Quiet Ways We Undermine Our Dignity (& how to resolve it). Ritual of Dignity Abuser

I dive into how my inner dialogue almost made me abandon my dignity while starting this podcast. I share the thoughts that hurt, the ones that helped, and how I found my way back to myself. This is a real look at how we harm and support our own dignity—especially when starting something new. Whether you're starting something new or challenging yourself with being a beginner, this episode is for you!

Here’s the episode outline:

1. 15 (yes 15!) core negative, cruel, and projection-based beliefs that hurt my dignity while starting this podcast
2. 15 analyses that supported my esteem and inner grace while creating this podcast
3. Is it really a limiting belief? Or is it a fact? Or a survival instinct? Or a witch wound?
4. Avoiding something won’t make it go away or not manifest in your life
5. The real reason we think we're being cringey or cheesy
6. How conventional self-development advice can unintentionally harm your integrity
7. The importance of going slow to go fast in embodying your nobility
8. A journaling practice to help you catch thoughts and beliefs that harm your dignity (I added more questions to the ritual accompaniment than I mentioned in the episode, so don't forget to check it out!)
9. A journaling + action practice to help you honor and expand your dignity aka alignment before action!

📖 Ritual Accompaniment For This Episode: Each episode has a webpage with the full ritual questions, pictures, notes, & relevant downloads (no sign-up needed). 

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Transcript

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Dilshad 0:00

Welcome to the Delicious Dignity Podcast. Let's settle in securely and ever so nicely into the brilliance of our own dignity. Hello, my friends. It is a beautiful afternoon in Sedona. And what makes it especially beautiful is that I have just noticed and realized how huge the rose bushes in front of and in the back of my condo have grown. They're massive. And it's starting to get really warm. So it just feels like overnight, all the leaves and the little buds have started to appear on these dry stems of the rose bushes. And now they're just abundant and huge. And I cannot wait for the blooms to happen. But anyway, I thought I'd start this entire Delicious Dignity podcast by giving you an example of what it is like to not uphold your own dignity or to abuse your own dignity or to chip away at it. Because sometimes we need to know what something is not in order to understand what it is. So that's where I'd like to start this entire podcast. So what is it like to chip away at your own dignity? And I thought I'd give you an example, a story from my own life. And the most recent example is starting this podcast. I want to tell you all the unhelpful thoughts that went through my head and how I handled each and every single one of them. Because really, everyone has thoughts like this, whether they're starting something new or not. Sometimes they just run like background music to your head. to your life and analyzing them helps lower the volume on them over time. The reason why I'm starting off with thoughts is because thoughts are subtle. They're quiet. They can go unnoticed. Sometimes they even feel factual or reality-based. And that's what really does our head in. You know, they're not loud. You can't really see them. And so I wanted to start with this subtle way in which a lot of us can chip away at our own dignity. So I'm going to give you around 15 different thoughts and different areas that I questioned myself and I questioned this endeavor of starting a podcast. And I just want you to tune into these thoughts as I speak them out loud to you. And just ask yourself, do these questions keep anybody in their dignity? Do they uphold anybody's dignity? Do they uphold my dignity when I say a variation of them to myself? When I say tune in to the questions, I mean not only listen to the content of the questions, but listen deeply. Listen to the tone, the melody, the rhythm, and just really feel what it sounds like. That's the best way I can describe that. Okay. So without further ado, let's go into the thoughts. Okay, so starting with thought one. Who am I to do this? Who am I to start this podcast? Does the world need one more podcast? Like, does it really? One more person with a microphone? Is that what the world needs? I don't want to add more nonsense to the noise. There's so much noise out there. Why do I want to add to it? Everyone will hate me and leave me very bad reviews. Nobody will like my podcast and people will just attack me. Nobody appreciates complexity anymore and they want short form content. I mean, who wants to do rituals anyway? People just want new agey things. They don't want grounded, actionable, practical spirituality. They just want someone to tell them that a crystal is going to save their life. Oh my god, this podcast is so stupid. I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't even believe I'm thinking of doing this. I'm just going to embarrass myself anyway. It's so cringy, especially the poetry stuff that I'll be talking about. Nobody wants audio. People want video. Will anyone listen to a brown woman's podcast? Speaking of which, is my voice okay for podcasting? Is my voice really that okay? Because my accent changes every two seconds. The pitch of my voice changes every two seconds. I don't think that's very good voice control for a podcast. Is my branding too dark? There's so much red and pink and it's cavey and it feels like a warm blanket to me, but... People like overexposed photography, especially in the spiritual world or the self-development world. They like things to be light and bright and overexposed. And my branding is not like that. So will people get offended? Speaking of people getting offended, is my branding also too feminine? Will it put people off, especially men? Will men think that this is a podcast just about women? I don't want to exclude men or any other gender or any other race or culture. Is my branding even worth putting out there? This podcast is going to cost so much money. What's the point of spending all that money if nobody is going to listen to the podcast? I should start right away, right now. I got the idea to start the podcast. I have to start right now because somebody else might get the same idea. Or what if I just sit on the idea and I never ever do it? I should start right now, right now. So this is a sampling. of all of the different thoughts that ran through my head. Can you just feel how these questions, these thoughts destroy the very best parts of someone? It's like you light a match and as soon as it's lit and before it has a chance even to burn fully, you just dump water on it. That's what these thoughts feel like to me when I say them all at once like this out loud. And what's interesting is that a lot of these thoughts don't even sound like me. It's more like they've been conditioned into me. It's other people's voices in my head. More on that later. It also sounds a little bit childish. And it's almost obsessed with self-protection. And it's obsessed with projecting onto people and imagining what other people will do or say or think. And it's more like I'm in other people's business other than in my own business. It also sounds factual in some ways. If I look for this evidence hard enough to justify the thought that I had, I will find it. So will you. In the coaching world, they call these thoughts limiting beliefs. But in the moment that they occur, they don't sound like beliefs. They sound like facts. And that's what makes them a little bit difficult to contend with. Now, I've been doing this work a long time. So I know enough to know how to handle these thoughts when they come up. And I've accepted that they will come up. But to that end, I just want to say I've seen a lot of people in the self-development community and in the spiritual community and in the therapy community who think that if you're truly healed, you will never have any negativity or negative thoughts. If you are truly enlightened, you will never have any problems. And I cannot express to you how wrong that is. There's very few things where I will crack down and say, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And this is one of them. That belief, assuming that if you are good, everything else will be good. In the religious community, it's like, oh, if I'm pure enough or if I'm good enough, then I will have only good things happen to me. It's the same variation of the same concept, which is, If I am good, then things are good. If I am a good person, then I will only have good thoughts. And that's not how life works. That's not how this works. And that belief will cause all kinds of chaos if you believe in it. The truth is, is that if you are healing, and if you have had an enlightenment experience, or if you have embodied goodness inside of your heart, The truth is, is that these thoughts will still be there, but the volume decreases on those thoughts. And sometimes the thoughts will go away completely, but more often than not, it's just the volume turns down. You're not as enmeshed with the thoughts. You're not as merged with the thoughts. It's almost like you're a watcher of the thoughts, like you watch a movie. They just come and go, you know, like the wind, right? You don't take them seriously, they don't take you seriously. The thoughts don't have a grip on you, and you don't have a grip on the thoughts. So that's really the truth of what's going on. I just wanted to say that before we go into an analysis of each thought. Yeah, and I hope that clarifies things for you a little bit. Okay, so now... Let's just go into an analysis of each thought one by one. And it may feel like I'm overanalyzing and giving you a pretty detailed analysis of each thought that may seem unnecessary to you, but it's really not because really, we all have these thoughts or some variation of them. So my intention here is that in analyzing them, you can have a little flashlight go off in your brain as to how to handle your variation of these beliefs and hopefully be able to automatically turn down the volume on each of these thoughts and give you more space for creativity for dignity for joy and just for peace honestly okay so let's begin so my first thought was who am i to do this that was a thought I just want you to see how really that question is a disguise for the question, am I worthy enough to do this? So who am I to do this is really a disguised question for, am I worthy enough to do this? And the truth is, is that I am me. And this podcast is coming from my perspective. So all I have to do is be completely me. Those are my qualifications. And it's not necessarily about proving my worth because I'm not making this podcast to prove my worth. I'm doing it as an expression of who I am. Also, a decade of experience in this field doesn't hurt. But even when I made that argument to myself that I have over a decade of experience and publishing and all of this stuff that I have qualifications for, it was still not enough. I was like, well, I only have 10 years. I should have 20 years. And then I'm like, oh, I was published in all these magazines. Well, I was only published in these magazines, but I was not published in these other reputable magazines. Oh, I have a bachelor's degree, but I don't have a master's degree. Oh, I have all these coaching trainings and I have all these other trainings and certifications, but I don't have this prestigious training and certification. I remember being like, oh, I should get a master's degree from UPenn as a way to add to my skill set. And I was like, why am I even thinking of this? It just never ended. It didn't matter how many qualifications I had. It was just never good enough. And so I realized that it was not really about asking who am I. It's about asking whether I'm worthy enough or I think I'm worthy enough in order to do something. And This question of worth is a never-ending question. It just feels like, you know, like a toilet. When you flush, it just goes round and round and round and round. And there's no end to that question. And so I realized the only way to clear this thought up of who am I to do this is to just say, I am me. This podcast is coming from my perspective. This is my expression. And that's it. It's not a question of who am I, but a question of how I'm expressing myself. The second thought was, does the world need one more podcast, one more person with a microphone? And this was an interesting thought because I'm sharing because it's fun to share, not because I have any notions of saving the world with a podcast. I can see how it might, but I don't have any notions of that. And again, that's kind of a... worthiness question too. That's really what I'm asking is a worthiness question. And then I thought perhaps this question itself is flawed because I think the question should be, what am I joyfully able to give? How am I joyfully able to create? Or just simply, what is my joy? Because if you've really noticed in this world, the people that are the most helpful are the people who are truly in their joy. They are joyfully able to give something or it is their joy to give or it is their joy to create. And so does the world need one more podcast? The answer to that is the world could always use more joy. The next thought was, am I adding to the noise? There's just so much out there. Am I just going to add to the noise? And the truth is people have to self-select to come and listen to the podcast. I'm not forcing them to listen to it. I'm not pushing it down their throat. I'm not saying you have to do this. I'm not even asking them to pay. It's entirely consent-based. And so I couldn't possibly add to the noise. Now, if other people choose to have a lot of noise in their life, that's on them. But I'm not necessarily adding to the noise. I'm just saying that this is here as an option. You can take it or leave it. Now, apply this to your own life. You know, where do you feel like you're a bother to other people? That just by existing, you're going to somehow hurt other people. That's really what this thought is about. So use the way I worked through that thought to apply that to your own life. Everyone will hate me and leave me very bad reviews. And that will really hurt my feelings. And then I will never want to do a podcast again. And it's just going to be so embarrassing because everyone else will see those reviews. And, you know, it just goes on and on from there. Now, what I want to say about this, the first thing I want to say about this thought is that I'm not necessarily doing this podcast to get good reviews or to get validation. And if you're truly doing something from your joy, you won't be doing it to get good reviews or validation. However, I'm also not doing this to get attacked either. More on that in a second. But being in the public eye does come with certain consequences. And I can't carry other people's karma for them. I can't hold everyone's opinions inside myself and still be able to do my work. And anyone who does listen to what I'm sharing couldn't possibly leave a bad review because all they have to do is apply it to their own life and they will just see the magic unfold. So if I do get hate or I do get attacked, then I know that these are just projections. And because I know they're just projections, I need to have a game plan for how I'm going to handle it because it's still hurtful even if it is a projection. Even if it is someone just dumping their stuff on me, it's still hurtful. So this being said, I have to say that this thought of people will attack me or people will persecute me, it's a very real... It's a survival instinct, is it not? And it's a good survival instinct. It's not only just a belief or limiting belief or a mindset issue. It's a survival instinct and it's a good one. There's nothing wrong with it. And that's where I differ from what other people will tell you in the self-development community is that people think that this is just a mindset issue and it's not. I've seen a lot of people even call this fear of persecution and being attacked, they call it the witch wound. W-I-T-C-H, witch wound. Because it comes from a memory that especially women have of being burned at the stake, being persecuted for standing out, for speaking their mind, et cetera, et cetera. And it's very real. It does exist. That wound is very real. But for me personally, in my life, I've had more women attack me than men. And it's mostly been women who've been my biggest abusers, more so than men. In my experience, it's been women who've held up the patriarchy more than men have. And that's my life. That's my experience. Obviously, it doesn't have to be yours. But that's also where I've seen a little bit of a difference between how other people talk about feeling attacked and persecuted by other people versus how I have experienced it. And I have experienced it. So it is real. It's a very real thing. However, I'm not here to get attacked, right? I'm not here to be the butt of everyone's projections, whether it's women or men, whether it's any race or any culture, any gender, I'm not here to be attacked. And I'm very clear about that. I'm not here to be somebody else's doormat. And so in acknowledging that, in acknowledging all of these different aspects of that feeling, that fear of being attacked or persecuted, it actually opened me up to say, yes, this exists. And so I was like, what can help me feel safe to have this podcast? And one of the things that made me feel safe is to put aside a fund for going after people who might attack me or persecute me. Now, I know for some people that might seem like overkill. But for me, the most important thing that it did for me is give me a safety net. It gave me the confidence and it gave me the feeling of peace to start this podcast. So I can speak my mind in the most authentic way available to me in the moment. without having this baggage that I'm carrying on my back of being attacked. So that fund is for maybe I need to hire a lawyer, maybe a detective to find who these people are who are attacking me. Maybe I need a budget for that. And so I put that aside. But this is only should I need it. I'm not focusing on it. I'm not trying to say I will definitely need it. Just having it there makes me feel better. And the other thing that I did was make a list of helpful people in my life who can help me when these situations do happen, if they do happen. Like mentors who have also started their own podcast and who faced situations like this. I can go to them and ask them for their perspective. I can ask for their help in processing the situation. So it's almost like I created a safety net around myself. just in case I do trip up or something does happen. It's no different than putting training wheels on a bike and teaching a kid how to ride a bike with training wheels on them. It's no different than that. The quickest way to hurt your dignity is to convince yourself that your fears are not justified and it's just a mindset issue or it's just a belief issue or limiting belief. That's not true. You know, some things are very real. They have happened. And giving yourself the grace of safety and protection in whatever way you see fit is actually the most respectful thing you can do for yourself. I just want to say a word about manifestation, especially in the new age community. People talk a lot about manifestation. They say that, you know, what you focus on grows kind of thing. And so people will be like, well, Dilshad, if you create a fund and you have all these people ready to help you if you need it, you're actually focusing on attracting and manifesting more negativity or people who will persecute you or attack you. And to that I say, that is a whole load of bull turd because I'm not focusing on protection. I'm merely setting it and forgetting it. And that setting it is giving me the confidence and joy and peace I need in order to move forward with the thing that is scary to me. Actually, it is my joy and my peace that I'm focusing on more than the protection or the avoidance of something. If anything, I have learned that avoiding something or pushing it aside or pretending it doesn't exist or trying to convince yourself that you are wrong, in your way of seeing the world, that kind of mentality actually is what manifests the thing that you don't want in your life to come to you. So I just wanted to say that before I move forward. And I hope that makes sense. Let me know if that made sense to you. You can DM me on Instagram, Delicious Dignity, and also just tell me which thoughts resonated with you the most, you know, because that will give me a good idea of what future episodes to create. Okay. So the next thought was, this is going to cost so much money. What's the point if no one listens to it? The point is the simple joy of sharing the joy of being fully alive. And part of me being fully alive in this world is creating a podcast. It's also getting a cup of coffee at a coffee shop or buying flowers for myself. And starting a podcast and having a podcast is no different than the money that I would spend on food or clothing or coffee shops or flowers or anything that gives me joy. It's no different from that. In fact, if I really budgeted it out and saw how much money I actually did spend on this podcast, I didn't spend all that much money. And I've done all my design work. I do my own recording. I built my own website, everything I've done by myself. So it hasn't cost that much money. And the most amount of money that I have spent is actually the fund that I was talking about. And I haven't really spent the money. I've just kept it aside as a fund. That's how I worked that thought out. And so how you might work that thought out is by really actually looking at whether something does cost that much money as much as you think it does. And compare it to all the things you do spend money on and see how it's the same thing. All the things that you spend money on for purposes of joy, that new thing you're looking to start, that new thing you want to do, or maybe an old thing you're trying to resurrect to do, kind of falls in the same vein. And actually, if you just start slow, it doesn't cost that much money at all, no matter what you're doing. And we'll talk about slowness in a minute. Okay, the next thought is nobody appreciates complexity anymore and they just want short form content. I understand that completely. Maybe, maybe this is true. Maybe there's nobody in the world that appreciates long form, detailed analysis of thoughts. But listen, I tried shortening things. I tried doing these two minute videos and you can see some of them on my Instagram still. And I tried oversimplifying things and making things simple and I absolutely hated it. It stressed me out so much because I didn't give myself the space I needed to express myself. I made myself fit this small, teeny tiny mold. So here we are. I tried it. I didn't like it. So even if nobody appreciates complexity anymore, there's nothing I can do about that because I cannot create shorter form content. I tried it. I couldn't do it. So here we are. People just want new agey things. They don't want grounded spirituality. The way I treated this thought is the same way I treated the previous. I've tried doing what I think, what I believe other people want and need based on what I was seeing, and it didn't work. It didn't work. And so there's no point in me thinking it because I tried it. It didn't work for me. So what are all the things you tried to do to sort of conform to a market or conform to what you thought the market wanted? or what the experts told you you should do? And did it work for you? Did that conformity work for you? Did it make you feel joyful? Did it produce results? When you did get the results, were you happy with the results or did it just make you sad because you had to conform so much to the market or to other people that you sort of lost your joy for doing it? The next thought is, this is so stupid. I'm just going to embarrass myself. Everything I'm saying is so cringy. especially the poetry episode I'm about to record, it's going to be so cringy. Now, this is where it got interesting because this isn't my voice. I have never thought that anything I do is, that anything that I share or express with is stupid or that I'm going to embarrass myself. So this voice was definitely somebody else's voice that I sort of inherited or pulled into myself. And I don't, think of my stuff as cringy or stupid or embarrassing. And even the stuff I created 10 years ago, I actually look back at it and say, wow, I was really wise. Even back then, I cannot believe it. And so that's simply not true for me. Now, the way this voice came into my mind with this podcast was there's a friend of mine. She's a very well-meaning friend. And I was bouncing off podcast name names. podcast names off of her. I was saying, okay, what about this podcast name? What about that podcast name? And she very well meaningly said, you know, Dilshad, you're a very cheesy person. And so you should have like a cheesy like podcast name, like be in full bloom or something like this. And that just completely threw me off because I have never seen myself as a cheesy person. Like I think that I appreciate love and joy and I think that they are needed in this world. It really shocked me. And then I asked her, like, you know, I just asked her, like, why do you think that? And she just goes, well, you know, you post pictures of flowers on your Instagram. And I was like, wow, that makes me cheesy because I post pictures of flowers on my Instagram. And I realized that that voice is not mine. That was her voice. And that's her way of looking at me. And that's her way of interpreting what it is that I do. For me, I'm someone who appreciates beauty in all forms. I see beauty everywhere I go, and I like to share that. And if that makes me cheesy, then so be it. Another example of this is that a guy I dated briefly, he was sharing with me a YouTube channel that he had started. And before I even had the chance to watch the video, he goes, yeah, this is my YouTube channel. I know it's really cringy right now. And I just wanted to slap this guy. Because I'm like, you know, when I actually watched his video, it was so calming. It was his voice. I didn't even know his voice was that suited for YouTube videoing. You know, and when I watched the video, it was so beautiful listening to him talk about where he went and what he did. And he's an excellent photographer. I already knew that about him beforehand. And his video was just beautiful. Sure, were there areas of improvement? Yes, but this was his second video that I saw. It was just a beautiful video, but he already decided it was cringy or had this thought that it was cringy. And it wasn't at all, not to me. And that's an example of how we think. Okay, so when we are doing things that are truly tender and vulnerable, and it comes from our heart, not our mind, but our heart. We tend to think those things are cringy or cheesy when actually those are the things that make up the stuff of life. So is there something that you think is cringy or cheesy about yourself? If yes, then I would bet money that that is the thing that's closer to your heart than all the other socially acceptable things that you do that you think are not cringy or cheesy. Do you see what I'm saying? I hope that makes sense. So again, I'm trying to express my insights on the outside. So please tell me what resonates with you and what doesn't and what you'd like more explanation on because I'm happy to do that. Okay, the next thought. Nobody wants audio, they just want video. Again, this is the same vein of, Nobody appreciates complexity. People just want new agey things. It's the same thing. It's like, I want my giving to be simple and resentment free. And if I have to record video on top of everything that I am doing, then I'd rather just not do this podcast at all, right? I just want easy and resentment free and joyful and beautiful and as authentic and truthful as I can possibly be. And so that's how I handled that thought. Will anyone listen to a brown woman's podcast? I can think of 10 people who would be listening to this right now. And again, it's about, yes, I'm a brown woman. And yes, I don't often see my skin color combined with my gender out there as a successful podcast listed on the top charts. But that's also the algorithm. That's not necessarily true. And so I specifically looked at brown women podcasts on Apple and in other places. And you know what? There are lots of people who will listen to a brown woman's podcast. And so how does that apply to you? Go and actually seek the evidence of the opposite of what it is that you're believing. Will anyone listen to a brown woman podcast? Yes, there are. Go and seek the evidence. Will anybody... go on this journey with me? Will anybody go on this hike with me? Will anybody start this business with me? Whatever it is, whatever question you have about, is this possible? There is likely evidence to support that it is. You just have to find it because sometimes what is available to us is what the system makes available to us. And it doesn't necessarily represent all that is available in the world. So sometimes you have to work a little bit harder to find the evidence of that. You can use chat GPT for that, by the way. That's a nice way to use AI to give you evidence of what already exists. Okay. Is my branding too dark? Are people going to get offended by it? Are people going to like my branding? So I've seen the typical kind of branding that's in the self-development spiritual world, and I don't like them at all. So I love hanging out on my own website. I love my own branding. I have so much fun with it. I tried doing it their way, the traditional way, and I just can't do it. I hated it. So I like my own work and I love it. And that's all that I can say. Is my branding too feminine? Will it put off men? I don't want to exclude men. I don't want to exclude any other race or culture. I remember specific times where I tried being everything to everyone. I was exhausted. I got sick. I was tired and irritable all the time. And honestly, if anyone is going to be put off by pink, by the color pink or something else, then they're probably not the right people for me anyway. These are just examples of what you can do and how you can help yourself move through all of the different thoughts and places where you sort of whip yourself before you've had a chance to let yourself breathe even or take the first step. Okay. All right. So I hope going through all of this gave you ideas of where you can go investigate. Even if you can pick one of your thoughts and go investigate, that'll be well worth your time. One of the things I did do very right, I want to say now, with starting this podcast or with starting anything new in the last few years is not rushing. Rushing is very anti-dignity, I have found, at least for me. And going slow gives me the space and time I need to sink into the energy of who I want to be and what I want to do. I took a lot of time to ease myself into this new project and new life. The seed for it started two years ago. It then took me about... two weeks to come up with the right font. The font, it took me two weeks. I let myself marinate. I slowly absorbed the flavors of the stew I was cooking myself in, you know? In my coaching programs and trainings, they call this turtle steps. In my actual lived reality, it felt more like a sloth or a snail step. or even planet forming slowness steps. I think the time it takes to form a planet is what it felt like for me was the time I took to start this podcast. It was so slow, it was painful, but it was also beautiful. And it also was very honoring of my dignity. My mind was very frustrated with myself, but my emotions were very happy. And so that thought I had of, I have to start it now, I have to start it now, I never really listened to that thought. I never really listened to any of these thoughts, really. But going slow was something that I decided from the very beginning I would do, and I would not push or force myself to rush into it. And I'm so glad I did. And the second thing I did... really, really well with honoring my dignity is that I didn't ask for feedback on anything until I was ready to receive or I was prepared to receive the projections of what other people might think about what I started. So until I was sure of the concept of my podcast, I didn't start brainstorming names with other people. Until I was sure of the vibe or the tone of the podcast, I didn't share it online. I didn't even tell a lot of people that I was starting a podcast for the longest time. I gave myself the time I needed to be confident in my own pursuit before I opened that space up for other people to give their input. And so, yeah, these were the two things I did, I will say, very well, if I do say so myself, from the get-go. You know, and some people might think that taking such a long time to do something, they might say that this is procrastination or me focusing on the details too much or perfectionism. And that's a lot of self-development talk in the community that I've seen. And that's actually false because this is my dignity. My soul soars when the right graphic and the right font and the right words and the right pictures and the right color schemes all come together. It's like the perfect visual energy. It's the perfect words coming together to create this new world. And that is not procrastination for me, nor is it perfectionism. That is me committing to the beauty of doing something in the way in which I want to do it. Now, I do know what procrastination feels like to me, but this is not one of them. This was my dignity. My dignity likes taking a lot of time to figure out exactly the right color, the right font, the right graphic, because it helps me tune into my own energy that I want to convey. So it's very important to me. So now we come to the practice piece of this episode. We went through the story. We went through a bunch of different concepts. And now it's about practicing. It's about putting everything that you heard today into action. I've already given you some action steps throughout this entire episode, but I just wanted to put it into a journaling formal practice for you now. This is a journaling exercise. And we'll call this journaling exercise your inner Grinch, your inner Killjoy, your wet blanket, your inner mean girl, your dignity abuser. Give it whatever name you want. And we're going to start by just asking a simple question for you to write down, which is, is there something new you've been wanting to try? Anything at all? Or maybe there's something old that you want to resurrect and try again. If so, What is it? And write that down. And in between each question, you can pause the podcast, write down your answer and continue. I'm just going to go through the questions one by one. So once you've written it down, picture it, imagine it, visualize it, or think about it. And now ask yourself, what are the thoughts you have that squash your dignity as you're trying out or thinking of trying out this new thing? What are your beliefs that throw water on your delicate spark of joy? So picture this new thing in your mind and ask, what is the thought that pulls you out of your inner quiet place when it comes to doing this thing? Where do you need to let yourself marinate, let yourself stew instead of rushing in? Where can you just take your time? What is one thought that that you can think that will honor your dignity in this new endeavor? Maybe you can go back and listen to this episode again to find the thought. Maybe it's a quote from a poem or a book that you love. What is that one thought that honors your dignity that you can help yourself remember and think often enough? For example, one of my thoughts that I held on to for a while as I was creating this podcast and putting content together is, I cannot carry someone else's karma for them. I cannot take on other people's karma, other people's projections for them. So there's no point in thinking about how people will react to me. I can only do the best I can. And once you have that thought, put that thought up somewhere where you can see it. Maybe repeat it like an affirmation every morning. Maybe you can use it in your meditation. Maybe you can just play a loop of it while you're driving in the car somewhere. Whatever way you want to use that particular thought, bring it more into your reality every day. Maybe say it to a few friends in your everyday speech and your everyday language. Maybe tell other people that this is something that they can lean into too, if that's what they prefer. The third part of this This journaling ritual is actually a reading recommendation. I highly, highly recommend the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I feel like it's the most important book for anyone looking to start anything new or just living a fuller, more beautifully alive, more big, more expanded existence. It's not just for artists. I know the name can be misleading. It's not for artists. It's for anybody, really. And so I highly recommend reading that book. And that concludes the practice piece of this concept of honoring, catching what hurts your dignity and then honoring what upholds your dignity. Okay, my friends, if you are thrilled to have this type of podcast, please let me know in the reviews. and hit the subscribe button. But more importantly, you can share this episode with a friend who's really going through it with something new that they've started or something new they're thinking of starting. Share this episode with them and maybe it'll spark something in them. And maybe share with me also your specific thoughts that you often think that rob you of your dignity, that chip away at your dignity. You can never really lose your dignity, I don't think. But let's just see how you chip away at it. Maybe I can address it in future episodes. So until next time, my friends, may every single day of your life deepen your trust in all the things that expand your honor, your integrity, and your esteem. Much love to you.