061_Cultivating Self-reflection to Live a More Self-aware Life

11/16/21 • 25 min

In today’s podcast we’re discussing the importance of cultivating self-reflection to increase both self-awareness and dismantle old patterns of reaction that no longer serve us.
You’re going along feeling perfectly fine, peaceful, being in the moment, seemingly flowing with life, then BAM! All of the sudden something happen and you feel like you’ve go to take a stand, you got to make your point, defend yourself or your position — be right...
Is it really because what you’re taking a stand on or defending is really so important to you or is it because you have run up against unconscious conditioned beliefs you don’t want to look at?
Self-awareness comes from noticing — and then reflecting on what’s really going on when we get activated by something that happens or someone says something and we feel ourselves getting defensive or wanting to distract or avoid the actuality of the moment before us.
These moments when we ‘get activated’ are messages from our true being, inviting us to pause and reflect, and to ask ourselves questions like:

Why do I feel so defensive right now?
What belief is being threatened?
Where did it come from?
Is it happening now?
Or is it an old stand based in a moment (or several) in the past that I have not let go, and now this little thing or conversation feels bigger than it really is?

Self-reflection is simply being willing to pause and realize, “This is an old script. Let me look at it in context of this present moment in my life. The script is telling me I have to defend or whatever,... then seeing one thing and asking yourself is that really true? Then you peel back that layer and ask is that really true?”

If we don’t take a moment and ask ourselves, “what’s really going on here?” We let fear, defensiveness and justification not only drive this moment’s conversation, but all future conversations when this same topic arises ... Just like it has for so many years in past. And we use the same excuse for behaving in a way that feels icky and doesn’t ever really satisfy because we are not actually dealing with reality, but a story we’ve designed to protect ourselves from the pain we felt in the past, which we haven’t let go and let the energy move through.
Once you see that the past is gone, you realize it can’t influence you unless you don’t let it go. But you can always let it go. Once you see it, releasing it is ultimately inevitable if you want to be free to be true to yourself and the moment you’re in.
Reason will tell you, it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t serve you anymore. You take a breath, relax, and release the energy stored as stress inside. And your energy starts flowing and it is available for you to create an new relationship with this same topic, with out judgement getting in the way.
Our conversation takes us into how we get activated by stuff that we see happening around us — the political scene, the pandemic, climate change, our neighbor, a friend, and recognizing that we’re actually powerless over so much what’s happening.
But we get activated and all self-righteous about it. But the thing is, it just perception. I’m activated based on my perception of what’s right and wrong and what that says about us. But we’re just defending against the feeling of powerlessness.
Shit’s just happening. It’s a constant. It’s not a problem for me unless I make it my problem. The question is, “do I want to be at peace with life or not?” By accepting what’s happening from a place of love, of unity, of peace, we have access to our own point of power within ourselves. Then we can be free to be authentically ourselves.
This is why self reflection is so crucial to living a yummy life.
Getting activated is actually a gift of self reflection, resulting in more self-awareness.

Why do I feel so defensive right now?
What belief is being threatened?
Where did it come from?
Is it happening now?
Or is it an old stand based in a moment (or several) in the past that I have not let go, and now this little thing or conversation feels bigger than it really is?

Previous Episode

060_The Upside of Vulnerability

In today’s podcast we’re talking about vulnerability.
How often do we enter encounters with others from a preconceived idea of what we think the situation requires of us and then play the role we believe we need to play to get approval or acceptance?
Do you filter your authentic self based on the mental constructs you’ve built from past perceptions which make you feel less vulnerable? Do you hide your most authentic self?
Why?
Perhaps you’ve been vulnerably honestly yourself in the past and it wasn’t received with love or kindness. Or maybe you’ve even felt it was used against you.
So you create a belief that if you are authentically and honestly yourself, it’s going to come back to bite you in the ass. You tell yourself you can’t be totally honest and open because you’re going to get in trouble if you do.
And this justifies playing a role based on past perception, rather than just showing up and being you.
The thing is, what you’ve done is given something or someone outside yourself to determine your okayness.
If we’re waiting for the outside world to show us enough acceptance and non-judgement to tell us it’s safe to be ourselves, then we are at the mercy of circumstances and people. Honesty is missing in this equation. So everyone is role-playing and nothing truly authentic and present is happening because it’s all being run through ‘fear of vulnerability’ filters.
Living vulnerably as your authentic self requires self-awareness and self trust.
Know thy self.
This is the first step in shifting from externally based operating, to showing up in as you truly are, openly expressing yourself honestly and trusting yourself to handle what happens.
The key is paying attention the way the energies feel inside. Becoming really intimate with them is the gift of waking up to our true authentic self. These energies are always telling us if we’re coming from love or fear, by the way we feel. Yummy or icky?
What we call our yummy-stat. When we’re in fear of being ourself, the energy tightens up. And the experience life is offering can’t flow through us. It feels icky.
It’s telling us we’re about to be less than wholly true to ourselves.
What it really gets down to is letting go of the outcome of what will happen when we’re honestly us... If we’re looking outside ourselves for validation then we’re never going to know our own worth. If we want to know ourselves in all the situations in our lives, we have to take the risk to be authentically ourselves, tell our truth as fast as we’re aware what it is, and let the chips fall where they may.
When we love ourselves, we know that whatever happens, we can trust ourselves to deal with it. Our worth isn’t attached to the outcome, but center within our being.
We’ve always already won because we’re not waiting on something outside ourselves to prove our worthiness.
This is why our yummy-stat is so powerful. As soon as we feel that tightening, icky feeling inside, we know that we are stepping away from authenticity, and trying to control our vulnerability. We can pause, soften around the perception construct in our belief system, and recenter back in our true self. It is only from this place of authentically being ourselves that we get to experience the fullness of the the experience life is offering us in any given moment.
Life is vulnerable. We never know what’s going to happen. The story that we can control that is a lie. It’s nothing to be afraid of. The more you tell the truth and be true to yourself, the more it becomes the only way that feels right.
Only by being you can you know the innate joy that lets all outcomes be acceptable. You can’t help but love yourself, when you’re showing up for you. This is the upside of living from vulnerability as your authentic self.

Next Episode

062_Living with Cancer

The crux of the yummy way philosophy is accepting life just exactly as it is, however it is showing up in each present moment — no matter what arises. And loving every aspect of it — because that’s what you’ve got!
It is really recognizing that it is the only way to live in equanimity with life — in the pulse of life itself. Acceptance is only way to live in peace and joy. Regardless of any particular circumstance. Even cancer. What is, is what is. Resistance to accepting it is ultimately (as the Borg would say) futile.
This brings us to the topic we’ve chosen to discuss in the upcoming series of podcasts, this one being the first. Living with cancer — the yummy way.
Lar was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer nearly three years ago. We’ve been living with cancer each moment and it has been accepting it fully as part of the dance with life we’ve been invited into, allows us to live each moment with grace. Grace that each is the whole of life. To see each moment as a miracle of life itself — grateful to be living it.
So, whatever feelings arise, we feel them as part of the dance, such as life is, when cancer comes to visit, and stays.
Part of the dance is not inching when resistance show up — the temptation to be afraid, to hope, to want it somehow be something different than it is...
These become the springboard for deep conversation, processing, and ultimately surrender of the resistance, so we can see what really is — Life doing what it’s doing, right here and now.
There is such sweetness in surrendering resistance to what is. A serene peace that we’ve found incredible by simply showing up with our truth with each other, moment by moment, day by day, week after week — living life fully through treatments, while the body breaks down, recovers a bit, and then adjusts to each new reality as cancer does what it does.
In today’s podcast, Lar shares his experience since the recent prognosis that treatment is no longer viable. The treatment had become more toxic to the body, than the cancer. That is the reality. Accepting reality as it actually is right now and making the decision to discontinue treatment, and to let cancer take its natural coarse.
For us, finding that place of acceptance brings grace to live each moment, without the wishful thinking that robs us of presence.
The whole ‘battle with cancer’ storyline is such a crock. It’s perpetuated by modern medicine and the fear of death, keeps us from presence. None of us are getting out of this gig alive. The body’s natural course leads to death.
Being authentically honest with ourselves in each moment is crucial to acceptance. Become aware of the patterns of our programming and notice how we feel when we aren’t being true to ourselves, our love, and the dignity of living authentically... to speak our truth, because that is what’s honest. Once we do, we can allow others the dignity to their response and not attach some fabricated personal responsibility to what they do with the information.
What are you living with that you are denying in part, hoping for something different than what is?
Can you pause a moment and accept what is, because it is what is?
What if this were you last day on earth? How would it change the choices you make with your time and the people in your life? It could be...
Would you be totally, honestly authentically you?
Why not make today that day?
We’re going to continue to share our conversations with each other and our experience with living with cancer in the upcoming episodes — so stay tuned.
Have a yummy day!
https://theyummyway.com/