Episode One: What on earth is Fearlessly Feral Living?!?

In this first episode I will explore the creation story of Fearlessly Feral, the meaning of it, and offer some tips and tidbits to begin to live Fearlessly Feral.

Show Notes:

More information about New Thought at https://www.unityworldwideministries.org/AGNT
Also at: https://antn.org/

Centers for Spiritual Living:  www.csl.org

Support opportunities:  https://www.patreon.com/Fearlesslyferal
https://paypal.me/karenlinsleyNV
Right here on Buzzsprout

Check out the Fearlessly Feral website

Tidbits for living Fearlessly Feral:  
Find the humor.  Look for or create fun.  

One of my favorite quotes:
“Watch your thoughts, they become words;
watch your words, they become actions;
watch your actions, they become habits;
watch your habits, they become character;
watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”  Variously attributed to Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, supermarket magnate Frank Outlaw, spiritual teacher Gautama Buddha, and the father of Margaret Thatcher

Connect with that inner Higher Self, and stay connected.

Look at barriers not as barriers but as guideposts leading you into a different and better direction.

Know that there is always a yes inherent in any idea you might get.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Fearlessly Feral Living. This is Karen Lindsley broadcasting to you from the Woogie Ranch out here in the back 40 of northwestern Nevada, where I'm a half an hour away from the nearest gas station and the nearest grocery store. And this is episode number one of Fearlessly Feral Living. Yes, you heard that right. My first episode. And today I'm going to talk a bit about how this podcast came to be, where the name Fearlessly Feral came from, and what it means, and a bit about this interesting time we find ourselves in on this April 23rd, 2020. So, this is a project that's been two years in the making. Yes, two years. And I know there's people out there in podcast land that say, oh, I'm going to do a podcast, and they do it, and they do it right now, and it's immediately. Why did it take me so long? Well, I can procrastinate just as good as the next person. That's part of it. The other part is that I allowed my own sense of unworthiness to manifest as stuckness. And last but not least, I simply got bogged down in the technical minutia of it all. Turns out there's a lot of technical stuff that needs doing and be and it needs to be done right in order to have a great podcast. I come from the school of all or nothing black and white thinking. And if something is worth doing, it is worth doing right. So, now you know I can procrastinate with the best of them. I've struggled with unworthiness for much of my life. My default setting is sometimes all or nothing. So how on earth can I talk about fearlessly for a living with that kind of consciousness? Because the unworthiness is gone. I only procrastinate sometimes, and when I do, I'm aware of it. And I either do something about it or I don't beat myself up over it. And that default all or nothing, black and white kind of thinking? Well, I like to have some humor in my life, and so whenever I find myself getting that way, I just think about fifty shades of gray and we're good to go. So, fearlessly fair o living means you get to laugh a lot at silly things. I laugh at things most other people don't normally laugh at. I was once told by a fellow minister that I simply had to stop laughing when people told me their stories of woe. I tried that for about a minute, and I knew that it was not right for me. Hiding away a precious and powerful bit of myself that was important to who and what I was and how I showed up in the world. I couldn't do that for very long. So I commenced laughing when people told me their stories of woe, but I did add a little edit to that. I said, you know, I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you because I have been there. Oh, and that fellow minister thing? Yeah, I'm a minister, go figure. Maybe one of these days I'll tell you the full story of the irony and the sheer humor behind that, but for now, because it does have some importance in how to live fearlessly feral, I will say that I'm a licensed and ordained Center for Spiritual Living Minister, and I am quite proud of that. I eat, breathe, speak, and live new thought. And if you don't know what new thought is, think new ways of thinking about ancient wisdom. Think getting a new thought about something so that you have a new experience of it. Think of all the good, yummy stuff from all the religions. Throw in psychology and philosophy and science to make up a soup of nice truth. New thought. And in my show notes, I've got some links for you if you want to check that out further. And because of New Thought, I can live fearlessly feral, and so can you. And that in a nutshell is what this podcast is all about. Providing hits, hints, tools, tips, and tricks to living fearlessly feral. And honestly, if I had to say that any faster than I just said it, I'd trip all over my tongue. So, what is fearlessly feral? Well, I was originally going to call this podcast, Live Wild and Free. I came up with the name after doing what we call spiritual practices. Some meditating and some visioning and some introspection about who I was and what was important and the message that I wanted to convey. That's a tip about how to live fearlessly, feral, by the way. And I will dive deeper into spiritual practices in future podcasts. Anyway, I downloaded the name as a result of all of that, and then I developed a set of mission and vision and purpose statements, and I set up a Patreon account and I got a URL, and I was off and running. Except the name was already taken. So I had to get a new name. Oh my god, I had to get a new name. But I wanted to share some of the definitions and how I came up with Fearlessly Feral because I started with Live Wild and Free. And the reason I started with that is because I wanted a name that said we could live lives unlike anything we've ever envisioned. Lives in which we said I can instead of I can't. Lives in which we live from a consciousness of love and faith rather than a consciousness of fear. Lives in which we do not live with ourselves, but nor buy into limitations placed upon us by others in the disguise of values and beliefs. Lives in which we formulated our own values and beliefs based in principles like oneness and freedom and spiritual law. So I looked up some definitions of wild and free. The definition of wild is uncontrolled by humans. So just ask yourself, what if I lived my life uncontrolled by humans? I'm not talking about outer control. I'm not talking about not following laws in society that is not on my list of things to do. I'm talking, I'm not talking about conditions. Those are all outer things, those are all out there things. I'm talking about inner. I'm talking about inner conditions. I'm talking about our thoughts. I'm talking about our opinions of ourself. I'm talking about discovering who and what we are in living in integrity with that. It is a spiritual truth that everything begins within us, inside of us. There is a great reality deep within us. And I don't care whether you call that great reality God or Buddha or Allah or energy or source. I personally like to call it the force. Yes, Star Wars, the force. That gives you a little clue to my age. Whatever it is, it is within us and a part of us. It is not out there. So instead of being controlled by humans out there and conditions out there, we are controlled by that force within us. And all action is born in thought, not the other way around. So if we're going within, our action is born in our thoughts. And our thoughts and our beliefs form the foundation. Here's a formula that I discovered a while back. I love this formula. It's a quote, actually. Now I don't know who originally said this quote. It's been attributed to transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is, by the way, a forerunner in the New Thought Movement. It's also been attributed to Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, supermarket magnet Frank Outlaw, love the name Outlaw, spiritual teacher Buddha, and the father of Margaret Thatcher. So, you know, I looked at all those attributions for this quote and realized, you know, if they're attributing this quote to so much variety of people, there's gotta be some good in it. And I love this quote. Here's what it says Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. Good stuff. And I'll put that in the show notes too. So our thoughts and our words and our beliefs control us more than anything out there can control us. So let's take it a step further. What if you decided that your thoughts were no longer the boss of you? What then? What if you decided that you would from this point forward live life motivated from your heart space, not your head space? What if you figured out what made you tick psychologically? And then, because you had the awareness you were able to change how you reacted to all of those old stories? What if you stop long enough to consider where all the cherished beliefs you hold come from? And what if you then discovered that some of those beliefs were installed by someone else and that they were really not your beliefs? What then? Change your thinking, change your life. That's what wild living is all about. And what about this free thing? If the wild thing's about basically psychology, then the free thing is about spirit. And I'm not talking about outer spiritual things here. I'm not talking about religion, which is, as it's understood typically today, an outer thing. I'm not talking about new age, nor am I talking about candles or crystals or oils or special diets or Reiki or anything else like that. Don't get me wrong. I'm not bad mouthing any of those things. I love religion. I love my essential oils. I carry a crystal around in my pocket. I love scented candles. I love rituals, all that outer stuff. I absolutely adore it. Feel free to partake in any of them. But none of those are my specialty, and it isn't what living wild and free is all about. Look up freedom in the dictionary, and you get, again, extamp exempt from external control. Freedom ultimately means that we are no longer subject to being affected by what happens out there. What if you could feel at peace and joyful no matter what? What if you could feel all that good, yummy, soft, warm fuzziness no matter what? What if you could feel that way, independent of anything out there? You would then have to find something within you. I was just having a chat with someone and she said she was lonely. And I said, Where does loneliness come from? And she said, Not being with people. And I said, Have you ever been lonely in a crowded room? And she said, Yeah. I said, So maybe loneliness is not about whether or not you're with people, it's about whether or not you're with yourself. It's about whether or not you are with a God of your understanding. Maybe that's where loneliness comes from. And maybe that's what I'm talking about here when I'm talking about being free and knowing that we have this inner part of us. My newest, latest favorite phrase is that inner sacred place of the most high. It is inside of us. When we access and use that inner power, we experience a life far greater than we could ever realize. When we access that inner power, we can live a life that says, I can instead of I can't. I accept unconditionally instead of I judge. That's what wild and free living is all about. I have a little story for you that illustrates about this God within principle. There's an old Hindu legend that illustrates it perfectly. This legend is about a time when all humans were gods, but they abused their divinity. Brahma, the chief god, decided to take it away from them and hide it, where they would never find it again. Brahma called a council of the gods to help him decide where to hide the divinity. Let's bury it in the earth, they said. But Brahma said, No, that will not do. One day they'll dig down deep into the earth and find it. So the gods then said, Let's sink it into the deepest ocean. And Brahma replied, No, not there, for one day they'll learn to dive into the deepest waters and search the ocean bed and find it. Then they said, Let's take it to the top of the highest mountain and hide it there. But again Brahma replied, No, for eventually humans will climb every mountain on the earth. Someday they will find it again. The gods gave up and said, We don't know where to hide it. It seems there's no place on earth or in the sea that humans will not eventually reach. And Brahma thought for a long time and said, Here is what we will do with humanity's divinity. We will hide it deep down inside the humans themselves. They'll search the whole world for it out there, but they won't look for it inside of themselves. Ever since then, the legend concludes, humans have been going to and fro throughout the earth, climbing and digging and diving and exploring and searching for something that's already within themselves. What fearlessly feral living is acknowledging our true divinity. It is acknowledging that we are a unique and very divine manifestation of God. Walking around this earth in skin form, a bag of bones enclosed by skin, but very, very divine. Don't resist that. So anyway, I had the beautiful name, Live Wild and Free. I had all the definitions, I had everything set, and then I discovered the name's already taken, and so I had to come up with a new name. And I began to brainstorm again. This time I brought in some brainstorming partners, and one of those partners is a tattoo artist that I once mentored. She gets me, probably because I mentored her for a while. She's a lovely example of living wild and free, and I absolutely adore her. If I got tattoos, she'd be my girl. She's a different generation than me. I'm a boomer. Yep, I'm a boomer. My consciousness fits more with Gen X, but physically I'm a boomer. She's a Gen Xer. Maybe that's why I love her so much. But she came up with the word feral, and I thought, wow, that word has some great possibilities. And then I thought, well, yeah, except that feral's one of the definitions of feral, it doesn't want to have anything to do with human beings, as in feral cats, as in lives in fear. My definition of feral has to do with things like freedom and wildness and undomesticated. Remember Don Miguel Ruiz talking in the four agreements about how we've all been domesticated? I want to remove the domestication. I want to shake up those beliefs that were installed by someone else before we knew what was happening. I want to remove the default programming. I want to instead replace it with programming that fits with who and what we are today based in today's values and beliefs, not values and beliefs that were installed in us before we had the ability to question them. So I really like the word feral, but I also know it has some connotations about being afraid, so I had to add the word fearless. So there you have it. I have yet to find anyone that is wild enough to be bold enough to use the word feral to describe a beautiful way of living, except me. Because I'm a unique and beautiful manifestation of spirit, and if I have an idea, spirit put it there, and there's a way to implement the idea. The yes is in the idea. So this podcast is about living fearlessly, feral. It's about saying yes to our ideas, it's about saying I can. It's about confidence and peace and joy. And it's about using new thought principles to get there. So in each thought podcast, at least for a bit, I'll be talking about some of those principles. And I'll be talking about some spiritual practices that facilitate us in living those principles. Once in a while, I'll be bringing in a guest. I'm also going to be letting you know about my speaking engagements and the classes and the workshops that I'm offering. And if you want to be a part of that, I'll let you know that too. There's lots more in the show notes. So for now, I'll leave you with this. Fearlessly Feral Living is sponsored by the Center for Spiritual Living Carson City, a teaching chapter. If you wish to contribute financially to support this project, you can go to www.cslcc.org. Click on the donate button. That's www.cslcc.org. I'm currently serving as the interminister for Mountainside Center for Spiritual Living in Placerville, California. I speak there every other Sunday, but currently all my services are online via Zoom. Future speaking dates are April 26th, which is tomorrow, May 17th and May 31st. You can find me on Facebook. I'd love to hear from you. And until next time, I am knowing that Fearlessly Feral Living is there for you and for me. Thank you very much for listening.