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b"Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com\\n\\xa0\\nS3E21 TRANSCRIPT:----more----\\n\\xa0\\nYucca: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm one of your hosts Yucca.\\xa0\\nMark: And I'm the other one.\\nYucca: And this episode, we're talking about adversity. So some of what's going on in the world right now, personal adversity, how we can deal with that, address that, and, really all those topics surrounding that.\\nMark: Yeah, every week as we talk about what we're going to discuss. The, the challenge of these times really comes to us. And it's not that other times haven't had their own challenges because they certainly have, but the challenges that face these times that we're living in right now are so extreme and so severe.\\nAnd so ubiquitous that even, even. People who are generally pretty privileged are still impacted by them. Only, only the, the fabulously wealthy are able to sort of skate on being impacted by the things that are, that are putting pressure on us humans, as we try to live our daily lives. And so we thought.\\nThat it would be good to kind of come at this head on this week and talk about adversity and approaches to it and how our spiritual and ritual practices can help us with that.\\nAnd just kind of trying to map out the territory a little bit on what it feels like when you feel threatened, when. When bad things are happening and they hurt and they scare you.\\nAnd and you're, you're challenged in knowing what to do.\\xa0\\nYucca: Yeah. So one of the things that we could start with is thinking about when you are faced with adversity, with taking a look at. And really honestly, examining what's going on and what components you have control over and which ones you don't, because we can take things really personal sometimes that, you had no control over that forest fire or that hurricane or.\\nRealistically the, the state of the economy, you as an individual, that's what the Stoics would call inconsequential. Right? Not that it doesn't matter, but that you don't control it. You don't have direct influence over it. But there are some things that you do have control over, your responses.\\nYeah.\\nMark: Right. And being able to make that differentiation, having the discernment is really important. And some of what's required for that is to be able to step back emotionally a little bit, kind of call them the, the, the panic feelings and, or, or the hurt feelings.\\xa0\\nYucca: Which takes practice.\\nMark: It does take practice. And, you know, the grounding procedures that we've talked about here on this podcast, many times are super useful for that meditation entering into ritual, trance states.\\nAll of those things can really help you with. Being able to step back and take a dispassionate, look as much as possible at the circumstances that you're in and then really try to sift out, Okay.\\nthis is stuff I have some impact over. This is stuff that I can influence. This is stuff that's beyond my control.\\nAnd I, I either that, or it's only very marginally within my control. And so as I approached this adversity, I'm going to put most of my effort into the things that I actually have a lot of influence over. Right. I can affect my own behavior. I can affect my own mentality. And part of what, what is required to get to that decision is to abandon narratives that have to do with personal failure, personal lack of worthiness or, or a general sort of despair at the nature of the world, because all of those are very disempowering.\\nYou know, if, if you're, if the place that you're stuck in confronting an adverse situation is why does this always happen to me or It's hopeless. The world is just like that. Then it's very difficult for you to be able to make any changes that are going to improve your situation. So that involves working with that inner critic voice and with your own, self-esteem all the kinds of things we've been talking about throughout this podcast.\\nYou know, relationships feed us"