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Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich,

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and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life.

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Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

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I remember crying in my room as a kid after my parents beat me. I would sit there

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with tears in my eyes, waiting for them to come back and comfort me.

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And after a student at school would bully me, the teacher would tell him to apologize to me

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I think it developed an illogical pattern of expecting whoever broke something, 

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to come back and fix it. But we can't sit around waiting for the person who caused 

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the hurt to also be the one to console us.

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I mean, I've seen people wait for decades for an apology that will never come, 

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holding on to their pain and resentment like it's precious. The wound may not be our fault

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but healing from it, is most certainly our responsibility. So I say, take that power back

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and move forward. Now people say offensive things to me all the time, and I

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just choose not to be offended. You see, if we don't give away our power in the first place,

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then we don't need to later fight just to get it back. Choosing to get angry, frustrated, 

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hurt, or upset, is a far more detrimental choice than we think; it's a complete waste of

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our power, which is why we often feel powerless to do anything about it.

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And then, to add insult to injury, we expect the very people who were careless

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to do the mending. I mean, it's like getting upset with a puppy for being a puppy

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and peeing on the floor, and then expecting the puppy to also clean it up.

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We decide how long we're going to let what hurt us haunt us. As soon as I realized

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how unreasonable I was being, a sense of humor with it all helped me create a new

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pattern without beating myself up about how I used to handle situations in my life.

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And if I slip from time to time, and momentarily blame someone else for

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how I'm choosing to feel, I just laugh it off.

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If other people upset me, the problem isn't other people, it's me. And that's good news

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because I can do something about me; I can't change anybody else.

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So, even if the wound itself is not your fault, healing from it is your responsibility.

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Your Response-Ability: the ability to choose your response. Namaste.

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Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless 

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and Buddhist Boot Camp.

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For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com, 

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where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project,

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watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode, 

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and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions.

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Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏🏼