In today's episode, I explore what loving self-awareness is and offer you a framework for implementing it in your life.
I also discuss the unconscious mind, neuroplasticity, the conditions that change needs, how to cultivate deeper self-understanding, the energetic frequency associated with actions and thoughts, and transforming your dislikes into likes.
This conversation is the second part of a two-part series and offers an in-depth perspective on how to go from shameful self-awareness and stuckness to loving self-awareness and internal fulfilment.
Connect with Flynn:
Submit your written reviews to THIS form to be entered into a giveaway to win a 30 min session with me! We'll pull 1 winner at the end of the month.
In today's episode, I explore what loving self-awareness is and offer you a framework for implementing it in your life.
I also discuss the unconscious mind, neuroplasticity, the conditions that change needs, how to cultivate deeper self-understanding, the energetic frequency associated with actions and thoughts, and transforming your dislikes into likes.
This conversation is the second part of a two-part series and offers an in-depth perspective on how to go from shameful self-awareness and stuckness to loving self-awareness and internal fulfilment.
Connect with Flynn:
Submit your written reviews to THIS form to be entered into a giveaway to win a 30 min session with me! We'll pull 1 winner at the end of the month.
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Flynn Skidmore podcast. My goal is to help you become exactly who you want to be. We are here to help you take your biggest, boldest, most beautiful vision for life and turn that vision into reality. Welcome back to shameful self awareness to loving self awareness and getting unstuck.
[00:00:29] This is part two. In part one, we explored shameful self awareness. We understood what shameful self awareness is, how it shows up, started to understand where shameful self awareness comes from. And learned about how our bodies can actually become addicted to shame in part two, we're going to start to understand what loving self awareness is.
[00:00:50] We're also going to examine your beliefs about change and how much change is possible, and I want you to walk away with an understanding of what. You [00:01:00] need to what you need to give yourself in order to ignite your personal evolution. We are also going to do a dive into how, why is a perpetuator of shameful self awareness generally, and how, what is a tool to use to deepen your self understanding.
[00:01:21] Okay. Let's dive in. So loving self awareness. Think about it like this. Think about the evolution of the human nervous system. We. Evolved to be part of a tribe of about 150 to 200 people that we know super intimately. This number 150 to 200 is called Dunbar's number. And the idea is that human nervous systems only have the capacity to intimately know and identify with about 150 to 200 people.
[00:01:53] And that's how we evolve. So in this tribe of 150 people, everyone knows each other really well. And [00:02:00] in these intimate settings, interestingly, gossip evolved as a tool that we use to make sure that everyone was informed about everyone else. Meaning anything that you did, the entire group knew about, it was almost like they're like, what it is full transparency.
[00:02:19] Everyone knows every possible thing that there is to know about anyone else. And that sounds scary because we've evolved into a modern world where I think we want privacy. But I, what I imagine is that level of transparency created this. Infinite sense of belonging. No, nothing to hide really.
[00:02:41] And actually incentive there. It's like an incentive, incentivize people to operate in ways that benefited the group, because if the T is going to be had, then. You better make sure that you like what people are going to say about you. If people are going to know everything about you and [00:03:00] your inner world and what you do, then you're highly incentivized to operate in ways and become a person that you're going to be, you want people to talk about.
[00:03:09] So then in an evolutionary blink of an eye, we went from small tribes to small cities where humans for the first time in human history experienced anonymity. So the naked social ape now found herself in an environment where she didn't have that level of intimacy of 150 people. She didn't know everyone intimately.
[00:03:32] There were strangers. And this created a problem because the way that the human nervous system evolved was to experience strangers as a threat. It, we, it's someone who doesn't look like us, someone who we don't recognize someone who's a person, our body responds to that. It reacts to that with a little bit of fight flight energy.
[00:03:51] And so then imagine the. The naked social ape is now in this setting where there are strangers all over the place experiencing immense [00:04:00] activation in the body. And the the mechanism of gossip could no longer work to maintain social order in such a large place where there is so much anonymity and people don't all know each other.
[00:04:12] So what do, what did humans do well in order? If humans are to maintain social order without the use of gossip as a tool, what do we do? We invented the idea of a monotheistic God, one that watches and judges everyone's move. God replaced gossip. This concept of something that is watching and judging became the thing that formerly was gossip.
[00:04:41] Now, there are so many beautiful things about the idea of God. Unfortunately the concept that really sank its teeth in the human psyche is that humans are born bad and need religion in order to be good. Now, consider how that relates to [00:05:00] internalized toxic shame. I am inherently bad and I need to follow these rules outside of myself in order to be good.
[00:05:09] The truth of my core is that I come into this world bad and I need to follow these rules in order to be good. And if I don't abide by these rules, then I will be eternally damned. And I have met so many people, even if they didn't grow up religious, but of course, a lot of people who did grow up religious.
[00:05:27] Who have this sense, like I am bad. The truth of me is bad. The insides of me are bad. So if I step into the world and I fully become myself and fully express myself, then everyone will find out the truth of me that I'm bad. I even may find out the truth of myself that I'm bad. So it's better to just hide myself away and to never let the world know that I'm bad.
[00:05:50] Now, I actually, in many ways, love religion, but this does seem to be one of the things. Things that religion has used in order to try to [00:06:00] control behavior is to create. And I don't, maybe this was intentional. Maybe there's like a master plan to do this. I don't know. But one of the things that does seem to be the case is that it creates this sense that there's.
[00:06:11] Internal rottenness, like the, this essence of rottenness and that we're being watched and judged for that rottenness. And we need to somehow figure out how to follow the rules in order to be good and avoid eternal damnation, eternal punishment in hell. The idea has really. Affected the human psyche.
[00:06:28] It has led us to not trust ourselves. It makes us believe that if we show our fullest selves to the world, we're going to hurt others. It creates this nagging, torturous sense that we're rotten. The all seeing judge knows we're rotten and we must somehow hide this rot from the world and this all seeing judge, massive amounts of shame in that model.
[00:06:49] Massive amounts of shame. And think about in terms of. Controlling behavior, the shame is used to get people to hide parts of themselves away from [00:07:00] themselves rather than being in this context where everyone knows everything about everyone. And there's love and full transparency of all things.
[00:07:09] It's a very, the hiding away energy is a very different thing. And if you check in with yourself and feel into your body, like I, I'd like for you to just, to see if you can feel the hiding away in your body, like it's the dog with its tail under its legs, kind of energy, the like pulling away from the world, wanting to be small.
[00:07:28] I think a lot of that has to do with this concept that's been imbued and like that entered the human psyche now. Fortunately for all of us, the idea that we're born as sinners, like fundamentally bad sinners, and we need to be conditioned into goodness is not accurate, all sorts of re of recent scientific psych study from infant psychology, to embryology, to neurology, to game theory.
[00:07:55] Make it very clear. Humans come into the world wired to [00:08:00] behave in warm, loving, thoughtful, kind ways. Our default state is reciprocity. Our default state is warmth and orientation towards life. It is the truth of who we are. But the best part is that you don't need science to tell you that. And as you will learn.
[00:08:21] In the course of this podcast. And as we engage in this relationship with each other and I help you and you learn to understand your inner world in deeper ways, like you'll see every ounce of your cell. Is beautiful and desires goodness. Every ounce of your, or every ounce of your soul desires, goodness, desires, life, take everything about yourself, everything, beautiful, everything, likable, everything, ugly, dark, and shameful.
[00:08:51] All of the parts of you who see yourself as superior and better than all of the parts of you who see yourself as lesser than with [00:09:00] every bone in my body, I know that. All the parts of you at their core are doing their best to access, love, warmth, and belonging every single thing about you, even the superiority parts, even the parts of you who have hurt other people, even the parts of you who think judgmental thoughts and one other people to be punished, whatever it is.
[00:09:20] I know that part of you wants love, warmth, and belonging. The tragedy of the human experience is that though every single thing that we do, every single thing that we think is motivated by this underlying attempt to access love, warmth, and belonging, what we often do is produce the opposite effect.
[00:09:38] We make mistakes. We want to thrive. We want to succeed. We want to help others. We want wellbeing, we want warmth, we want closeness, but we continue to choose a smaller, more effective. Frayed version of ourselves who sometimes hurts people. And that even even that, even when we hurt people, sometimes when we hurt ourselves, when we are choosing to be small, when [00:10:00] we're seeing ourselves as superior, when we're seeing ourselves as inferior, that is us unconsciously doing the best that we can in order to access love, warmth, and belonging.
[00:10:09] And we are just simply making a human mistake and we can improve it. We can. If the intended result is love, warmth, and belonging, we can reorient ourself and make minor little tweaks to actually produce love, warmth, and belonging and through the rest of this episode, I'm going to give you some things that really help you to do that.
[00:10:27] Now, funny enough the collective choice that these early religious influencers made to see humans as fundamentally bad. Now, I don't know, I don't know if they sat around a table and they're like, this is the way to control society. Or if this is just a worldview that they inherited that made the most sense to them.
[00:10:45] And it also had the effect of increasing their access to power and being able to control the collective. I see that as also a mistake. I don't see that as. Evil, even though it has hurt a lot of people, I don't [00:11:00] see it as evil. I see it as naive. I see them doing the best that they could to access love, warmth, and belonging.
[00:11:07] And I'm sure in some ways it did work to produce love, warmth, and belonging. Though this idea that we're fundamentally bad, that we're rotten at our essence, it's created immense harm. It has also gotten us to this moment right here, right now, where. There's a computer and a microphone in front of me and I can create a podcast and we can all work together to make a better choice.
[00:11:30] What choices that actually do produce love, warmth, and belonging. And I think that's a very important perspective to hold. Because it comes from this sense of trust that when a human, when an organism truly has the options available and is able to see the options available, because a lot of times people have options right in front of their face and they can't see it because they're and they're drowning and they're invested in their own survival.
[00:11:57] They can't see the landscape when someone. [00:12:00] Actually is able to perceive the option to be better at embodying and providing love, warmth, and belonging. It just happens. I've seen it over and over. I have yet to encounter a piece of evidence that lets me know that's not true. This work that we're doing here.
[00:12:16] Together is about helping you see with crystal clarity, cultivate the most profound trust that every ounce of you desires good. And when resourced knows how to create good, it's. Already in you, all we really have to do is create the conditions for our mistaken ways to be able to melt away and allow for the power of your inherent goodness, your empowerment, your confidence, your love, your warmth, and your capacity for recipro reciprocity and for belonging to emerge.
[00:12:51] It already wants to emerge. It's just about creating the conditions within yourself to [00:13:00] allow these things to emerge. They already want to do it. It's already happening. It's just about creating the conditions, which we'll speak more about. Now, once we learn to see the truth of the deepest parts of ourselves, the truth that they're all seeking love, warmth, and belonging, our fear that we are eternally bad or broken, it seems to just dissolve.
[00:13:18] At least that's what's happened for me. We're no longer afraid that our expansiveness will hurt others. We come to trust ourselves. We come to trust that every ounce of our soul desires good, and we learned that it is our full expression. Us being our fullest selves. That's the thing that breathes life into every single space that we walk into us being our most expressive, fullest selves.
[00:13:44] Is the thing that is of service to all of the life forms and forms of consciousness around us. Okay. Let's go a little bit deeper on loving self awareness. Cause I want to help you understand what it actually is. I'd love for you to be able to really sink [00:14:00] your teeth into it and be like, okay, yes, I know what that I can imagine that.
[00:14:03] I know how that feels like. I know what to do. Okay. So to understand loving self awareness, it's going to be helpful to understand the Buddhist concepts of compassion, compersion, and equanimity. Compassion is a sincere desire to reduce other suffering because compassion knows other suffering is your suffering.
[00:14:23] So when you have a sincere desire to reduce other suffering, you know that your suffering and someone else's suffering is one in the same. Compersion is the sincere desire to increase other's joy because compersion knows other's joy is your joy, which is really a beautiful concept.
[00:14:42] You might've heard me speak about this before. If you want to spend your life. Like optimizing for joy or peace you and you want 10 out of 10 joy. If you act selfishly and only are thinking about your own joy and yourself, you might get to five out of 10, [00:15:00] maybe even six out of 10.
[00:15:01] And that's fine. Honestly, like that's fine. The question is not about, is that bad? Is that good? Is that moral? Is that immoral? Is that ethical? Unethical? It's not about that. Is that as much joy as you want to experience? And if it is, then okay, you're doing the right thing to produce the amount of joy that you want.
[00:15:17] But if you're like, nah, five out of 10 is not really hitting it. Like I'd really prefer to be at nine out of 10 Okay. Then the question becomes, what are your options to get yourself to 10 out of 10? This is where game theory comes in. And it's so beautiful to see that this is somehow just like mathematically built into the universe.
[00:15:36] The only way to be at 10 out of 10 joy is to be at least as invested in others, being and their access to joy as you are your own joy. That's the. Thing that allows you to be at 10 There's no way to be at 10 out of 10 joy if you're not invested in other people's joy. So it's actually yes, it's about your access to joy, but your access to joy requires [00:16:00] that you be heavily invested in others, access to joy.
[00:16:02] What it ends up being is very effective and pragmatic selfishness to get 10 joy. You have to be invested in others, access to joy. Equanimity is clear vision equanimity sees and accepts things as they are while recognizing the impermanence of both suffering and joy. We're going to dive deeper into this because a lot of times when people here accept things as they are, they, people tend to think that means just lay down and die and okay, now I'm not going to be incentivized or motivated to change anything if I accept it as it is, it's the exact opposite.
[00:16:38] The truth is you can't change anything unless you accept it as it is. So it's a prerequisite to change. It's a tool of the change maker to accept things unconditionally as they are. And you'll get clear on that. Over the next few minutes. So in loving self awareness, we're going to combine all three of these compassion, compersion, equanimity.
[00:16:58] So how does loving self [00:17:00] awareness show up? This moment couldn't be anything other than exactly what it is. This moment couldn't be anything other than exactly what it is. This moment is perfect and it gets to be even better in this current version of perfection. I see nuance. I can recognize what I like and what I don't like.
[00:17:23] I am empowered and eager to recognize and grow what I like. I am empowered and eager to recognize and transform what I don't like into something that I might prefer instead. So you see. When we're talking about this moment being perfect, we're not saying that perfection means completion. We're saying that perfection means that this moment right here, right now could not be any other way than exactly as it is.
[00:17:50] If we go back to the start of the universe and we get to this point right here, right now. And now when we're talking about the start of the universe, we're [00:18:00] talking about 13 billion years ago. So our best guess is that the universe is 13 billion years old. Maybe older, maybe younger, maybe there is no such thing as a beginning.
[00:18:08] Maybe God created it 7, 000 years ago. I can't remember exactly what the Bible says, but the collective best guess is 13 billion years. If we were to somehow take account of every single thing that has ever happened in all 13 billion years. And from the start of the universe, every movement of every particle in every solar system, everywhere, we would arrive in this moment and we would see that this is the perfect adaptation to the uncountable amount of factors that have come before this.
[00:18:40] It could be no different than exactly as it is. That's what perfection means. And in this moment where this could be no different than exactly what it is, there are going to be things that we like. And want more of, and things that we don't like and would like to change. That's where power is at is in not investing [00:19:00] energy into desperately.
[00:19:02] I'm going to be a little intense here, like complaining about how things are, or like desperately making a case about why they should be different, but seeing them as they are recognizing what you like, recognizing what you don't like. And being empowered and eager to grow what you like and empowered and eager to transform what you don't like into something that you would prefer to exist.
[00:19:26] Now, here's where we get into wise, loving grandma, which is one of my favorite concepts ever. So 13 billion years old universe. Underneath every word you say, every thought you think, and every action you take is an energetic frequency. An action that is kind and delightful is paired with a higher energetic frequency, which means that the particles of your mind and your body, the particles of your electromagnetic field are moving faster and producing more of a magnetic effect.
[00:19:58] You become a [00:20:00] stronger magnet. This higher frequency is associated with the flourishing of life. In places where there are higher frequencies, there's more life. There's more diversity of life. There's more color. When you are ashamed, you're producing a lower frequency. The particles of your mind and body are moving slower and creating a less powerful magnetic effect.
[00:20:23] Now that's because it's orienting towards death. It's like it's okay, we can't, there, there are not enough resources here for us to use to be energized and loving and delightful or peaceful. It doesn't make sense. We're going to start to prepare ourselves for death. We're going to slow things down to conserve energy.
[00:20:43] So here's how I see loving awareness. All the energies that you can experience, shame, love, joy, calmness appreciation, sadness, anger, all of them are 13 billion years old. They're just different wave patterns, [00:21:00] different energetic frequencies. You are having a human experience of these energetic states.
[00:21:07] They express themselves through you in thought, in words, in your imagination, in your physiology, in your biology and through your action. So if in one given moment, you're having an experience of love expresses itself through you and the thoughts that you think and the interpretations you make of your reality and the, in the words you say in your imagination, the visuals that exist in your mind, in your physiology, your biology, what hormones.
[00:21:31] Producing your breath patterns and the actions that you take. Shame does the exact same thing. It expresses shame, expresses yourself in certain thoughts and interpretations of you in the world. The words you say in your imagination, your physiology, your biology, your action, the 13 billion year old universe as wise, loving grandma has seen every energetic frequency possible and infinite amount of times, all of the shame within you expressing itself as [00:22:00] thoughts of self hate.
[00:22:01] All of the joy in you expressing itself as optimism about the world, wise, loving grandma has seen it all and she is at the family barbecue posted up in a fold up chair, simply they're listening to you and eager to understand your experience. She's experienced it all before she has no need to change whatever it is, if it's love.
[00:22:27] Great. If it's shame, great. She's not judging you for being sad. She's not forcing you to be joyful. She's simply, she's just gently smiling, holding space for you. As you share with her wise, loving grandma knows that all of the shame ends up at some point turning into love and all of the love ends up turning into shame, life turns to death and death turns to life.
[00:22:52] She therefore has no desire to rush you through your process. She creates no pressure for you to change. [00:23:00] Or defend yourself. She's just seeking to learn about your experience, just to hear you. Wise, loving grandma, as the personification of loving awareness is seeking to befriend. Wise, loving grandma, infinitely having the experience that she wants.
[00:23:18] So she's able to accept others unconditionally. If I have all of the joy and love. In me that I could ever possibly want. And I know that I'm going to spend the rest of my life amplifying that joy and love and getting more and more of it and increasing my power. I have no need to change anything about anyone.
[00:23:38] If someone wants to change. Then I'm so happy to be able to use the energy that I have to help them or the experience I have to help them when we want other people to change. It's because we think that when they change, then we're going to get more of what we want when the truth is the process of forcing others to change or hoping others to change is a scarce [00:24:00] process in and of itself.
[00:24:00] And if we're engaging in that, then we're never going to get what we want. The place to be at is wise, loving grandma, where you have. Infinite access to the experience you want internally. So it's easy for you to unconditionally accept and be warm to others. And it is the conditions of it's, remember you're talking before it's the environment that allows for life to flourish, that being in the environment of unconditional acceptance and warmth and curiosity is the thing that.
[00:24:29] Invites and encourages change to happen, encourages life to grow without forcing it to grow. So wise, loving grandma can support you to change if you want to, but it's creating no pressure for you to change. No reason for you to defend yourself. Nothing is being forced. One of the most beautiful paradoxes of human nature and Carl Rogers, who is a therapist, psychologist wrote a great book called I'm becoming a person.
[00:24:57] I don't think he came up with this, but he's he's, this [00:25:00] is really his thing is the idea is that. It is only when you fully accept yourself that you're able to change you in this moment could not be any different than exactly what you are. This moment is perfection. And in this experience of perfection, there are going to be things that you like, and you don't like to live and empowered.
[00:25:22] Happy life is to be equipped, to grow what you like and transform what you don't like into what you'd prefer. And paradoxically, this can only happen when there's no, you're not putting any pressure to defend yourself or creating any expectation to shift to change. It's when you learn to meet yourself with infinite wise, loving grandma energy that you're able to change if you want to.
[00:25:46] So now what I want to do with you is explore how much change is possible. And I want you to do this, please. So I'm curious to know what you believe about change. So check in with yourself. [00:26:00] When you consider the human potential for change, what happens, what comes to mind, what limitations do you see? Do you think that some traits are fixed for life while other traits can evolve?
[00:26:14] Do you believe that certain people can change? And if so, what can those people change and how much can they change? Do you believe that certain people cannot change? What are some universal limits to change? What are some things that apply to everyone that limits everyone's opportunities for evolution and change?
[00:26:34] I'm really curious to know about the agreements that you are, have made about how much change is possible, because I find that most people, when they start to consider how much change is possible, like a lot, if you're here, you probably believe in immense capacity for change. Like you can change, but the question is, will you change, will you actually do the things that [00:27:00] create the change that you're looking for?
[00:27:02] So I want to go into the unconscious mind, speak a little bit about neuroplasticity and speak about the conditions that change needs. And then we're going to wrap up with why versus what, so you can cultivate a deeper self understanding, which is going to be a tool that you use in the process of change.
[00:27:24] That question of will I can change. I know that there's nearly infinite possibility for change, but will I change? It's a really important question. If you're asking yourself that, then you have parts of you in your unconscious who are invested in not changing, in staying the same, and those parts of your unconscious are benefiting from staying the same in some way.
[00:27:51] It could be something like. Those parts of you believe that you're rotten to the core. And if you put yourself out there, if you [00:28:00] fully pursue your actualization and full expression you'll only just end up finding the truth that you are rotten and you were rotten all along. And then if you find out that to be true then the rest of your life is going to be horrible.
[00:28:14] Something like that, or if you, these parts of you might believe that if you fully express yourself, like you step into your full expansiveness that you'll hurt other people or you're afraid of other people's envy, other people seeing you, something like that, which is like a really a deep. Concept in the human psyche that a lot of people are afraid of the idea of the evil eye and like people's envious gaze will hurt you.
[00:28:38] So that's a fear that's like probably not even yours. That's from generations ago, centuries ago. This is the tricky part about being human. And this is where self sabotage comes from because we all have tens, hundreds, thousands of parts within us who all think that they have the right idea for what is best in order to keep us safe.[00:29:00]
[00:29:00] And a lot of those parts. Don't yet know that your full expansiveness, like your full loving energy your full expression in the world is actually your safest bet. And the most attractive, most magnetic thing, most creative force. They think that your safest bet is to latch on to shame, to be the shameful version of yourself.
[00:29:20] They, and they really believe that. And this is again, where self sabotage come from when two or more parts within you have different ideas about what is the right thing to keep you safe and those parts of you aren't communicating, they're fighting each other. So let's explore a little bit about how your unconscious mind works.
[00:29:40] So your unconscious mind is primarily invested in the survival of your body. It optimizes neither for shameful self awareness nor loving self awareness. It optimizes for what it believes is safe. About 95 percent of who you are, what you do, what you have, the relationships you [00:30:00] have, the amount of money you make, like what your apartment looks like your whole world is determined by what your unconscious believes is safe.
[00:30:08] How does your unconscious mind determine safety familiarity? Your unconscious asks, have we survived this before? Has this worked to bond with the tribe before? And if the answer is yes. Because you're alive and your own con you're then your unconscious will continue to choose attract and be attracted to that thing, whatever that familiar version of safety is.
[00:30:32] Most of what your unconscious mind perceives as safe formed between in your utero and seven years old. And it may actually be older than that. It may be centuries ago when we're talking about the collective unconscious. And depending on the rules that you learned about belonging with your society and your caregivers, it may be the case that your unconscious sincerely believes that shame is the safest thing for you to experience.
[00:30:59] Now, it's often the [00:31:00] case that what we consciously desire, full expansiveness, loving self awareness, full expression of the self is the exact opposite of what our unconscious perceives as safe. Your patterns over time, for instance, relentless self criticism, reveal the truth of what your unconscious wants.
[00:31:20] If you continually find yourself in a pattern of self hatred, then we know that's what your unconscious desires. Because that's what it believes is safe. Really let that sink in your patterns over time, reveal the truth of your unconscious goals. If you continually find yourself in a pattern of self hatred, we know that's your unconscious goal and that's what it believes is safe.
[00:31:46] Most people hear that and shame themselves for their unconscious, wanting the opposite of what they unconsciously want or consciously want that their unconscious has a goal of shame, something like that. But unfortunately, shame on top of the already, [00:32:00] the shame that already exists in the con unconscious only makes things worse and makes you more likely to continue the patterns that you do not consciously desire.
[00:32:09] Creating permanent change is about helping your unconscious learn that something new is safe. And as you will begin to see in the section below, the only way to help it is to meet yourself with immense warmth, infinite acceptance, and sincere curiosity. Let's speak about neuroplasticity for just a moment.
[00:32:32] Because I just want to emphasize that your brain and your unconscious mind has immense capacity for change. And neuroplasticity is the word we use to describe this. It's a term that's gained traction over the last decade. It describes the idea that your brain is. Almost infinite, like nearly infinitely adaptive and malleable.
[00:32:52] It changes and evolves based on what you practice. It's it changes and evolves based on [00:33:00] repetition. In the early 20th century, we thought that childhood experience determined the function of your brain and your nervous system for your whole life. So once you left childhood, we thought that your brain was done.
[00:33:10] Your brain stays fixed forever. You're unable to evolve and adapt to new things. And think about that sense of helplessness. Boom, past seven or past 14, you can't learn new things. You can't evolve. This would mean that if in your childhood, you, your unconscious learned that you needed to be ashamed to survive, then you would stay that way forever.
[00:33:30] It is now crystal clear that the opposite of true. The wiring of your brain and your nervous system reflects what you practice and your brain and nervous system can change and will change. If you do the things that support its change until the day that you die, you could be 95 years old and your brain is still, your brain is still changing.
[00:33:53] So now let's speak about the conditions that change needs for most of its history, [00:34:00] psychology and neurology were blind to the mechanisms underlying human change. Therapy, like people would be in therapy and most practitioners were just taking shots in the dark, like when, and when a client did change, no one really knew what was happening.
[00:34:13] And when a client didn't change, we also had no idea what was happening. But now when change happens, we know exactly. Exactly. What's happening on a neurological level. Let's talk about neural gridlock. So when you're locked in a pattern like shameful self awareness your brain is in what we call neural gridlock.
[00:34:31] When you experience shame, certain areas of your brain light up, letting us know that the neurons, the brain cells are actively communicating. When your brain truly believes that it needs the shame to bond and to safely navigate your environment to survive, the shame base areas of your brain can get locked up like a gripping hand clinging on for dear life.
[00:34:53] And this grip ensures that these neurons fire repeatedly, making it nearly impossible to experiencing [00:35:00] anything but shame. When this happens. You could experience trillions of pieces of evidence through your life, showing you that people love you and value you. But if you're in this shame based neural gridlock, it won't matter.
[00:35:12] It your nervous system won't be able to process and integrate these new pieces of information because it truly, it doesn't align with what your nervous system thinks you need in order to be safe. So what we're looking for is a neural release of this gridlock. We want all of these synapses to open up so that new information can be digested and processed and integrated into your nervous system.
[00:35:40] When you meet yourself and your painful memories and your fears about the future with wise loving grandma energy, where you're generating unconditional acceptance, communicating no pressure to change and no need to defend. That clenched hand of the neural gridlock loosens and your brain [00:36:00] metaphorically, and also probably physiologically it's softens.
[00:36:03] We can literally measure this in the activity of your neural synapses with the space in between your brain cells, where information is exchanged in an environment of warmth, kindness, sincere openness, and curiosity. The neural synapses open up and maybe for the first time in your life since childhood.
[00:36:22] So maybe 20 years, 30 years. New information can be exchanged your brain, which may have been addicted to shame for decades, finally has the space to learn something new. And I want you to think about it like this, if you have if you've been trapped in shame gridlock for years and years. What happens is it's like a part of you is on an island.
[00:36:46] And though you may be surrounded by people, this part in your psyche thinks that no one is around, that it's alone in this experience of shame. And it thinks that it's going to be forever alone in this experience of shame, and it [00:37:00] doesn't see any options for anything better. So of course it starts to lay down and die and move towards depression and sometimes be anxious.
[00:37:07] But then all of a sudden wise, loving grandma shows up, I guess maybe on the island and all of a sudden this part within your psyche, who's for 20, 30 years had no options for connection now has an option for connection. And not only is this an option for connection, it's an option for connection with someone who's not judging them or.
[00:37:27] Forcing them to be different, but just there to bring warm energy. So the person within you on the island can just share your experiences, what you've experienced, what it's been like to be you, what you want, what thoughts you think, what led up to this, just learning about who this is. That thing that happens when the part within you on the island perceives that all of a sudden belonging is now available.
[00:37:54] That's the thing that opens up the neural gridlock. That's the thing that allows for [00:38:00] your brain to be able to adapt and evolve. People speak about self compassion and self kindness. Like it's just like a nice thing or it's just about positive self talk and saying stuff that's nice to yourself. It's not that.
[00:38:14] It's. Bringing this energy that like, and that animals would want to be around or an energy that I sometimes would describe as like it, it flowers are excited to blossom in its presence. And just being that energy with your most pained, isolated parts of you, it opens up the neural gridlock and it allows for neuroplasticity and change in your nervous system to occur.
[00:38:41] Now, I want to leave you with a very simple tool. And that is practicing asking what instead of why. So in order to understand the importance of what and why, let's take a look at self intellectualization versus self understanding [00:39:00] one of the most obvious ways that shameful self awareness shows up is in self intellectualization and loving self awareness shows up as self understanding.
[00:39:08] Self intellectualization is when you are stuck in your head, relentlessly developing theories about yourself. It's there's nothing about you that someone could tell you that you don't already know. However, all of this information you've gathered about yourself, isn't really helping you to change anything.
[00:39:24] And the tone of the information gathering is harsh, critical, and it just makes you feel bad. It's a telltale sign of internalized shame. It lets us know that something in your unconscious sincerely believes it needs to see you as broken in order to survive. So it will interpret you and your world and choose relationships that ensure your continued shame in this experience of brokenness, self understanding is very different, self understanding is less trapped in your head and it's more living through your heart.
[00:39:56] When you understand yourself, you're in your body. You [00:40:00] understand that the thoughts buzzing in your mind are the tip of the iceberg, but the real information is in your body. Your mind and body are processing about 11 million bits of information at any given moment. Your thinking mind, however, can only process about 40 bits of all of that information.
[00:40:18] The remaining 10, 990, 960 bits of information are processed by your unconscious. And to make this as simple as possible, your unconscious is your body, true self awareness. Doesn't exist without a subtle yet powerful awareness of what is happening in your body in any given moment. So why versus what we can make this really simple change in order to escape your head and get into your body and cultivate deeper level of self understanding.
[00:40:48] So Is the classic indicator of remaining trapped in your head. It's self intellectualizing, it's anxious. It's an obsession with this question. Why did this happen to me? Why do I feel like this? Why [00:41:00] am I like this? Why is the world like this? Asking why generally operates with an energy that's like I'm suffocating.
[00:41:07] I'm in a room full of carbon dioxide. I'm gasping for air. And the only way to get oxygen is to find the cause of this by asking why. But there's a huge problem and this is actually an intellectual problem. Why presumes that we can identify a cause or an origin and is desperately hoping that once we identify that cause or origin, then we'll be safe.
[00:41:31] The problem is that the universe is far too complex to ever have a singular cause for anything. A way of thinking about this is the volcano explodes. So why did the volcano explode? Because there was a buildup of magma underneath. Why was there a buildup of magma? Because the tectonic plate's shifting.
[00:41:49] Why was there, why did the tectonic plate shift? Because of the earth spin and gravitational field. Why does the earth spin and gravitational field? Why do solar systems exist? Why does gravity exist? Why does the universe [00:42:00] exist? Why does God exist? You, it doesn't get us anywhere to ask why we're chasing the cause.
[00:42:07] And a lot of times when people think they've found the cause, what they're actually doing is being lazy because it's, that's not the cause there. There are trillions and infinite other pieces of things that have happened and information that could be considered to be part of it. Why did my parents, why were my parents emotionally immature?
[00:42:26] Because their parents were emotionally immature. Why were their parents emotionally immature? Because humans have this strange and unique capacity to imagine themselves in the future. It's. Like we don't want why what we want is what we want, what we don't want to hope that there's a cause that we can identify.
[00:42:44] We want to explore all of the effects. Now, one of my favorite ideas in the whole world is that your reality is determined by the energy that you exchange. [00:43:00] So the word why or what, it's actually less the word that matters and more the Energy that's being practiced when the word is used, why tends to be accusational, desperate, complaining, or a combination of all of them.
[00:43:15] It's a question that forces something to have a reason, which tends to make that thing defensive. And if you remember neural gridlock, the energy of why nearly Guarantees the grip around your neurons, clenched tighter, creating the effect of more rigidity and less fluidity and adaptability. Think about the version of yourself.
[00:43:35] Who's ashamed and sad and isolated alone on an Island. And you're like why are you sad? Or like, why don't you just feel better? Something like that, that it just isolates that version even more. They become defensive. Like they don't want to interact with you. So what we want. And again, it's more about the energy than the question.
[00:43:53] We want the softness of a what? So when Y thinks that it's [00:44:00] identified a cause, it's actually the case that the Y is a what? Because there, we can't identify causes. We can only identify effects. So Y is rigid. It thinks it's found the cause and that it's explo and exploration is done. What on the other hand is wise, what knows that exploration is infinite?
[00:44:22] What is the expression of wise, loving grandma energy? It's conversational. It doesn't desperately cling to the hope that it's going to be safe once a cause is identified. What has the wisdom to know that such a version of safety is fragile because there is no cause to identify. What understands that the safety we seek doesn't exist in finding out certain information, creating outcomes or certain external circumstances.
[00:44:48] The safety we seek exists in the here and now experience of curiosity. What is willing and eager to step into the unknown with delight, falling [00:45:00] in love with the process of gathering information, asking questions. Purely for the joy of curiosity, not hoping that it's going to find answers. It really just wants to ask more questions.
[00:45:11] So what asks, what is happening right now? What was the sequence of events that led up to this moment? Which of those events seems to influence what is happening in this moment? The most, what is the experience you're having? What do you like about it? What do you dislike? What do you want? To be happening.
[00:45:30] What do you not like about what is happening? What do you want to be better? What do you like about what is happening? What is the energy that you want to exchange with yourself and energy and everything around you? What is the world you want to create and what is your plan to create that world? This is a process of infinite curiosity, ownership of what you like and what you want to be better and infinite creation.
[00:45:59] [00:46:00] And I don't know of anything that is more powerful than that. Thank you so much for being here for this. Two part series on cultivating a deeper understanding of what shameful self awareness is, what loving self awareness is and how to cultivate more loving self awareness and deeper self understanding.
[00:46:23] It's just like a, it's so cool for me to get to be able to speak about these things. Like it's it's, it involves so many different variables and influences, such a mind, body, social world universe thing. And I really appreciate. You being the type of person who enjoys the complexity of it. And when we're talking about complexity, we're not necessarily speaking about chaos, like a solar system is complex, but it's so beautifully and neatly organized around this.
[00:46:53] What we think is a central point of gravity. It's just gently spinning around complexity. Is when [00:47:00] there are many pieces of information, but there's calmness and stillness in the exploration of the relationships between all of that information. And again, there's no answer. The safety we're looking for is simply.
[00:47:14] The experience of being the calm thing that is exploring the relationship between all things like that is what loving awareness is not forcing anything to be different than what it is, but learning. That when you meet things with immense warmth, curiosity and love, when things don't have to defend themselves, they can tap into their internal inspiration.
[00:47:38] They can tap into the truth of what they actually want and who they want to become. And if you're the type of person who has an abundance of internal resources, an abundance of love to give. Then you can help that person or that thing or that animal become exactly what it wants to be. And I just do not know of any more fulfilling or empowering way of living life.
[00:47:58] Thank you all for being the type of people who [00:48:00] are interested in that. I love you. I appreciate you. Have a great day.