Latest / How to Be an Adult / How to Care for Your Mind and Emotions (Ep. 7)

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How to Care for Your Mind and Emotions (Ep. 7) · How to Be an Adult

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Jealousy can become a habit. Envy can become
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a habit. Right? This false notion
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that you could, you know, verbally abuse yourself
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without feeling abused, it's it's complete nonsense. And
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so you could see it as an act
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of service to others to look after yourself.
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So if you really want to help other
0:15
people,
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start off with making sure that you So
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what ends up happening is we treat ourselves
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like enemies. Welcome to How to be an
0:23
Adult,
0:23
a podcast created by the practitioners
0:26
at the Morpheus Clinic For Hypnosis in Toronto,
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Canada. This show helps people like you who've
0:31
inadvertently
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become adults and don't know what to do
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about it. I'm Luke Chao. And I'm Pascal
0:37
Langdell. Now, if you're 18 or 80, we
0:40
are doing this podcast in order to give
0:42
to you the trail guide to adulthood that
0:44
you never really got when you reach the
0:46
age of majority.
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We put out this podcast publicly so that
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we can normalize
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self respect and self esteem.
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Today's episode talks about how to care for
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your mind and how to care for your
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emotions, which as an adult are yours to
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care for. In the current world of CBT,
1:04
which is cognitive behavioral therapy, or even going
1:07
back 1000 of years to stoics. There are
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certain themes that come up again and again.
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Certain perspectives about how to deal with your
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emotions and what they are and what they're
1:15
for. That chime very well with us. And
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in fact, the perspectives that we work with.
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I figured that if
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2000 or 25100 years ago,
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the ancients
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figured out principles during, you know, the much
1:28
harsher and more violent ancient times, and they
1:30
still resonate. And then modern psychologists
1:33
have also figured out that the same principles
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apply, then there's probably relevance to anyone listening
1:38
to this podcast no matter where in the
1:39
world they are. Both CBT and stoicism
1:43
suggest
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that emotions are not just to be
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observed and felt
1:50
and accepted. Stoicism
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and CBT
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suggest, additionally,
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that our thoughts
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have some impact
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on how we
2:00
feel, just like the parent has some impact
2:02
on how the baby feels.
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So this kind of contradicts the popular view
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that our feelings are sacred and we are
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to observe them as opposed to even try
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to change them. Or the alternative, which is
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that emotions are something which are to be
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totally controlled, suppressed and manipulated.
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I think a lot of people read or
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mis
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comprehend
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stoicism
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as, you know, keeping a stiff upper lip
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and repressing your emotions.
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But it isn't such a thing. So one
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way of thinking about it perhaps is to
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say that, well, emotions a, they have a
2:39
role that when you have an emotion
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it's not the entire truth but it's an
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aspect of a truth.
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That any strong negative emotion, I would argue,
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simply lacks context and information.
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Because
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I could look at a glass of water
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and say it's half full or I can
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say that it's half empty or I can
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say it's water that adapts to the shape
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that it's in. There are multiple
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ways of perceiving an object or a situation.
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The way that our emotions work, we can
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give them too much credit or we can
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give them too little credit. The same they
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they did this, you know, you know this
3:11
story. And I'm sure some people out there
3:12
already know this one, which is they did
3:14
a test where they had 3 wine bottles.
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And they had an expensive wine, a regular
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wine, and a really cheap wine. Right? And
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they they labeled them with the, how much
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they cost basically. And they brought people in.
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So you got to taste taste each of
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these wines
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and you've got to give them a rating.
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Right? So the first time they do it
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and all the bottles are lined up correctly
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with their correct amount. And sure enough, you
3:35
know, people
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had opinions and the way they tasted their
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wine aligned with the cost. But then they
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did the test again where they swapped it
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around where they had the cheapest bottle being,
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you know, labelled as the most expensive.
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And the most expensive bottle being labelled as
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the cheapest. And they brought people in again.
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And sure enough,
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people tasted the cheap wine. Some of them
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even went, 'Ah, that's
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disgusting. Because their expectation was linked to the
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dollar cost.
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Their thoughts therefore affected how they felt and
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their reaction and the behavior to something that,
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you know, minutes ago had been tasted and
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validated and had been validated by experts as
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being a very fine wine. What I'm taking
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from what you've shared
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is that emotions
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are manipulable.
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Yes.
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Which means that
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you can't always take them at face value.
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You shouldn't just go with your feelings.
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If you
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think of something
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difficult or challenging that you'd like to do,
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Right? So right now, I'm gonna have you
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hold in your mind some kind of work
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or social challenge that would be difficult, and
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I want you to tell yourself that you
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can do it.
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Right? So hold that thing in mind. Tell
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yourself you can do it.
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Probably, you're gonna breathe more deeply. Probably, you're
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gonna sit up a bit more straight. Probably,
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you're gonna feel more of a sense of
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capability.
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Now hold the same thing in mind. Right?
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The same work or social challenge and tell
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yourself you can't do it. Probably you're gonna
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shrink a little. Probably your breathing becomes a
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bit more tense
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simply because of the thought about that thing.
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It's not the thing in itself
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that causes you to sit up straighter or
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to shrink. It's your assessment
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of whether you can do it or can't
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do it. So this is
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why, you know, we tell kids you can't
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do it. It's not to mollycoddle them. It's
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because it's actually good thinking that produces better
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outcomes when you tell yourself you can. They've
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shown this in in sports situations.
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If you have if you have negative thoughts
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and think, alright, it's been a disaster so
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far. I'm not gonna win. I wish I
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could. All all those sort of the maelstrom
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of sports thinking. If you allow that to
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come in,
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it is much much more likely that you
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will fail the shot, you won't achieve the
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goal, you won't do the thing, than if
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you had neutral thoughts. And the positive thoughts
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don't have quite such an equal weight so
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far as definitely guaranteeing you're going to achieve
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the goal. Because of course there's a lot
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of chaos, chaos, there's a lot of other
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stuff on the other side of I can.
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Which
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that positive mindset allows you to deal better
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with. However, it doesn't necessarily guarantee it. What
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is guaranteed is if you have a negative
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outlook, it's much, much more likely that it
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will
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negatively affect whatever it is that you're doing,
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or even the way that you're relating to
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people or any activity in fact. Well, one
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way or another you're affecting how you feel
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in your body. So if you're gonna affect
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how you feel in the body one way
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or another,
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why make a detrimental impact on the way
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you feel when you can just as easily
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make a positive impact on how you feel?
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So many of our listeners are walking around
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in this world and until someone points it
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out to them, they actually believe they could
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think whatever they like in their heads without
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Consequences
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to how they feel in the body now
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as a hypnotherapist
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you realize very quickly that the thoughts in
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your head make a material impact on how
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you feel in your body if your thoughts
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are self loving and self respecting you're gonna
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feel a whole lot better on a day
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to day basis than if your thoughts about
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yourself
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are self loathing and self denigrating
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this false notion
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that your mind is completely independent
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of of your body such that you could,
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you know, verbally abuse yourself without feeling abused.
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It's it's complete nonsense.
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So when we have strong emotions like,
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say I'm
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scrolling through
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social media and
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and I come across something, I see somebody
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I know doing something exceptional and for whatever
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reasons at that point in that day I'm
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not my best self. And I look at
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it and I go, Oh,
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man. How is it possible that this person
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could do that? Why can't I do that?
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Right? So, the beginnings of the green eyes
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of of envy and jealousy. And so this
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is why I'm saying that sometimes strong emotions
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require context in order to be interpreted better.
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So if I then enlarge that context, well,
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okay. Well, what I don't know is the
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context of the family, the context of the
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work, how much work did it how many
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years did it take to get to that
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point? Who they had to know? The element
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of chance. There's all these things that I
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just don't know. And so therefore if I
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did,
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then I would perhaps say forgive myself a
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little for not being that person at that
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time with those opportunities in that backstory. Mhmm.
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Right? And I think what jealousy and envy
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to some degree
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have is highlighting a value
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or something that you feel you are missing
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out or you haven't done accomplished that you
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value.
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And it's really interesting because
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jealousy can become a habit. Envy can become
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a habit. Right? And you can even be
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instructed in your youth to think that envy
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is necessary or that this judgment is necessary.
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It's really interesting because you can turn around
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and kind of go, okay,
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what do I value? I value the fact
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that this person has transcended their original job
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and
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are doing something they really enjoy with their
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life. So what am I doing? What what
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part of that is the thing that I
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aspire to? And if I go, okay, I'm
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falling down on the transcending my current job.
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Well, then I've got power. Then I've got
9:00
agency. Then I can say, well, okay. What
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do I need to do? And so it's
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it's not that jealousy is bad or envy
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is bad in and of itself. It's a,
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that you believe that it's the only truth
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and then you reflect it back on yourself
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and you punish yourself for it.
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Or you say, okay, well it's not the
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only truth, it's a flag for something that
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I'm trying to tell myself. What I'm hearing
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you say is that if you only feel
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jealous and that's the end of it, then
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you kind of stew in the jealousy. Mhmm.
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But if you feel jealous as the first
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step towards self improvement,
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then it doesn't end with you stewing and
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jealousy. Jealousy. It ends with
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you perhaps identifying your values and then striving
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to be a better person yourself so that
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the future you might have more of what
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you'd seen on social media.
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I made a post speaking of social media,
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and I think I titled it emulate,
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don't
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envy
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the successful
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because we each have a choice when we
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see someone with, like, a better career, you
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know, a more loving partner, a better behaved
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dog.
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We have the choice
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between emulating the qualities that led them to
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have the better career, the more loving partner,
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the better behaved dog,
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or we could just kind of stew in
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our envy
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which is fruitless and which I would suggest
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is a negative sum game
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So the question is well, now we understand
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that the mind and the body are an
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integrated thing.
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That whatever your whatever you think and your
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emotions will affect your body. That you have
10:30
agency over your emotions and you can use
10:32
them for positive change rather than stewing in
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your own jealousy and and nihilism, which is
10:37
obviously not a good way to live.
10:39
What would be one mental
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approach to treating yourself well, bearing all that
10:45
in mind? Well, we we know exactly how
10:47
to treat a friend. Right? Even if we
10:49
just met the person, we know there are
10:51
certain things we do say. There are certain
10:53
things we don't say. Too often, we
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decline the same courtesy of of ourselves.
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So what ends up happening is we treat
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ourselves like enemies and of course then
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we don't feel so great as a consequence
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but the very same
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judgment and reasoning and conscience
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that has you speak to friends in a
11:17
consistently beneficial manner
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Can help you speak to yourself in a
11:21
consistently beneficial manner
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and I'd like to point out that this
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is unhypocritical.
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Mhmm. Too often, we feel like if we
11:30
love and respect and care for ourselves that
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we're being selfish or being hypocritical,
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it's no such thing if you're already a
11:37
pro social person. It is unhippocritical
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if your inner dialogue sounds
11:42
like your outer
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dialogue.
11:45
Anyone who is walking around feeling unloved
11:48
does not have some of their most fundamental
11:51
needs met.
11:53
And just like if you walk around and
11:54
you're dehydrated and malnourished,
11:57
you're not going to be at your best.
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If you walk around and you're feeling unloved
12:00
and disrespected because you neglect yourself love and
12:03
your self respect
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Then it's hard to be at your very
12:07
best so in prior episodes We've talked about
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approaching others with a cup that's
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full So the first step in that is
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to fill up your own cup until it's
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overflowing and then you can so much more
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easily give to others
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So one of the overarching themes in today's
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episode is gonna be the pursuit of positive
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sum or net positive
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outcomes.
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If that person's happy, it doesn't obligate me
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to be miserable.
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That's positive sum thinking.
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But if that person's happy, therefore, I'm gonna
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be a resentful, envious person. That's zero sum
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thinking.
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It's so detrimental
12:44
when someone walks around feeling like
12:47
if someone else is happy, it robs you
12:49
of joy because it can just as easily
12:52
be that when someone else is happy, their
12:53
happiness wears off on you.
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It is in a way a choice
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how you interpret someone else's happiness
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or the feeling of envy similarly comes in
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part from this zero sum mentality
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that suggests that well if someone else has
13:10
that career, then they've taken the slot that
13:12
could rightfully be yours.
13:15
And so you could see it as an
13:16
act of service to others to look after
13:18
yourself. So if you really want to help
13:19
other people,
13:20
start off with making sure that you have
13:23
good self esteem,
13:24
good self respect, you treat yourself well, you
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look after yourself and treat yourself as
13:29
as well as a friend might, as well
13:31
as somebody who really cared about you might.
13:34
Maslow. Abraham Maslow, the humanist psychologist who developed
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his hierarchy of needs, I would suggest,
13:41
has identified
13:43
many of the needs that every human being
13:45
has.
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I remember learning about Maslow's hierarchy in grade
13:50
10 and I raised a hand and I
13:51
challenged the teacher. So when Abraham Maslow was
13:55
introduced and his hierarchy of needs was introduced,
13:58
obviously one of the tiers
13:59
is your social needs. So respect,
14:03
esteem,
14:04
love. Right?
14:05
That, you know, according to Maslow's hierarchy, we
14:07
all need to be esteemed by our peers
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and loved by our friends and loved by
14:11
our neighbors. And without it, we suffer,
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and we have to kind of have these
14:16
needs met before we reach finally self actualization.
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So the question I raised, which I don't
14:21
think I've ever heard a very satisfactory answer
14:24
before,
14:26
is What about the lone monk living on
14:29
the mountaintop
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who we might say is self actualized?
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But they are not being loved
14:36
by Friends or neighbors since they're literally just
14:39
a lone monk living on a mountaintop
14:42
doesn't that you know, compromise Maslow's
14:45
theory?
14:46
Fast forward many years, I I feel like
14:48
I can offer an answer to that challenge
14:52
And it's that Maslow
14:55
did identify correctly that love and esteem and
14:59
respect are needs.
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The bit that he might not have said
15:02
or not have said loudly enough
15:05
is that one's own self love, one's own
15:08
self respect, one's own self
15:11
esteem
15:13
fulfills
15:14
the need
15:15
so he wasn't wrong in identifying
15:18
that love and respect and esteem are needs
15:21
but these needs do not necessarily
15:23
in my view have to be fulfilled socially
15:27
If one is the monk on the mountaintop.
15:30
If one lives, you know, in this modern
15:32
industrial world and too often we run home
15:35
and we crash on the couch after work
15:37
only to do it again the next day.
15:39
If self love and self respect and self
15:42
esteem
15:43
are what we can have consistently
15:46
and getting these needs met by others is
15:49
too inconsistent,
15:50
then let's not discount
15:52
our self love and our self respect and
15:54
our self esteem. Even the monk though, we
15:57
can kind of imagine
15:59
he or she had their monk brothers or
16:02
sisters
16:03
to kind of show them how to meditate,
16:05
to show them how to connect with their
16:07
own feelings of lovingkindness.
16:10
So I think that those kinds of lessons
16:12
earlier in life
16:14
will have a lasting impact later in life
16:17
such that you know It's not like the
16:18
monk was born, you know able to be
16:21
peaceful on a mountaintop
16:23
The the monk having had enough positive regard
16:27
from others,
16:28
the monk having had enough guidance from others
16:30
can eventually reach a point where he or
16:33
she could be at the peak of the
16:34
mountain Meditating at amidst the trees and and
16:38
still be happy
16:39
In the modern world,
16:41
we don't really consult with religious figures for
16:45
happiness and life guidance,
16:47
at least not as much as human beings
16:49
used to,
16:50
we often instead confer with psychotherapists
16:54
for life guidance and for advice for how
16:56
to be happy. Too often therapists say that
16:58
they don't really give advice but they'll kind
17:00
of encourage you to search inwardly.
17:03
For better or for worse,
17:05
therapy sometimes
17:06
gets
17:07
slagged for being just for the wealthy, but
17:09
that doesn't mean that everyone who can afford
17:11
a therapist
17:12
is going to be out in the cold
17:16
that's where
17:17
unconditional
17:18
positive regard which is such a huge part
17:21
of especially
17:23
humanistic schools of psychotherapy
17:25
that's where it can be something that you
17:28
give to yourself
17:29
so part of the reason I think therapy
17:32
actually makes people feel better is you can
17:34
talk about whatever shameful
17:36
scary
17:37
thoughts you have in your head
17:39
and you're shown unconditional positive regard.
17:43
But as an adult,
17:45
your opinions are adult opinions.
17:47
Your perspectives are adult perspectives
17:50
and I would suggest that we human beings
17:53
have the self reflective capacity
17:57
to not just love ourselves and to esteem
17:59
ourselves
18:00
but to give ourselves
18:02
unconditional
18:03
positive regard
18:05
of a similar nature
18:07
to what therapists give professionally.
18:10
I think some of my therapist friends would
18:12
agree with me when I say that part
18:15
of the role of therapy
18:17
is to have
18:19
your client
18:20
eventually
18:22
give themselves the same unconditional
18:25
positive regard that the therapist gives them, almost
18:28
like they had good parents who knew what
18:30
they were doing
18:32
when they were a child.
18:33
Which is not to say that you are
18:35
free from responsibility or accountability.
18:38
It's simply that with responsibility and accountability, it
18:41
doesn't make you bad.
18:42
Right. So I'll give you an example of
18:44
what the inner dialogue might sound like.
18:47
So
18:48
very often if we make a mistake,
18:50
we might say to ourselves,
18:52
I'm such a screw up. I never get
18:54
anything right so that is without unconditional positive
18:59
regard
19:00
now
19:01
let's say you make the same error
19:04
and you have unconditional positive regard you aren't
19:07
really thinking
19:08
I'm gonna keep screwing up for the rest
19:10
of my life and I can't do anything
19:11
about it you're probably gonna think well you
19:14
know next time I'm gonna be a bit
19:16
more careful and next time I'm gonna do
19:18
things differently
19:19
if we apply the principle of talking to
19:22
yourself like a friend right so let's say
19:24
a friend makes some kind of error or
19:26
faux pas in front of us
19:28
if we're a good friend we aren't really
19:30
gonna just let it go completely
19:33
And we're not gonna we're not gonna criticize
19:36
them like that. We might just pull them
19:38
aside and quietly say, you know, I know
19:40
you could do better than that. So then
19:42
next time, this way, please. Yeah. And you
19:44
still love them.
19:46
So it doesn't get you off the hook
19:48
to have unconditional positive regard just like your
19:51
friends are not off the hook just because
19:53
you love them. Mhmm. And I I certainly
19:55
in my experience of raising children, you're doing
19:57
that awful lot. You're actually gonna be doing
20:00
something which
20:02
is,
20:03
but but you're not you're not gonna hate
20:05
them. You hate the behavior because it's not
20:07
doing anybody any good or them or whatever.
20:09
But even in those those, those worst moments
20:12
it works very well. If you turn out
20:14
that even though this is happening, it's not
20:15
gonna change the fact that I love you.
20:17
Even though I'm annoyed about behavior,
20:19
it's not gonna change the fact that I
20:20
love you. Even for people who've never had
20:22
a child before, but who have had a
20:24
cat or a dog before
20:26
if they barf on the rug
20:28
you know you know if you have a
20:29
heart at all you're not getting rid of
20:31
the animal if they barf on the rug
20:33
you love the animal a just might redirect
20:37
them to like the hardwood part of your
20:39
living room or the next time they start
20:41
food or you just take them to the
20:43
vet if they do it often enough. Yeah,
20:46
you know you could do what you can
20:47
to correct the behavior
20:50
and still have pure love for the animal.
20:53
So if we can do this for a
20:54
dog,
20:55
but then we can definitely
20:57
do it for ourselves.
20:59
So
21:00
if we can
21:01
do it for a dog then we can,
21:03
you say,
21:04
definitely do it for ourselves. And we do
21:06
it because
21:08
there is a fundamental,
21:10
innate
21:11
worth that every human being has.
21:13
To start off with just the chance of
21:15
you, Luke, being here now,
21:18
genetically speaking, it's 1 in 400,000,000,000,000
21:21
chance.
21:22
Another thing is, so far as we know,
21:24
there's no other beings in the universe that
21:27
are like humans. In that we can
21:29
manipulate tools, we can make plans, and manipulate
21:32
the future to some degree.
21:34
We have appreciation of our own mortality.
21:36
And just those facts alone make you pretty
21:39
unique. Even if you're like many other human
21:41
beings, how many how many billions there are.
21:44
That's still an extraordinary thing in and of
21:46
itself.
21:47
But if I was to say, okay, science
21:49
put that to the side for a moment,
21:50
what other ways
21:52
can we accept that humans have innate worth?
21:55
Well, the first step
21:56
is to count yourself among living beings
22:00
so that you don't treat yourself worse than
22:02
a dog, worse than a tree worse than
22:04
a cat
22:05
too often we do treat ourselves as like
22:07
we're things that could be neglected or abused
22:09
without consequences or like you're machine? Or like
22:11
a machine with only value insofar as we're
22:14
meeting certain specifications and functioning to a certain
22:17
level. But you'd be incorrectly categorized as a
22:20
machine or a robot or a computer. You'd
22:22
be correctly categorized among the cats and the
22:24
dogs in the trees.
22:26
Right? And additionally, you'd be correctly categorized among
22:29
your kids, among your partner, among your friends,
22:32
among your neighbors, among your favorite writers and
22:35
musicians and artists,
22:37
because you're human.
22:38
One thing that I think compromises
22:41
a lot of people's sense of self worth
22:43
is the idea that one must be perfect
22:46
or else one is worthless. There's this black
22:49
and white all or nothing
22:51
thinking as though we're like like a strawberry
22:55
and once it's got a bit of mold
22:56
on it, we have to toss it and
22:58
there's no more commercial family left. That's a
23:00
weird example, but we often treat ourselves a
23:03
lot like we're either
23:05
worthy because we're perfect and we meet everyone's
23:08
approval
23:09
or we are worthless as though there are
23:12
no shades in between, but there are definitely
23:14
a lot of shades.
23:15
And and it can be extraordinarily self defeating.
23:18
It could be really overwhelming if you allow
23:20
that perspective to take over. It's like, alright,
23:22
I can't even make the first step. I
23:24
can't even Because I'll never reach that heights.
23:26
There's no point in trying. And so therefore,
23:29
you start looking outside
23:31
for validation. You start looking outside for reasons
23:34
why you might be feeling this way. You
23:36
start looking outside for solutions to how you
23:39
feel. And that can be, of course, things
23:41
like alcohol and drugs, of course. But you're
23:44
looking in the wrong place to start off
23:45
with. For for all of my clients who
23:48
they drink too much, they smoke
23:50
at all, they they use drugs and then
23:53
regret it, they, gamble too much.
23:55
The answer though,
23:57
I hesitate to use this word, but almost
23:59
a panacea for their emotional wounds
24:02
is self loving. Now I state that as
24:04
a verb,
24:06
Not as a noun too often you hear
24:08
about self love. So you think oh, well,
24:10
I don't feel self love Therefore, I don't
24:11
have it, but that's not how it works
24:14
so self loving as an intentional act as
24:17
an internal process
24:19
is Maybe the closest thing we have to
24:21
a panacea to emotional
24:23
wounds.
24:25
So if someone's
24:26
said a cutting remark to us,
24:29
then self loving makes it hurt less. If
24:32
someone wants nothing to do with us our
24:35
self loving again makes it hurt less
24:38
if we are disappointed
24:40
Then our self loving makes it hurt less
24:42
This might be the closest thing to a
24:43
panacea
24:44
that we have and maybe that's why so
24:46
many religions that people seek comfort in have
24:49
arrived at love or lovingkindness,
24:51
however you phrase it,
24:53
as a solution, almost a universal solution.
24:57
One of the problems I think with our
25:00
society
25:01
is that we're not being taught where to
25:04
look
25:05
to find happiness. We're not being taught where
25:08
to look
25:09
to find
25:10
a sense of being
25:11
worthy.
25:13
We're taught to look outside ourselves. We're not
25:15
taught to look inside ourselves.
25:17
That's why I have a career at all.
25:20
That's why there are philosophers and psychotherapists and
25:23
hypnotherapists,
25:24
in my case,
25:26
who can provide some guidance for how to
25:29
navigate your own thoughts and feelings, how to
25:31
go through your inner world,
25:32
and find that which you can't purchase at
25:34
the shopping mall.
25:36
One pattern I've noticed, in at least my
25:39
clients who have sought out help during a
25:42
job search,
25:43
or when they're dating, or when they've been
25:45
broken up with, is that when their their
25:48
sense of self worth is tied up with
25:50
the approval, acceptance, and validation of of another,
25:54
so often they're left actually feeling empty on
25:57
the inside,
25:59
where they're worse off
26:02
than if they never even just
26:05
tried to love.
26:06
So what I would suggest
26:08
in many of these situations
26:10
is that
26:12
if you recognize
26:14
your innate worth and value at the same
26:17
time you recognize theirs,
26:19
you are 1, being an egalitarian. You're treating
26:21
yourself as an equal.
26:23
And 2, even in a breakup scenario or
26:26
a job loss scenario,
26:28
both you and they can walk away with
26:31
your heads held up high.
26:33
Too often, zero sum thinking has you believe
26:36
that
26:37
one person's gotta lose and one person's gotta
26:40
win.
26:41
But even in a breakup scenario or a
26:43
job loss scenario, I would suggest
26:46
it is possible
26:47
for you to recognize your future, your worth,
26:50
your dignity,
26:52
and to keep it in mind
26:54
as you walk
26:55
away, at the same time that you recognize
26:57
their worth and their dignity.
27:00
Then,
27:01
no matter what happens,
27:02
it's tolerable. Whatever happens, it's bearable.
27:05
With dignity, with dignity
27:07
recognized,
27:09
even
27:10
adversity
27:11
can be born.
27:12
But I might even go a little bit
27:14
further and say,
27:16
if you
27:17
have that self love and self esteem,
27:21
that any
27:23
fault of yours is forgiven. Although you don't
27:26
necessarily
27:27
that doesn't mean that you relinquish responsibility, but
27:29
it's forgivable.
27:30
And that any challenge that you face or
27:32
any
27:34
behavior that is persistent.
27:36
So with this self love,
27:39
it makes life
27:40
better. It actually makes the process of living
27:43
more enjoyable.
27:44
It is extraordinarily
27:45
draining
27:46
to be stuck in grief.
27:48
It's extraordinarily
27:50
draining to be stuck in a loop of
27:52
endless self flagellation.
27:54
When we're talking about all these things, in
27:55
some ways what we're saying is that that
27:57
is actually a, not necessary,
28:00
and b, it's not it's entirely unhypocritical
28:03
and it's inclusive to count yourself as somebody
28:06
that actually deserves
28:08
and has rights to have a certain level
28:10
of self worth, self esteem,
28:12
and and confidence that allows you to carry
28:14
yourself through this world filled with challenges
28:17
and come out of it going, okay. I
28:19
am not a bad person. And, okay, I
28:21
can deal with this. It's a it's when
28:23
you say it's an emotional panacea, I would
28:24
even go further and say
28:26
it's probably the golden bullet for almost everything,
28:29
for almost every way that you interact with
28:31
the world.
28:32
If you come at it from this confident,
28:34
self validating,
28:36
self worth,
28:37
you could actually deal very well with almost
28:39
anything. It's not gonna make you stop feeling
28:41
bad. It's just gonna allow you to move
28:44
through it better and quicker.
28:45
It's exactly why we try to instill this
28:48
attitude in children. Mhmm. We are not spoiling
28:51
them. We are not mollycoddling
28:53
them.
28:54
It actually
28:55
produces
28:56
a better, healthier,
28:58
happier, more successful adult life
29:00
if one has self esteem, if one has
29:03
self respect and self love.
29:06
And, to the point of self flagellation being
29:10
draining, I would even say that continued self
29:13
flagellation when you've already learned what you had
29:15
to learn
29:16
is cruel and unusual in a way that
29:18
we will not do even to convicted criminals.
29:22
If we're saying that
29:24
self love, self respect,
29:26
and to not put yourself through cruel and
29:28
unusual punishment,
29:30
then the opposite of self isolation would actually
29:32
begrasse you for what is rather than mourning
29:35
resentment or,
29:37
guilt about what has been or is what
29:39
no what is no longer true or current.
29:42
There's a
29:44
lot of truths
29:45
that you could pay attention to and many
29:48
more falsehoods
29:49
Mhmm. You could pay attention to any given
29:51
moment of every waking hour of your life.
29:55
And too often we're looking at the ugly
29:57
truths.
29:58
Too often we're looking at ugly falsities.
30:02
Gratitude is the intentional
30:04
act of looking at the beautiful truths.
30:07
And,
30:08
there's no self deception in this. I think
30:10
a lot of people might feel like it's
30:12
self deceiving if you're grateful when the world
30:14
can be so awful,
30:16
but I would suggest that it's just as
30:19
self deceiving to turn away from the beautiful
30:21
truths to look at the ugly ones, or
30:24
worse, the ugly lies.
30:26
When you are looking for it, you'll find
30:29
the beauty in a tree. You'll find the
30:31
humanity, and the connection, and the depth
30:34
in the person who's bagging your groceries
30:37
at the grocery store if you're looking for
30:40
it. The mistake that often we make is
30:42
we're not looking for it, we're not looking
30:44
at it when we
30:46
see it and worse that we're searching our
30:48
minds
30:49
for the ugly bits in life. You've heard
30:53
me say before, it's not sophisticated to be
30:55
cynical and negative.
30:57
It is more sophisticated
30:58
to, like the art critic or the music
31:01
critic or the literary critic, to love beauty.
31:04
Thank you again for listening.
31:05
Pascal and I are available through the Morpheus
31:07
Clinic for hypnosis as hypnotherapists.
31:10
If you want to hear more of what
31:11
we have to say and if you want
31:13
to hear it being spoken directly into your
31:16
head,
31:16
then please contact the Morphis Clinic for hypnosis
31:19
atmorphisclinic.com.
31:22
At heart, we're prodigal philosophers. We like to
31:25
think deeply. We like to think specifically about
31:28
how one might be as happy of a
31:30
person as one can be given the modern
31:32
world,
31:34
given the modern times,
31:36
given that in adulthood you've cut responsibilities
31:39
that your childhood might not have prepared you
31:41
for. So check us out. We're on YouTube
31:43
at Morpheus Hypnosis.
31:45
In a couple weeks, we're going to be
31:46
talking about how to take care of your
31:48
physical body as well. And, we look forward
31:51
to seeing your comments and we'll welcome you
31:53
back in a couple weeks time.