The self-development trap

0:01Okay day six I've technically only uh promised myself seven days of this so tomorrow may be the last day um but we'll see I'm liking this and we'll see if it continues I'll check in with myself tomorrow or maybe on day eight the morning of day eight and see if if seven am is too much to be honest this morning I didn't really feel like getting up but I still like right when the alarm went off I jolted out of bed and but I was slower than normal getting out the door um and what what came to me um like as I was jogging over here and just as I'm you know thinking as thoughts tend to do take over your head sometimes and where my thoughts went to was just this idea of you know this being work you know like this this self-development stuff or not even calling it self-development because that's kind ...

1:17... of cliche these days but just going through whatever it is that I'm going through whatever process I'm going through if I wake up in the morning and I'm just feeling low or I'm feeling not motivated what happens then what happens with me is um I feel like I have to work to get out of it like what I was talking about yesterday of like the the peaks and valleys of life and sometimes I find myself in the on the peak it's great and then other times I found myself in the valley and when I'm in the valley I feel like I need to somehow climb out like I need to I need to get strong and find the strength somewhere even if I'm feeling weak I need to you know first of all feeling weak seems wrong and that I need to climb out of the valley and what I want it to be is ...

2:33... actually a a self-supporting process maybe even a fun process um can I actually enjoy first of all being in the low point it's not like some sick sort of enjoyment like I enjoy being depressed or whatever and I'm gonna stay depressed because I enjoy it so much it's more just sinking into whatever is true right now because from what I've experienced as much as I fight it um from what I've experienced when I actually feel what's going on in the moment that's what allows the moment to move time and time again I felt it with myself and I felt it with people I've worked with as clients and friends and as soon as we sink into what's actually real then movement happens it's that whole emotion emotion is energy and motion and that's so true I was actually talking with someone yesterday who who wanted to talk to me and I was getting to know ...

3:56... her and I just noticed a way of her speaking about um about what she thought having herpes meant and we came to the conclusion where it it really is an opportunity for her to to love herself more again as cliche as that sounds I know but it's an opportunity to to love yourself on a deeper level and not have what other people might think about you or whatever judgments other people might have about you this is regardless of herpes or not this is just in general that's why I really do believe that that herpes can be an opportunity for us to really understand that we can find the beauty in and share that with others but not have to have the validation of others mean everything like needing validation or having judgment be something that impacts our view of ourselves so so back to this woman get on tangents sometimes um so I was uh ...

5:23... you know we were talking about her you know how she can love herself more and how she can go down that path of loving herself more and her reaction to it is uh is something that I've felt in myself um so I I caught it and she said she sighed and then she said yeah that's something that I really need to work on and it sounded it sounded like drudgery it sounded like absolute horrific work to go down this path of loving herself and I definitely recognized it I I know that feeling of okay all right I gotta develop myself now okay and wow another perspective when you switch it it's like wow I get to love myself more I get to actually love myself more here's here's a moment where I saw myself just wanting to work to get somewhere and what's true in this moment is that I get to love myself more ...

6:48... wow and sometimes it can be just that simple sometimes we do try to complicate things and try to get somewhere and we might spend our whole lives just trying to get somewhere like right now I'm gonna catch myself wanting the the seminar to be here it's a month away and I find myself just wanting it to be here already and wanting the seminar to be filled with awesome participants and for it to be here and I'm sidestepping a lot of life right now and even when I am suffering right now I might be missing over opportunities to actually love myself more and take my own advice so take care of yourself and hope to see you soon