Speaker 1: Your true self might actually feel really unknown and familiar.
Speaker 1: It might actually feel really foreign to you. And it's
Speaker 1: really easy to do that because when we don't know
Speaker 1: who we actually are, of course we're going to try
Speaker 1: and hold onto anything that makes us feel like we do.
Speaker 1: We will want a sense of purpose, we will want
Speaker 1: to know we belong. Welcome to a Really Good Cry podcast.
Speaker 1: A Really Good Cry is here to help you understand
Speaker 1: your body, feel confident in your skin, manage your emotions,
Speaker 1: and take back control of your health. Because growth doesn't
Speaker 1: always start with answers. Sometimes it starts with a really
Speaker 1: good cry. Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's
Speaker 1: episode of A Really Good Cry. I hope you've had
Speaker 1: a really good week, And if you have had a
Speaker 1: really good cry, I hope it really helps you to
Speaker 1: have that really good week. I don't know whether you
Speaker 1: guys are like this, I definitely am I. Very often
Speaker 1: in my life my mind goes through these existential spirals.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately I have them very often. They're always this like,
Speaker 1: who am I? What am I doing here? Am I
Speaker 1: doing the right thing in life? Am I even the
Speaker 1: person I think that I am? What am I supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing? You? Know, like all all the questions
Speaker 1: that you usually ask maybe once or twice in life,
Speaker 1: I tend to ask quite often. And I've been thinking
Speaker 1: why these questions keep spiraling in my mind and what
Speaker 1: it really does mean, Like what does it really mean
Speaker 1: true be your true self? How do you even get
Speaker 1: closer to being whatever this true self is? And also
Speaker 1: what even is there. I've studied and taken interest in
Speaker 1: so many different spiritual paths and the different versions of
Speaker 1: what that looks like for different people, the different philosophies,
Speaker 1: and I've really found myself drawn to the Vedic philosophy
Speaker 1: and its explanation of life and how to process and
Speaker 1: understand myself and the world around me. So usually whenever
Speaker 1: I have these really big questions, I try to tend
Speaker 1: back to the text and try to dig deeper. And
Speaker 1: I feel like it's so easy to think that you
Speaker 1: know who you are and make yourself really believe it,
Speaker 1: Like it shocks me at how easy it is to
Speaker 1: create a false sense of self, a false sense of identity,
Speaker 1: a false sense of this is who I am, and
Speaker 1: truly believe that this is who you are because I
Speaker 1: you've believed it for so long, or it's something that
Speaker 1: you've created, and you're so scared of breaking that facade,
Speaker 1: so scared of breaking that idea that you've created, because
Speaker 1: the idea is pretty pretty good. I really thought that
Speaker 1: I'd done so much self work, but there was this
Speaker 1: feeling that I just kept getting that something's missing or
Speaker 1: overthinking or changing my mind on certain things depending on
Speaker 1: who I was with, and fundamentally not knowing what it
Speaker 1: really meant practically daily to really work to uncover who
Speaker 1: that is. So I thought it might be helpful if
Speaker 1: you've ever been in that place, or you're in that
Speaker 1: place in your life right now, or whatever, are in
Speaker 1: that place, to share the things that I've been exploring
Speaker 1: and reading and learning about how to really discover this
Speaker 1: true self and what that really means. So in Lady philosophy,
Speaker 1: there's a really specific word for it. It's called Artaman.
Speaker 1: Artaman is your unchanging eternal consciousness. So we'll covey up
Speaker 1: this by saying that if you are someone who doesn't
Speaker 1: believe in the spirit, if you're someone doesn't believe in consciousness,
Speaker 1: and you're someone that believes only in the body and
Speaker 1: the body is what it is, this might not be
Speaker 1: what you've been looking for. But if you are someone
Speaker 1: who believes in this idea that there is an eternal
Speaker 1: part of us, that there is a different level of
Speaker 1: consciousness that exists within our body, then you're in the
Speaker 1: right place. And then I feel like you'll really be
Speaker 1: able to take this information in with so much depth.
Speaker 1: So this is arthman. It is your unchanging eternal consciousness,
Speaker 1: essentially your soul, and it's a part of you that's
Speaker 1: actually been there the whole time, regardless of what your
Speaker 1: body's changed, regardless of where you've been in this world.
Speaker 1: We're in this universe over time, your soul has always existed.
Speaker 1: And when texts like the Bagla Ghita talk about who
Speaker 1: you really are, they do something really interesting. They actually
Speaker 1: start by telling you what you're not. And so they
Speaker 1: say you are not your body because the body changes,
Speaker 1: It changes day to day, it changes yet year, but
Speaker 1: it also changes body to body. You're not your thoughts,
Speaker 1: they come and go, You're not your emotions because they fluctuate.
Speaker 1: Your body at five years old is obviously not your body. Now,
Speaker 1: your thoughts ten minutes ago. On the thoughts that you
Speaker 1: are having right now, the emotions that might have really
Speaker 1: messed you up last Tuesday. They might be gone or
Speaker 1: they don't matter anymore. And so the Giara basically separates
Speaker 1: you into two layers. And this framework alone really changed
Speaker 1: how I think about myself. So the first layer is
Speaker 1: the temporary self. This is the stuff that you usually
Speaker 1: call me, your body, your thoughts, your emotions. I feel this,
Speaker 1: I am this, I believe this. Your roles, your career,
Speaker 1: your relationships, your identity, the way that you might introduce
Speaker 1: yourself at events. All of this is emotion all the time.
Speaker 1: But none of it is stable, none of it is certain.
Speaker 1: Layer two is a true self, And this is the athma.
Speaker 1: This is the observer. It's the awareness behind everything. It's
Speaker 1: the part of you that was there in childhood that's
Speaker 1: still here now and that will be there in every
Speaker 1: phase ahead in your life. And that is actually what
Speaker 1: you are. And here's the simplest way that I've heard it,
Speaker 1: per Your true self isn't who you perform, think, or feel.
Speaker 1: It's the part of you that's still there when all
Speaker 1: of that changes. And if I'm honest, when I hear that,
Speaker 1: even now, I feel like it's something you just have
Speaker 1: to keep exploring and learning. It's almost like too vast
Speaker 1: to put into a sentence or too big to truly
Speaker 1: understand in one moment. It's something that has to keep
Speaker 1: revealing itself and that you have to keep uncovering. And
Speaker 1: ever so many times that I felt confused about which
Speaker 1: is which, because it's become such a deep part of
Speaker 1: me who I think I am versus who I actually am.
Speaker 1: And if you've spent yourself acting or performing or trying
Speaker 1: to be somebody that other people say you are, or
Speaker 1: identifying with a certain aspect of yourself, like your job
Speaker 1: more than anything else in your life, your true self
Speaker 1: might actually feel really unknown and familiar. It might actually
Speaker 1: feel really foreign to you, and it might feel very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: It's just like change, when something might be right for
Speaker 1: you but you're not used to it, the familiar negative
Speaker 1: thing might end up feeling better for you than the
Speaker 1: unfamiliar positive thing. And I guess it's the same for this.
Speaker 1: When you feel like you already know someone, you feel
Speaker 1: comfortable and so you really know this other verse of yourself.
Speaker 1: But if you've never really tapped in or tuned into
Speaker 1: this real version of yourself or who your authentic self is,
Speaker 1: then it might feel really foreign and uncomfortable to experience
Speaker 1: or explore that. And the thing is, it's not saying
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have your jobs, your relationships, this body. Obviously
Speaker 1: we have them. But the problem comes when we start
Speaker 1: thinking I am the moment I have a job becomes
Speaker 1: I am my job, and it becomes your whole sense
Speaker 1: of self for becomes your whole identity. And it's really
Speaker 1: easy to do that because when we don't know who
Speaker 1: we actually are, of course we're going to try and
Speaker 1: hold onto anything that makes us feel like we do.
Speaker 1: We will want a sense of purpose, we will want
Speaker 1: to know we belong. And so whatever these different hats
Speaker 1: are that we have, or these titles that we have
Speaker 1: that makes us feel like we belong, we're going to
Speaker 1: hold onto. We're going to latch onto. Another thing that
Speaker 1: can really have an impact on how we connect to
Speaker 1: our to we self is attachment. And I think this
Speaker 1: is a really big one. The GI that talks about
Speaker 1: this chain reaction that once you see it, you can't
Speaker 1: really unsee it, and it kind of makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: It says attachment can need to desire, Desire leads to frustration,
Speaker 1: frustrate to confusion, and then confusion to loss of clarity.
Speaker 1: So soon as you start attaching yourself to outcomes, to validation,
Speaker 1: to how life is supposed to look, slowly, without noticing,
Speaker 1: you stopped acting from a place of truth and start
Speaker 1: acting from a place of fear and control. You then
Speaker 1: end up not making choices anymore. You're just protecting a
Speaker 1: specific outcome that you believe is yours. I notice this
Speaker 1: a lot when I catch myself doing something not because
Speaker 1: I want to, but because I'm scared of what happens
Speaker 1: if I don't, And that brings the ego into this.
Speaker 1: In this context, ego doesn't mean arrogance. It's something actually
Speaker 1: a lot more subtle than that, and honestly, way more pervasive.
Speaker 1: It's this false identity that's built around I meet mine,
Speaker 1: I am successful, I am rejected, I am the type
Speaker 1: of person who and you attached to these outcomes, this
Speaker 1: validation how life should look, and slowly you really do
Speaker 1: stop acting from this place of who actually am I,
Speaker 1: but you start acting from fear and control and ego.
Speaker 1: And the fact is that ego is so fragile, it's
Speaker 1: constantly under construction and constantly under threat. So if you
Speaker 1: live from it, you naturally feel unstable because you are
Speaker 1: functioning from a place of instability, because anything that contradicts
Speaker 1: this story will end up shaking you. Anything that doesn't
Speaker 1: fit within this idea that you've constructed of your belief
Speaker 1: of who you are. If it doesn't fit in that
Speaker 1: it feels like a threat, which actually stops you from
Speaker 1: exploring or from doing the work required to understand who
Speaker 1: it is you actually are. I think there's also this
Speaker 1: difficulty in wanting to understand who you are because maybe
Speaker 1: sometimes you become someone that you don't actually want to be,
Speaker 1: and the reality of who you truly are might actually
Speaker 1: scare you, and it might actually become as a shock
Speaker 1: to you because you've created this version of yourself that
Speaker 1: you believe is the best version or who you should be,
Speaker 1: because it protects you from actually thinking, Wow, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that I had these thoughts. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: I had these feelings. I didn't know that this is
Speaker 1: what I actually believe about these certain things. And sometimes
Speaker 1: it might disappoint you, and sometimes you might realize you've
Speaker 1: become someone that you absolutely had no idea you were.
Speaker 1: But I think that exploration is what's really necessary, and
Speaker 1: the willingness to know that you might uncover things that
Speaker 1: you might not like, and it's quite likely that you
Speaker 1: might do that. I think you have to be open
Speaker 1: to that. Otherwise you're constantly digging, but you're not looking
Speaker 1: in the right places. I think one of the biggest
Speaker 1: hurdles that we all have right now is that we
Speaker 1: have constant noise around us. Like if you think about
Speaker 1: the last time that you actually just chose to sit
Speaker 1: with yourself and do absolutely nothing and just hear your thoughts.
Speaker 1: This last weekend, I had so much going through my head,
Speaker 1: and I consciously made a point to specifically do that.
Speaker 1: Not sit and watch something, not listen to loud music,
Speaker 1: not talk to your friend, but just genuinely sitting with myself.
Speaker 1: I watched the leaves move outside. I had no music,
Speaker 1: no conversation, no cause, just sitting on my own in
Speaker 1: one place with my thoughts. And actually something that really
Speaker 1: helped me was speaking out loud. I felt like I
Speaker 1: was speaking to God. But like having this conversation with yourself,
Speaker 1: with your soul, with whoever it is that you want
Speaker 1: to connect to that helps you reveal what that is.
Speaker 1: Really taking time out to do that because I think
Speaker 1: it can re feel so much more like silence can
Speaker 1: reveal so much more to you than anything else can,
Speaker 1: than all the noise around you possibly can. And I
Speaker 1: realize I've not done that in so long, and so
Speaker 1: much can come to you in those moments. Even if
Speaker 1: you don't get incredible realizations of yourself, it's still sending
Speaker 1: a signal to your mind and your body and your
Speaker 1: consciousness that you're there and you are willing and wanting
Speaker 1: to listen to it. With all of the distractions, the
Speaker 1: stimulation and the overthinking, we're always reacting and never really
Speaker 1: observing ourself. And if you're never observing, you can't really
Speaker 1: get to know or begin to learn who your true
Speaker 1: self really is. And that's actually something I feel I'm
Speaker 1: deeply trying to go through right now is uncovering and
Speaker 1: exploring and really seeing into my thought processes, the things
Speaker 1: that I believe in the ideas that I've had about life,
Speaker 1: like so many different parts where I'm like, is this
Speaker 1: my thought or is this someone else's? Is this my
Speaker 1: belief or do I think I should believe this? And
Speaker 1: really breaking that down and understanding where all of this
Speaker 1: comes from, whether it's something I truly feel feels right
Speaker 1: for me, and then whether it's something I actually want
Speaker 1: to continue. I think the more that you try to
Speaker 1: build an identity, the further you actually move away from
Speaker 1: your true self because you're trying to build it, and
Speaker 1: the true self isn't constructed, it already exists. So it's
Speaker 1: actually less about building and more about exploring and uncovering.
Speaker 1: I think we're so used to creating things, like you
Speaker 1: create the life that you want, you do your job,
Speaker 1: you create your family, you find your partner, like we're
Speaker 1: so used to doing, rather than actually stripping back and uncovering.
Speaker 1: And so it's this process of actually less of creation,
Speaker 1: less of you trying to control a situation and create,
Speaker 1: and more to do with you uncovering and digging really,
Speaker 1: really deep, which is actually a lot more scary and
Speaker 1: a lot harder than the other bits. So even if
Speaker 1: all of this makes sense, the next thing I thought was, Okay,
Speaker 1: so how do I actually uncover all of this and
Speaker 1: how do you work your way through this to reveal
Speaker 1: who you really are? So I'm going to share some
Speaker 1: of the things that I've been doing in the process
Speaker 1: so far. I'm still in the beginnings of it, but
Speaker 1: to try and help you go through this process. Maybe
Speaker 1: at the same time we can go through it together
Speaker 1: of doing this work every single day or every single
Speaker 1: week to uncover and what that looks like. So the
Speaker 1: first thing is removing before you add things in. We're
Speaker 1: so used to asking who should I become? Or like
Speaker 1: these bigger, better and more impressive, healed, more enlightened versions
Speaker 1: of ourselves. But in maybe philosophy, it actually changes the
Speaker 1: question to what isn't me? Which believes did I just inherit?
Speaker 1: And never question conditioning? Where does it come from? Where
Speaker 1: does it show up? And how can I amend it?
Speaker 1: Which habits keep draining me? But I keep doing because
Speaker 1: I think that their mine. Which identities am I performing
Speaker 1: and for whose benefit? Whether it's fear or attachment. So
Speaker 1: the work is an addition, it's subtraction. You're not building
Speaker 1: a new self, You're peeling things off an existing one.
Speaker 1: I'm making sure I have moments of stillness every single day.
Speaker 1: I think this is definitely the non negotiable. Truth reveals
Speaker 1: itself in silence, not in more thinking, not in more journaling,
Speaker 1: just in silence, when you can actually hear what your
Speaker 1: inner self is actually saying, When you can actually hear
Speaker 1: what your thoughts are and discover where they're coming from.
Speaker 1: You can only do that if you're willing and have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to listen to them and hear. And this
Speaker 1: does not have to be like a forty minute meditation.
Speaker 1: It can be you going on your walk without your AirPods.
Speaker 1: It could be the first ten minutes of your morning
Speaker 1: before any input. It could be sitting in the car
Speaker 1: after you park somewhere and before you go inside and
Speaker 1: just hearing and sitting with your body and thinking what
Speaker 1: is going on right now? Or there's this new obsession
Speaker 1: online called raw dogging, where you just sit on a
Speaker 1: fly or in a waiting room or on a couch
Speaker 1: with no input, no phone, no music, no podcast, no book,
Speaker 1: just you and your mind. A lot of people are
Speaker 1: doing that to help reset their distractions and their life
Speaker 1: and to help reset their nervous system. But I also
Speaker 1: think it's like the perfect way to also do this,
Speaker 1: And I think the initial reaction, like when I did
Speaker 1: it this weekend, it felt really uncomfortable. It felt unbearable.
Speaker 1: I felt like I needed to reach for something or
Speaker 1: do something, or be productive in some way, or be
Speaker 1: talking to someone. The idea of just sitting and just
Speaker 1: being felt really uncomfortable to me. But I think that's
Speaker 1: the point, because still this lets you process your identity
Speaker 1: and let's things settle so you can actually see what's
Speaker 1: at the bottom, which is usually parts that we never
Speaker 1: get to because you're always living on the surface layers
Speaker 1: of ourself. And the next thing is noticing where you perform.
Speaker 1: Like this week, I've been trying to really see what
Speaker 1: are the places that I perform the most. Is it
Speaker 1: in your relationships? Is it in your work. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you cut those places out, but sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just about noticing where you're doing it and then trying
Speaker 1: to uncover why you're doing it, because sometimes there are
Speaker 1: actual legitimate reasons for you to have to perform at work.
Speaker 1: It might be part of your role there. The next
Speaker 1: thing I started doing was just really trying to see
Speaker 1: where am I performing the most? In what conversations with
Speaker 1: which people, in what environments am noticing myself putting on
Speaker 1: this performance of this identity that I've created. And you
Speaker 1: might notice that with specific people, You might notice that
Speaker 1: in specific relationships, you might notice that when certain things
Speaker 1: are triggered in you. And so I think this first
Speaker 1: week is really just well, every week is about observing,
Speaker 1: but it's right now you're just trying to understand where
Speaker 1: these things come into play. So just start noticing where
Speaker 1: do you soften your opinions? Where do you agree with
Speaker 1: things that you might not really agree on. Where do
Speaker 1: you feel like you really shift in personality that you
Speaker 1: come out of there You're like, well, I don't know
Speaker 1: who that person was. And then the last concept that
Speaker 1: I really appreciated what I was reading through about this
Speaker 1: in vading philosophy is this idea of derma. And it's
Speaker 1: actually the word is used in many different ways. The
Speaker 1: most common is to describe your life's purpose, but another
Speaker 1: meaning of drama is your natural expression, the way that
Speaker 1: you would move through the world if nobody was watching
Speaker 1: and nothing was at stake. So the question really asking
Speaker 1: yourself is what feels inherently like me? What feels natural
Speaker 1: to me? What do I do that doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: effort even when it's hard work? How would I talk, act,
Speaker 1: or be in this situation as my full self? What
Speaker 1: feels right? I don't think you find this idea of
Speaker 1: true self by searching harder. You find it by becoming
Speaker 1: quiet enough to recognize what's always been there. So you're
Speaker 1: doing less doing and more noticing, less becoming and more remembering.
Speaker 1: If you look at it from a self help point
Speaker 1: of view, the question makes you feel like you have
Speaker 1: to optimize your way into yourself. You have to read more,
Speaker 1: you have the general more, you have to heal more,
Speaker 1: you have to manifest more, you have to do more.
Speaker 1: And honestly, I feel like I did a lot of
Speaker 1: those things thinking that I was doing the work, but
Speaker 1: actually sometimes that just adds so much more to it.
Speaker 1: It's like, when you're trying to understand this idea of
Speaker 1: who am I, you could listen to lots of people's
Speaker 1: opinions on it, you can listen read lots of books
Speaker 1: about it, but that sometimes might just add on the
Speaker 1: layers of everybody else's voices and opinions. And so sometimes
Speaker 1: when you have a question, I think it's often better
Speaker 1: to just sit with yourself and come up with something
Speaker 1: for your own mind and then go and explore, rather
Speaker 1: than hearing everybody else's opinion and then coming back to yourself,
Speaker 1: because that could always cloud your judgment because by that
Speaker 1: point you've still got too much information in your mind.
Speaker 1: So this is your reminder that this is honestly just
Speaker 1: the beginning. It's not a work, it's not a project
Speaker 1: with a finish line. It's just a practice. And some
Speaker 1: days you'll feel really close to it, clearer and calmer,
Speaker 1: like you're really moving through life as you and other
Speaker 1: days you'll be back in the noise, performing attached spiraling.
Speaker 1: But that's not failure. I think it's just part of
Speaker 1: the rhythm you have to go through. The more you
Speaker 1: end up doing it, the deeper you end up getting
Speaker 1: in your realize. So this week I'm going to leave
Speaker 1: you with three small practices that you could maybe do
Speaker 1: to try and help you to start this journey. So
Speaker 1: the first is ten minutes of stillness every single day,
Speaker 1: no phone, no input, just to you or I would
Speaker 1: say a minimum of ten minutes a day. Obviously, if
Speaker 1: you could do more, that's great. A question that you
Speaker 1: can maybe ask yourself is what am I performing? Where
Speaker 1: am I performing and for who? And one subtraction that
Speaker 1: you could do is pick one belief or habit or
Speaker 1: identity that you really suspect isn't actually yours and just
Speaker 1: hold it up to the light. You'd have to do
Speaker 1: anything with it. Yet just see it and let the
Speaker 1: discomfort take over you and allow yourself to actually live
Speaker 1: with that thought and see how it actually influences so
Speaker 1: many aspects of your life. And so there's going to
Speaker 1: be a slow process. It's not something that you just
Speaker 1: can do overnight. I'm noticing that very vividly in my
Speaker 1: life right now, and it's actually a beautiful thing to
Speaker 1: even have these questions and to be in a position
Speaker 1: where you want to explore it rather than avoid it.
Speaker 1: And so I don't know whether I've answered the question
Speaker 1: of what it is and who are we and what doing?
Speaker 1: But hopefully I've given you some sort of push or
Speaker 1: some sort of technique or a method for you to
Speaker 1: at least start figuring that out for yourself, because I
Speaker 1: think the fact is, no matter how much you end
Speaker 1: up doing with all of these other parts of ourselves,
Speaker 1: you could build and build and build, but you can
Speaker 1: still end up feeling so not great in your life
Speaker 1: because you haven't truly understood who you are or what
Speaker 1: it is you want, and that will keep coming into
Speaker 1: play in different aspects of your life until you address it.
Speaker 1: And so I think no time like the present, And
Speaker 1: so that is what I'm trying to do for myself,
Speaker 1: and I hope that you can do that for yourself too.
Speaker 1: Sending out so much love and I hope you have
Speaker 1: such a wonderful week