Self-love as Spiritual Practice

Transcript

Jim 0:00

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Decide on Joy, a podcast coming to you from Harmony Spiritual Center in Fort Worth, Texas. My name is Jim Alt

Pjae 0:10

and my name is Reverend Dr. PJ Stanley. And welcome to decide on Joy

Jim 0:15

and today's episode titled Self Love as Spiritual Practice. Interesting topics. I know that at the moment we're hearing a lot about. Self love and how it's necessary, but I think it's something that doesn't necessarily come easily to a lot of people.

Pjae 0:34

I think that's right, Jim. It's. I think it's, I think we misunderstand what self-love is because it's not about vanity. I, it feels like to love yourself is being vain. You're like, you're better. So it's, it gets to be a better than someone else. But that's not what self-love is. It's not, you don't compare yourself to anyone. We're not comparing ourselves. We're just saying that we are as good as others we deserve. And if you think about there was a, there was something. That was in a magazine I was reading or a book I was reading, and it said, to, it was an exercise and it just said, I wanna list all the people that you love, just list them. And so I did that for a workshop I was doing, and then it was over. I said, all right, so who put their own name? And we don't list the people that we love. And I think if you, I believe that if you don't really love yourself, how do you know how to love others? I think it's critical that you really know what love actually is,

Jim 1:30

right? And why do you think that is that we don't think to put ourselves on that list and why? Obviously it's something in the way we're brought up or whatever. It's, it

Pjae 1:43

yeah, I think so.

Jim 1:44

In my experience, it just didn't come up. No one said you have to love yourself.

Pjae 1:48

It just, it's not, you're not taught that you are always taught to love. Others to love your neighbors, to love a lot of things. But and there's something in the Bible that I, you'd think I would know this'cause I'm a minister, but it says to love thy neighbors as th thy self. And no one mentions that second part, right? They always talk about love thy neighbors, but the the commandment is as thyself. Which means to me when I read that, that how are you going to love your neighbors if you don't actually know how to love yourself? And so really it comes down to what does it mean to love yourself? What and why do you have to even learn it? I don't think that you do have to learn it. I think you know how, but I think that we feel shame about loving ourselves. I can remember someone saying to me, and I don't really know what the conversation was about, but I remember the person saying. Wow. You really think a lot of yourself like that was a bad thing. That was a bad thing.

Jim 2:48

Yes. We hear that sort of thing. Yes.

Pjae 2:50

Yeah, we do. So why can't you think well of yourself? You do a number of things to do well, you take, you go to school, you read books, you talk to people and learn things. You ask questions. Why is it a negative to think highly about yourself? But not a negative thing highly of someone else.

Jim 3:07

Yeah, and it's interesting because that happens on a, on our level, but certainly we elect people to office who clearly think. Very well of themselves or do a good imitation of that Exactly.

Pjae 3:24

And are able to say it. They have to communicate

Jim 3:26

Yes.

Pjae 3:27

What they can do and why we should like them.

Jim 3:30

Yes.

Pjae 3:30

So we, we vote for people like that.

Jim 3:32

Yes.

Pjae 3:32

But we are not supposed to be that person.

Jim 3:34

Right.

Pjae 3:34

It's very contradictory and very confusing. And when, and I can remember as a kid if I said something like, oh, I really did that dance really well. You don't get praised for that, that you think that you did something well. But I remember people said you gotta wait for other people to say that. You can't say that. Why? I didn't ask why as a kid, because you don't know to ask why you don't question authority, which, for us is our parents or our spiritual leader or whoever that authority teacher, whoever authority might be, but. I, I'm going back to it and I remember who it was. The person who said you think highly of yourself was my sixth grade math teacher. He actually, and this was, I was here in, I was in Waco actually. And I had answered a question. He had asked a question and I'd answered it, and he actually came and he hit me with a ruler he has on my arm and said, do you really think highly you of yourself, don't you? And I'm thinking you asked the question, what? Did you not want an answer or did you. Were you trying to stop us? I didn't ask none of those questions I asked out loud. I just thought it in my mind, why are you in trouble for answering the question? That's,

Jim 4:36

that's a complex situation, wasn't it? Which probably wasn't it. We don't have time to dig into, but I would suspect there was something that keep about keeping the black girl in our place there. Yeah,

Pjae 4:48

I really feel like that And it was a black teacher, but it was certainly a woman or a girl in her place.

Jim 4:52

Yes.

Pjae 4:53

You can't be smart at math. I had a lot of, I had a lot of surprised looks when I could get, when I could understand math problems. Math was my specialty. I loved it. But I got a lot of surprised looks from a number of people when I could answer a math question. Yeah. So there you go. And so it's not only about expectations from others, but also about what people don't expect. And when you show up with something people don't expect. There is this tendency for, I don't, and I'm just going to say what I'm thinking it is. It could be something else. I'm not the authority on it, but that we have challenged what they think they know.

Jim 5:30

Yeah.

Pjae 5:30

By showing up differently than they I think you're supposed to show up

Jim 5:33

And they want you to stay in the category they have. Stay

Pjae 5:35

in that box where

Jim 5:35

they have placed you. Yes,

Pjae 5:36

exactly. They put you in a very comfortable box for them. Yeah. And when you step out of it, that challenges what they think they know. I believe, and again, I'm not a psychiatrist, but it just makes sense to me. Yeah. That's what it is.

Jim 5:46

Yeah.

Pjae 5:47

So back to, self-love. This is, you can see all of the things that we're talking about and why it, but while it's not said that you shouldn't love yourself, it's certainly implied, and it's certainly indicated when you say things about yourself that is positive. And other people will comment that you don't, you're not supposed to do that. Really who said that?

Jim 6:07

Right?

Pjae 6:08

Where do we get that from?

Jim 6:09

And instead we develop a constant stream of negative comment to ourselves.

Pjae 6:14

We do. Oh, thank you for bridging that. Because that's a little note that I wrote to myself. Just when you do something, when you do, and I don't wanna use the word mess up and that's not it, but when you do make a mistake or you misstep, what are, what is going on in your mind about yourself when you do that? We can talk so badly in our own minds about ourselves. I man, that was dumb. That was stupid. Why did you do that? And so we're very critical in our own minds, I believe mimicking. What we've seen or heard from others.

Jim 6:42

I how we supposed to talk to each other. It would seem so anyway. Yeah. And I don't think it even requires you to make a mistake. You can think you could have done something perfectly well and think, oh, that wasn't good enough. I, it wasn't good enough. I

Pjae 6:53

should have done better.

Jim 6:54

Yeah.

Pjae 6:54

I was just, I think I was saying to you earlier, I was writing a letter for my nephew just talking about some wonderful things that he has done'cause he's worked for us. And he's just, he quite funny and there's a number of things. But as I was writing those things down, I thought, okay I don't want to. I don't wanna, I don't wanna make it sound like he isn't all of these things and he is all of those things, but it just felt like I needed to say less so that it would seem more real. I, I can't, I didn't even feel comfortable complimenting him in this letter to someone else saying how wonderful he is because it doesn't the expectation is you just, you need to be more average. And maybe that's my expectation, but I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that is exactly when someone asks for a letter of recommendation, they're looking for you to speak on the level they want you to be on. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes. Necessarily what the person actually is.

Jim 7:42

Yeah. Yeah. I

Pjae 7:44

can see that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. But self-love is a spiritual practice. It's something that I believe we, we just need to, we need to honor ourselves. We are good. One of the things that that we say in, when I was raised in black church is God doesn't make mistakes. You are here because God wants you to be here. And I believe that were, each of us are here with talents not just a talent, but talents. And I, I think the road to our joy is in serving that talent and using it for the benefit of others. Because I think when you do that. That's where the joy for you also comes in because you get to do what you love and help people at the same time. So when you are able to say, I'm good at this and I'm going to use this in service to other people there, that's where real life begins, I think, and where you actually not only show up loving yourself, but loving others through what you do well and loving yourself. So it's a complicated issue, as you say and yet a simple one. Just love yourself.

Jim 8:53

Given that probably most people are not starting from that position.

Pjae 8:58

Yes.

Jim 8:59

How do you train yourself to do that?

Pjae 9:01

And I, one of the, one of the things that I believe about life is that we are actually here to learn. We, I don't know. I don't know what, where this is. I don't know if this is how the brain works. I'm not really sure, but we don't learn lessons as well when they're easy. We learn lessons when they're more difficult. And so if something comes easy to us, we'll just simply think that was, everybody knows that, that's what's the big deal on that one. And the things that are harder for us. The things that where we get hurt, where our feelings get hurt or our heart hurts or whatever, we end up examining those more. Than we do. When things come easy, it comes easy. You just take it for granted. And I never actually I never really thought I could sing well because it just came so easily for me. I assumed everyone just sings well, even though I got a lot of evidence to the contrary. But I didn't realize it was actually a gift that I had because it just came so easily for me because aren't gifts supposed to be hard? I, again, where does that come from? I don't know. But when it was easy, I discounted it, and only the things that I had to work hard for. Did, I think was actually something worthwhile. So I don't know, I don't know if that answers your question, but I, there seems to be something within us that says things that come easy aren't worth anything, and things that come harder are,

Jim 10:19

yeah. My question had to do with, are there practical things that you can do to convince yourself to. Love yourself. To

Pjae 10:28

love yourself. And I guess I, and if

Jim 10:30

Not, but

Pjae 10:31

No, there are, I just, I answered in a roundabout way because I'm, what I was saying was, is that I think that when you, that because we are here to learn that when something difficult does happen for you, I think that the practice is to not just say, oh God, I was dumb, and let that go. The practice is examine it. Was it good? Was it not good? What do you want? What do you, what did you expect to happen? How do you, and so you just begin to question things. We don't tend to question why we feel the way we feel and why we are the way we are. And a lot of times what we feel and who we've become are not. From us, they're from outside of us. From, as I said, someone saying to me, you must think a lot about yourself or hitting me because I got the right answer. Or I remember my father saying to someone, they were trying to explain something to me and I was listening and I had gotten it. I was thinking, yes. And then my father said from the side, he said, stop talking down to her. She understands. And I thought, oh, is that, oh, okay. That's why we kept on talking about it because they didn't think we're talking down. And I didn't get that. So I had someone outside of me at that point saying that this is what you get to do also as an adult. Why does that bother me? Oh,'cause the person was talking down, or because I didn't show up the way I want to show up. And so I think knowing yourself is a part of how you begin to love yourself. So knowing what you're about. Knowing what you're capable of knowing that you deserve love, and you have to convince yourself of that because the question becomes, why wouldn't you deserve it? You do. You're born a good person. You are a good person. Yeah. So you just get to ask yourself why is that true? I think that's a really a great question to ask yourself when you're saying something negative about yourself. Why is that true? It'll be difficult for you to find out to get the answer to that.'cause it probably isn't true. It's just something you grew up thinking and it's not true.

Jim 12:27

Yeah. Yeah.

Pjae 12:28

So why is that true? Is a great question.

Jim 12:31

And is this title self-Love as a spiritual practice? And I know we just do, we, oh, it's clear. We just passed through that. Why we just passed through that topic but again, it's a spiritual practice because why?

Pjae 12:52

Because I think a spiritual practice is one that has you making decisions about yourself, about how you are going to be a good person. How are you going to love? Why she should love? So I think questioning is a spiritual practice. I guess that's a, I need to say that out loud. Questioning yourself is a spiritual practice because that's how you grow and growing is a spiritual practice. We keep evolving, but we don't. We don't automatically evolve. We evolve because we choose to and we evolve because we ask ourselves questions and because we say I do or I don't care for that. And what would I rather have? What would I rather see? So all of those are spiritual practices. I know we talk about a lot about prayer and meditation and all that, and we know that those are spiritual practice, but actually questioning yourself is a spiritual practice for achieving something, asking a question because you want to determine, is that something I care for? Is that something that is of value to me, or do I wanna let it go? Is that someone else's value? So again, just knowing yourself, trying to know yourself is a spiritual practice.

Jim 14:02

Okay. And what does that look like in daily life? What I'm saying that,'cause it's a question that's in the notes here, but

Pjae 14:10

it is a, and I use this, I use a couple, two things all the time when I'm talking and speaking to people, because we do this all the time. When you are driving and someone cuts you off and you get upset about it, that's a good time to ask your question. What's it to you? Why are you upset? So that is a daily practice. You can ask yourself when something upsets you, because here's the thing, if it upsets you, it's not the other person's. Fault. Whatever is upsetting you has to do with what you think should have happened. And so you get to question yourself and perhaps okay, so I'm gonna back it up. I used driving a lot because when it just happened to be today on the way to your place, I was driving and I turned left and coming out a right, whatever, and was coming onto a road. And there was someone fairly far behind me, but he was going very fast. So he kept that speed up and came so close to my bumper and I took my foot off the gas so that he would be even closer. Why? Because it upset me. I felt like he was bully or she, I dunno if it was he or she was bullying me, and bullying bothers me. So now these are all questions for myself and my own personal growth. Number one, why does it bother you that someone bullies you? Why is it that you think that the person driving fast was bullying you? Or maybe he just didn't wanna take his foot off the gas because he already was going a particular speed. So I had given a lot of effort and energy into something that I had no idea what it was about, but I made up all kinds of stories in my head about it. And so that's what we do. So part of what we get to do is to ask ourselves, why is that important to you? Why are you making up stories? You don't even know this person. You have no idea what was really going on, and yet you've got a whole scenario going on in your head that you are upset about. So that's what we get to do. Does that answer your question? Was that a part of the question you even asked?

Jim 16:08

Yeah. Yeah. And the other question that's here in the, it says, what am I ready to stop apologizing for?

Pjae 16:15

Yes. Yes.

Jim 16:18

Where I.

Pjae 16:19

Yeah.

Jim 16:20

And some people apologize more than others, but it's, I'm constantly amazed when people apologize for crossing my path in the store. I'm like, yeah, it's,

Pjae 16:31

yes,

Jim 16:31

It's okay. You have a right to be there.

Pjae 16:36

Exactly. And yeah. What is that? What Are you ready? That is a great question. I think it's probably one that we're gonna leave for the audience to think about for themselves. What are you. Ready to stop apologizing for. You just said something right now about the person in the store. You said you have a right to be there, so you're apologizing for being there. You're spending money in the store just like I am. So no need to apologize. For me in that particular situation, back to what I think is rude behavior and why, but here's the thing. Why does rude behavior bother me? I don't know. I haven't actually examined that, but I know that it does. And so I work hard not to be rude. So if I feel like I stepped in someone's path, I felt like I was unconscious of them being there, and that was rude behavior that I, that other people have a right to be where I'm to be in the space that I'm in. And so then if that's the case, then we're sharing space that I need to be aware of who's in the same space. So I give them room to be in the space with me, and that's why that would've bothered me as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim 17:38

Yeah. Okay. So we can end the episode there. Do we have a closing statement or anything, or,

Pjae 17:47

We were just talking about some stuff on the way over, and one of the things that I want to just say about what decide on Joy is that we I really believe, and that's what this podcast is about, is that we get to make decisions about what we want our life to look like. That's what we call it, that, so this is just about making decisions, deciding. And one of the most important things you can decide on is who you are. Who you are, and who you are. Shows up in how you talk to yourself and how you feel about things and what upsets you. And so you get to ask yourself questions. Why? Why is that true? Why am I upset? Why is this so that you can just know yourself more. The more you know yourself, I believe the more you're gonna love yourself. And there it's.

Jim 18:33

Okay. All right. Thanks for being here and we will see you next time.

18:39

I.