How To Stop Beating Yourself Up With Your Beliefs

18:10

18:10

How To Stop Beating Yourself Up With Your Beliefs

by Suryacitta (The Happy Buddha)

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

7

Many of our deepest struggles come not from life itself, but from the beliefs we hold about who we are and who we should be. The mind creates harsh standards, judgments, and stories of not being enough. By bringing awareness to these beliefs, we begin to loosen their grip. What remains is greater self-compassion, acceptance, and the freedom to simply be. This session includes a talk on the theme with exercises woven throughout.

Self Compassion Acceptance Beliefs Awareness Thought Observation Mindfulness Mental Health Freedom Self Criticism Awareness Attention Redirection Metaphor Usage

Meet your Teacher

Suryacitta (The Happy Buddha)

Leicester, UK

Meet your Teacher

Suryacitta (The Happy Buddha)

Leicester, UK

Transcript

Hi guys, Welcome. It's quite astonishing sometimes just to realise. How many of us? Mentally beat ourselves up. And it seems to be very difficult to stop it. And the scenes we saw common. And so easily done. It takes no effort. To actually beat ourselves up mentally with our own thought. Whilst we're sitting quietly, Let's say in meditation, Or we're sitting having a cup of coffee. Or walking the dog or doing the washing up. Quite often we are doing the washing up or walking the dog. Physically. But there's something else going on. Spins it's like we've got this me movie this documentary of me going on in our head Many years ago we decided what type of a person we are. And for most of us it has a strong element of not being good enough. So because of that belief, And that's all it is, A belief that I'm not good enough when you're watching this me movie, This documentary of me and my life, When we're watching that and lost in it. We are just reinforcing the whole thing, The whole concept. Identity. This identity that I am a person who is not good enough. Cos that's the message we get from the world, Isn't it? In various ways. And I think everybody gets it to some degree. Just a matter of degree. Some people it's really heavy and obvious, Other people it's a bit lighter, But it's there. I remember one of my teachers saying, Everybody has a core belief. And it begins with I am. And it's always negative. And at the time I thought, No, I don't believe that. Nah, But I do now. I do believe it. It may not be debilitating for some people. Put it there. At some point it will come out that I'm not good enough at something. Or I'm just not good enough. Is more. Closer to the truth. I'm not good enough or I'm unlovable or I'm useless or. . . See I am. Sometimes I think that there's another one like life is hard. It's a core belief. Life is difficult. Life is out to get me. Nobody loves me. But it's still about me, Isn't it? It's still about the self. And it really is just a belief. And a belief isn't true. Look at the three middle words of belief. It's L I E. So when we look at our lives, When we are walking the dog or sitting drinking coffee, Maybe by ourself. Doing the washing up. Meditating. Nobody's beating us up. Nobody's there. Saying bad things about us, Except. . . Mind. Our own mind. That's where the trouble is. It's a problem factory. The mind can be the ultimate problem factory, Just creating problems out of nothing. The mind that says I am not good enough or something similar is a problem. So we're just going to play here, Just play for a few minutes, Just have a look at these. Beliefs and what to do about them. Because really, It's just a voice, Isn't it? The voice in the head, That's what it is. And doesn't that voice sound like you? And that same voice is criticising you or condemning you or judging you. Doesn't it seem to encapsulate your whole being, Your whole existence? It sounds like and feels like me. But also feels like it's talking to me. What on earth is going on? More importantly, What do we do about it? What do we do about this? Mental. Beating up is mental. Narrative. The juice. Won't stop. And it doesn't need much activation. OK, So. Let me just ask you a question and meet these questions in silence. OK, Meet them in with spaciousness. You don't need to answer immediately. In fact don't answer immediately. Stay silent. What are you without the voice in your head? I think we're just playing, We're just trying to open something up here OK? So just come along with me. I want you to do is and don't think about it just do it instinctively. I want you to take all your beliefs and put them in a box. Nearby. All of them gather them up and just put them in that box Now where are you without all those beliefs? How are you without all those beliefs? So we can't criticise ourselves without thinking. We can't mentally beat ourself up without thinking. It's completely thought based. But because you believe those thoughts, Then it feels true. Let's try something else I want you to take one of your deeply held beliefs. On your core beliefs. And what I'd like you to do. I'd like to repeat it to yourself for 10 seconds. Make it a real one. One you would have in real life. I want this to be impactful. So let's make it real. Think it to yourself for 10 seconds. OK. Right we're going to do it again but this time I want you to say to yourself, Just quietly inside, You don't need to speak it out loud. Quietly inside. I'm having the thought. Dot dot dot. Do it again. Do you see the difference? See the problem is that we take what thought says, The content of thought, To be reality. I'm not good. I'm useless. And then we reinforce it by what? How to reinforce it by more thoughts. We'll look for evidence, More beliefs. That's what's happening. But when We say to ourselves, I'm having the thought. I'm no good. That's just using it as an example. We start to realise that it's just a thought that we are having. It's not a reality. My goodness, It's just a thought. Before that thought arose, I was just enjoying the flower, Or the coffee. And you know, But what happens is. It's sort of, This is accurate enough. None of this is completely accurate because it's really difficult to to get to the essence. Is accurate enough. We disappear into the content of thought. That's why it feels real. Can we play a little bit more? Wanting to open things up just to give you A viewer. These thoughts are not true. These beliefs are not true. You look in the dictionary. The definition of a belief is something taken to be true without evidence. Where do we go for evidence? That it's true. My thoughts. My thoughts. In Zen Buddhism. They say that the world is sitting on the back of a turtle. So what's the turtle sitting on? Well, Under the. . . More turtles. There's turtles all the way down. And those turtles are beliefs, Are words. When we get into words. We just go down and down and down. I'm not talking about practical thinking or functional thinking. That's different. That's used as a tool. Mind about those self-referential. So, Let's take that belief, I am not good enough. What's there before that thought arises? Don't think about it. Just go direct. Just look for me. What's there before the thought arises? There's no belief? And then the thought arises then we disappear into an I not good enough. So what we miss is that the space before the thought the space between each thought and a space after a thought. That's what happens. We focused on each little thought, I am not good enough, Five. Sounds, 5 words, 5 thoughts and it can have a devastating experience. But you've also got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 spaces. Six gaps. It's the big gap. Before and after and the gap in between each word. And we don't know any of them. We skim off that straight into thought. And that silence is where the peace is. So begin. Let me put it another way, In your meditation begin to. . . To meet these thoughts with silence. What does it take? It takes the energy or attention away from them because what they need to survive is your attention. That's what they need. That's how they survive. It's an energy system, See. That's what it is. And everything. That is energy needs more energy to survive. We need food and water. We need nourishment. Plants need. Food and water. Animals need food and water. This needs your attention, That is food and water. That's how it keeps going So I thought, Let's just two minutes, Let's just do two minutes before we end. I'll do a little guise but I just want us to be quiet for a little while first. And when you notice a thought arises, It doesn't matter what thought it is actually. That's the practice. Dismissed. In silence. Like the sky meets the cloud. Silence. Spaciousness. To just drift away. That's all you need to do. You can do the exercise with just unhaving the thought. If it's quite heavy and charged you can do that. Again And when you do get caught up with Thor, That's okay. Don't go into, Or watch for going into. Beating yourself up about it, Oh there I go again, I can't do it. That's just another thought. That's all it is. Just like the first one was a thought, The second one's a thought. The thought about the thought is a thought. Just make that silence, Just drop the thoughts, Drop them. Or just having a thought. A statement not a judgment. In a sense what we're doing is starving that mechanism. Starving of fuel. Let's assume it's a fire. Use the metaphor of fire What do you do with a fay if you want it to grow? It won't give you fuel. Starve the fuel to starve it. Don't put any wood on dumb, Pour petrol on it. When you go in there and get lost, And oh yeah, I'm sick of this, I'm tired. You just pour fuel on that. Don't burn the fuel line. If you do, If you do, If you notice it. Our drop. Come back to the breath, The body. The sound of the traffic or the birds. Something that's really happening. So I'll drop it into more sessions around this theme guys. And yeah. Thank you. Bye-bye.