A Mason's Work

[00:00] If you listen to the most recent episodes, you will probably remember that you, by the end of the week, through working through your inner lodge, were able to name a fear.
[00:13] Something that was subconsciously controlling your behavior, that through sitting and doing that internal lodge work, you were able to surface.
[00:25] And so we want to capitalize on that work.
[00:30] It's not easy.
[00:31] You did some very difficult things last week if you were following along.
[00:36] And today we want to capitalize on that in a meaningful way.
[00:40] And the first place we have to go, actually, and somewhat surprising, is the tiler stationed outside.
[00:49] That guarding responsibility that we all have for some of the things that happen in our everyday lives.
[00:58] That guard of the internal safe space.
[01:05] And the tiler does that for the physical lodge.
[01:08] It also does that kind of for the mental lodge.
[01:12] He doesn't, you know, he sits and he works, right, on determining what disturbances get a knock on the door.
[01:25] Right?
[01:26] So, he would protect the lodge.
[01:29] And also, in the event that something deserves entry or should be considered for entry, he knocks on the door.
[01:38] This is what the physical function is.
[01:40] And the mental function is the same.
[01:43] By naming that fear, we were able to alert kind of all of our sort of internal selves, internal responsibilities to what's going on.
[01:55] Now, let's tell the story of two different Tylers.
[01:59] The first tiler would be the one who, in response to being, you know, naming that fear that we've discovered, naming that thing, went absolutely crazy.
[02:14] And rather than controlling themselves, threw the door to the lodge wide open.
[02:23] I don't, you know, they would say, well, you know, I don't want to deny access to anything.
[02:32] I want everything that should make it into the lodge to do so.
[02:37] In order to do that, I'm not going to have any discernment whatsoever.
[02:40] And what happens there is the wrong influences get into that internal lodge, into that internal headscape.
[02:48] And the lodge is basically flooded at that point.
[02:52] It's almost like the tiler wasn't even there.
[02:54] He had abandoned his post and everything got in.
[02:59] The second sort of iteration or version of that tiler would be the person who felt vulnerable by naming that fear.
[03:09] And hated it.
[03:12] Hated it so much that they closed the doors to the lodge completely.
[03:16] That nothing was allowed entry.
[03:19] Not the fear.
[03:20] Not the things in the world that even looked like it.
[03:23] Or anything that raised the internal alarm of any kind.
[03:28] That tiler shut that door.
[03:30] And the lodge stayed sort of dark.
[03:32] The problem with that, of course, should be obvious as well.
[03:37] That the lodge can't be so fortified that even legitimate sort of information can't enter.
[03:44] These rogue tilers, these kind of approaches to the tilering process of managing your own attention and managing your own internal lodge,
[03:54] are very difficult.
[03:56] They look like they're opposites, but they come from the same place.
[03:59] It's that fear informing the operation of the tiler and the tiler sort of going on autopilot.
[04:08] If you think about it, it's either fear of everything or clamping down on the world such that you get no access.
[04:19] And that's kind of the same thing.
[04:21] It's the same root cause, just different responses to it.
[04:24] In the lodge, the tiler can't make that decision unilaterally, typically, right?
[04:31] He operates under the authority of the Worshipful Master.
[04:33] And one of the things that you'll find in your internal lodge is you will claim agency,
[04:38] or an attempt to claim agency, over these rogue capacities that you have by setting some goals.
[04:45] So at the end of last week, hopefully, we had the stated desire to have more courage.
[04:51] And you can't let the tiler kind of interpret what that means.
[04:55] When moments arise in your everyday life where the opportunity to be courageous comes in,
[05:05] we have to both be mindful and aware of those things as they come up
[05:11] and allow them to enter through the various sort of mental faculties that we have
[05:16] so we can work on them.
[05:20] If nothing gets in, you can't.
[05:22] So I know today seemed kind of abstract by comparison,
[05:28] but the idea here is that all of these things that we have,
[05:32] all of this bit of education that we get in lodge is designed to create this capacity
[05:37] so that you can direct what you want to do in terms of your objectives
[05:42] and then use these functions to help you achieve them.
[05:46] So get control over your inner tiler,
[05:48] allow the right stuff in,
[05:51] and begin the work.
[05:53] Think about the last time you just sort of rejected something out of hat
[05:57] because it never had a name before.
[06:01] Now that you have a name for it, you can say,
[06:03] oh wait, that's that thing I was afraid of happening.
[06:06] Maybe I can take action.
[06:09] Maybe I can behave differently.
[06:11] We'll talk a little bit more about what that means in the upcoming episodes.
[06:14] Thank you.