Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Right Attitude Attracts SUCCESS | Motivational Speech About Self Love

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

"If you have the ability to love, love yourself first" - Charles Bukowski

If you have the ability to love, love yourself first. Charles Bukowski. So last week I was in Utah, and while I was there, I did some guided breathwork, which had never done before. And honestly, it was a little skeptical at first. But I try and keep an open mind and gave it a shot. I'm happy I did. It ended up potentially being one of the most important things I've ever done.

And I want to share why, because this breakthrough or aha moment, if you will, was exactly what I needed when I needed to hear it. So this episode's going to be a little different than usual, but I feel compelled to pass it along. So to set the scene, I arrived with a friend of mine to the instructor, Jen's location. She gave us an overview, kind of explaining what the next hour is going to look like, and handed me a notebook to write down my goal for this session. and the notebook becomes pretty important as the story goes on. But I opened it and I wrote what I'd like to use this session to reflect on. It happened to be the walls that I have a tendency to build around myself. That day that felt like the most pertinent obstacle of my life.

I saw it as an opportunity to push back against that reality that human beings love to create normal and then latch onto it. And that's not ideal because when we do that, we stop looking for places to grow. We stop pushing. We stop seeking to live life to the fullest.

In other words, we settle. And so I wrote that down. I closed a notebook, laid back on this incredible fuzzy blanket and the music got turned on. We began the breathing pattern in, in, out, in, in, out.

Jen started guiding us, verbally taking us back to a conversation with our younger selves. The journey had begun. And this is the part where things get really interesting because my thoughts really did feel like some strange mix of dreaming and hallucinating, just from breathwork. But at some point, she referenced the need to let go and said the words, you know, we weren't meant to suffer or hold on to suffering.

And that really cut deep because I know there are so many places where I've rationalized continuous suffering in my life. I'd speculate that in some way we all do. When the hard thing or the uncomfortable thing, you know, when they stop being standing, stepping stones and instead just become the way things are. Becomes a concession. Hey, this doesn't feel good, but it's my life. This person holds me down, but it's how things are.

I don't like doing this every day. It eats at me, but hey, life, am I right? That's learned helplessness. It hides in the corners and the nooks and crannies of life, subtle enough that we don't give it much thought. And I imagined very vividly climbing down a ladder placed on the edge of this dark canyon that went straight down. Down, down. Everything.

My entire landscape was black and white. There was zero color except for the rays of light barely visible at the bottom. all the way down as I descended into the canyon. The colors they'd get a little stronger, a little brighter, as if every step put a little more vibrance into my life. Each moved down made things a little clear, the latter becoming quicker and quicker, eventually turning into a slide that brought me down to the base of the canyon

where upon landing and standing up, Everything was illuminated. Fields of sunflowers, waterfalls, birds chirping, the sun shining, and it was there in that moment I realized my intention for the class. The one I wrote down in that little notebook, well, it missed the mark. Not in the sense of being incorrect or wrong necessarily, but it simply wasn't enough. See, at the root of it all,

Or at the bottom of that canyon existed life with the courage to love yourself. Not just accept yourself, not just be okay with your existence, but love yourself. With all your faults and your struggle, with all your mistakes and your history, became clear to me how much changes when you love, with all your heart the person staring back at you in the mirror. The opinions of others, they do not guide your decision-making. How could they? How could others know you better than you?

In fact, those opinions are part of the black-and-white landscape to be left behind at the top of the mountain. The consistent suffering you've become accustomed to. the learned helplessness you endure, that's not acceptable to someone who truly loves him or herself. Loving yourself means pushing away that which is not you. It's finding that ladder down to the beautiful world of authenticity and truth, the magic of being aligned with what really matters.

And what's funny is, I can talk about breaking down barriers. They should be broken down. I can talk about stepping into fear because it should be confronted. I can talk about finding a way out when we're stuck and a way up when we're down. I can talk about all of that every day of my life. But none of it matters if you don't learn to fully love the reflection in the mirror more, more than you ever thought you could. Think about the gift you could give to that younger version of yourself.

Think about what you could give to those close to you, your family, your friends. Think about what you could do for the world if you left those black and white concessions behind you and live a life true to yourself. It is, of course, not always easy, but I learned that day that it is the North Star. It's what we build upon. So before we ask how to shape the world around us, maybe we should be asking,

how do we embrace the one within us? Maybe we should learn to love ourselves so deeply that those walls don't need to be broken down. Because in time, we'll learn not to build them up in the first place. We'll learn that in a world of black and white, it is acceptance and trust and confidence and love that gives it color.