Are you ready for a heart to heart conversation about something that can transform your life?
Namaste,
My name is Somya and in this episode of Unlearn we will be talking about self love and how changing your relationship with yourself can slowly begin to change all areas of your life.
So if you are ready,
Let's get started.
So I would like to begin our conversation with a short story.
A couple of years back I had gone for a silent meditation retreat to a Buddhist monastery and in between our sessions we were allowed to read books and I happened to pick up a book on human relationships and there was something in this book that caught my attention.
The book said that only two people who are complete and whole in themselves can come together in order to form a happy relationship.
And this took me by surprise.
You know why?
Because this message was so different from what the mainstream media and the pop culture has been trying to tell us for so many years.
Which is that we are fundamentally incomplete and that someone on the outside needs to come in in order to fix us and fill the void within us.
But I realized that nothing could be further from the truth.
The most important relationship that you will ever get into is the one that you have with yourself.
And unless you learn how to fix all of those broken pieces within you,
The other relationships in your life will continue to be a reflection of the mess that is inside.
So the first question that I have for you is,
What is the relationship that you have with yourself?
Is it one that is based on love,
Compassion,
Understanding,
Forgiveness or is it one that is based on self-criticism,
Self-ridicule and a constant inner dialogue of just nasty things about yourself?
This brings me to the second part of our conversation which is,
What is the script that you are carrying within yourself?
What do I mean by the script?
Well,
In the movie of your life,
You are the protagonist and like any hero,
You have a story and a script that you may be living up to.
This script consists of all of those belief systems and thoughts that you have about yourself.
So an example for this could be,
I am successful,
I am unsuccessful,
I am beautiful,
I am ugly,
People always abandon me,
I find it difficult to get into relationships,
Etc.
Now the tricky thing about this script is that when we are younger,
This script is given to us by significant people in our lives.
For example,
Your parents or a romantic partner or a best friend.
But as we begin to grow older,
We forget to reflect on the script and to scrutinize which parts of the script may not be serving us anymore.
And even though things in your life may now have shifted,
You may still be living a story that no longer serves you anymore.
So an example of this could be and how this impacts you is,
Let's say your script says,
I find it very difficult to talk to people,
People always abandon me.
And then you get invited to a social gathering where there are lots of new people.
This old belief system in all likelihood will continue to play in your head like a broken record.
What do you think will happen when you go to this new social setting?
In all likelihood,
You may find it difficult to talk to the people who are present here,
Thereby increasing your awkwardness and thereby fueling the initial belief system that you had.
So things in your life don't seem to change because you are doing nothing about the belief systems,
The redundant old beliefs that exist that don't serve you anymore.
So the second question that I have for you is,
What is the story that you're constantly telling yourself?
Do you think it may now be time to shift this story?
Are you just a passive consumer of all the things that were told to you?
Or are you now ready to start co creating the experiences of your life?
Old questions,
Huh?
So now that you may have some awareness around the stories that you're telling yourself,
The real question is,
How do you go about shifting these stories?
So one of the ways in which you can shift these older belief systems is with the help of affirmations.
Affirmations are simple statements that are positively worded and which are spoken out or read aloud in the present tense.
So borrowing from the older example,
I find it challenging to meet new people.
I feel awkward around them.
The affirmation to this could be,
I'm at ease when I'm around new people.
I find it comfortable to talk to new people.
People enjoy my presence.
I'm surrounded by love and happiness from all directions.
You see the difference between these two statements is not in the words,
It's in the emotion that it arises within you.
So in the first one,
The emotion is that of fear and abandonment and rejection.
Whereas in the second one,
The emotion is that of ease and comfort and a belief in yourself.
But you know,
The tricky thing about affirmations is that they don't work overnight.
The reason for that is that this older script that you have been telling yourself,
These older beliefs that you have been telling yourself have been running in your mind for so many years that in order to overwrite them,
You need to give yourself some time.
So affirmations work best when you truly feel the emotion behind the affirmation and you repeat it to yourself enough number of times.
Initially when you start using affirmations,
They're going to feel like a bunch of lies.
It's going to feel like a big bunch of crap,
But that's okay.
It's because your conscious mind will be telling you that why are you lying to yourself?
It is going to feel like a lie initially,
But as you repeat it to yourself over and over and over again,
It begins to shift your reality and your experiences in your life.
The magic number for affirmations is anywhere between 21 to 40 days and all you need to do is take out two minutes every day to read out the affirmations that you have chosen for yourself.
The more important question though is that why should you go about changing your belief systems or your stories?
Because unless you do,
You will only keep creating more of those experiences in your life.
Let's say you're at home and you decide to cook a meal for yourself and you have made a little bit extra food.
Will you now be willing to share this extra food with other people in your life?
Well,
Yes,
Because you're in excess of that.
The same is true for whatever it is that you're creating inside of you.
So if there is a lot of anger inside of you,
Guess what will you share with the rest of the world?
More anger.
If you have more peace inside of you,
That's what you will end up reflecting.
If you have a lot of love inside of you,
That's what you will end up giving in your other relationships.
So the thing is simple,
That if you want to start shifting what's on the outside,
You need to start shifting what is on the inside.
And instead of taking a back seat in your life,
I think it may be time for you to get into the driver's seat and start doing some things that can actively bring about positive changes for yourself.
So the last question that I have for you is,
What do you want to create more of in your life?
What would you like to share with the rest of the world?
So an example from my life would be that if you ever come into my house,
You will see some words that I have decided to paste all over my house.
And these two words,
No surprise,
Are calm and peaceful.
The reason for that is that I want to create more of these experiences in my life.
And I have put little reminders all over my house of the emotion that I want to experience more often,
Which is this emotion of feeling peaceful from within.
And only if I'm able to feel peaceful from within will I be able to share this with the students that I have in my yoga community or the students that I teach meditation to or anybody who comes in contact with me.
Because this is something that I know how to create actively.
And so only then will I be in a position to share it with the rest of the world.
So with that,
I would now like to bring our conversation to a close.
And if you enjoyed this video today,
I know that there was some deep reflective questions.
I invite you to come back to this video and sit with your journal and really think about how can you become an active creator in your life.
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With that,
I would now like to take your leave and I will go and enjoy the rest of my tea.
I hope you have a beautiful day ahead.
Bye.
