Using Mindfulness to Foster Self-Love ( How Mindfulness Can Help You Develop Self-Love )
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A Mindfulness Practice can Lead to More Self-Love
Hello welcome to Chapter 3, thanks for tuning-in! In this chapter we’re going to talk about bridging the gap between mindfulness and how we use that to foster some self love within us.So we talked about mindfulness, we talked about the core principles and what we hope to accomplish when we are being mindful,we talked about self-love what benefits you can have whenever we develop more of an attitude towards self-love, things that get in the way and stuff like that.So how do we bring it all together? First and foremost my encouragement is to never say it’s too late to make positive changes, and you getting this far in the videos or the book shows that you are ready to put some effort and energy to making change,so congratulations for that! I just want to re encourage you to keep reminding yourself that hey let’s not get discouraged,let’s not feel like it’s too late,let’s not feel like I can’t do this, if I put effort and energy and practice into it I can make positive changes. Now is the only time you can make a positive change you can’t make a positive change 10 years ago, you can’t make a positive change 10 years from now, now is the only time you have power to be able to do take some action and do anything, and that’s where mindfulness comes into. Mindfulness is recognition and tolerance of the present moment and by being more mindful we do just that we increase our ability to tolerate what’s going on in the present moment which helps us be able to see and recognize more things that are going on in that moment including our thinking and our responses to situations and that’s really what this boils down to ,we want to be able to sit and notice and make different decisions each moment, not just on what we do but how we think about ourselves, if we typically revert to self criticism when things get difficult whenever we make a mistake, if we can practice being more mindful being more aware maybe we can start catching ourselves and making a different choice and turning our mind towards something more motivating more encouraging more positive and that’s really what this practice breaks down to so identifying what gets in the way what causes us to not have a very positive a very loving view of ourselves seeing that recognizing it and then choosing making a choice that says “Hey!, maybe I can do a little bit better.”
Mindful Ways to Tackle Obstacles to Self-Love
So there’s some obstacles that typically contribute to getting in the way of us feeling better about ourselves, feeling positive about ourselves, things that happen to us that don’t feel great and what happens is when we’re feeling bad sometimes, instead of seeing that as the response to the situation and what’s going on, turning it into an identity or criticism of ourselves, we must be a bad person or inadequate or not deserving of peace and contentment and joy and fulfillment. If we’re feeling this way and that’s just not true, but there are some things that can contribute to us concluding that even though it’s not true. Mindfulness can help us address those things and see them for what they are in the moment. So some examples, first of all stress, so stress in and of itself by itself isn’t necessarily good or bad it’s necessary it’s useful because stress is attached to whatever it is we’re doing that requires effort and energy so if we are going through a difficult situation a crisis we’re going to feel stressed because we need focus effort and energy in order to handle the situation but we also feel stress with wonderful things like going on vacation, planning a wedding, planning a party, starting a family there’s stress involved with that all. Stress is trying to motivate us , saying “Hey! this is important let’s stay focused on top of it!” unmanaged stress that is not tied to anything that we can control, not doing things to relieve the stress after a situation is handled that could cause it to build up anxiety is related and similar anxiety works the same way anxiety if there’s something worrying something very important our anxiety is a useful tool it makes it so we don’t let things slide and say, oh whatever right no we want a little bit more I says let’s give you a little bit more motivation to handle this problem it needs to be handled if you don’t handle it things will turn out worse what happens though is we start getting anxious over things that aren’t happening right now things that already happened things that we anticipate may or may not happen you know projecting ourselves into the future assuming that things are happening people are doing things or feeling a certain way about us and not necessarily backed up by any evidence just a lot of assumptions or fears it being used for something right in front of us that we can address and take care of that’s useful it gives us the energy and focus to be able to do it sitting in a place where we can’t do any possible thing about it or there’s not even any indication that the situation is real or going on or going to go on and us feeling excited about that well there’s no way we’re for it to go right so whether it’s stress or anxiety if we are being mindful what we can do is recognize that am I thinking about a past event and wishing it would have gone differently is that causing me anxiety because the body’s telling me oh that past event it didn’t go the way you want here’s some anxiety to help you solve it except happened 5 years ago nothing we could do about it right or the 5 years from now right where am I gonna be 5 years from now I’m so worried about it well the only effect you have on where you’re gonna be 5 years from now is what you do right now it’s the only effect you have right so there’s nothing to do right now or if the problem you’re trying to solve is hypothetical not really anywhere for the anxiety to go and without awareness we just let that run we just let that anxiety run and run and run and build up and then we wonder why we’re having a bad day right but with mindfulness as soon as we can notice that we’re doing that we can decide to make a different choice all right what’s something right now I can focus my energy on is this a actual event that’s actually happening or am I anticipating or worrying that it could happen do I have any evidence to point to the fact that this is something I should be worried about right now things like that we can ask ourselves those questions and be a little bit more effective in managing and the act of breathing getting out of our heads and being in the moment in and of itself is relaxing it’s relaxing just in and of itself so it takes it down a notch of kind of the energy we got built up to kind of respond and react so mindfulness helps with addressing that sometimes sadness is another natural emotion anytime that we experience loss our emotional attachment to the thing we lost is severed and we are going to feel a feeling and that’s perfectly appropriate we should not let the things we’re emotionally attached to go away willy nilly right so we have a built in mechanism to let us know hey something’s going on we don’t like me if there’s something we can do about let’s do something about it right but again it’s good until there’s too much of it just like a lot of things in life and when the overwhelming grief sadness kick in we get very depressed and then our motivation goes down because hey if we’re feeling really sad and really bad why bother that motivation gets too low it could get to clinical levels people stop putting effort and energy into even basic things taking care of themselves getting out of bed going a job personal hygiene stuff like that goes by the wayside because motivation has gotten just that low right unfortunately if it gets really really serious they say you know what I’m not motivating to do this life thing anymore and they hurt themselves or take their own life so hopefully there’s some intervention before that but with mindfulness what we could do is we can allow ourselves to have a fuller view of the situation what we lost does hurt what do we still have you know what you know was it something that you know maybe we didn’t like it but maybe it was the proper thing to happen for it to go away you know stuff like that we can assess that and also help us come to acceptance how can I accept this new reality without whatever it is that I lost in it how can I build up a fulfilling life with that or it could just help us feel the feeling that we need to feel because we experience the loss it can help us tolerate it and let that natural process of feeling grief and sadness over what we lost Run its course And then it not be as intense and interfering with our lives anymore Because we allowed it to do what it needs to do could influence us to make a choice such as seeking help or seeking support or reaching out and talking to somebody about it so all sorts of things happen if we can stay aware if we could tolerate what’s going on for a little bit and help us make a different choice so a lot of people have experienced serious things like traumas traumas were very intense or dangerous or just more extraordinary than normal situation happened where maybe their safety was in danger life was in danger it took a lot of effort energy and resources to navigate there is significant losses or something something really difficult and terrible happened and as difficult and terrible as that situation was what makes it more difficult and terrible is if we keep responding to that situation long after it happens and there’s a could be diagnosed with PTSD or some other trauma related disorder because hey we’re still responding as if the traumas happening long after we’re perfectly safe and everything’s fine the cells in our body are doing it as a survival mechanism they want to make sure that hey we’re not in danger anymore but if it’s gotten to the point where it’s responding in situations that are perfectly safe not dangerous then some intervention might be necessary to do it so this book’s not meant to treat any of that but what it can do what I do want to point out is that for example I’m trained in exposure therapy and there’s many other trauma therapies that are great all of them that I’m familiar with have some sort of need to be in the present moment and learn how to experience and tolerate the distress of processing and getting through it until we can stabilize and have less response to situations as if they were dangerous when they really aren’t so what mindfulness does it helps us really assess what’s going on really recognize what our physical responses are and be able to put those together and notice how it’s not necessarily not necessary or useful in this moment because the situation doesn’t call for it anytime a dangerous situation calls for responding as if you’re in a dangerous situation that’s exactly what needs to happen every other situation it doesn’t need to happen and if it is happening in situations where it doesn’t need to happen that’s that’s very interfering and so being mindful what’s going on and being able to get through it can vastly improve somebody’s experience so mindfulness helps with all these type of things that because feeling anxious feeling over stressed feeling depressed all the time dealing with difficulty and trauma after a while it interferes with our quality of life and how could it not make us start feeling bad about ourselves if that’s what we experience over a long period of time it’s very easy to turn it into our identity this is just who I am I’m not capable of feeling good I’m not capable of feeling at peace or believe that fulfillment is possible if for a significant period of time.We’re feeling these difficulty emotions that’s kind of how mindfulness addresses some of the barriers to positive feelings about ourselves.
Self esteem – Self confidence – Self worth
So let me take a moment and talk about some phrases that may be kind of confusing by what I mean by them are they interchangeable they are self esteem self confidence and self worth right so are they the same thing and I’d say they’re similar they’re close they overlap in my definition there’s a little bit difference between the 3 so with self esteem basically what I’m talking about is your perception of your value to the world is the world a better place with me in it am I a good person to know self esteem right I mean a good high self esteem hey I feel like the world the universe is a better place I’m a contributor to it by me being here low self-esteem you feel quite the opposite self confidence so confidence in your skills and abilities to be effective and perform right so if I am really confident in my abilities to play quarterback I might go try out for NFL football team for example right because I’m really confident that hey I could probably make the team right self worth my worthiness do I deserve fulfillment positive things beneficial things in my life and from other people right so in thinking about these things the little nuances between the 3 obviously developing a greater sense of self love hopefully all 3 of these things get go up go more to the positive side and where the mindfulness comes in obviously invalidating beliefs things that support the idea that you shouldn’t have value in yourself you shouldn’t be confident in your availities the mindfulness helps us mindfully notice when those things are going on and like I said before make a decision in that moment if that’s the best thing for us right now if that’s what we want to do if that’s where our goals and values align does it align with the thinking we’re having right now so just a little side note on that there are some questions about the difference between those phrases and that’s my best explanation other people may differ and that’s perfectly okay.
Chronic Pain and Anger
So stress anxiety depression experiencing trauma having low self confidence low self esteem low feelings of self worth those are all barriers to self love feeling if you’re having a greater sense of self love final 2 that I want to talk about today there’s obviously plenty of things that could get in the way but the final 2 I want to talk about today some of the things that tend to make people feel bad about themselves in my experience one chronic pain chronic physical distress so maybe that could be from things you were given at birth with your body and your physical state injuries that you sustained throughout your life diseases or other physical ailments that have accelerated the deterioration of your body those are very difficult those are very difficult to tolerate and manage and it’s reasonable for a person to not feel great if that’s what they’re experiencing especially if there’s on top of that the frustration of trying to get it treated and nothing working right or the frustration of it interfering with their ability to do things that they up until now I’ve found pretty fulfilling like physical activity or sports or even just you know playing with their kids or grandkids or something like that so obviously this is a very difficult thing to to experience and manage and have positive feelings about yourself if you’re experiencing that so the pain itself it’s difficult it’s hard it interferes with functioning and life what we can do with the mindfulness is address any story that we’re attaching to the pain any story about ourselves who we are the universe things that we say to ourselves because hey this is the challenge that we were given in our experience here having to overcome pain in our physical body it’s not an identity you’re not it it is something that you’re dealing with that you’re managing a trait that you have but who you are as a person still very valuable as valuable as anybody else in my opinion so we don’t want to think you to start thinking yourself as less of a person because you have a particular trait that makes physical activity difficult and then experiencing the physical pain in and of itself resistance makes things more intense more intolerable when it’s happening and there’s also the thinking and feeling that this should not be happening I hate that this is happening how dare this be happening that makes it more difficult where pain is pain it’s not fun in any setting but full acceptance being able to be in the moment being able to tolerate it being able to not offer that resistance that helps that helps that helps be able to manage it that helps be able to get through it a lot of times if you’re engaged in a meditation practice and you’re guided by a teacher or something like that they’ll tell you it’s like hey whenever you’re in a sitting position and things start getting uncomfortable instead of resisting it and thinking it’s bad if you can focus your awareness in on it and really just kind of accept it kind of say hey that’s part of it it becomes more tolerable it by no means doesn’t become pleasurable or anything like that but it becomes more tolerable so learning to use mindfulness to manage the things that are ailing you can help it make it more tolerable and what it can also do is help you focus on being effective in that moment right instead of spending and burning a lot of energy in to resisting or saying hey this shouldn’t be okay let’s accept that this is what am I gonna do about it what’s the best way I could do about it what’s the most fulfilling time I can have even if I’m feeling this way right or it could tell us hey time to take a break time to sit down time to ask for some assistance time to go back to the doctor because something’s different you know I’m really aware and really knowledgeable about what my body does and how it responds and this is a little bit different so maybe I want to go talk somebody about it mindful awareness can help us make those type of decisions even if we’re dealing with something very difficult like chronic pain and then last but not least there’s anger anger so anger causes people to do very hurtful and damaging things to other people it can it can influence people to make that choice to do very hurtful and damaging things to other people just like all these other emotions I talk about anger is a natural human response and it serves a purpose if something is happening that we feel like should not be happening it has a detrimental effect on us or the potential to have a detrimental effect on us we want to be motivated to be assertive stand up for ourselves and try to take action to either keep it from happening or request a repair or compensation that we need because it did happen or at the very least let the person know we don’t want it to happen again right that’s a good thing we want to be able to do those things so anger is what helps us motivate it what we don’t want to do is do things that violate other people’s rights or autonomy yelling screaming demeaning other people and of course doing things that cause physical harm to other people that’s not okay how angry we get that’s not okay and typically after an angry outburst our remorse that we feel afterwards is proof that hey that behavior does not go along with our values being able to be mindful of the signs that our anger is increasing and intensifying is very important any anger management course or treatment that I’ve done that’s the base basic part of it is hey let’s let’s start recognizing what starts happening when you get angry and typically we find a lot of people have whenever they get angry the same things start happening same physical responses start happening grinding your teeth tensing your muscles either getting really loud or getting really quiet starting to talk real fast starting to talk real slow or not talk at all heart racing temperature rising sweating all those type of things the different type of things people experience and then they also can describe the type of thinking that happens when they start getting angry and yeah the people who have the most problem with anger in my experience typically identify some really aggressive thinking that starts happening as soon as they get angry right and and lo and behold that precedes some aggressive action and that gets them in trouble right so you guessed it being mindful helps us recognize it and helps us intervene earlier helps us notice oh I’m getting angry and starting to really get intense let me make a choice right now to help manage this so I could be as effective as I can counting to 3 counting to 3 when you get angry what that does is that gives you a moment to be mindful of what’s happening and gives you an extra moment to make an effective decision and not one that’s going to result in negative consequences for you or another person or both down the road so that’s another way that mindfulness helps address things that help that get in the way of us feeling positive about ourselves because if our anger is hard to manage and it keeps getting us in situations where we suffer negative consequences then it’s real easy for us to start believing that that’s just us we’re not we’re out of control I just don’t know what to do I just get so angry and I explode and I do this and then this negative consequence happens these relationships I have end or legal consequences or physical consequences or stuff like that or I just do things that I know every other second of the day I know is wrong to do and I don’t want to do but when I’m angry I do them so yeah if a person is continually experiencing that then feeling starting to feel bad about themselves makes sense so that’s the way using mindfulness to address anger can help us prevent that feeling and hopefully start feeling the reverse hey I am a good person I stand up for myself when I need to but I also treat other people the way I feel like they should be treated that’s a confident ,confident point of view right so that’s what we’re trying to help everybody get to easier said than done at times I get really angry too right but if we can be more mindful and make ourselves aware of what’s going on in that moment we give ourselves more of an opportunity to make a better choice.
Self-Love is not Narcissism
so we don’t want the barriers to feeling good about ourselves get in the way and hopefully we develop some skills and ability to recognize those and intervene so they don’t get in the way another thing I want to address is the idea is like Hey Joel sometimes I get the question of hey you know I don’t want to be narcissistic I don’t want to be full of myself you know is that is that what we’re doing here am I am I gonna turn into a jerk am I gonna turn into somebody who doesn’t care about other people is that is that what you mean by self love the answer is no so you know a lot of times we hear the value of certain traits such as humility and and putting other people first and and and I I agree I agree being humble being thinking of other people and serving other people and doing things to contribute to bettering the lives of other people is wonderful things to do wonderful things to do the analogy I use a lot with my client is when you’re flying on an airplane about to take off they’re going over all the safety protocols with you and they talk about the oxygen mask above you and the instructions are put yours on first put your oxygen mask on first and the logic behind that is if you’re there and you have a young child with you or somebody that needs assistance if you’re messing around trying to get theirs on and you don’t get theirs on and then you pass out and they pass out now the flight crew has 2 people to take care of right the basic idea is that you are a greater benefit to other people when you’re taking care of yourself when you’re taking care of yourself you taking care of yourself is a greater benefit to other people when you’re not taking care of yourself then that means other people have to fill in what you’re not doing and part of taking care of yourself is it is just this helping to build a positive and confident and a greater sense of self love it’s part of taking care of yourself because remember we talked a lot about motivation motivation feeling bad about yourself is not motivating so if you do it in a healthy way and feel really good about yourself and your abilities and your capabilities then that is a greater benefit to other people your set of values and what type of person you are that’s what’s going to make you turn that into doing good and serving other people and giving back and stuff like that that’s what’s going to make that happen and also what I’ve found is that the people who treat other people the worst are people who aren’t taking care of themselves people who deep down don’t feel good about themselves their behavior is designed to bring other people down or take distraction away from to things that they feel inadequate or bad about so by all means I do believe that doing these type of things working through this workbook building a greater sense of self love actually helps everybody else out because you are a more valuable contributor to this experience to this dimension to this universe to to to god’s plan if you will because you’ve done the things you need to do to build yourself up so my encouragement to you is to see how a fully functioning fully confident fully aware and believing of your ability self can actually be a benefit and and and and not allow invalidating beliefs like oh well you know if I if I get work on self love too much I’ll become a narcissist not let those things take hold and creep in.
Self-Love is within Reach
So we’ve gone over a few of the things few of the barriers that may get in a way of feeling a greater sense of self love and how we hope to use mindfulness in the coming chapters to help address those things you know I want to just continue to encourage you that hey, this is within reach, this is possible like I said the beginning of this chapter, it’s never too late. And a couple other things you know, vulnerability is a sign of strength so really examining the things that have been bothering you deep down, that maybe you don’t like looking at exposing those things and being a little bit vulnerable that’s actually a sign of strength right we like to think that strength is being stoic and having a hard face all the time and not letting any weakness show, well that’s not my opinion. My opinion is that “hey, being able to have it show and have it be exposed and be able to face it, and do something about it , I think that’s real sign of strength” and being really honest about ; “hey, you know what, I do have these thoughts and I do have these feelings and I do struggle here and there. That’s a gift you give yourself, and the reason it’s a gift is because you can’t address a problem if it’s not acknowledged, recognized or if it’s hidden, so by being honest, by letting it be known as like, “Hey, I really do need to work on this I really do need to make some changes in this area” that’s a gift to yourself, because you’re giving yourself the opportunity to get better results and make changes. And my encouragement to is give it time, you know the Grand Canyon was built with drops of water, just needed some time to do it right, so you’re not trying to dig out the Grand Canyon but what you are doing is trying to turn maybe a lifetime of thinking and responses and behaviors around so it. it’s not gonna happen tonight but it can happen if you keep at it, if you keep chipping away at it and throughout this whole process increasing the belief that you’re worth it and that’s going to increase the motivation.So in the workbook I have a page there where you set some goals, set some goals for yourself , really thinking about what it is, what improvements you want to see, what things you want to be different in your life. If you’re able to have some success in these areas and hopefully those can help keep you motivated and keep putting in the work toward this , So these first few chapters we kind of laid the groundwork, now we’re going to get into actually applying it actually what we’re talking about so we’re going to break down each of the principles of mindfulness I talked about and have some exercises and practices associated with each one of those that are designed to help us increase our feeling of self love feel better about ourselves be more motivated and have that turn into a more fulfilling experience.
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