Vision Battlesword [00:00:00]:
Hey, Glad.

Gladius Sovereign [00:00:01]:
What is up, Vision?

Vision Battlesword [00:00:02]:
How are you doing today?

Gladius Sovereign [00:00:03]:
I feel happy and alive.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:06]:
Who are you, Gladius Sovereign?

Gladius Sovereign [00:00:08]:
That is a great question. I'm the One who Is. And that's the End of the Story. Beyond that, I'm someone who really, really enjoys deep and meaningful connection and conversation. I'm someone who is always seeking to expand the love that is in my heart and to share it freely with others. I'm someone who really loves studying esoteric wisdom and condensing, like, advanced concepts into something that's extremely simple. And then like, synthesizing something new from all of that wisdom and then just sharing it openly and freely with people. That's my jam.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:51]:
I sense that's why we get along well. When we get along well.

Gladius Sovereign [00:00:54]:
Yeah, exactly.

Vision Battlesword [00:00:58]:
Yeah. Well, I am Vision Battlesword, founder of Sacred Light, creator of Intentional, Autonomous Relating and host of Sacred Conversations. And a moment ago, we were chatting and you were telling me about some new revelations you've been having about forgiveness and acceptance and their power to change our belief system. Is that fair? Yes.

Gladius Sovereign [00:01:26]:
And beyond that, using acceptance and forgiveness for relationship repair, using it for internal self relationship repair, really repairing any structure of disharmonious or undesired energy, experience, etcetera. It seems like at least what's coming through for me now is that acceptance and forgiveness can be applied as a universal solution to almost anything.

Vision Battlesword [00:01:58]:
Wow. Okay. And a moment ago, again, you were walking me through kind of the process of how this works. Could you just do that for me again?

Gladius Sovereign [00:02:06]:
Totally.

Vision Battlesword [00:02:07]:
Yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [00:02:07]:
So the idea is really simple. Let's say, for example, that a thought comes up of anger that is directed towards an experience. Doesn't matter what it is. So what I would recommend is just focusing the attention on the energy of that anger. It can be sadness, it can be fear, it can be whatever, it doesn't matter what it is. You focus your attention on the energy. With your attention placed on the energy, you just say, thank you, I love you, I accept you exactly as you are. Pause, I forgive you completely.

Gladius Sovereign [00:02:51]:
And that's it. That's the algorithm. Now, one thing that I didn't mention earlier is that I think that the word I and understanding, there's a very specific definition involved here is really important. So when we say I, I don't necessarily mean the small ego self, what I'm referring to when I intend it to myself. I accept you exactly as you are. I forgive you. I'm talking about the infinite, eternal I am, or the higher self, the higher mind. However you want to define that higher, more expanded definition of self that has totally transcended and is above all of these little ego, personality disputes, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, et cetera.

Gladius Sovereign [00:03:47]:
So that is one important, not caveat, but added definition to stack onto the process is that when you're forgiving, when you're accepting, forgive and accept through that bigger I, that capital s self, that true self.

Vision Battlesword [00:04:05]:
Okay, I have a few questions. So first, there's the words that we speak, whether we speak them internally or out loud. And then there's the actual intention, maybe, let's say, focusing of our attention on internalizing the meaning behind those words, if this is making sense. And so the question is, for someone who may have difficulty or may feel resistance, or just is having trouble finding their way to that actual internal experience of forgiveness, internal experience of acceptance, how is that done? How is that experience created above and beyond just the superficial speaking of the words?

Gladius Sovereign [00:04:53]:
So there's two answers. And the second is going to get into this principle of counterintention that I was mentioning earlier. But the first is a useful idea. So if we ever have any difficulty in experiencing something, a very useful question is, am I maybe holding on to some kind of paradigm, some kind of belief that is preventing me from experiencing this effortlessly? So, for example, if at a subconscious level, I believe something like forgiveness means they'll just do it again, if I accept it, then I'm tolerating it and allowing it. I'm not willing to accept. If I'm holding these agreements with myself at a subconscious level, then my sincere intention to accept things, my sincere intention to forgive things, is going to be subtly masked and prevented from fully coming into being because of those fear based beliefs that were created in a valid past experience, but they're still getting in the way of the present execution of those intentions of acceptance and forgiveness. So this goes into the idea of counterintention. So the moment that I actually intend to fully accept this experience, fully accept this person, fully accept this belief that is within me exactly as it is, I may notice resistance.

Gladius Sovereign [00:06:21]:
Okay? So the instant that. That I become aware that that experience of acceptance and forgiveness is not effortless, whatever that other experience is, whether it's like a subtle sense of pushing away, like, no, I don't want to do that. Or like a contraction in the chest, or whether it's like a sense of apathy, neutrality, that's not possible. Whatever that noticeable shift in your state of being is that occurs the instant that you intend to accept. Place your attention on that. Place your attention on the resistance, place your attention on the thing that comes to the surface. The moment that you intend to execute the intention, you can conceptualize whatever this new emergent energy is as resistance. I like to conceptualize it as counter intention.

Gladius Sovereign [00:07:15]:
So the intention that I'm executing is acceptance and forgiveness. The energy that rises the moment that I intend to do so is some flavor of fear or anger or what have you. And so now the task is simply to love and accept that energy that is coming up and resisting the acceptance and forgiveness.

Vision Battlesword [00:07:41]:
Hmm. Okay. So what you're saying. It sounds like what you're saying is that if there's something that you'd like to shift or. Or move for yourself and your experience emotionally or in your belief system, you can try to either forgive and or accept it. You can set your intentions on that. You can choose to do that or to try to do that. And then if that feels difficult or challenging or you don't feel like that acceptance or that forgiveness is really fully coming into your experience and that you're letting that go, then you can shift your attention to whatever seems to be coming up instead of that or coming up between you and that forgiveness.

Vision Battlesword [00:08:27]:
And then you can execute different processes to shift that out of the way.

Gladius Sovereign [00:08:32]:
Exactly right.

Vision Battlesword [00:08:33]:
Okay. Got it. Well, there's something else that I wanted to ask you. Is the algorithm that you conveyed initially sounds a lot to me like the hipponopono program.

Gladius Sovereign [00:08:43]:
It's very similar. There's a key distinction.

Vision Battlesword [00:08:45]:
Okay.

Gladius Sovereign [00:08:46]:
In Hipponapono, we ask or declare intend, please forgive me. So that is placing the onus of forgiveness on your imaginal relationship to whatever the thing is you're asking them to forgive you. Whereas ultimately, as a paradigm shift, as a perspective shift, in some sense, if we subscribe to the idea that this entire reality is just a dream, there is no separation. There is only one. There is no you. So I'm just taking ownership of the process of forgiveness. I'm not requiring or requesting that anyone else forgive me. I'm saying I forgive you.

Gladius Sovereign [00:09:29]:
You are me. There is no you. All is one. So I accept you exactly as you are. You are a perfect facet of all creation. I accept you exactly as you are, and I forgive you completely.

Vision Battlesword [00:09:46]:
Interesting. Yeah. Okay. I can see that those two patterns are slightly different.

Gladius Sovereign [00:09:55]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:09:56]:
Because the pattern that you're talking about is really about coming to a place of forgiveness and acceptance in and for yourself. Whereas hipponopono carries with it an aspect of making amends or making apology with someone else. Right. So it's external versus internal. In a way. In a way, yeah. That's interesting. And so there's two things that are coming up for me, and what you're saying that are kinda kind of, to me, are stimulating.

Vision Battlesword [00:10:24]:
One is that that concept of forgiveness can be unilateral. And maybe, maybe it's even true that that's the most powerful form of forgiveness. Not expecting or needing reciprocity in that. Yeah. Does that resonate for you?

Gladius Sovereign [00:10:43]:
I think that it's probably preferable in general, if there's a dispute among two people, for them to both realize that state of I forgive you for themselves and to forgive the other person for themselves, and then as an emergence of that forgiveness that they've both chosen and created for themselves, then the relationship feels more harmonious. So, yeah, I think so. I think that forgiveness, as a purely selfish act of, like, I'm doing this because I want to live in a state of forgiveness.

Vision Battlesword [00:11:19]:
Yeah. And acceptance, and maybe thereby peace. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing is about acceptance, which what you're saying to me now is sort of leading me down a path of noticing that a lot of the different things that we do when we're helping people to clear beliefs, release old stories, integrate past experiences, process emotions, and all the different kind of things that we do with our various forms of facilitation are actually all creating acceptance. That's kind of the end result. Whichever path you take, that's where the relief comes from.

Gladius Sovereign [00:12:00]:
Actually, I've never conceptualized it directly like that, and I don't think I would have previously, had I not started to experience the power of true acceptance as a shortcut to that end state. I think that what I would have previously said, and I'll be curious to hear your take on this, is that the desired end state is something like neutralization of the emotional charge tied to the past experience, tied to the belief, tied to the whatever. And once that, once the emotional charge is fully diffused out of the experience, then it carries no emotional weight, were essentially free from it at that level. That's how I was thinking about it. And then as a result of there not being any emotional charge, I look at it and I go, okay, that feels neutral.

Vision Battlesword [00:12:51]:
Cool.

Gladius Sovereign [00:12:52]:
I can move on with my life. And we could define that, the peace that that's creating, the neutrality that that's creating as acceptance. But I feel curious to hear, hear your take.

Vision Battlesword [00:13:02]:
Hmm. Well, I don't know that I agree with you, and we've kind of bumped up against this difference in perspective before. I don't know that I agree with you that there is a goal which is to remove emotional charge from one's experience or from connection to memories of past experiences or language structures, which we may call beliefs. I don't necessarily know that. I think that is the goal of, let's say, the removal of resistance or obstacles or suffering. Maybe is, I think, a better. Like a maybe. Suffering is.

Vision Battlesword [00:13:42]:
Is the word that makes the most sense to me. So it seems to me that people can experience, have a very full, rich emotional experience that does not feel like suffering. This is true even. Even when, you know, we're experiencing emotions. And it's kind of interesting because there's another conversation that I just had with Jackson where we were exploring the emotions and a reframe around the interpretation of emotions, where each and every of the, let's call it seven basic emotions, like joy, love, anger, fear, shame, guilt, and sadness and pain, can be reinterpreted as an expression of desire, which is super interesting to me. Yeah. And I've often thought that all of the emotions are valid and useful and helpful parts of our experience and ways that parts of our self communicate with each other and with our so called ego self or whatever. So I guess, you know, there can be the case that people do want to remove some specific kind of emotional charge from their life, or that they might want to change their relationship with a specific emotion or the way that they experience it, if the way they experience it is as suffering or an obstacle to their.

Vision Battlesword [00:15:14]:
To their life, an obstacle to creating the experience that they like to have for themselves. But it seems to me that coming back to acceptance, it seems to me that that is possibly this is a new idea that I'm just exploring with you in this moment. Possibly that is actually the switch that's getting flipped by a great many different modalities of therapy, counseling, self help. I can see that. Things that tend to lead to the experience of peace, which, by the way, as a quick aside, would you please define peace for me as you understand it?

Gladius Sovereign [00:15:56]:
Yes. So I see peace as a state of being where there is generally somatic relaxation and absence of contraction and tension in the physical body. Perhaps a slight sense of what could be defined as well, being or contentment in the present moment. And in my definition of peace, there's also a sense of non attachment to any particular outcome or experience. I'm just at peace with what is, regardless of what is.

Vision Battlesword [00:16:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. How is that different than acceptance?

Gladius Sovereign [00:16:37]:
How is that different than acceptance? What a question.

Vision Battlesword [00:16:40]:
Hmm.

Gladius Sovereign [00:16:43]:
I think that peace is a state of being, whereas acceptance is a verb. It is. It is. It is a doing to accept. Although I suppose one could choose to intend acceptance and then reach a state of being known as acceptance.

Vision Battlesword [00:17:09]:
I think it's used in both. I mean, I think generally speaking, we use that word both of those ways. Precisely. Yeah. Okay. No, I like that distinction, though, of acceptance as an action.

Gladius Sovereign [00:17:22]:
Yeah. I can't piece you, but I can accept you.

Vision Battlesword [00:17:26]:
That's fair.

Gladius Sovereign [00:17:27]:
That's fair, at least in our language.

Vision Battlesword [00:17:29]:
Definition, yes. You cannot to piece, but you can to accept. Yeah. Right. Okay. That makes sense. But it seems to me that there's a lot of overlap, huge in those two definitions.

Gladius Sovereign [00:17:43]:
Right. And to go off of what you were sharing earlier about, like, there's intrinsic utility, this is my reframing of it, at least. There's a lot of intrinsic utility to our emotional experience. And it's not necessarily a universal solver to just discharge emotion out of the human experience. If you do that rampantly, a lot of unforeseen consequences occur, I can attest from my direct experience. Um, whereas what is now emerging is that quite possibly this. This state of acceptance has a. Has.

Gladius Sovereign [00:18:21]:
Seems to have a curative property to it.

Vision Battlesword [00:18:24]:
Yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [00:18:25]:
And a. And a curative property which seems to accumulate a new way of being in the world where acceptance becomes the baseline for what is. And it seems to me the more times that I flex this muscle of acceptance, the more accepting I become. It's like I take on acceptance as an attribute of my consciousness, which is really cool.

Vision Battlesword [00:18:54]:
Yeah. I'm really glad that we're exploring this. I think this is really interesting and powerful and kind of, as I joked around a little bit before we started the recording, I feel like I've heard this somewhere before, like, in every, you know, major religion or enlightenment philosophy. And, you know, many, many have reflected something about acceptance or something like this. It reminds me of Buddhism. And I just want to say right now, the four. Oh, gosh, I can't remember if it's pillars or tenants. There's four different things in Buddhism.

Vision Battlesword [00:19:31]:
So many different collections of four things in Buddhism. But I believe it is the four pillars of Dharma, if I'm not mistaken, which is that all composite phenomena are impermanent. All contaminated things and events are unsatisfactory. All things and events are empty and selfless. Nirvana is true peace.

Gladius Sovereign [00:19:57]:
I would need definitions for some of those terms to fully understand, but I can grok.

Vision Battlesword [00:20:01]:
Yeah. Especially contaminated. Yeah, it's kind of a linchpin word in there to me. That's a statement about acceptance, of how things are and that they inherently will not continue to be that way. It's a statement about the acceptance of the natural state of change, that we and the entire universe exist in an ongoing evolutionary process. And so there's a kind of acceptance that I think comes from that that brings true peace, that can bring a person to true peace, to realize that whatever things are right now, they will not continue to be that way. Yeah. And also, that's true for myself as.

Gladius Sovereign [00:20:53]:
Well, and everything, as long as it's within the domain of existence.

Vision Battlesword [00:20:59]:
And the contamination, I believe, is attachment. Attachment to a wanting of things to be a particular way or a different way than they are.

Gladius Sovereign [00:21:10]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:21:12]:
And it also, you know, it brings up for me just the kind of concept of cool, like, a cool person. Like, imagine Matthew McConaughey.

Gladius Sovereign [00:21:21]:
Sure.

Vision Battlesword [00:21:21]:
Being dazed and confused. Got it. You know, just that relaxed state of, like, yeah, Mandy, it's all good. Whatever. It'd be cooler if you did. It's like, cool is a kind of state of acceptance that someone presents, that someone models. Yeah. Don't you think?

Gladius Sovereign [00:21:41]:
Yes. And by definition, it is not the same thing as acceptance as an intention. So there are meaningful distinctions between the two. However, I think that the concept of cool and just like, all right, that's cool, man. Cool conveys a very similar intent. But I think that it's like, acceptance is the real mccoy. Acceptance is, like, the pure manifestation of that intention. And cool is, like a colloquial that also has a lot of other definitions and meaning confused into it.

Vision Battlesword [00:22:15]:
That's fair. Well, yes, I think that we can use the word cool to mean something I approve of, and that's not the sense in which I'm using it. Yeah, yeah. I'm using the word cool as a description of a person and their state of being, which seems to be that they generally accept what is and are at peace with it. So, cool. Another way of saying cool is unrattled, calm, steady, present. Yeah, yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [00:22:48]:
These things.

Vision Battlesword [00:22:49]:
Yeah. And so that's what I'm kind of saying. I'm just noticing how many different ways that underlying or fundamental state or practice of acceptance, like how many tendrils it has out into our philosophies, our colloquialisms. It's, like, in the core DNA or the core programming of what we know to be true about life in the world, is that when you can reach a state of acceptance, then you can have some peace. Right? Yeah, yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [00:23:23]:
And I want to reiterate the algorithm and share, like, a very direct way in which it can be applied to immediately experience peace. So one thing that has just occurred to me is that we can welcome any emotional state that is alive within us, consciously or subconsciously. So we can literally speak the words out loud. I welcome in love, and just instantly notice, I welcome in love, and there's love immediately on command. And we can also intentionally say something like, I welcome in my deepest fear. And immediately, somatically, it's like sadness and fear, like, in my. In my left face and chest. So I'm just going to breathe for a second.

Vision Battlesword [00:24:11]:
Totally, you're right. It's like, when you say those words, our words are so powerful. You know, kind of coming back to what I was saying before about, well, to achieve a state of acceptance or forgiveness, there might be more that's required than just speaking the words. But truly speaking the words will take you very far down the path. Even just speaking them is like, you know, I welcome in my deepest fear is like picking up the phone and dialing the number for, hey, deepest fear, you want to come over?

Gladius Sovereign [00:24:39]:
Please come up.

Vision Battlesword [00:24:40]:
You are invited.

Gladius Sovereign [00:24:41]:
You're being invited into my awareness.

Vision Battlesword [00:24:44]:
Yeah, that's true.

Gladius Sovereign [00:24:45]:
So that is just an example to invoke some kind of emotional charge. There are plenty of methods that one can use to discover beliefs, stored emotions, etcetera. That's one of many. So I welcome in my deepest fear. I welcome in my deepest shame. I welcome in my deepest guilt, whatever the emotion is that you would like to experience acceptance and forgiveness of within yourself. And so when that emotion comes up, so I'll just do it in real time and speak to my direct experience of it. So I welcome in my deepest fear.

Gladius Sovereign [00:25:18]:
I notice the energy and contraction in my heart. It's like along the left side of my face and in my heart. At this point, I can choose if I desire, to seek to understand what this energy is trying to tell me and engage in a dialogue with it and see if it has any wisdom. For me, there's all kinds of processes and things that I can do with this fear and with this emotion. And for the purpose of this experience, I'm just going to focus my attention on it. So I welcome in my deepest fear, and with my attention placed on this energy, which is primarily in my head, I simply say, thank you, I love you. I accept you exactly as you are. I forgive you completely.

Vision Battlesword [00:26:05]:
And who are you speaking to right now? Are you speaking to the fear? Are you speaking to yourself?

Gladius Sovereign [00:26:09]:
You could say that I'm speaking to the fear, and I'm using the word you as though I'm speaking to another person. But I know ultimately that I'm just speaking to an aspect of myself. Does that make sense?

Vision Battlesword [00:26:25]:
Who is I?

Gladius Sovereign [00:26:26]:
Now we get into the definition of I, but in just a moment, okay, we'll define I for now. What I want to share is that in my direct experience, the fear, the instant that I intend so before the word accept has even finished coming out of my mouth, the moment that I intend to accept it, I notice just gone. That's what I notice in my experience. And I think that's really beautiful. And that happens about 85% of the time and about 15% of the time. The moment that I forgive is the moment that just.

Vision Battlesword [00:27:06]:
Bye bye. You're saying sometimes acceptance is insufficient and it requires going further to forgiveness.

Gladius Sovereign [00:27:14]:
That's how it seems to me, yeah. Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:27:17]:
How do you interpret the mechanism of what's happening in these experiences that requires.

Gladius Sovereign [00:27:23]:
Me to define I? Okay, so I alluded earlier in this conversation that when I'm saying I, what I know that I mean ultimately is that God, the eternal I, am the infinite all being. I'm using I. And knowing that I am just an expression, a fractal figment of that consciousness, I in some sense am identical to the infinite eternal all being. I am that. So that's the way that I see it. So when I say I, I don't mean the birth name Nick Runlett with a life story and a personal past. I mean the transcendent eternal creator of everything that is that I. I accept.

Vision Battlesword [00:28:21]:
You exactly as you are referring to fear, which is another different. Like a fractal within a fractal. Like a fractal, part of that fractal, yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [00:28:32]:
Yeah. So within the vast complexity of this individual consciousness that I embody, I have all kinds of stories and emotions and thoughts and feelings, and I can make a choice in any given moment to stop resisting it and to just accept it exactly as it is.

Vision Battlesword [00:28:52]:
Well, within that frame, though, how do you interpret the mechanism of what's happening within yourself, meaning that fractal piece of goddess. But how do you interpret what's happening between you and fear when fear vanishes from your experience in the light, let's say, of acceptance, or in the presence of acceptance?

Gladius Sovereign [00:29:23]:
My immediate sense is that I need more metaphysical knowledge to be able to answer this accurately, but I'll share what I'm sensing. It seems like when I accept it, I'm seeing through an illusion. It seems like I'm actually becoming aware that the emotion isn't even real and it is literally vanishing out of existence. The moment that I accept it, that's how it kind of seems from my first person view. So the idea would be something like this emotional charge is just like something that isn't real. It's something that my small ego mind identity created, and it has its attention fixed to. But maybe in the broader sense of, like, infinite, eternal consciousness in the universe, that little creation, once it becomes accepted by the infinite, eternal creation, it's just seen as something that is no longer necessary, doesn't need to exist. I'm not exactly sure about that.

Gladius Sovereign [00:30:47]:
What seems to be happening is that it's like I'm piercing through an illusion. That's what seems to be happening.

Vision Battlesword [00:30:53]:
I see. Well, you describe the emotion itself. That thing that the. You or I. Sorry. That thing that the eye is communicating with as a part of yourself. So when you accept that part, does the part disappear? Was the part itself an illusion, or is there a part there that is generating an emotion, but that emotion itself is an illusion?

Gladius Sovereign [00:31:21]:
This all depends on how you identify as a consciousness. So if you identify as the one who's having thoughts, the one who has parts, and the one who has emotions, then you experience that those thoughts and those parts and those emotions are an emergent property of you. They are part of you. But I think that what's also possible is that you can just identify as the eternal, infinite source of all being and then see from that perspective that thoughts and emotions and what we call from internal family systems, parts are just phenomena that are rising in awareness. And I identify as the awareness that is observing the temporary phenomena rising and falling with time. So I'm in this interesting transition state of identifying less and less and less as a person and identifying more with awareness itself.

Vision Battlesword [00:32:28]:
Fascinating. When you say person, you kind of. I'm interpreting that to mean, like a narrative construct.

Gladius Sovereign [00:32:34]:
Exactly right.

Vision Battlesword [00:32:35]:
Okay. Yeah, I have a slightly different interpretation. Would you like to hear it? I would. It has to do with the way I conceive of parts and feelings, by which we're using that word to mean emotions and not sensory experiences in this moment.

Gladius Sovereign [00:32:53]:
Not sensations, but emotions.

Vision Battlesword [00:32:54]:
Yeah, maybe we'll be as clear as possible about that. So the way I think of parts and emotions is, I think of. I have a very, like, kind of biological, physiological, integrated conception of human experience. So I think not just about ourselves as spiritual beings, like what you've been describing previously. I think of us as not just psychological constructs or an emergent phenomenon of an informational process. Let's just call that. But there's also, like, a very nuts and bolts biology, physiology component of it for me. So, I think about our brains and our overall thinking systems, and I use that word in plural because it seems to me that there are several independent thinking systems, and actually, even independent thinking organs in the body.

Vision Battlesword [00:34:00]:
In particular, I can see at least three different minds, and probably more than three, but I can see, at a minimum, three in the actual brain itself, left hemisphere, right hemisphere, and then what I call the survival brain, the brain stem amygdala, limbic system, hippocampus, that whole cluster of brain tissue, as an independent thinking mind. And then additionally, of course, we've been starting to learn a lot more about the neural networks in the heart and in the gut. So I see I have a five brain model of human psychology right now. I can see at least five different thinking minds that are coexisting, almost like a team in a way, like it's a team thinking process. And the different brains may have very different experiences, ways of communicating, and even perceptual systems. I think parts, a lot of times, are literal parts. I think parts, a lot of times, are different brainstor that are attempting to express themselves within this strange integration of our overall psychology. And then I believe that there is an emergent mind, which is, in a way, purely informational, that is like a meta brain, a virtual brain that emerges from all of the different interaction among the five brains.

Vision Battlesword [00:35:49]:
That thing, that virtual brain is I. That is the ego. That is the thing that thinks it is the entire brain or the entire mind, or our entire perceptual system, but it's like a virtual machine running on a cluster of servers.

Gladius Sovereign [00:36:08]:
I see. That's fascinating.

Vision Battlesword [00:36:10]:
Do you? Does it?

Gladius Sovereign [00:36:13]:
Sorry, little joke.

Vision Battlesword [00:36:14]:
This thing sees this thing sees a thing, says it sees things. Anyway, that's how. That's what I. That's the model I'm working with right now.

Gladius Sovereign [00:36:25]:
Okay.

Vision Battlesword [00:36:25]:
And so when a part comes up, I think it can be a. And I'm using computer terminology that I know you understand, but I'm just gonna. That's you and me talking, so that's how I'm gonna talk. When a part comes up, I I think it can be a shadow copy of the virtual machine that split off, or that was saved. A save game state. Yeah, you could think of it as such.

Gladius Sovereign [00:36:55]:
Got it.

Vision Battlesword [00:36:55]:
A save game state that occurred at a specific moment in lived experience when the organism was under heavy stress, heavy trauma, peak experience, all different reasons why the system may decide to create a copy, a save state at that point in time that we may want to come back to later. And I also think that a part can be another physical brain, almost like one of the computers in the cluster that is surfacing a message, you know, an error message, a warning message, new insight, informational message, whatever. And these different systems may communicate to us in very different ways. But in particular, it seems to me that we have one physical brain that has kind of ownership of the language program, the left hemisphere of the physical brain structure. All the other brains have to communicate in some other way, and those other ways are often, well, those other ways are all of the different aspects of our experience that doesn't come through in.

Gladius Sovereign [00:38:09]:
Words, in language constructs, felt sense, imaginal, like imagery.

Vision Battlesword [00:38:14]:
Correct. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And emotional. Yeah, emotional. So that's my model. When I'm encountering a part in myself or in anyone else that I may be playing with, or an emotional charge, as you call it, I look at it through the lens of, there's something here that has a message for me, whether that's a message from the past, a past version of me, a past copy of me, or whether that's a message from the present coming from another one of my thinking systems. Someone. Somebody.

Vision Battlesword [00:38:54]:
There's somebody here that wants me to know something, to hear something, or that just wants to be witnessed, that wants their presence to be known. And that experience of releasing the emotional charge that you describe to me is when that part feels that its message has been received. In other words, hey, virtual ego, ive got a message for you. The message is fear. We may or may not. It may or may not be helpful to get in touch with. What specifically is that fear about? Sometimes, maybe the part or the. Let's just call it.

Vision Battlesword [00:39:34]:
But they're all parts, so the part doesn't need you to know what it's about. There doesn't need to be a reason. There doesn't need to be meaning. It's just, I got some fear for you. And when you, you. The ego. When the ego fully receives that and says, okay, I hear you, you got fear. Is there anything else? Sometimes.

Vision Battlesword [00:39:56]:
That's it. Nope, that's it.

Gladius Sovereign [00:39:57]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [00:39:57]:
Thank you for listening. Yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [00:39:59]:
And then the experience of that fear sometimes just dissipates on its own.

Vision Battlesword [00:40:03]:
Oftentimes. Yeah, oftentimes it dissipates. I mean, I share your experience, and I've guided people through that experience many times. And sometimes also, I think that those emotional charges or messages do actually have meaningful information to convey. And sometimes, if they're not going away, there could be a further conversation that could be fruitful between you ego and part other part of your brain or past version of you where there's something that that part really wants you to actually integrate, actually internalize in terms of what it feels is important either to our safety, our thriving, our flourishing pursuing of joy, whatever it is that that part desires.

Gladius Sovereign [00:40:54]:
Ultimately.

Vision Battlesword [00:40:55]:
What do you think about that?

Gladius Sovereign [00:40:57]:
Yeah, I think that there's a whole life path that can be created from just continuously expanding the self awareness of navigating internal relationships with these different thinking systems and these different parts. And the more information that we glean from those parts, what I've experienced is that there can be a baseline level of trust that starts to become established in the relationship. And when there's that baseline level of trust in that relationship, the information is even more fluid in its bi directional flow. So initially, if one comes in and says, hey, part, you're invalid, and this belief that you're holding is stupid, stop it. That part can get actually like defensive and want to hold on tighter right to the thing. Just like a normal fucking person.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:54]:
Just like a normal person.

Gladius Sovereign [00:41:55]:
Just like a normal fucking person. Totally.

Vision Battlesword [00:41:58]:
It's just like when you're dealing with your parts, you know, ask yourself, how would you want to be treated?

Gladius Sovereign [00:42:02]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Vision Battlesword [00:42:04]:
Your parts probably feel the same way.

Gladius Sovereign [00:42:06]:
Exactly. And I think that this is part of why perhaps this medicine of acceptance and forgiveness is so immediately useful and practical. It's just there's no intention to change. I think that so much of what I was doing in my initial creation of sovereign mind is I don't like this experience. I want to get rid of it.

Vision Battlesword [00:42:33]:
I'll own that.

Gladius Sovereign [00:42:35]:
I want to get rid of it. And that can produce a result of the cessation of that particular experience. But there can be, there isn't always a cost associated. One of the costs associated is the loss of an opportunity to gain self. Self awareness and self respect through the conversation with the part that created the belief in the first place. Yeah, that's one dimension of it. And now what I'm starting to see is that through going at it, at that approach, and only that approach for so long, there was also an opportunity cost to experience genuine self acceptance, which could have produced seemingly the same end result that I was desiring, but through a way more loving lens that's less like command, control, delete, and more welcome love, accept.

Vision Battlesword [00:43:34]:
I think it's key to, and I'm open to whether or not you actually agree with what I'm about to say, but I think it's key to this conversation. To say. For me to say that a state of acceptance or enacting the action of acceptance does not inherently mean that we don't desire for things to be different, does it?

Gladius Sovereign [00:43:57]:
It's also not synonymous with agreement.

Vision Battlesword [00:44:00]:
Yeah, that's a better way of saying it. Or, yeah, there's lots of different things. You could say validation. You could say agreement. You could say apathy. You know, I think there's different things that have, from time to time, been associated with. Well, and you used the language earlier in the conversation. I can't accept that.

Gladius Sovereign [00:44:20]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:44:20]:
I would put it, you know, I would. I would challenge anyone to consider that. Perhaps you can. Yeah. Accept it. And you don't have to own it. You don't have to agree with it. You don't have to take responsibility for it.

Vision Battlesword [00:44:32]:
Yeah. You can still desire to pursue change and transformation or evolution or altering your circumstances, even while you are in a state of acceptance of whatever it is that is the current state.

Gladius Sovereign [00:44:47]:
Can we define acceptance?

Vision Battlesword [00:44:49]:
I wanted to ask that earlier. Let's do that.

Gladius Sovereign [00:44:51]:
Yeah. I think acceptance has something to do with acknowledging that this exists, and my relationship with the simple truth that this exists is non oppositional.

Vision Battlesword [00:45:09]:
Hmm. That's really good. I think that's really getting to the heart of what acceptance actually is. Acceptance is almost a form of honesty, in a way. Oh gosh, I'm trying to. How do I do this without using the word acceptance?

Gladius Sovereign [00:45:25]:
Define meaning when I use the word meaning.

Vision Battlesword [00:45:27]:
Sorry. I think the word you used was acknowledge, and I think that's correct. It's an acknowledgement of the truth. It's an acknowledgement of the facts of reality as I best can sense them, as I best can understand them in this moment. And, yeah, that secondary piece is super important. I'm not in opposition to knowing that this is true. It's not to say that I wouldn't choose to change the state of affairs if I have the power to do so. But I'm not denying that it's real.

Gladius Sovereign [00:46:01]:
That's a key component of it. And it's this. How do you even put this into words? So I want to use, like, a hyperbolic example to help hone in on this definition. Let's say that you have a neighbor and their neighbor, you hear them yelling at their kids and calling them names and whipping them with sticks and shit. And there's, like, judgments that come up that that's wrong. How could you? Why. Why are they treating those poor kids? All of these things come up. And to accept that person who is doing that to their kids doesn't mean that I'm, like, right on the edge of it.

Gladius Sovereign [00:46:45]:
It doesn't mean that you condone or agree with their parenting practices.

Vision Battlesword [00:46:50]:
Yeah. To accept is not necessarily to condone, for sure.

Gladius Sovereign [00:46:54]:
It also doesn't mean that you can't go up to them and knock on their door one day and say, hey, I notice hearing this, and I'm just wondering, like, what's. What's happening for you in your life? And, like, engaging in a. In a conversation with them with an intention and desire to see change occur.

Vision Battlesword [00:47:18]:
Yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [00:47:19]:
At some level, like, so. So those things can both coexist and there can be a state of acceptance within myself that. Okay. At this specific geolocation in the universe, this phenomenon is happening.

Vision Battlesword [00:47:35]:
Right, right. Or at some other place and time in my life. This thing did happen. Yeah, it did happen.

Gladius Sovereign [00:47:45]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:47:45]:
And all of the facts of that particular experience I acknowledge as true. That's really the key. I mean, that's the key that we're really honing in on here, is it's that internal self acceptance which we can hold all of the different meanings of that self acceptance in that I accept myself self acceptance in that my acceptance occurs here within myself. My acceptance of anything is an aspect of self acceptance. And then if you want to go all the way metaphysical with it, well, we're all God, and I'm a fractal piece of the infinite, and so everything is part of myself. But. But then there's also the flip side of the word where it means something about to receive, like in a transaction. I'm sorry, I don't accept.

Vision Battlesword [00:48:36]:
Discover card or I don't. I'm I'm not. I'm not open to accepting your gift. I'm not. I don't accept. So there's an actual, physical, tangible sense of the word accept, which is to choose to receive. Yeah. And that's tied up in the concept somehow too, I think.

Gladius Sovereign [00:48:55]:
So I think that's actually also a part of the non oppositional nature of it.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:00]:
Yes, I receive. I choose to receive this truth.

Gladius Sovereign [00:49:03]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's allowing it in with no opposition and no resistance. And so I fully accept you exactly as you are.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:12]:
Okay. Right. But then there's the phrase like, this is not acceptable. I cannot accept this behavior in our relationship.

Gladius Sovereign [00:49:21]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:22]:
I will not accept disrespect. Sure, whatever. Yeah. That's kind of a statement of. So. Hmm. When we say that, I think what we're really saying, if we're not actively denying the facts of reality, which would be, I think, counterproductive to one's own well being. Well being.

Vision Battlesword [00:49:44]:
Thank you. What we're really saying is I insist on changing my own experience.

Gladius Sovereign [00:49:52]:
Yeah, yeah. That's, in a sense, what it means to not accept. I'm not willing to accept this now moment. I'm not willing to accept this experience, and so I will do something to change it.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:03]:
But there's something self defeating in that. There's something counterproductive in that because wouldn't it be more productive to say, I accept what's happening in this moment and also I am not going to continue to be a part of it or.

Gladius Sovereign [00:50:20]:
Yeah, I think that's a quote unquote, superior path than willingly resisting the now moment, which is always exactly what it is, whether or not you resist it or nothing. So it's just siphoning off a portion of your life force energy into the willful act of resistance of the moment is just less preferable as a strategy than just accepting it, having your full power preserved in that acceptance and then making a new choice.

Vision Battlesword [00:50:54]:
Yeah. So in the light of that receiving component about the word acceptance, then kind of the core definition would be to willingly receive reality into your present moment experience.

Gladius Sovereign [00:51:11]:
Yes.

Vision Battlesword [00:51:12]:
That's acceptance. And what creates suffering many times is that active resistance to reality. In other words, reality is coming in whether you like it or not.

Gladius Sovereign [00:51:24]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:51:24]:
We could do this the easy way or the hard way.

Gladius Sovereign [00:51:26]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We could do this the way of pressing down the emotion and then wrapping a spell around it and keeping it stuck in the. The energy body. And that game can be played indefinitely. There is no end to that game. It's by choosing to welcome that energy back into our awareness and say, thank you, I love you, I accept you exactly as you are, that all of that stored up energy just seems to just be freed up, returned to the self.

Vision Battlesword [00:52:00]:
Yeah. We store and spend a lot of energy in resistance to reality. Yeah. Denial of reality in a way. Like, whether that's a past experience that we've got. We've wrapped an emotional charge around or that got packaged in an emotional charge at some point. That emotional component almost is sort of like, it's a strategy for protecting ourself from the truth of that reality.

Gladius Sovereign [00:52:31]:
In so many cases.

Vision Battlesword [00:52:32]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [00:52:34]:
In other cases, it's a strategy to have some kind of need met in terms of the desire framing of, like, well, I'm holding on to this fear because I want to be loved. I'm holding on to this anger because I don't want to be hurt, which means I want to be safe. And it's. I'm holding on, holding on, holding on, holding on. Whereas there's a new way, which is an ancient way. It's not at all a new way.

Vision Battlesword [00:53:02]:
It's like the way it probably has been referred to as the way. Yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [00:53:09]:
In many philosophies. And I think that the only thing that is new, quote unquote, that I'm at least new in my awareness, is that, like, up until now, acceptance has been the. This thing of, like. Yeah, sure. I accept myself. Yeah. I accept things the way they are.

Vision Battlesword [00:53:25]:
Sure.

Gladius Sovereign [00:53:26]:
Great. And it's this very heady intellectual. There's no depth to it. And I think that the new dimension of depth is really bringing the emotional, bringing the experiential charge into the awareness. So if I'm in dispute, if I'm in conflict with someone and I go home at the end of the day and I see their face and I'm like, fucking. They did me wrong, all of that. So there's the mental image of their being that I'm tying all of this frustration and shit to. And I'm doing that.

Gladius Sovereign [00:54:05]:
They're not doing it to me. I'm doing that to myself. And instead of just like, I'll sleep it off or whatever, bringing it through intention, welcoming that charge, that experience and looking at that person. Oh, some part of me doesn't want to accept and forgive. So hold on. Let me look at that real quick. I accept and forgive you. I love you.

Gladius Sovereign [00:54:27]:
Thank you for your wisdom, etcetera. Okay, now I come back to you. I accept you. And I forgive you exactly as you are.

Vision Battlesword [00:54:33]:
Thank you. Well, I think that's. That's exactly the kind of intuition or realization that I've been having through this conversation that I was. That I was trying to speak to earlier is that all of these different things that we do are different strategies and tools and techniques and modalities for helping people and helping ourselves to clear out the layers of denial of reality that are standing between us and just. Sorry.

Gladius Sovereign [00:55:10]:
I knew that was going to happen at some point.

Vision Battlesword [00:55:12]:
Oh, that's a 1224 alarm to remind.

Gladius Sovereign [00:55:15]:
Me that I am creating this moment.

Vision Battlesword [00:55:20]:
I'm definitely leaving that in. It's all about getting to acceptance of what is all of the stuff we do, reframing, turn around, clearing out story, clearing out meaning. All of the different things that we're doing is we're just pulling away the layers until we get to the truth.

Gladius Sovereign [00:55:45]:
Right.

Vision Battlesword [00:55:46]:
And then accept. And then just know that that is true. And then poof. Right? It's like, okay, it doesn't mean I have to forget about it. It doesn't mean that I'm never going to feel anything in relation to it before, but I have peace with it.

Gladius Sovereign [00:55:59]:
Exactly. Yeah, I'm starting to see that. I'm starting to see that.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:04]:
It's really interesting.

Gladius Sovereign [00:56:05]:
It's so funny that I had to go through my own three plus year journey, exploration into all of this before this new awareness. I was actually willing to let it in and receive it and experience it. And now that I'm in the practice of doing it every day, I'm not really doing belief work for myself anymore. I'm finding this to be a more valuable pursuit, which is why I'm like putting all of sovereign mind into question. Like, well, what the hell do I do now? So it's a fun, existential place to be in, and I accept it.

Vision Battlesword [00:56:48]:
Wow. Yeah. Wow. This has been so rich. Well, I got one more little quick thing, which is, what do you think about in my model, the model that I articulated before about kind of the different kinds of parts and how our imagery, intuitions, emotions and felt sensations can be the language, literally, that those parts use to speak to each other, to speak to our meta ego, if you will, insofar as when we've got a stored memory that's wrapped in an emotional charge, and then every time that memory gets triggered or the pattern associated with that gets triggered or whatever, that we re experience that charge. Okay. An analogy or metaphor for that, the wrapping that emotional or that intuitional or that sensory whatever, that wrapping, that packaging of that shadow copy is like a message in a bottle. It's like, it's like a letter that was written to you by a part of yourself that was, that had the forefront of your consciousness at the time that was happening, whether it was your, you know, your limbic system jumped into control.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:08]:
Gosh, it just happened to me right now. Oh my God, that's amazing. Goosebumps all over my body when I said that. Your limbic system jumps into control and you go into fight or flight and it's doing its thing and it's like, okay, I'm going to write a real quick letter to future. You put it in this envelope called this packaged memory associated with fear and pain and all of these visual images or whatever. Boop. And I'm going to leave that for you to read later because right now is not the time. But there's something, there's something important information here that we want to not forget.

Vision Battlesword [00:58:45]:
That is going to be important to you later. And then the same thing can happen in a peak experience of joy. The same thing can happen in a peak experience of anger, shame, or anything else or things that are non emotional, but that, like, these are messages that have been left for us sealed up in a little envelope, wrapped in that. Wrapped in that specific emotional packaging. And the process of acceptance is choosing to, instead of every time you see that envelope and going like, ooh, nope, not today. Instead of doing that, you actually choose.

Gladius Sovereign [00:59:21]:
I'll reach for another bottle instead of that one.

Vision Battlesword [00:59:24]:
Yes, yes, yes. Not today, Satan, as they say. Instead of that, you actually choose to go ahead and open that letter and read it fully. And once that process is done, then you can put it in your filing cabinet, and I it no longer. But discard the envelope. You can discard the envelope and just put the information of that memory of that lesson, of that new awareness that you gained, like that call that the process of integration. Taking the emotion or they taking the informational content. Putting in your filing cabinet is the process of integration.

Vision Battlesword [00:59:59]:
Now, you can discard the envelope. What do you think about that?

Gladius Sovereign [01:00:02]:
I like that. And you can discard the bottle. And the visual metaphor that extends for me is like, there's a finite number of bottles clanking around in our system, in our memory bank, and they cause a lot of noise. Clanking, clinking, clinking, and continuously sending up little signals that, like, hey, why don't I subtly hear clinkle clanks every day of my life? What is it? But it's signaling, like, hey, there's something unaddressed and unresolved within myself that actually requires my attention for a moment. And the more times that we actually just welcome that experience into the forefront of our awareness and read the message that lives within it, we can start decluttering and recycling those bottles. They go off. They serve a benevolent purpose. We retain the information from the experience, and we can file it wherever we choose.

Gladius Sovereign [01:00:57]:
And then we're not subtly, oh, there's no clinking. My mind is quiet now.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:03]:
Yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [01:01:04]:
As a result of continuing this practice.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:06]:
Yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [01:01:07]:
So, yeah, I see it as highly beneficial. And the idea of there being multiple, multiple brains mapping onto multiple parts, I'd be curious to tease apart that in some other conversation, because there seems to be some people who go through a lot of trauma. They got more than five parts, right? Oh, yeah, for sure.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:30]:
Oh, yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [01:01:31]:
And I'm sure that in some version of this model, multiple virtual machines can live on one host, right?

Vision Battlesword [01:01:39]:
Yeah.

Gladius Sovereign [01:01:40]:
So that I'm sure.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:43]:
Right. Just to be clear, I completely agree with that. And when I'm talking about the five, I'm talking about the five brains.

Gladius Sovereign [01:01:51]:
Got it.

Vision Battlesword [01:01:52]:
There's probably more than five. I could see breaking down some of those brains into more brains in the same way that we take the one brain and break it into three. I think it could be more than three. But anyway, those would be. In the computer analogy, those would be the physical hosts. The physical brains. Yes. Each of which, each brain can represent a part.

Gladius Sovereign [01:02:18]:
Yes.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:19]:
But then in the virtualization layer created on that cluster, we can have lots, dozens, maybe hundreds.

Gladius Sovereign [01:02:30]:
Yeah, yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:31]:
They're drawing virtual parts.

Gladius Sovereign [01:02:32]:
Exactly. They're drawing their compute, maybe from the whole cluster.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:37]:
Right.

Gladius Sovereign [01:02:37]:
But they're their own abstraction in the virtual machine.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:40]:
Precisely. And we just so happen to have the. Okay, we're getting real geeky now. Okay. The virtual center virtual machine on the cluster, the management VM.

Gladius Sovereign [01:02:53]:
Okay, got it.

Vision Battlesword [01:02:55]:
The management VM thinks that it is the whole person.

Gladius Sovereign [01:02:59]:
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Because that's what it would think. Right. That's great.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:05]:
And all it knows is it's like, wow, I'm getting log messages from here. I'm getting log messages from there. Oh, that's very interesting. But I am, of course, the whole universe.

Gladius Sovereign [01:03:14]:
Yeah, exactly.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:15]:
Yeah. That's my model. That's the way I think of it.

Gladius Sovereign [01:03:18]:
I love it.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:19]:
Well, I'm curious if you would. This is kind of make things real, like, very real for us, you and me, right now. Would you like to practice some acceptance and forgiveness?

Gladius Sovereign [01:03:34]:
I would.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:35]:
In our relationship? That'd be great.

Gladius Sovereign [01:03:37]:
Yeah, I welcome that.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:39]:
How do. Yes.

Gladius Sovereign [01:03:40]:
Okay, cool.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:41]:
How do we do that?

Gladius Sovereign [01:03:41]:
I'll come a little closer.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:42]:
Okay.

Gladius Sovereign [01:03:44]:
I'll just, like, invite a couple of breaths to just kind of, like, ground and center for myself. Feel free to join me.

Vision Battlesword [01:03:51]:
Yeah, I'm with you.

Gladius Sovereign [01:04:03]:
Yeah. And welcoming. Any. Any felt sense, any emotion, any thought, any image, all experience is perfectly welcome because it's all going to be accepted anyway. So I'll now open my eyes and look at you, and I'll just speak.

Vision Battlesword [01:04:32]:
For my true self.

Gladius Sovereign [01:04:36]:
Thank you. I love you. I accept you exactly as you are, and I forgive you completely.

Vision Battlesword [01:05:00]:
Glad I witness you. I love you. I fully accept you exactly as you are for who you are, and I forgive you for anything and everything. Yeah, I received that. Thanks, brother.

Gladius Sovereign [01:05:26]:
Thank you. That was beautiful.

Vision Battlesword [01:05:29]:
That really works. Yeah, it really works.

Gladius Sovereign [01:05:32]:
I feel so curious how that was for you.

Vision Battlesword [01:05:33]:
That's great.

Gladius Sovereign [01:05:34]:
Yeah.

Vision Battlesword [01:05:35]:
Yeah. That's great. Thanks for this conversation, man.

Gladius Sovereign [01:05:41]:
Thank you.

Vision Battlesword [01:05:41]:
This was really cool.

Gladius Sovereign [01:05:42]:
What a joyous.