Talking truth about "self-improvement" as it relates to health, overall wellness and expressing the truest version of you. This is Marta Mrotek with Something Honest…..

I've got a little warrior living in my house.. and his name is Michael. And over and over again since the day he was born, for five years, he’s had to face challenges that I'm sure I don't even understand. He's a warrior and he knows it. He’s always looking for ways to find that warrior energy that we’ve been talking about and feel it, because he knows he NEEDS it. He is humble, he knows he has some limitations but he’s also a hero… He makes the most of what he's got every single day.

So today we are going to start talking about Humility. We’re right here at the halfway point working through the principles and hopefully you’ve been listening to the bonus episodes over the last couple of weeks. If not, this is just a reminder that they’re super short and you can listen to them in any order. But in the Study and Practice Bonus I talked just a little bit about how you can use what we’ve done so far in conjunction with any form of intentional movement to create an energetic practice and a really simple method for studying yourself on a regular basis. And that’s all going to be really helpful here as we take a look at some of those things that you might consider limitations, maybe even flaws, and how to use them to learn something about yourself, and use what you find as motivation to tap into that energy that makes you stronger and a more authentic version of you.

And so much of that has to do with understanding the ego, and that’s our first talking point…

TALKING POINT 1: UNDERSTANDING THE EGO

The whole idea of self-study is ongoing and relates very closely to what we’re going be talking about here and some of that will probably include taking a look at some of those, I don’t know, embarrassing, or uncomfortable, and maybe even what you might call humiliating experiences in life. And I know that’s not always something we like to look at but before we even start, I want to talk just briefly about the difference between humility and humiliation. And there really is a great big difference between those two things. We’re going to have to talk about the words themselves here for a minute, of course.. And they both come from the same Latin root word in reference to the word humble, and it’s good to know right out of the gate, that it doesn’t have to carry any negative connotation. To humble yourself isn’t a bad thing. It’s really mostly about being able to see yourself as you are and that’s usually something that you’ll have to choose intentionally. To see yourself without any of the overblown, what most people call egoic tendencies, or on the opposite end of that spectrum, without selling yourself short. Just being able to see what’s true about you. Humility in many ways creates a reflection of your True Self, making a connection with that part of you that can recognize all of your flaws and all of your, you know, inner brilliance at the same time. But humiliation is usually something that happens to you or something, sometimes, that you do to yourself that brings you way down and obscures the truth about who you really are, it covers it up. It’s the opposite of an inflated ego. It actually means to be made humble, and that happens most often when we give in to the lies that the ego likes to tell, and in many cases, when we’ve given our sense of self-worth or personal power away to the opinions of others.

Ego is defined as a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance but even more important, for our purposes, it’s the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for creating your sense of personal identity. And again, that isn’t inherently a bad thing. Maybe sometimes the ego tells you that you’re so great, and maybe sometimes it tells you that you’re not enough. It might be telling you that you belong, or that you don’t, and maybe it’s just saying this is who I think I am or what I’d like to project. But no matter what it says, all of it relates in some way to this idea that somehow, we’ve forgotten who we are… We spend almost all of our lives constantly labeling everything around us, and we’ll talk more when we get to the Love Principle about all of the ways that we label and judge other people, but right now we’re mostly concerned with the ways that we label and judge ourselves. We say, “I am this. I am that.” But we also say, “I’m not this. I’m not that.” And while some of that labeling process makes us feel like we might be a part of some larger group and maybe create a sense of belonging or importance, most of it tends to make us feel separate. Even in our sense of belonging to one group we automatically separate ourselves from another. And I could go into a whole big long thing about how that has so much to do with what’s happening in this country right now, or how it relates to politics or religion, or sports teams or whatever, but I would imagine that you can figure that part out on your own. My point is that most of us are living in an almost constant state of false perception, at least on some level, and that’s talking point number two.

TALKING POINT 2: FALSE PERCEPTIONS

Most of what happens in the mind is easily explained when we consider the fact that we’re all just constantly trying to process all of the information that’s coming in from our outer experiences. And all of those experiences, all that stuff that’s happening out there in the physical world is moving through a filter. And that filter is something that’s changing all the time. Everybody’s filter is different, right? You’ve been working on it since you very small. And your own filter can be very different at different times in your life. Some of those ideas or groups or beliefs that we align with really strongly at certain times can change and sometimes even fade away completely depending on how we choose to define ourselves and what we identify with… And if we’re talking about what’s real, about objective reality, we have to think about why any two people can go through the exact same experience and process it so differently. I mean if reality is just what happened, the actual event, the big question turns into what’s really true? And if most of what we’re experiencing is moving through that filter of false perception, at least on some level, I really don’t think that’s something that we’re doing on purpose. I really do believe that everything that we’ve already been doing here can help for making at least some headway on turning that around. Our thoughts about everything really are just thoughts, and while that sounds really simple, and it absolutely is true, for most of us, most of the time that’s not the way it FEELS. Our thoughts feel pretty real. And if we dwell in our thoughts for too long, I do believe that they become part of our reality. I really do think that thoughts can become things and while that is something that we can learn to use to our advantage it can also cause a whole lot of pain. It all goes back to that idea that you’re always listening to what you’re telling you. The ego is actually mostly about that false perception, at least to some degree, because it sees everything through that filter that’s always changing and maybe even more than anything else that filter impacts the way we see ourselves. Sometimes it’s almost like there are two of us inside our heads hashing it all out. And that leads to a great big question here… If there’s two of me, which one of me is the original and which one is the imposter?

 TALKING POINT 3: IMPOSTER SYNDROME

I’ve had a couple of really interesting conversations that touch on this to some extent in the last few days. Imposter Syndrome is mostly defined as feeling some kind of doubt in relationship to your own skills, or your abilities or accomplishments or maybe even some amount of fear that you might be exposed for not quite being what you say you are, or exposed as a fraud. And if we go back just real quick to the idea of being embarrassed publicly, and I’m not really talking about public humiliation specifically, because as an everyday occurrence most of what we’re talking about is more subtle. And not always even embarrassment by someone else’s hand or coming from someone who is actively trying to hurt you. But usually it’s more like those thoughts that make you feel like a fake that are coming from more common experiences where things just don’t turn out the way you planned and you just don’t come out of whatever that experience is looking or feeling the way that you had hoped you would. I’m pretty sure you know what I mean, most people do, and it really might not be something that happens in public. Maybe it’s on a more personal level, and maybe even just about the things that we say, that’s pretty common. Like saying something you wish you hadn’t, or saying too much, or spilling your guts to someone and then regretting it. But for most of us, again certainly not all, but most, there’s really not all that much of it that’s public or physically obvious, and usually that boils down to being disappointed in yourself somehow. We can all be pretty self-conscious, sometimes, and if you stack up of few of those disappointments, or especially if you pile on a whole bunch of them, it can turn into a self-confidence problem and that can very easily turn into some form of what we’re calling imposter syndrome.

And this is where I’m going go just a little deeper with what I was talking about in the intro and see if I can share just a little bit about this little warrior that I’ve got in my life without going to deep. I’ve got three precious grandsons, yes, thank you I am in a fact a grandmother… and one of those sweet little boys is named Michael. And he was born with something they call severe, atypical, complex, bilateral club foot. I’ll spare you the details about what exactly that entails but in short from the time he was just a few days old until today he’s been in a constant state of casting, surgery and bracing, every single night, to try and treat that condition. And even though it definitely comes and goes depending on what’s happening there has been an awful lot of physical pain involved with that for him. But in spite of that obvious, what we might call a physical flaw, he has managed to do just about everything that other kids do at least to some extent and most of it right on time or at least pretty close to it. Everything is harder for him and lots of things hurt, but he’s very brave and when it comes to the physical stuff he almost always finds a way to do what needs to be done. But I think what usually hurts him most is that sense of disappointment, or embarrassment that we’ve been talking about, and probably more than most of us moments where it is all on display in front of other people, in public. Even watching his baby brother growing up and run right past him, watching other kids play and sometimes being judged, or labeled, or in some cases treated poorly has probably had a greater impact on him the physical stuff ever has… And no doubt, especially in times like right now when he’s facing another big surgery and even more of those physically defined challenges it’s pretty natural that fear creeps in. And sometimes he’ll talk about it, and tell you how much he wishes he had what other kids have and wonder if he’ll ever have that, being able to walk normally or being able to run… And you can almost see these little cracks showing up in that strong exterior that he’s built sometimes. A lot of what we’re talking about today has to do with that fear of not being quite enough and getting lost in what we can’t do or what we’re afraid of.. Most of the work that lies ahead for us has to do with making the most of what you’ve got and recognizing that inner brilliance and strength just right there below the surface. That’s something my grandson knows how to do like no other. You can see it in his eyes and in everything that he does… We’ll talk a little more about that when we come back from the break.

I’ll be back in two minutes or less with more on the Principle of Humilty and our challenge question for this week in just a moment.

We’re back and talking about how you can use this principle to study yourself more deeply so that you can strengthen your connection with that truest part of you and see yourself more clearly.

TALKING POINT 4: SELF JUDGEMENT

Sometimes it’s hard to admit all of the ways that we judge other people and hard to recognize how that effects the way we judge ourselves.  It’s hard for me to admit but I have judged other parents, other kids, other families, and other people’s circumstances in lots of different parts of my life. I don’t think that judge people that harshly, but we all do it. At least enough to know that when we were in the middle of our own family crisis, and worried for our own kids, if you don’t get the reference go back and listen. I’ve talked about it a lot, but anyhow, I didn’t want the whole world, especially everybody in my own little world to know all the details about what we were going through. And while, again, you certainly do not need to share everything with everyone, I think people kind of do have to earn hearing your story most of the time. But if you’re ashamed and start feeling like you’re in hiding, something probably needs to change. For me, at that point, I still felt like somehow I must have done something horribly wrong as a parent and as I’ve said before we all have those filters and an image that we’d like to project, we can’t help it, and at that time the un-doctored picture of me, of us, of our kids wasn’t one that lined up with the one that I had always had in my head. The one that I totally believed in wasn’t the real one anymore. And, that’s happened to me in other areas of my life too. Where what I actually had just wasn’t what I had always wanted or pictured in my head. We’re all still working on adjusting our attitudes, right? We’re working on all of the principles together all the time, and the big attitude adjustment there for me was realizing that not only was there nothing to judge, there was nothing to ashamed of… There’s nothing wrong with wanting something more or something better but there is something very wrong with not being to admit the Truth about who you are and what’s happening right now. And it’s tricky. You can’t just push it down, you can’t push down your feelings and you can’t ignore objective reality you have to be able to see both of those things clearly at the same time. And if you go back to the very beginning of this whole thing in episode one, we’re right back to getting grounded enough to acknowledge what’s true. First, we were just looking at the truth of the present moment. When we got to Courage, we were looking at the Truth about the past and our fears and any harm that we may have caused. But now you’re just looking at the truth about you, about where you are right now, about what needs to change and about everything that’s already so good, moving into a state of true self-awareness and that’s Talking Point number five..

TALKING POINT 5: SELF AWARENESS

If you really want to understand the principle of Humility you really will have to incorporate ALL of the work that we’ve done so far. Once you have a really good understanding of what’s true about you right now, you’ll want to work on getting a better understanding of who you’ve always been and who you were meant to be. That filter that we’ve been talking about and all of the lies that ego tells to help you feel like you fit somewhere in this physical experience has been very methodically covering up that really true, that higher, that entirely authentic version of you. Somehow, after a while we just start to forget. We settle, we get complacent, we allow all kinds of things that don’t really line up with that inner Truth. Everybody’s got that sense of knowing, that capacity to remember and really feel like who they were meant to be, who they really are... And this time it has a lot to do with Hope.. making that energetic connection and believing in the possibility for something better and something more. I have a whole bunch of personal examples for that, some very personal, but the one that I like to use for this most often is really more about me as a teacher and back real quick to that idea of imposter syndrome and the times in my life when I’ve actually felt like I failed. Or at least that I didn’t live up to my own expectations or presented myself in a way that I wanted to… It doesn’t happen very often anymore, but it does still happen sometimes. At least a little twinge of that feeling can sneak in. And the cure for that one, for me is usually going back to Integrity. And when I find character flaws in there somewhere, I know that they are mine to release and mine to change. I have to take responsibility for that. Making sure that my motives are as pure as they can be, that I’ve done what I could to prepare myself and presenting myself as authentically as I can without ego or misrepresentation. It’s hard, it takes work. And if I can answer all of the self-questioning that goes along with that and know that I did my very best, even if it didn’t turned out the way that I planned, the only thing left to do is accept it.

TALKING POINT 6: SELF ACCEPTANCE

We talked about acceptance an awful lot when we were working on Surrender.  And now that we’re here working on self-acceptance, we’ll have to go back to that just briefly. Just reminding ourselves that it has nothing to do with giving up or giving in and that acceptance doesn’t have anything to do with weakness. I’m going to go back to Michael just one more time… he’s the strongest person I know, not just 5 year old, not just kid, but out of everybody I know he’s the strongest one. But he is humble, and there’s a whole lot of surrender in humility. Surrendering to what is, accepting those limitations and even flaws that really are outside of your control… There’s a whole lot of willingness in there too, always working on getting ready for the next challenge and willing to do whatever it takes to face whatever you’re afraid of… There’s this awesome children’s book by Jocko Willink that has helped Michael with that a lot lately. It is so appropriately named Mikey and the Dragons… and I really do have to wonder if somehow way down deep inside Jocko knew that there was this one special little boy, our little Mikey, who would need it. It seems like a really big coincidence to me that a little boy who has been breathing in the warrior energy with me every night before bed for so long would suddenly be reading a book about another little warrior named Mikey who faced his fear and made a connection with that warrior inside him. And that it would find us at such a perfect time, when he needs it the most, in the middle of something that he’s really afraid of… He’s about to go into the biggest surgery of his life and that book.. The universe delivered it into our hands in such special way, through someone who has such a big heart for kids who struggle and at just exactly the right moment. It gave all of us some perspective on what we were facing, and it gave Michael not just a story but a whole bunch of visual images that remind him who he is! And just real quick I think my favorite line in the whole book is, “Inside our brains things always get overblown, especially things that are completely unknown.” And isn’t that the truth? For all of us?! That really isn't kid stuff.. it's big. It's huge. It’s a reminder that the voice inside our heads isn’t always telling the whole truth. It's also a really good reminder that you are more than you might seem to be on the outside, that all that stuff is just part of thinking, part of the fear, part of the copy, a lot of that stuff is just the image we project and the reason that you might think you’re an imposter. The original version is the hero! That’s the warrior! And it doesn’t have to brag about it, it doesn’t have to put anyone else down to be it, it’s humble and it’s real, it’s got heart and there’s nothing weak about it. Michael knows that. He does know his limitations. He accepts what some people might consider flaws and does absolutely everything he can with what he’s got. He knows he’s more than what people might see on the outside. He knows how to make that connection with warrior energy and use it to find what he needs. It's time to for us to start working very intentionally on getting connected with that really brave, really smart, really strong, honest and humble part of ourselves that knows how to make it through anything.

So, before we go let’s take one more look at all those talking points:

·      Understanding the Ego has a lot to do with understanding our personal filters.

·      And a lot of that has to do with being able to recognize all of our false perceptions.

·      Especially the ones that come from our disappointments and lead to feeling like an imposter.

·      Use what you’ve learned to remember the real Truth about you and release self-judgement.

·      Use what you know about making connections to move into a deeper sense of self-awareness and connect with that Truest part of you.

·      Remind yourself that self-acceptance includes not just being able to recognize your flaws but accepting and embracing your own inner strength and brilliance.

It’s time for this week’s challenge question and how to play.

CHALLENGE QUESTION

So, the question for Humility is, “What’s the real truth about you?” Reminding yourself that you’re looking now not just at the flaws or what needs changing but that your also looking for all of your strengths and higher perspective on who you really are.. This is something that you can start thinking about right now and really good way to start studying yourself more effectively. There’s a lot that goes along with this and so much more for us to talk about, but I hope what we did today gives you something to think about. I hope it makes you want to get closer to that higher version of you and more connected with that warrior energy so that you can start expressing in everything you do and in every area of your everyday life.

Come find us out there on social media and don’t forget the hashtags for this week, Something Honest, Humility Challenge and this time we’re going to throw in #way of the warrior kid and #MikeyandtheDragons. Make sure you’re all set up to get notifications, next up, you’ll want to check out the Humilty Study Journal for even more about some of the benefits and indications and a little bit more about how can use this to study yourself. Don’t forget to check out all THREE Humility episodes to get even more connected with that really true, really strong, really brave and humble version of you.

Thanks so much for listening. Check the links in the description to find what you need or go wellnessmeetings.com for show notes, details about this season’s drawing or to find out more about the Wellness Meetings Method….. Something Honest is a Wellness Meetings production with original music composed and produced by James Mrotek at Mrotek Media.

This is Marta Mrotek sending out all the love and so much gratitude. Until next time, let’s get to work on being well.