Do you want to be more interesting AND attractive? That's exactly what will happen if you type your email address below.
Growing Up: you must bring forth what is within you & Vipassana
|
Hi guys, Ahhhh I'm feeling so nervous. I think it's because I'm going on my first ever Vipassana retreat tomorrow... 10 day silent retreat. No reading / writing / speaking / touching... not even a cheeky jog on the spot or a downward dog. 4am wakeup bell (gong?) and then many, many hours of cross legged meditation on the floor... wish me luck!! Can share more when I'm on the other side if anyone's interested... would love to hear about your experience too if you've done one... (more on Vipassana here for the uninitiated) In the meantime I have FIVE podcast eps to tell you about (I can't believe it's been a month since I last wrote!) Before that I just have this to share from a book: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." It's from the same book I wrote about last edition (here: Growing Up: the pathless path & emotional eating) that is Paul Millerd's 'The Pathless Path' And I just realised that quote is from the Gospel of Thomas (somehow missed that whilst reading)... Finding work you want to keep doing, says author Stephen Cope, is “the great work of your life.” Cope’s biggest fear is that he might “die without having lived fully.” This impulse drove his curiosity as he sought out wisdom in books, reading upwards of three hours a day. Eventually, he wrote The Great Work of Your Life to explore the unique qualities of people who search for the things that bring them alive. His exploration was inspired by a passage he read in the Gospel of Thomas: If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. He researched the lives of Susan B. Anthony, Robert Frost, John Keats, Harriet Tubman, and Henry David Thoreau and found that the common trait they shared was seriously attempting to bring forth what was inside of them. This didn’t come easy to any of them and they all faced challenges, rejection, and criticism. Yet at every key point in their lives, they either kept looking for what brought them alive or protected their time so that they could work on what mattered. In the words of Thoreau, the game they played and that we should play is to “be resolutely and faithfully what you are.” So off to play the game of being resolutely what I am. First in many days of silence. Ep. 114 - Roger Moorhouse: mechanic to acclaimed WWII historian and author
"I hope lots of people listen and I hope they'll find it interesting and I hope not too many people sit there and say, well, he sounds like a bit of an arse because hopefully I don't." Sums up my desire for every ep tbh... Roger Moorhouse on the pod! Historian and author specialising in Third Reich, Poland & WW2. Roger grew up above a pub. He dropped out of school & became a mechanic. Years later he took a night school history class, and having never considered university ended up there with this one A level. He has since published multiple books and ChatGPT describes his contributions as having "significantly enhanced our understanding of World War II history." (Also, fun fact, he wrote a book about the assassination attempts on Hitler called "Killing Hitler: The Plots, The Assassins, and the Dictator Who Cheated Death" & in a CNN news report of 3 September 2011, Moorhouse's book was shown on Libyan dictator Gaddafi's desk after he had fled his office in the wake of the collapse of the Gaddafi regime...) Growing Up with Delia Burgess 'Ep. 114 - Roger Moorhouse: mechanic to acclaimed WWII historian and author' out wherever you get your podcasts xx Ep. 115 - Jess Dato: Long Island, leaving big corporate & working with founders Jess and I both worked for the same company in the same building in New York for our first jobs out of uni... but that's not how I met her. The way I met Jess and Shai (below) is a fun story but I am running out of time and the internet where I am is terrible, so I will tell you next time!! / you can listen to the ep to find out. (Also I started doing little intro segments, if you listen let me know what you think :)) Ep. 116 - Shai Schechter: SaaS, creativity & hating yourself less I like all of them especially this one: (See also, my favourite quote (Solzhenitsyn): "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?") Ep. 117 - Rish Gupta: the false self & trusting the path twitter: @therishgupta That's all for now! I've scheduled an ep to come out on Thursday while I'm silently meditating but there will be no episode next week (for the first time in nearly two years! Crazy.) Will be back on it in Sept... loads of cool guests lined up. Can't wait to bring you their stories. xx Delia P.S. Hi from Tasmania! Hope you are all having a wonderful summer or winter depending which hemisphere you're in... (or neither if you're in space?) Previous editions here. Forwarded this and want to subscribe? Click here. |
Hi! I'm Delia Burgess
Do you want to be more interesting AND attractive? That's exactly what will happen if you type your email address below.
"Many of us prefer to deny that power dynamics exist, outside of games played by greedy, dishonest manipulators. But, like gravity, just because you deny the existence of something doesn't mean it doesn't affect you." Right, so I am reading a veryyyyy interesting book about POWER. It's by a Taoist nun / dominatrix lady. & although the target audience is women (subtitle literally 'a woman's guide to power'), men I think you are going to find this interesting as well so do read on... Unbound: A...
"But if it is an apple tree it will not have the ability to bear pears or plums." Guys hey, By popular demand I am writing more regularly again. So hi! (People actually read what I write? And want more? Crazy I know) I'll make this quickish though as last week was lengthyyyy (here if you missed it: Growing Up: lemme end your suffering real quick & the problem with religion) First up: "There had been a lot of situations where I was essentially told to shut up because I didn't belong to XYZ...
Guys hiiiiii I am back from the 10 day Vipassana retreat. I spent last week getting myself back into balance by eating loads of junk food and watching Tiktoks late at night. I am now here writing to you, so excited to share, but my brain is exploding there's so much I want to tell you about so bear with... THIS IS LONG (maybe longest yet?), but great. You're going to love it. As discussed before I went in (Growing Up: you must bring forth what is within you) the 10 days looked like: 4am...