Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 25: you have nothing to prove | the myth of proving yourself

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25: you have nothing to prove | the myth of proving yourself · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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If you believed you had nothing to prove, what would change for you?
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Hello Sunshine and welcome back to Paradigm Shift with I Understood, a place where we reframe
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what is and reimagine what could be.
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I hope you enjoy today's episode.
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Let's Paradigm Shift together.
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Hello Zalings, welcome back.
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As always, I'm so excited to have you back with me today.
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It's always such a gift and something that I once learned, I think it was on Jay Shady's
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podcast is, it's not I have to create, it's I get to, like what a gift.
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And when I feel the resistance, the fear I woke up this morning with a sense of dread because
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I was like, baby, it's Sunday, it's the day to do the thing and it's always so scary.
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But one thing that I have chosen and I'm actually so proud of this choice is I'm choosing
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to be terrified and to continue to proceed to keep going.
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And I think that is so delicious.
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You know what I mean?
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I think that there's something about that that to me is very sexy because if we are growing
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up in a society that wants to shame us out of making noise and out of being inconvenient
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and out of being uncontrollable in a certain way, then anything we do to defy that is probably
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going to bring up a lot of fear and a lot of shame and a lot of embarrassment because
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we've been shamed out of being ourselves.
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And it's really an invitation to be like, yes, I'm ashamed, but I'm continuing to proceed
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to keep going.
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And I think that as an act of devotion and as an act of courage, it's something that
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I think is something to be proud of.
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I once heard a quote that deeply affected me.
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I remember when I was listening to it, stopping in my tracks and thinking, oh my goodness,
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I will never see the world the same way again, oh my word, what a thing to say.
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And before I tell you what the quote is, I want to express to you my desire within this
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episode.
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What I want you to take from this episode in case you do not stay with us until the end
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is that you actually have nothing to prove.
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You do not have to do anything to make yourself justifiable, to make yourself worthy of being
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treated as a person.
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Because in our society, being treated truly as a person is very rare.
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Being heard, being safe, being given the ability to thrive and to feel included, to belong,
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to feel seen, if your voice is in the room, are you heard, like being treated in my mind
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as a person is a very rare thing.
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And so since so many of us are only used to conditional personhood, conditional forms
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of love and belonging, we do so much to try and prove we are worthy of those things.
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You are always already worthy.
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And I know it doesn't help because this doesn't change your lived experience.
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Your day to day is not going to say, okay, just because I tell you you are worthy, you're
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not going to necessarily feel worthiness or feel love or feel acceptance from those around
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you.
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But I want to tell you that you are already whole and there's no achievement or accomplishment
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outside of you that will make you deserve to be accepted, deserve to be acknowledged,
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deserve to be made to feel safe and seen.
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You are a part of this universe, you are a member of the human family and you have nothing
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to prove.
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I also want to invite you into the paradox of the attempt to prove yourself.
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The paradox being in trying so desperately to prove one aspect of ourselves, we are inherently
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denying another.
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The paradox is that the dance is between the proof and the denial and we're so focused
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on trying to prove ourselves that we are erasing a version of ourselves.
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We are not meeting that version, we are denying it and I'm going to unpack why that is the
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case.
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But I just want you to let that sink into your being, the possibility of that paradox being
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true for you.
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And now I want to tell you this quote that moved me so deeply.
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In this book, which is about goddesses and it's all about learning about the different
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goddesses, goddesses, goddess, goddess, goddess, the different goddesses and what we can learn
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from them, she says this, every action on earth that humans take is either an act of love
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or a cry for it.
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Every action is either an act of love or a cry for it.
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Every desire, every attempt and what I really love about this quote is it takes love as
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the highest form of our being and it says that we are always acting from a place of love.
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Either it's because of a deep lack of it, that there are so many disguised cries for
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love in our society.
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Okay, so we're going to come back to this quote in a second.
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If you are listening to this episode and it's spoken to you in some way as in the title
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called to you for some reason, I'm sure you've had the very human experience of trying
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to prove yourself to someone.
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Of saying, I'm going to show you, I'm going to prove to you that I can do this thing.
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And sometimes we try to prove ourselves to ourselves as well.
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I'm sure you've said to yourself, I'm not just going to do this thing, I'm going to
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do it to the highest level that it can be done.
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I'm going to be the quote unquote definition of a success in my field.
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I'm not just going to be a creator, I'm going to get to the 10k, the 100k, the million.
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I'm not just going to write, I'm going to win an award, you know, or I'm going to publish
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a book.
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I'm not just going to dance, I'm going to dance in a stage.
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I'm going to prove to you that I can do this thing.
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But I want to ask, what is really at the root of your desire, of our desire to prove
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ourselves?
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What is underlying that desire, that drive?
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What will we gain once we get to that elusive place of achievement?
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What will we have access to then that we do not have access to now?
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So linking it to the quote, what if your desire to prove yourself is really just a cry for
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love?
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What if you have an inner wisdom that's showing you and telling you because our highest
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motivation is to be loved.
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As an our deepest motivation, we will do so much for social approval, for belonging,
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for acceptance, for being treated as a person in my kind of ideal sense of personhood.
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That's so few people actually have access to.
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What if you are so aware that the support of the people around you is deeply conditional?
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It is deeply conditional on your ability to prove yourself as a quote, unquote, success
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in order for you to be worthy of the pursuit of that project at all?
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What if what you rarely seek is to be loved and accepted unconditionally?
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Yet that's so unimaginable that you try to access that love through this conditional
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form of it that so many of us have been conditioned to accept and to view as the norm.
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Conditional love says, I will support you if I'll love you so long as and I don't mean
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unconditional love in any sort of toxic sense, you know, of course we all have boundaries
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and needs and there are limits as they should be.
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What I mean is that unconditional to what you achieve, accomplish and do.
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How is it that we feel embarrassed to post things or to say things or do things or start
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things because of what our friends will think?
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And the natural question is, are they our friends?
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And the natural question is, are they our friends?
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And remember this paradox of proving yourself that it necessarily involves denying a self.
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And what if the self that we're denying is the self that feels like we are unsupported
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by these people?
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So we're trying to artificially reach a place of being supported by them by doing the
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things that they need us to do in order for us to feel worthy.
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But people who are truly for us aren't going to make their love and acceptance and support
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conditional on how well we do at something.
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And then I want to dig deeper into this idea of the myth of proving yourself, suggesting
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that the attempt of proving yourself is not actually possible.
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It's not rooted in a deeper reality.
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It's rooted in an illusion because who is the self that's being proven?
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And who is the self that is lost and denied in the process?
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Because in the attempt to prove yourself as X, you are saying, I need to show that I
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am something.
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But aren't you already something?
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So aren't you casting aside the self that exists because what we don't want to be seen
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as is trying.
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We don't want people to see that we are trying.
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We want people to see that we have succeeded.
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So in so doing, we want to deny the process.
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We want to deny the attempt.
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And we want to favor the outcome and the external validation from that outcome.
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But we lose something in that attempt.
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We must.
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We're saying, I'm not this me.
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I'm not this podcast host.
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I'm the podcast host that's going to be in the top 100.
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I'll show you.
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Well, then what am I denying that I'm a beginner podcast host?
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I don't have an external validation of success.
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I cannot point to anything and say to you, this succeeded.
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But I could hyper focus on that one day, that elusive place where I will now be justified
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in my attempt to embark on this journey at all.
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So that's a cry for love because what I really want is the love that's going to come
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as a result.
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I'm not saying that we're never intrinsically motivated, but I think specifically in this
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attempt to prove ourselves, a person whose love doesn't need to prove themselves, a person
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who unconditionally loves themselves and who unconditionally is loved by their people
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has nothing to prove.
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And a person who is is love has nothing to prove as in a person who is acting from love
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and acting as love.
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They don't have anything to prove.
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They have things to be and they have things to do because of that alignment.
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There's things they feel called to, but they don't feel called to be validated as that
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thing or to be proving themselves as that thing because they already that thing or they already
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hold within themselves.
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And I just wonder, like when we think of how success is framed in this capitalist world,
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how many people are just operating from a desire to prove themselves as worthy and as successful
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and as lovable?
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How many narratives do we hear across fields, athletes, performers, artists, writers, they
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always doubted me, but I was writing every single day because I said to myself, I'm going
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to show you.
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There was that goal in my high school, she would bully me and I said to myself, I'm going
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to show her, you know what I mean?
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There's so often a narrative around proving oneself.
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That's very pervasive in our culture, so much so that it seems normalized.
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Like it's like, oh, yeah, you're trying to prove yourself.
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That makes sense, does it?
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Does it?
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In the world that we want to see, would that happen?
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Would there be people who need to prove something about themselves?
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So I wanted to write a little bit of a list today and I thought to myself, okay, here are
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five things that I think we lose in the attempt to prove ourselves.
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Number one, we are making our worth and the value of our efforts contingent on an outcome.
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Right?
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Because in order to prove yourself, it indicates that you've reached some sort of outcome or
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place usually.
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There are people who try to prove themselves through their efforts, but how many people see
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our efforts?
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You know, they usually see the result of our efforts or we allow them to see the results
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of our efforts.
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The fact that we reached a certain place and that place has to be externally visible.
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It's not a spiritual place, it's not I've reached a sense of inner peace.
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You can't post that on the gram, you can't win an award for inner peace.
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So it's an external marker of success.
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But when we are locating the self in external validation and in externally visible phenomena,
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are we not in a way losing ourselves?
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Because we are locating ourselves outside of ourselves.
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We're saying I'll be valuable when I reach 10,000 followers.
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Is that me who's going to be valuable?
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And to whom?
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If a person lives their whole life for the award, for the reward, for the acknowledgement,
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for the accolade, but then you take the amount of time that we are externally validated.
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It's very short if you think about it.
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If you think about a writer, what they're spending all their time doing is writing.
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If they then publish the book and it does well, how long does that last as a representation
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of how long it took to write the book?
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Very, very short.
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If you think of an actress, like the process of acting is what really is the substance
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of their life.
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The award show or the reward or award or interview, whatever your version of external validation
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is, it's the minor part of the life that they've lived time wise and even energetically.
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So I think we lose unconditional worth.
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That's not contingent on an outcome.
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We lose the ability to say, I am worthy because many of us will not reach these outcomes.
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We've said, I think there is a dream as an illusion.
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Like that's also a reality.
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Dreams are wonderful.
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Dreams are uplifting.
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But I think what we also need to understand is dreams are fake.
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Like they're illusory and they can be extremely powerful, hard opening, expanding.
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But there can also be a tool of manipulating people into always delaying, deferring the
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reality that they all actually want to live in.
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Because many of us will die or will just simply not achieve these so-called dreams.
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Because they're illusory.
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And not only the actual event is illusory, but the feeling we think the event will give
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us.
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But what I'm talking about is these accomplishments that are rooted in this societally driven
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understanding of success.
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And what we think it's going to feel like if we get there, I'll give an example for
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myself.
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When I started my TikTok, I was like, okay, I'm going to reach, you know, you have all
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the milestones.
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And then the milestones keep changing.
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I can't wait to get to 10k.
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Now I can't wait to get to 50k.
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Now I can't wait to get to 100k.
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And it wasn't the only thing driving me not at all.
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But it was something on my mind.
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I would look at creators who had a lot more followers than me and I would think, I went,
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like, why not me?
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Now I really feel devastated from that.
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I mean, obviously it pops up sometimes, but I feel like disconnected from it because
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now I know how I thought it would feel is not how it actually feels.
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And I know that with every milestone comes the ta-da, here's a new milestone.
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There's no arriving, right?
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It's a fantasy because it's set up to make sure that you're on this endless treadmill
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of milestones.
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So the second thing related to this idea of outcomes that we lose in trying to prove
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ourselves is we are sacrificing the magic and the joy and the mystery and the wonder of
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the process in favor of over emphasis on the outcome.
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We're saying what matters most is not that I'm writing every day.
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What matters most is that I'm going to publish a book and then be on the New York Times
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bestseller list or whatever bestseller list is top of mind for you at the moment.
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We're saying what matters most is not that I'm creating content each and every day, but
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that I'm going to reach a million followers.
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We're saying that it's not about our efforts, it's not about the fact that we're showing
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up, it's not about the fact that we're devoting ourselves to a creative project or to a relationship.
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The point is that we're going to get married, you know what I mean?
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The point is that we're going to post the Instagram photo of us graduating or getting
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married or being engaged.
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That's the point.
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But those moments are so fleeting and they really do a disservice to the substance of
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our lives, which is the process, like if we really hinge all our desires on an outcome.
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How much of our lives, like if you just took if we let's say live to whatever age, how
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much of that lifetime would have been spent on receiving or experiencing outcomes.
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So little, our life is the process, the process of something, the process of being devoted
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to a friendship, the process of being devoted to a creative project, the process of living,
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you know, waking up, it's like a cycle, everything is happening.
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It's not only happening when we arrive in this mythical place.
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So it's almost as if we're throwing ourselves away in favor of these minor moments where
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we are going to get to prove ourselves.
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So to that point, I wanted to find some quotes to add to the episode.
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And one of the quotes that I found is by an Indian philosopher, speaker and writer named
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G.Du Krishna Murthy, he was born in 1895 and he died in 1986.
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And I wanted to share a quote from his work.
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And what he says is the ambitious man is afraid to be what he is.
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So to make that neutral, the ambitious person is afraid to be what they are.
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And think about that.
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That's a quote that's short, but if we really sit with it, we can see the wisdom that
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is so deep in that statement.
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If you are ambitious, you're striving, right, you're like, okay, next thing, this thing,
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you are afraid to be what you are today.
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And I fall into this completely, like 100,000 percent, it's an active journey to try and
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not be this way for me.
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But if you are ambitious, if you are striving, there is some sort of detachment, rejection,
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denial of what you are now.
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And this is a way that ambition is never really framed in our society because of course,
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like capitalism thrives on the notion of ambitious people.
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Ambitious people because they will act in very individualistic ways.
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They will often do things to harm themselves in service of this ambition.
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But if everyone was really not afraid of who they were now, if they were okay with that,
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how would ambition exist, not in the same manifestation as we see it today?
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And this again is the idea of love.
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Every act is either an act of love or a cryful love.
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The ambitious person is crying for love because they believe and they've been made to
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believe that in that outcome state, when they've become the founder, the entrepreneur, the
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creator, the judge, the professor, when they've become that thing, then they're acceptable,
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then they're justifiable, then they deserve to be celebrated and seen and heard.
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Then they deserve to be elevated.
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They can't stand the idea of who they are now very often.
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And the idea that that version of them is acceptable and lovable.
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And so then what happens often they reach that accolade and they have a mental and emotional
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and psychic and social crash because it does not feel how they told themselves it would
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feel and now they still have to do the work of loving themselves.
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Because what's going to happen if we achieve our ambitions is the achievement of the ambition.
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It's not going to come with a whole conception of self acceptance.
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Those two don't come hand in hand.
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Like we can't achieve our way into loving ourselves and being loved by others.
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And so because the society benefits on us hating ourselves were often so made to be afraid
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of who we already are and the understanding that that person actually is very lovable.
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That person is whole that person is and so as we balance the being and becoming that
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is the human experience.
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Like we're always existing but we're always seeming to want to also become something else.
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Become a good friend, become a dancer, become a parent, become in community with others,
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become wise.
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Like we have this desire to become that's co-opted by the society and made it made to suit
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its ends.
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But how can we learn to become in a way that doesn't reject our being?
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I think if we can learn how to know that we are lovable or at least know that we don't
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need to act from a place of lack of love ability, then maybe we will feel like we have
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less to prove.
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So how can we not reject who we are even as we become?
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The third thing I think that we lose when we attempt to prove ourselves to others, even
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to ourselves is that ironically by defining ourselves through what others will think
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of us, we in a way lose ourselves.
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When I say to myself, okay, this person doesn't support my podcast so I'm going to show
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them.
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Well, I'm the person who wants that person to acknowledge me as I am.
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I reject that and I say no no no, I'm the person who wants to become someone that that
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person would acknowledge.
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So I'm letting them determine me.
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I'm letting their standards and their desires and their understanding of what makes a project
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worth it.
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Define mine.
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So we're basically saying, okay, I will be accepted by my family or by my friends if
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I do this thing.
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So I'm going to do that thing.
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So then we've lost ourselves.
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We're not trying to prove ourselves.
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We're trying to prove them their their desires for us.
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We're trying to prove their version of which version of us is acceptable.
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That's not us.
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It's actually a denial of us because we are the attempt.
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We are the trial.
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We are the one who's trying.
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We just want to pretend we are the one who's tried and succeeded.
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No, we are the trying one yet we reject this one and we lose ourselves in the process.
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We lose ourselves and we swallow get swallowed into other people's projections onto us.
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So it's like, are you even the self that you are trying to prove or are you allowing
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yourself to be defined and swallowed by other people's expectations of you?
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The fourth thing we lose and this is the most painful one to me as we think about love
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is that we are silencing the voice within us that knows that we are surrounded by people
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who do not genuinely support us and people whose approval we so desperately need because
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we're human that we can't face the rejection that we feel from those people.
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Because if I'm a kid and I'm like, oh, look, I wrote this thing and you're like, no,
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why are you writing?
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Then we're like, okay, I'm going to go write so well that you won't be able to ignore
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me.
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That's pain, babe.
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That person doesn't support you.
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Like we're so scared of people who are meant to be our people.
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We're so scared of their judgment like on these conversations I've had with some of you
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speaking about the fear you feel are being judged by your own peers, your own friends,
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that you are defying what people expect you to do.
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So you could tell yourself, okay, fine, then I'm going to go and do this so well that
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you'll be like, oh, my word, congratulations.
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That is such a deep pain that we are actually silencing and it's the pain of not being
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accepted for who we are, which is the trying one and the one who gets to try.
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Because if we only feel like we're going to be accepted as the succeeding one in this
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very narrow conception of success.
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So I just think it's so painful that so many of us know that the people around us are
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not really for us.
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It's so wonderful to have friends who genuinely support you and not because you are succeeding.
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They just support the fact that you are expanding yourself.
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Like as in you're pursuing your full self, you're making noise, you're being brave, you're
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facing your fears.
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Like that's an incredible, incredible act of love and courage.
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And I think that's what's to be celebrated.
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If we can't find people who will celebrate and validate the attempt, the process, the
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effort, but we'll only validate the outcome, the success, the award.
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Those are not our people.
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Those are conditional supporters.
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And I don't even mean like those are people who are not for us because people who are
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for us care that we are trying and they find it amazing.
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Like why would we do things for the people who do not actually love that fullest us that
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we feel we are trying to be?
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Should we try to prove ourselves to the people who don't support us?
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Or should we be our fullest selves for the people who already do?
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And if there's no one right now, count me as one of them.
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Count me in babe, I'm part of the team.
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Like no matter what, I support you because I am you and you are me as in, I've been there.
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I am there.
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I've been in that place of feeling ashamed.
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I've been in that place of feeling like I don't deserve to do this unless I can prove
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that I can do it to the quote unquote highest level.
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I've been in that place of feeling rejected in my creativity by people around me.
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You know?
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And what I can tell you is if you really step into whatever you're trying to do.
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I don't know what that is.
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You are going to attract people who meet you in that energy.
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And I'm telling you this, I know this for a fact.
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You are going to be vibrating at a different frequency, create a relationships, relationships
27:48
rooted in a mutual love of something or a mutual way of seeing the world.
27:53
They're very, very profound, but they only happen when we step into that fullness.
27:58
They either happen through online relationships, people DMing you or they happen through spaces
28:03
you end up being in because you're now opening yourself up to that part within you.
28:08
And so it's almost like now I feel like I know there's people in my life that I may encounter
28:16
who will only see what I'm trying to do as valid if it works in their eyes, like it's
28:21
working in my eyes, even though it doesn't have external markers of success, it's working.
28:25
Like I mean, in this pursuit of this podcast, especially, but I choose to not do these
28:30
things for those people because imagine that energy, I'm all about what energy we're
28:34
drawing from.
28:35
I don't want to draw from the energy of revenge.
28:37
Oh my gosh, what an awful way to live my life.
28:40
I don't want to draw from the energy of, I'll show you, you know, that's not the energy
28:45
I want to live my life from.
28:46
I want to live my life from as loving a place as it can be.
28:51
We're so scared of falling flat on our face because we're surrounded by people who we
28:54
know will love.
28:58
That is not a calling to say, okay, so I'm not going to fall flat on my face.
29:01
I'm going to so it's a calling to say, wow, I don't have the right people around me.
29:06
I don't have supportive people around me.
29:08
I have toxic people, not in the sense that they're inherently toxic, but they are poisonous
29:12
to my creativity or to my being.
29:14
They're poisoning the version of me that I want to become.
29:18
They are toxic forces.
29:20
I experience them, let's say as toxic forces because often we're projecting as well.
29:24
Like often it's really not them, often it is us projecting onto them, a judgment that
29:28
they haven't even necessarily expressed.
29:30
But often they really do express that they're going to judge us or they already are.
29:34
So what if this need to prove yourself as actually an invitation to be like, wow, I
29:39
need to interrogate the relationship I have with myself in the sense that why do I only
29:44
feel worthy if I'm succeeding?
29:47
And that's probably something we learned in childhood.
29:50
And of course, succeeding according to this very narrow definition.
29:54
Or how can I say, I don't need to succeed.
29:57
I just need to be.
29:58
The fifth and final thing that I think we lose when we try to prove ourselves is self-denial.
30:04
And I want to say this, we are just as much the self that is trying as we are the self
30:10
that may succeed, yet so often we deny the former self.
30:15
Like I might say, okay, I can't wait to get to this place in my podcast because that's
30:19
what I really am.
30:20
Like I'm not this person who's trying.
30:22
I'm not this person who's scared and tormented.
30:24
I'm the person who's going to get to a million and millions and millions.
30:27
I'm the person who's going to be on a world stage.
30:29
That's me.
30:30
I just need to become that.
30:31
You know what I mean?
30:32
So much of the self-development wording even is about rejecting who you are now because
30:37
you're not actually who you are now.
30:39
You're that person.
30:40
You're your highest self.
30:41
You're that reality.
30:42
And it's a denial of the fact that we're everything in every way or at once.
30:48
We are so many selves, even with our past self, we deny.
30:52
We deny that they had a role in who we are now.
30:56
We just reject them.
30:57
We say, oh, I would never do that again.
30:58
I would, you know, that's like behind me.
31:01
How can we integrate and incorporate all these selves and not see ourselves as things
31:05
to be denied and rejected?
31:08
Like how can we be like, wow, I'm actually so many things.
31:10
I cannot be singled out.
31:12
I cannot be singularly defined.
31:15
We deny the fact that we are trying to be or do something that we haven't yet been
31:21
or done because that's so vulnerable.
31:23
It's so vulnerable to admit that you're trying.
31:27
It's so vulnerable to be seen in those earliest stages.
31:31
And so it's an unsexy image of ourselves.
31:33
We don't want to adopt.
31:34
So we create the illusion of the dream reality and we say, okay, I'm just working towards
31:37
that.
31:38
So what are we doing denying that we are working towards?
31:42
And in that working towards is the implicit understanding that we may not reach.
31:46
But we are still the one who is doing the working.
31:49
And so we want to tell a story at the end.
31:51
We want to say, oh, I'm in the montage phase.
31:53
You know, this isn't the actual substance of my life.
31:56
This is just a means to an end.
31:58
No, this is our lives.
32:00
We have to be able to sit with that because we don't know how much time we have.
32:04
We don't know anything.
32:05
We don't know where this is going.
32:06
We don't know if a future version of ourselves won't even want to do this thing we're doing
32:09
now.
32:12
And we could actually invite ourselves into the understanding that we don't have anything
32:16
to prove.
32:17
So we want to tell the story at the end, but we need to realize the story has no ending.
32:22
There are so many people who are quote unquote successful or who have reached their goals
32:27
that still feel they have more to prove because they never worked on the fact that it's
32:32
the fact that they feel like they have something to prove that may be the actual invitation
32:36
of the desire to prove not an invitation to do the proving.
32:40
We need to embrace the question of like, what if I have nothing to prove?
32:45
And although this is actually something very precious and wonderful, it's also very daunting
32:49
because so many of us are fueled by needing to prove ourselves.
32:52
So it's like, oh, if I don't have anything to prove, why would I create?
32:55
Like that's what many of us think.
32:57
Like many of us wouldn't write.
32:58
We wouldn't make TikTok videos.
33:00
We wouldn't make YouTube videos.
33:01
We wouldn't do things if we didn't on some level feel we needed to prove ourselves.
33:07
So I think reconnecting with that, creating from a place of wholeness, of love, of knowing
33:12
that, you know, we don't have anything to prove, it's actually very, very profound.
33:17
I wonder how many people in the world create or exist or get to exist from that place because
33:22
we're made to feel like we have so much to prove.
33:26
So I guess questions that I have for you as we wrap up this conversation is what do you
33:31
feel like you need to prove?
33:35
Who taught you that you had to prove yourself?
33:39
And what do you deny about yourself or within yourself in this attempt to prove a self?
33:46
Who self are you proving?
33:48
And finally, using our imagination, what if you have nothing to prove?
33:55
What would the version of you that believed that deeply?
33:58
What would they be doing right now?
34:00
How would they exist in the world?
34:02
How would they create?
34:03
What would they create?
34:04
Like if you believed you had nothing to prove, what would change for you?
34:10
What if you wrote a letter to yourself from yourself or from someone in your life who
34:14
you feel only conditionally accepts you?
34:18
And what if you wrote the words you wish they would say?
34:22
I'm so proud of your effort.
34:24
I'm so proud of who you are and how you exist in the world.
34:28
You have so much love to give.
34:30
I'm so excited for you to channel that in whichever way you feel speaks to you most.
34:37
I'm so excited for you to learn about yourself in this journey for you to change your mind
34:42
for you to stop for you to quit if you would like because I love you unconditionally.
34:47
You have nothing to prove.
34:49
You cannot be measured.
34:52
There's no amount of followers or comments or likes.
34:55
There's no amount of book sales or reviews.
34:59
There's no amount of awards or accolades that could ever define you that could ever
35:07
speak to the magic that you are that could ever circumscribe all the love and the wisdom
35:17
and the intuition and the creativity and the deep feeling that you have to bring.
35:26
I give you permission to do whatever you want to do next, which could include absolutely
35:32
nothing.
35:33
I give you permission to create freely.
35:35
I give you permission to post that thing you've always wanted to post.
35:39
I give you permission to release yourself from shame and embarrassment.
35:44
You are not shameful.
35:46
You have nothing to be ashamed of.
35:48
You are not embarrassing.
35:49
You may feel embarrassed because of course you've grown up in this society that has shamed
35:54
you out of yourself.
35:56
But you do not have to listen to that shame and you do have to understand that that part
36:00
of you you're so ashamed of exists in me too.
36:06
You do have to understand that there are going to be people who are threatened by your
36:11
desire to be your fullest expansion, to make noise, to be loud and to let your voice have
36:20
a place in this world.
36:22
You deserve to be heard.
36:23
You deserve to be treated as a person.
36:25
I hear your cry for love and you don't need to cry anymore.
36:28
I love you.
36:29
No matter what happens next, this podcast, this show, this screenplay could be the biggest
36:35
success ever or literally it could not because most things aren't.
36:40
And I love you because it is so courageous and it is so wonderful and such an act of love
36:47
for yourself and all the selves you've been and all the selves you will be for you to
36:51
try.
36:53
Every attempt you make every time you try to record this episode, I validate.
36:59
I don't validate how many reviews or ratings or I validate you in your fullest existence.
37:06
If you needed permission, here it is.
37:11
Write the words that you so want to hear from others.
37:15
Even that you are many selves and you can learn to relate to yourself as the grandmother,
37:20
as the friend, as the grandparent, as the wise neighbor, as the healer.
37:27
You are so many people.
37:30
So I encourage you to send yourself a voice note of the words you are craving to hear
37:35
from someone in your life.
37:37
There's always someone or some people that we so want to be seen and recognized and
37:42
acknowledged and validated by all we want to be vindicated through because we just know
37:47
they're not actually for us.
37:49
They pretend to support us, but they don't.
37:52
So you could also write a letter from yourself to that person that you don't send or that
37:55
you do.
38:00
The wonderful thing about being sensitive is you really get to face the fullness of life
38:06
and all its less than convenient feelings.
38:10
All the things we would rather not have to experience.
38:15
But I think the paradox of sensitivity is that sometimes that which makes us such expansive
38:20
and powerful artists is also what silences us from creating in the first place.
38:28
Because we can so potently feel the rejection of our friends, of our parents, of our families,
38:34
of our sports even happen, or while it's happening, we're so perceptive.
38:39
And we are so empathic and feeling that that feeling that allows us to see and perceive
38:45
the world in ways that can be channeled into writing and podcasts and videos and drawings
38:52
and paintings and poetry and screenplays is the same sensitivity that's going to stop
38:58
us because we're so afraid of the judgment that could come our way.
39:03
And I want to do an episode on this so that will be coming.
39:07
Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my last video where I asked what episode you
39:12
would like to see next.
39:13
I'm sitting with those ideas I've planted the seeds within me and I tried to make it happen
39:18
this week but it didn't happen.
39:20
So we're going to embrace ease and things taking the time they take, planting the seed, nurturing
39:27
it and then only reaping the harvest much later.
39:31
So I've received your ideas, noted them down.
39:33
Thank you so much.
39:34
I love the comments.
39:35
I love the feedback.
39:37
I'm really grateful for it.
39:39
And at the same time, I acknowledge that I have nothing to prove but so much to give.
39:45
I hope some paradigms have been shifted for you in today's conversation.
39:48
As always, if you can, please leave a five star rating on Apple and Spotify.
39:52
Like, comment, subscribe.
39:53
I love you so, so much.
39:55
Okay.
39:56
I love you.
39:57
Join me on my sub-slag, links in the comment section.
40:00
Go there.
40:01
Okay.
40:02
Love you so much.
40:03
Love you.
40:04
Bye.