Cultivating Self-Worth 3-4

It's hard to build worth (and trust) in moments where we're unsure of ourselves and whether we're okay. There are always parts of ourselves we're afraid to show, afraid to be seen. But until we know and love these pieces of ourselves, we'll make the challenging times worse.

Transcript

Let's go ahead and get started. So as always, I think everybody at this point has been here a couple times before, But I'll still say, Remember, Remember, Remember, This class depends on you, On what you put in, And what's most alive for you, And the situations that people bring up, And that we talk about, And then we practice. So in this case, Cultivating self-worth, Or cultivating self-trust in challenging times is going to be about the ways in which we know the right thing to do, And the ways in which we convince ourselves out of it, Especially when there is difficulty, Especially when there might be consequences, Whether those be financial, Relational, Uncertainty. So how do we gather the ability to trust ourselves and have worth in ourselves when we're in difficult moments? So with that, We're going to go ahead and ground, And then we're going to start to talk about it, But that's where I want to see if people have open questions the second we get into the talk. We'll do our talk, And then I'll meditation, Based on what's most alive for people. Is everybody up for that? And any questions before we go ahead and get started? Then, Let's go ahead, Find a comfortable position. Go ahead and close your eyes. Take a deep, Deep breath. Let it out with a sigh. Ah. And another. Taking it deep, Deep, Deeper than you normally would. Blow it out like it's a straw. And one more. Breathing in like you're a child looking at a food baby. Just breathe out as slowly as you can. Even if it starts to become mildly uncomfortable, Signaling to your body that you're safe, It's time to turn off fight or flight. And now we're going to get centered in a couple of gifts that we don't have to earn. First, Take your hands and put them on your heart. Somewhere where you can feel your heart beat. Your heart beats tens of thousands of times a day without you needing to tell it to. From before you are born to the moment you die. And it reminds you in each moment that you deserve to be here. And then put your hand on your stomach. And feel the breathing from your stomach. That you can control, But most of the time you do not. That is constantly taking in oxygen. As a gift keeping you alive. Start to think through all the different parts of your body that you have as gifts, As possibilities to explore, To use, To feel. To sense. Not everyone has all of these gifts, But we all have many. Because you can quickly open your eyes and close them. And remember the miracle that is sight. Or you can take a moment to appreciate that without your hearing, We couldn't be communicating right now. And your sense of smell and taste. And you might want to rub your hands up and down your arms or your legs to remember just how much your sense of touch. Because we settle into all of these as gifts. And then, When we're ready, Go ahead and wiggle your fingers, Your toes. Give yourself permission to yawn. Or stretch. And when you're ready, Go ahead and open your eyes. So today, I realized I wanted to talk about two things. So I had the slip of cultivating self-worth in challenging times. Another way of saying that is cultivating self-trust in challenging times. And I'd love if anyone, Or if many people, Are willing to put in situations and scenarios where they are trying to develop their own worth in the midst of chaos. Or their ability to trust themselves in the midst of challenge. And any questions they may have about it. And in the meantime, While I wait for people to write, I'll share one that I have right now. So, This past weekend, Katerina and I decided that we're ready to have another dog. I think everyone knows by now, But my dog of 12 years was hit and killed on a walk with us in Baja three months ago. And we mourned, We've crieved, And we still, If I look over, There's a CERN with his photo looking at me right now. But, Life isn't the same without a dog. And we want to invite someone new into our lives. But, We started searching around at the local shelters because we want a dog of a specific size. And there is a dog that looks almost exactly like our old dog Dobby. And he was the only one who kind of fit our size requirements, What we were looking for in the local area. And every step of the way so far, I have been trying to remind myself of worth from these moments after feeling like we've made a mistake with our dog getting hit. And feeling trust that even when we looked at this dog Loki's picture, I said, You look very cute, But I don't think you're my dog. And we went to the shelter because a part of me also said, But go see him. And we went to see him and we're like, You're very sweet, But you're not our dog. But a part of us said, You know, Go ahead and foster him. And for the past three days, I've been going through a lot of emotions around that, A lot of feeling through. And a huge part of me wants to love this dog and starts to argue of reasons that he's fairly well behaved. He's already like house trained. But another deep part of me says, This won't be our dog. And there was a huge recognition that in many ways I'm trying to replace, Not just add a new dog, But I'm trying to have a dog that is nearly the same breed, Similar mannerisms. And as long as I am trying to act as if this is my old dog, A deep part of me knows this dog isn't ours. And all of the feelings that come up, I'm using this as an example of self-worth and self-trust are the difference in between saying, Should we just take him back because I don't want to feel him? And then a part of you says, No, Even if you don't end up choosing this dog, It's better for him to be here for a while and to be socialized and learn trust than to be back at the shelter. And you're like, But shouldn't we just take him? Maybe we're just wrong. And that's how we end up making the wrong decisions in our life when we try to rationalize and convince ourselves into doing things that deep down we already knew weren't the right thing to do. But it's about listening and getting close to that sense of intuition, To that sense of recognition. So that when there are consequences, Like for instance, Right now going through my head is, Well, What if we don't find another dog that is in Mexico and crate trained and put together and all of this and fits the right sizes? And you're like, Then maybe we don't. What if this was the right dog and we just needed more time? What if each time it's learning to trust deeper within yourself, That sense, That sense of feeling, Even when there are repercussions, Even when it's sad, Even when it's scary, Even when, And this is the hardest part, Making the choice that you know is right for you in this moment can feel wrong because it may, Destroy is a strong word, But sometimes it does. It may imbalance, Destabilize, Let go of a life you already have. It's the call of someone who's in a good job, Who wants to leave and do something brand new, But it's going to destroy the life that they've built. It's the call of someone in a relationship who deep down knows that it's not for them. It's the call of someone who knows in those quiet spaces and places that this isn't for you or that there is something for you, But the steps to get there are going to require a lot of uncertainty, A lot of changes and learning to listen to that. Does that make sense to everyone? And I'd love for people to start putting in situations and questions that they want to discuss. And Karma put in, What would your previous dog say to you about the new dog? And what would he want for that dog? Our previous dog would want us to be happy, Of course, We know that. But we also very much know that it's unfair to Loki, Beautiful name, For us to be trying deep down, Because he looks so close, To have Dobby back, Rather than learning to love Loki and actually loving Loki and wanting him for who he is. And between now and Sunday, We might. But that's an unfair thing. There's a story that I don't think I've actually ever seen in real life, But I've seen comedians and romantic comedies make fun of. It's like when somebody breaks up with or gets broken up with by the love of their life, And they try to date someone who's exactly like them, But is paying attention to the ways in which they're not that person. Because they're trying to recreate something that they can't, Because it's not the same person. Even if the mannerisms are the same, It's not the same soul. You can never recreate it exactly. So, When I look at Loki, I say, You're a very sweet dog, But at the moment, You're not mine. And it's an unfair comparison, Because with many other dogs that we started to consider, We saw them as their own dog. With Loki, I see him as Dobby, But not quite. So, From here though, We've got a lot of people on here. Yeah, Johnny, That's a good question. But we're going to talk based on what questions people put in. So, Johnny just put in, Any thoughts of how self-worth and health are related, Or even interrelated? Yeah, Yeah. Self-worth defines what part of you is acceptable to show, And what part of you is not acceptable to show. It also defines what I can trust myself to do, And what I can't trust myself to do. And when you have any of those can'ts, A couple things show up. If I can't trust myself, Then I'm going to, In a field, In an area, Or God forbid, In general, Then I'm going to start to worry about every single decision. And I'm going to be afraid, Afraid that I'm going to make the wrong choice, And that that choice is going to have repercussions, Consequences, Problems that arise. And therefore, If I cannot trust my decision making, And I have to make decisions, And those decisions are going to cause problems, Then I'm going to be in a constant state of stress, A constant state of anxiety, And a constant low-grade state of fight or flight. And the vast majority of the diseases that kill humans today, In the modern developed world, Come either directly or indirectly from staying in a state of fight or flight. We're in a state of fight or flight, So we try to avoid it, So we overwork. We're in a state of fight or flight, And we try to numb it, So we consume substances. We're in a state of fight or flight, And what calms us is eating, So we overeat. And purely being in a continual state in fight or flight causes diabetes, Because your body sends it to fat and doesn't think that it has time to properly digest, Causes indigestion problems, Causes high blood pressure and heart disease. So most of the modern things that kill us come from a state of stress. And coming from a state of stress because we believe the world is dangerous, And part of the reason we believe the world is dangerous is because we don't trust our ability to navigate it and handle it. Which is why we see people. We know people, I hope. I hope you've had the privilege to meet people who can go through challenging times and accept it, Feel it through all the way fully. And they might be devastated, They might be hurt, They might be lost, But they're not sitting there in indecision and questioning themselves in fight or flight, And they make it through. But when we go through extended, Truly challenging times, Which are different based on the person, There might be someone on this call whose challenging time is that they're not sure that they're doing a good job at work, And they can be in a state of constant fight or flight. Or, Suleiman, My mother passed away and being a caregiver for her for the past three years. She had many health complications and was on life support. Now I'm in a place of fear and uncertainty on what's to come next in life. To have your entire life surround being around the person who brought you onto this earth, And to have them pass away, And to have a void, An aching open void of what now, What now, What now. And not trusting yourself to make that decision moment by moment, Minute by minute, Day by day can tear you apart. And yes, Answering that with what Johnny said, Our health can go out the window, Because the second, I mean, I notice in and out. When I wake up this morning, Then I go pick up a dog, But I'm not sure it's going to be my dog, But I'm sitting in uncertainty and I'm questioning it, Bring him into bed, And I keep looking and I keep feeling the indecision, The inability to stay in the moment and trust yourself. As in, We've got time, We've got a couple of days to be with this dog and love this dog, But to feel like I need to make this decision now, Or will I make the right decision? That's draining. That's exhausting. And all of us, When we have the lack of self-worth and lack of self-trust, That comes from a lack of self-worth, Then it's difficult. It's really, Really difficult. Because we sit in that moment where we can't move forward and we put more pressure to do so. And Solomon, I'm glad I'll weave this into the story, But if you have questions, You're always welcome to put it in. And Aaron, We had a Shibu for 19 years, Actually. My husband had her before we met. She was amazing. About six months later, I tried to replace her with a rescue. And that was a disaster. She bit his hand and was trying to fly out the window to go back to the lady that had rescued her. However, About seven years later, We saw this dog, Completely different, Husky and Chiba. Big blue eyes that needed to be rescued because of childhood allergies. She was about 52 pounds, Totally different. And it's probably saved our marriage to go with the flow. Trying and force it with a replacement is my suggestion. Yep, Yep. And that's it. Because recognize what we do. Recognize when we can trust our gut instinct. When we can have faith. And when we're second-guessing ourselves. Because we're unsure of whether the universe, As Jazz put in, Of in the end, We are all one. And the universe and us, And nothing can be separate. Yeah, But in this embodied state, In this state of being perfectly embodied, And in this place, And in here, With the limitations that are accepted and chosen in order to experience this. We experience separation. And in that, There lies pain. We could have an entire class on that. And in fact, I've been prompted to do so. Because I am glad to talk about what Jazz is hinting at. But I tend to keep it so that everyone can join without getting distracted. But I will take a minute to say, In the end, Nothing, Absolutely nothing is separate. But in order to experience all of this, We create the illusion of separation. And here and now, In these moments, We're talking about the pros and the cons. The pros, I'm here. I'm separate. I'm different than you. I get to embody. I get to experience. I get to feel the cons. When my mother dies, As I'm Solomon, It feels like she dies. She's gone. She's lost. I no longer get to see her in this space. And it hurts. And one of the things that I see people trying to do is to. . . Had a microphone switch up. One of the things that I see people trying to do is to say, Because nothing is separate, I'm not supposed to grieve. But we're here to feel everything. We're here to grieve. We're here to love. We're here to discover a new person as if they were separate and then grieve their loss. We're here to love. And we're here to see the differences. So all of these things are part of it. And there is no emotion. There is no emotion in the human experience that you can possibly have that is wrong, That isn't meant to be here. Because if we knew we were all one, Then I could never learn to discover the beauty of a Solomon, Of a V, Of an Angie, Of a Jazz, Of a Jeffrey. I can't experience the mystery of these souls. The love, The curiosity, The jealousy, The judgment, The uncertainty, The fear. If they act in ways I don't enjoy, The loss, The confusion, All of them. And when they're gone, The grief, The pain, The hurt, The recognition, They're all part of the human experience. And it's easy to say we're all one or we're not. And I don't want to face that, But it's both. You are not separate than me. But on this level, We are. And that has the pros and cons. But when we're talking about self-worth and self-trust, In these challenging times, There's a couple of things that come up that I want to talk about. And you're still welcome, Everyone on this call, To put things in that we want to discuss, Is we tend to not trust ourselves in a new environment for fear of making a mistake. And many of us judge ourselves for not being sure what to do. So I'm going to talk about both that can come up that you might be experiencing. If you're in a challenging moment trying to make a decision, One of my teachers once told me, If you are trying to make a decision, You're living in fear. And I stared at him for a moment, And I finally clicked. To make a decision is to cut away. It's the same word as incision. It's to say, I must make a choice, And that choice cuts away another choice and prevents another possibility and creates consequences. And I'm afraid that I may not make the right choice or the right consequences, And it's going to have problems. And so we're in fear rather than an intuition of knowing what's right for us right now. Because we're in judgment. We're saying, What's not okay? What's not possible? And I'll use the example, And for those of you joined late, We're fostering a dog that we probably won't adopt, But reminds us so deeply of our old dog. And each moment, If I'm trying to make the decision right now, Sorry, The decision right now of whether I need to take him when there is no pressure, It's because I'm trying to decide whether to open my heart and to be there for him. And it creates a belief, A belief that many of you may share. If I truly followed my heart, I'm going to make a mistake, And the mistake is going to hurt, And the mistake is going to be painful. Because what if, Just as an example, What if we keep this dog for five more days and I can't say no? And what if we keep him for several years and it doesn't work? And what if it gets hurt? Or what if this, All of these things are fear in between us and being able to make a decision. And if instead we say, I'm going to trust myself right now. I'm going to give myself time. Because often, When we're trying to do that, It's not truly a decision we have to make right now. It's a decision we're trying to get ourselves to make right now. So that we don't have to make a hidden step. I'm going to decide that this isn't my dog right now. Because I don't want to open my heart and feel pain when we take him back to the shelter. I'm going to decide that I want to have this kind of life. Because I'm afraid that if I don't do it now, I never will. I'm going to decide to finally take that vacation or do that thing or have that conversation. Because I'm afraid that if I never ever make that decision now in this moment, Then it'll never happen. We push ourselves. As often, We don't actually have to make that decision. And I want you to see and to think about this, Is how often have we tried to push ourselves to make a decision now? Because we're afraid of some part of ourselves not being able to make it or make the right decision later. You think about taking a job and you're like, Oh, I should take that. And I need to take it right now before I start to second guess that it's a lot of hours, That it's a lot of work, That the environment isn't great, That I'm going to have to move, That all of these things. And somehow I believe that those things aren't valid as well and need to be listened to in order to make a true gut decision. But I try to override pieces of myself in order to convince myself that I need to make the decision now. Is this making sense? Because that's one of the ways in which we end up procrastinating, Hurting ourselves and creating a vicious cycle of I paralyze myself so that I can't make a decision because I put so much pressure on myself to make it now because I don't trust me in the future. That I freak out, Make hard decisions, Deliver poorly and convince myself that I'm not that great, That I can't make decisions, That I don't do a good job with this, That I can't trust myself here, Which makes it even harder to make the next decision. And the other thing we do in that same way is Silliman, As an example in here, Is we don't have to know what's next. We don't. If your mother passes away and you were your caretaker for years, I don't like the word should, So I'll caught myself and I will say it's totally acceptable to be lost. It's understandable. That's reasonable because you built your life around something that the anchor fell away. And what now? What now? And as someone who actually I'm hoping to see soon in Mexico City a year and a half ago went through a really rough divorce where she then decided to leave New York City and move to Mexico City to have a fresh start. And we were voice messaging every day and one of the things she said is I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. And I said, Of course you don't. All of your anchors, All of your things that say what to do moment to moment that made it easy have disappeared. Your neighborhood, Your friends, Your husband, Your day-to-day activities, Your favorite cafes, Your all of this. All of this is gone. And what makes you think that you're going to know what to do long term when you don't even know what to do this morning? And the advice I gave her that seemed to really resonate she said a couple months later was you're no longer making five-year decisions. You're not making five months decisions. Not making five week, Five day, Or even five hour. You're making five-minute decisions. What do I want to do for the next five minutes? What feels right for the next five minutes? And if this was very, Very recent, You're making five-second decisions. What do I need to feel and embrace for the next five seconds? And the next five seconds, And the next. And all of this pressure that we put on ourselves to know. Maybe it's a victim of the white-collar interview question of where do you see yourself in five years? But that's a lie. We never know. And in fact, This is a statement that I think fairly clearly. If you know where you're going to be in five years, There's no magic to life. We want life to be predictable so it can be certain. But when it's certain, There's no surprises. There's no uncertainty. And uncertainty comes with pain. It does. Uncertainty comes with death, With loss. But you know what else uncertainty comes with? Rebirth. Regrowth. New horizons. New friends. New partners. New lovers. New neighborhoods. New opportunities. New choices. And they're all there. There's both. And in fact, Sometimes, One can't come without the other. One of the things that I'm actually, It is hard to even say it like this, But I am grateful in a way that the passing of my dog, I ended up spending a month and a half helping out a dog shelter in Baja, California. And I met so many wonderful dogs. And you know what else I realized? There were like 40 dogs in the neighborhood that we were. I didn't really know any of them before my dog passed because he was mine. And if I had a choice, I was going to be with my dog. So you don't even know what's around the corner. And if you're sitting here, I haven't seen it put in, But saying, I don't want to lose my job because I have this. I don't want to leave this or this. Someone did just leave or someone just died. It hurts. I'm not here to bypass hurt or grief. It all has messages. It all has feelings. But, There's a lot of possibilities now. Because Solomon, The other side of what no one has said, Or that I didn't see in all of the beautiful people taking care of you, Is, You were also a caretaker for, I can't remember if you said several or three years, Three years. And now you get to have your own life again. I mean, You know what? If you don't know what to do tonight, Solomon, I do have a fun recommendation from something I love. Is, Watch the movie Love Actually. If you've never seen it, It's beautiful. And there's a couple reasons I say to recommend this. I mean, This is not some teaching love, Should you go do it, But I'm saying it as an example. The movie explores eight-ish different kinds of love. Different experiences of love. Different ways in which love happen and experience. And one character has a mentally unstable brother who she takes care of. And she loves him to death. But that love also interferes with her ability to have her own love and her own life. And of course, She, I don't want to ruin the movie, But she makes some decisions in that role that says, I still prefer being the caretaker to my brother over anything else. But now you've had the decision taken from you and there is a life and an opportunity out there on the other side of having that life taken from you. Sorry, A lot of truck. But I'm going to try to capture because there was a lot of things people said here and then we'll go into a meditation. But I'd like some ideas because we mostly talked today. If there's anything someone on this call is saying, I'm really struggling to process something. Something specific. And I'd want to focus on it. Then put it in over the next few minutes because we'll meditate or started to do forms of prayers. Of what is most helpful for people in the room. But I want to capture and make sure I didn't miss something someone said. Yeah, One day at a time. And yes, Solomon. Just in case someone else is experiencing grief and trying to trust themselves and make decisions in the middle of loss. That was the best advice someone gave me. When we lost our dog. Was grief and emotions come in waves. They do. And sometimes the waves get smaller, But sometimes they overcome you again. And grief is meant to overcome you. It's meant to overcome your sense of self. It's meant to break you open even wider. To the pain and the beauty of this world. As I can agree with Solomon and waves. Yesterday on my calendar was my dog who had passed, Marked as his birthday. Of course, We didn't know his birthday because we got him at two and a half. But we got him in the fall and I marked it March 18th. And it's hard. And I sat there with a foster dog that looked just like him, But it's not him. And I cried and I cried and I cried. They come in waves. And we welcome it. Because when you restrict and avoid grief, It's painful. But when you feel it, It still hurts. But it breaks you open. And it makes life more, More real. So Aaron said a friend of mine, Kathleen Kelly wrote a book about a dog's love is forever. And crossing over that is on Amazon. That may be interesting. And Aaron, Trust yourself, Even if it's hard. Absolutely agree with everything you're saying. When you're trying to push yourself to make a decision, It's probably not correct. Go with the flow when it feels correct. Yeah. And I love that everyone's having, Supporting Solomon in the comments. And then Cassie, Let me capture this. That resonates. After overworking to burnout, I lost a lot of trust in myself. Trust that I can love and support myself. And trust that I can support my business. There's a lot of self-judgment from the past that keeps me stuck, Believing I'm not worthy of my support. Stuck in this, Forgetting that I'm strong, Worthy and capable without needing to prove it. Yeah. Because when we look at all of this, And this has kind of been a winding class today, But I love it because I love it the most when people are involved. The title is just a prompt. You see where it goes from there. But sometimes we don't trust ourselves for good reason. And I say that to have one last thing. If I have been punishing myself, I'm not someone worthy of trust in that realm, In that area. And that's something that I actually explored with those of you who started to email me, Is self-trust isn't just trusting every decision I make. It's learning to become someone who listens to all pieces of myself, All of myself, So that I am someone worth trusting. Because often people try to say, I've been in Cassie's situation. And I'm sorry for the noise. I have burnt myself out. I've built a company. I've pushed myself to the edges. I have drank multiple cups of coffee a day to get myself to complete a project to do this because then I'll be okay. And then I've been sad, Exhausted. I have been so overwhelmed and so overstimulated and needing to get myself out of a rough spot running my company that the only way that I could get myself was rather than going and taking a break. During the middle of COVID, When all the campgrounds were full, I found a trail system that had lean-tos and I drove myself out without any electronics, But a book, Not so that I could rest, But so that I could read three books on sales without the distractions of my nervous system and emails so that I could come back and try to save everything. That person, That version of me was not worthy of trust. I was not acting in a way that is going to lead to peace, Lead to good outcomes. And that's important because often what we do and when we're in Cassie's situation is to say, I just need to trust myself. But what we mean is I'm trying to trust the version of myself that says, Go back to work, Everything will be fine without examining the parts of myself that have a tendency to get absorbed, To get lost in it, To self-abandon, To get angry, To work late because those parts are still there. And until we learn and hear and feel all pieces of those parts of ourselves, Then I can't trust you and I can't trust myself because if over and over and over again, You are hurting yourself, Then you can't be trusted not to hurt yourself until you examine, You explore and you feel. And it's actually been a while since we've done this class where we talk about learning to figure out what is this piece of me doing? Because there's a piece of me that, For instance, A lot of people who have Cassie's story also have a story of some form of addictive behavior. And they'll sit there and alternate in between burning themselves out and scrolling Instagram for late into the night or burning ourselves out or consuming alcohol or burning ourselves out and eating or burning ourselves out and this. And people will sit there and try, Try, Try to stop the endless without realizing that that's actually the part of themselves that's forcing a release valve. It's forcing them to stop working occasionally. It's forcing them to feel too exhausted some days to work. It's forcing themselves to have something that stops, That slows down. It's the counterbalance trying to figure out how to navigate work, Work, Work, Work, Force, Force, Force, Prove, Prove, Prove, Prove, Prove. And we can't do this forever. And until we face and experience all parts of those things, All parts of ourselves, All parts of that, Then we can't just stop one or the other. We can't just say, I'm going to go back to work and I'm totally fine now until we face the parts of ourselves that are going to overwork. And we can't just say, You know what? I'm going to stop scrolling Instagram at night until we say, The reason I'm scrolling Instagram at night is because I have worked myself so hard in such a state of stress and tension that I don't even, I'm not even aware of the sensations in my body anymore. And I'm trying to distract my mind long enough that my body can relax so that I can even get a measure of sleep. So until I face that and find a way around it, I'm not to be trusted to go back to work again or to do this. Until I find new strategies, New ways from facing all pieces of myself. Does that make sense to everyone? And we're going a bit late here, But I will say, Because Karen put in, My teen is really struggling and I'm struggling with parenting decisions. Yeah. I don't think there's a single person who has been a teenager or has had a teenager who doesn't understand that. But it's hard. Because in this Karen, Because we don't have too much time. And I think we'll do a short prayer rather than a meditation based on just the sheer volume of different things we talked about is if you're trying to make a decision, You're afraid. I get it. I get it deeply. My mother, I'd love to call you, Not literally because she's kind of introverted, But my brother was a severe addict as a teenager and in and out of rehab for, He was in rehab for probably a third of his high school years. And my mother, I'm gonna tell you, She struggled to make decisions over and over and over again. Because she'll admit today, She was always afraid that one wrong decision would lead to visiting the morgue, Not the rehab. And a lot of raising a teenager feels like that. They're stupid. I say that in the kindest of ways. Their brain isn't developed. Their risk tolerance isn't there. They're trying to develop their own autonomy, But they don't make good decisions. And we're afraid. And you know, I really avoid giving parenting advice because I'm not a parent. But I want to be, To share advice from one of the best parents I know. And what they said was, The best thing you can do with a teenager is to start sharing your inner world with them and those fears. Because they won't hear you telling them what to do, But they will hear you say, I'm really, Really afraid to make the wrong decision and to have consequences. And I know you're trying to do this, But can we have a conversation? As I know you're not an adult and there are some things that I'm going to have to stop you from. But I'm going to start sharing how afraid I am and how uncertain and how I don't know what to do. And let's have a conversation about it. And in the end, I'm still your mom, But I want to start giving you some autonomy. Because in the end, You won't have control. You won't. And the more that you try to control, And for everyone who doesn't have a teenager, This is also an analogy for life. You don't have control of them. They're always out of your sight sometimes. They're always out of someone's control sometimes. And the more you try to control, The more teenagers have a need to experience their own freedom and autonomy. But I will share one more thing. And we will go late. And I'm sorry, Or not sorry for Trish who just joined. And one of the best things my mother ever did, And I don't, And I will say children are different because my mother ended up with one child who never ended up touching drugs and one who was an addict by the time he was 13, But very different personality and reasons. But when I was about 12 or 13, My mother sat me down. And my mother was our school-based social worker. So she knew what went wrong with children. She knew what happened. She knew what was there. And the only downside of that was, So there were times where I would try to befriend someone and my mother knew too much about them. But my mother sat me down and said to me, Hey, I'm going to start to talk to you about drugs. And she just talked to me like an adult. And she's like, Here are the things. Here's the science. Here's what we know. Here's my experience of addiction. Here are my fears. Here's what's going on. Here are the things that really, Really scare me and scare everyone. And here are the things that, You know, Your uncle Greg smokes pot, But here's the impact and here's what could happen. And here's what's there. And in the end, I was like, Why are you telling me all this? And she's like, Because I can't make decisions for you, But I can help you have the information and the trust to make your own decisions. And I'm scared because there are things that would really, Really scare me that I would hope that, You know, Never to touch. But there are things that you're going to have to make your own choices and face your own consequences. And here are some of the consequences that you really should know might happen and what they'll happen to you in the long run. And she shared stories of her brother who got caught with a pound of pot at some age and had a felony and never had a good job again. And she shared stories of people who she knows never saw again. And those stories helped more than telling me what to do ever would have. But that came from giving the information and saying, I trust you because I have to. Not because I want to. I'd love to be able to control and say like, Don't get pregnant, Don't do drugs, But I have to. So I want to prepare you to be able to do so. So I just wanted to share that specifically for Karen. Yeah, Right. Yeah, Karma. But I risk of having too many conversations today and too much. I'll do a brief prayer. Not everyone that will make up a non-religious prayer, Just to be specific, But it's like the asking. The asking for, And you can use your own words, Asking for, Let's do a modified serenity prayer. God, Or whatever, Grant me the serenity to accept the parts of myself that I have not been able to accept or see clearly. The courage to understand the parts of myself that I haven't been willing to understand. And the willingness to hear all of those parts so that I can make new choices from a place of self-trust and self-worth. Because in all of this, Self-worth in challenging times is hard because we often try to blame ourselves for the difficult situations. But life has difficult situations. No one gets a free ride. If Solomon's, If someone you love's just passed or passed even in the past few years and you don't know what to do, Don't blame yourself. Trust that if moment by moment you explore and ask yourself, Then it'll figure itself out. We have several people on this call who were here yesterday talking about divorce or being abandoned or pieces in which someone broke your trust. Trust that you'll get through and have worth because often we blame ourselves. But moment by moment, If we choose to take care of ourselves, To be with ourselves, To see these moments, Then it'll work. We'll make it through. And we will have a class on it soon to go deeper rather than talking. This often comes by steering into the places that we're unwilling to see or unwilling to feel. Because life keeps moving forward whether we want it to or not. And that's often true after the major violations that happen in life. But we, When we cannot leave the past, It's usually because there, Or when we're afraid of the future, There's a part of ourselves we've been unwilling to welcome and face or a feeling or a thought we haven't been able to process. So thank you all. And as always, If anyone found their way new here and would love to follow, I'd love to see you all again. And, But you're always welcome here. And I love the little family that we're building. And over the next couple of minutes, Because then I got to leave to let Katerina have some time. If there's any topics that you want to talk about, Let me know because I'll be going through these soon to find the next request and start scheduling a couple of weeks out. And Angie, I feel that. If we could go back, We would. If we could have a redo, Do it in a heartbeat. That's another one, Actually, Angie. It's not quite as deep, But I have one more movie recommendation. And these aren't like, You need to watch these to heal. But I think anybody who's feeling like Angie, There's a movie about time that I just put in. Oh, It's a really good examination of that from someone who can travel in time with some limits. And I'm coming to recognize there are some things you can't change, Some things you can't do, Some things you wouldn't give up, Some things that happen to you. Yeah. Dealing With Grief and Silliman. Yeah, I like that. But I'm going to go ahead and copy. Okay, But thank you all. I appreciate you all. And I will see many of you, Hopefully, Next Tuesday at the same time. Just caught that, Angie. Self-abandoning. Yep. Yes, I can. Thank you all. Talk to you soon.

Reviews

Amazing talk, as always!! I'm incredibly grateful for you & what you do for me, yourself, & this community. It's an absolute gift. 🙏🏻💙🧘🏼‍♀️✨️