WEBVTT

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Think of one thing that you do
when you are procrastinating,

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when you're not doing
the thing you ought be doing.

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One thing.

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Everybody got one?

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Okay, can I hear a few?

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(Audience) E-mail.

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E-mail.

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(Audience) Clean the house.

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Clean the house.
Why don't you live with me?

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(Laughter)

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(Audience) Facebook.

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Television, Facebook, one more?

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(Audience) Play with the dogs.

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Pardon?

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You play with the dogs, right.
Play with the dogs.

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You have a duty to perform,
this is Jalal ad-Din Rumi.

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You have a duty to perform.

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Do anything else, do any number of things:
clean the house, go on e-mail, eat.

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(Audience) Eat.

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(Laughter)

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Eat, walk the dogs.

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Do anything else, do any number of things,
occupy your time fully.

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And yet, if you do not do this task,
your time here will have been wasted.

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A very fierce teaching.

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You have a duty to perform, and yet,
if you do not do this one task,

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your time here will have been wasted.

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What is he talking about?
What was Rumi trying to tell us?

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He was trying to tell us
that it is up to us to come awake,

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to come alive, fully alive,
in the one life that we can live;

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to move away from the limitations
that keep us small and boxed in;

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to come into the unique
particular being that we are, each of us.

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He understood, Rumi, that this
was a particularly kind of difficult task.

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It isn't easy to know what it means
to live an authentic life,

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to be fully in yourself, all of the time.

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And so, he also then wrote a beautiful
invitation to sort of self-compassion.

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Come, he said, come, whoever you are;

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wanderers, worshippers, lovers of leaving,

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eaters, house cleaners, e-mail doers,

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whoever you are.

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Ours is not a caravan of despair.

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Come, even if you have broken your vow,

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even if we've fallen off
our own wagon a thousand times:

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come, come yet again, come.

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I'm Maria Sirois, a clinical psychologist
and inspirational speaker.

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I work, as Jamie said,
in the world of death and dying,

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but also the world of flourishing,

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and one minute into my first experience

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of working with a child
who had a terminal illness,

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at Dana-Farber in Boston,

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I figured out that I
was going to have to figure out

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what we knew about how to survive well,

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you know, how do we rise
in the presence of difficult moments,

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how do we thrive
when Haiti crashes and crumbles,

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how do we keep ourselves intact?

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And it turns out,
we do know how to do this,

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"we" meaning the positive psychologists
and the mind-body medicine people

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and the poets and the artists

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throughout the centuries
do know something,

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and it has to do with this notion
of actually living an authentic life.

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That when we live an authentic life,

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when we live our life,
we actually can thrive.

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When we try and live someone else's life,
have you ever tried that?

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Have you ever married
somebody else's spouse?

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Worked somebody else's job, right?

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Wore somebody else's clothes,
day after day after day after day?

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And what starts to happen
is you start to...

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feel un-alive.

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The opposite of thriving.

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Sup at your own table -

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this is Marcus Tullius Tiro,

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slave and then eventually
assistant to Cicero and freedman -

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sup at your own table,

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drink from your own well,
speak from your own heart,

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follow where your own path leads,

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for anyone who hopes to lead you
cannot help but lead you astray.

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Drink from your own wells.

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So, what does this look like,
like in real life terms today?

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What does this really look like?

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It looks like a woman
I was teaching a couple of weeks ago,

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who was at the start
of a five-day retreat program.

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This was opening night,

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and I was invited to talk
a little bit about how we thrive,

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and I had introduced
this notion of authenticity,

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and it was the end of the program,
and I said, "Okay,

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if you would to do this week,

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if you were going to do this one week,

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just one week, five percent
more authentically than before,

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what would you do?"

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And this woman in her mid-50s,
late 60s stood up and said,

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from Toronto, stood up and said:

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"I would wear the bunny suit."

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(Laughter)

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Well, it was Easter time,
and she had come to the Berkshires

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with a full-on, furry, tail, ears,
the whole thing bunny suit,

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and had this this urge
to be the Easter Bunny.

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It was a dream
she had had her entire life,

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and she was determined
that at this moment in her life,

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she was going to do it.

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I didn't see her the rest of the week
until she was getting ready to leave.

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I said: "Did you do it?
Did you wear the bunny suit?"

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She says: "I did. It was amazing.

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I put it on, and I thought,
'I don't care, I don't care anymore,

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I don't care anymore
what anybody else thinks,

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I am going to be what I wanted to be.

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I don't care.'

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And I took my basket of chocolates,
and every single person I saw that day,

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I said to them the thing
I most wanted to hear when I was a girl,

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I said to them: 'Here,
take as much as you want.

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Take as much as you want.'"

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You see, when we're authentic,
we are self-authoring.

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We author our own way,
we author our own day,

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we create our own look,
our own music, our own sound,

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we come up with ideas that are ours,
that are uniquely ours,

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we are self-measured and self-authoring,

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we quiet other people's voices,

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and we become who we can best be.

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And to be authentic
also means that we are congruent.

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What that means is
that how you think and feel and act

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and what you value in the world,

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they all sort of cohere together

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so that, if you were to say
to the world: I'm a kind person,

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you would actually be kind,
and move in kind ways,

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and elevate kindness when you'd see it,

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and you would reflect it back,
and you would honor it,

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and you would be kind
and bring kindness alive.

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And third, it also means

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that we give ourselves
permission to be fully human.

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This is from Tal Ben-Shahar,

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Israeli psychologist,
former Harvard professor:

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the notion that we get to have
all parts of us exist

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and all parts of us be honored,

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because there isn't a person yet,
I think, in the world

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who has figured out
how to be perfect, am I right?

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At least in Berkshire County?

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There's one guy, it was a rumor,
it was a rumor, right?

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2,000 years ago.

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Permission to be fully human.

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When I was a ehm...

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younger mother,

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I had one of those moments
with my daughter

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- frequent moments back then -

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when I had to give her
a consequence for something

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- I would say punished,

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but thought it was too hard a word
for a modern mom so I said consequence,

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so notice how already, just standing here,

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we edit ourselves
for the benefit of others -

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the truth of the matter is
I punished the heck out of her,

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and I sent her slamming upstairs,

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and she got halfway up,
three and a half years old,

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she stopped dramatically on the landing,

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and she screamed down at me:
"I hate you and I hate all of your parts."

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(Laughter)

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When we are authentic,
all the parts get to exist,

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all of them get to play together,

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all the voices at the table
get to be heard.

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We don't necessarily move
from all of those voices,

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we choose the ones, most wisely of course,
that we live from and bring forward,

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but they all get to exist:
the depressed voice,

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the sad voice, the weary, the embittered,

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the passionate, the impassionate,

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the kind, the bold, the dull, the soft,

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the still,

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the shy, the introverted voices,
they all get to exist.

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And when that happens,

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when the bunny gets to play,
whatever that might mean for us,

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the buffalo also gets to play.

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Brené Brown talks about,
from the University of Houston,

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how those of us
who live wholehearted lives

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are those of us who allow
all of our parts to come together

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and be...

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well, you know,

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just be.

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Just be.

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That none of us is anything

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except who we are most fully
when we are wholehearted.

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And the beauty of being wholehearted
is that we can then bring that to others.

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Living authentically actually
generates authenticity in others.

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It's one of the great benefits.

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It passes itself on,

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like generosity begets generosity
and kindness begets kindness,

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authenticity does the same.

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If you're standing with someone,

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in the presence of someone
who is living truthfully,

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you feel that urgency
to live that way too,

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to figure out what your own
bunny suit might be, right?

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And the other benefits that accrue

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from taking the time to figure out
what our one task is

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and then going there
courageously step-by-step,

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the other benefits
are increased self-esteem

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and overall psychological well-being,

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less depression, less anxiety,

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less ridiculous eating
in the middle of the night,

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you know, three o'clock in the morning,
going for the the third bag of Doritos.

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We actually have more pleasure,
a sense of meaning in life,

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and because of those we are happier.

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And, beautifully, wonderfully,
what we now understand

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is that those of us who live more and more
into the truth of our own particular being

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actually innovate more,
we are more creative,

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we generate, we make things happen,

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when we are who we are,

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we can take a problem
like Duchenne muscular dystrophy

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and say, thank you very much,

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I understand how this
was done for the last 200 years,

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we are not going there.

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We are going here, we are going
to talk directly to the scientist,

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and we're going to talk to other parents
about what has to happen,

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we're going to bring two worlds together
and make something happen.

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Or you can be a doctor
like Mark Hyman and say:

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"I know about obesity,
I'm a medical doctor,

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but I also know something
about the human condition

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and I can understand

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that connection has to live fully
in order for health to arise,

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and so why can't I bring
those two together?

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Why can't I create it together?"

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Or you can be like,
I don't even know his name,

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who makes organs with a printing machine,

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you know?

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When we are authentic,
we are freed up to create,

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because we aren't damped down.

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When you damp down a part of yourself,

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when I damp down parts of myself,
the other parts don't get to exist.

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I think it was Golda Meir who said:

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"If you do not experience
the depth of your sadness,

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you cannot experience
the fullness of your joy."

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And so...

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I invite you, tonight, as you go home,

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like not right now,
but soon, when you go home,

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to think about what it would be like to -

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for the next few hours,
maybe just the rest of this day -

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to step into five percent
more authenticity.

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What might that be like?

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Would you go to bed early? Would you not?

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Would you wear, you know,
flannel pajamas

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or not wear nothing at all?

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Would you stay awake late into the night

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because you've seen or heard
one thing tonight

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that is so, like, fascinating to you

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that the thought of staying
with that one thing

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for just a little bit longer

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helps you feel like
you're six years old again,

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and the world was bright and magical,
and anything could happen,

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the Easter Bunny actually
could show up the next morning,

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and chocolate could be given,

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and you could take as much
as you wanted from the world.

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Remember when you were six?

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Remember when we were six,
and the world had a kind of magic to it?

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When I was six,
I spent a lot of time in church.

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And I loved my church,
and I loved my faith,

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and I loved it so much, the whole thing:
the story, the Catholic church,

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the son of God, the mystery,
the ritual, the rite, the incense,

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the whole thing, loved it all.

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And so by the time I was eight,
I'd screwed up my courage enough

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to go to the nuns and say the thing
that had been in my heart

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for a very long time already -

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six to eight is a very long time
when you're a young girl -

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and I went up to the nuns on a Wednesday -

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I don't know why catechism
was always on Wednesday in the 1960s -

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and I went up to them and said:
"I want to go to the priest classes,

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I don't want to go
to regular class anymore,

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I want to know how to be a priest,"

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and she said-
well, you know what she said.

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(Laughter)

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She said, "That is not going to happen."

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And yet, I have to tell you
how very grateful I am to be here tonight.

00:12:59.564 --> 00:13:03.604
The generosity of our hosts
and of this community,

00:13:04.294 --> 00:13:07.006
to have the opportunity
to talk about something

00:13:07.006 --> 00:13:09.566
that's powerful and meaningful
and potent for me,

00:13:09.566 --> 00:13:12.087
because it was at that moment
at the age of eight,

00:13:12.087 --> 00:13:15.981
when some part of me kicked in
and said: "I'm sorry,

00:13:15.981 --> 00:13:18.617
I'm going to figure out a way, anyway,

00:13:19.567 --> 00:13:21.207
to teach, and to offer,

00:13:21.207 --> 00:13:25.047
and to figure out how this part of me
that's alive spiritually

00:13:25.047 --> 00:13:26.507
gets to live anyway;

00:13:26.507 --> 00:13:28.397
to say something that is sacred,

00:13:28.397 --> 00:13:32.107
just because it's sacred to me
and share that and see what happens -

00:13:32.107 --> 00:13:33.827
and see what happens.

00:13:36.487 --> 00:13:38.507
So I urge you to go home tonight,

00:13:38.507 --> 00:13:41.507
step out of this room, step into yourself.

00:13:41.507 --> 00:13:42.617
You- we...

00:13:43.017 --> 00:13:45.499
We have a duty to perform.

00:13:45.959 --> 00:13:48.877
Come, come, whoever you are.

00:13:51.147 --> 00:13:53.127
Do anything else,
do any number of things,

00:13:53.127 --> 00:13:54.716
occupy your time fully,

00:13:54.986 --> 00:13:58.580
wanderers, worshippers, lovers of leaving.

00:13:59.680 --> 00:14:02.319
And if you do not do this one thing,

00:14:03.239 --> 00:14:09.009
even, if we have broken our vows
a thousand times, it's okay.

00:14:10.759 --> 00:14:12.529
Your time here.

00:14:15.529 --> 00:14:17.219
This is our time.

00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:18.709
This is our time.

00:14:18.709 --> 00:14:19.889
Thank you.

00:14:20.266 --> 00:14:23.266
(Applause)