Is It Okay To Be You Yet? - L,L,&L W/ Glenn Ambrose

Welcome to Life Lessons and Laughter with your host,

Glenn Ambrose.

Hello everyone.

Welcome to Life Lessons and Laughter with yours truly.

So as usual,

I'll try to get right into it.

The title of this episode is,

Is it okay to be you yet?

So like the reason I was kind of thinking yesterday that this question kind of came up because I think in the last,

Especially like the last year,

Like this has been settling in deeper and deeper in my personal journey,

Maybe the last couple of years.

And probably those of you who listen regularly,

If you,

If you kind of think back on some of the podcasts I've done over this last year,

You might even see hints of,

Of this mentality in the subject matter.

It's it's really kind of a,

You know,

Everything gets broader as you're on the spiritual path.

Okay.

Like a lot of people are letting go of tools in their spiritual journeys right now.

So what I mean by that is like,

We learn tools to help us deal with life in spiritual ways instead of in the,

Using the tools as society told us,

Like for example,

Stress,

You know,

Like society says that stress is something that's thrust upon you.

You have no control over it.

You're a victim of it.

And that's how life is.

And sucks to be you basically that that's society's outlook.

You know,

If you say to somebody,

Oh man,

I'm really stressed.

They're like,

Oh,

I know what you mean.

I know it sucks.

Like we were as a,

As a badge of honor,

Like we're human and we're doing things right.

If we're stressed out and that's dysfunctional at best,

You know,

So a spiritual way to look at that is reclaiming your power and going,

Okay,

Listen,

Um,

External circumstances aren't stressful.

It's if I learned to interact with those external circumstances in a way that doesn't bring on stress,

Like if I don't resist the reality of them,

If I practice acceptance,

If I practice walking through life,

Mindfully,

Calmly,

And interacting with situations without letting them knock me off center,

Um,

Then I can walk through life with less stress.

Maybe if I meditate consistently,

So,

So like,

This is what I mean,

Like there's tools that we use to,

To help us interact with life.

And right now,

A lot of people are letting go of those tools.

So it's more of a,

Of an overall surrender,

A broader spiritual concept,

Like,

Like instead of me bringing in a tool for every single different thing that bothers me in life,

I'm sick of doing that.

Why don't I just surrender to life?

You know,

That's,

So this is a big thing that's happening.

And this is kind of another version of that.

You know,

We're so conditioned in this spiritual path to do our work,

Do your work,

Do your work,

Go,

Uh,

Do your shadow work,

Do your inner child work,

Uh,

Do your trigger work,

Do this work,

Do your family of origin work,

Do your addictive work,

Do,

You know,

Are you perfect?

No,

I'm never going to be perfect.

So,

Um,

I have more work to do.

You know,

I'm,

I'm constantly working on myself,

Constantly working.

It's exhausting,

Quite honestly,

Like,

I mean,

Now,

You know,

Don't get me wrong.

I mean,

Of course,

We're constantly evolving.

Of course,

I'm going to be a better version of myself tomorrow and next year than I am on myself than I am today.

Of course,

I'm,

I'm constantly working on myself and expanding,

But it's that mindset that,

That,

Oh,

I have to work on myself.

I have to work on myself.

That's exhausting.

When we're actually effectively working on ourselves,

It's not even really like that.

Like,

Like when I've had my largest moments of growth or periods of time when I've grown them up the most,

It wasn't because I was sitting there going,

Oh,

I'm going to work on myself.

I'm going to work on myself.

What work do I have to do on myself?

It was when I opened up and I was willing to open up more and do and learn and grow.

See,

Like it's,

It's more those words when we're doing it right.

It feels good.

It's not this arduous,

Arduous,

Treacherous work,

Trudging the path,

You know,

Like it's not like that when we're really in the flow and we're growing and we're expanding,

It's joyful.

So it doesn't even feel like work,

Right?

So this is how I've kind of combated that because I'm not one that's going to be like,

Oh,

I have to work on myself,

Work,

Work.

I'm just not like that anyway.

So like most of the time where I did my work,

I tried to drop into the flow of work and on myself,

Dropped into the flow of the enjoyment of it,

The enjoyment of the expansion.

And,

And,

You know,

When there's been times when I've had to buckle down and work on myself and,

And then there's times where it's been joyful expansion and,

And it ebbs and flows between the two and all this stuff.

But what I'm talking about today is just kind of letting go of a lot of that mindset.

You know,

People,

I've heard this commented on about older people,

Even outside of the spiritual,

The spiritual path.

Like sometimes I hear people,

I think I've heard people say it about people in their fifties.

I've definitely heard people say it about people that were even older,

Like in their seventies and eighties.

And I've heard people that were older say it,

You know,

They say you get to a point,

Where you just don't care what other people think anymore.

You know,

And I've always had a side of that,

But I also care what people think to some degree,

You know,

I'm not completely free of it.

So.

What that lends to is not only what other people think,

You know,

For for me,

I think I've I,

You know,

I've done enough work to let go of most of that.

I'm sure there's still some bits of it here and there.

But more importantly,

It's about me.

It's about how I view myself.

You know,

How do I view myself?

Have I accepted me like flawed?

Because I am,

You know,

From a human perspective,

I mean,

I think I'm divine perfection in an eternal way.

But I'm also a human being here on Earth,

Right?

Having a human experience and in that way,

I'm flawed.

Sometimes something upsets me.

Sometimes I'm very emotional and passionate.

A lot of times when I'm speaking about things,

And sometimes I can come out in ways that other people don't like it,

You know,

A lot of people have this view that,

You know,

This is one of my bigger ones,

I guess.

A lot of people have a view that if you're if you're calm and like if you're spiritual,

You're supposed to become peaceful all the time.

Like so I've been on this journey for 20 years,

I blew open huge 20 years ago,

I have all kinds of what I feel is very deep and important understandings.

And I've been I take my spiritual walk very seriously in that I try to make sure my mouth and my feet are going in the same direction.

I don't just say stuff and then not try to implement it into my life.

Implementation and integration is a huge part of my journey.

And I think I do it very well,

Most of the time.

But I'm not perfect.

And I don't do it perfectly all the time.

So,

So,

You know,

It's,

It's this self judgment that I'm talking about.

You know,

It's so so if,

If I'm not calm and peaceful all the time,

And other people are,

And they see me get irritated or upset,

They're like,

Oh,

Like,

They'll,

They'll literally trash and I've had people do this literally trash my entire spiritual walk over it.

They're like,

Oh,

I thought you were spiritual.

Like,

Oh,

I thought I thought you did all this work on yourself.

I thought you I thought you were like,

Evolved or,

Or you knew all this stuff.

And look,

You you lost your temper.

So you're,

You're,

You know,

You're not who I thought you were.

It's like,

Oh,

Okay.

So you know,

And on an external basis,

How I how I would deal with those things is I understand that's their stuff.

Like I get that.

And I've done a pretty good job overall with dealing with that.

Not perfect,

But I've done a pretty good job at not taking it personally and going,

That's their stuff.

They put me on a pedestal,

I didn't put me on a pedestal,

I never said I was perfect.

I never acted like I was perfect.

In fact,

I've said many times that I'm not.

So the fact that they have this standard for me,

That's their problem,

You know,

And I've done a pretty good job with it.

But yeah,

It's,

You know,

My thing is passion,

Emotion,

And,

And it's to think I'm never going to be like that,

You know,

It's like we have this idea.

And I'm talking about myself,

Too.

I noticed this many years ago.

And like I said,

I've worked on it.

And it just feels like it's coming to a new shift recently.

Like when I first woke up,

I was looking at Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra,

And Michael Bernard Beckwith,

Even,

Although he's pretty passionate when he speaks.

But like I used to like,

I wanted to be like them when I first woke up,

Because I looked at them as these amazing teachers.

I was like,

Wow,

You know,

They're like,

That must be what like being spiritual is like.

And there is no what being spiritual is like,

It's individual,

You know,

And I'm passionate.

And I had a whole life for 35 years before I was on the spiritual path.

And I developed ways of being and a lot of them worked for me in a lot of ways.

And a lot of them still even do a little bit that they're not necessarily socially acceptable,

But they work.

So I don't really care what's socially acceptable,

This,

This,

This is what I'm getting to.

It's like,

Is it okay to be you yet?

Like,

You know,

Like,

A lot of times I think the journey,

So here's the crux of it,

Right?

I think that I think the journey that we're on in the spiritual communities,

The spiritual walk is all about the focus seems to be on,

Like what you need to work on.

Right?

Like,

So basically,

It's what's wrong with you.

That's really a lot of what what it is.

And not only is it what's wrong with you,

But it's also make sure you understand what's wrong with you and where it came from,

You have to understand.

And that's not been my experience.

In a lot of times,

I think it's it,

I think it's like most things,

It's a blend between two things.

Sometimes it's helpful to understand where a trigger came from,

Okay,

And then working through it,

And then getting rid of that trigger.

But sometimes you can get rid of a trigger without knowing what it's about.

Like you don't have to have full memory of childhood trauma to transcend your childhood trauma,

Or any other trauma,

You don't have to know,

It's not that important where it came from.

Like I said,

Sometimes,

It's a helpful tool to get you to transcend it.

If you understand where it came from,

And why it happened,

Or,

Or the dynamics of it,

So you can,

So you can look at it and shift your perspective and see how you're no longer a victim of that situation,

Which can,

Which can lead you to take a step towards empowerment,

Which can transcend you from from this,

Right.

So in that formula,

Knowledge about your past,

Or what's going on inside of you,

And why and where it came from,

And all that stuff,

It can be a helpful tool,

But it's not necessary.

It's not,

You're not going to have full knowledge of everything,

You can release trapped energy without even knowing what that energy is about.

And a lot of times what happens is through our life,

We have repeated patterns.

So like,

Let's say we have a victim mentality for a particular type of thing,

Right.

And because we have that victim mentality,

About this particular thing,

Maybe that was set in by a by a unfortunate incident that happened to us as a child that we had no control over,

Right.

And then all of a sudden,

So we felt ourselves to be a victim,

Like,

If you transcend that one that you know about,

Then,

And there's been six other incidents,

You don't have to work through each one of those incidences,

A lot of times,

Sometimes you could work through a couple of them.

But it's the same thing.

It's the same dynamic,

It's the same energy.

If you release it,

You release it,

You can,

You can transcend it.

And the opposite is also true,

Maybe you don't have memory of the initial incident.

But if you use one of the other instance to learn the lesson,

Shift your perspective on it and release the energy,

Then you could transcend something that you you're not even aware of what happened.

Okay,

But this is it seems like everything is we have to remember everything is the middle way.

It's,

It's not one thing or the other.

And I think we lock on to that way too much.

This is where I see most of the problems,

Quite honestly,

In,

In,

In people's lives at this point,

Is they learn one way of looking at thing,

Something,

And they think that they found the key.

So they just implement to implement to implement to implement it,

And then they don't know why they never get to the place that they want to get.

And it's because you're only working with half the puzzle.

Like,

It's,

It's always,

It's,

It's not perfecting one thing,

It's always coming,

It's two things,

We live in a world of yang and yang,

There's two sides to every coin.

It's a balance,

Everything is a balance of two things.

So you can learn and grow from having knowledge of what's wrong with you and where it started.

But that's only half of it.

You can also grow by without finding out that knowledge without diving into things and just being more focused on transcending stuff,

Releasing the energy.

And it's not frickin spiritual bypassing.

This is some other,

You know,

Spiritual bypassing is some word that like somebody came up with and now people use it to describe everything that isn't suffering,

Like,

You know,

That's why I don't like that word,

Because people misuse it.

They go like,

Is spiritual bypassing a thing?

Of course,

It's a thing.

Of course,

You can spiritually bypass stuff.

Absolutely,

You can.

But but that's not but sometimes you're not like,

That's the peak.

This is what I'm talking about.

It's always a balance between two things.

So if you,

You know,

People like just if you're not suffering,

Because that's socially acceptable to suffer and to struggle and to and to work on yourself and all this crap.

And if you're not doing that,

And you go,

You know what,

I'm good.

And they go,

Oh,

You're spiritually bypassing.

You're just you're not willing to face it and all this crap.

And that's can that be true?

Yeah,

In certain situations,

It can be true,

But it's not always true.

It's the balance between two things.

So like,

We're so focused on,

You know,

The the this was the piece that really came up.

It's it's so when it like people think it's so important why they learned to not be themselves.

Why did you learn to not be yourself?

Why did you learn that it wasn't safe to be you?

Why did you learn that it wasn't OK to be yourself?

Why?

Let's dive into it and let's understand it.

People have been doing that with talk therapy.

People have had therapists for 20 or 30 years talking about the same thing.

Diving into things is not the end all be all.

It is a matter of fact,

If that's all you do,

If you just dive into things and you never actually work towards the solution,

It doesn't do anything.

It just keeps you stuck there.

So it's but this is what it seems like we're too focused on.

And I'm what I'm talking about is the middle ground.

So if we're we're always,

You know,

Oh,

What happened to me?

Why am I like this?

What do I have to do to be better?

What are my triggers?

What do I have to do to fix my triggers?

Why?

I have to understand myself.

I've been working on myself for 20 years and I'm still not there.

Like,

You know,

I think that this is why it's settling so much into me,

Because,

You know,

I just hit 20 years.

On this path,

And it's like I've been working on myself for 20 years.

I'm good.

I'm good.

Like,

I don't.

I'm done.

Stick a fork in me.

The turkey popped.

I'm freaking done.

Like it's I'm not going to spend the next 20 years trying to achieve some socially acceptable or spiritually minded,

Community minded outlook on what I'm supposed to be.

I'm good,

Man.

I'm a good person.

I treat people with kindness,

Love and respect as a general rule.

And sometimes I get pissed off and it doesn't go that way.

Whoops.

I'm human.

I'm a human being having a spiritual.

Well,

I'm sorry,

I just said that in reverse.

I'm a spiritual being having a human experience.

Yes,

I'm a spiritual being.

That's my eternal aspect,

But I'm also a human being and human beings are never going to be perfect.

And,

You know,

I'm just settling into this new wave of just taking the damn pressure off and just going,

I don't really care anymore if I fall short sometimes.

I'm going to fall short.

And you know what?

I'm aware enough that when I fall short,

Every time I fall short,

Every single time I fall short,

Because I've had 20 years of practice and I don't even think you need 20 years of practice.

All you have to do is have a strong desire to be a good person.

And if you fall short,

You are going to question yourself and you are going to say to yourself,

Is there something I can do better?

Is there some work I can do on myself?

Could I think ahead a little bit more?

Could I center myself a little bit more before I step into a situation like that next time?

Yeah,

Probably.

OK,

I'll try to do that.

And that's about it,

Man.

Like it's that's called learning from your past.

You if you if you if you interact with life in a way that you don't like or you don't think is appropriate or isn't in alignment with who you would like to be ultimately.

And you just take a moment and you go,

Hey,

Is there to yourself?

Just take a moment and go,

Hey,

Is there something I could do to tweak that,

To maybe have that happen less often or something?

And sometimes the answer might be,

I don't know.

Not sure.

Oh,

Well.

Or the answer might be,

Yeah,

You know,

I could think ahead.

I could center myself a little bit more beforehand or whatever.

And then you let it go and move on with your life.

But this self-judgment piece,

That's what we really have to drop.

You know,

And I dropped a tons of some of my biggest spiritual shifts have become have come because I just stopped and stopped judging myself and took the pressure off of myself.

But this is one of those things that it's so embedded in a self-judgment that it's layers of the onion.

We have to do it multiple times.

And this is where I'm at.

I'm at another level.

I'm at another level where like I'm excitable,

I'm passionate and I'm emotional.

And that's going to come out sometimes.

And I'm sick of feeling the shame for it.

I'm sick of,

You know,

And the shame is self-induced.

Like I said,

I don't really give too much craps about what other people think.

I do a little.

So there's a little bit of that of caring about what other people think that I'm letting go.

But honestly,

Most of it is letting go of what I think of myself.

And just going,

Dude,

Like I'm a I'm I'm a good father.

I'm a good person.

I'm a good friend.

I care about people.

I treat I walk through life honestly with integrity.

And I fall short sometimes.

So like what,

Man?

So what?

What do we hear?

You know,

What is the spiritual path?

To to to just be pure love walking around all the time.

Like good luck,

Man.

Good luck.

We're interacting with this functional world where everybody has triggers and including us.

And things aren't going to go perfectly sometimes.

And we're going to get irritated.

I don't even think we're supposed to be reaching for a life with no irritation.

I really don't.

You know,

I truly believe that there are no accidents.

Like we are in a experiential world.

Having experiences,

You know,

It's that's the fun of it.

Like,

You know,

I think to me,

A good perspective is kind of like.

How a lot of people interact with vacation,

I'm not talking about the people who are chronically negative,

You know,

Some people,

They can go on vacation for a week in paradise and sit there and have this just,

You know,

Do nothing,

Just completely decompress.

They can be.

They can be sitting there with.

Like drinks being brought to them and beautiful rooms and delicious food and all this stuff,

And,

You know,

They'll come back and they'll talk about,

You know,

The one waiter that dropped a drink like.

They'll complain about anything,

You know,

I'm not talking about those people.

I'm talking about people who actually go on vacation and really enjoy it.

Like,

You notice that for that week,

It doesn't really matter if things go their way or not,

Because they're just so happy to be out and traveling and experiencing new things.

And they,

You know,

Sometimes they'll even forget to tell you the negative aspects.

Or if they do,

They'll just be like,

Oh,

Yeah,

OK,

I got to tell you everything,

You know.

So let's see what was the first night we got there.

It was really nice.

The room was beautiful.

We went down to dinner.

We figured we'd just eat right there.

And you know what?

Surprisingly,

The food really wasn't that good at the hotel.

Even the rooms were beautiful.

The service was great,

But the food really wasn't even that good.

We didn't even eat there for the rest of the time.

But that's let me tell you,

We found these incredible places that we never would have found if we would have been eating at the whole.

If the hotel food was good that first night,

We probably would have eaten there most of the time.

But we didn't.

We didn't really like it.

And it almost forced us to go out and find these other places.

And oh,

My God.

Let me tell you about the different food experiences we had.

They were amazing.

See,

People can drop into that mentality.

This is how we're supposed to be walking through life.

As if we're on vacation all the time,

Because we are.

We're down here on vacation temporarily in an experiential reality to experience things.

It's not supposed to be everything perfect.

Like it makes me laugh because it's so silly that our minds think that way.

Like if we go to the hotel and the food in the hotel isn't like up to our par,

Then there's something wrong with reality.

And maybe we have to report them to the Better Business Bureau or something like,

Oh,

My God,

Man,

Like life isn't supposed to be perfect.

It's not supposed to go our way.

And if we loosen our grip on that,

We just go with stuff like we can have a good time even when things don't go our way.

And people like,

Oh,

That's just Pollyanna thinking you're just you're not in touch with reality when you say things like that,

Really.

So so like if if I have bad food at a restaurant,

I'm supposed to get angry.

If I don't get angry,

Then I am delusional and I'm Pollyanna and I'm not facing reality.

This is people really believe this.

And it's a load of crap.

Getting angry is optional.

We do not have to get angry.

Sometimes we will.

And even if we do,

That's OK,

Too.

What the hell,

Man?

I thought this food was was going to be good.

It's a top rated hotel.

Man,

I can't believe this food sucks.

Oh,

I'm let down.

Crap.

Oh,

Well.

And then but move on with it,

Like stop for a moment and go,

OK,

Am I going to let this wreck the next seven days now?

Screw it.

We're on vacation.

Let's go find some other place to eat.

Or maybe it was just this dish.

Like,

Don't let it wreck.

Like we think that it has to wreck our experience or else we're not facing reality.

Reality is not anger.

Reality is that you don't like the food.

That's reality.

Getting upset about it is optional.

OK,

So so deny like sitting there going,

What's delusional would be if I were to go,

Oh,

No,

That food was delicious,

Even though I hated it.

That's delusional.

That's not facing reality.

But saying no,

I didn't like the food.

But not getting angry about it,

That's still reality.

That's that's actually healthy reality.

Getting upset and letting it wreck your time is unhealthy.

It's just unhealthy.

I'm not even going to call it reality because it's not reality.

The anger piece is not real.

It's not reality.

The only piece that's real is that you didn't like the food.

Whether you get angry or whether you don't get angry is just a choice in how you decide to deal with it.

OK,

So where my point is,

Is once we let go of all the judgment about ourselves,

About others,

About these situations that are going on and we just try to do our best.

Life is pretty fun.

You know,

Like it's it's so much more laid back and we have to take that perspective and we have to put it towards ourselves.

You know,

Instead of it,

Instead of the only question or the only outlook that we that we entertain is what's wrong with me and why am I like that?

Like it seems to me that that's not at least 90 percent,

If not 100 percent of the outlook when it comes to doing spiritual work.

And and it needs to be 50 percent of the outlook.

The other 50 percent needs to come in and go,

You know what,

It's it's not that important.

Where I came from,

It's more important where I'm going,

You know,

What what am I creating,

What reality am I creating moving forward?

That's what's more important.

It's more important for you to give yourself permission to be.

Just you just give yourself permission to be you,

Even with the flaws,

Even if you're not perfect,

Even if you don't vibrate at 100 percent pure love all the time,

Because nobody does.

Nobody does.

You know,

We can't like Eckhart Tolle to me is is kind of a good example because he's so chill,

Man.

He is so mellow,

Like I could never be that.

You know,

I love Tolle.

Tolle might be,

You know,

I don't I don't try to rate one,

Two and three,

You know,

But he is right up there,

Man.

I learned more from Tolle's spiritual teachings quite possibly than from anybody else.

Maybe.

But he I could never be him like I would need a lobotomy to be Eckhart Tolle to to walk around.

He is so calm and so chill.

It's just it's just not my personality.

You know,

It's not who I am as a person.

And that's OK.

I don't need to be like him.

I can be passionate and I can be more upbeat and I can crack jokes and have a frickin.

Podcast called Life Lessons and Laughter.

Laughter is in there for a reason.

You know,

We should be laughing and enjoying our lives.

And to do that,

We really need to be comfortable with ourselves.

So,

You know,

The point of this is,

You know,

Is it OK to be you yet?

Is it is it OK when and if not,

When is it going to be OK?

You know what?

Bring this piece in.

You have to look at that reality because it's blocking your spiritual expansion.

Honestly,

If you are judging yourself because it's not OK to be you,

It's just not OK to be you.

You're blocking your spiritual expansion with self-judgment.

The so it's that even when like even in your first year,

Like to some degree,

You have to accept even if you just started,

Even in your first month,

Like this,

It's always supposed to be a balance between the two.

Yes.

Maybe you maybe you have a ton of work to do and all that stuff.

But even before you do all that work,

It's OK to be you then.

It's OK.

It's OK.

We you know,

We have to do the work because because it's joyful.

It's important.

And we want to be better people.

You know that.

Great.

That's great reason.

But better not better doesn't have to imply that there's something wrong with you now.

You know,

It's you know,

We can look at nature like if you see a flower that's closed,

You know,

It hasn't blossomed yet.

We don't look at that flower and go,

Oh,

My God,

It's there's something wrong with it.

Or to go look at a tree,

Like go go outside and look at a baby tree.

Do we look at a baby tree and go like,

Oh,

My God,

This this thing,

This hasn't grown to its full potential yet.

Look at this thing.

What a disappointment.

It's not good enough yet.

I'm not even going to.

I'm not even going to really acknowledge it because it's really not good enough yet.

You know,

We don't do it with with with.

With children,

You know,

Oh,

Look at this little brat hasn't even learned to walk yet.

My God,

What an idiot.

Yeah.

Learn to walk and come see me,

You know.

You're not even close to your potential.

You're not good enough.

See,

This is the attitude we have about ourselves.

This is what I'm talking about.

You know,

Like we don't do it in other situations.

So in like I just used an example in nature and in with a with a baby.

Right.

Now,

Those two situations,

We are we are used to understanding that they are in the growth process.

That's why we don't judge where they are.

We don't look at a tree and say,

Oh,

You're you're nothing,

You're a waste.

You're not at your full potential yet.

Like why?

Because we understand that the tree grows.

And it's fine as it is,

And it's going to be fine when it's bigger and better and more expressive.

And we we understand that the outlook we have with a baby is the same way.

We understand that the baby is still learning.

We take that into consideration when we're making our assessment about the baby.

We go,

Oh,

Well,

It's just it's still growing.

Like why would I it's foolish that I would judge something that's still growing and think that it's not good enough because it's not fully grown yet.

That's foolish.

Right.

Yes,

It is foolish.

But we do it to ourselves.

So at some point we forget we think we're supposed to be done.

We are we are goal oriented.

We are accomplishment oriented.

And we think if we haven't accomplished our goal or we haven't accomplished achieving some imaginary level of perfection,

Then we're not there yet.

We haven't arrived.

This is the pressure we put on ourselves.

And this is what I'm talking about.

Removing.

You're fine in the way you are,

It doesn't mean that you're going to stop growing.

You know,

Just because the tree is fine as it is,

Doesn't mean it's not going to turn into a bigger tree just because we don't act like the baby is a loser because it can't walk.

Doesn't mean it's not going to try to walk.

It's natural,

Of course,

It's going to reach,

Of course,

It's going to grow just like us.

Of course,

We're going to try to become better people.

Of course,

We're going to continue making adjustments.

Of course we are.

But we got to get out of this mentality that we're not good enough because we haven't landed somewhere yet.

We're fine as we are,

You know,

And it always just like everything,

It starts with us,

You know,

And and layers of the onion.

I am,

You know,

Dropping into a new level of self-acceptance and just going,

Yeah,

I'm good,

Man,

I'm good.

You know,

I like me.

Am I perfect?

No,

No.

Can my emotions drag me away a little bit sometimes?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know what?

If I had to put if I was a baton man.

I would say five years from now,

There's a pretty good chance that something is going to trigger me emotionally than to.

Ten years from now,

Most likely.

I'm going to get excited about something.

And you know what?

Ten years from now,

I might get emotional about something and express that emotion.

And somebody is going to look at me and say,

What's up with him?

And he's not acting in pure love and peace and floating above a magic carpet.

I thought he was supposed to be spiritual.

And so it's going to happen.

Most likely it's going to happen 10 years from now,

Too.

So I'm not waiting another five years or another 10 years or another 20 years or another two weeks to accept myself.

I'm going to accept myself now.

Be like,

You know what,

Glenn,

You were a dysfunctional pain in the ass,

Rebellious nightmare to most adults.

For the first 35 years of your life,

20 of them,

You were an active alcoholic in those 35 years.

Most of the time you couldn't get out of your own way.

You were constantly just driving yourself into problems and trouble because you couldn't figure out how to fit into society that was dysfunctional.

And something deep inside of you knew was dysfunctional,

But you didn't know how to handle it or interact with it in a healthy way.

And you know what?

You hurt people along the way because of that,

And you hurt yourself even more.

And that's OK.

And you woke up 20 years ago and you've been working on yourself ever since.

And you've been doing this podcast for,

I don't know,

Eight years and you've helped tons of people.

You've written a book.

You've worked with countless clients internationally.

You you were a present father to your son.

I think you missed two of his soccer games in if he started,

I think,

In his entire life with.

I don't know if this thing just cut out or not,

But,

You know,

Like a good father,

You you you've developed a relationship with your family that might not look like what society wants it to look like.

But there's there's true love there.

And respect within the family members,

And they know that you love them and they love you.

And you have good people around you,

You have friends and good people that respect you like,

I'm good,

I'm good.

Like,

What more do I want of myself?

It's it's crazy what we do to ourselves,

So.

I'm going to wrap up here in a minute,

I'm not sure if this thing keeps cutting in and out or not,

But.

Might be a little glitch in the Internet,

But,

You know,

So so just ask yourself this question,

Is it OK to be you yet?

And if not,

When do you think that's going to come?

Because that day is never going to arrive unless you reach out and grab it.

Like,

Unless you decide that it's OK to be you,

It's never going to be OK to be you,

Because that is you're the only one that can give yourself that gift.

You are the only one that can be like,

You know what?

Of course,

I'll keep expanding and becoming better versions of me,

But I'm good,

Man.

I don't hurt people intentionally.

I try to love I do my best and that's good enough.

I'm freaking good.

Yeah,

Me.

I love me.

I have a lot of good qualities and most of the time I'm a really good person and sometimes I fall short and I'm always going to fall short in someone's eyes,

Even my own sometimes.

And that's OK.

I'm not supposed to be perfect on a human level.

I'm perfect on a spiritual level and I'm really freaking good on a human level and that's good enough.

So,

You know,

Get still,

Go within,

And I would venture to say that some tears might be shed if you really go deep enough and give this gift to yourself on a deep level and you really open up and let go of all this self-judgment and all the pressure we put on ourselves.

Let go.

You know,

It's OK to be you.

And we as a society have to have to get a little bit better at letting people be themselves and it starts with us.

I mean,

We can't control what society does.

But,

You know,

We we we have a tendency to judge people in their worst moments,

You know,

Like I said,

I mean,

I could be spiritual and do all kinds of things for people for 20 years.

And then all of a sudden I get upset about something and everybody's like,

Oh,

Glenn's a jerk.

OK,

Fine.

You know,

I fell short once in 20 years and that's what you're going to label me as.

All right,

Fine.

I don't need judgmental people like that in my life.

And we have to notice that we do it to other people,

Too,

Because I catch myself doing it,

Too.

Oh,

They did that.

Then what does this mean?

Can I trust them?

I don't know now.

Like,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa.

Wait a minute.

Like what what what caused them to behave like that?

Is it reasonable when you put yourself in their shoes that maybe they got confused or maybe that they had an assumption that wasn't true?

And if you had that assumption,

You probably would have dealt with things in a similar way.

Like try to understand the humanness of people.

You know,

Once we do it with ourselves,

Then we can do it externally.

And don't worry about who's doing it externally to you.

You have no control over that.

Start doing it externally to other people.

Start trying to understand other people a little bit better instead of just judging them when they fall short.

Everybody,

So,

You know,

We've gotten this new thing called boundaries now,

Which I am a gigantic proponent of.

But I see people putting boundaries up too much.

It's just another reason to to feed our ego and increase separation.

What we do,

That's what ego does,

Is create separation.

So we're better and they're bad.

And as soon as we get exposed to any information where where we can be like,

Oh,

I'm better than them,

They're bad.

Like we don't see it as that,

But unconsciously that's what we're doing.

So this is why we're so quick to judge,

Because it's like,

Oh,

We think we're like,

Oh,

I'm setting a boundary because this is a bad person.

It's like,

No,

They fell short once.

It doesn't make them a bad person.

You've never fallen short.

You know,

I mean,

And I'm not saying that we should allow people again,

It's a balance right in between.

I'm not saying we should allow people to treat us poorly.

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is try to understand people a little bit.

Before we just boundary,

Boundary,

Boundary.

Yeah,

You're building your own prison.

That's what you're doing when you're just setting up boundaries for the sake of setting up boundaries or actually unconsciously to feed your ego.

Then what you're doing is you're building your own prison.

You're just,

Oh,

I have a reason to block this person out.

They didn't treat me perfectly.

OK,

Perfect boundary.

It's self-love.

It's self-love.

No,

It's not.

It's feeding your ego.

Go in deep enough to find out,

You know,

So I'm going to wrap up with this because I don't want to get too deeply into it.

One of the problems that we use that we do,

Especially when we excuse me,

When we latch on to a specific tool like a boundary,

I'm setting boundaries,

I'm setting boundaries that is looking at things one way.

When we look at things one way,

We do it too much.

And that's when it gets unhealthy.

This is why it's always a balance between two things.

Practicing,

Understanding other people.

And their motivations and why they behave and setting boundaries when necessary,

That's the middle ground,

Just running around,

Setting boundaries is not the middle ground.

That's when you're building your own prison.

So do you see what I mean?

It's always a balance between two things.

So don't get too locked on to one side.

Right.

So.

Take a little take a little break and instead of asking,

You know,

What's wrong with you and why you're messed up,

Take a break and give yourself permission to be OK where you are,

Who you are,

As you are,

Too.

And of course,

You'll still do the work.

No,

People think if we we've been conditioned,

This is why we do it.

We've been conditioned by punishment growing up.

If we punish ourselves enough,

Then we'll have motivation to do better,

Which we've actually found out is untrue scientifically.

You know,

I've said this many times,

Negative reinforcement does not change negative behavior,

Only positive reinforcement does that.

So you beating yourself up,

Going,

No,

If I think I'm OK,

Then I won't have any motivation to change.

That's not true.

You'll actually the more love you have for yourself and the more you accept yourself,

The more you're going to naturally want to expand,

It's just that's what we do.

It's naturally who we are.

So stop beating yourself up and start accepting yourself for who you are,

As you are.

So there.

All right,

Peeps,

Thank you for listening.

You know,

Shoot me,

Shoot me a message if you've got any comments and we'll talk soon.

Peace.