& CHOOSING CONSCIOUS SELF-PARENTING INSTEAD This is a relatively brief one, so take it in. As always, you can sift through following the bold print if you want a quicker read. Get the gift of this important thing to notice & reframe, with easy tactics for making this all feel better and for your beautiful life to go better for you! This persistent NOT ENOUGH thing. You too? I still catch myself, while doing things, moving about my world, transitioning from one task or event to the next, holding a vague sense of finding myself wrong, not doing enough, not having gotten to something yet, not performing or achieving at the right level, not not not … Sometimes I feel a vague or acute disappointment or dissatisfaction, especially at the day’s end, that I might put any or all of these words to:
If you amplify all of this (and some egoic part of you actually thinks its job is to amplify this), this swiftly swells into a baseline (wrongly held as factual) of I’M NOT ENOUGH. (Hey, whether you’re actively saying that to yourself OR NOT, that’s the message.) It may even follow a dissonant crescendo all the way to I’M NOT A GOOD PERSON BECAUSE I’M NOT DOING ENOUGH. Um. WTF? It’s so unfair, and it’s just wrong. It’s based on a false premise that your worth is and must be established by what and how much you do. It implies that this constant negative assessment (which by some wacky defiance of emotional mathematics keeps adding up to NOT ENOUGH) somehow does something of value. To be clear: It does not. Go ahead and look for whether that soothes you, bolsters you, motivates you, energizes you, inspires you … It’s also horrendous self-parenting. Imagine the parent following the kid around while tensely describing what they’re not getting to and how they’re not doing enough and how disappointing they are in what they are and aren’t doing. BAD parenting. Imagine putting a child to bed at the end of the day with a furrowed brow and a list of all they haven’t gotten to and what they didn’t do well enough and what they’d better be on top of tomorrow … This is not the picture of parenting that goes with a thriving child, is it? Here’s what I do with this: I interrupt it every time. I interrupt it as quickly as I notice it (at the first whiff of it) so it doesn’t build momentum. I do not accept walking around with that sensation, never mind any self-talk that might go with it. When I catch it and interrupt it, I give myself (usually out loud to fully hear them) new messages that feel good and encouraging. Messages that
Because that positive, generous vision of myself, held in view, reinforced, and constantly cultivated, is actually what points me to flow with life in the best way. That’s what calls me to feeling good and embodying goodness and creating good and beautiful things. Sometimes living in the flow does look like accomplishment and efficiency, and sometimes it does not. The flow is the flow. One version of it is not better than the others. We all know it feels better when we’re in it. We all know what resistance to the flow feels like. If we try to make the efficient version of flow the right version, we will, again and again, judge ourselves harshly and be disappointed in ourselves. Time for reparenting, or conscious self-parenting If you didn’t get perfect parenting, welcome to the club. Whatever you did or didn’t get, it’s up to you now. Will you parent yourself unkindly, always gazing at yourself through that NOT ENOUGH lens? Or by bringing in calm, soothing, encouragement, positive messaging? Will you tenaciously hold yourself in good esteem? Why should accomplishment and efficiency be the ruler by which you measure your worth, your whole life, or even any given day? That doesn’t even make sense. That sounds like modern human foolishness, not universal or divine intelligence. I invite you NOT to ALLOW ongoing self-defeating inner dialogue and negative assessment. I invite you to quick interruption of what is unfair and inaccurate and keeps you feeling bad. Then aim for what feels better, and tell yourself the things you need to hear to soothe and encourage yourself, to promote loving your life as your wondrous dance with consciousness. Toward that end, here’s a 15-minute 3-centers meditation (addressing body, heart, head) that contains positive messaging in and for each center. And if you like the 3C approach, you can join in live every day from 11:45 to noon six days a week. My lovely colleague Rebecca Mehnert leads on M-W-F, and I’m on T-Th-Sat. Join link is on the homepage of my website (scroll all the way down). Love & blessings, Jaya
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An easy way to make this concept concrete, applicable to self & others Consider first what unconditional love could look like directed toward the self. Below, I offer a list that contains two components followed down the line. We begin with a) a possible thing that makes you feel good about yourself and automatically creates a sense of self-love, followed each time by b) the flip side of that, which you generally don’t want and feel bad about—the stuff that stirs up self-disapproval and that sense of being wrong, unworthy, not good enough. Which can lead to all manner of what is not self-love, from walking around feeling subtly off and not quite up to par (without even verbalizing it, but it still feels bad, and it’s unfair to yourself) all the way to pure self-loathing and vicious self-talk (which feels rotten). What if you FULLY, equally, loved yourself in both the wanted & the unwanted aspects of your behavior? Of how you feel? Of how others see you? That’s unconditional self-love. Make it about others, and you’ve got unconditional love as directed to others. Want to love unconditionally? Notice the conditions that get the inner or outer critic in motion. INTERRUPT THE CRITIC. Drop into love for what’s here right now, the good, the bad, the ugly. Consider whether you might at least try saying (writing!) that you love yourself on each end of any spectrum, and all the way across. I love myself when I feel great & strong in my body. I love myself when something hurts or feels tender, off, painful, fragile. I love myself when I’m strong & stable. I love myself when I’m wobbly. I love myself when I’m kind to [my mom] & soothe irritation that arises without expressing it. I love myself when I notice I’m being critical, unkind, mentioning what doesn’t need to be mentioned. I love myself when I’m inappropriately instructing & suggesting. I love myself when I feel the love & joy flowing effortlessly. I love myself when I’m not in the vicinity. I love myself when I show up to do processes (like inquiry, focus wheels, EFT), getting out ahead of old negative thought patterns before they can build momentum or wreak havoc. I love myself when I reach for those processes after I’ve reacted or thrown myself off in some way or even after I’ve gone wayyyy down the rabbit hole and must walk myself through the whole climb back to ground zero. I love myself when I’m happy & appreciating others & all of life.
I love myself when I’m sad & full of discontent. I love myself when people hold up beautiful mirrors telling me I’m great, brilliant, talented, loving. I love myself when someone looks at me funny or declares everything they think is wrong with me. I love myself when I pause and choose a kind, calm, clear response. I love myself when I’m reactive or triggered and don’t even know I’m puking on someone till the mess has already dropped. I love myself when I [do qigong] and grow the practice. I love myself when I skip it. I love myself when I’m [do qigong] in presence, consciously growing my relationship to presence. I love myself when I phone it in, just do it to get it done, call it good enough. I love myself when I just simply and easily say what’s true for me. I love myself when words get stuck in my throat or I tiptoe around the issue. Hey, to be clear, the idea isn’t to condone or excuse what feels off to you. It’s to love what’s actually there, reject no part of yourself. In fact, when you’re loving yourself in any current condition, you’ll be much more able to swiftly course-correct. You’ll feel what’s off and head toward alignment fast. Getting out judgments and filling the space with love makes thing clear and more spacious. There’s room to shift. Maybe you can see that better with others, and it’s just as true for yourself. I invite you to make your own list. You could approach it from either direction: instead of what I did above, you could start with a statement of loving the least-preferred part (especially if it’s present here & now) and go from there to the stuff that easily feels good). You could also sit down on a day you notice you’re carrying around a critical play-by-play narration of yourself or another or your day, job, whatever, and write out both parts. Get yourself squarely situated in the acceptance that you’re not your idealized self, and you don’t need to be. Love yourself (or another) in writing, and you’ll be able to love yourself (or another) in talk, in actions, in the day-to-day now-now-now of it. It’s always helpful to write your thoughts down on paper so you can see what they’re up to and write out what you prefer to think to support really taking it in. Writing helps with focusing. Focus yourself into unconditional love. Love & blessings, Jaya don’t say it’s not working, don’t give up on yourself Sometimes someone tells me they were having a hard time with something, and nothing they did worked. Or they speak more generally about stuff they try and … it doesn’t work. And if you were ever the one to say that to me or if you’ve witnessed me talking to someone in a group who said that, you know this is when I hit the pause button. So I’m going to tell on myself here and then lay out what we really mean when we say it’s not working and then offer something bolstering and supportive and kind. Here goes. I bumped into something rough in the past week in the form of someone I love and respect speaking to me in a way that I don’t typically receive from anyone these days. And it THREW ME OFF. The ego-mind would not shut up about it. (I love not to identify with the mind. The thoughts were thinking me, as Byron Katie says.) The whole thing took much longer for me to move along than usual. I want to tell you about this and invite you not to give up on yourself, and to keep reaching for the right tool in the moment, and to keep tossing out any thoughts that you should be beyond this, and just do your work and soothe yourself and take care of yourself until you’re back in alignment. Because you will come back to alignment. Nothing in the Universe cares a bit how long it takes or how many processes. Your job is to not give up on yourself. Keep interrupting the preposterous (defensive, counter-attacking, victimized, offended, self-righteous, other-correcting) thoughts. Reach for the right tool in the moment and keep reaching. And do not say It’s not working. Here’s what I did right, which I tell you in the spirit of inviting you to stop putting the focus on what you’re doing wrong or even worrying about whether you might be doing it wrong or exhausting yourself with the belief you need to figure it all out.
I did NOT believe that these things weren’t working. I definitely noticed that this wasn’t moving along as fast as usual. I reminded myself that this meant an old wound had been reactivated and that this was a chance to heal it. And I believed it, even though that didn’t stop the mind or make me feel better. (The kind mind really can bring the heart along, even if the heart isn’t there yet right now. So I plugged away, calling in the kind mind.) If you believe It’s not working, that usually means things like this:
So this is what I want to tell you. You’re fine. You’re doing fine. You’re enough. You’re doing enough. The revelation wants to come. This is only happening for your healing and evolution. It’s really okay. It’s okay if this takes awhile. The timeline isn’t your business. What is your business?
You’re either going with your negative (stressful, painful) thoughts or you’re interrupting them and reaching for something else (see my first bullet list above). You’re either going further down the rabbit hole or you’re heading out. Got something big, bad, deep, and ugly going on? No problem. You’re equipped. Keep scooching. Don’t give up on yourself. DO NOT SAY IT’S NOT WORKING. Or hear yourself and say something else. Like:
Love & blessings, Jaya … and be kind (and ACTUALLY helpful) to your entire self Warning. This is an invitation to self-love. I promise not to get weird about it. I’ll make it actionable and invite you to keep it up. Now & now & now. Sometimes someone I’m working with tells me they don’t know how to get through some specific moment and actually apply the things we talk about. I then typically give them a few simple reminders. I invite them to simplify things. Just remembering a few simple things, you can learn to walk yourself through KINDLY. As in, ACTUALLY, be your own best ally and make yourself feel better instead of worse. That’s a great start right there. To simply value feeling good so much that you’re committed to catching yourself feeling bad, interrupting it, and quickly pivoting to walk yourself toward feeling better. That’s already HUGE. I love to remind folks to BRING IT TO NOW. The now part is crucial. Don’t try to figure out how to fix everything or fix something in some done-with-it-once-and-for-all forever sort of way. That dip into everything and forevermore is overwhelming and feels bad. (It also puts you in the Universe’s business, which you’re not qualified to manage.) Don’t do a quick, warped scan backward over the past. You might mistakenly grab the lens that makes it look like you’ve never gotten it right and it’s not getting any better. (And, yup, you’ll be in the Universe’s business again.) Just RIGHT NOW. What would feel kinder, truer, better now? Do that. And keep doing that. Now and now and now and now. Do not ALLOW yourself to sink down into the worst of what you’re able to believe about yourself. If you stop walking yourself kindly toward what feels better, that probably means you’re using a bunch of NOW moments to accept being mean to yourself. And just to accept feeling bad (which is not that nice). I’d like you to HABITUATE to walking yourself through as if you were aware of your younger selves that need and deserve to be gently guided along. That, my friend, is self-love in action. At some point in my growth journey, when I was having some obvious successes and actually feeling better a lot of the time, and I was ALSO feeling bad or impatient about what I wanted to manage better or have success with faster, I started thinking in terms of NOW much more.
Right now, am how am I walking myself through? Right now, how am I talking to myself about what's happening? Right now, am I making myself feel worse or better? 3 directions to focus how you walk yourself through Here’s a great clue about what to do for yourself, your entire self, in any NOW moment you realize things aren’t feeling good. Know and remind yourself that you’re a 3-centered being. That is, you have
They all three need tending kindly. And they all three have wisdom and guidance for you (that comes in NOW, in the actual moment you need it). And if you’re stuck in one center, either tend it, or GET OUT. Reach for one or both of the others. Body tending Ask yourself, Right now, am I even in my body? Am I taking in that my body is tense, contracted, agitated, overrun with adrenaline [whatever it may be]? Am I moving nervously or frenetically, or am I going frozen or stagnant and need to rev things up? Your body wants you to tend that, soothe it, calm your nervous system. There’s also simple stuff like HYDRATE. EAT GOOD FOOD. Back to body basics: ground; connect to the felt sense of the breath (and stay with that a while, even as you go about your business); connect to the five senses (or however many you’ve got). Do something that feels good physically: Move, dance, exercise, stretch, do yoga or qigong, walk. Take a bath, take a nap, take yourself to a natural setting where your senses will be filled with life-giving, soul-soothing stuff. Take an action: The realm of the body is also the realm of action. Is there one thing I could do right now that would feel good to do? That would make me feel good about tending any corner of my world? That would move something forward and potentially start some momentum toward what I actually want to be, do, have? Find your point of least resistance and do one thing. Heart tending Right now, as I notice I feel bad emotionally (frustrated, angry, sad, discouraged, scared, disappointed), am I making room for it and soothing it, or am I judging it or evaluating how I’m doing or telling myself what I should be feeling itself? Heart tending isn’t about thoughts, so stop analyzing or evaluating or explaining your emotions. Maybe stop talking (to yourself or others) about them. FEEL THEM. If you must bring the head in, then notice whether you keep going from one thought to the next to keep matching and probably revving up what feels bad. And could you instead tell yourself kind things that are likely to make you feel better? The heart wants you to ground yourself (see body tending above), feel the feeling in the body, breathe it (make room for it with the breath), allow it. Just let it be, let it have its life, and give it 2 things:
How simple is that? That’s it folks. Your heart space, when in pain or discomfort of any kind, wants those two things. Review them: awareness & breath, awareness & breath, awareness & breath. Head tending Right now, am I believing and carrying on with thoughts that feel bad or interrupting them? As you notice that thoughts are making you feel bad, consider some version of this: maybe they don’t match what your Inner Being knows to be true; or they don’t match the way Source gazes upon you; or they represent an assessment that isn’t useful and isn’t coming from the part of you that’s seeking to believe in yourself and step consciously toward your full potential, or the best you’ve got right now, or the truth of who you are. You can simply reach for better-feeling thoughts. Just tell yourself or write down one thing after another that makes you feel better instead of worse. Go general at first (I don’t have to figure this out right now, I’m okay and my needs are met, I’ve gotten through worse before and other human beings have too). And go from there. You can do a focus wheel. (I just did one this morning when I noticed I felt bad about something and wanted to clear that up before I moved anything else forward!) You can do some inquiry (including a short-cut version of processing unhelpful thoughts). You can check out whose business you’re in and then look for what your actual business is here (where you have agency and what’s yours to manage). (Hint, it’s always your business to soothe yourself and to shift your state if you don’t like the state you’re in—or, to keep it simple, if you don’t like how you feel.) Bring it to now, and walk yourself (all the parts of you, body, heart, and head) toward what feels better right now. My intention for myself and my ongoing practice are to keep going deeper with this, keep getting more subtle. I invite you to it. You are worth your own kind, gentle, patient walking-yourself-through. You are worth feeling good much more of the time. You are worth interrupting quickly what doesn’t feel good and responding kindly to what feels bad. Take care of yourself, body, heart, and head. Walk yourself through, lovingly. Then you can truly feel good much more of the time. Love & blessings, Jaya where maybe you haven’t been Want fewer than 11? Skim the list (bold print is here to help) and go in where you see a spark of something that would represent you showing up for yourself. It could be game-changing. 1. Clean up a stupid little pile somewhere, on a wrongly used chair or stagnating desk corner, that’s really not hard to sort through at all but you keep acting like it is. ENJOY DOING THIS. Notice how easy it is to make something right. 2. Clean the bathroom mirror. That’s it. That does something. Harness the symbolic value, if you want more, and tell yourself, I’m clearing things up. I’m seeing more clearly. I love a clear view of things. (Apply this harnessing and naming of the symbolic with anything you do. It adds layers of meaning otherwise lost on you.) 3. Move more slowly, not just in your walking gait, but in your gestures. Do this especially if you typically move fast; especially if you think you have a lot to do and you need to get it done. Move slowly. Move deliberately. Feel yourself moving through space, through time, through your life. (Note this is a presence practice, a SIMPLE trick to be more conscious.) Feel that your life matters, this moment matters. Your life is not to be rushed through. 4. Talk to yourself out loud (double-duty accomplished if, as you talk, you’re walking the dog or watering plants or wiping surfaces or stretching your amazing body) and give yourself a whole bunch of good and real and true LOOK AT ME messages, just between you and you. Here’s a brief audio example, just between you & me. 5. Pause with every apology you hear yourself make (until you can pause it before it gets stated out loud, until you break yourself of this habit), and consider whether there was actually something to apologize for. You’ll mostly find there wasn’t, so take it back. I mean this: quit apologizing for little stupid things like not responding to a text when you think someone wanted you to. Categorically DO NOT APOLOGIZE WHEN YOU’VE DONE SOMETHING WRONG. Or hear yourself and take it back (at least between you & you). Learn to say I’m sorry only when you’ve actually violated your own code of ethics, when your own integrity feels affronted by your own actions. And then it will mean something, and you won’t be walking around apologizing for your existence, for taking up space, for being a human being born onto this planet. Here are some examples of sorry apologies if you want more guidelines for that. 6. Have more fun. Feel good more often. Laugh more. This does a million times more good than a gratitude journal, so if you like things like that, like this too. Feel good about whatever part of current conditions you can feel good about. Focus on what’s fun, what’s easy, what feels good, what you’re proud of, what makes you laugh, what brings pleasure. Cultivate all of this. Make it a project. 7. Get faster & faster at interrupting trains of thought that don’t serve you. That means anything about what’s wrong with you, how you’re not doing enough, how you’re doing it wrong, how this isn’t good enough, how this isn’t okay. That means interrupt it as it comes up, now and now and now. IMMEDIATELY give yourself kinder and truer messages, as many as you can string together. Ideally, do this out loud or in writing. 8.Deal with something, one thing, that’s kind of big and pretty much ignored. Lighten the thing that weighs you down. You know what’s waiting for you. Just start it. And then do another bit another time, soon. Go in via your point of least resistance, just to show yourself you can. Do on bite-sized piece until you’ve found your inner pac-man that can gobble up anything. (Is pac-man still a thing?) 9. Go to bed feeling good about the day. Appreciate all it held and all you did. If you can’t feel good about today, for some reason, at least be done with it. Put it down fully. Be done with today. You did enough. You did well enough. LITERALLY NEVER GO TO BED CARRYING WITH YOU A SENSE OF AN UNFINISHED NOT-ENOUGH DAY. Never. Never. Just quit it. 10. When you go to bed, tell yourself, Tomorrow, All things new, All things possible. If you want or need help to really set yourself up for letting go of today and looking toward a tomorrow full of possibility, go to sleep listening to affirmations or soothing music. My current favorites are from Crea tu frecuencia. Yeah, they’re in Spanish (I personally think this beats Duolingo by a long shot). Lots of people provide them in English. Try Jason Stevenson, if you like Aussie accents & a soothing male voice. 11. When you wake up, do things INSTANTLY to set yourself up for a good day. Do not start the day telling yourself awful things or cultivating things like fear and dread and sorrow. If you wake up already feeling some kind of way, DO NOT JUDGE THIS. Be sweet to yourself. Get curious. Greet whatever it is with curiosity. What’s this, sweetheart? Do anything to soothe it, soften it, give yourself kind messaging that counters any thoughts that come hand in hand with this feeling. If you’re not sure what they are, write down, “I feel [whatever it is, as best you can name it], and that means that …” Getting your thoughts on paper will point you to the turnarounds that will counter them, and often will start to shift how you feel. Value, at the very least, that you’re not just going with the thoughts that reinforce bad feelings. Because that, my friend, is NOT being your own best ally. I start most days with focus wheels these days (a process from Abraham-Hicks). Try it, you’ll like it. Whatever you feel a wobble about, write into the hub of the wheel what you want to feel or believe, and then stay put till you’ve filled the wheel with 12 reasons you can actually believe—you actually do believe—that center statement. My website has a whole page that illustrates and explains how to make a focus wheel and offers kinds of statements to reach for. Love & blessings, Jaya |
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