You Are Invaluable: Real Horizons, Horses, and Apples

Ever get a recommendation letter that called you "invaluable" and wonder... "hmmm...is that actually a good thing? Turns out, it is! And the word means two opposite things: exceeding all value, and completely worthless.

In this episode, we’re talking about the trap of letting the world put a price tag on you and the invitation to be "truly beyond value aka worth-less." Whether it's a grading system at school, an athletic critique, or the heavy crown of celebrity, we are constantly being measured, valued, and devalued.

Sharing stories from working with horses, a powerful Taoist fable, and a classic piece of grounding advice from Jerry Garcia, Hilary breaks down why you need to step off the shelf and stop playing games with your value.

You aren't a system to be managed. You are beyond measurement. You are invaluable.

Hilary’s homework for you: Go blast your favorite Grateful Dead track and dance it out.

Watch or listen to Hilary's TEDx talk now 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

You know, this whole thing about testimonials and recommendations. And I remember one of the first recommendations I ever got was from a director I had worked for, and I was the assistant to the director. And I was moving on to a new job position or a school or so forth. And I was asked to get a recommendation by this director. And um it was an open recommendation, which meant that I got to read it right, you know, as soon as as soon as it was written, and then I would be delivering it. It was like a good faith, you know, honor code recommendation. And what a gift that was. Because I'll never forget the first line of the recommendation, which was Hillary is an invaluable part of our team. And the funny thing is, is that I paused and was confused because I was like, invaluable part, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Like, is that good or bad? And I I um soon afterwards allowed myself to embrace the the languaging of it and hope that the people I was applying for the job to could hear the languaging of it. I was just really hoping that they would see invaluable as being like, she's helpful, she's a great member of the team, and so forth. But it always stuck with me that moment of of confusion, right? I was like, what does it mean to be invaluable? Is this a good or a bad recommendation? Was my question, basically. Well, years and years later, um, I was remembering it as I put together um today's episode, which is going to be about value and devaluing and hypervalue and putting value, it's just been a huge, huge theme in my work and in my life and in my observations, helping others and helping myself these days. And it came to the conclusion that I better look it up. So I looked it up, and it turns out if you look up the word invaluable, it does mean two things. One means exceeding all value, meaning like invaluable. You can't put a value on it because it exceeds all value. That's amazing. And it also means worthless. It also means you can't put a value on it because it has no worth, worthless. Interesting, right? So interesting. So I know that my fantastic director, who is just a fabulous human being, who actually introduced me to the work of Joseph Campbell, meant it in the first way, which was just the most lovely use of language, which was Hillary exceeds value. You can't put a value on her. Nonetheless, I'm going to write a recommendation. What a beautiful way to write a recommendation. And I I invite you all to use that language when you're writing a glowing rec recommendation to a young person who might need a step up and to be described in this world as you're helping them get into the school of their choice and do what they want to do. All right. That being said, I am so excited to go deep into this idea of what it means to be valued because what we want to be is beyond any value. The other day I was lucky enough to have access to, I'm just gonna put a word out there that actually does put a value out there, but it was a beautiful horse. I don't know if there's any such thing as a non-beautiful horse. I wouldn't like to think that. Um, so let me just try again. The other day I get to spend time with a horse. My dear friend um has a horse and she's grooming this horse, and she needs to take care of this horse. And in order to spend time with her, quality time with her, she handed me a couple of brushes and she said, You can groom this horse. And I was like, What an honor. And it started off with me having a healthy respect and a little bit of fear, and it ended with just us being best buddies, and I just so honored being in the presence of this beautiful soul and having my heart near the heart of this horse. No intention to ride, no intention to do anything except just be in the presence of the horse and be honored to be able to brush the horse while my friend uh cleaned the hoofs and and just cared for this beautiful horse. Okay. It reminded me of another story, though, because when I was in the presence of this horse recently, I felt the awe of being in the presence of some other amazing soul being who I did not speak the same language. Horse people, I think, will say that they kind of speak the same language, right? Even though we're different species. But I'm not that. So I really didn't even know what the what the little twitches and the little movements meant. I've been around horses when I was younger, and I think I I have a comfort around them, but I also have a deep humility, knowing we don't speak the same language. And it reminded me of a story when I was asked to do uh healing on a horse who was cribbing. I may have spoken about this in an earlier episode. Cribbing is uh when a horse is uh under a great deal of stress and they're chewing against the side of a stable and there it's gonna hurt their neck, it wears down their teeth, the stable gets like the the wooden stable gets uh bitten into over and over again, and it's a sign of deep distress. And the um horse's owner, I say that respectfully because of we'll talk more about value and worth and who owns who in this world, but the horse's owner wanted me to help, so I was more than happy to help. I was volunteering at this uh farm years ago anyway. So I I I I was put into the stall with this large horse, which I was taught as a little one to never ever be in the same stall with a horse, never mind, never be behind a horse. And it was just me and the four four walls and a big horse. And the horse wasn't just uh standing there, the horse was agitated and was cribbing, so the head was going back and forth, back and forth. But I just trusted for good or bad, all of you people who work closely with horses, you might have been like, What were you doing, Hill? Like you might have wanted to like not do that, but I I just trusted and I I uh got a beautiful story and a beautiful lesson out of it. I put my hands on the side of the horse and I just wanted to bring like peace and calm. And I was able to pick up almost in like a communication through my hands, through this, through the horse's body and through my body, like a like a lack of permission, like a like a lack of um me what hadn't shown enough respect to the horse. So I immediately felt like in the spirit of my sincere, unauthentic desire to be doing good in this moment, um, and not leave the moment, but just to stay and learn and do good, take inventory, as they say, on what I'm gonna learn and what and what I can what I can do to help. I um was able to say silently, kind of like what people talk about on this very popular telepath tape that everyone's everyone's listening to these days. Um, but I but I've been doing this like you just silently, heart to heart. We all do this. Like, let's be honest, we all do this. So silently, heart to heart, I was aware that I was having a conversation with a horse. And I said, I apologize. I don't know anything about you. I think I know your name. I don't know your breed. I don't know your size, I don't know your skills, I don't know your training, I don't even really know your trainer. I don't know what I'm doing. Lead me, guide me, let me know how I can help you. Honestly, I was having that conversation heart to heart with a horse. And what I received, which only I can report, so take it with a grain of salt, a sacred grain of salt, but a grain of salt nonetheless. All I can report back is that I suddenly felt this wave of like, thank you. I like if I could do my impersonation of the horse's voice, it was like, thank you. I appreciate that. I am not a size or a number of hands, which is an expression they use, or a weight, or a breed, or a strength, or a weakness. I am not any of that. I really appreciate that you finally know that you don't know me. I've needed to hear that from another human for a long, long time. I was like, woo, loved it. I went on and did, with permission now, a little bit more energy work. I think there was more calmness, and there really wasn't any much follow-up. So I can't tell you that I like has this have this great healing story or not. But I know that years and years and years later, I know that was true for me, and it was a beautiful message that came back the other day when I was in the presence of another horse being titled horse that I was able to bring out that um sensation as well, which is I am with you, but I don't pretend to have put any kind of a value on you or a measurement on you or a rating on you. And of course, horse energy is so magnificent, helping us along our way, along our path, and also to help us just to move forward in life. What a beautiful medicine that is, in the way that we use um the languages of nature as a human alphabet. Again, notice I used just used the word to use, but I am still grateful. I am still grateful to be in the presence of that wisdom and in my life that is invaluable. I loved what I learned and what I remembered, right? That I had forgotten, but then I remember, thank you, thank you, thank you to remember that we are all this, right? We are all to remember that we are invaluable. And you know what? Sometimes that means don't put a worth on me, don't put a value on me. And if you need to call it worthless, great. But what I know that means is I exceed all value. Do not put a worth on me. I was speaking uh at a school recently that specializes in helping kids uh go on to maximize their full potential as athletes. It's a um a prep school here in New England. And towards the end of the meeting, we had this conversation uh that, as I said, it's been on my mind for a while now. Uh, we had this conversation about value and how we can uh manage and and put a value in it. And it came to me to suggest to all these coaches and teachers to give permission to these young students and these young athletes who are nearly at the peak of their career, though, by the way. So they're young, but in their career, they're at their peak, and to remind them that nobody gets to put a value on them. Meaning that, get this when I say that the message of today's session is about to move beyond value and to be invaluable, that means like don't let anyone elevate your value either. Because elevating value is still putting a value on, and diminishing your value is still putting a value on, and telling you you're good enough is still putting a value on. So I'm Hillary Crowley, and I'm going to remind you today that you are invaluable, you exceed all value. And as you go out into this world, I want you to see how the world changes when you're not working in that programming and in that system of measuring whether something is good, bad, okay, not okay, this percentile, that percentile, A, B, C, D, E, F, right? Accepted, not accepted, approved, not approved. Let's let go of anybody or anyone having the job to internalize their own value or to teach anybody to internalize what their value is on any given day, shape, size, health, wellness, intelligence, types of intelligence. No. What does it mean to be I exist happy, sad, even right? Moods. I exist without putting a value just for a moment, and let that moment widen out to a minute, and let that minute widen out to a to a a window of time, and let that window of time widen out into a habit so that you're free. And some of you might have already been free. Maybe you had wise, wise people raising you and surrounding you, or maybe you've had hard, hard lessons that have taught you that you are not to have a value put on you, and you don't have to live this world through the lens of what is my value. So back to the athletes for a moment. Getting accepted, getting rejected, getting benched, getting played, getting accolades, getting celebrated, celebrated, getting not celebrated. That is a roller coaster ride that has nothing to do with the value of your life. Nothing. And in fact, it becomes a carrot that you chase. And why do you chase it? Because you're hungry. Why are you hungry? Because somebody has told you that you need more, that you need more, that you need more. So you're chasing the carrot. That term chasing the carrot, by the way, is an interesting, interesting term because it goes back to horses, I believe. Um, because horses like carrots. And um, and then it's a play on words because carrot for the rest of us can also mean the weight of gold, right? Like the weight of a diamond or the weight of gold. Um, but anyway, chasing the carrot means C-A-R-R-O-T. And imagine like there was like this like board strapped to the the harness of a horse. So yet another thing. Um, that's just ridiculous, holding it down. And then the um, and then the uh board strapped like three feet, this big board awkward, probably sh throwing off the neck strength of the horse, and then having this carrot in front of them so that they, you know, at least the the trainers think that the horse is running fast because it's chasing, you know, chasing something. I need to take a minute and just pause because for those of you who follow, I want to let you know how far I've come with the cat, the story that I told uh way back uh quite a few episodes again, but you might be binge watching, so it might just be a few miles if you're on the car. Um my little guy here is like jumping up and walking right across the uh computer that I'm recording on. And JMO is doing great, loves the sound of my voice, is around all the time. No interest in uh going um and exploring um with the other pets, but absolutely completely bonded to the adults in the house and tail up and um just eating and socializing and keeping me company and keeping all of you company right here. Um don't underestimate the power of miracles and engaging and where we are at one point can be so much better not too far down the road. So um, and obviously I'm getting a little bit of approval on the topic as well. He likes the sound of my voice, and he might even like the sound of my voice because remember, I set up the office and said, come on out, come on out. So thanks to all my loyal listeners and to those of you who are new listeners, it's a story of a cat I adopted who would not come out from the wall for um at least when I was around, was able to get sustenance and use the kitty litter box, but would not come out from the wall uh for a long time. And now I he's basically um nudging at the microphone and wants to get on my lap, and I'm I'm patting him, and I don't know if you can hear that. So here we go. So, hello there. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Lots of love there. So here we have um this moment where maybe somebody gets elevated in value, and then they become what's called a celebrity. My wish as an energy worker and somebody who has worked with uh many actually famous people, many, many famous artists I've worked with uh when I worked in the theater, I can't uh more than I can list, and I'm not gonna list one of them because it's a violation of um their value. Um, but let it be said that um I always had a way about being in the presence of somebody who was a quote unquote celebrity. And I had this like real, I guess I have to say, like a um neutrality around them. Like I certainly didn't fawn and I certainly didn't like flame the ego. And I just had, I think actually, that might have been why I worked well with people um or I had a reputation for working well, but now I'm realizing I was like an energy worker in the making. I was an energy healer. I I had this career, which was in the making, which is I could feel the energy. We all can feel the energy. Like, come on, like I can't wait until that that this term is like null and void void energy worker, energy healer. Like we can all feel the energy, okay? And I can feel the energy off of like it almost diminished the person I was around by acting like, ooh, you're elevated, or you're because anyone who's elevated can be diminished, and it that didn't feel good either. So um I always saw people for um the quote unquote celebrities, I always saw them for just the humans that they were. And I wish I could have talked to them a little bit more and shared with them my insights. Um, I was probably diminished in that system, right? Because I would be, oh, I don't know, the title might be intern or apprentice or assistant. Um, they're very familiar with all those terms when I worked with them. But I was helpful and I was happy to be helpful, and my title didn't matter, and their title didn't matter. Um, and for the most part, that didn't hurt, but I did notice that there are some trappings to allowing yourself to be elevated externally, like to be elevated and valued, because then sometimes, and it was like happened quite a bit, uh, people would do things that would like publicly devalue themselves, like things that would involve, like, you know, verifiably bad choices. Let's just say that. That's a mild way to put it, but it would also be public. You know, celebrity, by the way, means to be public. It doesn't mean that you're to celebrate means to openly express something publicly. That's what celebrate means. Look it up, it's pretty cool. So you've agreed to be public. God bless you. All right, so you've agreed to be public, and you've agreed to um somehow along the way, the the subtle subconscious agreement is that you agree to allow others to put a value on you so that you can be valued. I would strongly recommend that you just do whatever you really need to do right now. Turn around three times counterclockwise, look up at the look up at the um clouds and humbly just sort of say, release me of that programming, you know, like you don't want to be valued. You don't want somebody to put a value on you. And you don't, because if you believe deeply in the value, which you're most likely to buy into it if you've been elevated with your value, then you're really, really, really going to want to release yourself from that because it feels yucky. Anyone will tell you that. It feels yucky to constantly be in the public eye. It's kind of a curse. And once you are stuck there, you might think, oh, well, if I'm elevated value got me here, how can I diminish my value? And that's where I think. You're still working in the scale of value, which brings us back to then let yourself be invaluable, let yourself be worthless. Take out this idea of having value and just be. Just be who you are. And it might take you a lifetime. In the spirit of clarity, I'm gonna introduce the concept of sobriety, like clear thinking, clear heart, clear mind, whatever you need to do. Try not to have a lot of numbing agents or interrupters in your life. That's your life's work, which is to live without the model of valuing. I was recently talking to a friend about this, and she's like, say more, say more, figure it out. I said, Okay, so you're in a grocery store, okay, and I want an apple, right? I can I can reach over and get the apple. I can decide that this apple is exceeds any value value, right? And so I can take the apple, wave to everyone at the cash register and walk out. I would be stealing an apple, okay? I would be stealing an apple from the store. So the apple has a value on it, let's say three dollars, okay? So the apple has a three dollar value on it, but the apple has been given three dollars. And can't we agree that that apple, that magnificent apple that um might have traveled from across the world or across the country, uh, had been part of a of a root system, it was part of an orchard, part of being grown, part of its the original seed, part of this long, long lineage of like the miracle of a delicious, amazing, and I don't mean the title delicious, but that's another thing we rate and put values on apples themselves. We have to do this to organize systems. We are not systems. This apple is not a system either. This apple is absolutely beyond and exceeds any value, and yet it's still $3. I want that apple to know that that apple is valuable beyond words and also sits on a shelf. Do you see what I'm trying to explain as I'm saying more about this is that we sit on shelves. We show up. What's an expression when you're dating somebody? I'm off the shelf, right? Like I'm not, I'm no longer up to be consumed. I'm not, I'm not up at I'm not a prize. You can't put a price on me. Hopefully, it means like if you're doing online dating, taking your profile down, right? Like you can't, you can't shop for me. Okay. That means your heart is off the shelf, baby, right? That's a beautiful thing. I wish we all get just get off the shelf, everyone. It's a great expression. Those of you who know know what I mean. It's called, I'm in love, I'm off the shelf. Fall in love with your life, get off the shelf. Really, off the shelf. Let the apple be like, that's a you problem if you have to pay $3 for me. I'm so worth so much more than $3. And also, I don't even respect the system of the dollars. I'm an apple. I'm a human. I'm a horse. I am invaluable. So I said that because I'm speaking to the celebrities that might be listening to this podcast, you know who you are. Watch out for believing in your elevated um uh watch out for believing in any kind of elevated value. Because if you believe in that system of value, God help you when you're bruised. Or maybe you'll go and try to get bruised like an apple. So that oh, now I don't even get, now I have no value. Leave the paradigm of value. Be invaluable. You are invaluable. You are invaluable. There is a celebrity I've been uh watching and studying recently. There's a Netflix special out, and listen, I could say I'm a fan of The Grateful Dead. I did see a Dead Show or two, I think one. I well it's tricky, right? When you talk about Dead Show, I did see a couple of Dead Shows. Okay. So The Grateful Dead, I'm familiar with. There's a Netflix special about The Grateful Dead. I felt like hunkering down, and I love watching rock and roll documentaries. I like them even a little bit more if I don't know the artist. And then invariably, once I get to know the heart and if the documentary is done well, which so many are done so well, and this one was done well. I love the music a little bit more too. So it's a win-win-win-win. Well, this one was definitely focused on Jerry Garcia. And um Jerry Garcia started out wanting to just have fun and not put any kind of value. It was a big theme, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, kind of a nice serendipity, asynchronicity of this um piece I've been preparing for over a month for you now. Um, so this is kind of the icing on the cake from the beloved God rest his soul, Jerry Garcia. So he, as you know, was very, very familiar with LSD and uh tripping, but he also had uh they showed a segment where he was actually excellent at helping people stay grounded and helping them through the LSD trip that they were on. And they had this segment where the filmmaker had been dosed with LSD. And so it's very cool because he's talking to the filmmaker who's holding the camera, but he's trying to help the person holding the camera, which essentially we're now the viewer because we're that lens. So he's talking right to us, and he says, Let me help you out through this bad trip you're having. Come on, how beautiful is that footage? He's talking right to us. It's a Netflix special, you can watch it. And he said, You know what will help you, man, is that right now you're standing next to a truck, and they were, they were standing next to a rental truck. He's like, See what happens when you stand next to these man-made items, these trucks like this, is your horizon goes up really high. So you feel like you're standing next to something really big that's blocking your horizon. And the horizon, if you can see it, would be the top of the truck. And that that doesn't make you feel good. That doesn't make you that doesn't feel right. You you feel trapped. I'm paraphrasing here. But that was like his just like warm and friendly way of saying it. He says, So, what I recommend you do is you just you step around, get away from this truck, you just step past that parking lot, and you let your eyes just settle on the horizon, and then your body will remember who you are and remember that you're a never trapped man. That'll help you a lot with the trip here. That'll help you a lot. Okay, and uh that was it because it's great documentary. They didn't over over-commentary on it, they just left us with that, and I was like, whoa. So it is well known in neuroscience that it's very, very healthy. It's also well known in art, like visual art. It's very healthy to know where the horizon is. The body loves to see the horizon. We feel safer when we place our eye on the horizon. If you ever do a yoga class, sometimes they say is like soften your gaze and find the horizon. And he said, if the horizon is above the midline of your eye, said Jerry Garcia, you're gonna feel more stressed out. But if the horizon is right in front of you, you're gonna feel acclimated, you're gonna feel like you are where you need to be, okay, where you can see the horizon, you're safe and you can scan for safety, you're not blocked. Jerry Garcia went on to get blocked himself, and he he got lost in the celebrity of exhaustion because he was never able to just completely reset. Even when the Grateful Dead broke up, he kept his own Jerry Garcia band going. He always was go, go, go, go, go. So, whatever story or gift he leaves us with, in the documentary, which is made up of a lot of footage of his own languaging, which is really amazing. Whatever he let he leaves us with, I hope that you take from that, which is like don't put a value on your joy. And in Jerry Garcia's words, life is supposed to be one thing, and that is fun. And that he felt was the changing of the model from war to peace, from fight to collaboration, uh to um anxiety and depression to just being present. Many, many, many artists know the power of being present, and being present is your best elixir against being valued or having a value put on you. You don't want to be valued. There was a um um, there's a there's the etymology of of value, by the way, is to be worth, is to it's actually doesn't even sound like correct grammar, but it means to be worth, so be of worth to have a worth, and the deeper meaning of that is an estimated monetary value. Okay, woo, okay. Do you know what this means? This means we're getting into the servitude, the servant model. So um uh Carolyn Rittenberger, who is a a mate, um they say that right? Um I'm spacing out right now. Um I don't yeah, it's Carol Rittenberger. She is the uh medical intuitive who wrote a book called Managing People, and she's written many other books, and I took a course with her. She's wonderful. And she um she told me at the end of the course, she said, if you ever want to heal anybody, so this is like a whole course, and at the very end, she dropped this beautiful gem, just like I did for that school about the athletes. My gem was, oh, and if you really want to help these student athletes, make sure that they know that they might be treated like they have value, but make sure they never internalize being valued, whether elevated or devalued. Don't buy into it. It's never a way you want to um work in this world. Um, so she she said a very similar thing to me at the end of her of her piece. She said, Oh, by the way, I've taught you about all the different colors and the energy of green versus the energy of red and the different personalities and and how we how how we move through this world and how we read bodies and read body symbols and read body energies. You know, I've taken a lot of courses, people, and she was a great course. I loved it. And what I love the most and what I use in my sessions the most is that she said, if you want to heal, this is a bold statement. If you want to heal everybody of all disease, okay, I'm listening. Remove any modeling around believing that you're a slave or you're a servant to anything, and replace it with. She had a remedy, get this. Replace it with, I serve only my God, I serve only the highest love, I serve only great spirit. You decide, and that again can be a lifelong explor exploration of what you what you serve when you agree that there is a power greater than yourself. Okay, it's ineffable, it's beyond words. But get really curious about that, okay? Because that's not something I can do in a 45-minute session or an hour and 45-minute session. I can't. I cannot do that. But I can I can ask for you to be curious and blessed about it. My same friend I was talking to, we were talking about um having uh a gratitude list so that you can kind of scoot away from value and just go straight into like I'm grateful for running water, I'm grateful for my health, I'm grateful for uh the way um I'm growing in healing, I'm grateful for restored health. I start my days, I'm grateful for today, right? I'm grateful for today, and then I ask to grow, to grow trust in that gratitude. That's my prayer, right? So I'm grateful, I'm guided, I'm blessed. There's another great one, which is I'm grateful for the unknown blessings already on their way. There's there's an act of trust, there's a way of letting go of putting a value or expectation so that all of a sudden anything comes around. It's very trustworthy. Remember the episode I did about the farmer? It was a I think it was called Serenity. Um I think it had to do with the, I think it's like the the land of serenity, um, the land of serendipity. These are all the same concepts, seren, seren, seren. What that means, my friends, is that that's the story of the man who had nothing. And he did not worry that he had nothing. He had a sense of serenity. And so he walked into town and he came back to the he came back to his farm, but this time he had a horse with him because in the serendipitousness of the serenity, somebody gave him a horse, and he came back, and all of his neighbors with their wide eyes and their values said, Oh boy, how lucky are you? And he said, It's not good, it's not bad, it just is. It just is. I'm not putting a value on it, right? And then um the next day the horse jumped the fence and was gone, and the neighbors went, hee hee hee, you lost, you lost. How unlucky are you? And he said, It's not good, it's not bad, it just is. And then the next day the horse came back with five more horses because the horse found a herd of horses and brought five wild horses back, and suddenly they jumped the fence, and this farmer has six horses. Oh wow, aren't you lucky, lucky, lucky? Aren't you the most fortuitous? Um, have the most valuable farm in the land now. He goes, It's not good, it's not bad, it just is. Don't put a value on me. And so we keep going and we get it gets a little bit, it gets a little bit more interesting because um the story gets more human when his son, according to the story, his son, decides to tame one of the wild horses and the wild horse bucks him off. And he's injured, badly injured. That's a big deal to have a badly injured son on your farm. This is bad, right? I say as the neighbor, the neighbor said, This is bad. Uh-oh, big problem, big problem. Bad luck, bad luck. And the farmer said, Not good, not bad, just is. Not good, not bad, just is. And then the next day the warlords came by and they scooped up all the young men in town to take them to fight a unnecessary war on the other side of the mountain. The warlords were gonna survive, but these young men were not. And they looked at this the farmer's son, who was strong and knew how to tame a wild horse, but he was injured, broken legs, right? That's the story. And they say, Oh, you're no good. You have no value to us. And quietly the neighbors are starting to get it. And after the warlords leave, they go, Hey, you're so lucky. And the farmer says, Not good, not bad, just is. You let that story continue in your life however you want to. It's a teaching story, it's a Taoist story, and it's a story that you can carry through. And maybe you can even feel the spirit of listening to a grateful dead tune if you want. Choose your favorite one. They had hundreds of them. And feel that spirit of not good, not bad, just is. You know, no beginning, no ending. Feel that, feel that, feel that energy of I'm not a servant, I'm not serving anything. And definitely, definitely, definitely try to find your way away from serving another power, which would be like an addiction. Try, if you are not sober, to find your way to some kind of a sobriety space. Try to find a way to a space where you at least get to hear once the language of I surrender to any power over me. I surrender to a higher power. Not because you want to be small in your surrender, but you want to be in invaluable. You want to not have a bigness or a smallness. You just want to be. And I would strongly suggest that you feel that heart energy, which is, I guess it's love, right? It's just being, love, human being, love, just be love. If you want to. At this point, the word love might put a value on it. So maybe go to the nothingness or go to the song that inspires you to feel your aliveness, your connectedness, your interconnectedness, your what holds you togetherness, to quote the first quote from my book. And the last words from one of my uh one of the uh wisest people I ever knew in my life. His his his dying words was, There's so much more than holds us together. Well, let that so much more be all you need to know. Like, let that be your clue. You won't know. You won't be able to put a value on that, that's for sure. Just know that there's so much more than any value you can imagine that holds us together. So approach your gratitude not as putting a value on something, but just say, I hope to be able to be beyond value. Think about it in any goals that you've set. Do those goals include arbitrary values? We live in places where we pay people to set us up to tell us what our value is. Hey, doc, am I healthy or am I not healthy? Hey, doc, this hurts. Can you help me with this? Please let the doctors do what they are supposed to do. They're working within what's called a healthcare system. They're trained in a system of understanding how the body works. Okay. And please know whether it's a car mechanic or a doctor or somebody you're handing money over to at the um catch register. That or or I'm not done yet. Like, or an educator, right? An educator or an artist or somebody critiquing your art, a critic. Be in the flow of creating what you're gonna create, and do everything in the spirit of creation, other things will be valued along the way, good or bad. But if your heart is in the right place, do not put a value on somebody else, and certainly check yourself if you are devaluing everyone around you because you're so deeply bought into this idea of value. Granted, some of this you can't control, it's so cooked into the neurology of who we are, and for some people who struggle um with mental health, it's so baked into the neurology. They can only see things by measurements, okay? But I hope with my voice and my energy we can put out there that it doesn't matter. Like the only reason it matters if somebody devalues me is because I put a value on myself that I can't handle being devalued. So then you can't even uh worry about your adversaries, you can't even worry about anyone who would value you or devalue you. No, let me just back up from adversaries. Sometimes the people who elevate you can also be the ones that, you know, so like the teacher that gives you an A has a lot of power over you, and that's okay, but that's not a higher power. Okay, so do what you need to do to know that you're working within different systems for your own comfort level, but make sure your takeaway from here on in is that I will not be reduced, because that's what it means to be valued. I will not be re-reduced, I am invaluable, and by that, I don't care which way the etymology of it goes anymore. If it's worthlessness, you're correct. If it is exceeding value, you're correct. It means both. Don't put a worth on me. Less worth. Don't don't put a worth on me. Don't put a value on me. Don't put a price on me. And this is the biggest takeaway of all. Let go of all that internalization. That's what I'm working on. What are you working on? As I wrap up, I promised I was going to tell this story. There's a real going on, you know, a real, like, you know, um, like a trend. There's somebody who did this thought experiment out on the streets and they had the microphone and it was really fun. And you know how sometimes people can walk up and help a stranger with giving them money or giving them like a thousand dollars, or you know, sometimes they give people a million dollars. These are big, big influencers out there who can like make some make some changes. So I don't remember whether this was like a total thought experiment or somebody who actually could put a value who could give that million dollars. So, hypothetical or not, this is what the thought experiment was. You walk up to a stranger and you say, I have a million dollars for you. You are so lucky today. I want to give you a million dollars. And um they say, will you take that million dollars? And any healthy person would meet that with at least a little bit of skepticism and said, No, no, no, you can do whatever you want to do with that million dollars. Would you expect accept it for me if I were to give you a million dollars? And you know, once you get talked into it and you realize it's only a thought experiment because, you know, taxes and liability and you don't want to owe anything to anybody, you know, like you're probably like, you probably actually wouldn't accept a million dollars from a stranger because simply because I wouldn't believe it, right? Fair, okay. But so the thought experiment continues. You're like, okay, you got me, you got me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. In theory, I would take a million dollars, and they're like, you know, and the one thing is you you get to use it however you want today. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that sounds like a gift to me. Yep. And then they said, but the caveat is is tomorrow morning there's no life. What? Tomorrow morning, you have no life. It's over. That's part of the magical uh, you know, contract you signed. Because today you accept a million, but tomorrow, and now now the um now the uh the real and the and the messenger becomes really powerful. Because every the everyone responds with like, no, and said, Okay, well that was your that was your blessing for today, because I want you to know that like that million dollars you want, that $10 million you want, that uh that beautiful material thing you're looking for that you want, that removal of debt that you want, I can take care of that for you. I can give you a value, a monetary value. But at the end of the day, if you have to replace it with your being, your human being, yourself, your own internalized sense of self, which gets woken up in this thought experiment, the answer is no way. And then the takeaway is, and because they can do it with a hundred million, you can do it with a billion, you can do it with a thousand dollars, whatever you want to do. The takeaway is over, is it's like, yeah, so you're worth more than a hundred million dollars. Never forget that. Have a good day. And that's how they leave the reel. It's pretty cool because I hope you all feel that you're worth more than like da-da-da-da. Whatever that might be, whatever that thing is, your conquest, that goal, that thing, that thing you want celebrated, whatever it might be, you're worth more than that. Everybody knows that. Health is wealth, baby. Your mental health, your personal health, your relationship with yourself. Remember, health is connected to the word healing, which is connected to woven together, which is connected to holy to make whole. All right, so your whole self, you, the individual, you, you are invaluable. That is my gift to you today. And I hope that you spread that gift to others to remember that you are invaluable. And I hope you take pause the next time that you might find yourself putting a value on yourself or others, devaluing. If you have a job where you have to go in and do like a review for somebody and you have to put a value on them, I hope that you can bookend it and say, this is we're working within a system. But you, I want you to know as a human being, as somebody who I'm sharing this present moment with, you are absolutely invaluable, which means you exceed all value. I'd love that for every teacher to say that, every manager to say that. Let's get with beyond the program, people. Let's get with the big program. Okay. So um, I'm Hillary Crowley, and thanks for listening to the Good Energy Healing Show. I'm very um delighted and excited that you were able to be shifted and changed by this beautiful aspect of looking at this new word of invaluable. And may all of your recommendations from all along say your name is you are invaluable. And go have fun. Go enjoy this beautiful life that you have. I always say, I hope you have a beautiful day. I like to say hit the five stars. Please share um this episode with anyone you think it may be helpful for. The spirit of this episode is I don't really honestly, I do think that the podcast has been good to me because I say hit the five stars. I got that from my cousin who runs a another podcast where he works in sports. So he knows that it's a fun it's a fun expression, hit the five stars. But truly, there are no there's no value that you can give or take to this body of work that I'm creating. I mean, I'm creating it through love. And I hope you can be an artist in your own right and just keep creating things from a a spirit of love and wisdom. And when you do step into systems, be conscious of it, right? There are systems in this world. I live in the real world, people. Walk into a system, notice the social contracts of the of the systems, notice the notice the monetary contracts of the system, sure, but make sure you don't internalize in any way of any cell of your body that you're devalued or valued or exceeding value or excessive value, I should say, because you do exceed value. Thank you so much for listening. This was a little bit longer than I expected because I guess I'm passionate about it. Go listen to a Grateful Dead tune or any tune that makes you dance and happy, and I hope you have an absolutely beautiful day.