Kind. Confident. Authentic.

The December 1, 2023 Insight Timer live event description:

'Inspired by a few months of monastery life in the UK, for 15 minutes or so let’s hash out these three qualities — of kindness, confidence and authenticity — pertinent for England and quite a few other walks of life'.

Transcript

Holiness,

Welcome.

Inspired by a few months of monastery life in the UK,

For 15 minutes or so,

Let's hash out these three qualities of kindness,

Confidence,

And authenticity pertinent for England and quite a few other walks of life.

So I won't go too much into staying and living at monasteries in the UK on this event,

But what it came to see or what came to me that seemed very important are these three qualities,

Kindness,

Confidence,

And authenticity.

They kind of are like a trinity structure.

They support each other,

Especially the confidence and authenticity support where kindness could possibly go astray.

So we all are familiar,

I hope by now,

Of why kindness is so important.

I mean,

That's basically the only rule in life,

I think Kurt Vonnegut said,

Is kindness.

And of course,

The pinnacle of this for me is loving kindness.

So I don't want you to talk too much about this,

I feel,

Although I invite questions and comments about it as well.

This is kind of a basic thing,

Especially towards ourselves.

What I noticed with a lot of people in this crowd,

And I don't know how universally applicable this is,

But everybody was really kind,

You know,

For the most part.

The challenge of where it could potentially go astray,

Some personality types,

When they're kind,

They tend to diminish themselves,

Right?

If I can be overly humble and just kind of passive,

Not get in the way,

Not say too much of anything,

Then I'm less likely to ruffle feathers,

Less likely to step on people's toes.

I can just not really be seen or heard.

And,

You know,

That's secondary to being kind.

And I would say,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Kindness is the top.

But this is what I noticed more about this more inferior ego or diminishment.

Now,

Granted,

There's a time where,

You know,

We're in more contemplative mode,

And we don't need to be speaking as much or doing anything to draw attention to ourselves.

But I noticed about the British people,

I have a lot to learn from their humbleness,

Which is very admirable.

It's kind of like a national pride,

It seems like almost over there,

Until it turns into like a competition.

But as far as competitions go,

It's a great one.

So this notion of confidence,

Can we be kind and confident?

Now,

Probably talked about this before,

But early on,

Before I started waking up,

I would see plenty of confident people.

And I was confusing it for egotism,

Like someone full of themselves,

Completely different things.

I mean,

There's a lot of people that are really egotistical,

That have plenty of self confidence.

But there's also a lot of very humble,

Kind,

Well meaning people that are selfless,

Not attached to really big views of themselves,

Or clinging to a lot of things.

And yet,

There's a notion of confidence that's there,

And self confidence too,

Right?

Now,

We're talking before the show about,

With my fiancee about this,

What also comes in is this notion of self trust,

When it comes around confidence.

This comes in trusting ourselves that things are going to be okay,

This innate okayness that maybe I don't know what I'm doing,

But I will trust that it will be okay.

And even if it's not okay,

It's okay to not be okay,

Especially all the time.

So does anybody have any questions or challenges around self confidence and self trust?

I mean,

What nurtures it?

What fosters it?

How do we train in self confidence?

I know for me,

It seems to be like more and more letting it sink deep into the bones that will,

Things will be okay,

Things are okay,

And they will be okay.

We've experienced worse,

We've survived everything up to this point.

So this notion of self confidence,

Like I was saying,

Balances out this,

Yeah,

Self confidence balances out where kindness can kind of be diminishing sometimes.

Okay,

So Pat says,

I definitely learning to trust my own judgments and feelings.

Very important.

I know,

Speaking from experience,

Starting off my judgment just wasn't there,

You know,

And my feelings were something I was trying to avoid and deny.

But as we go on and do this work,

And love and care for ourselves too,

Then we notice,

Or I notice that there is no wrong feeling,

Right?

There is,

It's got a little bug on my nose.

I don't know if anybody can see this.

That feelings are always valid.

There's no wrong feeling.

Can't argue with feelings.

They can't be wrong.

And feeling feelings,

That's why they're called that,

Right,

Is very helpful.

In judgment too as well.

Judgment and discernment.

Discernment is needed to determine all these things and choices.

Judgment is needed,

You know,

In the right kinds of judgment.

But if you just want to substitute discernment for that,

Not talking about getting satisfaction from putting people down or saying they're doing something and then I feel better about myself,

That's a judgment.

An unhelpful judgment.

Okay,

So this other quality path says,

A kindergarten on a path to self-kindness and self-loving.

Yes.

Yeah,

We all start where we're at just as long as we're not diminishing ourselves right to.

Now,

The kindergarten,

I can interpret that as being humble,

Right?

I'm not putting myself as the most kind person on earth.

But on the other hand,

Am I giving myself enough credit,

You know,

Of where I'm at on my kindness journey?

So Pav,

I don't know you,

But I encourage you to see where you're at there.

And I don't see the need where we need to draw conclusions either.

I think it's totally okay to say we're in the kindergarten of kindness.

So comparing ourselves to ourselves though,

Right?

Catherine says,

Difficulty retaining my confidence with certain people.

Well,

Tell me more,

Catherine.

That's,

Yeah,

I mean,

We've all experienced that,

Right?

And I don't know how comfortable you are sharing specifics with that.

But yeah,

It just seems like around certain people,

There's just certain kind of habit patterns that,

Because we've trained and have so much habitual energy around certain people,

Being certain ways around certain people,

You know,

It's sometimes it's a long training,

Being kind with ourselves as we work to train to be confident.

Yeah.

Authoritarian.

So this next notion of authenticity,

Another thing I noticed would people who would come to me and they would say,

I just don't feel authentic.

You know,

I don't,

I don't think I,

You know,

I don't feel authentic.

I don't,

I wish I was more authentic.

And to me,

This is a really fascinating one because in a way,

I don't feel a hundred percent authentic authentic because I'm right now,

Even because I'm talking on a screen,

I'm looking at myself and I see a little bitty icons down here of people,

You know,

That are joining and it's not all the people that are joining here.

And there's,

There's a few comments,

But I almost have to like sense into what's going on,

Put a camera on someone.

They get a little bit different a lot of times,

Unless one is just absolutely trained to be in front of a camera.

But you know,

This is a notion that this is where I'm at.

This is the,

What authenticity I can bring towards this camera,

But I might be a little bit slightly different when I'm off camera around people and certain people.

So I like to look at the notion of where the similarities and where the differences in different situations in due to different causes and conditions too.

But with authenticity for me,

It starts with,

I haven't really had an issue with this because I've always been kind of confident of not really having to pretend anything that I'm not.

And I think it really starts though,

With we're under so many programs and conditions that so many people,

I could be wrong,

Don't know who they are because they're living under the ideas of someone else have given them.

Either their parents,

And this is not necessarily wrong either,

But their parents give them,

We all need that coming up,

Right?

Friends,

Family members,

Then schools,

But then the media,

Right?

We see certain things,

People adopt certain lifestyles,

Certain ways of being because of all kinds of different reasons,

Because it's cool,

Because I wouldn't want to be too seen as too far out there,

Or I need to belong in this group.

This is what kind of person that people want me to be,

Or who I should be.

And so to me,

Where this all starts is clearing out as much as that as we can.

And I think that the lockdowns we had helped some people do this,

We're clearing out all the clutter.

And so given a chance to see what's underneath all the different programs and training that we've gone under and see what's under there.

And I know for me,

It was a lot of kind of sadness.

There was regret.

There was a lot of things I had forgotten about and came back to.

So I think a lot of healing work goes on to see who we are.

And another thing is confidence that it's a process in finding authenticity too.

Knowing that we're going to belong somewhere with some people eventually,

Right?

Like a lot of my old friends fell away,

Got new friends.

And yeah.

And we can also ask,

Well,

Why do we want to be authentic?

Or why do we think we're not authentic?

How can we get there?

Why is this important?

What can I do about it?

Another thing is being honest with ourselves as well.

Even if that means that I don't know how to be honest with myself.

I don't want to be honest with myself.

It's scary.

Maybe I've been faking it for so many years and I don't know where to start,

How to go about that.

How will I be if I stop doing the things I've been doing?

And again,

The answer to all this is kindness and care.

Even if it's just the honesty of,

I hate myself.

I don't like the way I am.

And I don't want to be like this.

It sucks.

To me,

Sucks.

To me,

That's honesty.

And that is a form of self-love and self-care,

Being honest with ourselves.

Okay.

Pat says,

Catherine,

Yes,

I am learning to hold my ground with father and a lot of one-ups,

Me qualities.

Pat,

Doesn't authenticity go along with bringing forth our vulnerabilities?

Catherine says,

Yes,

Being honest.

Authenticity is very empowering.

So yeah,

Holding a ground with the father and this one-up mentality,

These qualities.

So this is a common thing among males.

I haven't gone beyond this either yet.

There's this notion and tendency to want to impress and compete,

Right?

So how can we be self-confident without this notion of one-upmanship and how can we turn it into maybe cooperation and support and encouragement and upliftment?

So that helps a lot with self-confidence,

I feel.

It's when we can encourage ourselves and others,

Empower ourselves and others instead of compete so much,

Right?

Easier said than done.

Still a long way from there myself.

Authenticity absolutely can bring forth a lot of vulnerabilities,

But that's how our heart opens,

Right?

If we're constantly armoring our heart,

Shutting it down,

Protecting ourselves against everything,

There can't be any vulnerability.

That's good for a time and when we're in danger and don't feel safe and comfortable,

But our heart is really hard to open and share on deeper,

More profound levels,

Even with ourselves,

Right?

So yes,

We take it step-by-step,

Whatever we feel comfortable being vulnerable and who we open up to and show vulnerability and be vulnerability.

And then after a certain time,

We get more and more trust and confidence in being safe and opening our hearts and being vulnerable and feeling very deeply both the very pleasant things and the very unpleasant things,

Right?

And we don't have to like the unpleasant things,

But that's how we can really make deeper and deeper connections with ourselves,

With others,

With the world at large,

Higher realms even as well,

I feel.

But of course,

We know when to draw back and do self-care,

Nurture,

And know when to establish and maintain boundaries when need be as well.

Yeah,

We don't stay in abusive situations just because I'm working on opening my heart through vulnerability,

Right?

That's the distorted version of that.

Again,

Yeah,

Authenticity is really empowering.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

People can sense it if we're being authentic or not,

If we're just blowing smoke up somebody's butt or,

You know,

Whatever.

And there's different degrees too,

Like I was talking about.

Well,

I guess I'll wrap this back up with kindness.

It's been 16 minutes already.

Glad you all joined here.

How can we spend the rest of the day being kind to ourselves and others in an authentic and empowering way,

You know?

Yeah.

Well,

One last thing here,

This notion of accountability,

Right?

Being held accountable.

And this goes along to me with even more so self-responsibility.

So empowerment does come with self-responsibility,

Taking responsibility for my thoughts,

Words,

And actions.

And even though it might not be mine,

I don't have to identify with it,

But I'm responsible for how I view a situation,

How I perceive a situation,

What I pay attention to,

How I respond to something,

And then what I do or don't do about it.

And Maggie says,

Hello from Arizona.

Much loving kindness,

Sending much love and kindness to everyone on this call.

Well,

Thank you,

Maggie,

And the same.

And I wish you all the kindness of days,

Empowering,

Authentic,

And confident kindness,

Loving kindness.

May all beings everywhere be safe inside and out.

May all beings everywhere be happy and joyful.

May all beings everywhere live knowing ease in their hearts.

May all beings everywhere be healthy and strong.

And may all beings everywhere realize awakening and be free confidently,

Authentically,

To the degree we're able now.

Bye,

Y'all.

Reviews

Very uplifting and shared in an accepting way. The talk helped me feel encouraged.