Podcast Transcript for Episode 14

Part Two of the Self-Esteem Series

Hello, and welcome to order within navigating a world of endless chaos and crisis. Many of us are experiencing inner turmoil, insecurity, anxiety, fears, and isolation. These feelings are only being amplified by news cycles. Social media and never ending political madness. How do we find our way out of the chaos?

How do we find strength within ourselves? How do we find meaning in a world driven by materialism these questions? And many more I aim to answer on the show. My goal is to be a trusted guide on your journey to selfhood. May you find what you seek? Hello and welcome everyone. I'm your host, Brandon Ward. Got another episode to dig in today. We are going to be covering what is now. A five-part series on self esteem. The work has expanded so much that it is. There's too much to unpack. That's valuable and important here that can't be covered in, in three episodes. So I'm expanding.

And what we're going to be talking about today. Are the first two pillars of the six pillars of self-esteem. So the first episode. Part one. Was focused on defining. Self-esteem what it means. How, how we can measure it. So looking at our, the efficacy efficacy of ourself and the respect that we have of ourselves. So those are the components that make up. Self-esteem.

But now the next three episodes of the show are going to be focused on the actions that we can take. And so the first two pillars. We'll discuss today. I'm very excited about doing this is going to be living consciously and self-acceptance so, and it's built around action and we want to focus on. Action.

Because ultimately it begins with the individual. Now, a lot of times we would think.

What about the environment? What about the family life? What about all of those things that influence individuals? That's where we would start. Right. From Nathaniel Brandon's perspective, which is one of the things that I really enjoy about it is that it begins with the individual. And we want to focus on the action that we can take.

Has individuals. And these practices, the pillars, the six pillars of self-esteem our practices. So the whole idea is that we initiate these practices. That can help us, regardless of our environment, our experiences, the family that we grew up in. That's the difference. So we want to focus on what we can do as individuals.

And how we can either improve our, obviously the goal is to improve our self esteem, but also understand the actions. That can take our self esteem down. And move away from. Uh, high self-esteem and ultimately. That is the aim of this show in many ways, a lot of this work ties together. So many brilliant minds throughout time throughout history. That's why I'm covering so much of this on the show is because people have spent their entire lives, helping us understand ourselves and.

What actions we can take to improve ourselves who we are, how we live. And to live our most fulfilling and heightened lives. Ultimately. Uh, these pillars will help us do that. If we're willing to put in the work. And so. When we think about it, the whole idea is to nurture our thinking. Our self-trust, our autonomy.

If you grew up in a household like that, that's a very blessed thing because that's a rare thing too, in our world. But it's not an end all be all in regards to. What it takes to have self-esteem it's an ongoing thing that we do throughout our lives. So with that being said, I'm going to dig into. The pizza's here. So we're going to start with a couple of limits. First is going to be freewill and its limits. Then the second component of that is going to be parenting and its limits.

So free will is important, but it's only part of it. And the, a big piece of this is that we all have. A limited amount of freewill. It's it's, it's impossible to just plow through everything. Pulling from our freewill, because it's a, it's a.

There's levels to it. And it varies for each individual. So it's going to be a diverse range of freewill that we may have. Now we can. Practice freewill. We can work to increase freewill, but ultimately this can't be driven purely by our freewill because ultimately it's limited to each of us. So that's why these practices are so important because they're habits that we can build.

There are also developmental and environmental factors. That we briefly touched on earlier. And that's another important aspect is understanding that we all have different developmental ranges. We've gone through different experiences and had different environments that we've grown up in. So that will influence our freewill as well. But that's a piece of it, but ultimately at the end of the day, it's not the end all be all.

The next piece is parenting and its limits. So. Modeling is key there. And again, it's. You can do everything right? As a parent, you can grow up in a phenomenal household. Who does all of these things nurtures your thinking, encourages you to trust yourself, autonomy, creativity. A lot of the things we're going to talk about.

And still have self-esteem challenges or issues. It's, there's so much. Individual components to this. That has to be considered, but as parents, we can create these environments that give our children the best shot. Of having high self-esteem and hoping that we can anchor those habits into them. But it's not always, it's not a guaranteed thing.

You can develop, self-esteem grow up in, in very tough homes because you put the work in, you understand. Where it's required. You can also take that as things for granted growing up in a great home and have low self-esteem. So again, it's not a guarantee, but these are things that we can do. To help influence our kids and, and hope to set them up for success. So what we do know though,

Practices and actions help build or lower our self-esteem. And that's the essence of the work that Nathaniel Brandon has done is he spent his career. He spent his career. Defining an unpacking. Things that we can do as individuals to increase our self-esteem and understanding. Uh, what lower self-esteem and, uh, one way to go about doing that right? The best way possible. If we're really going to help and teach and lead is leading by examples.

That means we are our first and always foremost. Client patient, whatever it starts with us. And we lead by example, the best way to teach others is by leading by example. I, I take great pride. In. Doing and living my authentic life as much as I can and never asking anyone to do something that I myself would not do because I believe wholeheartedly that.

We must live our truths and there are many wise people throughout history. Who've said the same thing. I also grew up in a household where it was very much do, as I say, not as I do. And that drove me nuts as a kid. Because it felt like a lie. And that's a huge part of the challenge that we face is that many of us deceive ourselves. And so.

The goal is to move through this work so that we can improve our chances of being healthy, happy, fulfilled humans. So learning by our own journey is going to be best for this right? Putting these practices into place in our own lives and working on these things on ourself first and foremost, because ultimately that's how we can lead and help change the world. Truly one person at a time. If everyone did this, the world would transform.

There's another piece here that we're going to talk about throughout. Nathaniel Brandon's work that he calls since sentence completion work and the power of it. And so we'll get into the specifics of a little bit more, but basically it's, it's writing out sentence stems and then allowing yourself. The time to.

Let it flow out. So if, as an example, if I brought more consciousness to my life and then. You fill in whatever it is. And then you repeat that six to 10 times without thinking, without filtering. And allowing it to come through. It's a practice, a habit that we can build that allows us to start uncovering what's living inside of us.

And increasing our ability to learn and grow from ourselves and what's living inside. And it's a very powerful tool and ultimately we'll get into more of this. I'm actually going to share a program to I've already got a, that he put together for self-acceptance. If you want to leverage that. There's also some workbooks that he's created that could be useful if you really want to get into doing this work and exploring it more and making sure that you.

Are doing the things that we can. Uh, to, to, to really improve and heal ourselves. All right. So. The six practices. Self-esteem as a consequence, it's a product of internally generated practices. We can't work on self-esteem directly, neither our own, nor anyone else's. We must address ourselves to the source. And so these practices, these actions are what allows self-esteem to either go up or down. So they are a consequence of our actions.

Small changes over time, create big outcomes. That's why the small, simple. Daily changes. Bit by bit, add up over time and we build it builds just like we can spiral down. We can absolutely spiral up. So. The six practices. Our of, of self-esteem the pillars, the six pillars. So he calls them the six practices. It's the practice of living consciously the practice of self-acceptance. Those are the two we're going to cover in today's show the practice of self-responsibility the practice of self assertiveness.

The practice of living purposefully. And the practice of personal integrity. So each of these build. On one another. And we start with.

The practice of living consciously. Because consciousness and living consciously is what allows us to live. It's it's the, it's the tool that we begin with that allows us to go deeper into whatever it may be. That's bothering us or whatever it may be. That's helping us. And. When you look out throughout history.

Enlightenment and spiritual traditions. So many of them focus on. The concepts of living conscious, being enlightened, being aware. And enlightenment doesn't mean you have all answers and that, you know, everything and lighten it. Enlightenment means. I'm here, I'm present. I will be aware I will embrace reality. I will be truthful and I will dedicate myself to being honest and open.

And conscious. It's being clear to that. And the reason this is so important is consciousness is a tool for survival. We use our consciousness to survive. It's how we are aware of our surroundings is how we are aware of ourselves. If we choose to be. So consciousness is critical to our survival as a species without it, we would not be where we are today.

So that's why it's the first. Practice. Because without consciousness, we can't progress.

And so. It's up to us. Whether we choose to be conscious of things or not. It's a choice. It's a choice that we bring. To bring consciousness to our life, to bring it to our challenges, to bring it to our hurt, our emotions, our relationships. This is the game. And so without that though, there's no progress.

And we can either avoid these challenges. This. The reality, these negativity is pain, the suffering, or we can embrace it. And we're going to get into a little bit of. Just because we embrace something does not mean we necessarily like it. We agree with it. We enjoy it. But we are accepting it. And so there's more of that on the self-acceptance side.

But it's a huge, it's a huge piece to understand that. Being conscious as a choice, we absolutely turn it up or down. It's like a volume and we're conscious in some areas of our life and very unconscious and other areas of our life. And so that's why it's important to bring this to everything that we do.

And I love this definition here. Self-awareness is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.

So self-esteem. Is the reputation we acquire with ourselves. That's such a powerful statement. So we're building a relationship and a reputation with ourselves. That's the essence of self-esteem. And so when we're looking at consciousness, it's really about acting on what we see looking at the world as it is.

Facing it. Fearlessly. Into the world.

That's the difference.

Showing courage. In terms of what we're seeing, how we're looking at the world. And the key here is to is. We can easily betray ourselves.

By turning away.

It's it's more living consciously is more than seeing and knowing it means acting on what we see and we know that's the difference. So it's not just being aware, but it's taking actions relative to what we know what we see. What we're learning. That's the key difference. And so without that, Without the combination of awareness and action.

Consciousness doesn't do anything for us. So we have to act. And we can easily betray ourselves by denying that reality.

And what I mean by that is we all are aware when we do something wrong or we are mistreating others or we're being dishonest. We know it. We sent, like that's the power of consciousness, consciousness presents things to us, but we deny it. We ignore it. We suppress it. That's the betrayal of ourselves and consciousness is when we turn away from what we know is true.

If I'm disrespectful to my wife or if I'm unkind to her or am I, I'm not being honest with her. I know that. And it's my choice to be truthful about that or not. When we turn away from that truth is when we really get into problems.

It's when we deny that we're wrong. That we denied this pain is when we get into these massive issues. And so that's why it's key to understand. Consciousness and living conscious truly is a choice.

There's so much that we have to look at to observe, to experience in the world. And how we engage with that. Will depend upon the choices we make every day. So a couple of, of misunderstandings possible misunderstandings.

There is. So it's a nature, it's human nature to learn and to automate things as we mastered things more. So. Naturally, there are pieces of, uh, you know, speaking, driving things that we do on an everyday basis where we may go into an automated. Sense or as we learn things, it goes into a, more of an automated motion. That's okay.

We can't be conscious of literally everything we're doing every day. We can't be conscious of. All like everything that's happening in our body. So there's a, there's a, there are limits. To that. And that's totally okay. That's important to understand. So that's one piece is that there's limits to it.

There's also, we, we only have so much mental focus. And so what does it mean? We have to be problem-solving all the time. Operating consciously doesn't mean more always actively solving problems. It's we're aware. So we don't have to be on all the time. And then the third possible misunderstanding is that when we focus on something, we are naturally eliminating our focus in other areas.

We only have limited focus. And when we choose to focus on something, we are. Removing other possibilities. So understanding that as well. Now. Those are just some simple possible misunderstandings. The next piece here that we're going to talk about is being responsible towards reality. Now I've already talked about this quite a bit.

But. It's important to understand. That. Living consciously implies respect for the facts of reality. This means the facts of our inner world. Our needs wants emotions as well as our outer world. If we deny that. We are denying our life, our existence, our life force. Living consciously is living responsibly toward reality. We do not necessarily have to like what we see, but we recognize that, which is, and that, which is not, is not so that, which is, is, and that which is not, is not.

We don't have to like that. That's the difference being aware does not mean we like what things are. But we're not dishonest about it. And so.

The specifics of living. Consciously.

R as N this is how Nathaniel Brandon. Described them. Living consciously entails a mind that is active rather than passive and intelligence that takes joy in its own function. Being in the moment without losing a wider context, reaching out toward relevant facts rather than withdrawing from them. Being concerned to distinguish among facts, interpretations, and emotions.

Noticing and confronting my impulses to avoid. Or deny painful or threatening realities. Being concerned to know where I am relative to my various. Goals and projects. And whether I'm succeeding or failing. Being concerned to know of my actions are in alignment with my purposes. Uh, searching for feedback from the environment. So as to adjust or correct, my course when necessary.

Persevering in the attempt to understand in spite of difficulties. Being receptive to new knowledge and willing to reexamine old assumptions. Being willing to see and correct mistakes. Seeking always to expand awareness, a commitment to learning. Therefore a commitment to growth as a way of life. Uh, concern to understand the world around me.

Uh, concern to know not only external reality, but also internal reality, a concern to be aware of the values that move and guide me. Understanding their roots. And so. That's a lot.

But there's so much power in there. Because we're looking at. It's truly being active. It's embracing, learning growth knowledge information. It truly is a way of life. That's the beautiful thing about this is we have the choice that we can make. Regardless of the circumstances that we come from. The talents that we have skills, whatever.

We have the ability to make choices and to embrace and engage with life. So being present. And taking the joy of learning and intelligence and experiencing this, it's truly a way of living. And it's so powerful as we do this on a regular basis. And when you look at where we are today, particularly in the world, the political world, the news, all of those things.

We see so much of people not doing these things. So many of us deny reality. We look away from what we know, we are passive. We are not reaching towards relevant facts. We're running away from them. We are not concerned to distinguish among facts, interpretations, and emotions. We just react. So it's no wonder, so many of us are miserable. We're literally doing the opposite things of what is required.

To develop and build healthy. Self-esteem. And this way of living. Going against ourselves going against our self-esteem is promoted everywhere. The news cycles, politics, media. Our culture. So much of it is built around reacting emotionally. Denying facts that disagree with our worldviews attacking people that have different perspectives.

It's it's it's wild. How.

How much the world has gone away from.

Embracing reality, our power is embracing reality. That's the difference. And so when we do that, We step into a different realm. And that means internal challenges. Looking at our impulses, our thoughts, our feelings, and being honest about them. Not judging but embracing. So we have to be clear. And also knowing that our, my lot is my life aligned.

With what I'm seeking to do. Am I close to my goals. Am I hitting my objectives? Am I being honest with myself about the actions that I'm taking and the goals that I have. Are my actions aligned with the goals that I have.

Am I seeing feedback in my environment. That allows me to, uh, correct. Or just based on what I'm doing, what I'm seeing. So you can see how this builds. But it also takes a lot of courage. It's a lot of work to get to this point. And so when we do that, It allows us to address an impact things as they are.

But we can't do that. If we deny their existence, if we turn away from what is.

So it's a process. This also allows us really looking to persevere. In difficult situations. It's understanding that I know I will encounter challenges. I know I will not know things. I know I will make mistakes, but.

I'm willing to put in the effort to make it work. I will work through those challenges, those difficulties. That's the power of this.

It's interesting too. Like so many of us are not receptive to new knowledge and re-examine old assumptions.

This is something that we almost do. Life is not static. It's not fixed. It's not static. It's changing. Always. The only constant is change in life. And so. Knowing that. We have to always be re-examining our assumptions. The knowledge that we carry the beliefs that we have. This is a lifelong pursuit.

We don't just do this and then stop.

We have to be willing to correct our mistakes to learn. To live, to understand.

What we're doing and how we may be misaligning ourself through our actions, through our thoughts, our feelings.

We have to be honest with ourselves. And so living consciously implies that my first loyalty is to truth, not making myself right. I've talked about this a lot on the show. You see it everywhere, particularly in the political space. People are far more interested in being right than they are truthful.

And it's causing great damage to our society, to our lives, to our communities. If we all make the commitment. To be truthful, come in ourselves to truth, regardless of what it means. The world would truly transform. We would expand our consciousness and understand that learning, growing, making mistakes.

Is what life is all about. That's how we become amazing powerful humans. We're always looking to expand awareness. We're committed to learning. Or committed to growth as a way of life.

That's such a powerful way of living. We live in a time now where human knowledge is doubling about every 10 years. It's probably faster now. So. Unless we commit ourselves to learning for life. We're going to struggle. It's inevitable. The world's going to change and we will struggle in that sense. If we don't have the courage and commitment to learning and growth, it's key for our growth to do this.

It's also looking at. The world around me seeking to understand the world, pressing into what things are happening, looking at things socially, culturally. Politically economically. Seeking to understand, not taking things at face value, not simply just believing what we're told.

There's a deep commitment to truly understand, to learn.

Both internally and externally.

We can't be a mystery to ourselves anymore. So much of ourselves is a mystery. And we're all suffering because of it. And it's not helping where we are as humans. It's hurting us. It's hindering us deeply hindering us because ultimately our inability to embrace reality is what stops us from growing and expanding.

So being aware of the values that move us, that guide us are inner roots. Those pieces are so important. This is the act of consciousness living consciously going deep into ourselves and learning and living truthfully.

So he, he made a note on addictions and it's very powerful. When you think about this. The avoidance of consciousness is clearly evident in problems of addiction. When we become addicted to alcohol or drugs or destructive relationships or behaviors. The implicit intention is invariably to amyloid. Great.

Emirate our anxiety and pain. So we're trying to remove that pain and anxiety. To escape awareness of our core feelings of powerlessness and suffering. So we're trying to. Tranquilize ourselves numb ourselves. So much of our society is built around leveraging these addictions to keep us small and weak and sad and lonely.

And we use addictions. To avoid. These pieces. The deep parts of ourselves. And so it's, without that.

Without that. We struggle. Without that awareness, we can't grow. And so being honest with ourselves is crucial. But that doesn't mean like, and when you look at our behaviors, Look. I've had periods of my life, where I was. Addicted to sex, partying too much addicted to porn video games. I've been there. That's why I'm doing this work because I was a mess.

And my team teenage years and my twenties, I was a mess. But I refuse to accept that way of life as normal, even though society, our culture seems to be promoting that way of life as if it's somehow good for us. It's not.

So pushing through that is key and understanding that we have to embrace those things. So it's not denying, but it's like digging in, going deeper, pushing into ourselves, leaning in to reality to who we are within. And outside of ourselves. And so.

We've got so just a little bit more here in the consciousness, in the body. It's interesting. I'm going to, I'm going to cover some of this work tunes in my other episodes, William Wilhelm Reich, and his. His work around how we carry repression in our body and how tension is carried in our body. And then ITTO Rolfe who ended up creating this, this program called structure structural integration, which is again, they call it Rolfing, but basically it's, it's how we can help release tension pain, trauma.

Through bodywork. And that allows us to release these memories, these feelings to, to then understand them, to become aware, to lean into them. That's a powerful process. That's a really powerful process.

So I'm going to get into that in other episodes, consciousness, some body. How things live in our body. I think it's going to be like, again, there's so much great information out there that can be helpful to us. And some of these things may resonate. Some of these things may not. That's the upside. Like I want to give you all as much tools and strategies and tactics as possible.

To help you reach the goals that you have to become the best version of yourself. That's the objective of the show. The objective of my stub stack. That's it.

All right. So let's get into some of the sentence completion work. Now, this is a. It's very simple, but it's very powerful. As I had alluded to earlier.

Sentence completion work is it's taking a stem, a sentence stem. And then filling in whatever comes to you. Now you can do it in an audio recording. You can write it down. I have a remarkable, so that's where I do mine. You can do it on your computer, whatever works for you. The key is not filtering it.

This should be done quick. It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to do this. Each day and he, the thing who Brandon suggests doing it morning. And evening. When you're doing this work right. Monday through Friday. And then on the weekends you do a review process. You kind of go through a review process and then you look at and say, Hey.

What did I apply this week? If I applied these things? Would it make a difference? And then, or if I applied what I did, if I applied what I learned this week, and then you fill out the sentence stems. So you want to minimum. Of six endings. The key is to let it flow. Any ending is fine. Remember? The thing that limits us most is self judgment.

That's what limits us. So as an example, Living consciously to me means. Whatever. And then you write anything and you do that six to 10 times. And then you go into the next sentence stem. If I bring 5% more awareness to my activities today. Again, the 5% is about that small minimal non-intimidating bite-sized choose that we do each day.

If I pay attention, if I pay more attention to how I deal with people today, if I bring five more, 5% more awareness to my most important relationships. Like you can literally do this with everything, with money, with work, with creativity.

As you do this, you'll begin to learn. What's really holding you back. What's living inside of you. You can move forward from that.

This allows us to reflect on it. And so it, he goes into much more detail. Like I could literally do an episode on sentence stems alone. So it's the concept of it that we're talking about right now. And the piece that he talks about on the weekend. So going back, so you do that Monday through Friday in the mornings.

In the evening. You go back and you do it each time. And then on the weekends, You want to reread what you've written for the week and then write a minimum of six endings for this stem. If any of when I wrote this week is true, it would be helpful if I. And then you fill in the sentences. And doing this work, the ideal is to empty your mind of any expectations concerning what will happen or what is supposed to

I do not impose any demands on the situation.

This is how we maintain the discipline of self-esteem. This is the work of self-esteem. It's a practice and a mindset. It's an orientation toward life. It absolutely exists on a continuum. No one lives entirely unconscious, but there are levels of it. And some areas of life, we are very conscious. Other areas. We are very blind.

So living conscious is a challenge, right? It's take it as a challenge. How conscious can you be? In all areas of your life, particularly the ones that you're resisting right now.

Those are the areas that have the most opportunity for growth. We all know people who are brilliant externally. They're mastered some sort of external skill, but they are completely unaware of their internal self, their internal relationships, the impact that they have on their. Friends family.

There's so many examples around us in the world. Like this we're out. Prime example would be athletes. So keenly aware of the smallest, most subtle movements in their body and how they're moving. They feel every little movement because they've spent their life training, practicing, honoring honing in.

But then they're completely clueless as to why they may have anxious feelings or anger or sadness. So because of that.

They struggle internally. They have toxic relationships. They can't seem to progress in their personal life. This is a common trend. Our focus is outward in our society and not inward. And therefore it creates this challenge.

So, if you can view consciousness and living consciously as a challenge, and you can bring this to your day bit by bit moment by moment, you've got a shot.

That's the whole game. It's bit by bit. Little bit by bit. So that's the practice of living consciously and that's the first pillar of self-esteem. Now the next practice. And again, these build. Is the practice of. Self-acceptance. Self-esteem is impossible without accepting ourselves and we can't accept ourselves without consciousness. So that's why it builds on that.

There are three levels to self-consciousness from Nathaniel Brandon's perspective. The first level is our most basic level. Of existence. I exist. I have needs. I can meet them. It's like very, very primitive in a way. So it's kind of our primitive. Right to existence. I need food. I need water. I need air.

I can provide that for myself. That's the first level of acceptance that I have basic self needs. The second level.

Is going to be. Self insecticides entails our willingness to experience. To be real with ourselves without denial or evasion. So we are. Experiencing ourselves as we are this to me. It was one of the most enjoyable parts of this experience was as I begin to truly experience myself for the first time it changed my life. I realized like, wow, I'm actually a pretty cool dude.

I have some interesting thoughts.

I have some. Interesting ideas. I'm kind of weird. Kinda like a lot of random things. It's kind of cool. I can push people. So like you start to embrace yourself, you start to value yourself. You start to learn who you are.

You you remove the alienation of yourself. So it's beginning to experience ourselves rather than disowning ourself.

Experience our, our feelings has a very powerful. Experience of healing when we do it.

To understand. We must remind ourselves that accepting again, does not necessarily mean liking, enjoying, or condoning. I can accept what is and be determined to evolve from there. It is not acceptance, but denial. That leaves me stuck. So that's the key. When we deny this, we say, We stay suck. How can you.

Progress.

If you don't embrace, what is, you can only build from what you acknowledge.

All right. So now the third level. Is being a friend to ourselves, like genuinely getting to know who we are really learning more about who we are. And so it's like, we start to experience ourselves. We start to learn these things with ourselves. And then eventually we move into a friendship with ourselves, a relationship with ourselves.

I talk about Margaret Paul's work. Parenting ourselves. This is really what it is. It's it's being a friend to ourselves. Loving who we are learning about who we are. We can't understand other humans. If we don't.

Know how to be kind and loving to ourselves.

We have to understand what that means. And by understanding ourselves, we truly be. Begin begin to understand others, to love them as they are.

Again, that doesn't mean that. We don't. We have to like, feel strong or feel good about certain actions that maybe we have done or been wrong about things. Right. It's the ability to embrace it, to accept it. To not condone to goddamn to judge. But to understand. Seeking to understand with curiosity.

It's important to understand the context because. That's the difference. There's always reasons that we do things that doesn't mean that they're justified, but understanding the context line within those things is what allows us to really level up and begin building a compassionate way of life for ourself and for others.

So I think a couple of things here too.

It's funny as I'm doing this, I'm like feeling my body am. Standing breathing.

And. He has an exercise at exceeds. Yes. And it's just, it might seem a little strange, but it's a great. Exercise to really embrace who we are and start introducing the idea of self-acceptance. To get in front of a mirror. Ideally naked. If you're courageous enough to do this and observe yourself.

Just look.

Now you're going to resist things. You're not going to like things. You're going to be angry, whatever. There's going to be a lot of things that come up, but the whole point is to watch, observe what happens, observe how you interact with yourself. Observe. Your thoughts, your feelings.

If you willing to do this. For two minutes every morning. And again, every night for two weeks, it's crazy. What can happen? Like you begin to develop a relationship with yourself. You can't have a relationship with yourself if you reject your physical being and that's the point. Is it's first beginning to accept ourself as a physical being.

We exist. Observe that experience. And as we begin to observe and accept, this is progress towards. Accepting who we are and the relationship can change, develop and grow. It's a very powerful thing. It's a very beautiful thing.

The next piece here is listening to our feelings. And guys, we're almost wrapping here. I know it's another long episode. I've tried to kept my episodes I'm to capping them at 45 minutes, if I can. So.

Listening to our feelings. There's two components of this one is accepting the others disowning. Most of us disowned our feelings. We deny them. We avoid awareness of their reality. We, we constrict our body, our tightness, we clean tightly to it. We disassociate ourselves from our experience, from our feelings.

Because we're afraid of them. We don't want to experience them. They're painful. We want to UN. Ignore them. Whereas the other side is. Acceptance. I'm going to focus on the feeling or emotion I'm going to breathe into it. I'm going to allow the feeling to be felt. And I'm going to make real that it's my feeling. I'm going to own it and I'm going to be with it. I'm not going to judge it. I'm not going to suppress it.

I'm not going to attempt to conquer it. Which a lot of us do we tempt to conquer these feelings. We attempt to overcome anger. We overcome sadness. We destroy it.

But that allows us to, we never understand when we do that. So conquering doesn't embrace understanding compassion. Compassion and acceptance is embracing. What is. That's how we can overcome. These challenges. And if you're resisting acceptance, then work on accepting your resistance. It's all based on acceptance. If you can't get to a deeper level than start at the very top. All right.

I can at least accept. Then I'm resisting this and I'll start there. And then things start to melt. Start to fall away.

And I've been saying this. Acceptance does not mean liking a green. Or desiring it. It's embracing what is without judgment. That's a very important piece. To this. Because if we don't. Denying it keeps us stuck.

That's the paradox. Is that acceptance of what is, is the beginning? Stages of change. Denial is what leaves us stuck.

And then, so I've got, um, He points to a five-week program here around self-acceptance and the, uh, the. Sentence stems. That I am going to.

Share. I've already shared in my sub stacks of your subsect subscriber. You will see it there and you can go through this program if you want. He's laid out all the SIS the sentence stems. So you don't have to do any of the work there. You just have to. The work of the program, you have to just go through the program. So it'll all be laid out there for you. You can take it, use it and hopefully build on it.

And then the final piece that I wanted to talk about. And then we'll wrap the show. It's probably going to go over 45 minutes. So sorry guys. The ultimate crime against ourselves is the disowning of positives, not the negatives. So many of us. Fear our own glory and power more than we do. Our shortcoming. Shortcomings are easy to you.

You know, to, to disowned because we want to, we want to. We want to become better. So that, that makes sense where we're trying to disown those pieces. I don't want to, I want to get rid of my weaknesses. Okay. I get that. But we got to work through those weaknesses. Right. As we've talked about, we've got to embrace those things, but.

Disowning our positives, our genius, our ambition, our excitement, our beauty. It's that's the real danger because. We have so much glory and goodness inside of us.

And we deny that greatness because it scares us because we're afraid.

Uh, fully realized self-acceptance is not evade the worst within us. Neither does it evade the best. It's not just about avoiding the worst. A lot of us avoid our best versions as well. We accept lower than norm norm. We accept lower. Circumstances and standards than we know we deserve. Then we know we're capable of.

I'm very guilty of this. And I've been learning to embrace that more and more, as much as I can. Because it's critical because ultimately we're in this world to express ourselves to be, as we are to live deeply. And we do that by.

Owning our positives, not disowning them, not dismissing them. That might be more difficult for a lot of y'all. Is actually owning your positives. Owning the, the, the, the negatives, the hard things. I think we'll be, I'm confident you're going to be able to do that, but I challenge you to embrace your positives, your good stuff. That might be your more difficult work.

But it's definitely worth it.

All right. Joel, who man. These episodes are. Deep intense. And long, but I love it. It's it's I hope you all are enjoying it too. I mean, it's just, I love this stuff. I am.

It's so much fun for me, mastering the self learning to become our best versions of ourselves. So it's just, it's fantastic. So I hope you're finding value in it.

Part three next week. We'll be coming to more. Pillars. Which is exciting. So you can look forward to that. Like I said, it's going to be a five-part series. I hope you all are enjoying. If you have any thoughts, questions, or comments, you know, let me know in the sub stack, happy to help if I can.

Otherwise, I do hope y'all are enjoying the show and I will catch you next week.

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