Hello,
Welcome.
My name is Lou Redmond.
Thank you for listening.
Welcome to this premium track for you.
This talk that I want to share with you today around allowing ourselves to feel accepted and welcomed and letting go of often the separation that we feel.
And let's get right into it.
Life takes us on a roller coaster of expansion and contraction.
There are times when we open to life's current,
We feel its flow and times when we close down,
Blocking our hearts and dulling our spark.
In closed times,
It can be tough to express our feelings and that makes it difficult to let others in.
I have a hard time allowing others to help me,
Especially if it's from the pure generosity of their heart.
It's easy for me to let others help if it's transactional,
I.
E.
Paying for a coach or a therapist,
But I shy away when someone offers support without an applicant agreement.
I have this lone wolf mentality.
I can figure it out on my own.
After decades of this mindset,
It's created a perceived separation from others.
It's a feeling that everyone else is in on something.
Like,
They get the joke and I'm on the outside looking in.
And I'm curious,
Have you ever felt that you are on the outside looking in?
I know the feeling of separation is antithetical to the truth wisdom traditions point to,
Yet it still shows up.
For the last eight months,
I have sat in a weekly men's group and over that time,
I started to feel a separation.
I judged people in the group and labeled them as different from me.
I made up that I didn't fit in.
When I create a separation,
I shut down any potential benefit I can receive.
After creating this divide week in and week out,
I questioned why I was still showing up to this group.
I had better things I could be doing.
I started showing up to meetings anticipating the time it would end.
And what's great about these groups is we practice speaking our judgments,
Fears,
And withholds.
So I talked about my uncertainties and how I felt that I wasn't getting anything from the group.
And the group did what the group does.
It held me in my experience.
One of the men attempted to play a role where I would see how untruthful a statement was.
He said,
Lou,
We need you to feel like you are like us.
We won't accept you if you feel you're different or you don't want to be here.
I surprised him when I responded.
Yeah,
That makes sense.
He recognized his approach misfired,
So he D-rolled and he switched gears.
He said,
You can feel whatever you're experiencing.
It's okay.
It's welcome here.
I slowed down and felt the impact of his words.
Tears started to stream.
The experience crushed the longstanding narrative that I needed to be someone or do something to get love or validation.
The men in this group allowed my experience of judgment and separation to be perfectly okay.
For one of the few times in my life,
I was welcomed unconditionally.
We tend to overlook what unconditional means.
In this case,
My ideas of why someone would want me out of the group were not valid.
Instead,
They allowed me to be as I was in all the judgments and separation I felt.
It's okay to be me just as I am now.
I broke down in tears working through the deeper layers of this realization.
I grieved how much of my life I've spent feeling like I had to prove myself.
I recognized the shadow side,
Needing others to prove themselves to me.
It was hard to allow myself to be accepted because there was no transaction.
I wasn't paying to be in the group,
Yet still they allowed me the space to be there.
It struck a well of emotion and it was cathartic to be held and accepted without needing to be anything.
It reminded me of why I joined the group in the first place.
Do you have a place where you are welcomed unconditionally?
A place where you can be you exactly as you are,
Not because you act a certain way or believe a certain ideology.
Not if you are nice and respectful,
But welcomed even if you're mean and tibid,
Even if you're an asshole.
Do you have a place that accepts you always just as you are,
Period?
If not,
It starts with you.
What if it's okay to be you right here just as you are?
See if you can slow down and open to this truth.
Close your eyes and take a breath.
Try these affirmations.
I welcome myself exactly as I am.
It's okay to be me just as I am at this moment.
All of me is welcomed here.
I accept myself unconditionally.
The more we allow ourselves to be as we are,
The more our hearts open and we feel the connection we yearn for.
I thank you so much for listening.
It's a gift to be able to share with you as always.
If you enjoyed what you heard,
Let me know by leaving a comment.
If you want to go a little deeper and feel like you saw some of yourself in my story,
I created a meditation that has the same name that you can find.
It's another premium track that you'll be able to find and go right into the meditation.
There's not a long introduction,
So you can go ahead and find that here on Insight Timer and practice that if you'd like.
Again,
Leave a comment and let me know.
I love hearing from you and how this connected for you.
If you're not yet,
You can join my circle on Insight Timer.
It's called Lou's Circle.
It's a place where I share new tracks and events that I have coming up on here.
I would love to see you there.
Sending you so much love as always.
Namaste.
