Alright,
So,
Me and you,
We need to talk.
I know that you have been comparing yourself to other people,
I know because I have been doing that as well.
Now,
Let's talk about attention.
How many people,
How many of us,
At some point on their social media journey,
Believed that they are not worthy of attention?
Because their video didn't get any views,
Or their photo on Instagram didn't get any likes,
And therefore we started thinking that,
Ah,
I'm not worthy,
I don't have any social currency,
I don't have any social influence.
But you see,
You are worthy of attention,
It's just that you are trying to receive that attention from the wrong source.
Let me explain.
If you are placing your self-worth on analytics,
Like how many views you have,
How many likes you get,
How many followers you have,
Then you will never get there.
You are inherently worthy of your attention.
Your attention means the attention that you give to yourself,
To the things you love doing,
To the activities that you would like to do.
If you do not give yourself the attention that you need and crave and deserve,
Who's gonna give it to you?
And even if they do,
Even if you go viral on TikTok,
It will not be as satisfying as you may think.
Because you're still craving for that attention that you need from your own heart,
Your own mind,
Your own self.
I don't think you realize how important it is that you give yourself the attention that you deserve.
And yes,
It's important to get attention from your family,
From your friends,
From your loved ones.
But different qualities of attention have different effects.
Even if you get all that attention from all those other people,
If you are not giving it to yourself,
If you are not self-contained,
You will always feel insecure.
You will always feel like you need to get your fix of attention from those sources,
Which is not the most wholesome path to take.
Wouldn't you agree?
How can you give yourself more attention?
Loving attention,
Loving awareness.
For example,
You do not need to go out during the weekend to party.
You can if you want to,
But if you're doing that weekend after weekend after weekend,
Then you are trying to cover a hole within you of attention by being out around other people all the time.
And of course,
There's extroverts and introverts and different needs.
But still,
How important is to rest?
It is so important.
And that demands your attention.
In order for you to rest,
You need to make space for that.
You need to make space,
Like physical space.
Where are you going to rest?
And time space.
When are you going to rest?
When are you going to rest?
So take this weekend off so that you can rest,
So you can calm your mind,
Your body,
Your spirit.
Give yourself what you need.
If you don't give yourself what you need,
And you're just keep on doing the same things like going out partying and having way too much more of everything,
Of alcohol,
Of stimulation,
Of maybe sex,
Of whatever it is,
And you're not giving yourself enough time to rest,
Then you are going to be in pain,
In some form of pain.
That will have a direct effect on your body,
On your anxiety,
On your ease,
On your calmness,
Or not.
And rest,
Deep rest.
Deep rest is different than just sleeping,
You know?
Deep rest means that you can rest your attention.
It doesn't mean that you go to bed and watch Netflix all day long with popcorn during the weekend,
Even though that might be fun,
And even though at some point you might need that as well.
Deep rest means giving yourself the space and the time and the permission to lie in bed and do nothing other than rest.
Not even sleep.
And if you do need to sleep,
Sleep,
Because a lot of us are sleep deprived.
This whole world is running on 6 to 7 hours of sleep,
And sleep is really important.
But it's not the only form of rest.
The ability to allow yourself to carve out a weekend where you can just be with your thoughts,
In a nice environment,
With a journal,
And you can,
If you want,
Use that journal to explore your thoughts,
With thought-provoking questions,
Or just feel what is coming up for you.
Feel into your body.
What am I holding?
Am I holding something here?
I'll give you an example.
Yesterday,
I felt like I was holding grief.
And so,
Instead of the usual path to push it aside,
I decided to be present with it.
And so,
I came here in my room,
And I cried.
I felt the need to cry and cry and cry.
And it helped me release so much.
And there was no obvious,
Apparent reason why I was holding grief.
The reality is,
We have plenty,
Plenty of reasons to be holding grief.
And,
You know,
The death of a loved one is one of them.
And you don't need to have that gateway to grief in order to be holding grief.
You can be holding grief for your dreams,
Your goals,
Your aspirations,
From childhood or your teenage years,
Where some sort of event happened,
Where your trajectory in life changed,
And you no longer were able to follow those dreams and aspirations.
Like a music video that might trigger the memory that there was a time that you wanted to do this,
This kind of thing.
And because of this reason and this reason,
You were not able to do it.
That is a form of grief.
A form of grief that,
If you allow yourself to explore,
It will unlock you.
It will unlock your feelings about the situation and the stuck energy that is there.
Because if you haven't expressed that grief,
Well,
That is something you will be carrying.
There is an invisible backpack full of feelings that you haven't yet allowed yourself to explore.
So,
It is vital that you create the space and the time to do so.
If you are fortunate enough to have privacy within your home,
Then that is a good place to create a sacred container and say,
Okay,
This room is dedicated to me expressing myself and releasing the emotions that no longer serve me.
The emotions that need to be felt and released.
This is the space,
And this is the time.
I'm going to be coming in here whenever I feel drained or whenever I feel some sort of grief or sadness,
And I'll just sit with those feelings.
And I'll just be,
Hmm,
Yeah,
I'm feeling this now.
I wonder why it's here.
What does it have to share with me?
What does it have to show me?
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
Just being with that allows space to be felt.
And if it is not felt and is only rationally explained,
It is still not processed.
It needs to be felt in order to be processed,
In order to be released.
I hope that this is of value to someone.
I know it's of value to me because I am expressing myself,
And that is something I wanted to do since I was a child.
To express myself in a beautiful environment with something wonderful or useful to say to at least one person.
I hope that one person is you.
