Introspective Guides: Learning How To Make Insecurity Your Friend - Episode 75

Awareness That Heals, Episode 75. Just notice where you are at the deepest level, and that noticing is a grounding, and it leads to an emotional intelligence. It gives us a capacity for intimacy, fulfillment, inspiration, creativity, better relationship to ourselves because we're not abandoning ourselves or lost in rejecting ourselves. And this is something we have to learn because we aren't taught this.

The Awareness That Heals podcast helps its listeners learn to develop the capacity to have a more healing response to emotions and situations rather than becoming stuck. Your host, Robert J. Strock, has practiced psychotherapy for more than 45 years. He wrote the book Awareness That Heals: Bringing Heart and Wisdom to Life's Challenges to help develop self-caring and the capacity to respond in an effective way to life's challenges, especially at times when we are most prone to be critical or to withdraw. Together, we will explore how to become aware of our challenging feelings and at the same time find alternative ways to live a more fulfilling and inspiring life.

So thanks again for joining us at Awareness That Heals. It's truly an honor, a joy even an inspiration to be able to share what I've really wanted to share for a lot of years. And very grateful to have the support and the infrastructure to be able to do that. And what we're going to be talking about today is something that is so central to living a fulfilling life. And as we've been talking about the last couple of episodes, you'll hear the theme of starting with a challenging emotion and not getting into a constellation of emotions or a constellation of thoughts, but being able to just stay with the actual feeling to give it its due. So you can breathe into it, you can understand it, and it will give you a key as to how by being not only with it but supportive of it, it will give you a key to what you need. And we're all virtually conditioned to be normal, which means we don't pay attention closely to our emotions. We treat them like they're amoebas. We treat, we treat them like they don't exist. Oftentimes, and I don't mean to categorize or generalize or stereotype, but what I'm saying I think is 98% true in the Western world, that actually sharing what's deeply affecting us at a core level is a rare event. So this conditioning of being more together, or attempting to be more together, or being more isolated, that we've learned from our families, our culture, our movies, our friends, our classmates to be not really noticed for being in a vulnerable state, or for that matter, in an agitated state. We try to cover it, maybe not even consciously. For most of us, it's not conscious, and we haven't really been taught how to take time out of our day as if it's really crucial to check in and be the boss of our own lives, to be the authority of our own lives, to be the one that's experiencing where we are at a deep level. And I'm asking you to kind of pause and maybe look right now. Where are you at the deepest level? Are you bored? Are you interested? Are you feeling some other feelings about family or world situation or the world situation? Just notice where you are at the deepest level, and that noticing is a grounding, and it leads to an emotional intelligence. It gives us a capacity for intimacy, fulfillment, inspiration, creativity, better relationship to ourselves because we're not abandoning ourselves or lost in rejecting ourselves. And this is something we have to learn because we aren't taught this. I can't emphasize enough how much of this is like a lobotomy, how counter-conditioning this is to actually really value our innermost experience. This is not therapy. This is common sense that's not common, which is, oh, maybe I ought to care about what I'm most deeply experiencing. Now, that could be reduced to, oh, that's therapy. Oh, that's some kind of philosophical idea. Is it really philosophy? I ask you, is it really therapy and cloned as up, you know, reserved for four doors? Or is it something that makes sense for you to care about what you're most deeply experiencing? And by the way, also the others around you. This is not just a self-caring, it's a caring is contagious. If you care for yourself, it's going to be organic and natural to care for others. I would strongly encourage you to go to awarenessthatheals.org if you haven't already and download the free introspective guides, not only for the show but for your life after the show, where it reveals the 75 or A-list of 75 challenging feelings. That is so valuable to be able to identify rather than, I'm just not feeling good, or I'm feeling down, but be able to say, I'm insecure, or I'm anxious, or I'm agitated, or I'm frustrated, I'm isolated, I'm withdrawn, I'm alone. To be able to actually identify where you are, it's going to give you a hint of what you need and what you need can lead your life, and being sensitive to other people's needs can lead your life. And I ask you to pause for a second. Doesn't it make sense to shift your priority to learn from that great information of what's most affecting you and others around you, rather than what we're conditioned to be valuing as success, better lifestyle, being the right height, being beautiful, being handsome, great lifestyle, go on vacation and take care of the family and not really look at the state of the world and respond to it as best you can. Not really look at how you yourself believe you can be fulfilled. You being your own master, you being your own mentor, you being your own guide, you learning how to ask questions that matter to you and learning from the answers and following the answers rather than what we were all taught to do. Recognizing we're in a different century, we're in a different realm being in this world today. We're in an imperiled world. We're in an imperiled country. We don't know if democracy is going to survive now. We don't even know if the truth is going to survive now. We don't know whether fictional conspiracy stories are going to be dominating our lives as they are throughout the wavelengths in America so often right now. If we don't think for ourselves and we keep just following what's out there, even in the media, we're not going to be finding our own wisdom and heart. We're not going to be listening to our own experience deeply. The second chart on the introspective guides brings us to the essential needs and qualities and actions and thoughts that will most help us no matter where we are. And there may be 3 or 4 or 1 or 2 that we would identify depending on the challenging emotion we're in. And being able to marry those two, first to appreciate that whatever we're feeling needs to have not only an acknowledgement, but a level of, oh good, I'm aware of it. And following that with, I want to be able to care for this feeling and care for the situations that I'm in. Either because of this feeling or in spite of this feeling. How do I care? We want to learn to ask, how do I care? From your own wisdom, not from what your dad said, not from what your mom said. It may be coincidentally the same, odds are pretty good it might be right. If you had good parents, maybe it'll be right half the time. But you're your own authority. You have your own unique experience. But how many of you are actually taking the time to do this multiple times daily? Now, that might sound like, oh, I should do this multiple times daily. We're talking about you giving a gift to yourself. We're talking about you learning from where you really are. How can that be a should? The idea here is to touch a part of the sensitivity of your heart and to recognize that hopefully this won't even be a hobby. This will be equal to a full-time, carefully chosen, worthwhile inner job. It's an inside job. And hopefully, hopefully it won't be like a work that is burdensome. It will be something that you chose. You chose because it made sense to you, and you weren't just here to be a Xerox of society. So I'd like to start off today by introducing Dave, and those of you who have been listening to a lot of episodes, I know you know him very well. My partner at the Global Bridge Foundation and dearest friend, for over 50 years.

Thank you. My expectation is that we're going to continue talking about insecurity in a different way. And I think it's important to reflect throughout, and of course in the last podcast shared my own pattern and recognizing the primary fundamental feelings versus the defense against them is something you've been talking about And I really think that sets the stage for life, sets the stage for not just recognizing a given moment, but where are we in that hierarchy of depth.

Thank you for emphasizing the defenses. I'm going to add one more association, which is I believe that in every country feeling human is universal. And unfortunately, the defenses have led to military defenses. And if we could stay with our original feelings, we'd see the common humanity, we'd see the sameness. We wouldn't be locked into military defenses and fighting against each other. We'd see that we are all So much the same with individuality, of course, but it doesn't matter what race we have, we are, doesn't matter what religion we are. What matters is our common humanness. We're all going to die. We're all going to get sick. We're all going to see people around us die. We're all in a human dilemma. We're all in a human mystery. And so to be able to see that sameness hopefully will not only have an effect psychologically, but that will hopefully influence the insanity of war and seeing that we don't need it anymore, the reduction of defenses on both a psychological level and a military level. And of course, there'll be the panic. Oh my God, the other country's going to get ahead of us and this and that. This needs to be done internationally. But we're at a time where we really can, because of the universality of the threats that Putin invading Ukraine and the insanity of Trump and all the lies that he has perpetually said. We're all aware of the risks. Now, of course, the Trump followers are aware of the risks of anyone that's not following Trump. So we're aware that we're imperiled, and this allows the possibility that we can psychologically change and we can add that component of how do we care for everyone while we're feeling this original feeling, rather than moving from insecurity to paranoia to anger to war, that we can stay with the insecurity that we can care for it, we can see the universality. So thank you for highlighting that distinction, which we're going to continue to do today, between the original feeling and the way we veer off it into our defenses against it, which means we lose touch with our innocence and we become less intimate, we become less filled with each other. And other becomes a smaller and smaller group, or more accurately, has stayed a smaller and smaller group. This is a time where we have to expand beyond ourselves.

I think you hit on something that is so important to really focus in on when you, when you talk about illness and death and our own or people we love. It's about as hard as it gets, and there are so many places in our life that we feel lesser threats, lesser than the ultimate threat. And so these lessons are all around us all the time in ways that don't necessarily have to relate to the ultimate threat to our very existence or the people we love and their existence. and so it's, it's an opportunity that we can take almost any time we look around.

Yeah, it's like, it's kind of a version of, can we learn from other people's mistakes and not have to make the mistakes ourselves? Can we learn from the small er, but yet are huge? If somebody around us that we're close to, family member or otherwise, has a serious illness, can we learn the bigger things? Not only learn that we're feeling sad, grieving, scared, and we therefore want to follow our needs to be useful, caring, sensitive. And look at that list of 75 needs. Which ones does this person likely need? And can we learn from that? And then by learning from the smaller and medium things, maybe that will help us even more. To learn about the bigger ones of life and death and military defenses and war and the history of mankind and how the history of mankind has not been able to do what we're talking about, or there would not be war. We wouldn't even have to be warring with each other psychologically. We'd be, we'd be able to reveal, we'd be able to talk about it. So this is not a vague philosophy. This starts with your reality, yours, not mine. I'm not teaching you about my reality. I'm asking you, can you teach yourself about your own deepest reality on a feeling level and then care for it? Does that make sense to you? And then bridge out from there to be able to care for more and more people and elements of life and the planet. So I'd also like to introduce Joel, who is our engineer. Blessed and grateful to have someone that is definitely invited to share when he feels it's appropriate, because I know when he does, it will be useful to you. Thanks so much, Robert. I'm very happy to be part of it. So today we're going to take a look at another level of insecurity, and each one of these have different themes. And of course, if we did this with every emotion, it would outlive us. You know, we can't cover them all. But insecurity itself is such a trigger board because it's hard to tolerate, as Dave was saying. And actually, it was both Dave and Joel saying that it leads to defenses that can be or are utterly destructive, either to yourself or to others. And so if we can revere our original deepest feelings that impact us and not spin off them with defenses, but actually instead of defenses, go to what we have talked about as the second stage after being aware of the feeling, which is finding a place inside us that wants to care. Now, that must sound so obvious that, well, of course I would want to care about myself. But if you look at the contradiction of the emotions that are most difficult for you and you ask yourself, how many times have I followed that with, oh, How do I take care of myself here? My experience is it's less than 1% where people actually go to an immediate caring place and are clear they want to let the caring lead them from a place that's very difficult for them, whether it's the insecurity we're going to talk about today, or anger, annoyance, irritation, impatience. How do I care while I'm in this experience for myself and others. You may start with yourself, because if you reach yourself, it's going to be organic. If you learn how to care for yourself, that's not narcissism, that's opening your heart, and that's contagious. And so we can say both ways, but either way works. So pause for a second and see if you're someone who's aware of, at any stage of life, preferably now, of your insecurity. And if you're not aware of your insecurity, I'll mention a few things that you'll know is coming down the line. You're going to get sick. You're going to, you're going to die. People around you are going to get sick and die. So insecurity is universal. Now, I have a very close friend who continuously is open about her insecurity, but then will make statements that will be aggressive, will be withdrawing. And she is so overt about it because the beauty about her And one of the reasons why she's one of my dearest friends is she's utterly transparent about insecurity. But what she doesn't notice at times, although she's probably the most receptive person I've ever known at seeing it after it starts, is that she'll veer off into criticism, or she'll veer off into withdrawing. And then I'll say to her, How come you left the insecurity? Don't you want to care for it? Isn't it— is it okay that you're insecure, or do you deserve to trash people or be trashed or to run away? Are you worthless? Does this mean you're inadequate? And she will reliably laugh. She's one of the most advanced people I've ever known because she has the humility to go back to the original feeling after the defense is triggered. Now, that's very important because it's probably very idealistic to think that anybody can really just stay with the insecurity and just stay there and not have a defense against it. And so in the real world, what we're really talking about is, oh, I feel insecure that you're gonna leave me, or I feel insecure I'm not gonna have enough money, or I feel insecure that my boss doesn't like me. I feel insecure because my my two best friends have been distant, or I feel insecure because my child is acting out and I have no idea how to deal with it. So many good reasons to feel insecure. And then a judgment comes and you say, I hate my boss. You know, my kid, oh my God, my kid looks like he's a narcissist. And you catch yourself and you go back and say, oh, Oh, I'm insecure. I need to, and I want to stay with it. And I get to bring to her right away, thank you for sharing insecurity. Would you like to go back to it? And we'll smile and laugh again. This is real friendship. This is a real form of love, self-love and other love. To actually care for your depth and to be with somebody open enough that they're able to do that even after hopefully not too long defending, which is probably very idealistic because as I said, she's very rare. So the majority of people that are introspective are going to be acting out And then they can reel back. It can be reeled back like a fishing line. You could reel it back in and say, God, I wonder where that came from. I wonder where that started. You know, you seem angry at your boyfriend. I wonder why. And what will be there is, oh, when I was at a party, he was flirting, or I felt he was flirting with a very attractive woman, and I feel like I've been an asshole ever since. Oh, congratulations for admitting that you were an asshole. And is it too late? Is it ever too late? No, I say it's never too late to become more awake. Is it too late to go back and communicate with him and say, you know what, I was really insecure when you started laughing, made eye contact. I even felt like maybe you were flirting. Maybe I was, you know, maybe my insecurity was exaggerating it. Don't know. But that example is something that we all want to strive toward, which is that transparency, seeing a defense and then reeling it back in and finding out what the more vulnerable feeling is. In this case, we're talking about insecurity, but it could be inadequacy, it could be aloneness, it could be rejection, it could be abandonment. There are so many core original feelings that we have automatic defenses against. So I'm hoping that you're tasting the possibility that what you have rejected out of hand and gone into a fight against something related or unrelated, because oftentimes it changes subjects too, or you just withdrew and you just became more isolated and cooler. And unreachable that you want to go back. Not that you should go back, but you want to because you do want to live a more authentically fulfilling life that has intimacy with yourself, others, and then expand potentially into the world. So I hope that these 3 different examples of insecurity allows you to have an affectionate relationship with your insecurity. And by the way, it's helpful when you're not feeling it to have conversations. I'm sorry I've rejected you my whole life. I'm sorry I've treated you like you're the worst fart, hanging fart that's ever existed. I'm truly sorry. I'm going to do my best to stay with you and then ask you How do we move forward to care for it? And maybe, maybe the collateral damage that happened as a result of the defense. And if we have to confess, or we get to confess, the person's still alive, how can we confess? And what tone can we confess in? It gets very subtle. But the key thing is, if we don't stay with our depth, guess what? That means we're living a more superficial life. This is not a matter of mining and trying to analyze people and being a shrink. This is not therapy. This is being real. This is you being you, and you wanting to be you, and you wanting to support others to be them. And has great implications for love, for self-love, for friendship, and for the world. The foundation of facing our original human feelings and caring for them is the source of peace and connection, a lack of alienation, and possibly even world peace. Psychologically, I'm not saying it's the only way, but it is the psychological way to move towards seeing our common nature and how similar we really are underneath our defenses. And in closing, it reminds me of a program that Dave and I did 48 years ago in our brochure. And our program was called The Family Home, and it was a residential treatment center for teenagers. And one of the first lines was— and Dave, you can correct me if I didn't get it exactly right— but we at The Family Home believe that The boys and everyone beyond their defenses are good. So it was seeing the goodness underneath the defenses, and on top of the goodness is going to be a humanness. And hopefully this is being taken in as not just something that, gee, that's interesting, but hopefully you're taking this in as a longing for a lifestyle. A new way of being, of you waking yourself up. So I wish this for all of us, for our world, and all of us have a responsibility to do our part, and also an opportunity, and also a gift to do our part in our own inner lives, people that are close to us. And I thoroughly believe if we get that far it's just going to keep expanding out and out and out more into the world.

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