world experiences, kitchen table conversations that people typically have, what are we going to do about the conflict in the Middle East? What are we going to do about, how with dating apps. What are we going to do about raising children? What are we going to do about following your passion and purpose versus having a conventional job and all of those kinds of things. Is voting important? 

[00:53:07] So look for me to post videos a couple of times a week about all of these topics. And within that threading in the themes of people doing their best and how truth is subjective and how everything is one thing and how your status quo is a reflection of your standards and all of these different spiritual principles as they relate to very normal. Normal life circumstances.

[00:53:37] And it's it's an exciting extension of all of the other things that I've been doing. We're still going to keep the podcast going as it is with the plot twists and the long form episodes published every week. And this will be on a different channel, mainly on YouTube, but we'll also publish the audio as well.

[00:53:54] But we're going to get started first with the YouTube. Series so that you get the visual element, which I think adds something to it again. I've become a big fan of YouTube. So I'm really into that visual element. So yeah, definitely check that out and and share and comment and subscribe to my YouTube channel to whatever extent you can.

[00:54:16] And I look forward to fulfilling more of my purpose in creating this content for you and for myself, because I learned just as much from sitting down and channeling this stuff. I don't consider myself to be the author of it, but very much the channel of it. And and that excites me because I don't oftentimes know what's going to come out and I try not to.

[00:54:41] Overthink it. I just try to just speak and I may have some bullet points down or written, we'll have written some notes and things like that. But for the most part, it's something that's coming through me and I've been doing that for years now. And so I'm excited to share that with you.

[00:54:58] All right. Thank you very much for tuning in again to this solo episode. And I will notify you for those of you who are on my email list, I'll notify you of when the first. Spiritual perspective episodes will be dropping. All right, and look for that in the next week or two.

[END]

Thank you for tuning into today's solo podcast episode on the anatomy of the spiritual perspective. Please look out for my new spiritual perspective YouTube series and podcast. If you haven't signed up for my daily newsletter, which is called The Daily Dose of Inspiration, you can do so at lightwatkins.com.

I will announce when the first spiritual perspective episodes have been published. And if you have any specific guest suggestions in mind for future interviews, please feel free to email me those suggestions at light@lightwatkins.com. 

And here's a simple but powerful way that you can help me make those interviews happen. Leave a review, leave a rating for the podcast. It makes a huge difference. Ratings will help potential guests see the reach and the impact of the show, which will make them more likely to come on board. Just take a quick moment on your Apple podcast app. Click on the name of the show, scroll down past those first few episodes.

You'll see a space with five blank stars. Tap the one all the way on the right, and you have left the five star rating. And if you feel a little bit generous, you And you want to leave a quick line about what you enjoy about this show that can go a long way as well. 

Also, you can watch these interviews on my YouTube channel if you prefer a visual element and don't forget to subscribe there as well.

And check out the spiritual perspective series, which is also under the same channel. For those of you who crave a bit more, the raw unedited versions of each podcast are now available in my happiness insiders online community. Just join the happiness insiders. com to access not only those full uncut interviews, but also my 108 day meditation challenge and various masterclasses designed to help you become the best version of yourself. 

And finally, you may have noticed that I'm now releasing the bite size plot twist episode each Friday, which is a shorter clip from a past episode where the guest shares the story of that pivotal moment in their life trajectory, which is usually when the plot of their life shifted away from the conventional thing and towards the thing that they're now doing that they feel is their purpose, and so look out for those each Friday. 

And in the meantime, I hope to see you back here next week for another inspiring story of an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. Until then, keep trusting your intuition. Keep following your heart and keep taking those leaps of faith. And if no one's told you recently that they believe in you, I believe in you. 

Thank you so much. Have a fantastic day. And I'll see you at the next plot twist.