Latest / STOPTIME: Live in the Moment. / Celebrating Ourselves Beyond External Validation
Transcript
- 0:23Lisa Hopkins: Hey there.
- 0:23Lisa Hopkins: So I'm heading into a milestone birthday in a couple of days and I thought that it might be interesting to read something from my book that I wrote about another birthday, but I think it's pretty universal and it just seemed timely to share this and it just seemed timely to share this.
- 1:02Lisa Hopkins: So, with your permission, I'm going to go ahead and read from my book from my perspective today, and maybe I'll jump on afterwards and we can talk about if I feel the same, that we are encouraged, even expected, to brandish our entitlement card a kind of 24-hour golden ticket, to be selfish and indulgent.
- 1:17Lisa Hopkins: Honestly, shouldn't we be celebrating the mother who bore us?
- 1:21Lisa Hopkins: So we plan our birthdays accordingly, with all the associated expectations and attachments, simultaneously setting the stage with cliches of what self-care looks like from the outside, while on the inside we quietly keep the score of how others are celebrating us.
- 1:46Lisa Hopkins: So it was my birthday and I woke up with all the preconceived notions of how I was supposed to feel, along with the high expectations for others and how they were supposed to make me feel.
- 1:57Lisa Hopkins: I resisted the urge to check my social media and feed my ego with the puffed-up proof that I am liked, and made myself a cup of tea.
- 2:08Lisa Hopkins: Instead, my husband had left a card propped up on the kitchen counter and I smiled, thinking to myself he always finds the funniest cards.
- 2:18Lisa Hopkins: My smile was quickly interrupted, though, by the intrusive, judgmental voice of the scorekeeper in my head that said yeah, but no flowers.
- 2:31Lisa Hopkins: I took a deep breath.
- 2:34Lisa Hopkins: I was proud of myself for calling the thought out for what it was just a thought and disempowered its hold on me by replacing it with a thought that served me better, powered its hold on me by replacing it with a thought that served me better.
- 2:49Lisa Hopkins: I moved into the living room to do my morning reading and, to my delight, my husband had made me a fire score.
- 2:58Lisa Hopkins: Take that unwanted voice in my head.
- 3:00Lisa Hopkins: Wait, who's playing the score-keeping game now?
- 3:06Lisa Hopkins: I sat down cross-legged on the floor with my book and my cup of tea, feeling the warmth of the flame on my back.
- 3:16Lisa Hopkins: Life is good.
- 3:17Lisa Hopkins: I thought I noticed that the humidifier was on.
- 3:18Lisa Hopkins: He must have filled it up for me.
- 3:20Lisa Hopkins: He knows how the fire dries out my skin.
- 3:23Lisa Hopkins: How thoughtful of him.
- 3:25Lisa Hopkins: Big score, I'm so fortunate, I told myself, and was effusive with my gratitude for him, knowing just what I needed when he told me that it was not him who did that.
- 3:39Lisa Hopkins: My scorekeeper was in its element.
- 3:42Lisa Hopkins: The thoughts came crashing in disappointment.
- 3:45Lisa Hopkins: I thanked him for the fire and the card, read two out of three points and reached for my phone.
- 3:52Lisa Hopkins: I repeat life is made up of moments and each moment is what you make it.
- 4:01Lisa Hopkins: In that moment, I allowed myself to be led by all the limiting beliefs of what a happy birthday is supposed to look like, and instead of reading, which is actually what I wanted to do and would have brought me joy in that moment I resorted to looking for external validation instead, internal validation instead.
- 4:26Lisa Hopkins: The birthday wishes were coming in at quite a pace already, and out of the 36 or people so far, there were less than three that I could even recognize or tell you anything about.
- 4:39Lisa Hopkins: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, came into my head, and I wondered if just saying something nice without associated true connection is worse than not saying anything at all.
- 4:50Lisa Hopkins: Hmm, I started to think about the people I hadn't heard from yet, setting up more expectations for the people I care about.
- 4:59Lisa Hopkins: Why do we do that?
- 5:01Lisa Hopkins: Why do we set the bar so high for others to celebrate us and so low for celebrating ourselves.
- 5:09Lisa Hopkins: Hmm, why can't we believe that we deserve to be celebrated the other 364 days of the year?
- 5:16Lisa Hopkins: How can we expect others to celebrate us if we don't celebrate ourselves every day?
- 5:22Lisa Hopkins: If I am counting the conditional things that are not met as wins, and my saboteur scorekeeping voice is keeping track of expectations that are not met, isn't that the same thing?
- 5:38Lisa Hopkins: What would be different if we showed up for ourselves instead of relying on others to prove our worth?
- 5:50Lisa Hopkins: By the end of that day, there were over 200 happy birthday wishes, and though it was nice to be remembered, I felt more gratitude for the reminder that, at the end of the day, it is up to me to celebrate and honor myself.
- 6:07Lisa Hopkins: Let's consider each day our birthday and celebrate ourselves every day.
- 6:16Lisa Hopkins: And so you know, I often say to my clients that we teach what we most often need to learn, and, as I am coming up on my 60th birthday, I am grateful for the reminder of what I wrote in my book.
- 6:38Lisa Hopkins: I'm grateful to be here.
- 6:43Lisa Hopkins: I'm grateful for you, dear listeners, for joining me regularly and listening to me rant and listening to me wonder and listening to me think out loud, and you've shared with me that my stories have resonated with you, and well, that means a lot.
- 7:01Lisa Hopkins: It really, really does.
- 7:02Lisa Hopkins: My birthday, which isn't for another couple of days, is already fantastic, because I get to grow older, I get to celebrate another birthday.
- 7:16Lisa Hopkins: I get to grow older, I get to celebrate another birthday.
- 7:17Lisa Hopkins: I get to be me.
- 7:18Lisa Hopkins: I'm Lisa Hopkins.
- 7:22Lisa Hopkins: Thanks so much for listening.
- 7:24Lisa Hopkins: Stay safe and healthy, everyone, and remember to live in the moment.