Mind of Snaps - Positivity Podcast | Ep. 36 - "You Poor Thing"

Welcome to "You Poor Thing" - the 36th Episode of the Mind of Snaps Positivity Podcast!

This is a special podcast series that is separate from the regular Mind of Snaps Podcast, with a new release (typically) posted every Thursday for Patreon supporters!

It is my goal to create as much positive & encouraging content as I can during these intense, uncertain times we're faced with. 2020 has been so much more than anyone expected it to be, and nobody should have to take it on alone. The only way I can continue to do so, is with your help. Become a patron, subscribe to me on Twitch, you can send a tip which I'll turn into an investment... or you can simply share my content on social media. Every little bit helps me be able to continue to create the podcasts and other mindfulness & positivity based content in the future.

The format of these podcasts are forever evolving to reflect current events from personal to global, so I hope you are enjoying them. Please reach out to me if you have any suggestions!

Hang in there, friends... we're all in this together.

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You can find new Positivity Podcasts on Patreon every Monday, and as of September 2020 - every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, & Stitcher!

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Jessy (Mind Of Snaps / SheSnaps)

www.MindofSnaps.com

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Transcript

Unknown Speaker : 0:00

Hello, my

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lovely friends, Happy Monday, or you know, whatever day of the week it is for you or whatever day you think it is while listening to this. I know times are a bit intense and confusing right now. So if you honestly have no idea that's totally cool, too happy to convey to you yay for today. Of course, it is incredibly important that I take a few minutes to thank you all for your continued support. I appreciate you all continuing to check out these positivity podcasts. And I really appreciate all the feedback that I've been receiving about them both publicly and privately. I am insanely grateful to be healthy and safe at home and to be able to continue doing my work which is so important to me. I could not do all the things that I am working on. Without your support, and I will forever forever be thankful. Ooh, and heads up, I have added some lower tiers to the Patreon. for regular live video chats through zoom. The last one we did was incredible. Thank you again, everyone who joined us, and I'm really looking forward to the one coming up on the 11th as well. If you intend to attend, please try to grab and read the book Who Moved My Cheese before. It's a brief book, and I think that you will all appreciate the messages and the opportunities for reflection that it presents. In addition to our video chats to check in on ourselves. I have also added the option to join for a silly video chat where we just chill and smoke and hang. Since you are listening to this it means you are in the $10 tier at least so you have access to both. Just make sure you let me know you want to attend in advance like Get you with all the links. I have not scheduled the first stoner chat, but I will get on that and get it on the calendar very soon. Before we jump into this podcast, I just want to take a moment to give a heads up that there is a trigger warning for self harm. Anyway, moving on. Today, I want to talk to you all about compassion.

Unknown Speaker : 2:24

Yay.

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I've been kind of reiterating my belief that we should all be widening our circle of compassion to include all beings. But I don't know if I have emphasized enough just how important it is that you send that compassion to yourself

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first.

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If you cannot be kind to yourself, it is straight up going to be so much more challenging for you to be kind to others. Now I'm sure at least one of you will listen to this and think bullshit. I basically hate myself, but I'm always nice to people. Don't get it twisted bud. I know this seems strange and maybe even contradictory. But I'm not trying to say you're going to be a raging asshole to everyone if you don't love yourself, but you will 100% get hung up on shit. Whether you keep it all internal or not. You will have moments where you find yourself struggling to forgive others for something you would have also struggled to forgive yourself for. You will find yourself reacting with anger towards others, when met with situations that mirror things you are angry with yourself over. So much of what we see in the world is based on our own internal state. It is based on our projections. When you begin seeing yourself through the lens of compassion, it is so much easier to let it extend outward, it naturally just keeps going out. The more you go inward, the easier it is. To love everything outside of yourself. It seems so strange to imagine that the more time you spend becoming aware of what goes on in your mind, the easier it is to love others the way we all deserve to be loved, which is unconditionally, the more you start to view yourself as that which you are everything. Rather than viewing yourself based on what your ego wants you to believe is you, the easier it is to look out at others and see them as extensions of yourself and everything. None of us are our roles. None of us. Our, our our thoughts. None of us are our bodies. None of us are our brains. We are everything. We are all connected. In this world. We may have taken form.

Unknown Speaker : 4:51

Yes,

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but the thing behind that the thing that really is us, that is formless. That is your true nature and it's just so bad. And so beautiful. Imagine the ocean. Think of the large body of water that appears to only be one massive thing. Now imagine that this ocean extended some consciousness into each wave it produced, the wave would begin to grow from the source and would believe itself to be something different due to its growing form. And it's now elevated state above this massive body of water. As the wave grows taller and wider, not only does it continue to reinforce this idea of separateness, but it also begins to really fear the moment when it comes crashing down. The wave knows from the beginning of its life, that it will eventually come down but the wave begins to fear this concept because it starts to believe that when it comes crashing down, it will cease to exist which somehow means it never mattered in the first place. The wave isn't realizing that it has still been the ocean the entire time. When that crust falls and the wave meets the water again, it will simply be returning to its original form. To begin the process all over again. We are all waves. We are all coming from the same body of water which we are still connected to. This connection to our source still feeds us and nourishes us and helps us to continue to grow to great heights and learn so much. Even though we believe ourselves to be separate from it or separate from nature or life. We are nature. We are live all of us. Do not look to other waves, and compare yourself to them, for in reality, you are all the ocean anyway. What does it matter what form you take temporarily? It is this knowledge of unity, that we must work hard to maintain in our lives, we must take the time to remind ourselves that we are all one. When we help ourselves, we help others. When we are compassionate to ourselves, we are also learning to be compassionate towards others. If you're connecting to the idea of unity, but not to the idea of extending that compassion outward to all beings, I totally understand. It's really fucking hard. You'll see others who have wronged you or who continue to do wrong to others, and it will be so easy to believe them to be monsters. Separate From yourself separate from all other good things in life, extending compassion to them would probably not be the place I would advocate starting. But if you hope to know peace in your lifetime, learning to love Even those who harm you

Unknown Speaker : 8:18

will be a crucial step on the path. And keep in mind loving them doesn't mean you welcome them back into your life and you start having tea parties regularly, you can love someone from a distance. As I said at the beginning, though, without first beginning this practice of working to love and have compassion for yourself, you just simply will not make it to the step where you can then send that compassion out to everyone. There are ways to practice self compassion, affirmations, meditation, practicing gratitude journaling, spending more time in front of the mirror, being deliberately kind to yourself. There are so many options. Forgive yourself for all of your past mistakes every single fucking one of them and accept yourself as you are now. You are beautiful. You are strong, you are enough. There is nothing wrong with you, my friend, you aren't broken. You don't have a blackened soul or some menacing monsters deep within your heart, except yourself as someone who fell victim to patterns they may not have even known existed until recently. As I've said before, this is not your fault. But it is your problem. Didn't structure society to create these ideologies which run rampant in our minds? You didn't cause any of the abuse or trauma that has come your way. You didn't shape your perception or decide what your sense of self should look like? All of these things were to say for you in your mind just went along for the ride.

Unknown Speaker : 10:05

Let that and now

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meditation and mindfulness practice can show us our patterns. bringing more awareness into every moment of your day gives you the ability to influence this complex system we call a human being. more awareness also gives you the ability to see that you are not your roles. You are not your thoughts, you are not your mistakes, your memories or your trauma. You are everything.

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Let the rest go.

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Focus on where you are right now and where you'd like to go from here. For any of you listening to this thinking, she makes it sound so easy. Trust me it's not but it is simple, become more aware, and then choose what to do with what you see

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the art self compassion is something I've been working on for a while now. And I want to show you that there truly is hope. You can override the patterns that exist in your mind. Now, you can train your mind to see you as the beautiful being that you are.

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When I was younger,

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I struggled heavily with self harm.

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I remember being in the hospital after my suicide attempt at 15. My arms were covered with tons of small scars and cuts that I could no longer hide. I was walking out of the cafeteria One morning, as I had been in inpatient care for nearly two weeks after my attempt, and one of the people who was supposed to be a mental health support aide there, grabbed my wrist aggressively on my way out of the door. He pulled me towards him and turned my arm upwards so he could look closer at my scars. With a look of disgust. I will never, ever forget He said out loud to the room not even making eye contact with me. Oh, I don't know why people do this to themselves. Don't you know how ugly that looks. I left the room ashamed and seething with anger

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course I

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knew these scars were ugly. I didn't create them because I thought they were cute. I was doing it because it felt like it was my only relief at the time. I wasn't aware of any healthy coping mechanisms. So my way of handling everything was to bottle it up or cause some form of harm to myself or something around me. This thing I had already felt ashamed of had just been thrown in my face within days of a suicide attempt. I went in there hating myself and came out hating myself harder, but being better at hiding it. I had a special moment while I was hospitalized with My brother, which I speak of in other podcasts, so I won't go into it now for sake of time, but I came out of the hospital angry and bitter, but for the sake of my family decided I'd stopped self harming and do whatever it took to stay in this life for them. I did not want to be here though. I had been hospitalized at the age of 15 and at for the next 15 years. Plus, I continued to bear the burden of the anger and self loathing that only increased after my stay. I no longer self harmed, but

Unknown Speaker : 13:35

damn did I hate myself.

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Looking in the mirror, I felt gross. When I noticed the fading scars on my arms, I felt angry and disgusting. I remembered the way that man had looked at me and imagined everyone else looking at me

Unknown Speaker : 13:51

in the same way.

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It hurt.

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Now, let's flash forward to today. I have been working diligently on myself. I've been learning to love myself and have compassion for myself and everything I've faced in my life. I've recognized that while it was not my fault that I developed those unhealthy coping mechanisms, it was my problem and it was up to me to correct my mind has been getting better and better at supporting me. And I can honestly say today that I love myself. I can't deny that my brain sometimes still has difficulty saying these words but I feel it I know that I do. I love myself.

Unknown Speaker : 14:36

The other day I took

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a shower. I have a lovely shower ritual. Now that usually leaves me feeling very calm and spacious. I move slowly. I listen to peaceful music or just the sound of the water. I leave the lights off so that the only natural light coming in is what I have and

Unknown Speaker : 14:55

I light a candle or two.

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After my shower, I slept Put on lotion while standing naked in front of the mirror. Yep, Nikki, and I take this time to smile at myself. When I notice unkind thoughts arise about my body, I accept them, I see that they're there, it's okay. And then I counter them with my own thoughts and gratitude for all that my body does for me. After this particular shower, while standing there applying lotion, I began to put lotion on my left arm. This is where many of my scars are still visible. They are smaller now and faint, but still there. And over the years, noticing them randomly, has been able to cause that self loathing feeling to arise again. This day, though, as I loosened up my arm, I stopped still, for a moment as I noticed the scars. I ran my fingers over the barely visible lines and suddenly felt so much self compassion. It was all almost overwhelming. I stood there, staring at those lines, remembering the young girl who created them. And I cried. I cried for her. I cried for me. I cried for all of the others who had done similar things to their bodies out of desperation. The tears felt like they were made of pure love. It wasn't sadness necessarily, though I do think that sadness was a part of it. It was relief, joy and compassion all mixed into one. This was a first for me. Even after a couple of years of major progress in my mental health and my spirituality, this particular moment really hit me hard and has stuck with me since I felt this moment of thinking. You pour thing towards myself as a child

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towards this poor

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15 year old, literally a fucking child

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who hated herself.

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When I left the bathroom and I continued on with my day

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I became aware almost immediately that the feeling you pour thing had really stuck with me. But it wasn't pity and it wasn't being directed at just me anymore. Suddenly I was thinking that towards everyone. I feel that right now for all of you. You poor thing. You just don't even know how beautiful you are.

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You poor thing. You just don't know another way.

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You poor thing. You deserve to feel loved.

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You deserve to see that love has to start with you.

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My interactions with everyone after that moment, we're even more special than usual, though. I don't quite know how To describe the difference, it almost feels as though that moment really reminded me that we're all standing on uneven ground, but not all of us know it. There is a practice in Buddhism called tonglen, Tong Tong Lin that I learned about only recently and it seems to really coincide with this, this experience I just told you about. The idea is that when someone is suffering, whether it's you or another person, you do tonglen for them through a simple breathing exercise. You breathe in, and imagine that you're breathing in all the pain of the world, all the sorrow hurt, anger, whatever. It can be something that you see in someone else that they're struggling with, or something that you're struggling with yourself. Either way, you don't limit this in breath to only their pain, but you open it up to everyone in the world who is feeling similarly. After you take that deep inhale, where you imagine yourself opening up and taking in all of the pain of the world, you then exhale slowly and imagine yourself breathing out relief for all those suffering. You imagine that in your breath you have whatever it is they need, compassion, love, energy, patience, joy, whatever you exhale it not just for the one you are hoping to help or for yourself, but for all beings. In this practice, we can remind ourselves that we are all one that we all suffer, and we all crave relief from it. So this week, practice tonglen for yourself and others. Take the time to really check in on your beliefs towards yourself, and then think on how that impacts your beliefs and feelings. Others, you are enough as you are today. Show yourself that through compassionate acts and care.

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Take this time to continue to work

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on widening your circle of compassion to all beings in the universe and be kind to yourself.

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You got this.

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Go manifest some dope shit.