EPISODE 9
TRANSCRIPT
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Hey guys, welcome to A Lifelong Habit of Exercise. I'm Coach Kendra, and this is episode nine. Today we are going to be talking about compassion. And we live in a world where pleasure is a main component of our lives, whether that be pleasing other people, or pleasing ourselves. And normally what we talk about and what we hear about a lot is pleasing other people. We discuss how pleasing other people can leave us on the backburner in our own lives, and I think we've all kind of heard that before, or talked about that before in our groups and in our circles. Even in this podcast, we will discuss that more in upcoming episodes. But what about us trying to please ourselves? We're in an age of technology, where because we're so connected, it seems like everywhere we turn there is someone or something with an opinion, or something to say about who we are, who we should be, who they think we are, who they think we should be, or even just what we're doing wrong. And this may come directly from people's mouths, or this may be things indirectly through ads, as we scroll on the internet, through social media, or in commercials that we see on TV, or even as we're driving like on billboards, or even in magazines. When it comes to pleasing ourselves, a lot of us think that in order to truly pleased ourselves, and live into who we are supposed to be, we have to do or be something outside of who we already are. And at some point in our lives, we decide who we are, and how we want to show up and we make that decision based off of a lot of times what we've seen what we've heard, the people that are closest to us what they believe what we believe. It may be different faiths, different religions, we decide off of different things like that, on who we are, who we want to be and how we want to show up. But when we decide how we want to show up, oftentimes, what we do is we make it solid rules, rather than a guide to help us along the way. And this just so happens to be how we run into us having a lack of compassion for ourselves down the road. If we place rules on things, when a rule is broken, there's meant to be a consequence, right?
So like in basketball, we have rules, there's an out of balance, and if the ball goes out of bounds, or a player who is touching the ball is out of bounds, then the consequence is they lose the ball and the ball goes to the other team. So when we make our rules for our life, what we're essentially doing is creating rules for a one player game. Because think about it, like you have your own rules, somebody else has their own rules, every single person basically makes the rules for their life, and they decide what they're going to go by for their life. And we're making these rules to live by for ourselves, and we're the creator of the rules, and we're the ones that are meant to follow the rules, and we're the ones that are meant to set the consequences for when a rule is broken. We then also are the ones who are meant to enforce that consequence. So each of us are doing this. And I know this may seem like a stretch to some people, I hope you guys can stay with me. But I know this may seem a stretch, because I'm basically comparing our lives individually to a game, but that's ultimately what we're doing in our lives, we each kind of decide how we want to show up in the world, we decide what rules we're going to live by individually, we just call them like goals and standards. We call them something different. We don't necessarily say like, these are my rules, we normally say like, these are the standards that I have, or these are the goals that I'm going to set. And that's normally what we call them. I want you to think about your standards and your goals in your life right now.
And I want you to ask yourself the following questions. How would you feel if your goal or standard were not met? Like if you were unsuccessful in meeting your goal or your standard how would you feel? Then I want you to ask yourself, What would you do if your goal or standard were not met? So the first one is how would you feel if it's not met? The second one's What would you do if it weren't? If your responses were you would be disappointed in yourself or that you would beat yourself up a little bit not physically beating yourself up. But if you would find yourself using words when you were answering those questions, if you use the words of like should or shouldn't, then that tells me that you're kind of fighting with yourself a little bit on the subject. So one of the biggest things that hinders us when we place these rules on our lives is that when we forget that we're the ones that placed those rules in place, that we're the ones that put those rules in place. Sometimes we forget that we're the ones that did that, right? And so we use them again, as solid rules rather than guides. We think that if we don't stand by these rules, and be hard on ourselves, who else is going to do it for us, because remember, these rules are just for us, like these rules, these standards, these goals, these are just ours, right? If we don't meet them, and we're not hard on ourselves, nobody else is gonna be because they were our rules to begin with. And they're only applicable to us most of the time. And that's not meaning you're not using your faith, or you're not using something else to base those off of, but those are like the entire whole, it is just your rules, right? So then we think that because there are goals in our standards, and we should expect the most out of ourselves, that we need to be the hardest on ourselves, we need to be as hard on ourselves as possible. When we don't meet or exceed them, we think that if we're hard on ourselves, that we won't let it happen again, right. It's like when you touch a hot stove, your brain says that's hot. And for most of us, we only do it once. So what we hope is that like when we're hard on ourselves, when we don't meet and exceed those expectations, or those goals that we have set, what we hope is that us being hard on ourselves, is enough for us to never not meet those goals or not meet those standards, again, like for our rules to never be broken again. And so we try to be as hard on ourselves as possible. We think that we're the ones that have to be hard on us, because who else will do it. And it's all really just in hopes that it won't happen again. So that we don't have to feel that way. Again, we don't have to do all of that again. But unfortunately, for most of us, as we've already learned, this isn't the case.
So when it comes to exercising, this is one of the things I've talked to you about that actually perpetuates the cycle of inconsistency. We've talked about this in previous episodes before. And the cycle of inconsistency, remember is that you start exercising, somewhere along the line, you stop for whatever reason, and then what happens is you start questioning yourself, you start beating yourself up, you start saying why can't I do this, I should be able to do this, I've been able to do this before, and it perpetuates you back into starting again. All the shoulds all the shipments, all the questions of why we can't just keep it going, they all come out. And that's what really starts it again. And here's the tricky part about it. Sometimes it works. Like obviously, sometimes it works because you start again, right? And so that's tricky to us, because we continue to do it. So in that cycle of inconsistency, we continue to try to beat ourselves up because we're like, hey, well, it works because I'm getting action out of it. I'm actually starting again. And so that's what's perpetuating the cycle. That's what starts the cycle again. But the reason that's tricky is that we all know that the cycle of inconsistency means that eventually you're going to stop again. That's because beating yourself up and guilting yourself into starting again is not sustainable. So when we have compassion for ourselves, we're able to view ourselves as the humans that we are. Part of the reason we beat ourselves up or feel guilty when we do not exceed or meet our goals and our standards is because we feel like we need to complete or exceed that goal or standard in order for us to be enough. We think that if we failed at being ourselves, like these are what we put in in order to say like this is how we're going to show up. This is what we're going to do this is us. We think that if we failed at being ourselves, when we do not stay within those limits, we think that like that is us failing at being ourselves. When we fail at meeting those goals and expectations, we think that it is a failure upon us as people, as individuals as humans, we think that that means that we are a failure when we haven't stayed within our own standards, or our own goals. Remember that those are all predetermined by us. Like we predetermined what those goals and standards we're going to be we predetermine what those rules and how we want it to show up were going to be. Being compassionate for yourself is having the ability to understand that you are enough no matter what you do, or don't do in your life. You are enough.
How do I know that to be true?
Well, you were you, you were here right now, and I don't mean listening to me talk on this podcast. I mean, you were here on this earth, exactly in the form that you were in. And that is enough, because that is what it is right now.
If it isn't enough, if it wasn't enough, you wouldn't be. Just being is enough. So you are enough, I have a ring, and it's the only ring I wear right now.
And it's my constant reminder that I am enough. It doesn't matter what I complete today. It doesn't matter what I complete tomorrow, this weekend, this month, this year, I am enough. When I'm able to remember that at my purest form. I am enough. That is where compassion comes in.
Like I am a human being, that makes me enough I am Here I am breathing that makes me enough.
And that is where compassion comes in.
Now, some of you may be thinking, well, if I believe that I'm enough right now, what's going to keep me from just sitting on the couch watching Netflix and never moving again? Some of you will think that if I don't have my big goals and standards, I wouldn't get anything done. And I'm not saying not to have your goals and standards. I think goals and standards are great. I just want you to see that even without your goals and standards and rules for yourself, you are already enough.
Like I said simply being - you are a human being - like simply being that is enough. When you see that, like while you were going through life and setting goals and standards, then you can have compassion for yourself when you don't meet or exceed them. Because those are just something you made up for yourself as a guide of what you wanted to accomplish, and how you wanted to show up in the world. Not something that you had to meet in order to be enough.
I think that's where we really get caught up is we make these goals and we make these standards and these rules for our lives, and we think like I said, we think that in order for us to be who we are meant to be who we are supposed to be these goals and these standards have to be met. Before we can be enough, but if you understand that, like you just being is enough. So then everything else you decide you want to do just becomes a cherry on top.
So an exercise that I like to do each morning, that really helps me to have compassion for myself. And it's kind of a reminder to like, obviously, I said I have my ring that is a constant reminder that that net, like I sleep with that everything that is a constant reminder. But an exercise that I like to do every morning, that really helps me and it's kind of a reminder right at the beginning of the day, a take a piece of paper, and I do what I call a fact check. And I started doing this fairly recently. And as you can guess, I decided on the name because we're in a political year. And one day I was thinking about all the politics, and all the fact checks that happen. And I thought about how similar it is to our lives. We have so much going on in our brains and in our lives, that we sometimes need to stop and kind of check the facts. And this is a little spin off of one of the other exercise that I've talked to you guys about in the daily questions episodes that I previously did. So if you guys want to go back to those you can, but it's its own exercise. So you don't need to know all of that. But this exercise is strictly looking for the facts and not the thoughts.
So that exercise helps you look for your thoughts. This exercise helps you look for the facts. And even more specifically when I'm looking for the compassion and I'm really wanting to do it in compassion. I like this exercise because it's the first thing in the morning. And it just reinforces that I in my current state am enough to wake up and to get the day started.
Because that's exactly what's happening right? So everything else gets to be a cherry on top. So for the exercise, it's so simple. I simply write down Kendra's factcheck, and again, this is for compassion. I write down things that honestly you guys would be like, duh. So I write down the smallest facts about me being me. And that's not materialistic things that I have, or that I don't have and think that I should I write down things like I am breathing. And honestly, that by itself is enough, most of the time for me. To be able to say, like I woke up this morning, I am breathing. And me being in the form that I am in was enough for me to wake up. If I want to go further, I can sometimes sometimes I write down like, I have two arms, I have two legs, I have two hands, because when I'm writing, I see my hands. And it's just me being me. That is enough, me just being as enough. Even if I didn't have two hands me still being would just be enough. That's why I like to, I am breathing. That's what I start with. Those are the types of things that I write down to build compassion for myself, is it like a reminder first thing in the morning. And you don't even have to write it down, maybe you just remembering that could help. But I like to write it down because it gets me in that habit of just writing it down every morning. I can see, I can hear, I am breathing. To build compassion for myself, I keep it so basic, because getting to the point where you believe you are enough means really going to your purest form. If you can believe that you breathing, you being a human being is enough, that's when you can really let go of all the pressure. All the pressure of we have to do this, we have to do that I have to accomplish this before I am enough. That's when we can let go of that pressure and take on that compassion. We can still do all the other amazing things. However, we get to be good enough without ever completing any of them. So you guys for the next week, I really want you guys to get to where you have compassion for yourself, where you understand that you are enough. And hopefully you guys already do but when you get to that purest level of yourself, I am breathing. I am enough. I am here. I am a human being. I am so excited for you guys. But in the next week I want you guys to really truly work on the compassion for yourself. Until next time.
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