Tag: false

The stories we make up about ourselves

Posted on by philipdodson

The stories we make up about ourselves, this is a follow-up from the stories we make up about others.

Yesterday I blogged about the stories we make up about others and how they create suffering for ourselves and others.

Well, there are also the stories that we make up about ourselves, and these are the most corrosive and create great suffering within us and for others too.

What we tell ourselves affects greatly our self-worth and when we do not feel worthy, it affects everything in our lives. Worthiness is not a conditional thing, we are born worthy and we die worthy…no matter what, there are no conditions to that.

As I talked about in earlier posts when we a loving to ourselves, when we are kind to ourselves, and when we give these things to ourselves, we can feel worthy. If someone does not love us, see our value or question us that does not change our worth at all. Our soul is ours and no one else’s to judge or question, our worthiness is not open for debate.

However, based on other people’s words and actions we create these stories about ourselves that corrode our self-worth. We tell ourselves these falsehoods about ourselves.

Brene Brown sums this up brilliantly in a section about learning to rise in her great book ‘Dare to Lead’  she says:

“The three most dangerous stories we make up are the narratives that diminish our lovability, divinity, and creativity.

The reality check around our lovability: Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love us, it doesn’t mean that we are unlovable.

The reality check around our divinity: No person is ordained to judge our divinity or to write the story of our spiritual worthiness.

The reality check around our creativity: Just because we didn’t measure up to some standard of achievement doesn’t mean that we don’t possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. And just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn’t change its worth or ours.“

We don’t need to tell ourselves any stories, the truth is we are worthy and lovable…no conditions.

Beauty is an inside job

Posted on by philipdodson

The world focuses on exterior beauty and we measure ourselves cruelly against others through the lenses of accepted standards of beauty in society.

Of course, within we suffer as we perceive that we are not beautiful. It is now so pervasive and corrosive in society that it has become as serious as life and death, that’s how powerful the collective mind is once we become attached to it. We become our thoughts.

Others are more beautiful and thus the untrue internal negative narratives and negative thoughts run repetitively leading to manifesting unfounded behaviours and unkindness inwardly to ourselves.

Truly beautiful people are those who have focused their energies on realising that we become beautiful on the inside and they manifest that beauty through their beliefs about what beauty really is. Those people then radiate that beauty and light on the exterior too. Not in a cosmetic or societal way but in a soulful and wonderful way. They are beautiful souls who realise that we are all truly the same within, equal and worthy in every way.

The external shaming and judgement of our ‘beauty’ can only make us suffer if we choose to align with the falsehood that beauty is an external thing. Visual external beauty is subjective and judgement based which are all created by the individual and collective minds. Thus they are all temporary, opinion-based whims that lack any soulful substance, yet we create our inner image based on such nonsense.

Shallow definitions of beauty accepted by the collective and individual minds and egos are a cause of suffering for us all. However, those who let go of those definitions and create beauty within first will spread that beauty in a non-judgemental and uplifting way to the world. The true beauty that is life is what we all have as an amazing gift that cannot ever be judged or evaluated.

When we stop looking in the mirror to see if we are worthy and beautiful and start to be kind, loving, compassionate, empathetic, understanding and patient with ourselves and simply be without evaluation of others, then we will feel our own beauty within. Becoming beautiful within ourselves through our beliefs and allowing our true essence to flourish manifests pure beauty inside and out without an agenda. We have detached ourselves from our ego and therefore we can become beautiful.

When we let go of the craving to be seen as beautiful by the minds of others and respect ourselves, honour our values, be true to ourselves, concentrate on the inside then we see ourselves as beautiful as a soul.

Beauty is an inside job. What if we started teaching to look within and create our beauty inside?