You Were Born Worthy! Stepping Out Of Self Judgement

We pull apart the quiet rules that make us tie our self-worth to likes, reactions, and being seen as “normal.” We share a real moment of posting something vulnerable, panicking, and deleting it, then use that story to rebuild a healthier sense of value that does not depend on the internet.
• noticing the gap between curated online life and real life chaos 
• sharing the deleted channeled message story and the fear of being judged 
• unpacking how staged content and algorithms shape what we think we “should” be 
• naming the approval trap and how it makes us confuse love with reaction 
• exploring why we label people as “nuts” to avoid discomfort 
• practicing better questions like what am I seeking and what is the purpose 
• choosing values over rules and stepping out of judgment 
• using reframes like I am not what I do and I am the doer 
Next Saturday, there will be a channeled message for the community. For at least a couple of hours. No, no, no, it’s staying up, it’s staying up.

Transcript

Rain Ducks And Monday Brains

SPEAKER_02 0:10

We are on the line.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Oh, it's raining some more. Which is better than me saying it's snowing some more.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

And it's getting warm and the water is high, and the ducks are out there doing their dance. The male ducks are trying to get the female ducks' attention. They have this strange thing where they tilt their head way back and look at the sky. And the female ducks just sort of swim around ignoring. Kind of like it's like every other species. Someone's out there doing a dance trying to get attention.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Get out of my way.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

It's not working so much. Until it does. Yeah. And then everybody's happy. Sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Oh my. Yeah. So we are. We have Monday brains. Also, just a quick note if we have to have an intermission or something during this podcast, it's only because the plumber has showed up and Tyke is losing her mind. So just in case. Just in case. But you'll you'll know because I'll say, okay, we're going for an intermission, everyone. And you can choose to stay or go if you want.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

We live in such an Instagram world. You know, here we are doing our podcast, and we're talking about the lake and the ducks and how beautiful it is and how wonderful our life is. But you know, our pump for our well is not working right. And we got to have a plumber. And it's, you know, you don't put those kinds of things up on Instagram. Here's my plumber, come to fix my well. I wonder how much he's gonna charge me.

unknown 2:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Here we are presenting our little Instagram world of heavenly perfection. And in a moment, our dog is gonna lose her mind barking.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

And we're gonna be caught up in a flurry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Yeah.

Deleting A Message And Feeling Worthy

SPEAKER_02 2:24

So today we're gonna go through, we think, rules about self-worth. We've talked about a lot of rules over the last week. Rules from society, general rules from our whole consciousness as a society. Because some rules are imposed on society, and some rules, you know, we we keep up because the Joneses have the rules as well next door, right? And so we're sort of making our way towards this idea of the rules we have about our own worth. And I don't know how it ties in. I think Les can help me with this. I've been thinking about it this morning. So, okay. I'm a little embarrassed about this, but I think that it was a lesson learned. Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

I was gonna say we can only hope, but then I thought I probably shouldn't say that.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um so was it Saturday? Saturday morning lesson. I were like pulling cards. I got extra cards out of our card box, our Oracle cards and tarot cards. And so we pulled like five different cards and we were feeling it, we were channeling. And over the last week, I thought, I really I'm feeling drawn to channel for the school, for the community. So I channeled, I pulled cards specifically for the community, and I channeled from the cards and wrote it all out. And then I I got super judgmental on myself. Now I've channeled lots before. Like I even had an Etsy sale this weekend where I channeled for someone. This is what this is what I do when it when I'm called, right? So anyway, I channeled and got super embarrassed and left it up there. And then late last night, or you know, at bedtime, I was even in bed and I'm like, oh my God, it's so stupid. Like I feel so stupid, self-imposing this rule on myself that I don't even know. I don't even know, but like I deleted it. And it turns out that some people actually wanted to read it and comment on it. And so I've, you know, I thank you for showing me that it is worth, I am worth it. You know, that the message was worth it. But I think it funnily enough, it I think it ties into this whole idea of rules about worth. So it maybe it was meant to happen so that we could open this podcast with this idea. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah, we're in this Instagram world where we feel compelled, we feel compelled to share what we are doing. My head's just filled with thoughts right now. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. When Twitter first came out and it said you can follow what your favorite people, your favorite celebrities are doing. Twitter wanted celebrities to go on Twitter and tell the world what they were doing and little tweets and have people follow other people. And then it became a competition is who has followers and who doesn't have followers. And at one point I remember, well, no, no, really good Twitter people don't follow anybody, but everybody follows them.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

And this migrated into Instagram with our photos, but then the photos started to become staged. And and I think I use this word a lot, but it's the truth of things now. It's becoming curated. When I say curated, I mean we selectively choose what we will share. We have what gets shared with us selectively chosen by an algorithm. What happens is you have this sort of delusional view of life, and from it we have created a whole world of rules around who we should be. Operative word being

How Social Media Curates Reality

SPEAKER_01 7:21

should. What's coming to mind is the time we were on a vacation, we were sitting on a beach, and we were looking down the beach, and there was a group, a group where one person was obviously the subject, and she was a lovely woman in a bikini with her makeup and this long flowing scarfy thing flowing in the wind behind her, and she had a friend, but you know, she could have just as well have been called the makeup artist who was coming in and checking her look and fixing her hair. And there was then a guy with a camera and a phone and a selfie stick and all kinds of things. And you know, she was trying to get that flowing picture where she jumps in the air and the scarf is blowing in the background, and her hair is just right, and she's in the state of perfect joy, floating off the ground on a beautiful Cuban beach, and it was hilarious to watch because they were trying to capture a millisecond, but more importantly, they were trying to manufacture that millisecond because their hair was blowing around and the scarf wouldn't stay still, and at one point they had to run down the beach to grab the scarf again, and the guy's taking pictures and they're getting mad at him because he's not looking the right way when they're taking the picture, and then they finally get one and they're jumping up and down, and then they check, and it's not so good, they got to start again. And we're watching this take place because it's just you know 50 yards from us on this beach, and I don't know if they ever captured that millisecond, right? But it was it was truly a concocted moment that would send a message of how wonderful life can be. And in that whole time they were there at the beach, life was never like that.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

And I'm confident that they followed the same rules that that Hillary follows, which is they posted the picture, and if it didn't get a minimum number of likes, hearts and thumbs ups, my god, they said, Well, that one was a failure, and then they took it down.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Yeah, it was a mixture of a little bit of the likes. Yeah, of course, yeah, it was. It was definitely the likes and stuff. And and it in the end, I think what I I think, oh my gosh, my brain. So yeah, I I thought people are probably thinking I'm nuts. Like in the this is what was the turning point. This was the turning point for me. Was in in the channeled message, there's a there's a point where my guides, which are sort of unnamed galactic type guides, but they say, and this happens in the channeled messages sometimes, is they say, you know, we're gonna get Hillary to do this, or Hillary's asking this, so we wanna explain a little further. And and I thought last night, I was like, oh my god, I'm talking about myself like in the third person, like this is nuts. And that's when I got up and deleted it. So yeah, I definitely have rules about my own um, I don't know, what would you say, abilities or self-judgment?

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Yeah. It's funny. I I point it out because it's it's new, right? I like I like us thinking that there's a new way that we're doing old stuff, very human, very much part of who we are as beings, stuff. And Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, all these different ways of sharing ourselves. And now I suppose it's it's school. Yeah. We have and are constantly developing rules that are pointed at what we're allowed to do and who we're allowed to be, and how we're allowed to express

Chasing Approval Instead Of Love

SPEAKER_01 11:54

that. And it's all flowing out of a need for love. And we've come to a place generation after generation, technology after technology, of rules about how you're allowed to seek love. What is acceptable, how it's acceptable, when it's too much, when it's not enough. But human beings seek love as an appreciation, as an acknowledgement, as an approval for who they are. We see love as a response to stimulus rather than a state of being. And we're always thinking about I'm making a blanket statement that I'm sure some people will object to. I'm gonna say it a different way. Most of us are subject to the need of approval, the need of acceptance. Most of us prioritize that, and our behaviors and our actions coming from a desire to be loving and caring and sharing and giving, and but wanting in response to that loving, caring, sharing, and giving, an acknowledgement that we exist, that we have value, that we are worthy, we have an element of specialness. We want to have that element of specialness, and we're very, very vigilant at paying attention to how other people react and respond. Because it's in those teeny tiny micro-facial expressions and those off the cuff words that we're hoping to find that approval, that acknowledgement, that gift of love in return, to the point where we we twist ourselves and bend ourselves and shape ourselves and get ourselves to the point where we don't even know who we are, because we're busy trying to win that flash of love that doesn't last very long, I suppose, because it's not really love. And we need to learn how to well, we need to learn how to do a lot of things, use a selfie stick, get get the get that picture at the right moment.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

I'm I'm reminded of early in the early days of Facebook, I had a student, she was a grad, and she had a baby, but unfortunately, I don't know if it's unfortunate, but it the her circumstances were such that she was pretty much raising her baby alone. And she had this wonderful picture of her baby asleep on her chest and her asleep on the couch. But you could see her arm, and you could see that she took that picture of herself. And for me, I was overwhelmed with emotion when I saw that picture because I deciphered it quickly that she wanted to capture a beautiful moment, but she had no one there to capture it for her. And she was creating a beautiful moment that wasn't genuinely there. And I had such an aching in my heart for her because she wanted that up on Facebook. She wanted the perception, I suppose. I don't know what her life was really like. We were we were friendly, but you know, I didn't I wasn't involved in her her life, just an observer, as so many of us are now, because Facebook is like that. We're observing each other's lives, capturing milliseconds and sharing them as if those milliseconds represent who and what we are and why we're lovable and why we're good and why we're special.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

It's funny I have well, not funny. I I have a friend who is not even on social media anymore because she went from it's it seems to start out this way where you follow creators because they inspire you, let's say, with the body you want or the foods that you want to eat, or you, you know, the the workout routine that you want. But then for some people, it it it uh backfires on them. So then you're scrolling and you're seeing the body you want and going, I don't have that, right? I can't I can't keep up to that workout routine. And it made her feel feel terrible suddenly scrolling. And so she she just totally got rid of social media. She hasn't been on it in at least two years. But yeah, it's it's really interesting what we do to ourselves. And I think it all does come down to these rules that we have about our worth, but I don't think we look at them as rules, but they sort of are, would you say?

The Should Of Building A Brand

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Well, we have rules stacked on rules stacked on rules, and every society has its own rules based on its own trends and fashions. Yeah, I'm thinking about my son, who's an actor, and he's good at what he does, and he's had some successes, but he doesn't have social media, and he struggles with that because on the one hand, everybody that he works with has social media, and they are curating and creating image and popularity, right? Even to the point where he was in a movie with a woman whose image was completely the result of social media. She wasn't a trained actor, she wasn't a special talented person, though she had tons of talents, and I'm not saying anything bad about her to say that. Her popularity was the creation of social media, and she was in the movie in a cameo because of her enormous popularity, like with millions of followers on social media. All these rules of what it means to be who you should be. And my son struggles with the phrase that people say over and over and over, you should be on Instagram, right? They tell him that over and over and over, and even to the point where I say, you know, like he's he's a fun guy and he likes to be creative. And I say, Well, why don't you put some of that stuff together and put it on YouTube? And and even I see in myself a world of shoulds. And then I watch as an outsider how social media becomes such a mixed blessing for people. You know, think of Mr. Beast. Mr. Beast did an interview, probably the biggest YouTube guy there could ever be. And he did an interview explaining how crappy his life is and how much stress he's under, and how how he questions himself every day, and how he's surrounded by people all the time, constantly looking for the next really big idea. And for me, the first time I saw him, I you know, I hadn't heard about him, and then I heard about him. And what I found to be the most, I suppose, most engaging thing, the thing I noticed, the thing that I was shocked by was just his his appearance of unhappiness. And then to see him interviewed and basically say, Yeah, I'm a pretty unhappy guy.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Yeah, it was kind of sad. Because you you don't see these people like that, right? You see them as these up go, go, go people. And yeah, we never really know what's going on behind the scenes for people, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

And so I think we live in a world where everyone thinks they're supposed to be a content creator. Everybody thinks they're supposed to create the video, the meme, the photograph, the the image, the phrase, the sound bite. Everybody's trying to grab that millisecond that they can use to say I'm good enough.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

They attach their worth the to the photo or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

And these are these are rules that are, you know, it they're really well understood, right? Millions of people are out there posting moments, milliseconds, on all these social media platforms, counting the likes and the followers. For some, it's it's quite, you know, mercenary. It's it's about making money.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

But they're the tiny few, they're the lottery ticket people, they're the one in a million that got a hundred thousand followers. Because that just doesn't happen, right? What really happens, 99 out of every hundred people who put their stuff up there, it's just being shouted into the darkness and then abandoned. You know, these are all rules in our society of they all come back to I'm only lovable because of what I do or what I have or what I've created.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

We could even not not dive into it, but even refer back to the podcast that we did a long time ago, maybe a year or so, about, you know, I am not what I do. Like work. I see it all the time with people who retire. They suddenly just have no idea who they are any longer because they attach their self-worth to their work.

I Am Not What I Do

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yeah, to me, those are the the first two reframes I offer my clients. The first one is I am not what I think. And so it gives us the freedom to really examine and observe what we think. And that is I am not what I do, I am the doer. Because we need to get away from the judgment of what we do. But the rules are there. I mean, the rules, the the layers and layers of rules in our modern society of what makes you good enough. How do I get around them? I think the first step is to observe. The first step is to step back and realize and observe what you're doing, what you're thinking, because these rules are so deeply ingrained, we just do, right? I'm shocked. You know, I've never been a camera guy. I've never been a take-a-lot of pictures guy. And I live in a world where it's much more important to get a picture of this than it is to be in it and enjoy it. Right? Well, why? Ask yourself, but don't ask yourself why. Why requires us to be rational. Right? You ask somebody why. We have a saying at hypnosis, ask why you get a lie. You know, people can justify just about anything. But take that question why and turn it into what am I seeking here? What am I hoping to get out of this? What is the purpose of this? What is my goal?

unknown 24:13

Right?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Which is a really great way to ask why without asking why, because why is an intellectual question, and we can come up with really great answers to why. But you got to get honest with yourself when you say, well, what am I trying to do here? What am I seeking? What am I wanting out of this?

Ask Purpose Not Why

SPEAKER_01 24:33

You know, oftentimes we have these structured beliefs that begin with should, you know, a good person should, and then we have a rule. We value the good person, we value the idea of the good person. What are the values behind our rules? And I think we have to be honest that our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook society has a fundamental rule in it. And the rule is if you want love and respect and appreciation and worth and meaning, it depends on how others react. And nothing could be further from the truth. Your value, your worth, your lovability has nothing to do with what you do. It's a given. But if we all agree that you gotta do something, be something, have something to be worth being a human, to be worthy of your life, to be worthy of your existence. If we all agree with that, then you have this world where everybody's running around trying to be noticed.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

I want to point something out there. I bet you most people probably wouldn't agree if you got them one-on-one.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Agree with what?

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Agree with your worth being tied to what you do or how you are, your Instagram posts. Most, most, you know, would probably have a little extra thought about it and think, no, I you know, I I don't agree actually with that. But I think, like we mentioned last week, there's this sort of society consciousness that we get tapped into and we we just go along with. And then sometimes, you know, the loudest, like we mentioned a couple weeks ago, the loudest voices are the ones that stand out. Sometimes not to our detriment, right? Sometimes the loudest voices aren't what we should be listening to. But it happens anyway, and then it becomes a structure, and it's a structure that we don't even really question until we are talking about it like we are here, I think. You know, I knew this morning that what happened, and I think I do think, you know, I think everything happens for a reason. And I think that the people that read the message on school were meant to read it and take something from it. And even though I deleted it, and yes, I've learned my lesson, I think that it was meant to happen in order for me to hear this, what we're talking about today, and understand where all that was coming from. And but I I didn't until this morning, as we were talking about rules, think that it may have been tied to rules and value, you know. And as we talk about this now, I can start to see how me placing that out there, I don't know if it was yet. I don't know yet if it was tied to like self-worth, but maybe it's all tied together. I don't know flesh is out here. It was there was an element of me placing it out there and immediately thinking, oh my gosh, I hope people don't think I'm nuts. Right. And my interpretation over the weekend, my mind kept telling me, and this is all me, okay, that my mind just kept saying, people are probably reading it and thinking you're crazy, and and and then it just got to a breaking point, right? So is that tied to do you think like it's almost like I'm too close to it? Do you feel like that's tied to self-worth? Oh, this is good in the chat. Labeling others as nuts is about enforcing a rule of normality. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Well, uh, ask yourself, what is the purpose of labeling others as nuts? And the purpose is to feel better. Someone has brought something that makes you uncomfortable. Uncomfortable isn't necessarily a bad feeling, right? But my purpose in labeling them as nuts is to free myself from having to consider what they say. It's to free myself from having to reconsider what I think. What is the purpose of? I think is a really valuable way to examine your shoulds. So much of what we do is I want to be a good person. I want to be a good person, I want to be liked, I want to be appreciated. Well, what's the purpose of being appreciated? And it mostly just shines the light on my own inability to generate for myself an appreciation of myself. I'm gonna offer, because I come back. How do we override this? I think, you know, asking a question, you know, who does this serve? Uh, what is the purpose of this? What what does what is accomplished by this are good questions to break in, break into the cycle, break into the this this thing, this thought form that we might call a rule. Rather than look at rules, look at values. What's important to you? What do you see as personally being important? Now, values can be you know passed down as well. Values are not something that are somehow innately special, they're they continue to be part of your programming. But that also gives you the opportunity to say, well, this rule I have around values, who does that serve? And what is the purpose of that? But I suppose the the big point is to sort of begin this detachment. We we have really successfully over the last at least 5,000 years, put a wonderful, uh wonderfully controlling and effective control mechanism where we have associated what we do with our value, right? What we do and our meaning and our worth.

Who Cares What You Do

SPEAKER_01 31:56

And I'm gonna propose an idea that's gonna sound nuts. What you do is secondary. Who cares? Who cares what you do? Today I had three coffees. I'm drinking my third coffee. Holy coke! Who cares? Everybody's comfortable with saying who cares? Yesterday I sat with my book in a prayerful state, in a meditative state, and I asked for guidance, and I got some, and I wrote it down. Am I nuts? Who cares? Who cares what I do?

SPEAKER_00 32:33

People being concerned with what I do is kind of is kind of wacky. Like be concerned with what you're doing, get right into it, find a way to be really excited, but being concerned about what somebody else does?

SPEAKER_01 32:47

That's really, really backwards. You're walking around in this world, you're walking around with your heart in your hands asking other people to approve of your heart. And they're all busy holding their heart out, asking you to approve of their heart.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

They don't have any room to approve of your heart because they're busy aching about their heart. Everybody's running around saying, look at me, look at me, look at me, and nobody's looking because everybody's busy trying to get other people's attention.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

And it's all flowing from this incredible pain we all suffered, which is, you know, am I worthwhile? Am I good enough? Right. And these are all silly little rules that humans have, that you have to somehow earn love, that you have to somehow deserve, that you somehow have to be worthy of your existence, when in fact your existence is a gift, it's just a gift. Say thank you, have fun with it. And if you want to have purple hair, who cares what the rules are? And if you want to wear that outrageous t-shirt, who cares what the rules are and if you want to sit in nature and avoid other people, who cares what the rules are? And if you want to start your own business, who cares what the rules are? And if you want to spend time in spirit because it brings you peace, who cares what the rules are? I think that we're all chasing something and it already exists. Your worth was established a long time ago, and you can't prove it to somebody, and some other poor human being's thoughts and their own rules and their own confusion is not a basis for your sudden happiness. You know, if some wacky person like me comes along and says, Oh, you're such a beautiful person, you deserve love.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

You deserve love.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Your immediate reaction would be, who the heck is this guy? What the heck is he doing? What a freak. What a weirdo. It's yeah, it's an internal game with a whole bunch of programs. The programs are constantly evolving. Today we live in an Instagram society which didn't even exist 20 years ago. Didn't even exist. The whole idea of social media is brand new and has all kinds of rules, and they all feed back into my silly little human rules about whether or not I'm worthy.

Reframes And A Promise To Post

SPEAKER_02 35:33

So I I want to circle back to what you mentioned. You know, the first step is observing it.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Oh, was that a prompt for me? Yeah. Observe it and see your rule.

SPEAKER_03 35:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Just observe your rule. You see your rule when you ask yourself, what am I trying to accomplish here? What is the purpose of this? And then you'll get some generic statement about being a good person or being a good parent or being a good son, a good daughter, a good friend. Seeking an external approval of your very nature. Detach yourself from what you do. I am not what I do, I am the doer. Sometimes what I do goes well. Sometimes what I do doesn't go so well. I may not have gotten what I was looking for from this. So try again. And the instant you're starting to talk about right and wrong or good or bad, you're into the world of judgment. Back up. Don't go in there. It's ugly. It's not helpful. It's not getting you anywhere. And it's confusing who you are with what you do. It's confusing who you are with what you have. It's an attempt to create for others an image of you. For what purpose? Yeah, I don't know if that helps, but I I think it does.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

I think observing it as we tell clients when they're working with us, once something becomes conscious, sort of bubbles up from the subconscious and becomes conscious, it it has the opportunity to release or change. You know, it's when it's unconscious and subconscious that it's hard to even see. Right?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

That's the magic.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

So I think pulling it up into the conscious, noticing it, observing it is just the first step. And you know, sometimes it could be even the last step. Just noticing it and choosing different, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

So says who? That's a good question to ask.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

I think we ended last week with says who too.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Who does this serve? That's a good question to ask. What is the purpose of this? That's a good question to ask. And then replace that with I am not what I do, I am the doer. I'm learning all the time. And I guess then finish with I am an eternal child of the universe, and nothing can change that. Maybe those are some reframes and thinkable things.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

I'll I'll post them. Uh Les has them written down. I'm gonna post them with the with the podcast. Yeah, what a morning. Lots of learning, and it's not even 8:30 here in Ontario. Yes, have a beautiful day. Thank you everyone for hashing that out with us. Sort of muddling through and moving through that. Next Saturday, there will be a channeled message for the community.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

For at least a couple of hours.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

No, no, no, it's staying up, it's staying up. I've learned my lesson. So have a beautiful week. We will see you later.