Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello everyone. Welcome to The Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host. And today we're going to be talking about maintaining my dignity. I'm going to explain a little bit about what I mean by that. But before we get started, please consider like sharing and subscribing. As you know, that helps us reach out to many more people. And also please consider sharing with your family and friends so they can take benefit as well. Today, we're talking about maintaining my dignity and specifically, I'm going to talk about maintaining my dignity in the face of behaviors where maybe I have not been dignified. And I made a list of things like anger. The next episode is going to be on anger specifically. So I'm not, we'll talk about it a little bit here. Helplessness, blaming, confusion, dependency, and control. So we're going to talk about some of these. It's weird to talk about these things because a lot of times we talk about the theme, right? Like I said this, and then this one yelled at me and then I yelled at this one. And then we always tell a story when we're talking about these. aspects of our life. But today, what I really want to discuss is how I feel inside when I am experiencing those things. This is the thing that nobody wants to look at. We constantly tell stories about what happened. Um, because we, it's hard for us to face and process some of these, I'm going to say painful feelings that we have. So let's try one. I'll talk about one and we'll go from there. So I'm going to talk about confusion. How about that? So I'll give an example from my own life. Let's say you're in a situation where you have multiple aspects in play. Like for instance, at work. Maybe there's politics at work and if any of you have been in a situation where politics is important, uh, it takes time to learn that. You're not sensitive to those politics at first. So I remember for instance, my boss would give me my evaluation and she would always give me a poor grade on communication. Now, from my point of view, I was the best communicator ever, but she was saying that I don't get along with people and I have to work on that and I had no idea what she was talking about. So it was very confusing to me not getting an excellent evaluation or if I found out that someone didn't like me or for some reason that didn't make sense to me, I would feel confused. Or one time, I'll give another example. I was in a meeting one time and I stood up and I said what I had to say in the meeting and basically I figured it all out myself. The whole situation, I kind of figured out how to solve the problem and I shared it all and it was like, you know, sometimes we say mic dropper, that's the end of the conversation. And I was like, okay, great. You know, that was the end. Afterwards, my boss pulled me aside and said, you know, you hurt this other person's feelings in the meeting. I was like, what are you talking about? And and she said you didn't give her a chance and her feelings were hurt and I was like, well, I wasn't thinking about her. I just was saying whatever I had to say. So the confusion part I want to say is that I didn't really understand was being said to me. So maybe you can think about in a part of a time in your life where somebody said something to you and about you and it didn't make a lot of sense. And how did you react at that time? Well, I'll tell you how I reacted. I got defensive. I got arrogant. I started talking to everybody else about how terrible my boss was and how ridiculous it was that she said that to me and so forth. So where is this getting to maintain my dignity? Um, me running around and gossiping about my boss or complaining about my boss is not really showing that I'm a good employee or a team player or mature or, you know, developed in a sense. So it was confusion. It was kind of, I was embarrassed. Things like that. And so when we feel these things like confusion, embarrassment, dependency, fear, anger, control, like the wanting to control, or if I'm blaming someone for something in those moments, I'm going to say that my behavior is probably not the best. Sometimes we talk about how to control our behavior by looking at the behavior. Um, Yeah. I am saying today in this episode that the behavior will automatically change if I allow myself to look at how I actually feel about the situation. So for instance, in that situation that I, the example that I gave, if I would have been able to feel comfortable to talk to my boss in that moment and say, could you please explain to me what you mean because I really don't get it. And then if she was able, if she felt safe enough to explain it to me, and then if I was open enough, I could have said something like, wow, you know, I really was not aware of that. I'll try to keep that in mind for the future. Cause I have no wish to hurt anyone. I, I can see what you're saying, like, you know, in a meeting, maybe you have to give other people a chance. So what she would have done at that moment, she would have been teaching me how to be more. like a team player or more mature or more dignified in that setting. That didn't happen. I take responsibility. I reacted, you know, but the teaching didn't come either at that time. So let's say the teaching doesn't come. How do I maintain my dignity? Well, first of all, one thing I could have done was not run off and start talking about everybody, talking to everybody else. So that's one way to maintain my dignity in the face of a very, very intense feeling. Usually it's fear based. It's a reaction. It's a, I'm getting defensive or I want to change something or I feel threatened or I feel like I need something and I feel scared that I can't get it. That's a very uncomfortable place to be. So how do I maintain my dignity in those moments? And I wrote down here, first of all, be honest. This is hard. I, I really hope that one of the things when we talk about all these spiritual aspects, these, these things that I'm sharing, you need help. You need like support in order to be successful in doing them. So I'm hoping that if you're listening to this, you have a good friend, you have a family member, or you can contact, you know, your, your church or your spiritual, wherever you feel like the people there, or a person has your best interest at heart, because sometimes we got to talk through these things, or we need a safe place that we can talk. One of the best ways to maintain my dignity is to be able to be in the company of someone who's not going to attack me or undermine my, or treat me with, with, with contempt. lack of respect or something like that. We want people around us that have our best interests at heart and we want to be able to have other people's best interests at heart also. So the first aspect is to be honest. Maybe I can't be honest in the moment but I can withdraw myself or be quiet in the moment and then get myself to that safe place to be honest about how I felt. in that situation. I was confused. I don't understand what they were talking about. Do you see, you know, ask my friend, do you see that behavior? What do you think she meant? How can I get better? Or, or is it something that I shouldn't even pay attention to? There are times where things happen where it's not really related to us and we can chalk it up to, you know, them being them, whoever is doing this situation. But generally I do check and see, is this something I need to look at? Because I want to keep progressing, right? So the honesty, be honest, take a look, maybe talk to somebody else who you trust. The second aspect is understanding the spiritual effort that I'm trying to make. So I'm trying to move from a reactive, out of control kind of, I use sometimes they acting like a fool. And it's so amazing as I'm sharing this. I. I wonder how many of you can relate to this, but the worst pain for me in the whole world, the worst by far, like nothing even comes close, is to walk away from a situation feeling humiliated or feeling like I acted like a fool. That my value was not shown in that scene and that now I have to walk away and feel the pain. of my behavior and how it, how it showed up, or maybe I don't even understand it fully yet, but that pain of that humiliation, it's like, you really don't want to feel that. That's like, for me, that was the worst. So this maintaining my dignity is very important. It's worth the effort. to not have to feel that. So being honest, understanding the spiritual truth and having some hope, like even if I can't fix myself right away, and I'll give another example, coming into this spiritual effort, coming into this spiritual community, the Brahma Kumaris, I came at 40 years old. So my influences from my world, you know, my, my regular life were quite strong and my personality was quite strong. So just like in that example I gave of the, in the meeting at work, it was kind of like that in the, in the spiritual gatherings, I would go into the gatherings, I would be bringing in my, you know, my way of talking and maybe being loud and maybe talking too much or maybe being forceful about my opinions or something like that. And then I would walk away and I would feel terrible and I didn't fully understand why. So I want to say to anyone who's listening and interested in what I'm saying here. If you walk away and you feel humiliated, it just means that something isn't a match. Your behavior that just happened is not a match for your self respect of where it needs, where it should be based on how you really are. You may not be able to fix that right away. So it's, I think we have to be able to tolerate, be honest, and also understand the spiritual truth that we have to understand that the reason why it hurts is because I do have the potential. to have dignity and to act properly. That makes me feel good. And I can walk from any scene and feel the same and feel good about myself and feel proud of my behavior. This is making me emotional because that hurt, you know, when, when you, when I acted like a fool or felt humiliated or said the wrong thing or something, and then you walk away to hurt, it's terribly painful. So understanding the spiritual truth that I actually do have the capacity to act properly and be authentic and feel good about myself, and then have hope that even though it didn't happen just now, and even though I feel humiliated, I can tolerate that because I have hope that eventually I will get there. My spiritual effort will take me there. I will find my way home to my self respect. Have hope for yourself. Next thing I wrote here is loving my part in life and working with myself. So I'm going to support myself in this effort. I'm not going to wish that I had a different life or stuff like that. It's funny. They used to tell that story. About if you had the choice of switching your life with anybody, would you? And most people say no, even if they're going through really hard times or really painful situations, most people say no, they'd rather have their own life. So think about that for a minute. There's dignity in that as well. So in your heart of hearts, you already have dignity. You already love your part. You already love yourself. So let yourself get in touch with that. Some of the tears are coming as I'm talking because that's authentic. That's you. That's the real you. This behavior can change. It's going to be okay. The behavior can change. I'm going to work with myself, have patience, patience, understanding that as I practice, as I meditate, as I study, I'm learning and I'm learning and as I learn, I'll do better. You're going to have to tolerate, you're going to have to tolerate those uncomfortable times for a while until you get the hang of it. Just like politics or just like anything, just like how can you, you know, I have this vision sometimes of like, you know, the bull in the China shop, we're going to learn how to be the bull in the China shop that doesn't break anything. So what do I mean by that? I'm going to learn how to be in every situation without causing myself pain or causing anybody else pain. No sorrow. No sorrow. I'm not giving sorrow, I'm not taking sorrow, and that's another spiritual principle. Don't give sorrow, don't take sorrow. So I'm not going to feel bad and I'm not going to make anyone else feel bad, but I have to learn how to do that. And then finally, find like minded people, like I mentioned before. So get yourself a group of people who you feel safe with, who you feel have your best interest at heart and are also on the same journey. Because then you can share experiences and tips and you know, what worked for me, what worked for me. And I can tell you that coming from. a situation where even growing up, uh, in my first marriage relationship at work, even coming into this spiritual group that I'm working with now, I felt very helpless at times, confused at times, uncomfortable at times, but I'm going to say that my own effort, my own honesty, patience, love for myself. And studying this spiritual knowledge and applying it as well as practicing connecting with my higher self or God or whatever, practicing that I actually have inside of me the potential to be elevated, the potential to have dignity, almost like royalty, not royalty, like, you We see out there, but the feeling of royalty inside, not against anyone, but the feeling of, I am elevated, I'm good, I'm a special, I'm a good person, and then my behavior begins to shift. It's actually a learning curve because I have to learn how to be that bull in the China shop without breaking anything. And that takes time. Things will break here and there. And I have to learn. I have to tolerate. Tolerate meaning I don't abandon myself or get mad at myself when I don't act perfect. I have to be able to withstand that moment of having the humiliation, knowing that it's my responsibility, and then knowing that I'm moving towards, you know, it won't always be that way. That was one of my experiences. And maybe I'll leave you with this. If this is something that you're thinking about, like maybe you want to change your behavior, maybe you're like me, you just don't want to feel humiliated. You feel like you're a really good person and, and it's difficult when you feel like a fool or you feel like angry or helpless or blaming or confused or dependent or controlling or angry, you know, so. When you feel any of those things, it doesn't feel like it's really me. Being able to tolerate while you're looking at the future for yourself, or looking at your higher self, or looking at God, or looking at your potential, takes courage and power. And as you do that, you are building up your dignity. Once you get your dignity, let's say, or your self respect in a certain area, nothing is going to pull you out of it again, because you made it through it. You finished the old behavior. You tolerated it. You were honest, you were patient, you got help, and now you're over it. And now you're in a position to help others too, with that. So I'll leave it at that today. Uh, the main thing is that we have a tendency to look at the behavior and the situations rather than the feelings. And I would like to invite you to be courageous and realize that you really don't want to feel bad. You don't want to feel sad. You don't want to feel angry. You don't want to feel bad about your behavior. I didn't. And so spirituality in my experience. has been the only thing that has been able to make me move away from those behaviors. find my self respect, maintain my dignity in all situations. And like I said, there are still areas where I'm working on it, but I have experience now. So I know, like, I don't have that debilitating humiliation. Actually, I had it one, I don't know how many months ago, but it was gone for such a long time. And then it came back. What did I do? Where did I go? You know, break the China that I have to feel this again. And then I had to tolerate it. I had to tolerate the feeling like, let me see, what did I do? What was I thinking? Where did I let myself feel upset in this situation? How can I adjust it for the future? So I'll leave it at that. Please, uh, comment if you like, you know, we're going to start hopefully a community here and we can support each other too in these, in these circumstances. Remember our slogan is heal, empower and serve. And in this case, I think we're talking about empowering, right? Because when I feel all those things that I was talking about, I definitely don't feel empowered. So through spirituality, we heal wounds, we empower ourselves and then we're able to help others too. So thank you all for being here and until next time, take care. You
