Self-Work

All work is self-work. Most problems, situations, and apparent difficulties can be solved by working from within.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello,

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with Glenn Ambrose and I'm here with Ben.

Hey Glenn.

Hey,

What's happening?

Nothing.

No Ambrose pause there.

No?

No.

That was good.

I don't know.

You're getting better at it.

I'm going to keep it.

I'll keep it as is.

No editing.

Right,

No.

Not,

No.

Definitely not.

So today we're going to get right into it.

What the heck are we talking about?

We are talking about self work.

All the work that we do is work on ourselves.

What do you think about that Ben?

Like everything that we do is work on ourselves?

Yes.

That's a strange concept.

Isn't it?

I mean,

I guess it makes sense like in a broad way but what are you talking about more specifically?

Like everything that we do,

We're working on ourselves like to be better people.

Like what?

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

What do you mean?

Yeah.

What do you mean?

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Basically that everything in our outside world is a reflection of what's going on in our inside world.

So a lot of times even if we think that,

A lot of times we look outside of ourselves and say if only this was this way or if this person acted this way then my life would be better and there's two things wrong with that.

One we can't control other people.

So if that is what's determining whether we're happy or not,

We're screwed because we can't control them.

And then the other thing is that the only thing we can do is work on ourselves.

So we have to,

If we can't make ourselves happy by doing the work on ourselves then we're screwed then too.

If you slow down and look at it,

If you think any other way you're in trouble because you're putting your destiny in other people's hands and you have no control and that's when fear comes in.

It's a fearful world we live in if we're putting our fate into the hands of anything outside of ourselves.

Okay.

So I get that.

I get what you're saying as a general concept.

Can we go into some specific examples?

Work is a common one.

Usually when we're in a workplace we're sitting there going,

My co-worker's a pain in the ass or my boss is this and if they would only see things my way then everything would be alright.

And basically that's the only thing we have to do is the work on ourselves.

If our circumstances dictate our happiness we're in trouble so we need to find a way to be happy where we are.

That doesn't mean that we can't change our circumstances.

Sometimes it's necessary to leave a job but what we usually do is we focus on the job and we leave that one and we find out that we're miserable on the next job and miserable on the next job because there's always something.

Because you're only dealing with the outside problem.

Right.

You're only dealing with the outside problem and it's all inside work so until you deal with that you're just going to relive the same problem over and over again because it's a reflection of you.

So if you do the inside work and you find some peace and some happiness in your life by working on yourself then one of two things is going to happen.

Either the outside world is going to start to shift to be a reflection of what's going on inside of you so all of a sudden that boss starts seeing things your way or the co-worker starts leaving you alone.

Because I mean for those things to be happening in your world there's a reason for it.

There's something for you to learn in that situation.

There's a reason for you to grow in that situation.

So if you learn the lesson that you learn and find peace and happiness in that situation often times it starts shifting the people around you and if that doesn't happen well then sometimes there is a time where you can leave a job.

If you're being,

Where people get confused with this is they think that when I start talking like this they'll say well I'm being abused at work so I'm supposed to just sit there and take it and be happy.

It's like no,

I mean this isn't a substitute for self-care in the way of setting healthy boundaries with people.

If somebody is abusing you then you need to set a healthy boundary or get away from them.

Period.

You know,

I mean this is just normal unhappiness in work situations.

Right because this,

What you're saying is like the situation at work might be rough because of how your boss is treating you or how a co-worker is treating you or what the situation just is with something but the only thing that you can do is work on your ability to deal with that situation or to change the circumstances in some way of that situation.

So like the only thing that you can control is yourself in the situation whether that means leaving it or finding a different way to look at it or figuring out what is the thing that's causing the situation.

Is that?

Yeah,

What you need to do is when you start looking inside of yourself for the solution instead of outside of yourself then you have a better chance in finding the solution.

If you're looking outside yourself then you're a victim.

You know,

They're doing this to me and I can't control it.

That's a helpless place to be coming from but even if somebody is treating you unfairly,

Like if a boss is treating you unfairly,

If you're a victim then you're sitting there going I'm being treated unfairly.

Okay,

Well what's your solution?

Well to complain usually,

Sometimes to quit my job.

Those are all actions taking out of frustration and generally they don't work but if you start looking inside and you say okay well I'm being treated unfairly,

Well what can I do within myself?

Well I can love and respect myself enough to not be treated that way.

Then if you then that can induce you to set some healthy boundaries.

So if you're being treated unfairly you can say to your boss or their boss or whatever you need to do you can take action out of self-love and set up a healthy boundary out of self-love.

No,

And it's not out of anger and frustration.

You know it looks a lot different.

If you're just sitting there saying this is unfair and I don't want to be treated this way,

Then I mean a lot of times there's avenues you can go.

If one,

Either your boss might take it differently if you come at him from that point of view instead of out of frustration.

Two,

A lot of times it's HR departments that will help you with that type of stuff.

If you go in there angry and frustrated and yelling a lot of times they're just trying to calm you down.

They're not really seeing the boss as the problem.

They're seeing you as the problem.

And then sometimes yeah you do need to leave a job but if you leave a job and you're doing it out of calmness and self-love then you're probably going to handle it better and you could even walk out of there with good recommendations.

I mean it's just everything is handled differently when you do it out of self-love than if you do it out of frustration.

So that sounds a lot to me like the topic that we covered a few weeks ago of not dwelling in misery.

Basically like what you're saying is in the circumstance with work which is the first thing that we're covering,

There are outside circumstances that are making you unhappy and but the work that you need to do to become happy in that situation or to change that situation is on yourself.

It's not outward.

It starts with you.

Is that?

Yeah and there's things that we need to do.

I mean if we're being treated like crap for a long period of time it's usually because we feel we deserve it.

So if you start changing that the way you feel about yourself and start doing the work on that all of a sudden your self-esteem starts rising and what was acceptable before isn't acceptable anymore.

Because in most situations not everybody is treated equally.

If you have a boss that's just kind of an average run-of-the-mill pain in the butt,

There are certain people he will screw with and there's certain people he won't.

There's a reason for that because some people will put up with it and some people won't.

That's how most people are.

There are bosses out there and just generally people that are so caught up in their anger that they just lash out at everyone around them.

Well if you work in one of those types of offices then as your self-esteem rises you're probably going to be going out and finding a new job because he's so caught up or she's so caught up in her anger that nothing's going to change them.

Which is fine and that's one of those situations where you find yourself leaving after you do the self-work but it's still doing the self-work first.

If you leave just because you don't like the situation and you don't work on yourself then you're just going to find yourself in another crappy situation.

If you do the work on yourself and then leave out of self-love then when you get somewhere else you're going to find yourself in a better situation because you're not going to take a job.

If you care about yourself generally you're going to,

When you interview for the next job you're going to know that that person is a complete jerk and there's no way you want to work for them and you won't take the job.

But if you don't feel good about yourself you'll probably take that job and find yourself in a similar situation.

That's great advice.

The idea of work and how negative situations in work can relate to you doing work on yourself to fix them or to get yourself out of those situations has been covered.

What about at home?

I feel like the thing that pops in my head right now is that old saying to love someone else you have to love yourself first.

That kind of a thing.

What is the situation at home?

How do you transfer this from work to home?

It's pretty much the same thing.

If we're waiting on spouses are the most obvious example.

But it can be anybody that you're in a relationship with,

A parent-child relationship,

A sibling relationship,

A friendship,

Any relationship.

We spend so much time just pointing the finger out at the other person saying if they did this then things would be okay.

My point is not that the other person is right or that one person is right and one person is wrong.

It has nothing to do with that.

It's not accepting bad behavior.

It's just understanding that at the end of the day all the work that you can do can only be done on yourself.

It's like when you're working with people in a relationship.

If you work with two people in a relationship at the same time that are struggling it's obviously better to work with them both.

You have them both looking for a solution.

You're talking to them both so they're on the same page.

It obviously has some benefits by doing it that way.

However,

The actual work if you break it down and look,

Like marriage counseling for example,

If you really break it down and look at the work that the counselor would have the other people doing,

It's self-work.

The husband can only work on the husband.

The wife can only work on the wife.

Now,

They go to counseling together so they feel like they're working on a relationship.

The relationship will take care of itself if the husband does what the husband needs to do and the wife does what the wife needs to do.

Then they will be healthier and be able to relate in a healthier way within their relationship.

What happens is the reason that people get confused about that is because it's almost trickery.

It's not intended like that.

It kind of is because it's like when the wife is sitting there and the counselor is telling the husband that they need to do something,

Then the wife is going,

Okay,

Good.

Good.

You tell him that he needs to do that because that's the problem.

Absolutely.

Then they get appeased by it.

Then they look at the wife and they say,

Okay,

You need to do this while he's doing that.

They go,

Oh,

Okay.

The actual problem is getting solved anyway because he's the problem and he's working on that.

Then meanwhile,

As the wife is being told what to do,

The husband is doing the same thing.

The husband is going like,

Oh,

Yeah,

Good because now she's really going to do the work and now our marriage is going to be okay because she's going to fix what's wrong.

Right.

Because I'm fine.

They're going to change.

Right.

That's what the real problem is.

If you're in an unhealthy relationship,

The problem is both of you.

Right.

As you work through these things,

And again,

This is any relationship even,

It's any relationship.

As you do the work on yourself,

You are going to get healthier.

You can't control what the other person does,

Including a boss situation.

You can't control whether a boss reacts in a healthy way to you or whether they don't.

You can't control whether your spouse does their inside work or whether they don't.

But what you can do as you work on yourself is you're going to get healthier.

Then whatever happens in that situation,

It's out of your control anyway.

Whatever happens,

You're going to be okay with because God forbid if the husband and wife relationship falls apart because the other one doesn't do their work,

Well,

You're going to be okay because you did your work.

A marriage falling apart is a difficult situation,

So the healthier you are,

The better you're going to handle it.

But if the relationship stays together,

Then obviously you're going to have done your work and you're going to handle that well also.

Either way,

You're better off if you do your work and that's the only thing you have control over anyway.

I just feel like there's.

.

.

I feel like the relationships.

.

.

When you say relationships,

As you said,

All types of relationships,

We're not just talking about husband and wife or girlfriend,

Boyfriend or whatever.

It's not necessarily an intimate relationship or should I use the term sexual relationship because it's intimate like friends.

Romantic.

Yeah,

Not romantic.

Not necessarily a romantic relationship,

But interpersonal relationships,

Friends,

Relatives,

Stuff like that.

Anyone that you're close to,

If there's ever friction,

I feel like friends,

Relatives,

And romantic partners are always quick to blame the other person more than anything.

It's very reactionary how we deal with things.

It's very reactionary and who really wants to look at themselves?

I don't.

Hell no.

It's uncomfortable.

You don't want to sit there and be like,

I'm wrong.

But when we do that,

That's where we find the solution when we work on ourselves.

As these relationships grow,

They will grow in a healthy way or they will no longer exist,

Which everybody has this huge fear that a relationship would end.

I get that it can be sad.

Of course it can be sad.

I've been in relationships that I've lost and been sad after.

Of course,

But it doesn't mean that it's not better for me.

It always has.

As long as my focus is my personal growth,

My life keeps getting better and better and better and the people that come into my life keep getting better and better and better and my happiness level keeps rising.

The people that fall off,

Do I miss them?

Sometimes I do.

Sometimes it's like,

Boy,

They were a very important part of my life.

If I look at them as what they were,

If I take the victim out of it and look back and go,

Wow,

I really grew through that time and we really did have some good times during that time,

Okay,

Good.

That's like if you enjoy something adventurous and you go skydiving and you look back on it and you go,

Oh,

That was a fun time.

I really enjoyed going skydiving.

There's no emotional charge so you can look back on it with joy and be like,

Wow,

That was a fun time.

You can get to that point with relationships too that I lost.

You can look back on it and go,

Wow,

I really had some fun times with them but you have to get the emotional charge out of there from the loss first.

The only way you're going to do that is by working on yourself.

At the end of the day,

To me this is one of those situations where if you're looking at somebody that recently lost a relationship that they really cared about that person and you're saying,

Okay,

Well,

Everything is for your benefit and it's for the best anyway.

That's a hard pill to swallow because they're caught up in the pain and sometimes it takes some time to,

Well,

I think almost always it takes time to be able to get to that point where you start seeing things differently.

If you're walking in that direction,

Eventually you'll get there and that's by looking within yourself seeing what you could learn from it.

If you learn from your relationships,

Then you'll have better ones as you move forward.

If you don't learn from them,

You're doomed to repeat them.

That's great because if you don't learn from them and you don't try to do the work on yourself,

Then it's never going to get better because as I said about seven to eight minutes ago,

You can't love someone else unless you love yourself.

Boom,

Fortune cookie,

Done.

Multiple prints.

Get it out there.

Please put my initials on it.

I had the,

I heard a phrase another way that I like too and it's when you meet somebody that's very special and you go through that period of falling in love and you look in their eyes and you see this,

You get that love feeling inside of you.

When you get that,

That's actually self-love.

What they are is a good mirror for you.

So you connect with them on some level and you're seeing the love that's within yourself reflecting back at you.

But we make the mistake,

We think that they are the source of love.

So we attach to them.

When I'm around them,

I feel good.

They make me feel loved.

Like it's something outside of you that is the love and it's not everything,

Happiness,

Joy,

Peace,

Love.

Everything comes from within.

So they are just reflecting back to you the love that you have within.

So that's why they say you have to love yourself before you can love somebody else because if you don't have any love for yourself within,

Then when you're looking at somebody else,

It's not reflected back as strongly.

We all have some love for ourselves,

Of course.

So when you look in somebody else's eyes,

It just depends on how much you attach that love to an outside source.

If you think it's that person that the love is coming from,

Well,

Then I hate to say it,

You're in trouble to some degree because you can't,

You know,

It's this,

We mentioned this before too.

It's that,

You know,

You complete me.

No,

You complete yourself,

You know,

You're self-contained.

You've got everything you need within.

Other people can be wonderful reflections of how wonderful you are,

But you have everything you need within.

So there,

That's all I have to say about that.

In that movie,

Was Tom Cruise Jerry Maguire?

Yeah.

Okay.

I've never seen it.

Oh my God.

I know.

I think this is like a third time we've referenced it on the podcast.

And that's a good testament of how popular that quote is.

Everybody on the planet knows the quote.

Even people who haven't even seen the movie.

Yeah.

You know?

That,

And that's the movie that you had me at hello and show me the money.

Yeah.

Comes from right.

And the human head weighs eight pounds.

Help me help you help me to help you help me to help you.

Help me help you help me help you.

Yeah.

I feel like that sometimes,

You know,

As a life coach,

I'm like,

Please just do the inside work.

I know it sounds whacked,

But help me help you.

Yeah.

How,

Um,

Is there another way?

Is there,

I mean,

Is there another movie we can reference?

We have a weekend.

We can reference tons of movies.

Is there another direction?

Where this another place,

Another area in life where this work on yourself,

You know,

We have,

We have work,

We have your job.

We have interpersonal relationships at home,

Both romantic and with family and friends.

Um,

I mean,

Really it's all areas.

Yeah.

You know,

So,

Um,

I don't know that's,

You know,

Signaling out something else would help,

But,

Um,

You know,

I guess maybe to touch on that point is you can be sitting at home on the couch,

Unemployed with nobody visiting,

Not talking to anybody completely self contained.

And if you're unhappy,

It's still your fault.

That's great.

That's yeah.

It's you know,

It's self work then too.

It's always self work.

So you know,

If you're around people and you're pointing the finger at them,

That's,

Um,

One thing I heard is if you,

If you point your finger at somebody,

There's three more pointing back at you.

Oh,

Wow.

You know,

So there's,

It's,

It's always about us.

Yeah.

If we do the work on ourselves,

Then we'll feel fulfilled and,

And when,

And if there's correct action to take,

We'll take it.

We'll see it.

We'll know what to do.

You know,

If you're in a situation where,

Where,

Um,

Let's,

Let's say you're walking down a street and you need to turn up an alley to get to another street and you're walking down and,

And you look down one alley and you see about 10 guys,

Um,

Pushing somebody around,

You don't walk down that alley.

Right.

You know,

It's pretty self evident.

You're like,

Okay,

That looks like trouble.

I don't think I'll head in that direction.

I think I'll take a different one where that isn't going on.

It's very obvious and it's,

That's how things are when we work on ourselves.

If we're,

If we're happy with ourselves and we do the inside work,

If you're,

If you're in a job situation and like,

You can see it if,

If a boss talks to an adult,

Sometimes you can see this,

A boss might like swear at an adult or put an adult down and the adult will actually take it because they feel like they're,

They're not worthy to stand up,

But they need to do some work on their self love.

But yeah,

If a child,

You know,

Swears at an adult or puts an adult down,

They'll put them right in their place.

No,

That's unacceptable.

Well,

They feel worthy in that case,

You know,

So it's,

It's that obvious.

It's just,

If somebody disrespects you and you love yourself,

It's just going to be not acceptable.

It's not a big deal.

It's not this,

Oh my God,

Can you believe what he did to me and how dare he?

No,

It's just,

No,

You,

You just don't talk to me like that.

Period.

It's not going to happen,

You know,

And that's,

That's where it's just such a big difference than acting out of frustration and acting out of self love.

You know,

There's not that big argument that goes on and this big turmoil and it's not complicated.

It's very simple.

Just don't talk to me like that.

Yeah.

You know,

And,

And something will shift if you stand your ground like that.

All right.

Um,

Well,

This was a,

This is a very interesting topic today.

Um,

If you,

Yeah.

Uh,

How much laughter though?

No,

Not much laughter.

Let's get some laughter in here.

No.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Do we fill our quota?

Yes,

I think we did.

Um,

Okay.

So where,

If people want to get started on their inner working on themselves and they want your help,

How can they do that?

How can they reach you?

Where can they find you?

Well,

If they can enter into a deep meditation and focus on Glen Ambrose.

Come back,

Come back.

Oh,

You're going too far.

Or we could,

Or you could just find me.

That's life-enhancement-services.

Com.

Uh,

Or my Facebook page,

Life enhancement services,

Or my personal Facebook page,

Glen Ambrose.

All right.

Was that better than the meditation technique?

I think that that's a good,

Like fourth way for people to try to reach you.

Yeah.

If they don't have a computer or a phone or.

Yeah.

Then just focus on being with me.

Maybe.

Um,

Oh man.

All right.

Cool.

All right.

Well,

Well,

Thanks for listening and we will catch you next time.

This podcast is presented by New Shore Productions,

Executive producers,

Glen Ambrose,

Benjamin Barber and David DeAngelis.

Reviews

It's all about the work! There's that word again! Still, it 'works' for me!! 😂 See what I did there?! And there's the laughter! Thanks Glenn 💜 x

Great! Thank you!

I really like these podcasts. I feel like they speak to everyone and give us all tips to better ourselves, our personal lives and the lives of those around us. This particular podcast really speaks to the relationship we have with ourselves and our relationship with others. I will be listening to this again.

Great insight. Always good to hear we need to work on ourselves, it's an ongoing process that can improve your happiness and life!

Great lesson on Self Love and how happiness is an inside job❤
Also working on Equanimity...🙏🏻

Very interesting topic. Great advice. I liked it most of 6 podcasts I listened so far (probably as it was almost no "laughter" ;)

Don't we always have room to work on ourselves? Good discussion. These are great for me to listen to while I work. Thanks again.

My favorite podcast ever ❤️

Total a-ah moment during this podcast.... Knew some of what he was saying but brought up a couple points to make me reach further. Love.

Brilliant. Thank you.