The Balcony Tapes
The Balcony Tapes
Breaking the Chains of Self-Doubt
Is it possible to do bad things for the right reason? Is it possible to break the world around us if we understand that there needs to be a new one? Not a God complex, but an understanding of the reality around us. Let's discuss.
Fuck insecurity. That's what today's episode is about. Fucking insecurity, the stupid, unbelievable mind fuck of an idea, the emotions that we feel behind it. Because, to break it down, what the fuck is insecurity? All it really is is situations and traumas that we faced at some point in our fucking lives that, even though they weren't true and it was another person's own bullshit that they put onto us, we now carry it because it was such a fundamental point of our lives.
Speaker 1:Like I grew up super fucking poor. Right and insecurity was never having money. So then I get money and then I spend the money more than what I have, faster than what I need to, so I don't feel as poor. But then I'm back in the same place and if a car gets declined or something's not right, I get super fucking insecure about it and it's like it's you're doing it to yourself, but it's from this own bullshit situation that happened, that had nothing to do with me. But yet here I am perpetuating the same fucking cycle.
Speaker 1:Or if someone feels really insecure about you know, their look is because at some point in their lives someone made a comment and it stuck with them and it's so fucked. It is so fucked. It's no one's fault. No one did anything wrong. But yet, for whatever reason, the insecurity fucking follows us. And not only does it fucking follow us, it puts in such a situation where that it haunts us and it comes for us and it follows us. And not only does it fucking follow us, it puts us in such a situation where it haunts us and it comes for us and it finds us and it infests and infiltrates every little part of our being, destroying relationships that never need to be destroyed, destroying opportunities that never need to be messed with. Fuck insecurity, and it's bullshit and it's unfair and it's not okay. Why the hell do we spend so much time, so much time in our lives where we have to undo the fricking traumas of our elders or or or or rework a tight situation because now we're in a good situation and we can't embrace it? Why does it have to happen that way? Why does life design that way?
Speaker 1:Now I understand from an 8,000 level view that these things are character building moments. They are canon to the plot of our lives. And, yes, we are the director, we are the producer, we are the co-writer, the co-signer of our lives. And we, we are the director, we are the producer. We are the co-writer, the co-signer of our lives and we get to choose how we want to operate it.
Speaker 1:But if I'm going to be real with you guys, if I'm going to be super fucking honest, if I'm going to keep it a book, it's fucking hard. It is hard to combat certain levels of insecurity. It's hard to combat certain levels of problems. It is hard to combat things that come at us and it isn't fucking fair. It isn't fair, but yet we have to freaking do it. Now you may be like, hey Ahmad, you know, like what are we talking about here? Like are you gonna give us some big advice? I don't really have a lot of big advice on this. I'm just really being honest and sharing and transparent. Like fuck it, dude.
Speaker 1:I have been dealing with insecurity of abandonment all year. This year, you know, I finally have something good, something great, something amazing, something beautiful, something so tenured. But yet my insecurities of abandonment keep fucking popping up and showing its ring head. And you know what? I take it back. I do have some advice. The only way that I got through it, personally myself, was to freaking sit with it and then invalidate it. So what does that look like? All right, let's break it down.
Speaker 1:Abandonment when does that come from my mom? Right, it comes from her choices in her life at her time, where, essentially, the only love I was supposed to receive that was unconditional. I never got right. So that leaves a pretty big fucking hole in your freaking heart and your mind and your body and your soul, right? And then you get a whole bunch of other shit. That happens too.
Speaker 1:So how did I combat it? Well, this is what I did I sat with the feelings of abandonment and then, systematically, by asking the five whys is, why did I feel this way? And once I gave myself an answer, I said well, why is that? And I did that about five times. And what you'll realize when you do this and, by the way, you can use this with pretty much fucking anything that you have going on with you, you can ask yourself hard questions, some introspection, you start to deduce and rip away and shed and bleed away all the other symptoms of the real problem, and you finally get down to the nitty gritty bone marrow of what's really going on with you, and I realized, after stripping it down using the five whys myself, that my abandonment is because I feel as if, though, the people that care about me the most will leave me always. So, therefore, I can never trust anyone, is what it came down to, and then, once I took that bone marrow logic, I said okay, the person that I'm with, the person that I'm talking to, whatever relationship you can fill in for X or for blank do their receipts refute this idea that I have? That is ingrained in me. Yes, okay, so now I have a remedy to my issue.
Speaker 1:It takes too much fucking work to not trust people. Let people reveal themselves to you. Now. Did I say be foolish? Did I say be? Now did I say be foolish? Did I say be? Was it called gullible? No, I didn't say any of that. What I'm saying is that you have to be able to have discernment, a little bit of wisdom, but also let people just show you who they are. That's the only way any of this works. You got to let people show you who you are, sorry, show who they are. Let people show who they are and then move accordingly, because if you're trying to anticipate every time there are moves, then you probably really even shouldn't be around that person. If I have to anticipate the person that I'm hanging out with or dating or fucking whatever relationship I have with them. If I have to continuously anticipate their moves and what they're going to do or not going to do, that means the relationship that I have is fucking ass and I have no business being a part of that. That's the reality of that. That's the real talk Now for everyone else, when it comes to like, oh yeah, I trust you and if they show you something else, then you act accordingly. That's the only way to get through it.
Speaker 1:So, with my abandonment, I took those bone marrow facts, I applied it to the person that I felt the abandonment with, and then I use the receipts from what they showed me with their actions. And then I was able to say, okay, well, one plus one does not equal two here, because this is incorrect. And then I was able to diminish and validate and take all the power out of that feeling, to the point to where it couldn't speak. Now, did that cure it? No, but it gave me the power over it. So now I'm able to manage. I can manage it. Whenever I feel these feelings of abandonment, I can look hold on, let me take five, give me a second. Okay, what are we doing? All right, let's take the receipts. What are we doing? All right, let's take the receipts, compare, okay, refuted, moving on.
Speaker 1:And the more you do that, like any other muscle that you work out either it's running or gym, lifting or swimming the emotional and mental weights you have to lift. You have to do the actions, do the methodologies, do the tools. If you're going to therapy, which I hope you are, those are the ways you lift those weights so, eventually, that they become super strong and flexible and have endurance and they're durable. Then you're able to be like. You know what I feel, this feeling right now. But I already know the truth Shh, quiet, you don't belong here. And that's essentially where it got for me. I was able to be like shh, you don't belong here. Shh, you don't belong here. Shh, you're not real. And I hope that you guys listening to this can actually get there. And that's how I did it.
Speaker 1:Now, was it fucking comfortable? Hell, no, it was M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E fucking miserable. And it was a lot of work and, luckily, my partner at the time currently was able to create a space and have patience. You know, god bless her heart to be able to deal with the issues that I was dealing with without judgment or anger. It is difficult to do this and you have to have the right space and the right participants around you to be able to deal with it. You have to be able to be kind to yourself, to be able to have grace with yourself, and I'm bad at all those things, but yet I work it. I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you anything that I haven't done myself, but I'm going to be fucking real with you. I have failed at every piece of advice in the past three to four seasons that you've been on with that. I've given you guys that I've learned from my experiences. I have fucking failed at more than once, but I've learned and I kept going.
Speaker 1:Because what's the famous saying? Progress, not perfection. Well, that's what a freaking. Is progress, not perfection? Like tonight I went out to the bar and wanted to celebrate myself. Have a drink, some wings was cool and the car that I was using as a cash should be fine. Guess what Declined. That is such a huge hit to my normal ego as a guy and I was like, fuck me, drove home, got my other car, paid it off, problem solved.
Speaker 1:So now you're like oh no, no big deal, right, you know it's a facto change-o, whatever, but it was the fact that I was even in that situation in the first place, based on what I view of how I view myself, and I was so disappointed. So what did I do? Instead of like getting fucked up because I wanted to and being mean and self-deprecating, I went to the gym. Did I last long 30 minutes, pulled weight, yelled at myself, punched some things Not like hard, just like, ah, you know and punching the mat. And then I said you know what? I'm going upstairs, I'm grabbing my mic and I'm freaking out to talk about it, and that's going to be my way to be therapeutic to myself. Now you're like well, we don't have a podcast? No, we can't do that. We still talk about it, even if it's out loud to yourself.
Speaker 1:You don't need an audience to speak, just open your mouth and speak, because there is a power in being able to hear yourself as you're speaking. There is a fucking power to it. You should listen to yourself out loud and then you're able to pick at the folly of what you're listening to and that's all really what it is. That's all it really fucking is in the end being able to hear yourself out loud and be able to pick away at the bullshit that you're spewing to yourself.
Speaker 1:I have not always been nice to myself, mean, self-deprecating, violent, just verbally abusive, mentally battering and just emotionally fucking, just visceral to myself. And I've learned, at the end of the day, between me and whoever I believe in, I've got to be kind to myself, because no one else will. And if I can't be kind to myself plot twist, then I can't receive kindness from others. Yeah, that's the fucking reality of that. So insecurity, sit with it, ask the five whys and then, once you have your five whys, you actually have the actual brass tacks, the bone marrow, of why you're feeling the way you're feeling. Compare it to the receipts of your life partner, whatever else is around you, to be able to what? Refute it, diminish it and take its power away. And then you keep lifting those weights in a wash, rinse, repeat cycle until eventually you can say, shh, you don't belong here. Thanks for listening. See you guys next week.