So,
I am Noah Elkrief and I wanted to talk today about being compassionate towards our choices.
So,
Often times when we make choices,
Afterwards we punish ourselves for them.
We feel shame about it,
We feel guilty about it,
We tell ourselves how bad we are for making that choice,
For doing that thing,
For not doing that thing.
And that punishment and that self-hatred and that guilt doesn't serve us,
It doesn't help us,
It doesn't feel good.
So,
I want to share how to come out of it,
How to approach decisions or post-decision making in a different way.
So,
What I mean by this is,
Let's say we chose to eat something unhealthy.
Maybe we chose to go out with friends instead of doing our work.
Maybe we chose to not go to the gym.
Maybe we chose to cheat on our partner.
Maybe we chose to yell at someone.
Maybe we chose to leave someone.
Maybe we chose to.
.
.
You get the idea,
All sorts of different decisions we make that afterwards we tell ourselves,
One,
It's bad and two,
I am bad.
So,
The first thing we have to understand about it when we make a choice is why we make that choice.
Even if you think the decision is bad,
Like it led to pain for you and led to pain for others,
Okay,
That's one part of it.
But we have to look deeper in order to stop feeling the shame and the guilt,
We have to look deeper as to what was going on in the moment of choice.
Why did we make that choice in the first place?
We didn't make it because we're screwed up and defective and broken and an idiot and all those things that we tend to consciously or unconsciously think.
There's a reason why.
And put simply,
The reason is just we are wired to survive,
Okay,
We're wired to survive.
And what that means is basically we're wired to make choices based on what we believe will be less painful.
Almost every decision we make,
Unless we're coming from our intuition,
Our heart,
Is which option has the higher chance of survival,
Which option has less potential pain.
And we're not aware of that in the moment,
But that's how it's happening.
So if you choose to eat the unhealthy food over the healthy food,
Maybe in a given moment,
You're afraid,
Like maybe you have work to do and you don't want to do it.
It's painful.
So instead of doing the work,
Instead of feeling that pain,
You choose to eat the unhealthy food.
Now maybe you think eating unhealthy food will lead to pain in the future,
Physical pain,
Being fat or whatever else.
So that's painful on one side is if I eat the unhealthy food,
It's painful.
But if I don't eat it,
I have to feel the pain of doing work or the pain of the insecurity I feel or the pain of the anxiety I feel.
Whatever choice we make is based on which option we unconsciously feel is less painful or more painful.
Or I'll give another example.
If we want to get our work done,
Okay,
If we want to get our work done and we can't do it like we were trying to do our work,
But we keep procrastinating,
Avoiding it,
We might tell ourselves I'm weak,
I'm bad,
I'm no good.
But why are you avoiding your work?
Why can't you do it?
The only reason why is because you unconsciously perceive there to be pain.
You're afraid of the pain you feel while doing the work.
Maybe the pain you feel is unworthiness while doing it,
Confusion,
Helplessness,
Fear while doing the work.
And on the other hand,
Maybe when you don't do the work,
You feel shame,
Sadness,
Self-hatred,
Whatever.
And if you don't do the work,
It's because that pain is unconsciously perceived to be more painful,
More scary.
So when we make these decisions,
It doesn't mean that we're bad or we're weak or not disciplined enough.
It means that we're human beings and we have fears.
Get that?
So no matter what decision you made,
Even if it hurts someone else,
Okay,
Even if you cheated or yelled at someone or cut someone out or did something not nice,
It doesn't mean you are bad.
And telling ourselves,
I am bad,
Creating guilt to punish ourselves doesn't serve anything.
Like if you yell at your children and then afterwards you tell yourself,
I'm terrible for doing this.
What does that serve?
How does that help anything?
If you do something that's unkind,
That doesn't feel in alignment with your heart,
That doesn't feel true or how you want to act.
If you shame yourself afterwards,
Notice,
Does that get you to stop doing that harmful or unkind thing?
We often try to use shame as an incentive or a motivating force to not make the same mistake again.
But adding shame on top of where we are doesn't address the cause of why we did the thing in the first place.
If you want to take responsibility,
If you want to stop making the same choices,
You have to see what's underneath it.
So if you yell at your children,
If you yell at your spouse,
If you do something unkind,
Why did you do it?
You didn't do it because you're a terrible,
Horrible human being.
You did it because there's some unconscious incentive or charge happening underneath it.
So maybe when they did something,
You got triggered,
Your unworthiness got triggered,
Your helplessness got triggered,
And then you didn't know how to deal with it.
So you yelled,
You yelled to protect yourself.
You yell,
It's a fight or flight mode,
Right?
You yell to protect out of danger,
Out of fear.
So we're making the choice based on what we think will give us the most safety,
The least painful in the moment,
But it's happening so quick.
We don't realize that's what we're doing.
So if we want to take responsibility and not do the same thing again,
It doesn't help to punish ourselves and shame ourselves as a motivating force to do the good thing.
We need to explore why we do the thing in the first place and address the underlying causes of our choices.
So whatever you did,
You're okay.
It's okay.
And it's a journey.
You know,
If we have fear,
We tend to have this idea that fear is,
It's only okay to have fear if you're in physical danger.
In any other type of fear,
We're defective,
We're bad,
We're no good,
We're weak or whatever.
No,
This is just a program from our childhood.
Like if you're afraid of a bug or the darkness and your parents or your teacher or someone sees that,
For them it's stupid,
For them it's ridiculous.
But there's a reason why you're afraid of the bug.
You don't know if it will hurt you.
There's a reason why you're afraid of the dark.
You don't know if there's someone danger that's lurking behind the corners.
These are all logical fears.
Every fear we have,
There is a logical reason behind it.
So if you notice that you're in fear,
There's always something underneath it.
Like if you're afraid of something red,
It's like,
Well,
Why am I afraid of a red shirt?
Because there's an association with it that reminds you of something dangerous.
We're wired this way,
Right?
Like if we're attacked by a jaguar in the jungle and then we see another type of cat,
Our body responds with fear out of the memory of the previous attack.
Now even if this new cat isn't dangerous,
Our body responds with the potential that it is to help keep us safe.
So whatever fear you have,
There is always a logical reason behind it,
Even if you can't see it.
So there is no need to shame yourself.
No reason,
No supportive serving reason to shame yourself for any type of fear that you have.
And therefore it's not supportive for you to shame yourself for any choice that you make.
And that's all I'm going to say here.
I hope you find it helpful.
Bye.
