Sunday Service: It’s All In Your Head

From Peter, Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. What does that mean? How does it apply to your life? If it even does, that’s what we will explore today. Welcome to our Sunday service. Bible is full of passages dealing with both physical and emotional struggles, and it’s really it’s really easy for us to get into our own heads these days, because so many of us are our knowledge workers, and we’re not necessarily disconnected from our bodies, but we’re more in our heads, I think, than we ever have before. And while it’s a positive thing that we’re not doing literally back breaking work, our heads can be extremely dangerous places, and when we get inside of our heads too much, as the saying goes, we can get lost in there, and minds play tricks on us and all of these things. And we are anxious people worried about all the risks that we face and all the uncertainties that we face, and the constant barrage of new information coming our way faster than ever before, it is an awful lot. So like everything else, there’s immense wisdom that we can glean from world religions, from the Bible, from the Quran, from the Bhagavad Gita, from all of these ancient texts and philosophies and in service of helping you to better grapple and manage the space between our ears, that tiny space between our ears that directs so much, I think that there’s, there’s value In in exploring and digging into these so the Bible encourages believers to cast all their burdens onto God, trusting that he will care for and support them. It talks about how both physical and emotional trials can strengthen faith and lead to physical and spiritual growth, and God is there to provide comfort and offer you comfort in the midst of challenges, in the midst of life storms. And along with Christianity, in the Bible, every other major religion has a different perspective, sometimes similar on how to endure and approach the trials both physically and emotionally. Islam emphasizes patience and trust during emotional, difficult times, regardless if it’s actually physical or emotional. The Quran says we will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruit. But give good tidings to the patient who, when disaster strikes them, say, Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return so to recognize to say, up front, stuff’s going to come your way. Going to be tested the bad things that happen to you in your life, our tests. God is asking you to pass, and when you pass them, strengthen your resolve, strengthen your faith, will strengthen your ability to endure the future trials and tribulations, the future storms that will invariably come your way. Quran also says, For indeed with hardship will be ease. Indeed, with hardship will be ease. So emphasizing that emotional challenges like anxiety or grief are temporary and God will bring relief. Eventually, Muslims believe that enduring trials with patience bring spiritual growth and closeness to God. With Hinduism, both physical and emotional trials are understood within the framework of karma, which is cause and effect, and dharma, which is one’s righteous duty, and that guides us on how we ought to endure suffering and struggles when we feel anxious over outcomes, we can alleviate that anxiety by focusing on the duties or the things that we have to be doing and become less attached to the results. And that’s going to be a through line. It certainly is a through line in a lot of philosophy and religion is the more we can separate ourselves from the result of the thing. Focus on the things that we had control over, the more content and mentally healthy and sound less anxious that will certainly. Be so. Hindus are encouraged to accept trials as part of the karmic cycle, which can lead to spiritual growth. Buddhism teaches that suffering, be it physical or emotional, it’s a part of life and can be overcome by pursuit of the Four Noble Truths and the practice of mindfulness and compassion. The first double truth is dukkha, which is that life is suffering, and believe that physical pain and illness are part of the universal experience of humanity and suffering. And they believe that whenever we encounter these things. It’s an opportunity to practice mindfulness and the detachment from your body. So that’s an interesting concept, that we’re living inside of our bodies. I occupy my body however you want to think about that, but here I am. Goes with me. Everywhere I go, my body and my mind, for that matter, and the idea of separating ourselves from our bodies is a really odd thing, but that’s what it’s talking about. The second noble truth is the cause of suffering is attachment. It’s talking about just a second ago. A lot of the time we a lot of the suffering, the pain anxiety is stems from, derives from we are so attached to physical things. We’re so attached to what we want, our desires, what we expect, our expectations, and then the final result of the outcome. And Buddhism believes that when we meditate, it helps to reduce that emotional pain by cultivating non attachment and awareness of the impermanence of all things, just simply meaning it’s all going away. None of this is here forever. Bud also talks about the Eightfold Path, giving guidance for overcoming physical and emotional suffering on the path to what they refer to as Nirvana, which is enlightenment. So across all religions and philosophies, physical and emotional problems or trials are seen as opportunities for growth, spiritual development, deeper connection to God and through patience, mindfulness, prayer and acceptance of a greater will or plan, it makes it not easier, but that’s how we cope With and endure the times when we’re suffering and I imagine, I imagine that there have been times when you’ve been sick, and I imagine that there have been times when loved ones in your life have been really sick, and when that happens, we only want one thing. We want our loved ones to feel better. We want ourselves to not be sick anymore. We want to feel good again, or at least feel normal again. And talked at the beginning about how we’re not knowledge we are now knowledge workers. Most of us, many of us, are knowledge workers, and we are without realizing that we’re detached from our bodies, we are less attached to our bodies, which I guess, from a Buddhist perspective, would be a good thing, but from a very practical perspective, we are less in tune with our bodies. We’re not in our bodies as much. And we’re more in our heads. We are more in our heads. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with Matt Dawson. He goes by Dawson, and he is an extreme endurance athlete, world record holder. The guy climbs, you know, mountains, and climbs all of them at the same time, and literally rode across an ocean. And I asked him, What’s harder? Is it the physical part or is it the mental part which is harder? And he said, you know, certainly it’s hard to roll a boat across the ocean, but there’s no doubt that the mental part is much harder. Like, wow, think about that like you’re rowing a boat across the ocean. You need to row the boat across the ocean, but you’re just out there in a boat on the ocean, bobbing along, only your own thoughts, only just you think about it, night time, trying to sleep, or you’re laying there in this boat, just getting tossed around by the sea, thinking all those thoughts, what could be, what has been, all that stuff. It’s so much so

it’s fascinating though, that somebody who. Has devoted his life, in many ways, to overcoming physical challenges. The path to the overcoming of those physical challenges is through your mental through through your mind. So our minds can be very dangerous places, and when you look around society today, so many of us are struggling with mental health, and we’ve been talking more about mental health for many years now at this point, and I think that there are ideas from specifically Buddhism and stoicism that can really be powerful tools in our in our fight for lack of a better term, I think that stoicism and the second noble truth in Buddhism are both philosophies that help us to manage suffering and human desires, even though they’re coming at it from a little bit a different perspective, and certainly culturally, stoicism is a Greek philosophy that teaches us that much of our suffering comes from attachment to external things. So think of really classic stoic thing is that I don’t have any control over the circumstances life. I like control is how I think, feel and respond. And Stoics believe that a lot of our anxiety and emotional pain comes from attachment to our possessions, to our status and to those specific outcomes. It’s the belief that our desires and emotions show up more, more pro, more aptly put negative fear, anxiety and emotion come up when we seek to control things that are literally beyond our control. I mean, that’s what stress is, that’s what anxiety is, is being worried about stuff that I have no control over. So their belief is that our suffering can be reduced when we focused on things, focused on things that are within our control, and accept those things that we cannot change. They have a principle called Apatheia, which emphasizes keeping an even keel regardless of our life circumstances. Says easy, does hard for sure, but the idea is to find tranquility and accept that things are going to do what they’re going to do. The world’s going to do what they’re going to do. Other people are going to do what they are going to do. And the more we can detach our happiness from a result that we have no control over, then the happier that we will be the second noble truth to revisit this talks about how the cause of suffering in life, which is dukkha, comes from our attachment and our wanting for things to be a certain way. So we’re talking about desires for sensual pleasure. We’re talking about holding on to things like people, outcomes that has like we’ve been talking about is a sure path to feeling like we’re not getting what it is that we want. We have less than and the also another reality of it is that again, that nothing is permanent. So we’re clinging on to things which are completely impermanent. When you’re at the beach and you spend hours making a beautiful sand castle, appreciating that the very nature of a sandcastle is impermanence, build this thing one scoop at a time, but really it’s, it’s a countless number of grains of sand that we have arranged in a pattern. We decided in our mind that we wanted it to look like something. And we went through the we went through the exercise of actually building it and forming it. And we step back and we admire it, we enjoy it, only for the ocean to wash it away shortly thereafter, the impermanence of life and our existence, your version of you is, is is a day older than you were yesterday, and same is true of our loved ones and all of the physical things in our reality. And one day, God willing, I will be an older version of me and and one day, you know, I’m going to die as we all are. And that is all part of the process and the reality of human beings, and the more we can detach ourselves and not get upset when the ocean does wash away that sandcastle because we knew it was coming, then the happier that we’re going to be. So so does a man Buddhism talk about the that focusing on the outcome? Is a major cause of our suffering. Stoicism talks about the acceptance of fate, and focusing on what we can control is the key to it. And Buddhism, again, talks about the non attachment to our desires and impermanence. Stoicism advocates that when we’re able to master our own minds and gain broader control or deeper control of our own emotions. Like Buddha’s promotes mindfulness and self awareness. These are keys to managing through the difficult emotional and mental times, and stoicism has one of my favorite, one of my favorite terms, which is momento Mori. And the English translation is that, remember, you must die. So it’s the reality of our impermanence. We are going to we’re going to die. Both of these philosophies, religions, thoughts, encourage accepting the world as it is without trying to change uncontrollable things. So not easy, not easy to do by any stretch of the imagination. I think that those are both incredibly useful, and obviously have been helping countless people throughout time. So I know that so much of it is in my head. I do, as you do deal with physical ailments and struggles, and it’s nothing worse than having children and see them sick and see them struggling. And there’s very little that we can do about much of the things that we freak out over and we stress out over, and one of the hardest things to do is to let go of these things. But that is, in many ways, the key to what it is that we’re talking about. I don’t want to be stressed out. I don’t want to be anxious. If I can take a step back and recognize I am stressing myself out over stuff that I have no control over. There’s nothing that I can do to influence the outcome. I don’t have any control over other human beings. I don’t have control over the weather or what Earth is doing, or there’s just so many things, the majority of it, the vast, vast majority of it, is beyond my control. And when I can focus on the things that I do have control over and have faith, like the Bible teaches and other major religious other major world religions teach us to put our faith in in God. It will help us to to manage through those really, really difficult times. So food for thought as always, do your part by doing your best. Do.

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.