How to Welcome insecurity as an Ally, ATH Episode 134

Awareness That Heals, Episode 134. 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. A warm welcome to our third part of our series on caring for insecurity. Before we enter into the guided meditation, I want you to understand why each of these meditations is starting out where your awareness is. And the reason for that is awareness is one of the areas in life that it is so underrated because we're on automatic pilot and we forget that step. We forget that we're the source of awareness. So at this stage, I'd ask you just take a look for a couple seconds before we start. Can you see how important it could be for you to be able to be aware of your awareness before you think, before you see, or more realistically, while you're seeing or while you think, you say, oh, my awareness is thinking, my awareness is walking, my awareness is speaking. In that way, you're starting to liberate that as another step where you can have guidance and direction of your own life. So now, getting ready for the guided meditation, put yourself in a comfortable position where you're not going to get disturbed. So start off by really being aware of where your attention, your awareness is focused on. Is it your thoughts? Is it your reactions to me? Is it a gut-level feeling you have about doing meditations? Is it a car sound in the background? Wherever your awareness is, let yourself have a little voice that says, "My awareness is focused on that." And then you're practicing being aware of awareness. Now, what does being aware of awareness really mean? It means that you may get to a point at some moments during the day where you're relatively quiet and you're able to be aware that, oh my goodness, I'm aware that I can be aware. And I don't have to attach to any thought or any feeling. And I'm starting to get it that when I have this freedom, this liberation to be aware before I enter into, before I'm caught up, before I'm taken over, I have this choice point to guide the awareness. I could make a case for the fact that that might be a better definition of who we are than Robert or Jane or Tom or Harry or Carol. So this state of being aware of awareness is a gift you can give yourself. Now take a few seconds focusing on your unique insecurity and how it really plays out in your life. Perhaps it's right now that you're wrestling with it in some way, or maybe you're at peace, or maybe you're wanting to get back at your partner, or maybe you haven't even quite recognized it as insecurity and it's more you just don't feel good. So you might have to just discover, oh, that's underneath somewhere. And identify where your insecurity is and where it generally leads you. Do you treat it like a friend? Do you treat it like a foe? And recognize you aspire to treat your insecurity as something that's an invited guest. It isn't something that you have any reason to judge. In fact, when you can embrace it, it is an ally for you in your life. And then recognize, as you're starting to see that, that of course you want to care for it. Why wouldn't you want to care for your insecurity when it is really a desire to be secure for something that's crucial to you? Don't you want to treat what's crucial to you with reverence, with dedication, with perseverance, with intelligence, with wisdom? Of course you do. And then, as you see that, recognize how much you want to increase your tolerance and your acceptance and your welcoming. Insecurity, I welcome you. Now go back to your insecurity. And see, it may be an insecurity about a lover, about your partner. And you might look at that insecurity and say, oh, I've always been insecure of Jane back there, or I've always been insecure about Thomas, and I've never reacted very well to that. And I want to find a way to slow it down and recognize, okay, what makes me insecure? Of this person, and how can I deal with it? So just seeing that you want to care for it and seeing that you want to increase your tolerance and move it toward acceptance, maybe even welcoming or embracing it, is a golden gift that you can give to yourself. Don't let yourself be fooled that insecurity is something that isn't relevant in your life. In fact, if it isn't relevant in your life, you're probably missing something. If you're too secure, then your relationship to your partner is not going to be very interesting. Insecurity is a sign of aliveness. It's a sign of really wanting to be connected. Now, that doesn't mean the extremes of insecurity. The extremes of insecurity, of course, are something that you need to work with very carefully. I have extremes of insecurity where I'm pathologically jealous, where I'm accusing my partner all the time. No, we're talking about ordinary insecurity that's not fun. It's not enjoyable. It can create issues, but it also can create blessings for you. So look and see if right now you can say words, or you can have a sense that I want to be more gentle, I want to be more kind, I want to be more tolerant. Maybe that's the best I can do. Sometimes I even refer to it as maybe you can only be barely tolerant. But as you look at your own specific insecurity, See if you can have a feeling tone of tolerance, acceptance, of welcoming, and just notice where you are. Don't get ahead of yourself. But just realize you're on an aspiration. And you're on a path to increase your ability to welcome insecurity in your life so that you can be more confident, so that you can be more secure, so you can handle it more from your wisdom. Thank you very much.

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