Mirror Work for Greater Confidence and Self-Belief (Join the Self-Love Practice!) Episode - 007

Welcome back to another day of this self-love journey. Thanks for joining me. My name is Vivek George. If you haven't been to my channel yet, I'm so excited to have you. And if you've already been part of this self-love journey, thanks for coming back. Um, this is actually the 1-week mark of doing these public, uh, group self-love practices together, and it's been really great. I really have already seen the benefits. I've been feeling so much better since I've been starting to practice with all of you. So thank you for those of you who have already joined and those that are joining now or maybe in the future. Uh, it's really a pleasure. I'm really grateful. So today, uh, we're gonna do some mirror work as our practice, and I'll explain what that is if you don't know. But before we do that, as we usually like to do, we usually have some kind of idea or quote that we reflect on as a bit of like maybe a mantra or an idea to contemplate on during the practice and maybe throughout our day. And so today's, I have two quotes from the Tibetan Buddhist monk. Her name is Pema Chödrön. I'm reading her book, When Things Fall Apart. It's a very interesting book, really lots of great ideas. I'm constantly highlighting stuff in my Kindle. And so there are two ideas that she shared that I was reading yesterday around loving ourselves, being kind to ourselves, and actually that connection to confidence. So I thought I'd share them and maybe we reflect on them. So the first one is, and to the degree that there is kindness towards ourself, there is confidence that we can actually forget ourselves and be open to the world. So to me, that quote is about, yeah, just the more that we, we really love ourselves, the more that we are open and, and yeah, and really confident and able to meet the world wherever the world is in any shape shape or form with peace and joy and confidence. But if we don't have that kindness towards ourselves, then we can be quite scared and shy. And I think that's what a lot of the world currently is like. You know, a lot of people just don't have much love for themselves, a lot of— not a lot of self-belief for themselves. And that's why people are so becoming more and more introverted, not going out and meeting people as much, on our devices so much, on our you know, Netflix and Hulu or whatever TV shows that we're watching and not interacting with people in the real world enough. And so that's why this— this is why, for many reasons, this self-love practice is so important to me. So that was the first quote. And the second one is, to the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes. Once again, it's about— so if we can look at ourselves with peace and compassion, and, um, then we can also do that same thing with others, right? If we have demons, if we have fears, if we have prejudice against ourselves and don't believe in ourselves, then we don't want to look at anyone. We want to talk to anyone because we always think that everyone looks at us and thinks bad things about us. It makes— and we don't believe in ourselves. But when we look at ourselves and we say, you know what, Vivek, you know, you're not, um, as kind as you, um, you know, we would— I would like you to be, but that's okay, you're growing, you're getting better. Or when I look at myself, I would say like, you know, you're not as smart as, you know, I think you would like to be, but that's okay, you know, you've done the best you can with what you have. Then that compassion, that understanding of who you are, then you don't worry. Okay, if John doesn't like me or Ajit doesn't like me or Miriam doesn't like me or whoever doesn't like me, that's fine because I like me and that's all that matters, right? So that's what that quote is about, is being able to— if we're able to look at ourselves compassionately, then we're able to look at other people directly and not fear them. And I think also it means that when we are able to do that for ourselves and we're able to look at somebody with compassion and look at them directly in the eyes, that really opens them up. They can feel like they are able to share with us because we have this calm, this cool, we're not trying to show off, we're not trying to hide anything. And then they can let their guard down, which I think is so important in this world. We need to come together more and more. And so I think the practice of self-love is so powerful in so many different ways. It's multidimensional. And these two quotes are really beautiful, I thought. Okay, great. So those are some ideas to think about, a lot of big things to think about. But now we're going to get into our practice. But just before we do, we do a quick check-in and check-out, how we're feeling before we do the practice and how we're feeling after. So right now I'm feeling really good. Like I said, this practice has been so good, so amazing for me. I'm so grateful. I'm hoping more and more of you will join in on this journey with me because I think just spending a few minutes every day for ourselves is such a beautiful thing. So I'm starting to feel really good and really peaceful. So I'm really grateful. Awesome. Okay, so now you're going to get a quick tour of my apartment. It's pretty tidy. Uh, there's not too many— hopefully not too much judgment. We're gonna head over to my bathroom. We're gonna do mirror work. Um, so what mirror work is, if you haven't done it, is we look in the mirror and we say, um, an affirmation or something about ourselves by just looking directly into our eyes and sort of speaking to ourselves in third person. So I will say, Vivek, something something something. In this scenario, I'll probably say a daily affirmation that I always say to myself. You're gonna even see a post-it. It says, I love and accept you exactly the way you are. And I'll say that probably a few times, maybe say a few other affirmations, um, so that you have some ideas of things that I'd like to say to myself. But maybe you have stuff that's important to you that you want to share. And so this is just an opportunity for all of us to, to look in ourselves right in the eyes, like as if we're a friend or a parent or our sibling or something like that, and they were looking directly into our eyes and saying these things to us, it would make us feel good. So that's the idea of mirror work. Okay, we're gonna do that right now. We're gonna get a quick tour of my place. Okay, awesome, cool. It's a little dark in here. Let's see if I can Change the setting a little bit. Okay, there we go. And you might be able to see right here is my Post-it that I was mentioning. It says, "Vivek, I love and accept you exactly the way you are." Okay, cool. I'm going to say this right now to myself in the mirror. Vivek, I love and accept you the Vic, I love and accept you exactly the way you are. Vic, I love and accept you exactly the way you are. Vic, you are amazing. You're funny. Vic, you are interesting. You're smart. Vic, you are kind and generous. Vic, you are amazing. Vic, I love you. You are loved. I love you, Vic. Awesome. Okay, those are some affirmation. That's mirror work. You can do some more of that in a more— when you have more time. But that just gives you an idea, hopefully. Also gives you an idea of my apartment. Okay, let's see. Cool. Okay, awesome. So hopefully that was useful. Maybe I'll just pause for a few seconds if you're at the mirror yourself, uh, or want to walk over. Um, I'll give you a few seconds to do that. I'm just going to take a few deep breaths. If you've already done it as I was doing it, Let's take a couple breaths together and let our fellow YouTubers do their work. Okay, sounds good. Awesome. So we'll do a quick checkout and then we'll wrap up the video. So how am I feeling now? I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. I wouldn't say— I'd say it was a little awkward to take you guys around my apartment. But, uh, it's okay. Uh, but overall I'm feeling great. And I'll give you guys a second to think about how you're feeling on the checkout. Excellent. Cool. Well, love to hear in the comments, uh, how your check-in and checkout was, or some of the things you were saying to yourselves. So leave a comment. Love to just follow along, and I'll make sure to reply to everybody as, or as many people as I can. And, uh, if this video was helpful, please consider liking and subscribing to the channel. It really helps me and helps me spread the word. And if there's anyone in your life, a friend or family member that might need some more self-belief or self-worth or confidence, feel free to share this video with them. That would be awesome. No matter what, uh, have a wonderful day. Thank you for joining me in this journey, this first 7 days of it. It's been awesome. And don't forget, you are worthy, you're important, and don't forget to love yourself. Okay, take care.