A Conversation On How To Love Your Self

We are recording.

Okay,

So this is my name is Ryan James.

I'm a life coach based in England.

And I run under the brand,

We won't die wondering.

And in my work,

I help folks find renewed purpose and meaning in the second half of lives in that in second half of their life.

I'm joined today by what now I would say as a good friend and contact Don McAvinci,

Who is a spiritual coach,

Narrative therapist.

What other things do we say meditation leader.

And for my mind,

My experience,

An expert in self love and acceptance,

Which is exactly the thing we wanted to jump online and do today is have a conversation around what does it actually mean in the daily,

Weekly,

Monthly,

Yearly lifelong practice.

What does it actually mean to love and accept yourself.

The small matter of just a small matter.

Yeah,

Just a little issue.

Yeah.

So as a start of the 10 Don.

Obviously I've done all the talking so far but some.

Why do we start with that.

Yeah.

Well,

To me it started to dawn on me after I don't know,

Maybe 15 years of working as a therapist.

Actually before I started my coaching practice.

So this is a while back,

I've been at this almost 40 years now.

This business.

But it started to dawn on me that a really important question was,

How is it that we end up not loving and accepting ourselves in the first place,

Why,

Why wouldn't we do that.

And I started looking at the patterns that I noticed in my clients lives and the patterns I noticed in my own life.

I looked at like,

Part of my training was in sociology.

So I started looking a lot at the social constructs that happen in cultures,

And how those all those factors play into making us dislike ourselves,

Think badly of ourselves denigrate ourselves.

And so much of those factors seem like we're just kind of taken for granted.

Like,

We get parental messages all the time.

And our parents might,

You know,

If you give them the benefit of the doubt they might be thinking that what they're saying to us is going to help us to grow or to learn or motivate us,

You know,

But if your parents says,

You're lazy and you're never going to amount to anything with that kind of attitude,

Like those kind of phrases right,

Which probably so many of us have heard from our parents.

That stuff starts to sink in.

And if we're in school and we get the same kind of messages from teachers or we get into the the inevitable comparisons with other students who are maybe better at academics and better sports than us or whatever we get involved in the messages keep on coming.

And in this day and age,

If you think about the other day you mentioned how in your career as a marketing person,

You said a phrase to me.

Remember that phrase that you felt like you did.

Yeah,

As a marketeer,

I still people's happiness and sell it back to them,

Which is basically what a marketeer I don't do that anymore.

That's what I did for a good.

That's what was completely switched me off.

And when I woke up to the fact that ultimately,

Even if it was the most well meaning product,

Anything that's a setup to make you believe that you're not enough,

You've not got enough,

You need something else to be different,

So on and so forth.

Which that's effectively what modern day marketing is often a lot less insidious than that.

But however,

At the basic level,

You look at any advert on TV,

And you have anywhere.

Pretty much what they're doing is making you feel as if you're not enough,

And then telling you if you only you had this then you'll be better.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah,

If only you had this right.

If only you don't.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Like,

Like these happy smiling models right who are gorgeous and beautiful you know these guys with like six pack abs and blah blah blah right.

If only you had what I have,

Then you could be happy.

Right.

I think the only that's marketing PTSD.

That's what I think about that as that.

Yeah,

Really,

It's so inundates us now all the way down there,

The side of our,

Our screens and our computers right all these little ads from Facebook and whatever,

You know.

So,

Those kind of sources.

We've gotten into this constant state of comparison,

I think it becomes like how we how we actually operate our operating system is one base in comparison.

That is a denigrating comparison or competitive comparison to constantly measuring ourselves up with other people or some ideal sense of ourselves.

Religious institutions do this,

And they put out this is how you are a good moral person by following these precepts right by following our beliefs,

What's interesting what you're saying there is,

Is almost as if you're saying that rather than standing still and saying,

I'm okay,

As I am,

You're saying,

As a start of a 10 was scanning outside of ourselves to check where we fit in,

As opposed to realizing that we just are as kind of what it's like we're slightly where I mean that sense of belonging is that kind of almost human drive is like,

How do I fit where do I belong,

How do I be how do I.

And so it's almost if I come up and there's this part of us that's just scanning is it here is it here is here.

What do I need to do to fit in here,

What do I need to have,

How do I.

So,

I'm wondering if if what you're pointing to is.

In the absence of knowing where I fit there's a kind of lack of safety there's a lack of.

I don't know I it strikes me as a bit of a coping strategy a bit of a,

I mean,

It's a,

It's a,

It's a self defeating coping strategy but there's a kind of part of me that feels as if that's what we're doing.

Yeah,

Well,

Yeah,

Coping with the onslaught of negativity maybe about this.

Yeah,

How do we cope with that.

Yeah,

There was an interesting story I read years ago about when Columbus landed in the new world right.

Those.

At that time there were something like 200 million people living in North America.

I didn't realize that and another.

I'm like,

What.

Yeah,

Another couple hundred million living in South America.

Wow,

Was huge.

It was a huge civilization,

Extremely advanced.

But Columbus brought with them this idea about sin.

And that your behavior takes you away from God.

And that's what we're trying to repent,

Right.

And the native people who they were trying to evangelize right to convert.

He just could not wrap the rain,

Their brain around the idea that somehow they could be ever be separate from Great Spirit.

How could you ever be separate.

Great Spirit is everything and you're part of everything so how could you be different.

Right.

And that idea that self debasing idea.

I think inundates our entire world and affects us so much that what you were talking about that scanning like literally turns from scanning our environment to scanning ourselves and making sure that we stay in line with what we think are these ideals,

So that we can be that happy person that the marketing tries to show us we want to be.

So that look.

Michel Foucault,

The French philosopher called it the normalizing gaze turns on us and keeps us in line.

You don't need to like hang people by ropes anymore or torture them in the center of the village.

In order to get people to stay in line.

Now we have the normalizing gaze and the state's work is basically done.

We are going to keep ourselves in line,

Except for those 10,

000 that storm the capital of the United States back in January so they didn't stay in line too well.

But there's always outliers.

So,

To me part of that is the assault on our own self love that we can have a normalizing gaze based on inundated ideals that come from other people or from marketing or from religions or whatever that are denigrating and love ourselves at the same time,

Like those two things just can't exist in the same body and the same psyche.

So the normalizing gaze has to become something that we step away from that we let ourselves be free from.

And to start to get the idea,

We were talking about this earlier,

That since maybe I can never be disconnected from the universe.

That there can't be anything different about me than there is about a bird or a tree or a field of grass or my dog.

Like,

I'm part of the universe.

They're part of the universe.

I'm part of nature.

They're part of nature.

I used to take in workshops that I ran called your perfect life workshop.

We'd walk outside and say we're going to go on a little field trip.

We'd all get up out of the room that we're in and we'd walk outside.

And I'd say,

Okay,

So look up at the sky.

Is that a perfect sky?

And people say,

Well,

Yeah,

It's perfect.

It's beautiful.

I said,

Okay,

So look at that tree.

Is that a perfect tree?

Well,

Yeah,

I mean,

It's got some dead branches on it,

But that's probably part of its life process.

So yeah.

About that bird over there.

Is that a perfect bird?

Well,

Yeah,

It's a perfect bird.

So what could possibly make you think that you aren't just as perfect as all those other things?

Like,

How could you not be exactly the same as those?

And if you let that sink in,

You let that really become a foundation that you stand in,

That you move through your life in,

Then self-love and self-acceptance is just kind of a byproduct of that.

I'm just a part of all this.

And I think there's something really interesting in what you're saying,

Which is implied in what you're saying.

And that is,

There's this notion that kind of how do we go about loving and accepting ourselves?

Because a lot of the time it's like people looking for affirmations and people are looking for,

You know,

I love and accept myself,

I exactly as I am.

And it's like you're pointing to the fact that maybe we started as babies,

As being,

We didn't come into the world doubting ourselves.

And we didn't know,

Oh,

Where's my love?

I mean,

We very definitely needed love from our caregivers to survive and to thrive.

But there's also an aspect of,

It's almost like over time through a very young age through to however long,

Probably even to later in life,

There's a kind of like a move away from the notion that we are love,

Thinking that someone,

Society,

Marketeers,

Religion,

Even if religion is not prevalent,

It's kind of almost like a hangover,

Kind of like stealing our happiness from us,

Stealing our notion that we're not lovable or stealing the notion that we are lovable,

Should I say,

Away from us.

But what you're pointing to is almost like rather than kind of going,

No,

I need to tell myself I am lovable,

Tell myself I approve of myself,

We just need to look at something else that we can see is perfect as it is.

And therefore kind of think,

So where's the idea come from?

Or can you be open to the possibility that you are just as perfect as that bird that you're looking at?

It's almost like returning to the idea that you are lovable and acceptable,

Rather than you never were in the first place.

Yeah,

Like,

Rather than you never were in the first place,

And there's an awful lot of work you have to do to get yourself back there.

Rather than that idea,

Which a lot of people think they come into therapy thinking that,

Because all this work I have to do,

I had so much trauma in my life,

My parents were shit,

You know,

Whatever,

Like all this stuff.

And those stories about ourselves,

As you know,

As a narrative therapist,

Those stories are extremely powerful.

And we keep saying them over and over and over again,

You know,

I have all this stuff.

I'm all messed up.

And we declare it when we tell the story,

Which helps make it more true,

Because now we've said it too,

Not just like other people are saying you're,

You know,

You're never going to mount to anything.

No,

Now we're saying it.

So we've internalized those messages.

And we think we're all messed up.

And I had that negative critical voice that we were talking about before.

Just absolutely inundated my life,

It was horrible.

The way that that thing took after me and criticize me and finally I just kind of realized,

I didn't have to,

You know,

Years and years and years of looking at this.

But I finally realized,

I didn't have to go through and examine every single little critique that it was making of me,

And somehow turn it around and prove that that thing wasn't true so then I could be happy.

So,

All I needed to do is throw it out.

Rewind a second because we've got the benefit of having had that conversation previous opposing someone's coming at this.

Yeah,

Or interview for the first time.

Some people may not be aware that they haven't in a critic.

Or a voice going on.

So do you want to just do you want to just talk around that a little bit just to give get help people understand that what we're talking about.

Yeah,

One of the forms that this,

This comparison this negative comparison takes for any of us is that critiquing of ourselves in a negative way.

And I frame it as the negative critical voice is how I think about it.

And it embodies all these things that we're talking about that that I think caused us to stop loving ourselves.

It just becomes the actual auditory or internal auditory version of that negative comparison.

And I can't tell you how many clients have come to me saying like they can't escape this thing right it's just horrible.

And they can't escape thinking that it's telling the truth that this actually is who I am.

That horrible negative worthless person right.

So that negative critical voice is a major challenge for for many of us to escape from to overcome to not allow it to continue its torture and its influence.

I think it's a it's a major component of that thing we were talking about about the normalizing gaze.

But that's for many of us that's what happens that negative critical voice is what happens to keep us in line to keep us in the kind of shape that these larger these larger cultural means I guess you could call them filter down and create for us those kind of shapes.

So what I figured out was that I didn't need to go through and examine all those little pieces.

I could just dump the negative critical voice like like just let it go and just say you know shut the hell up and get out of here.

And so I started doing that.

I was telling you to shut up and get out of here.

Leave me alone.

You know I okay I get the idea but it's not relevant you know because almost everything that we talked about before almost everything these negative voices say to people are universal statements.

And therefore they can't be true because like let's pick that apart just to give an example.

An example would be I don't know.

I make some food of a more I make some food for me and you for argument's sake and it goes wrong in some kind of way and I just berate myself as I'm just bloody useless.

I'm useless at cooking.

It's like a global universal statement that I am useless.

I'm useless full stop and I'm useless at cooking.

It makes a statement that suggests that everything I've ever cooked and will ever cook will never work.

So therefore the question then is is that and can that actually be true?

Yes.

That's almost and there and what I loved about what you said previous I'm sorry if I'm stealing your thunder a little bit but just to kind of what I'm on this thread.

It's is that true.

Is everything I've ever cooked useless?

No.

Okay.

So therefore if I can accept that that universal statement is false,

Then actually possible and correct me as I'm going along that if that's false then actually how much else is this voice saying that's also false and therefore why would I listen to anybody that's telling me falsity that's making a statement of me that it cannot be true.

Yes.

So then you ask yourself why would I ever listen to someone who's lying to me about me?

Why would I listen to them?

And that's a great question.

So the answer of course is well I don't want to.

All right.

Well then stop listening to it.

And it's so simple right?

I see instructor Robin Johnson,

Who was also from the UK.

He said yes very very simple.

It just ain't so easy.

You got to practice that you got to like get that idea and by get it I mean like in your bones get it that those universal truths are lies that the negative voices trying to say to us and insidious to and insidious.

It really kind of like it almost like a claggy energy like one thing I've in the work I was doing previously but also since you and I had conversation the other day.

It's like recognizing that the energy that it creates because sometimes you might not realize there's actually inner critic going on,

That there's any voice happening at all.

And the good way of being able to determine that it is even there at all is how how are you feeling so it's it comes with a certain energy like I always said to you the day like one way of me being able to tell what it feels like is if I had another person in the room with me,

And they were telling me,

I was useless.

Yeah,

It gets you back up,

You're going to get to tell someone to f off and say no I'm sorry but I'm not.

I'm not useless.

Yeah,

But,

But the way someone can make you feel like you're not going to be able to do that.

And if someone can make you feel that kind of bullying effect the way it kind of angers you.

If you can detect that emotion and that feeling and that kind of kind of energy that it can make you feel kind of almost like caged in and kind of offended it's like,

Can you then detect.

And therefore,

If you feel that any other time,

Even whether there's someone in the room or otherwise and that's a good way for me being able to detect whether it's the inner critics even playing out at all that it's even because sometimes it doesn't come across in,

In an actual literal.

I'm not aware that it's talking,

But it can be aware of the effect it's having and therefore if the effects have happening I can then say to myself,

Hang on a second what am I telling myself,

And therefore I can out it,

Because sometimes it can,

It's a sneak.

In there and kind of,

And they're going to go hang on.

Sometimes it's easy,

Sometimes you know,

Because you end up saying I'm useless.

But sometimes it's not that obvious it's more like it's,

You can,

You can detect it by how you're feeling and therefore the thought that I'm having and therefore,

Hang on if I'm having that thought what must I be telling myself what must I be believing.

Yeah,

Tracking it down like that's the,

That's the simple thing,

Track it down stop it from saying these things to us.

And the not so easy part is doing what you just said the process through it checking it out,

Especially checking out like what you said Ryan in our bodies when we feel like self love is moving away what's coming in its place.

It's a quirky feeling pretty crappy feeling about ourselves.

So to get that to feel that in our bodies and to say I don't really like that.

Where did that just come from came from my thought about myself it came from the words that I used.

And in narrative therapy words are pretty darn important they're like what stories are built on.

So we start becoming aware as part of that simple but not so easy process,

Becoming aware of the actual words we use to talk about ourselves.

Then we can start changing our stories.

And our stories can become more and more and more positive,

Or more uplifting for ourselves.

And the illusion that we're disconnected from the universe the illusion that we're not part of the perfection of everything,

The illusion that we're sinners,

Or whatever those illusions are right.

That inherently,

We're a bad person that illusion can start to fall away.

And I think what comes in its place is self love.

Exactly.

Self acceptance.

And,

Frankly,

The joy of living.

And again I'm going to underline it and pick it out as,

As to what you've just said there.

And again correct me add to it,

Etc as we go.

You're saying,

In its place comes self love and acceptance,

As opposed to something that you've got to apply.

It's like you're saying,

I mean,

You know,

You're clocking that it's happening,

And then changing the story around it.

So,

So one of the ways in which you're saying to love and accept yourself isn't to actually consciously go about loving and accepting yourself per se,

But to clock the,

The prevalence of the inner critic.

To clock that it's happening.

And then to start recognizing the words that you're using and start change so an obvious one,

Just to go back to the cooking example I'm cooking.

Okay,

Then actually saying,

Well is that true.

No.

Okay,

So what's a truer statement.

Sometimes I mess up my dinner.

A lot of the time I get it right.

Yeah,

As a basic kind of narrative to change it.

Yeah,

In the breaking in the dismantling of the idea that I am useless at cooking and changing it to sometimes I mess up a lot of the time I get it right sometimes it's a bit in between.

Yeah,

That creates a more truthful statement from which I'm starting to love and accept myself better I don't have to jump to the other end and sort of say and create another global statement.

That's really not cooking.

It's like,

That's not loving and accepting yourself that's kind of almost creating another expectation against which I'm going to fail.

Right.

Then I noticed when you said that about cooking when you first said it.

You first said,

I'm useless.

And you said,

I'm useless at cooking.

And that's what this thing does.

It takes cooking or whatever right.

And it makes it into a global universal negative statement about who we are as a person.

Yeah,

I am useless and when we when we say those things right.

Again,

The power of the words that we use in our stories.

I,

That's me so now I'm identifying who is going to be the subject of the sentence right.

So me am in the essence of who I am.

Useless.

So,

I am declaring that my identity is a useless person.

That's my identity.

And if I do that over and over and over again,

I guarantee you I will believe myself eventually.

And it doesn't take too much.

So,

So part of what happens what I've noticed happens is that when you start to take away the,

The anti self love right the negativity sense that we're disconnected.

What happens first is there's this sort of like this nothingness,

Which is kind of wonderful to see with clients and certainly wonderful for me to feel in my own life.

There's nothingness and from this nothingness comes what feels to me,

Like kind of a fundamental spiritual quality.

I think of as the numinous spiritual essence of this moment of me in this connection,

And that comes filtering up.

And I start to feel that sense of connection,

That feel that sense of perfection like,

How the heck did I notice Tom Evans somewhat sort of strange picture on insight timer,

For instance,

Right.

Behind these little branches,

His wild hair and I said God he looks a little bit crazy I want to meet that guy you know,

Because I like people who are a little quirky.

And that moment led to this conversation.

Exactly,

And I never would have predicted that right.

How did that perfection happen from one step to the next step to the next step.

But again,

Let's underline that again for the benefit of other people listening in is you're pointing to a lot of people might not realize this.

You're pointed to the fact that we are spiritual beings,

We are connected,

We are lovable we are love,

We are with it there's there's there's a it.

Aside from having to tell yourself that like it's something you need to go about believing you're pointing to the removal of the thing that's keeping you from feeling that creates the space in which you can start.

It's the result.

It's something that will result as a consequence of the removal of the thing that's keeping you from seeing as opposed to something you've got to actively try to create.

I think it's really important for to acknowledge and make the statement so that someone doesn't have to go about believing that they are lovable,

Someone doesn't have to go about believing that they're spiritual.

They only have to dare to counter or dare to believe that the negativity that they are believing,

A isn't them at all.

Start dismantling the universe clocking universal statements,

Dismantling it,

Making a truer statement,

And then within the space that's created the spiritual lovable cells start to come through.

Yeah.

Therefore,

It's a whole lot easier than people realize to do it.

Yeah,

Yeah,

You don't have to go diving in and every single little thing and spend years in psychoanalysis,

It doesn't doesn't have to be like that.

And you just reminded me of one piece from from.

I think of now as the narrative approach to life,

Not just the narrative approach to therapy,

But the narrative approach to life.

One of the tenants is that when there's this negative story going on this kind of dominant negative story that if you see it,

First of all,

Like we're saying for what it is,

And kind of dismantle it.

Start to question it.

And inevitably what happens are the exceptions.

Because like you say,

I'm a useless cook I'm useless at cooking really.

So you've never cooked anything good in your life.

Okay,

Well,

Right.

Okay,

Got it.

So that's not true.

Alright,

So it's not true.

So,

What is true,

What is true is that I really love to cook.

Love being in the kitchen with friends or loved ones.

I love the smells I love the sense of how it's growing and building and finally it's going to be this meal.

And sometimes,

And actually more times than not.

That's turned out really really well and I felt so good about the whole process from start to finish.

And that's the story that's really true.

That was hidden underneath this three word,

Four word statement.

I am useless.

I'm useless as a cook.

Like,

Pull that away,

And as a whole other level of experience comes up to the surface,

And the narrative approach.

Those are called the counter stories.

No matter how prevalent doesn't matter.

I've worked with 1000s and 1000s of clients in this kind of way in my own life as well,

And trained hundreds of therapists in this.

No matter how prevalent that dominant negative story is every single time.

There are exceptions like that.

Every single time.

There's always these hidden beautiful themes and storylines.

And just waiting to be expressed,

Waiting for us to wake up and go,

Oh yeah,

That's why I love cooking so much.

So great.

I love it so much.

And then we start to let that out right.

And,

And if you think about that kind of story,

And how that story reverberates back into us.

That we love it,

We're saying how much we love it.

And that love ends up coming back and we love ourselves for doing it in the first place because we love it so much,

Right.

So it becomes this looping thing,

And just creates more and more and more self love.

One thing I wanted to say,

And I have a meditation up on inside timer about this,

Is that we can also get active about loving ourselves.

So we can take it from the other direction too.

We can practice self love.

And I developed this years ago with my first forays into meditation was all about visualization strategies.

Using the power of our imagination to picture how we wanted life to be to picture how we wanted to show up ourselves,

Even how like,

If we were like an athlete or something how we were going to be able to play the game that we're playing.

And even to the point of visualization use for healing other people.

So we did visual visualization based healing work.

Yeah.

For people who are sick.

I figured out after about 10 years or maybe 15 years of doing that kind of meditation that I wanted to work on this self love idea because I could feel that negative critical voice and this is I think when it first started waking up for me,

That I could do something about it.

So I said,

Why not,

If I can do healing work on other people,

Why not visualize myself in front of me,

And love myself.

Shine love to myself like a big spotlight coming out of my chest,

Out of my heart,

Loving into the heart of myself that I'm picturing in front of me.

And I did that for years I would just sit there and I just imagine myself just pouring love at myself,

Seeing myself standing in front of me getting happier and happier smiling feeling good feeling at peace.

And it became a practice that I've now shared on inside timer.

And hundreds of people have done it already just in the,

I put that up like three weeks ago or something and already like 400 people or something about have done it.

And lots of really lovely comments coming back to people appreciate it so much.

And what I love about it that the.

I've done the meditation and I do love it but what I,

And what I love about what you're saying,

And that meditation is,

And the distinction,

You're splitting the word,

Whether it's yourself or myself,

Either way.

You're still talking about splitting up the word,

Say,

Let's say we take yourself,

You're separately self with a big S.

Yes,

As meaning.

There's this self,

There's the,

There's the,

It's not just a throwaway line yourself it's like your self it's this this this this thing this the youness that's you.

Yeah,

You can love like loving another like if you have kids or people listening don't have kids there may be a pet,

Or maybe a niece or a nephew or a friend,

There'll be someone or something,

Maybe even,

Even if it if someone can't even go as far as stretch as far as that and they're just really struggling,

They'll be there maybe have a plant in their house,

But it's still a separate self that you can recognize as being something you can love.

And in the same way you can love that that other being.

You can love your own being and project and inhabit that sense of love well wishing.

And you can do better,

Bringing that kind of loving kindness and well wishing to your self.

Yes,

Yes.

Powerful.

And what I've played out again from this narrative approach is,

You'll start to notice if you take this on,

I noticed this myself.

You take this on you'll start to catch the words that you use in the emotional content of the words that you use.

Whether they're about stories about yourself or stories about other people.

And you'll start to notice that there's like this little yuckiness a little tweakiness that you don't really like that just came out of your mouth right and start to become aware of that.

You know what I really meant was,

And you come back and you say it differently right.

And after years of practicing this I was sitting.

I was sitting in a staff meeting at a residential treatment center I worked at for adolescents and their families.

And I've been working there for about seven years I think at this point.

And one of my colleagues suddenly stopped,

He said,

You know I've been sitting in these staff meetings with you for seven years.

And I have never heard you say something negative about one of these families or one of these kids.

How do you do that,

You know,

And I said,

I said well I started off like thinking about being a social worker and what,

Like some of the foundational precepts are that people are respected and honored and treated with respect.

And then I started reading files that were written by other professionals,

And they were like horrifyingly negative.

Like literally,

They would say things like this person has no parenting skills whatsoever about a parent,

Right,

Took about a global statement,

Global statement written down,

Submitted into social services as evidence like those things are legal documents right.

And I said you know I just decided back then I just never wanted to be a part of that kind of negativity about other people's lives.

And in that process it started dawning on me.

Yeah,

I don't think I want to be part of that negativity about my own life like I turned that around too and not have that negative critical voice be torturing me in a constant way to find to find love and to find those deep routes out of that negativity.

I don't know if you've come across this idea before you and I've not spoken about this.

Have you,

And I'm obviously I'm conscious we're on video but this is going to be an audio.

The idea of making a judgment of someone so if you took your hand and you point the finger out,

You're pointing at someone.

But of course there's three fingers pointing back.

And what you're really hearing in someone's judgment,

If they're judging you,

Or they're judging another person what you're really hearing is how they how their own inner critical voice is judging themselves.

Yeah,

Which I think is such a powerful thing.

Yeah,

Like,

Especially when people sort of say you know why does my mom criticized me so much for argument's sake.

Actually what you're hearing,

And I've heard this I did lovely idea which is really helpful is the reason a mom will see their child as actually an external version of themselves.

It's not they don't see they don't see it as a separate self.

So therefore really,

They're trying to protect,

But they're trying to protect in in a way in which they're actually would try to protect themselves,

Which is a very unconscious thing.

And so they're trying to protect themselves from the work.

And therefore what you're really hearing when someone is criticizing is how they're really they're just criticizing themselves.

So when you clock on to that,

You can when you hear someone be really judgmental,

It's actually once you clock that you can go,

Wow,

What suffering that person must be going through,

Have their own internal voice,

That be that way.

And I've,

It's helped me develop a lot more compassion towards people is when they're being judgment is difficult when you're in the firing line of it.

But if you can catch yourself and you're grounded enough in it,

You can realize,

You know what,

I'm not actually hearing what they're just judging me on.

I'm also hearing how they judge themselves.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah,

That's a powerful way to look at it.

I think if,

If we really consider that.

And then take a look at ourselves,

Right?

Like when we say negativity about other people.

We're speaking through the filters of our own in the narrative approach,

Our own narrative sense of self,

Our own storylines and our own themes of where we are in our own personal evolution in that moment.

And we're putting on we're speaking through those filters,

We're perceiving those that person through those filters,

And putting on them our negativity from our own filters that we haven't cleared yet.

Like I used to be,

This might be hard to believe,

Because you have this kind of picture of me.

But I used to be one of these guys who would drive and go,

Ah,

You know,

Like,

Wasn't quite road rage,

But there was a lot of anger when I was driving a car,

Right?

Believe that that's okay.

Yeah,

Okay.

Good.

And one day,

As a narrative therapist,

It dawned on me that when I said,

You jerk about somebody who cut me off in traffic or something,

Right?

That might only be two words.

But it was a whole story that I was saying about that person.

Right.

And a story that I had absolutely no idea whether it was true or not.

Completely.

Like,

I didn't know that person was a jerk.

I don't know what's going on in that car.

I don't know what's going on in that person's mind.

Right.

And I said,

I'm creating this story instantly.

That's absolutely negative.

And I feel horrible.

I feel angry.

I feel enraged.

I feel out of control.

I feel scared.

Like,

Most of the time it's from being scared,

Right?

We react with anger,

But we're really scared.

So I said,

What would happen if I just made up other stories about that person?

Well,

I'm driving,

Like just what would happen.

And so I started saying somebody like within a couple days,

Somebody did something,

You know,

In my air quotes here,

Dumb.

And I said,

Well,

Look,

No,

They're just in a hurry.

The kids in the backseat choking on a chicken bone.

They're trying to get to the hospital.

So let them let them go.

Bless you.

Go,

Please.

I'll even pull off the side of the road.

Go ahead.

You know,

I can tell you,

Ryan,

That 100% changed my driving.

My experience of driving,

How I drove,

Everything changed.

Yeah.

And all it was was just a change of story.

Yeah.

That's how powerful our stories are.

Because they affect us.

They might be looking like we're going out and we're talking about other people,

But it's really us.

Yeah,

We're the ones that suffer as a consequence.

Yeah,

Big time consequence.

There's a loop.

There's a looping effect of all this stuff.

And that's why I think it's so incredibly important.

When we think about self love and self acceptance,

I'll bring us all the way around.

That we both dismantle that that set of illusions of self criticism of disconnection from what I think of as the field of the universe.

Of our lack of perfection as a part of nature that we dismantle that stuff.

And we start seeing ourselves as being just the same.

Exactly the same as all these other parts that when we look at we say,

Yeah,

Of course it's perfect.

And at the same time,

We shine love on ourselves.

We change our words,

We change the spirit of our stories.

And we come at it from two different sides.

So that self love and self acceptance becomes the norm for us.

Anything else,

Any negativity really whatsoever that comes into our minds or comes out of our words becomes something that we check.

We say,

Wait a minute,

No,

What I really mean is,

And then what we say what we really mean.

That's to me a wonderful formula that's worked for me in my own life for increasing self love and self acceptance.

And I had a third one in,

Because it's one that you've given me so it's not as if it's not yours.

Sure,

It's the other day and I was,

I was like,

Hey,

What do I do in the absence so you know if I'm if I'm gripped by this in a critic of I'm,

You know,

It's not just changing the word,

And you said just practice doing nothing.

And as in meaning,

And I've just done earlier today and felt the joyous effect of doing it,

Sitting down,

Turning off my phone taking away all distractions whether it be television books,

Whatever it may be.

And sitting with yourself and observing yourself and noticing any pull,

Because that's what tends to happen is when the inner critic is prevalent,

It tends to,

It tends to draw out to me this notion that I should be doing something different I should be more productive I should be.

I should be something different doing something different I'm not doing enough,

Something that's suggesting that anything other than just sitting there would be a better choice,

Better use of my time.

And then,

And then in sitting there,

Just doing nothing.

And the only way to come back to myself is just breathing through them.

So,

To recognize that actually just coming back to me as me,

Not having to be anything or do anything different,

And just breathing through that kind of sense of,

Because initially want to sit down and do it,

There's an agitation that's like,

It's almost a twitchingness it's like,

It's like,

It's,

It's,

It's a weird kind of like crazy kind of thing might last five minutes it might last 20 minutes.

But then kind of just breathe,

Breathe and it doesn't have to be any kind of special kind of breathing it's like you know is it this is it,

No just it's not even trying to tank the breath.

It's just,

It's just,

Just come back to the breathing body come back to.

And become a come become aware that I'm up in my head.

Therefore,

You then drop out of your head and then kind of go okay can I fill the seat that I'm sat on okay can I hear the birds outside,

Oh,

Can I just come back to the notion of just being is another practice is similar to your first point about the fact this is what I've noticed is,

I then don't have to then go about trying to love myself per se.

I can.

In the coming back to myself doing nothing.

The sense of love that I am comes through.

Yeah,

We're gonna,

I ended up realizing.

I'm quite tired actually.

Oh,

Actually I quite liked it.

The notion of what do I need to do what can I,

What should I do next wasn't something I had to figure out in the coming back to me,

It came through me,

As opposed to something I needed to figure out.

Yeah,

It wasn't it got me out of the mental construct about to do lists and what my day is going to look like if I've had a good day and so to then just got me back to me just being me and then I had it got me in touch with my intuition from a place of.

Yeah,

So it was a very easy literal way of accepting myself,

Because I am by by by being just me in the moment.

I am accepting myself without trying to go about telling myself that I'm accepting myself.

Right,

Actually doing self acceptance.

Yes.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I'm doing being ironic.

Yeah,

Doing being right.

Yeah,

And I remember the other day when we talked you said something about that.

I think the quote.

If I was to quote you you said,

I'm not very intuitive.

And today I think you've used the word,

I am the phrase I'm intuitive or through my intuition,

Three times.

Yeah.

And somehow that sense has come back that sense of your own intuition.

Yeah,

The statement the other day wasn't that I am not intuitive.

It's just that at that moment in time I wasn't,

I wasn't feeling as if I was in touch with my intuition very much.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

But but rather than,

Well,

How do I get more intuitive,

Like,

There's this idea.

We've talked about this previous but any is so prevalent in today's society.

If in doubt,

Do something.

We're saying no if in doubt,

Do nothing,

Nothing right.

If in,

Actually do,

I don't mean do nothing and sit there kind of like twitching about the decision you need to make,

I mean,

No actually recognize that you up in your head trying to figure it out still come breathe through that recognize that's the inner critic,

You gripped in the inner critic.

That's,

That's trying to drive you telling you not enough telling you got to do something,

Creating this kind of sense of urgency that may or may not actually be there.

What we're saying is no no no no,

Recognize that you're gripped in the inner critic you're probably telling yourself something that's really not that conducive or helpful in any way whatsoever.

That's not going to get you to be more intuitive to make a better decision.

Breathe through that come back to you.

Okay,

Give yourself an hour,

Like,

Put in your diary,

What are you doing on Friday afternoon,

Nothing,

Nothing,

An actual hour of nothing.

Right,

Right,

Right.

And just breathing through that.

And yeah,

It's not even,

It's not even that you have to try to get the intuition to come back,

Or the love to come through or the acceptance to be there or to say anything.

You're just doing being from which then you will start to naturally flow more.

I think that's a great place to come to.

Yeah,

The end of this conversation.

I think that is.

I think that's a very,

Very definite little practices people can work on.

Yeah.

Thank you,

Ryan.

Thank you,

Don.

We're doing it again too.

I'm going to hit the stop recording button here.

Sounds good.

All right.

Stop,

Bam.