Self-Gentleness Is A Gift (To The World) - LIVE 04/06/22

This talk is a recording of Femke's Live session on 6 April 2022. In this session, we explore what self-gentleness is and how practicing self-gentleness is not only a gift to yourself, but also to the world. The talk starts with a brief meditative practice, after which the talk starts. Femke closes the session by answering participants' questions. The workshop mentioned is now over, but new Self-Gentleness workshops are on the way: check Femke's profile for her upcoming workshops and LIVES.

Transcript

Hi everyone, I think I am live. Welcome at this special talk. Normally I have my weekly lives on Fridays, Every Friday at 3 30 Eastern Time, Which is 9 30 Central European Time, My time. My name is Femke Bacher, One of the meditation teachers here on Insight Timer. I'm residing in the Netherlands, Which explains my accent because I am Dutch. And I'm welcoming you and I'm really curious what made you come here today to my special talk where I will explain or speak with you about why being gentle to yourself can be a gift to the world. So let me know what inspires you to come to listen to my talk today. We're doing it a little bit differently. On Fridays I have a live meditation and before the meditation I always discuss the theme of the day before I guide us into meditation. And today it will be a little bit more of a talk, But I do want to start with a small meditative practice just before we start. But I'll just give it a few minutes for all the folks that want to join to come in. John says I'm often hard on myself. Do you know when that happens John? Is that just like that or is it specific situations? If you want to share, You know, If it's too personal then you don't have to. But then you can think of it for yourself because it might be helpful when we continue with the talk. All right, So you know, Take some time to think about it. I really love to hear why you felt like coming to my talk today. But let's start with a brief meditative practice because what I really love about these live events is that there are so many people from all around the world and that we can connect here and that we can connect with each other. There's such a power coming from that in my Friday lives. There are often lots of people and then when we meditate together it is like everyone is in the same room with me and I really love that experience. So I would love for us to make this connection for a moment. So before I will talk, And I promise you I will talk a lot because if you know me you know I can, Let's just sit comfortable for a moment and really take your time to feel if you are sitting comfortable. Very often we're just sitting and we're not so much aware that maybe our foot is not standing in a right way, Not in a way that is really comfortable or we fold our legs and our legs start to sleep a little bit or you're still having some tension in your shoulders. That's me right? When I pay attention to my body I always notice oh my shoulders are up again. I can let them go and I always love to sigh it out when I do so and then this sensation of relaxation enters my body. You might do the same if you just pull up your shoulders and then just drop them. Can you feel that? How good that is? Close your eyes for a moment and take a moment to feel how you are sitting. Sitting on your buttocks. Is there any tension somewhere in your body? If there is then just simply shift and see if you can make it more comfortable for you. And you can support your back if you like, If that's more comfortable that's no problem. You can lean against the back of your chair and you can you know have your legs as you want if you like to fold them up by all means do so but if that's not comfortable then just place your feet on the ground and drop your hands in your lap really relaxed and just for a moment I would like you to bring your attention to whatever you are hearing. You don't have to change the sounds, You don't have to push them away, You don't even have to understand what you are hearing. Simply try to register what you are hearing right now. Well my voice understandably. But if you listen really really far away what do you hear? And if you try to listen to the most subtle sounds in your environment what do you hear? Can you hear the way your clothes are shifting over your skin? Can you hear your own breath? Your heartbeat? And next time you breathe in I would like you to bring your attention to whatever you are seeing with your eyes closed. You can see with your eyes closed maybe you see just dark or black or maybe you see some light shimmering through your eyelids. Maybe your mind's eye, Your fantasy imagination immediately gets to work and shows you images. Some people see coloured dots or swirling colours, Whatever it is, You don't have to change it, Just observe whatever you are seeing with your eyes closed. Now bring your attention to your own voice. Now bring your attention to your sense of touch. You feel probably the way you are sitting, Your bum on the chair, Your back leaning against the back of the chair, Your hands resting on your thighs or the table. Can you feel also more subtle sensations like the clothes on your skin, The way your socks rest on your ankles, Your hair in the back of your neck or on your chin if you have a beard. Can you feel the air on your skin? Lovely. Now with the next in-breath I would like you to bring your attention to the centre of your chest, To your heart. If you like you can put your hands there. If you find it hard to bring your attention there then you can imagine that from the middle, The centre of your head you slowly, Slowly drop down into your mouth, Your neck, Your neck like a small elevator going down to your heart. Heart centre in the middle of your chest. And let your attention rest there, Hover there for a moment. Now try to use your fantasy, Your imagination to picture your heart there. And with picture I don't mean that you have to visualise per se, Everyone fantasises in their own way. You can also just know your heart to be there or feel the heartbeat but become aware of that. And if you do need an image then you could imagine that there is a light there. Now with every in-breath you take, Imagine that this heart space, This light in your heart, This love in your heart, This feeling that is in your heart starts to grow. It starts to grow and it starts to fill your whole body. So slowly, Slowly I'll refer to a light that really helps me and I hope it will help you also. See this light expand into your chest, Into your shoulders and arms, Shoulders and arms, Your belly, Into your legs, Expanding all the way until it is like a big bubble of light surrounding you and originating from your heart. All right, Now let's expand this light even further, Let it grow out until it fills the whole room where you are in. And you can make it go as fast or slow as you like. And when you reach the outer sides of your room then let it expand even more until it surrounds the building that you are in. So with every in-breath you feel and see this light, This love, This knowing of what is in your heart expand until there is a big bubble of light surrounding your house, The building you live in. Right there, Yes. And be aware that this all originates in your heart. Now let it expand even more, Let it grow out until it encompasses the town or the city you live in, Let it grow out. And imagine that every being that is now touched by this light because you are expanding this is touched by your light and they might have a smile on their face without even knowing why but this is because you are expanding your light. And while you are doing this you might imagine that there are more people in your country now, In your town now, That are also doing this, That their lights are connecting together with you. So let's expand this together even more until this light goes and encompasses your whole country. You can take as much time as you like, You can make it really fast, Really slow, Stretching it up, Filling it from the middle of your chest where there is so much love. It doesn't need to be replenished, It's just there. It's not thinning, It's just keeping its strength and it's growing out until it touches the whole country and every being in it, Not just human beings but every being, Every human, Every animal, From the biggest to the smallest, Every plant, From the smallest seed until the biggest tree. Now imagine that there are more people in your country that are doing exactly this together with you and you might see their lights as well and be aware of how these lights start to blend. And let's use this to expand this light even more until we create a bubble around our mother earth. Let it grow out with every in-breath, Let it grow, Touching every being, Every being on this earth, Every being shining its light and some of them now, Right now, Expanding together with you. And if you have this hovering perspective like you're floating above the planets, Looking at all these small lights that are expanding and expanding, Blending and mixing, Mingling and becoming one, These beautiful lights surrounding our planet. And while you're doing this, Be aware of everyone here now doing this together, How connecting this is, How life-enforcing this is. So let's now retract this. Slowly, Slowly we start to retract the slides, But with it we bring back this connection. Slowly, Slowly we retract it back to our country while maintaining this connection that we just felt. Attracting it even more slowly, Slowly, Slowly, Slowly, Slowly, Slowly, Slowly. To the building we live in. Slowly back to the womb, Slowly back to the house, Slowly back to the house. And from there on, Retracting it even more back to the building we live in. Slowly back to the womb we are sitting. Back to our body. And can you feel how powerful this light is, How connected it feels? And now bring it back to your heart. And while you're sitting here, Then you might notice that you feel a little bit differently than when you started. You might be a little bit more relaxed, A little bit more centered, Grounded, And feeling the connection with other beings, Maybe all beings, But at least beings that are now together meditating. All right, Now you can relax your attention and just take a moment to get out of the meditation. Don't make it too fast, Keep your eyes closed a little bit. You know, Help yourself, Wiggle your fingers and toes, Stretch your spine, And then gently, Really gently, In your own time, You can open your eyes. And I will be here to tell you a little bit more about self-gentleness and why it's important for us and for our world at large. But take your time. So I see that John answered me that you usually have low self-esteem and you sell yourself short. Well, The good news is that you know that you're selling yourself short, You know, There is this sense of worthiness that you already have, And you're not selling yourself short. And you're not selling yourself short. You're not selling yourself short. You know, There is this sense of worthiness that you already have, And you know that you might be hard on yourself. So I would say that's a great way to start to know that you're hard on yourself and to make conscious decision and intention to change that. So I think you're in the right place. La joie, I think I say it like that, Or la joie, Or joy. I'm a caregiver for parents going through cancer treatments. That's really tough as well for your parents, As well for you. I've put my own self-care on the back burner, Needing to find balance. So I'm so happy that you are here. That's a really good way to find self-gentleness, Because if you're caring for someone else, Especially someone who used to care for you and is having a hard time and such a scary, You know, Disease is cancer, I can see that it's really easy to forget about yourself. But the truth is that, You know, You cannot pour from an empty cup. That's, I think, In saying in English and a metaphor that you might have heard me say before in one of my other lives, Because this taking care of yourself stands really central in all my meditation teachings, Is that when you're in a plane and the cabinet personnel explains to you what to do in case of an emergency, They always tell you to first put the oxygen mask on yourself, Even before your own small kids who, Even the kids that are not able to do it by themselves. And the reason is understandable. If you don't have oxygen, You cannot take care of others. You cannot help others to get their oxygen. But this is a beautiful metaphor for life, For caring for others, Even when they're so needed, Like your parent. If you don't have this oxygen, You cannot take care of them. And that's the most important reason why this self gentleness, Self care is so important. So I'm really happy that you're here so I can explain a little bit more about that. So Joost is saying, I strive for perfection. It's never good enough, Whatever I do. Yeah, Joost, That's a familiar one, You know, Perfectionist, Wanting to do things perfect. And I'm so happy that you recognize this and that you're also here because you feel that you would like to be more gentle to yourself. Because, You know, Perfection is an idea. Nothing is ever perfect. There's this other English saying that I really love that is, Don't let perfect get in the way of good. And I always love that one. It always makes me think. But the thing is striving for perfection, When you're aware of it, You can start to work on that. Because with awareness, As for everything with awareness, Everything starts. Being aware of something, Even if you, You know, You are beating yourself up because something wasn't perfect. If you understand after that, Hey, I was doing it again, Then there is an opening to start changing it. So I will say more about it in a minute. Erin, You need to put your oxygen mask on first. Absolutely, Erin. Absolutely. All right. So let me explain a little bit more about what I mean with self gentleness, Because, You know, Why don't I use the word self love? Because it seems to, You know, Have a great match. That is because the word self love is so burdens already by ideas of what it is. It's used by many people. You have to love yourself. And I agree fully. But even the word love is a difficult word for us. You know, We say sometimes to our children or our parents or spouses or friends, Yeah, I love you, But. Right? Well, That's a message that doesn't always go together. But we say this, Although we love someone, We immediately contrast it with whatever we are angry with. And with this, We give the message, We do love you, But actually you should do a little bit better because then we can really love you because now there is a but. And unfortunately, We also do this to ourselves. And that's understandable because if our parents, Our teachers, Our friends, Our society with the best intentions try to raise us to let us know what are good human beings, We very often get this connection, Whether implicit or explicit, Whether we are conscious or subconscious, That we have to behave in a certain way to be loved, To be worthy. We have to be perfect before we are worthy of receiving love or receiving reward, Receiving recognition. But the truth is, You're always lovable. You're always worthy as you are, Words and all. But that is something that we are waiting for others to give to us. We so much long for that other person, Whether it's a parent or spouse or a friend or a kid or all of them or our boss telling us that we are doing it well, That we are deserving their attention, That we are deserving their proud, That we are pride, That we are deserving whatever good can come their way. And the power of starting to give that to yourself is enormous. But it's really hard because in general, When you are a gentle person, You can be gentle to others. And very often you're your own biggest critic. A few comments here are saying already, I'm really hard on myself. I want to do things perfect and I feel that I don't. I not always have a high esteem of myself. And even if you're someone who would say, Yeah, I love myself, I'm generally kind to myself. Are you also kind to yourself when you mess up, When you break a glass? Really, Everyone breaks a glass. Some people can be really angry at themselves. Or when you say something wrong and you see you hurt someone, Whatever things are going on, We tend to be harsh on ourselves. And the problem with that is that we think that we improve ourselves by that. You know, If we work hard enough, If we push ourselves to our limits or even over our limits, If we toughen up, If we make sure that we do the things we must do, Then we will be worthy. Then we will be lovable. Then we will be recognised. I would like to turn that around. I would say that self gentleness, Which is, You know, When I called my workshop, I'm giving Coming Sunday workshop about this, Learn to be gentle with yourself. When I came up with the title, Actually, I wanted to call it How to be Self-Gentle. But then I thought, Well, Self gentle, Does that word exist? But working up to today and coming Sunday and there are more workshops in the making about self gentleness, I really want to introduce this as a coin, A phrase, Self gentleness. What do I mean with that? I don't mean, Well, It includes you being kind and gentle to yourself at specific moments to think one day, You know what, Today I will take it easy. I will take a cup of tea first before I do something. Or today I will take a nap if I need it in between. Those are all really great things. But what I mean with self gentleness is that you would start on a systematic basis to be radically gentle to yourself and radically accept that you are the most important person to deserve your own gentleness. Let that sink in for a moment. Radically accepting that you are the most important person to receive your own gentleness. It's a scary thought also, Right? Because I know you immediately think of those moments that a loved one, Someone who is important to you, Asks something from you that you know you actually don't want to do it or worse, You don't have the energy to do it, But they are depending on you, They need something from you, So you put your own care to the side to be there for them because that is what you're used to do. But that is in self-gentle. And I know that's where you feel the friction, There is where you feel, But what would I do in those moments that I know I need to take care of myself, But there are others that are making an appeal on me helping them, Caring for them, Me just being gentle to them, Even if I cannot even be gentle to myself. And that is the part where we very often trip, You know, You can set intention from now on, I'm going to be more gentle for myself, To myself. And that can work for a long way until there is a deadline at your work and you are not feeling good and you have things going on at home and then your kids are calling, The dog needs to go to the vet and your spouse is calling to say that they have to work late and if you could pick up the groceries and then you have this deadline and then you forget all about these things. What I suggest is if you want to get to become more self-gentle, It's not just setting an intention, But then also discovering what tools can help you to become more self-gentle and then make it like a step-by-step plan to start honouring those moments where you are radically accepting that you are the most important person to receive your own gentleness. What will happen with you when you embark upon this journey of self-gentleness is that you will get clarity. Clarity about who you are, Who you truly are and what your needs and desires are. And you might think that you know what your needs and desires are, But the thing is if you actually start to listen what your body and what your mind and what your soul is telling you about what you actually want and need, You can start to honour that. And I know the question that probably bubbles up now is yeah but you know okay but there are a lot of things that I have to do. I have to make money, I have to go to my job even if I don't want to, I do have to wipe the butts from my kids if I don't want to do it, You know and all those kind of things. Yes, But understanding what your body, Your mind and your soul is telling you about that is the first step because even if you're in a position where you cannot differently than not listening to that desire right now, At that moment you are aware of what you would want, Would want, What you're doing now against it, But also how you can pick it up later to still honour that need. And that's the process that starts to be within you when you start to live a life of radical self-gentleness that opens up new perspectives. It's a way to honour your needs and desires, It's a way to get clarity about who you are and what you want and with that something else opens up because having that clarity will also make it more clear to you where your boundaries are. So what you need when you are vis-a-vis someone else that asks something from you, Whether this is you know someone that really needs your care or it's your boss or it's the demands of society or you know or whatever is going on, When you have clarity about what what your values are, What you want to keep with you and what things you just simply don't allow in your you know in your circle, Something changes because people start to adapt to that. You will find the words then to tell that loved one why you cannot be there right now, But you will within this message you will find a way to offer them something else and this way it's like a spillover effect. What we humans very often like to do and I say humans because the animals look at our animals are our best teachers when you look at them they don't have these problems like we have where we are co-dependent and we're looking at each other to you know feel this worth and to feel this love and to feel that we need each other to feel better, To feel worthy. We very often when we are in this process of not being able to be too gentle to ourselves we're looking at others to fill that gap, For others to be gentle to us so we can allow ourselves to be gentle to ourselves and you might recognize it it's in almost every relationship there is sometimes this is working I will do something for you so you will do it for me and that might not always be such a rational thing but this reciprocity it's something that is so you know normal and human and in our all our interactions but if we start to take care of ourselves to be gentle to ourselves something beautiful happens because we feel we slowly slowly stop to feel the need for others to be gentle to us we can let their behavior their needs their rages their their kindness be something that belongs to them while we don't need that to fill wherever we are and what we're doing and that creates a new dynamic a new interaction so why it's a gift to our worlds I really believe that when more people are becoming self-reflective and I don't mean this because I think a lot of people you know a lot of people here are self-reflective you're here you want you know you're doing meditation you're doing yoga you're working on yourself that's that's that's the audience that is here you're empathic you know I know that but in our self-reflection we can sometimes be harsh you know there's so many programs that we're in because we want to reach a specific goal or we would like to be less perfect or you know there there are all these principles that we like to work on in the self-reflection is not always that kindness what I mean with self-gentleness is the principle of self-reflection but then mainly of starting to be your own parents being your own fan being your own biggest cheer on being your own hug being your own best friend and I know it might sound a little bit silly or a little bit too much like an ideal but it is possible I don't know if you ever tried my meditations here on insight timer on the in the tracks you know the free guided tracks and there are a few morning meditations there two actually well two in English and one in Dutch which is my native language and there is one of those practices is about this waking up and just telling yourself good morning darling how are you and then to listen to this answer and then to reconnect again with yourself and asking yourself what is it that you would like to do right now and whatever you like to do right now can be something different from not only day to day but from minute to minute but learning to tune in to that inner wanting this inner desire even if you don't have the time to live up to it but making this a connection becoming aware of it so you can live up to it later there is a lot of power so this is one of the practices that I would like would love for you to do if you would like to embark on this journey of self-gentleness and if you're really interested to start to work with me to get some more tools to get a meditation to work with then I would love for you to join my workshop coming Sunday it starts at 3 p. M eastern time which is 8 p. M uk time 9 p. M dutch time central european time it's a two-hour workshop we have limited seats it costs only 30 dollars it's a single workshop of two hours and I have limited seats because I want to interact with all of you like you might know the workshops on inside time or are on zoom so we can see each other we can chat you could tell me you know what's going on with you and I will offer you tools that you can start to work with to make your first steps on this path of self-gentleness so I see there are a lot of comments I'm going back there to see if I can answer these if you have more questions about the workshop coming Friday during my regular life at 3 30 eastern time I have a special Q&A where I will first explain what the workshop entails and then you can ask all your questions so if you're not still not sure you could always come there and ask more but let me see now what the comments are here so let's see Pamela so hard to do but so important yes Randy says at middle age and having three chronic illnesses which are invisible fibromyalgia yeah that's terrible CSFS severe severe depression oh dear Randy that must be tough on you just before we continue with that you know just for that you could give yourself a hug you know that it sounds silly giving yourself a hug but do you know that your body doesn't know the difference between you caressing yourself hugging yourself and someone else doing it the oxytocin hormone the love hormone will get up in your body anyway when you give yourself a hug so it might feel awkward but it's a great way to take care of yourself just want to give everyone that one so it leaves you with low energy and I know I'm not lazy when I need to rest often yes but you say no right there is some judgment from yourself in that but that's okay we'll work with that I'm unable to do most everything even though I look normal yeah so I feel bad about myself and I feel like I'm lazy even though I know I'm not because of these illnesses still grieving over who I used to be a doer make self-acceptance hard and knowing my clothes ones do not understand is painful yeah I can see that is really really hard especially if your clothes ones don't really understand well I think this this really connects with what I was just saying because the first step that is really important for you is to not just know with your head that you are not lazy and that you cannot help it but to really start to accept that it is like that and to be gentle about that so there's still a lot of resistance within you as you also recognize really nicely by yourself you know you still have resistance by you're still grieving for the person you were and the person you are now so it starts to you know deal with that grief and start to embrace who you are right now because who you are right now even with those illnesses doesn't make you a lesser person or even a different person than you were right then when you were then but that's a process that and I'm sure you know that that you will have to start work through but that process is not just a cognitive thing because I think the cognitive thing the understanding that that's there but it's a thing of feeling feeling and accepting it in your body and the thing is when you start to be more gentle to yourself about that and that's a process that really might take some time but when you start to embrace that you open up space for others to maybe not understand it or maybe they do in the best case but to accept it that this new you is a different one than a new but it's still this lovely rendie it's still rendie with her open heart rendie who loves them the close ones to her right and that's a process that I think you know you're here you're meditating you're working on yourself it's there and you'll know these things but self-gentleness is could be really really great way to to start there by being gentle about the change that happened in your body grieving over what happened by forgiving your body for doing this to you right there might be something there or whatever is going on and then to work through that so yeah I hope my words help you a little bit I hope I don't make you more sad because I really would love for you to be more gentle for it to yourself because I think it can really help you yeah Marjol is sending you love and you know this is what I mean what I so love about this community this connection that we all feel there's so often when someone is sharing something in my life that is hard that there's so many people reaching out sending love and support sharing their experiences so thank you so much for doing it my own that's really lovely so Antonia what if our parents were extremely harsh and critical to us yeah that's that's that's terrible and probably from their perspective they just did is to prepare you for the world's to you know to survive it has a lot to do with their own beliefs convictions ideas about life but the way you've experienced it was hard and critical and it might be that this not so gentle tone you might take to yourself is still a reflection of what you heard from them and the thing is and that's a hard one I know because I've experienced it well not being harsh but having a parent was not able to to care for me for good reasons but still really harsh you know the biggest step I could make in that was by stopping to explain myself as being the parents of such a mother in my case and with that something opened up because with this you disconnect you from a certain power that they have over you the fact that you might sometimes feel so critical and harsh towards yourself is because you still feel that you need to deserve love you need to deserve love and you need to deserve admiration you need to deserve you know their attention and approval but that's not true and that's something that's set up for you probably with good intentions but it didn't work out for you like that so to disconnect from that and decide that you are going to reparent yourself that you're going to be the best parent that you always wished for yourself there's a lot of power in that so if you have any questions about that let me know so pamela sending love to rendy john also wow so lovely this that's so beautiful i so love you guys thank you so much for being here i love this so much rendy you give yourself self-hugs sometimes after doing your meditation oh that's really lovely thank you so much yes you're most welcome on me eevee sorry to join so late i didn't know this was on today i'm seriously ill with chronic illness chronic pain and dreadful fatigue oh as well as migraines most days as well as trying to recover from very major surgery eevee so love and hugs to you that's really tough that's really tough and so when self-gentleness for you might be really really connecting with your body reconnecting with your body like what i just said to rendy i don't know if you were there already the relationship with your own body you know you could almost see it as a different person that you are also but our bodies tell us so much what i very often see when people are not so gentle to themselves it's sometimes also a response to you know their body betraying them not doing what they wanted to be whether being too thin being too thick be having pain having a disease having cancer whatever but sometimes it's also the other way around if we are not so kind and gentle to ourselves sometimes we get stuck you know tension stuck energy and we get so much more energy in our bodies and our bodies then start to tell us that we're not so self-gentle so that's what i said for me the path to send gentleness has as i will explain in the workshop upcoming sunday has three pillars it's the body it's the mind and it's the soul and these are three really important parts to recognize and to start to work with so if you're at all interested in my life and to ask your questions or if you feel this is for you sign up immediately and join me coming sunday in the in the workshop where you we will start to learn how to be self-gentle and i would love you know to give you some tools to work with and and to talk with you personally on zoom so we can see each other well you don't have to put on your camera but if you want to you can and i can hear your voice or you can use the chat and we we could discuss all the personal situations that's why the group is not so big so there's really room for everyone to do to have their say jay i love this session i'm glad i'm hearing your words thanks to everyone here for sharing yeah feel safe to be here and in knowing i'm not the only one feeling this way i'm so happy to hear that jay and i'm i'm happy that you are here and and that my words are helping you a little bit i think this self-gentleness it's it's really a life long work in progress also for me you know why i'm teaching this because i discovered that self-gentleness is the key to everything it's the key to being happier in your job it's the key to having a better relationship with your loved ones with your children your spouses your family you know we don't choose our family our friends but especially the relationship with yourself and that's why i so love to you know to share these ideas and and the ways how you can get there especially you know because that's why i i titled this as seeing it as a gift to the world so as you might know or see my profile i'm also working as a professor in political psychology in the university where i teach political psychology and i do research in beliefs leadership impact of meditation on political behavior impact of meditation on tolerance and i've seen that meditation is not the only instrument there are many ways to get where you want to be with for me as a meditation teacher where i combine all my expertise i really can see how meditation can help us in this process because just the principle of meditation it helps us to become aware of whatever we're thinking whatever we are believing and it's we can use it as actual tool an actual instrument to improve our well-being to set intentions and to start to incrementally make changes in our life our habits in the way we take care of ourselves and i love it for you if you're someone who can be gentle to yourself from time to time but i would really love you to become i can hear it's coming again radically accepting accepting that you are the most important person to deserve to receive your own gentleness that's what i wish for myself and that's what i wish for all of you and that is what i wish for everyone in the world because if more people start to take that responsibility you could also see it as a responsibility to be gentle to yourself and you change those dynamics with others you change the need for others to behave in a way that you will feel good because you know how to feel good you are giving it to yourself then you don't need others to behave to be better persons and then something changes and if everyone well okay that's an ideal but if a lot of people would start to live more consciously by being self-gentle you see that there might be changes and we cannot change the world at large but we can start to be more gentle to ourselves start to live that and it will be like oil on water yeah that's what i believe but maybe i'm too much of an optimist at least it will give you something and i think that's most important yeah so let's see what else so randy's sending love to eevee that's beautiful yeah that's really nice even i'm terrible i push myself too hard all of the time i've just been referred we referred really my cancer oh my that's really hard eevee so yeah that relationship with your body relationship with yourself it's really really important i can also understand you know i i hope meditation and working on this might help you but if necessary it might be helpful also to find some professional help to to to help you to see how you can deal with it and besides that you know i have a i have a track in on my profile on insight timer you might have seen it already there is a track that is about supporting your body to to heal to recover or at least to deal with pain and i'm i'm really not suggesting or saying that this is a meditation that will heal your body but it is a meditation where you can rest assured that your body is doing its utter best to take care of you and itself and to get out of the way to get out of the way with resistance and fighting and to rest more in that and it might not cure your cancer i'm not saying that right but it will help you to at least feel experience more well-being in this process while you're going to doctors while doctors are trying to help you and you are supporting your body then to get well with the help of professionals doctors who know what they're doing but to trust a little bit on that process um it might help you maybe not you know maybe you listen to it and you know you listen to it and you don't want it at all then don't absolutely not um but you might want to check it out to see if it might soothe and comfort you self-gentleness is also self-soothing we don't self-soothe enough okay eevee i really really sending you love and a lot of strength with that because you're a really tough situation i really feel for you and so many people are sending you love that's really really beautiful you're most welcome or young that's really really lovely yeah eevee i spent my career giving everything to everyone in the health service ignoring my own problems well it's really great that you're aware of this now and with this you can make now the decision now me first so were you the person who said that you dropped in late so one of the things i said in the beginning was this there's a metaphor cabin personnel in a plane will always tell you first put your own oxygen mask before your help even the children who cannot do it themselves without oxygen you cannot care for others this is your time to put on your oxygen mask and to really take care of yourself it's really important and i'm really sending you a lot of love and strength with that um erin health issues are manifestations of how you treat yourself and your body yes very often um this goes hand in hand um a lot of pains that we have a lot of things that were happening but you know what although i agree with you i prefer never to say this out loud too much because people who are experiencing this are very often than blaming themselves and that would really contradict what i'm doing here because self-gentleness is starts also with accepting where you are what you're doing you know words and all and to be gentle to yourself then and sometimes we might think oh i did this to myself that's my fault what should i have done differently but those are all thoughts that will not help us that are you know not helpful so although i agree with your statement um for everyone who takes it at heart it's not your fault it's okay you know sometimes things happen but we can start to take care of ourselves and taking care of ourselves doesn't always mean that our health issues will disappear but it does change the way we relate to them and it does change the way we can reach our well-being even with those health issues present and i think that's an important distinction Ellen says a nice song on spotify from Karen Drucker gentle with myself oh i have to listen to that Karen Drucker right let me write it up otherwise i will forget Drucker i will listen to that thank you so much love that Gil love your meditation addressing dealing with pain and medical issues help me learn to receive this from me oh i'm so happy that you feel like that gail that's thank you so much for sharing that that's really great thank you so much Marjorie exactly that kind of thinking can blame people for all their ailments or for not being able to push through all the time yes Marjorie yeah so that's why i wanted to to state that yeah actually because also pushing through i think is not self-gentle when i look at the way we live in our societies western societies this is the mantra right you have to work hard to have success you have to push through you have to if you have any fear you know you just have to push through and once i also believe that that was not helping me it's by going back to myself and really connecting with what do i want what do i feel what is important to me what does my heart say what does my body say what does my mind say can i listen to my mind because my mind can make up a lot of rubbish that's where something changed and now i can so better recognize that some people are really in some kind of an illusion but not feeling fulfilled and there comes a lot of harshness towards themselves so yeah self-gentleness is number one radically accepting that we are the most important person to receive our own gentleness and that means our own gentleness and that means our own forgiveness our own kindness and if we mess up to just say yeah so we messed up that's okay all right you know time to wrap up thank you all so much for being here sending you so much love bye bye everyone

Reviews

This was very insightful and helpful. It helped me to think about ways to apply self-gentleness in my life. Thank you.

Femke 🧡 thank you for posting this as I had missed the session, so really grateful to have the opportunity to listen....I had missed it because of working late, so I'm happy I now quit my job as an act of self gentleness 😁. I find that I'm becoming more gentle with myself but there are so many layers to this, as I peel away I recognise more and more thoughts which are not gentle and I need to respond to. I really like all of your concepts which you explain and the support of these session and your workshops in this lifelong journey. Lots of love 💕🙏💕🌻