Hello and welcome to Living a Purposeful Life,
A challenge here on Insight Timer created to help you go after a life that feels aligned,
Aligned with your values,
Your goals,
And your priorities.
What are we talking about here?
We're talking about living a life that is true to who you really are.
My name is Darius Bashar and in today's session,
We will be focusing on how to stop people pleasing and escaping the need for external validation.
In today's session,
We're going to start with a little bit of theory,
A bit of a lesson with some real practical tips,
And then we're going to follow that up with an actual meditation practice to really help you ingrain all of it deeper.
And where I'd like to start is an unusual place.
I'd like to share some gratitude for people pleasing,
This trait,
This need for external validation.
I want to share some gratitude about it.
It's like,
What are you talking about,
Darius?
Gratitude?
It's such a toxic trait.
I get it.
I understand it can be toxic,
But what is people pleasing at its core?
Really it's about connection.
It's about wanting to connect with these other people,
Whoever they might be.
And if you go back in time to our ancient ancestors,
Connection was not just a nice thing,
It was an essential thing to existence.
Our ancestors who were in hunter-gatherer tribes needed unity.
They needed people to work together and think together and be similar.
And if you had ideas or actions that were outside of that tribe,
You might get kicked out of the tribe and be left all alone,
Which often meant death.
And now when we feel that lack of connection or that people don't like us or don't love us or don't respect us,
We feel this impending doom.
And really there's nothing serious happening now.
Ours is a spiritual journey.
And the connection we seek is with ourselves,
With our hearts,
With our souls.
And so thank you,
People pleasing.
Thank you,
Need for external validation.
Thank you,
Ancestors who did what they had to do to get us to here.
But the truth is for us to get from here to the next step,
This trait no longer serves us.
There are three practices,
Very simple practices I use before I create anything.
And for me,
That's where my people pleasing gets activated the most.
Will people like this meditation?
Will people like this post?
Will people like this video?
And it's crucial for me to come back to myself.
And so three things I do before I start the creation process,
I always start things off with a prayer.
A simple prayer has nothing to do with religion.
It just reminds me of me.
It brings me back to my heart and it gives me courage to speak my truth.
I will share that prayer in our practice today.
Number two,
Once the creation,
The conversation,
Whatever it is,
Is over,
I take 30 seconds and I do a bless and release ritual.
Really simple.
I just cut any energetic cords,
Bless myself,
Bless the people who are going to experience this meditation,
This conversation,
This whatever it is.
And I release,
A beautiful sacred release.
And lastly,
At some point in the next 24 hours after the creation is done,
The conversation is done,
I make sure to celebrate and anchor in gratitude because it's a privilege to be able to go into our hearts,
Find our truth and share our truth with the world.
So anchoring in the celebration and the joy gives me momentum for the future to continue that behavior.
So three things,
A pre-prayer,
A post-ritual and a celebration.
I've shared a lot.
Let's take a deep breath together and let's slow things down,
Moving from our head space down into our heart space as I guide us through a short meditation practice.
Let's begin by finding a nice comfortable seat.
Your eyes are open.
I'd like to invite you to close them now.
And we always start by connecting with ourselves before we give to the world,
Before we express our opinions.
It can be very helpful to just start within.
I like to start with a prayer.
Again,
It has nothing to do with religion.
I'll share mine with you here.
You don't need to use this one.
The most important thing is you have a ritual of some sort that allows you to connect with yourself before expressing,
Sharing or giving with the world.
Let's take a deep breath here and this is my prayer.
Dear God,
Please use me as a vessel for your divine expression.
Use me as an instrument of your love.
Give me the courage to go into the depths of my heart and find my truth and the courage to speak my truth in my own authentic voice.
Whatever happens from there,
I let go and let God.
Your voice matters.
Your feelings matter.
Your perspective,
Your vision matters.
You don't need to share it,
But if you'd like to share it,
Let's make space for you before we give,
Before we share,
Before we express.
We take a moment with our own hearts,
Our own truth and remember that our voice matters in this world.
This first part is helpful to building momentum,
Allowing us to find our truth inside our own hearts and finding courage to express it.
This next part is for once we have already expressed it.
Our opinions,
We've given our contributions,
We've said our truth,
We've created from a place of authenticity and maybe it was received well and maybe it wasn't.
That is the reality of life.
We can't control what others think and feel.
What we can control is that we are coming from an honest place.
We can control that we have done the best we could at this moment in time.
And then once we've shared what we had to share and gave what we had to give,
We take a moment and we bless and release it.
It's no longer ours.
We bless and release it into the world.
If you're open to it,
Let's try an exercise to help us anchor this experience into our bodies.
I want you to place one or both of your hands in front of you and imagine you are holding tightly your opinion,
Your perspective,
Your creation.
You're trying to protect it.
You're trying to defend it.
You're trying to keep it safe by keeping it away from people and continue squeezing.
And you'll notice very quickly that your arms will get tired and your shoulder will get tired and also that you are in no position to receive anything.
The solution here is simple.
We take a deep breath in and we bless our creations and we bless our perspectives and we bless the people we made them for and we bless ourselves.
And then we open our hands and we release them into the world.
We don't need to hold this any longer.
If you're ready,
Let's bless and release.
When I say release the next time you open your hands,
Bless and release.
Can you feel the relief?
Can you feel the joy?
Can you feel the excitement from letting go?
You don't need to hold them anymore.
Bless and release.
Send them your love.
Send them your appreciation and let them go into the world where they belong.
Choosing to live a purposeful life,
Choosing to stop people pleasing and escape the need for external validation can be challenging at times.
It requires a deep commitment to yourself,
To your own priorities,
To your own values,
To your own truth.
And I want to seed this idea here and now that this process can also be deeply joyful.
When we zoom out of any particular situation,
What are we really talking about here?
We're talking about the honor and privilege of being yourself.
Our ancestors did not have that same opportunity,
But we do.
And so I personally like to zoom out and remember how lucky,
How fortunate I am to be on this particular journey.
I take a few deep breaths,
I smile,
And I let the energy of gratitude permeate through my life.
Before we close our session,
I want to share that there is no cure for people pleasing.
As long as you have a heart and as long as your heart cares for humans,
There's always going to be a chance that you fall back into people pleasing.
Okay,
You have tools,
You have connection to yourself,
And you can always find your way.
So please remember to be gentle,
Be kind with yourself,
Be patient.
This is a journey and we are all a work in progress.
If you'd like to engage with the Insight Timer community here,
There's a discussion forum with a question around the impact,
The weight of people's expectations on your life.
It could be a good reminder and a wake-up call to what people pleasing is costing us.
Thank you for meditating with me.
My name is Darius and I will see you next time.
