Aila (01:11)
Hi everyone, welcome to Inside the Practitioner's Path. I'm Ayla and I'm going to talk about something today that is just showing up a lot in my work right now with my ⁓ young clients, my teenagers. And I've shared this experience from my own life a couple times in the last week and I just thought it would be nice to share about in a broader way.

And the whole, idea, if I could sum it up, the idea here is really like this kind of different take on self-love and the implications of self-love and or the lack of it. And, and really, ⁓ I find the whole concept very interesting. The more, the more deeply I go into a spiritual path and a kind of a deeper understanding of.

what the self is and what it's not and who I am and who I'm not and even even getting into the questions of like is self love even required? that even real? Is the self even there to love? Like it gets a little ⁓ interesting the deeper the deeper I've gone into the inquiry of who am I? What am I? Where am I? And just

kind of appreciating that the deeper I go into all of that, the more insight I definitely have, like for sure about the nature of whatever I am and whatever we are. And really, like I have lots of ⁓ felt experiences of tapping into the nature, the true nature of who and what we are, who and what I am, who and what everything is.

And really know in my experience that there's this ⁓ caring energy that is in there when there's, ⁓ when there's not, when it's not being convoluted or obstructed or ⁓ obscured by thought, you know, it's what's in there. And even what thought is made of is the same stuff. So it's really, it's interesting to pull apart and look at.

But really what I want to talk about is just like brass tacks kind of like what is what is ⁓

What's available when we really know that this whole business of being lovable and worthwhile and valuable and valued. ⁓ when we know that that's important to be in touch with. ⁓ like what, what, hmm. Huh. How do I want to get at this? I think what I want to say is I've had a few clients this week in the last week where.

When we've gotten down into a feeling that they've just sat in presence with and tuned into, ⁓ and really this has been one of the most provocative weeks of coaching I've had in many years where I have clients that are feeling, ⁓ the desire to cut and, ⁓ you know, ⁓ bulimic behavior, ⁓ anorexic.

type behavior going on. There are lots of extreme behaviors kind of surfacing. And with them, as I've been sitting in the space of presence with them and what they're feeling and just dropping into presence together, one of the things that has emerged multiple times is this question bubbling up from inside of them of like, am I lovable? Am I really lovable as I am? Exactly as I am.

in this body, this family, with the grades I have, with the choices I'm making, with the things that are different about me, the car that I drive, ⁓ the feeling I have of fear, does that mean I'm not lovable or safe? The feeling I have of rage or sadness or separation, are these indicators that somehow I'm broken and thus not lovable, not wanted? So there's so many pathways to take.

with this kind of inquiry and having it bubble up. But I just want to share this common theme that's come up for me in supporting these young women has been, I've shared this story that I experienced years ago. It was the first year of my relationship with Diraj, who I've been with now for almost 17 years. And...

My relationship with him is just one of the things I feel most grateful for in my life and proud of also how we tend to it and to each other. ⁓ couldn't, I mean, I couldn't be more grateful. It's, it's been a absolute dream living inside of it and also many healing opportunities, including this one I want to share about. And I'm doing this like preface to this story because I feel like

Even with all the insight around self love and is there a self and do I need to love it in order to feel okay? Even with all the like deeper understandings of like well in a quiet mind Clear of thinking there is just love. It's what we are okay, I feel all that I get all that and What I want to point out right now is this? Just this one way that I feel like I'm creating this

⁓ leveraged healing for these young people and it's been, I haven't talked about this story for years, it's just like occurring in the moment in real time and it feels like it's hitting the nail on the head and so years ago, so my first year with him, about a year in, I was just convinced that he was not into me.

for many reasons, like I could make them up. Like he didn't call me enough or I was really going through a lot of jealousy at that time and fear of his work life when his work life was him being around a lot of women in bikinis playing volleyball on the beach all the time in thongs. Like my nightmare.

⁓ But it was, you know, his work he was doing and he was really great at it and just, you know, beloved by everybody, obviously, and everybody that I knew was like crazy about him. So there was some fear kicking up in me and I got into this little mode where I was really convinced that he wasn't into me and he was just too nice to break up with me. So I wasn't trying.

I didn't want to break up with him, but I was just being such a bitch and just so crabby with him that I was, it's like, was trying to have him break up with me. Like I was like pushing and pushing and, um, and he would call it out. He'd be like, what are you doing? Like what's going on? And when I was like really slowing down inside myself, I could feel into it. It's like, I am worried. I'm not good enough. And what's, what's even below that? It's like this.

Concerned I'm not actually lovable and really the deeper concern is like the things that I love and want to be participating in Do they love me back? Like is it a mutual thing? and I was working with a counselor at that time and kind of articulating this to him and He was saying the same stuff. I knew he's like well love is an inside job. You have to feel love in order to

know that you're loved and nobody can inject their love into you. Like you have to awaken it from inside. And I was like, I know I've been meditating for, you know, 15 years. get it, but I'm, it's not dropping. I still am dealing with this lack of self love, as I would put it. And he, he did this really cool thing that I, I just really appreciate. And he was like, well, let's just go back in time.

to a moment in your life where you viscerally felt love. And he was trying to have me go back to my childhood. I know that I was loved and I felt loved as a child, but I couldn't access it. So I was just trying to, was like, like scanning all of the places and all the ways and where have I ever felt truly, truly loved? I don't even know. And it was, it was sad, you know, I couldn't like access it. And then

I had this memory pop in of the very first time that Dheeraj and I hugged and I just like knew that we wanted to be together and we were hugging and it was in on Venice Beach. We were at the beach. We had just started dating and it was like this deep long hug and I could feel like just this energy between us and the love that was

Billowing up from inside of me was just so beautiful. And so in this memory, what I was aware of was like, wow, that love, of course it was being kind of triggered by this exchange with this man. But my God, that love was billowing up inside of me and I was feeling it. I don't know what Dheeraj was feeling. I have no idea.

But I was feeling that loving energy and I was feeling it and it was being activated through that hug and I was allowing it to occur and questions about my worthiness and my value and lovability were nowhere on my mind. I could just, I was just feeling it and getting in touch with that feeling. ⁓ I can feel it today when I think about that, it drops me right in. It's like at my mind quiets and I fall in to love.

And I can feel that. And it's just, it's like a portal for me. That memory is a portal. And so in, in sharing this with these young women that I've been working with this week, I've helped them land on their own moments where there was no question about their deserving of love. Love was literally occurring inside of them and they could feel it.

and they landed on memories where they were feeling it in their job, their homework. I never give homework, but their homework is to take time every day to tune into that and to feel it and to not project it out that I'm feeling Diraj's love. Or one of them, she's reading letters that her family has written to her and to not have it be like, look at their loving me.

It's like, no, to notice like this love that is occurring in that moment, it's happening inside of you because it is you. It is what you are and you're entitled to. And in that feeling of loving, and this has just occurred in all the sessions when I've supported them and dropping into that feeling.

There's so much wisdom and guidance in that. So when I did this with my, this counselor who brought up this idea, you know, 16 years ago, he said, can you just take it off your mind? This whole idea of breaking up with Dheeraj or he doesn't love you. Can you just take it off your mind for a month and do this practice every day for a few minutes? And I did, and I really did it. I did it.

And I remember sitting on my stairs at my house or like in the, you know, in the shower, like wherever I was, I would just take time and feel that feeling until really until I felt it go into the memory until I felt it and let that energy move through me. And the funny thing was, it was probably like on day eight or nine, I had the just this full on knowing of like, my God, Dheeraj is so in

me. Like it was the first time I had ever even dared to think that thought. Who knows what is really true going on inside of Diraj, but that was this, this feeling I had. And then I also felt I was noticing in my life. It was when I started getting way closer to my dad and I had this ⁓ feeling of like, wow, he really loves me.

And in this deeper connection with my friends, like, gosh, I have such great friends. They are really like, they're so, they care about me so much. I mean, and at some point it's like, I started, I was remembering like, my God, right. I'm doing this practice of feeling the truth of who I am.

And it, it just like cleanse. It's like clarifies nobody's behavior toward me change. Nothing shifted outwardly, but my inner experience was totally different. It was like, I popped into this different reality where I was seeing things more clearly.

And there was guidance and it wasn't it wasn't like, guidance to do anything more like guidance to not do, not break up with Deeraj or not pick fights with him. There was, it was a shift in consciousness. So it just, it stopped making sense. All of that, that whole line of thinking, my jealousy fell away completely. I mean, a tiny little moments here or there, definitely.

throughout the last 16, 17 years, but nothing like the debilitating, crazy-making fear and jealousy I was experiencing prior. And it was just how I see it now, it's like a reorientation. It was getting more oriented to the presence of who I am, what I am, rather than the completely flinty, like coming and going, not reliable thinking that would flow through.

in a lot of thinking that was really critical and, and true, unkind, ⁓ and, a lot of what I was seeing occurring in my young clients in the last week. And just, didn't, I didn't have to know what steps they should take. Like, of course you should eat food if you're hungry, or of course don't cut yourself, or of course, like,

you know, hang out with your friends instead of being alone on the screen all day. There's things that are so obvious to do, but unless it's coming from the inside where there's like a shift in conscious ⁓ reorientation.

You know, for me, somebody, many people 16 years ago were like, I like, you're crazy. Dearest loves you. remember somebody telling me he's like, she said he's dazzled by you. And I was like, I don't see that.

And it was literally like my filter was misinterpreting everything in my life, all my relationships, including that one. And, just dropping into it an experience that was not ⁓ a filter, a misperception, a misrepresentation of reality, dropping out of the thought that that's truth.

but in an into this feeling, this felt sense of love and clarity. It's not even love like gooey love. It's just like presence, wholeness, health, natural knowing. ⁓ There is such a simple knowing of what to do next logically.

And then of course, thoughts might come in that feel like they could hijack that. But my job is staying awake to that. That's, that's all, that's all my, my only job here was to stay awake to what, what information is moving through my system that is real guidance for next steps or next conversations or next, next ⁓ actions and, what's not.

Like what steps or guidance or, ⁓ confrontations or harsh things, ⁓ look like good ideas, but they're really not. And you know, this week, yesterday in particular, I was having a conversation with one of the young women I work with and we went through this with her and she was kind of accessing her own wisdom and sharing what she was feeling as she was connecting to the loving. And it was so ordinary and I was like, what are you feeling?

And she's like, I just need to go outside for a walk. I haven't gone out for a walk in weeks. I was like, great, let's hang up and go do that. Tell me how it was. And she texts me and her plan and a few of the other young people I'm working with their, their, homework is to do that simple exercise of activating their true self.

like getting in touch with it, feeling it, resting in it and being guided from it. And I don't have, I mean, this is one portal I saw into how to connect up ⁓ in a doable, tangible way, a human being with the love that exists inside of us, as us, is us.

call it self love, call it presence. I don't really care, but I feel like there's a, I don't really care what we call it, but I feel like there's a necessity at some point in everybody's lives, a hunger, a desire, and it can show up in these like self harming, self sabotaging kind of ways of being.

where I feel like what's being asked for is this, this like deep knowing, not just a good thought, positive thinking, but like a felt knowing of like, whoa, what I am made of is love. And when I know that, how I treat myself and the actions I take, the way that I show up, it's different. When I'm not in touch with that, it's different. When I am in touch with it, it's different.

There's no right or wrong here. Of course we are entitled to never be in touch with it. However, we do fall or fall into it naturally all the time, but being awake to it and aware of it and seeing it as the most reliable source of guidance. And you know, that's so profound to me. That feels like what a healthy life is made of snapping out of limited perceptions, limited realities.

misunderstandings, seeing those for what they are, which are misunderstandings, end of story, dropping into a felt experience of who and what we are, the essence, the nature, you know, we just do life better, meaning we do life in a way that that is a reflection of our

our nature, that our nature is all about moving toward vitality and expression and expansion and extensions of creativity and extensions of love and care, ⁓ that we live more in alignment with who and what we are when we know it and feel it and are in touch with it. All right. So just wanted to share that. I hope it's helpful in some way.

Yeah, thanks for listening.