Being Aware of Inadequacy Feelings and Accessing Your Greatest Need for Support, Episode 130

Awareness That Heals, Episode 130.

A very warm welcome to Season 3 of Awareness That Heals, where we have progressed to be able to focus on one challenging emotion at a time. This will allow you to choose a specific emotion that you've had challenges with, and each one will have a progressive series of guided meditations that will allow you to go deeper and deeper into self-compassion. For me, it's truly inspiring because each emotion has unique nuances for both self-care and responding to your environment at the same time. This is subtle and a rare skill, as all too often we don't stay aware of how we can care for ourselves as we are. I hope that you'll not only find it helpful, but also give you deep resources that you can internalize when the emotion is most emerging.

So let yourself start off just being aware of your rhythm of your breathing and just see if you can find a flow that feels natural to you. As you do that, let yourself go back and say, you know what, I actually want to learn how to be aware of this incredible potential inside me where I can be aware of awareness itself. So let yourself close your eyes. Wherever you are, and just invite, I want to be aware of just being aware itself without adding on thoughts or feelings and get a glimpse of what it's like to just be aware of awareness itself. That means something like you're thinking awareness, I see your awareness itself. No more add-ons. I'm just hanging out there for a few seconds. And when you get that you have the capacity to just be awareness itself without adding any resistance, any distractions, you then have the possibility of steering your attention your awareness where you most want it to go. It is one of the most empowering places any of us can ever find. And if it's very subtle, but you have a little slight glimpse of it, be happy with yourself. And then let yourself move in the direction of becoming aware of where in your life you felt inadequate, or where in your life now you feel inadequate. And as you do that, appreciate the courage and the humility it takes to really face that, because it's so taboo. It really is like death. Where, how many times have you found in conversation with your friends or even your partners where you're talking about feeling inadequate? It's something that we keep so close to the vest and private, but we're talking about airing it out so that we can paradoxically become adequate, become better than adequate, become fulfilled, become satisfied. So just be satisfied with getting a glimpse of the fact that you as a human being have a feature of just being awareness itself, which gives you the potential to guide yourself. And then with this awareness, look inside in your heart for a place that wants to naturally care for you and recognize that this is where you want to steer your awareness from now on. How much time have you wasted where your awareness has gone to repetitious criticism or repetitious judgments that don't serve your life at all. And increasing your tolerance and acceptance of what is normally an intolerable feeling of inadequacy. Because it's very hard until you feel a methodology and understand a methodology where you can transform the feelings of inadequacy into something really beneficial. And when you see that, you realize it's a gold mine to actually be aware of your feelings of inadequacy when you can find a place inside you that cares, when you can increase your tolerance and acceptance. And then you add that feature where you can also ask questions like, how can I think about this feeling of inadequacy to improve it? What actions can I really take? What attitudes can I develop toward this feeling of inadequacy, like kindness or appreciation or recognizing my courage or my humility, to further inspire me to be able to do that? And at this time, we're adding another element, which would be helpful to look at the introspective guides at awarenessthatheals.org and you see your list of essential needs or elements of compassion and you say, which elements of compassion or which needs are most dominant when I'm feeling inadequate because I'm failing at work or I feel like I'm failing at work or I'm not doing very well in my relationship or someone in my family I feel like I've been avoiding for years. Or whatever your unique way is that you feel inadequate. And you're looking for which element of compassion you want to bring into your life to mix with the feelings of inadequacy that will allow you to bring that quality. Let's say it's empathy or tenderness or kindness or some kind of wisdom. And you find that and you let that guide you. The wisdom, let's say, would guide you toward, oh, I need to think of these thoughts that would be realistic, grounded, and would let me take the next step. I need to stay in the present and not go into the future where I can't have control. And I can allow myself to use my wisdom on an ongoing basis to deal with these feelings so that I can have not only a positive attitude, but I can have insight, I can have guidance, I can have direction, and I have tools by discovering the needs that are most important when I feel inadequate and allowing them to enter my awareness. And there's this mixture, alchemy, of feelings of inadequacy and an awareness of the needs or the elements of compassion I need to bring to it to help guide me in a way that's going to be supporting my feelings of well-being, my feelings of peace, my feelings of trusting myself. And I wish this for all of us. We all recognize we're in a world where we need to develop more adequacy of caring for ourselves, caring for others, and caring for the world. And so the more you find the needs that are most important for you, the more you can expand your capacity to love even your feelings of inadequacy and gain the benefit of what specific direction you need to move toward in your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions. Thank you so much for your attention, and I wish this for all of us.

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