Sacred Reciprocity ~ Serenity Wellness Rewire 3/4 E107

Gain insight into the Ego Driver and become the Soul Driver. Explore the ways you interact with yourself and your heart space and what it has to do with sacred reciprocity. This is part 3 of a 4-part series.

Transcript

Hi everyone,

Welcome to week two of Rewire to Love.

Each week we're going to be building upon the tools and awareness that you have from the week prior and then add more to help break down and build a new foundation.

Our word patterns,

Our way of processing and digesting things around us can also have a bit to do about that,

Which we'll talk about in just a few moments.

But let's first start by opening up another area related to thought.

The more we become aware of how our mind is working,

How it impacts us internally with our emotions and physiological responses,

But also externally how we engage with the world around us,

How we digest it,

Well that awareness is what opens up potential for change.

As I mentioned last week,

I left it pretty open.

You were maybe able to practice the one-to-one technique,

So the awareness I notice in observer role with curiosity,

Compassion,

And non-judgment,

And then that pause and sliding in something supportive and positive.

With it,

We still have emotion.

As I mentioned,

You might have felt a bit sandpaper even when we realized,

Oh my goodness,

I'm judging again,

Myself or someone else,

And natural part of the process.

So as we begin to open up more awareness,

Just know emotions can come.

Curious,

Compassion,

Non-judgment.

Allow those to be the guide as you become more aware.

And again,

The tools that you learn,

Try to keep them going with you through the process.

I'm going to be teaching new tools each time,

But try to keep the ones that you learn continuing.

For today,

I want to open up just a few different areas of the mind and then talk a bit about that foundation.

One category to be mindful of is perfectionist mindset.

It can run pretty loudly in our mind,

Even in how we decide to,

You know,

Balance our life or adjust how we're living.

With perfectionist mindset,

We can get into the all-or-nothing thinking,

The black and white thinking.

If I don't do it 100% correct,

I have failed.

It also makes us have a challenge in compromise.

Compromise with ourself and compromise with others.

We forget that some of the most brilliant and fantastic things were created from mistakes,

But we also put a lot of pressure on ourselves.

And in that perfectionist mindset,

We might even lack balance.

We might get into the idea that slowing down means we're lazy,

Or if we give ourselves a little bit of slack,

Then we're going to fall off our whole plan of living and being a human.

I mean,

We can really go that far in terms of the pressure that we put on ourselves in perfectionist mindset.

This part is sometimes a bit challenging for people to digest or even really sometimes grasp what I'm saying here,

But I'm going to share it and allow it to resonate for you however you may.

When we are in perfectionist mindset,

We are actually very attached to our ego.

Judgment itself is very ego-centered.

It's the ego speaking and yelling and trying to navigate our living.

But if you think about the mindset of perfection,

Telling ourselves that we are the perfect being,

That we are so perfect,

We're just messing up.

We're just like not landing on the right thing,

Or we haven't quite figured out how to completely vibrate this perfection off of ourselves.

I know that this can be a bit challenging to even really comprehend sometimes what I'm saying in this slowing it down and thinking about this awareness of if I am saying I am perfect,

If I'm holding myself to perfection,

Then that is me saying that I am the perfect human.

And there is no perfect human.

You're never going to land in perfection.

No matter how hard you try,

No matter how much you deplete yourself,

How much you criticize yourself,

How much you overwork yourself,

You recognize the ego attachment there.

Once we connect that,

Once we see that,

It's often a bit easier for people to let that go and to have,

Again,

Loving,

Compassion,

Curiosity,

Non-judgment towards self.

If we are landing in perfectionist mindset,

Some other trailers or things that like to hang out together there,

We can get into the mental filter or disqualifying the positive.

That is when we will only notice small remnants of negativity or things that didn't maybe work out the way that we had planned.

That can be in a project.

It can be in a meeting or,

You know,

Something like this that maybe you get feedback from and maybe 10 people give you feedback and nine of the feedbacks are wonderful and one maybe not as wonderful.

And then you take that one and put it on your bulletin board to remind you that,

You know,

You're not this or you're not that or you have failed.

We can even do it for situations.

So we might have had,

You know,

I guess I'll stick with the same number.

We might have had 10 situations with friends or a loved one or a family member or a work situation,

You know,

Whatever resonates for you.

But you might have had like 10 different events,

Situations,

Conversations,

Time together with someone and maybe one of them was a little faltered or just seemed a bit imbalanced or maybe had some crinkles,

Whatever language,

And then we pluck that one out and now we're using that mental filter or we're disqualifying the positive.

Perfectionism,

Mental filter,

Disqualifying the positive.

Think of the emotional response that that brings when we hold it towards ourself or when we place that onto someone else.

It's usually not full of loving kindness or compassion.

It's a bit abrasive and might even separate us from others or make us put up walls around our own heart or our own space.

Lastly,

Another area to think about in terms of mind and perception,

It is about the comparison mind.

And these kind of all go together when you kind of think about them as you're going to continue to learn all these things are webbed together.

They're not just like one,

Oh,

Let me just do this one thing.

It's about building the awareness around all of it and then the awareness starts to build a little bit more ease in moving into something new.

A comparison mind will keep us feeling down,

Maybe feeling less than,

Maybe even making us get into overworking or over exhausting ourselves.

I talked about this in a few of my podcast episodes and I can't remember at the moment which ones,

But I will be putting some links in the description box below of episodes that could be helpful.

I had talked about this in higher education.

There's a lot of pressure around tenure.

Sometimes people going towards tenure or professors are working a lot,

A lot,

A lot of hours,

But the language around it.

And then when graduate students hear that or sometimes undergrads or if they're working as it used to be called TA,

I think the language is something different now,

But they hear this,

The work,

Work,

Work,

And almost like a competition of how many hours we've worked.

Like,

Oh,

I worked 60.

Oh yeah,

Well,

I worked 80.

You know,

What message,

What message does that give you or does that give someone else?

In that example,

I hear a lot from the grad students who are like,

Oh my goodness,

I don't know.

That's just not what I'm trying to live.

I don't want to work 80 hours a week.

So again,

Thinking about comparison,

Competition,

What that brings in,

Perfectionism,

Mental filter,

Disqualifying the positive and the emotions that that can stir up within us.

It's usually not loving kindness.

Now a bit about the foundation.

We,

Well,

I shared with you last week about some of the stuff with epigenetics.

And as you're thinking through or being aware of the thoughts that you think through,

I guess might be a better way to say it.

We learn also how to think.

Depending on what we feed our mind,

Depending on what we've been exposed to,

Depending on what hamster wheel we keep getting on or what book we keep pulling off the shelf in our mind.

Some of that also has to do with that genetic foundation of things.

The language,

The way we process emotion,

The tools that we have or do not have as you uncover and discover things in self.

And when you find that they are maybe generational threads or foundational imprinting of how you were taught or not taught,

It's not about locating those things or having that awareness and then having around it judgment or condoning.

No,

Not condoning.

I can't think of the word,

But it's not about judging or why didn't you or why didn't they or all those things.

It's just awareness.

And now what do I do with that awareness?

What tools do I need to learn?

What do I want to learn to become something different?

So with this foundational part,

As we're uncovering or really honing into awareness around our internal language,

The way that we think sometimes could be actually passed down from generation to generation.

We can be taught how to worry really well,

How to catastrophize,

How to think through worst case scenarios.

I remember my mom would be really anxious about snow.

I live in Pennsylvania,

Central Pennsylvania now.

So snow,

It's here.

It's here right now outside my window.

Then later,

I found myself getting a little bit more anxious around driving in the snow just as an example.

But there could be lots of different examples.

We can be taught how to worry or we can be taught how to process or manage depression.

Sometimes clients,

We will talk about,

Is this a learned behavior or is this environmental behavior or in this example,

Depression?

And it can be a bit of both.

Sure,

We can have genetic imprinting of maybe past history in our family of people even contemplating or committing suicide.

And part of that could be within functioning,

Kind of think about what I talked about passing down and the Holocaust.

So we could have that piece,

But it's also could be language that's passed down as well of that language that makes us feel hopeless or helpless or lost or shame and guilt around emotion.

So we don't express it and it just percolates inside and so we don't know what to do with it.

So some of the foundational things that we have,

Even in the way that we think,

It can be learned ways of thinking.

With that,

Everything can be changed.

So the more that you're aware of it with non-judgment,

It's not about going back and saying all the things that people didn't do right.

It's about being aware of what was there and what you now have access to to change and rewire the system.

Sometimes our elders didn't have the tools that we need.

They might have not had access to awareness or again,

Lots of shame and guilt.

If you look back,

It's only more recent that we've been talking more openly about emotions.

Our parents,

Our elders,

They might not have had the tools,

The awareness,

The ability,

But now we do and we can make change.

So we can start to change the language and just notice where did we learn some of this thinking from?

Where did this come from?

And how can I move into something new?

Which brings me to today's tools.

I'm going to share a few different ones with you.

The first is about a strength board.

So we started working through the one-to-one.

So the awareness I'm having this judgmental thought to itself or others,

Slowing down,

Pausing,

And then sliding in the positive.

And I just kind of left that pretty wide open for several reasons.

One is so that you could feel and notice the chronic cycle that we can get in of judgment.

And then the second is to do with this tool.

You might have noticed that it got challenging to come up with strengths,

To come up with positives.

It's very common,

Not because they are not there.

You are actually full of them,

Full of strengths,

Abundance of strength in you.

We're so used to getting in that boxing ring with ourselves and punching ourself in the face that we lose sight of all the strength that's there as well and to allow it to come to surface.

So in developing a strength board,

You could do this whatever way you would like.

Sometimes people will use graffiti letters or cut out words in a magazine.

Some will draw pictures.

It's really whatever resonates for you,

But you might want to get like a little poster board or something like that to do this on.

And it's a process.

It's not something that you do all at once and you let it unfold over time,

Not extended time,

Like maybe for the rest of this three weeks that we have,

You can start now and let it start to unfold over this time.

What you would do is you start with one strength.

So maybe let's just say you start with compassion and maybe you feel lost after that one.

I'm compassionate.

Now what?

No judgment towards yourself.

Recognize,

Realize it's very natural and normal to feel stuck when you're trying to find strengths initially,

Not because they're not there,

Just the natural cycle.

Intense people respond initially like I'm asking them to perform surgery on me when I ask them for strengths.

They're there.

You have an abundance.

So start with one.

So for this example,

I will say compassionate.

So you have compassionate as your strength.

Now,

If you look at compassionate,

What else would you need to be compassionate?

What other strengths would you have in you?

So you might notice an active listener.

You are open to differences.

I don't want to give too many because I'd like this to unfold for you on your own.

But you start with one and then you add upon that one.

And now you see I added two more.

Well,

To be an active listener,

What other strengths do I need?

To be open to differences,

What other strengths do I have in me?

They're all there.

They're all there.

So that's how you start to find them all,

Start to bring them all to surface.

And you would write those or draw those or cut out things,

Pictures,

Et cetera.

And over the three weeks,

You're going to have this beautiful piece of art,

Even if you're just using letters,

That is a constant reminder to you of all the strength that is within you.

And you can place it somewhere that you will see it often.

I'm going to show you one.

It's a different theme completely.

Actually,

I did this maybe four or five years ago-ish,

Somewhere around there.

And this was,

I did this about moving forward that year.

It was like a new year type of thing,

A workshop that we held at Serenity a few years ago.

And it was about what did I want to embody or make sure I was embodying in that year ahead that I knew was in me,

But I wanted to keep it present in the forefront of my mind for embodiment.

And it was just different things that were important for me to have present.

So being a dream weaver,

I'm very connected to my dreams.

So dream weaver,

Having calmness,

Going green.

I really try to live with the environment as much as I can.

Making sure I have family presence,

Escaping away from everything.

Family escaping,

I don't know,

Both together.

But this thing,

These things that I wanted to embody and make sure were present is what this one was created for,

But just to kind of give you a visual of something.

Another thing is you can create little cards that will represent affirmations for you or things that you want to make sure are present in your awareness.

And you can maybe say them each morning or have them spread out,

Whatever it is for you.

I'm going to show you some.

And you're going to notice when I show you these,

These are on specific colors that has to do with energy therapy that is not really for this gathering here.

I will be offering something related to that later,

But that's why they're different colors.

You'll see their colors of the rainbow and then the specific ones on here have to do with that energy center.

But so my soul is love.

And also I'm grounded,

Would be another one,

Root Chakra based.

Experience and embrace all of my emotions.

I notice and appreciate all that I am.

I accept and love myself and others.

I listen with loving thought and intention.

My mind is full of loving kindness.

I am connected with my spiritual path,

Higher consciousness,

Divine energy.

So those are examples of affirmations.

You might have noticed they were written in a way that they're already happening.

Your soul is already love.

You don't have to go somewhere to find the love in your soul.

Your soul is fundamentally love.

That's an example.

So that's another thing you can do.

You can certainly put them on different color,

Things like that or not.

The next one is to accept compliments openly and freely without adding anything extra.

So if you receive a compliment,

You can follow with a thank you or I appreciate that or that was really kind,

Something along those lines.

It's accepting it freely without adding a but and then a devalue.

So we might find that we accept compliments,

Although many have a hard time with that,

Hard time receiving gifts,

Hard time receiving compliments.

Compliment is a form of a gift and we might find that we accept it and then we block it.

But or we'll point out a flaw that we have.

So it'll be even in a different category that we receive the compliment and then we'll say something to devalue ourselves after we might say thank you to the compliment.

So strength forward is an option.

Affirmations,

Practicing affirmations each morning,

Every night.

It takes like,

You know,

30 seconds even where you can add it into your meditation.

But even just the repetitive nature of just practicing each morning when you wake up,

Maybe before you even get out of your bed,

Say a positive affirmation to yourself at night when you lay your head down and your night or your day or whenever you're sleeping with an affirmation and then accepting compliments openly,

Freely from your heart space.

Another one to add is the sharing.

So it's accepting.

This is about the collection of gratitude and how we can share gratitude in a giving and receiving way and then also the sense of a hug.

So those are two podcast episodes you can listen to as well.

A physical hug for short is all kind of stuff.

Oxytocin,

Love center,

Heart center.

So a lot of ways that we can experience a similar sense of a hug.

Giving a compliment,

Receiving a compliment,

Offering appreciation to someone else,

Receiving appreciation from someone else.

So accepting a compliment without adding and then each day trying to offer a sense of appreciation to someone.

It can be very small,

Just offering that you appreciate an act of kindness that is around you or that kind word that was said to you.

Hopefully that gives you some things to think about.

Open up this awareness and trying to allow yourself to see maybe some more about the way that your mind works and the things you're telling yourself that are guiding you away and those tools to help you build a different foundation.

No judgment,

Allowing yourself all the opportunity to create what you want to create for yourself.

Be on the lookout for comparison,

Slowing down,

Pausing when you notice and maybe using something like those affirmations.

You are you,

Full of love,

Full of strength.

Allow that to be your story.

Thank you so much for spending time with me and I hope you enjoy the next edition to help you Rewire to Love.