What is a Good Life? #21
Beyond The Illusion Of Self with Katrijn van Oudheusden
On the 21st episode of the "What is a Good Life?" podcast, I am joined by Katrijn van Oudheusden, who is the author of "Selfless Leadership," a writer, coach, and guide. Her work focuses on helping you see through the illusion of the separate self.
In this episode, Katrijn takes us on an exploration and investigation of the paradigm of the separate self. She references neuroscience, physics, and the traditions of Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, etc., which have been saying for centuries that there is no separate self (see clip below).
Katrijn shares her own path in coming to this realisation and how this awareness leads to a life of freedom, where everything has meaning, and where one doesn't take things so personally or feel small and disconnected.
I found this conversation to be captivating, challenging, and enlivening. Regardless of the beliefs you hold, this episode will be a valuable tool in your own investigation of reality and what a good life means to you.
The weekly clip from the podcast (7 mins), my weekly reflection (2 mins), the full podcast (59 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
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2. My weekly reflection
I found this conversation with Katrijn to coincide in a timely manner with a number of my own investigations into reality. Whether it has been exploring quantum physics, observing the nature and origin of my thoughts and emotions, having psychedelic experiences, conducting an experiment where I lived under the assumption that free will doesn't exist for a couple of months, there is something about our accepted sense of reality as a separate self that doesn't ring true to me.
Without delving too deep into these investigations, I believe that taking our own experience of life to be so personal is a perspective that leads to suffering. We judge, love, laugh, get angry, say the kindest things, say the meanest things, and much of this continues in a loop or is part of our hardwiring.
It doesn't mean that we don't take accountability or allow ourselves to grow. In my experience, not doing so only leads to more suffering. However, up to a certain point, there is something about this human experience that is to be accepted rather than constantly attempting to rewire or override it.
While recently, I have noticed the more I hold in my awareness, the harder it is to take personally. For example, I have stresses in my life with a baby arriving later this year and a career to make progress in, there is uncertainty, and yet there is also huge curiosity, love for my work, laughs with my wife, walks with my dog, leaves are blowing in the wind, a feeling of connection with the world persists - all of it is present at the same time.
The more I hold in awareness, I don’t override, reframe, or mitigate a 'negative' feeling or experience with a 'positive' one, they simply all exist simultaneously, and while all these feelings are experienced, given the vast number of things I experience, it makes it difficult to take one of them in particular so personally, or as the dominant point of experience in my life.
3. Full Episode - Beyond The Illusion of Self with Katrijn van Oudheusden - What is a Good Life? Ep. #21
Click here for Apple and Google.
4. This week’s Questions
Is there a moment or experience in your life that you felt truly connected to everything and everyone?
Thought experiment: how would your relationship with yourself change, or your perception of yourself and others, if there was unequivocally no free will?
About Me
I am a Coach based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I left behind a 15-year career in Capital Markets after I became extremely curious around answering some of the bigger questions in life. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 150 people, to provide people with the space to reflect on their own lives and to create content that would spark people’s own inquiry into this question. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience, beyond the facades we typically project.
If you would like to work with me, or you simply want to get in touch, here’s my email and LinkedIn.