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, and welcome to the spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I am your host. And today we will be talking about true self respect is a beautiful topic. We're going to be going under the surface as usual, and we'll see what we find there. And then we're going to talk about a spiritual way to begin our journey towards true self respect. So before we get started, please like share and subscribe and also comment. We'll get the community going and also trip the YouTube algorithm to get this content out to many, many more people for their benefit. And please consider sharing with your family and friends as well. So today we're talking about true self respect and I, I feel in my heart that we need to talk about the things that keep us from feeling good about ourselves. There's a student that we have that I was talking to about this and this student was following and he was practicing and coming to class and so forth and he was doing very well and then, he decided to take a break, which a lot of times happens, life takes over and, he took a break and then he came back and he said, you know, I really missed, I felt a lot better when I was doing this. And he said, I can't really be consistent. I'm having trouble being consistent. And this is just an example, but we can know that people like you, we follow something, we start following something and then we give up, right? And then maybe we did feel better when we were doing it, but something is keeping us from giving over to it completely, let's say. I'm going to say that there are things in our past, like maybe regrets or feelings about ourself that kind of hold us down. It's like we're being weighted down like concrete on our ankles keeping us down. It's very difficult to progress. when those emotional weights are there. So I wrote down a couple of questions to get us started on this, but I do want to say that in this context, in this episode, I'm going to talk about God a little bit. And I say higher self, but in this case, I'm going to talk about God also, because I'm going to talk about God as the Supreme soul, the Supreme being the perfect loving. He's so he's perfect. There's no, sense that a being that's perfect would feel angry or judgmental or anything like that. There's a perfection of knowledge. He knows everything. There's a natural wisdom in the soul and a natural benevolence and understanding in the soul of God, right? So we're going to talk about God and when we talk about the way to get started, but first let's look, let's take a look and keep God in the back of your mind. Actually, as we're looking at this, like there is a being that understands all this, there is hope for getting past all this. So We're looking at how to get true self respect and we, I wonder sometimes, I know for myself that it was hard for me to think of myself as good. It was hard for me to think of myself as pure. It was hard for me to think of myself as benevolent because I had memories of all these past experiences and past actions that I was using to judge myself. It was very difficult. So I have a couple of questions here. What first question is, how is your self respect and if it is not good, why? So for instance, maybe I feel like I don't have any self respect. Maybe I'm kind of just going day to day, you know? If you watch these episodes, we, these are 20 minutes. They're very short and you get one drop. It's like one drop in the bucket. Right? So one episode is not going to give the whole thing, but if you keep watching, you get drop and drop and drop and drop and drop, and then it's like you're learning and building a working knowledge. The working knowledge begins to transform how I behave and how I think and how I live. And then I can start transforming that in a way that I feel good about it. And that will help my self respect. A lot of times we don't have a lot of self respect because we're not successful in different areas of our life or we have memories of things that we have done that we're not proud of or not happy with or we think are wrong or bad or not worthy of forgiveness and things like that but in spirituality we really look at the past as being the past and that every moment is a new opportunity to start something fresh and it's not like you're lying to yourself you're trying on a new idea about yourself So you can take a look at your self respect right now. Where am I? Do I kind of have some self respect? Personally, I feel my opinion is that if your life is not the way you need it to be, like reasonably, it's hard to have self respect. There needs to be some success in life, success in relationships, at least feeling like you want to change it or you feel at least like you're on the road to making it better, right? The second question is, What am I judging myself against? So if there's an area in my life where I feel like I'm not measuring up, what am I judging myself against? What's the measure? Is the measure reasonable? Where did I pick that up from? There's these questions that come up. This is why spiritual effort is so great because it gives us a chance to observe the mind and also to dig a little deeper and see where these ideas came from. You know, we could say like maybe it came from my parents and things like that, but where did they get it from? There was some social teaching or social norm that got passed down that they're passing it on to their kids naturally, right? I'll give one example. For instance, In my house growing up, if you said a word wrong, you would instantly be corrected. And if I use the word ain't in my house, that was grounds for death. I mean, So there was a high value set on being articulate and being able to use language properly, right? So as soon as you said something wrong, it was like immediate, correction. So Growing up you can see how coming out of that environment Maybe i'm a little bit strict about the language that I use. Maybe I used to be a little bit You Intolerant of others how they use language. So what does this mean in terms of self respect? I shared this example once in another episode, but I'll share it once again. I was sitting at a table. With another Raj Yogi practitioner and we were at a dining room table and she was sharing an experience and she said a word incorrectly, like there was a word that she mispronounced or said something wrong and I didn't correct her. I just let her go on and because in my heart, so this was like my self respect, it was like I cared more about not hurting her or not jolting her or then I did about correcting the word. So I let it go. And a few minutes later, she looked at me and she said, wow, I said that word wrong and you didn't even correct me. Why didn't you correct me? She said, and I didn't say anything. I just look at her and she goes, well, yeah, I guess you're right. She goes, you're right. You're right. There was an acknowledgement that, oh, maybe that wasn't necessary. So I'm sharing this as an example of looking at a norm or an idea or a judgment context or a judgment. scale that we picked up along the way that we're still judging ourself for. It's okay to look at those judgments and see if we want to hold on to them or not. Maybe we don't. So I think a lot of self respect has to do with feeling free or feeling like you can be authentic or yourself or just natural in your life. And if all these, we have all these like little judgments and things, I'm constantly judging myself. Well, of course, I'm not going to feel very good about myself, right? The next thing is, do I have regrets? And what is keeping me from moving forward from the past? So do I have any regrets? Regrets is a whole other topic as well. I think regret means that I have a memory, I'm judging myself for the memory, and then I feel sad because I failed or something like that. So I'm kind of in this past, judgment, sadness mix. Take a look. Do I have any of those? And we're going to talk about how using spiritual effort actually helps to relieve some of those multifaceted emotional blocks that we have. Regret is one of them. So let's talk a little bit about the spiritual cure for this, let's say, or, or how does spirituality increase my self respect, true self respect? Well, first of all, The first lesson in spirituality is that I am a soul. You are a soul. So that is a different context of existence. So you're going down to the existence, your very existence. And you're saying, I'm not a body. I'm not female. I'm not, I mean, it's here, but I'm not in essence. I'm not any of this. This is temporary. I'm the soul playing this part, but I am the soul. I'm God's child. My original nature is peace. I have the same spiritual DNA as God, or you can say higher self. But in this case, I'm going to use God because I really want to be, I want to, I'm talking to the people right now who love God, who feel like they want to be worthy and feel good about themselves. But for some reason, they've gotten stuck somewhere along the line. When we understand who God actually is. versus maybe what we heard in the past in terms of the scriptures like a vengeful God, a jealous God and so forth. When we understand that God is a soul just like me, but God doesn't take birth and rebirth. God doesn't have a human experience like us. So he has this kind of unlimited consciousness and his unlimited consciousness. It's not a he because he doesn't have a body. It's not a he or a she, but that soul, that unlimited consciousness is connected to us in a very subtle way. And because we're also souls, we have the same kind of nature as God. God is benevolent, peaceful, loving, generous, wise, pure, right? We have that too. If we take away all of time and space, we take away all of people and things and time and places and just sit still and feel the silence of my own being, I can say to myself, yes, I am a soul. And now I'm going to associate myself with the nature of God and also because I'm, You can say I'm God's child. So depending on if you have some kind of feeling of love for God, that's okay too. That's why I'm bringing God into this conversation. Because that feeling of love for God will also connect you. to this higher way of seeing yourself. We need that while I'm looking at all the old stuff and trying to break it apart and not think about it anymore. I need to be thinking of myself in this new way. So step one is to be willing to want to change. Like I definitely want to change this. I definitely want to move past my past. I want to let go of regrets. I want to feel what it feels like to feel good about myself. And then the other part of step one is to consider I'm a soul. I am living consciousness, just like God, God is living consciousness. And the nature of God is peace, purity, and wisdom, and benevolence, and love. That's my nature too. And sit in meditation and just consider that that is the truth. And if I can't believe it about myself, I can believe it about God. And that was how I was in the beginning. And this is why I'm sharing God with this episode. Because in the beginning, it was very difficult for me. to think of myself as good or holy or worthy or anything because my mind was full of unlimited reasons why I wasn't any good. This may seem, I hope this doesn't feel sad. It's not sad, but I feel I, I want to express and show that I have compassion for this stage that we're talking about right now. this stage where I don't feel good about myself, I don't feel worthy, I don't feel like I'm in my self respect, and how do I begin to step out of that? Well, take your love for God or your, or your belief in a higher benevolent power, like your love and your belief will bring your heart, will lift your heart up enough to take a chance. and say, I don't believe it about myself, but I believe it about this one. And then that's what I'm going to pay attention to. And little by little, as I do my spiritual practice and start to change my attitude about myself, my behavior starts to change. I start to understand where things come from. I start to be able to dismantle my past, to transform my past, to forgive. I start to be able to transform my life and make it work for me. And then I begin to feel self respect. I begin to set boundaries. I begin to be honest and authentic and have freedom in relationships. And then I begin to feel self respect. But the ultimate truth is still the same. You can't fake self respect. People do it. It's like arrogance, right? Maybe, but it's like you can't really fake it. True self respect doesn't have to be forced on anybody. It's a, it's an internal feeling of pride with yourself. So we're God's child or higher self. And that is that love and that connection, that belief is what gets us started. This is the beginning of Rajoga. So, I'm going to leave it there. I would, I hope that for your homework, that if this is something that interests you or what I just shared sounds like you, please take a look at the meditations in the description below or check out the Brahma Kumaris website and start practicing these little meditations. Just take a chance. You know, okay. I am a soul. I am originally pure. I am. And just let yourself feel it. You know, and little by little, you'll see that you won't be faking it. You're not just going to say, Oh, I'm okay now. You know, you, you don't want to fake it. Right? Like there's, I'm talking for myself. I didn't want to fake it. I really wanted it, but I didn't want to tell a lie about how I really felt. And I'm here to say that with this practice that I'm talking about, you really will change it. Your feelings will change about yourself. It takes time. You can do it. So I'm going to leave it there with a lot of love from the heart. And so our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. And until next time, we'll see you soon. Take care. Um, uh,
