Knowing YOU matters. Here's why....

On today’s episode, we begin our season exploring the nature of the SELF. Who are you? What does it mean to be you in the world? What defines you and what does not define you? How do you care for you? With so much happening in our lives every day and with so many things constantly vying for our attention, it is easy to lose track of the SELF. Hold on as we dive deeply into this spiritual and existential conversation. And if you want to explore more, check out our Curiosity Crusader program, a spa-like experience for mind and spirit. 

Transcript

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I this is Adina here with today's episode of Courage to be Curious with Adina Tovell. And if you were a regular listener in 2021, you heard me say at the end of last year that that episode was going to be the last one for a while, or for perhaps an indefinite period of time. And I guess that indefinite period of time has come to a close pretty quickly, because here we are the beginning of February 2022. And we are back on the podcast, with things are going to be a little bit different this year. So I just want to take a moment whether you have been listening for a long time, or you are a new listener to courage to be curious, the dino to vow that you'll understand what it is we're doing this year, because some things have definitely changed. In the past, we have been releasing a podcast every week. And it's been tied to a theme that we've been exploring in our blogs and in our podcast and talking about in different ways. And while we're still going to have a theme for the month, things are a little bit different. We're going to release one podcast a month, unless of course, I get moved to release another one. And then I will, but generally one podcast a month and it's going to be tied to a theme. And the theme now is also going to be tied to our new curiosity crusaders program. Again, if you've been listening or reading our newsletters, and emails and things like that, you started to get a glimpse as to what the Curiosity Crusader program is. If not, if this is new to you, head on over to curiosity crusaders.com. And you'll get a lot more information. But the theme we're exploring on the podcast is going to be tied to this program, and the curiosity Crusader sessions that we are going to be leading and hosting every day of the week, five days a week. So if this theme grabs you what we're talking about in today's podcast grabs you, you really want to explore more deeply, then head on over to Curiosity Crusaders, calm, I realized this could be challenging. People have told me spelling curiosity could be part of the challenge and getting there but you can do it curiosity, crusaders calm. And if this seems interesting to you, we'll be exploring it there. And as part of the curiosity procedure program, we're also releasing a reflection guide every month that goes even more deeply into this theme. So you have so many ways now, if you listen into the podcast, and you say, Wow, I really want to explore more, I want to think more about this, I really want to see how this integrates into my being in myself, you have so many ways to do this. So I'm not going to give a lot of information on Curiosity Crusaders, now I've done that. I don't want to repeat it for people who've been listening. But if you're new, you know where to go to get the information. And even if you've been around, you're now going to go to that that's website, which is part of the brand new courage to be curious lunch website out on February 1. So so many things to check out check out now. And so what is our theme for the month of February, and I'm beginning with the place that I always think we should begin. The theme for February is the self. I always believe that everything we want to explore whether that's our leadership, our relationship to others, the quality of our lives, our happiness, our relationship with our children, our spouses, our friends, our co workers, companions, any of those things, always begins by considering the self. So that's why this is our first theme in 2022 is the self I'm often remember reminded of this little ditty from Schoolhouse Rock, which was an animated series when I was a kid way back when and so piece of it that I remember when the most important person in the whole wide world is you and you hardly even

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know you. The most important person, right when something like that. And if you've been listening to me for a while, you know how deeply I believe in that. As caring as loving people we are out in the world and as much as we want to care for the people that are important to us and be in relationship. All of that begins with the self. So why not take a month, at least starting with this podcast time to delve into exploring self who is the self so that's what I want to do. I want to be actually To begin with some questions, who is the self? Like? Who am I? What does it mean to know who I am? When you listen to a number of spiritual teachings, they sort of peel everything away? Well, am I the things I believe? Well, my beliefs can change over time. So if my beliefs can change over time, am I my beliefs? And my, my possessions? Well, of course, I can have possessions and I can lose possessions. So I can't be my possessions. They can't define who I am. What about my relationships? Well, they change over time, too. So when you know, the spiritual teachers talk, they talk about the sense of impermanence of many of the things that we think of as ourselves. What about our habits? Many of us say, well, that's just me, right? I'm always late, or I'm a procrastinator or things like that. Are we our habits? We know habits can change, too. And they don't change who we are, they just change how we behave. So are we our habits? And it raises this question, who are we? And what actually defines us? What defines us? And what doesn't actually define us? Maybe we're deluding ourselves that it does define us, but it does it? What does it mean to actually be ourselves? And why is that important? So that's what I'm excited to explore today. And as I said, what we're going to be exploring all month in our curiosity Crusader sessions. And so in this experience of the podcast, I wanted to share with you some of my beliefs, and just my beliefs, they might resonate with you, they might challenge you, you might disagree with them, they might give you provocative things to think about all good stuff that right if we're living a curious life, courageously curious life. So as I have been thinking about this for a long time, and I've been studying what is the nature of us, and again, some of you have heard me talk about this a lot, that we are actually energy beings more than we're physical beings, the physics of this, the science of this backs me up, right that even though we can see our form, with our hair, and our heads, and our skin, and our bones, and all of those things that look physical, we're actually more than 99.99% energy. And energy has really different properties than the physical part of ourselves that we can see and touch. Yet we associate so much more with our physical beings. So as I know, in truth that we're actually energy beings, it makes me think differently about who we are, who I am. When I think about who I am, in my essence, I think about the vibration that I'm sitting at, or that I'm emitting at any given time. So what's my vibration? Or my feeling? And what am I emitting out into the rest of the world? And I think you know what, I mean, it kind of sounds complicated, but I think you know, what I mean, so, you know, when you're in a flow state, right, you know, when everything's going right, you know, when you're feeling really loving, you know, when you're feeling just like everything is right in the world. And then you know, the opposite as well, right? And it feels differently. It's not just that the events around us are differently different, it's that we actually feel differently. And we feel differently because the energy inside of us the energy that makes up our physical being, is vibrating differently.

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And so there's this energy that we emit. And in fact, as I love in some Star Trek episodes, and you know, I'm a Trekkie fan, it's like, you could take away the physical, being the parts that we could see, and you would still have the vibration that would be emitting from us as an energy source. So are we an energy source? And are we the energy that were vibrating at any given moment, that vibration that is influencing how we feel on the inside, and what we're bringing out into the world, to other people, whether that's in our workplace, in our home, and our community? So and, you know, hear about just think, go with me for a minute here, but I think about young children, and one of the reasons that many of us love to watch young children in the world, little toddlers or little kids at play is because they're born with their energy most of the time really filled with a vibrance filled with a glow. And you're filled with like, wow, I have bashed Energy like the world has not yet influenced them, to curb their enthusiasm to curb their glow to, quote, curb their wonderment to curb their sense of loving easily, and feeling an inhibited. And so we love to watch them, because they emit an energy that we it's just so contagious and so vibrant, and so beautiful to us. And if we think about it, it's almost because they haven't yet had the experiences of life, right, they haven't experienced struggles, they haven't experienced just all the different kinds of messages and the ways that the world influences that then start to shape. How that energy is vibrating, right? Well, as soon as we start to go through struggles, perhaps our energy starts vibrating differently. Or perhaps we've been influenced by messages that want to shape us to think that we are what we wear, or we are, you know, who we associate with, or we are all of these other things. And so that can influence our energy, but children don't have that.

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But as we go through life, and I'm not even going to put age on it, because young people can have a lot of influences that come on early on. But we're are we are influenced by the world around us and the world around us impacts our vibration, and it can impact our vibrations for the better for the positive for the strengthening, and it can diminish our vibration, or it can make it as they say in the energy world more chaotic or more dulled. And these things just happen. And I'm remembering reminded when I think about this, how what happens in our world can shape our energy in both directions, a dear friend of mine was sharing story with me about her father, and how she goes out in the world with a certain perspective because of what her father how he lived his life. And she said, we didn't have an easy life growing up. And we often had financial struggles or other kinds of struggles. And my father's response to it always was to see the parts in things in which we were lucky. So if our car broke down on the side of the road, or in the middle of a highway, he would come and stay well, thank goodness, it was close to the exit and he was easy to get to. And now we can fix the problem and move forward. And so this influence from the outside from somebody so dear shaped her vibration, the vibration that she brought out into the world, because living a lifetime with somebody who could see the world in this way, shaped what the vibration, the nature of the vibration inside of her the energy inside of her, and therefore what that she then brings out into the world. At the same time, some of us have had other influences. And we've all had other influences. We've had other influences that people messages that said you're only as good as your last success, or you're never really been very beautiful or you're not so smart, or whatever it is, whatever the form of those messages are. Or maybe we've been through really difficult health struggles at any time in our life. And they've shaped us maybe they've made us a little less hopeful or a little more just not as excited about being in the world. And so we end up being influenced our energy is impacted and influenced by what goes on around us. And we know this to be true. We've all been in a room where people were chit chatting and then somebody walks in. And maybe people are afraid of that person, maybe something really sad has happened to that person, and the whole energy in the room changes. So we know that we're impacted by the energy of others and we know that we're impacted by the world around us. And so when this impact comes in, its then it does our lives to who we are and the vibration and energy we have met in the world become an unconscious manifestation of whatever that hodgepodge is whatever that chilly mixture or you know, stew of influences is or do we make a conscious choice? Who do I want myself to be? How do I want the self that I am to feel internally? How do I want the self that I am to grow I wanted to bring out into the world and share into the universal collective energy. And this is where I'm reminded about the spiritual leader loud Sue. And there's this story that loud to us protests Jays are set his pupils are saying to him like Lao Tzu, you've had such a difficult life. You've had struggle after struggle after struggle. And yet, there's so joyful, how are you so joyful after living a life of struggle? And Lao Tzu says, Every day I wake up, and I asked myself, today, you could be joyful, or you could be miserable, which do you want to choose?

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And it's like mind blowing, right? Because we believe that what happens to us determines how we feel, I know I've been here to like, oh, my gosh, all these things are going on. I'm overwhelmed, and this and that, until I catch myself, and remind myself that it's not the events that are the determinant of how I'm going to feel in that moment. It's my choice, perhaps my lack of choosing, that will be the determinant of how I feel. So instead, the self, if we think of ourselves as our energy, do we bring love into the world? Do we bring hope into the world that we bring kindness into the world, and I would really see the vibrations of those things that we've given those labels to. But we bring the vibration of those energies out into the world of creativity, of desire of companionship, and caring, and all these things like what energy we bring into the world. We bring an energy of defeatism and helplessness and hopelessness, or anger and frustration and overwhelm. And I'd like to say that, as we think about the self, you know, very often and in fact, somebody even asked me, How come your theme is not going to be self care? I answer The answer to that question is because caring for the self, is actually a conscious choice. It's a practice that we choose, when we decide that we want to be a vibration of love, and caring, and compassion, contentment, joy, or ease in the world. It's not a thing just

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up itself. It is a thing in service to something.

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When I was in my yoga teacher training, one of the books that we read, and I can picture the cover of it, but not the name of it right now, I'm not going to be able to share that with you at this moment. But the whole book was talking about our consciousness around, what do we allow into each of our five senses? What do we allow our ears to hear? What do we allow our eyes to see? What do we allow our hands to touch? What do we allow ourselves to, you know, feel and things? And when we kind of look at the five senses, what do we allow our mouths to speak. And the reason that the book was bringing this attention came from this awareness that every single one of those things, including the thoughts, we allow our mind to think, influence our own energy, it influences the energy that we the way that our energy vibrates, and therefore what we experience internally and what we bring out into the world. And so the book was there to say, you know, if you are conscious about the food that you eat, because you want your body to be healthy, are you equally conscious about what you allow your ears to hear? TV shows, news, conversations? Sounds, how conscious and how well do we curate what we allow in through that sense? What our, what we speak? How conscious Are we that every single word we speak has a vibration to it, and affects both our internal vibration and our external emissions out into the world and therefore the nature of who we are? About what we see. What do we allow our eyes to take in sensory wise? Do they take in beautiful things? Do they notice the roses on the bus? Or do they notice the thorns in the bush? Do they notice kindness on the street? Or do they notice anger and hatred? What do we allow our eyes to notice? Because what our eyes notice and take and directly impacts the energy that we are the energy inside of us and how we vibrate internally and externally. Was a very profound reminder that while We are not what we see. And we are not what we hear, we are not what we eat, so to speak, and we are not what we touch and feel. And we are not what we speak. We are the energy that is influenced by all of those things. And if our energy is going to reflect a nature of us an essence of us that we want to be both internally and externally in the world, the energy that we want to contribute into a collective whole in the world, then it behooves us to have that mindfulness. For all of those things, what do we allow in? What do we allow out? And for me, that's the nature of self care. That's why we care about self care or self talk. colleague of mine, Jody Silverman, from moms who dare does a self talk clean up very regularly, because she's experienced and over time realized how impactful the words that we say out internally to ourselves, like, we never would say to other people, what we say to ourselves, but in our own thoughts, and in our own words, we shape that nature of our energy, we impact the vibration of our of who we are and what we admit into the world.

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And so my hope my invitation is that listening to this podcast has activated some of your curiosity about the self about who you are, what defines you, and what doesn't define you, what it means to be you and what the importance of self care really is. It's not just because we feel better after a massage than we do before. It's because we've cared for the nature of our vibration, and therefore the our entire internal experience, as well as the external experience of what we have released into the larger universe of the world. And so I don't know if Buddha would would agree with me and my description of self, but it's the one that feels resonant to me right now and the one I wanted to share for exploration today. So as I mentioned at the very beginning, if this has piqued your curiosity if you want to go more deeply into exploring this theme, hop on over to curiosity crusaders.com You can also get there the courage to be curious website these are all intertwined with each other and look for the Crusader page because there's a button right on the homepage that says become a curiosity Crusader, because this is what we're doing. We are getting curious. We are being Crusader about our curiosity in order to live Lee and love brilliantly in our lives. So join me over there hop on and in fact you get a two week free pass. And so by hopping over and signing up you actually get two weeks of exploration on the self absolutely free if you do this but you know in the month of February here so there's no reason not to find out what curiosity Crusader is and to join us in these in depth explorations. You will also get our monthly reflection guide when you do that. And please share if you love this podcast if you're excited about where 2022 was going send me an email at info or Edina at courage to be curious comm or info at curiosity crusaders calm, let me know. And go ahead and share with friends if you've got really excited or intrigued by this podcast is a great idea to go and share it with your friends now, because the curiosity Crusader community is going to grow quickly, globally and bringing people in who are a like minded community to you of people who really want to bring meaning to your life by considering these questions of who we are, how we live, how we lead how we love, and you're gonna find them in the curiosity Crusader program. It is an amazing expansion of what courage to be curious is projecting out into the world and we'd love to have you on as part of it. An active member in this community. Thank you for listening. Come back with us in March remember this will be a one once a month podcast unless a guest wasn't inspired to add something else but a once a month podcast we will be back in March and we will be releasing our theme for the month the very beginning. So stay tuned and hop on over to courage to be curious calm, check out our new website or curiosity crusaders.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai