August 11, 2023 • 36 mins
Have you ever been caught in the intricate web of guilt and shame, unable to discern their differences and the profound impact they can have on our lives?
It is in the embrace of these complexities that we embark on a journey of self-discovery, unraveling the layers of guilt and shame to illuminate the path towards growth.
In this episode, we shall delve into the depths of guilt, examining its many forms and manifestations.
Whether it's the persistent burden of past mistakes, the impact of our actions on those around us, the guilt that stems from unmet expectations and commitments, or the often overlooked sensation of privilege guilt, there are ways to overcome these emotions.
As we go through the different types, we shall emerge with newfound insights and perspectives, better equipped to navigate these complex emotions. Through understanding, reflection, and conscious action, we shall rise above guilt's shadows and embrace the light of self-forgiveness, empowerment, and transformation.
In this episode you'll learn:
The difference between guilt and shame
The different types of guilt
How to deal with the emotional burdens of guilt
How to grow from getting stuck in the past
This is a journey of emotional growth, healing, and attaining inner peace that you wouldn’t want to miss.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
02:37 Let’s understand the difference between shame and guilt and how to define them
05:03 What are the different types of guilt we experience in life?
12:09 The five types of guilt and how you can grow out of it
13:51 Type #1: Do you often think of a past mistake and still feel guilty about it?
19:27 Type #2: You feel guilty when someone tells you how your action made them feel bad
24:03 Type #3: The guilt of not making time for others or letting someone else down
26:46 Type #4: The guilt of not having pain, of having privilege, or having safety and security
28:12 Type #5: The survival guilt, that guilty feeling when you’ve gotten through something difficult when others didn’t
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, I'm so excited because we're going to be
adding a really special offering onto the back of my
solo episodes on Fridays. The Daily Jay is a daily
series on Calm and it's meant to inspire you while
outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress
free life. We dive into a range of topics and
the best part is each episode is only seven minutes long,
(00:22):
so you can incorporate it into your schedule no matter
how busy you are. As a dedicated part of the
on Purpose community, I wanted to do something special for
you this year, so I'll be playing a handpicked Daily
Jay during each of my Friday podcasts. This week. We're
diving into strategies for managing your emotions. Of course, if
(00:43):
you want to listen to The Daily Jay every day,
you can subscribe to Calm, So go to calm dot
com forward slash ja for forty percent off your membership today.
Hey everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place that
you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. And
(01:06):
I am so so grateful to you for all your
incredible reviews on Spotify and on Apple. It's incredible to
read through them. Please please please make sure you leave
a review. It makes the world of a difference. And
I wanted to point out some of the incredible expert
conversations that we've had this year in case you missed them.
We had doctor Peter Rettier, who's a phenomenal expert in
(01:29):
longevity scientific ways to slow down aging. I highly recommend
you listen to that. We also had doctor Zach Bush
on science based approaches to healing your gut health if
that's something that you're struggling with. I also talked to
one of your favorites, Dr Joe Dispenser in May on
the twenty ninth about why stress and overthinking negatively impacts
(01:52):
your brain. These are just a few of the experts
that we've had so far in the last couple of months.
I highly recommend you go back and take it listen now.
Today's episode is about a topic that I deeply value
because I know how challenging it is when you're experiencing
it in your life in your mind. I've personally struggled
(02:14):
with it for so many different reasons. I know so
many people in my life who've struggled with it for
so many different reasons, and I believe it was important
to address with you today because I know so many
of you may be going through it in your own way. Now.
Of course, I'm talking about shame and guilt, and we
(02:34):
all feel shame and guilt for different things in our life. Today,
I'm going to be talking to you about the different
types of experience that we have and what are the
practical steps we can take to feel better. But first
of all, what I want to do is I want
to talk about the difference between shame and guilt. Now,
Brene Brown has done some phenomenal work in this space.
(02:55):
If you've not read her book Daring Greatly, I highly
recommend it to understand more about this topic. In the
words of Brene Brown, shame is I am bad. Guilt
is I did something bad. She goes on to say,
how many of you, if you did something that was
hurtful to me, would be willing to say, I'm sorry
(03:17):
I made a mistake. How many of you would be
willing to do that guilt, I'm sorry I made a mistake. Shame,
I'm sorry I am a mistake. I love this disconnection
because it's so subtle, but it's so very important. How
many of us know that the voice in our head
(03:39):
makes us the problem. Not that we have a problem,
but we are the problem. Not that we made a mistake,
but we are the mistake. How many of us walk
around life thinking that not that we did something wrong,
but that we are wrong. And it's so subtle that
you might just miss it. But the inner critics voice
(04:00):
will give you a clue. If you listen closely to
the inner critic, you'll be able to very clearly understand
whether you say things like I made a mistake or
I am a mistake. Now I want to go on
to share the incredible worlds of Paul Ekman. He also
said that the distinction between shame and guilt is very important,
(04:22):
since these two emotions may tear a person in opposite directions.
He says, Paul Ekman, the wish to relieve guilt may
motivate a confession, but the wish to avoid the humiliation
of shame may prevent it. How many of you have
ever been caught in that mess where you want to
(04:43):
tell someone how you feel, or you want to tell
someone that you know that they're going through something or
whatever it may be, but at the same time you're
scared of what that comes with We get caught in
the middle, and I know so many of us experience
this in so many different ways. Before we we dive
into the different types of guilt and how to overcome them,
(05:03):
I want to talk to you about the different types
of guilt that we experience. Using research from BioMedCentral dot com,
so they ranked the percentage of all things people felt
guilty about. Number one was telling lies or withholding truth
and information. That's the number one thing we feel guilty about,
(05:29):
and this comes from the category of feelings of guilt
related to misconduct and mistakes being made. Now, the second
thing that people felt guilty about, or the most frequently
stated reasons for feeling guilty was not spending enough time
with family members, not taking enough care of family members,
(05:50):
and not being there for family members. I think we
can all identify with that type of guilt, and we
will be coming on to this moving forward in this podcast.
The reason I'm sharing these with you is always to
help you recognize that you're not alone, to help you
recognize that we all have these emotions and experiences, that
(06:13):
there is no one including me, who has perfected this,
figured it out, mastered it and gets everything right. I
think it's often our desire for perfection that creates so
much of the guilt and shame we experience. Our desire
for getting everything to line up, be perfectly balanced, be
fully aligned, centered, grounded, it doesn't exist. The third thing
(06:37):
that we most frequently state that we feel as a
reason for being guilty is misbehavior towards someone or thinking
bad about someone. And this comes from feelings of guilt
related to other people. But this could be anyone from
the person you bumped into on the street, all the
way through to the person you cut off in the
(06:58):
traffic and later on your thinking, oh, I wish I
didn't do that, they didn't deserve that. It's really interesting, right,
It could be anything misbehavior towards or bad thinking of someone.
Maybe you said something gossipy about a friend. Maybe you
said something that you wish you could take back. Maybe
you shared someone's private information with someone else. Right, these
are all things we feel guilty for. Rank number four
(07:22):
was subjectively perceived responsibility for life situations, events and circumstances
and death, circumstances of others not being able to help
and support. Right. So this is really interesting because often
something bad happens to someone and we blame it on ourselves.
(07:42):
We think it must be my fault. Some of our
friends from London were visiting la last year and one
of my friends recommended that they park in a specific
parking garage, which was safe and recommended, and unfortunately all
of their stuff got stolen from their from that parking garage,
and that friend of mine feels guilty for that reason constantly,
(08:07):
because he takes responsibility for that event happening to those individuals. Now,
of course, this can become far more extreme when it
relates to people passing away not being there with them
not being in there. You know a lot of people
have this guilt if they've lost a family member that
I should have been on the plane with them. I
(08:27):
wish I was in the car with them. It wouldn't
have happened if I didn't ask them to do this, right,
We all have that guilt. So again, a very valid
and genuine form of guilt. Number five neglecting someone, not
taking enough care of someone, not being there for someone,
Another one not achieving something, sense of failure. The next
(08:50):
one negative self attributes or flaws. We feel guilty about
them because we take responsibility for them, and then there's
divorce and breakup, cheating, having affairs problems, issues in relationships
and marriages, not spending enough time with children, procrastination and
(09:10):
waste of time, being unproductive. How many of you have
that where you haven't been productive, you haven't been effective,
and then you feel guilty about it. You think, oh,
my gosh, I could have done all of that by now,
could have launched that podcast, I could have written that book.
I should have done that, I should have done this,
and then it never happens. That's what's really interesting about
guilt is that guilt blocks growth. Guilt can be used
(09:31):
as a launch pad, it can be used as a
great incentive for change, which I'll come on to in
a moment. But at the same time, guilt blocks growth.
If we just grow guilt, right, if we keep just
growing a sense of guilt, it will block our growth
because we get so negative about who we are, what
(09:52):
we do, how we behave, and we feel we have
missed so much time, we have missed so many opportunities
that we now feel that we can't turn it around.
It's almost like negative math working against us. It's like
we're like ten zero, right, We're losing ten zero in
the world of guilt, and now we're like, well, even
(10:13):
if I do one thing, it will still be ten
to one. I'm so far away, that's what it feels like.
You're like ten goals down. Then it continues with unfavorable
health or self indulgence. We guilt ourselves of what we
eat and if we do or don't work out. And
it's really interesting, right, those are the top categories of
guilt that we as humans experience, and I think all
of us could agree that we've all experienced them at
(10:36):
one point or another. So now that we understand the
difference between guilt and shame, I want to focus in
on the different types of guilt that we experience in
our lives and what we can do about it. Remember,
guilt is I'm sorry I made a mistake. Shame is
I'm sorry I am a mistake. And I want to
(10:56):
shift us away from believing that we are a mistake
or that we ourselves as an entity, are wrong, are lost.
We say things like I am a failure. No, I
have experienced failure. And that's what I want you to
do with the inner critic in your mind. I want
you to start making that switch where instead of every
(11:18):
time you catch yourself saying I am a failure, I
am a mistake, start replacing it with I have experienced failure.
I failed at this, this particular event failed. I think
it's important to start disconnecting your identity from an emotion
and a statement. Right. The mistake we make is when
(11:42):
we mesh together our identity with a word, we start
to identify with that word, and that becomes a belief.
Once that becomes a belief, it becomes a repetitive habit
in our lives, and then it feels like normal. It's
almost like when someone says something in your head think well,
I'm a loser anyway. So what's the point. Right, So
(12:03):
once you start creating that distance, Now, how do you
start creating that distance? You ask? The first way is
to what you're in a dialogue and make that difference.
The second is to recognize and go back to when
you have felt guilty. Reflect and write down the top
three times or even one time that you have experienced
(12:27):
guilt and shame and when it really started leaning into shame.
And now, in hindsight, I want you to look back
and recognize, is it true that you have also been
not responsible in certain challenges. Is it true that you've
also won as well as lost and failed in different things.
(12:50):
Is it true that there is more diversity in your
experience then there is consistency. Is it true that if
you think you are a mistake, that you've also got
certain things right and done things well and made people
feel good. Noticing this discrepancy is what helps you accept that, yes,
(13:11):
I have made mistakes, but I am not a mistake,
and even repeating that, recognizing and accepting. Remember, we're not
shunning our mistakes. We're not trying to push them away.
We're not trying to pretend that they didn't happen. We're
not trying to be in denial. We're accepting they happened.
We're accepting we made them. But we won't accept that
we are them. We're not going to accept that we're
(13:33):
defined by them, because our life shows us that we
have a bit of both. We've all won and failed,
we've all been stuck and focused, We've all made mistakes
and got things right. Please recognize that now. The first
type of guilt that we experienced that I want to
(13:55):
talk about today is guilt over a past mistake. How
many of you replay your past mistakes in your mind.
Maybe it was in a relationship, and you think to yourself, well,
if I didn't do that, they'd still be here. If
I did do that, they'd still be here. I ruined
(14:18):
that I messed that up. I had such a good
thing going. But maybe if I just didn't open my mouth,
maybe if I didn't set those boundaries, maybe if I
didn't push so hard. We all experience guilt over past mistakes,
and sometimes these guilts get so deep rooted that they
start to impact all of our lives afterwards, they start
(14:42):
to impact everything. What ends up happening is that when
you feel guilt over a past mistake, you now reflect
and project that guilt onto new people at work, new
people in your relationships, friends, anyone that comes across your way.
And so it's so important to address this. It's so
important to accept it. It's so important to focus in
(15:04):
on it. If there's a guilt over a past mistake,
if you can, if the person is alive and accessible
when you prepare or when you feel prepared, the best
thing you can do is actually reach out and try
and solve it right. If you have done something that
you don't feel proud about. If you feel you've done
(15:25):
something that you don't feel represents who you are, and
there's a pass mistake that is haunting you or lurking
there behind you, it's important that you can reach out
and set the record straight. And that's a really beautiful
thing to be able to do. So now let's say
that you are going to reach out. I think it's
really important that you prepare before you do. Often we
(15:47):
have this knee jerk reaction to just pick up the
phone and say I'm sorry, you know, and we're not
thinking about how it may affect the other person. We're
not thinking about what it may mean for us. And
often if the person is not accessible or or you
may actually in your preparation realize I don't think talking
to them directly is going to do any good. It's
important to check in with yourself and share that apology.
(16:11):
You may share that apology energetically, you may share that
apology as a healing practice. If you don't feel that
person is accessible or you may not be connected to
them anymore. And I remember when I was on my tour,
I met so many people who would say to me
they haven't spoken to someone they love for years now,
if you remember, if you did come to my tour,
(16:33):
and if you didn't, I hope you will come to
our next event. But at my tour, I encourage people
to call people that they hadn't spoken to for whatever
challenge they'd been going through personally. It could have been
a couple of years, it could have been ten years.
And everyone who made that call it wasn't a fairy
tale ending because that wasn't the goal. The goal was
that that person had the courage to sit in the discomfort,
(16:58):
to share how they truly felt because it was healing
to them and they felt the other person needed to
hear it too. We had people calling up ex partners
saying I'm sorry for how I dealt with the divorce.
I'm not asking for you back, but I want you
to know I love and appreciate you. We had people
reaching out and saying you're my brother, I love you,
I'm so sorry that we fell out two years ago.
(17:18):
We had people saying I'm sorry that this event got
in the way of our friendship, and whether the person
on the other side was amicable or reciprocal. What I
found is that the person who shared it felt the
most healed and the person who received it found some
solace in it. The second thing that you can do
with guilty of a past mistake is change your behavior
(17:40):
in the future. This is the best remedy for yourself
and others. The only way you make yourself feel better
about the past is by doing better in the future.
Let me say that again, the only way you make
yourself feel better about the past is by doing better
in the future. You can't make yourself feel good about
(18:02):
the past if you continue to behave badly in the future.
It doesn't work that way. We can't change the past.
We can't solve the past. We can't edit the past.
But when we edit the present, we create the future
that we've really wont right. We can't edit the past,
and we live in the past just kind of doing
(18:23):
mental exercises trying to figure it out. But it doesn't
work that way. And I want you to recognize with
all of this guilt and shame that if you experience
a sense of guilt, it just shows that you're reflective.
I always feel that way. I experienced guilt and I've
started to recognize that it just shows that I care.
(18:43):
It just shows that I'm reflective. It it shows that
I'm allowing myself to question myself. I'm allowing myself to
not think that everything I do is right and perfect
and wonderful, and I think that that's a great quality.
It's shame that we want to shift away from, and
guilt if if it's not taken care of, will very
easily grow into shame. And so while shame is unhealthy,
(19:10):
guilt is something we have to deal with. It's showing
us what we need to heal, but it's also showing
us that we're reflective, introspective beings. So I don't want
you to guilt yourself for feeling guilt. I want you
to feel heard and seen and understood. I don't want
you to guilt yourself for feeling that way. The second
type of guilt is guilt because of how someone made
you feel. Now, this may be guilt where you didn't
(19:32):
see any involvement, You didn't see or feel any responsibility,
but someone came back at you and told you. Someone
may have told you, hey, you said this to me
and it made me feel this way. You did this
and it made me feel this way, and now you're
feeling guilty because of how they've expressed that to you,
and in this opportunity, it's always important to acknowledge the
(19:54):
person's feelings. It's always important to acknowledge that there is
some truth in how that person feels, even if that
wasn't your intent, even if that's not what you were
trying to do. And I think often this guilt can
lead to more guilt if we actually shun the other
person away, if we act as if it doesn't matter,
that's not what we were trying to do, we go
(20:15):
into defensive mode. What ends up happening is we actually
make them feel worse, and we make ourselves feel worse
in the long run. So acknowledging that there is some truth,
there is some reality to that person's emotions and feelings
is important. The second step is recognizing what is your
(20:36):
part and what may have been misconstrued by them. I
think it's so important to recognize that there are always
always two sides to that story, right, there are always
we look at everything from our subjective lens. Often I'll
sit down and think where do I have this viewpoint from?
Why do I have this vantage point? And I'll recognize
(20:56):
there's so many biases in why I even said that
all got there right. There's so many biases happening every
single day of why I even said something, why I
got to that point, why I made it in the
way that I made everything else. When you start becoming
aware of that, you can actually better explain it. The
other day, Rady called me up and she had a
really urgent question for me, and I was really tired.
(21:19):
I hadn't eaten all day, and I said to it,
I said, RADI, if I respond right now, I'm not
going to give you my best answer. Do you mind
if I just get something to eat first, I'll tell
you straight away. And that was me protecting myself from
behaving in a way that I would later feel guilty about,
or from having her have to tell me that, hey,
I didn't like the way you spoke to me, and
then I would defend myself and be like, oh, but
(21:40):
I was tired. You don't even understand. You didn't even
ask how I was, when actually the truth is, by
being reflective, I can actually preempt that. Now, let's say
your situation is a bit more serious than that. I
think it's important that you own your part, but you
don't own all of it. You recognize your involvement, you
recognize your part, but you accept that there are other
(22:02):
reasons as well. Now, if you're on the receiving end
of that and you're like, well, I want that person
to accept all responsibility, I think often that even if
it feels that way, and by the way, there are
situations where it is just the other person's action and
it is just the other person's behavior, like you don't
actually you weren't old enough, you wann't thoughtful enough, you
(22:22):
wren't wise enough. Like that is real. And in that situation,
you're not taking responsibility for the experience or the event.
You're saying taking responsibility for the future you want to build.
I think this is a really subtle difference. I want
to point out that if you're not at fault, you
never accept responsibility for the fault or the event or
(22:46):
whatever happened. You accept responsibility for the future you want
to build and create. That's one of the things that
coaching focuses on is that coaching is not telling you
to take responsibility for the mistakes that happened to you,
or the issue or the abuse you received with a trauma.
That would be so unhealthy to tell someone to do that.
That is not what we're saying to do here. What
(23:07):
I'm saying is you're saying, I want to live a
great life from now and I went through this, I
experienced this, this happened to me. But I'm going to
take charge of where I want to go. Another step
here is to recognize what parts of it you're willing
to take responsibility for, as opposed to just feeling guilty
because of how they're making you feel. I also want
(23:29):
to recommend in all of this process that therapy is
such a powerful form. I partnered with Better Help several
times on the podcast. We had some really phenomenal conversations
with so many individuals who are dealing with different challenges
and showed how therapy can be powerful for that. I
highly highly recommend that because it can be really really
(23:49):
important to do that. Therapy is a great safe space
to reflect on these things so that you don't lead
to more negative behaviors towards yourself or unhealthy ideas towards
yourself at the same time being able to grow. Now.
The other guilt that we experience is what I mentioned earlier,
the guilt for not making time for others right the
(24:09):
guilt or the feeling of letting someone else down. And again,
going back to our earlier principle, make time now, Make
time now. If you feel guilty about not giving someone
time before, make time now now. You may say, they
don't want to spend time with me anymore, jay I
lost them. They're not around anymore. Make time for the
next person, Make time for other people. Make time for
(24:31):
people who've always made time for you. Go out there
and make that change. Don't be selfish and just want
to make it for that person that you can't get back.
Make it for another person and know that you're doing
it for that reason. Know then be aware that, hey,
I'm making time because I recognize that happened in the past.
I now want to make time for people I care about.
This second point is really important, and I want you
(24:52):
to write this down because I think it's often missed.
Recognize what your priorities were when you didn't make time
for the people you wanted to make time for. What's
really interesting is once we start living with a benefit,
we get we forget why it was our focus. Let
me explain to you. Let's say a parent works really
(25:14):
hard to put food on the table and provide for
their family. Now, when they may not be financially as unstable,
they may look back and think, oh my gosh, all
those years I just spent working. I wish I had
spent time with the kids. But the truth is it
wasn't plausible, Like it wasn't possible for them to do that.
They needed to work hard in order to pay for
(25:36):
the bills in order to take care of their family
at that moment in time. And I feel we forget
the priorities when we get a result. Right now that
you have the time, or now that that parent has
the time or has the financial space to have more
time with the kids, they now guilt themselves. But the
truth is you didn't before. So it's so important to
(25:58):
recognize what your prior authorities were at the time and
why they existed, because I think for so many people
we missed that, right, We miss that, We don't recognize
that actually at that point, if we would have spent
time with that person, then maybe we would have lost
that on a lot more, or maybe we would have
had really bad anxiety, or maybe we would have had
(26:20):
a lot of other issues. Right, think about what would
have been lost if you completely shifted over because sometimes
we have this nostalgic view in our mind of oh,
it could have been like this, it should have been
like this, But we often are beating ourselves up when
we never deserved that. We don't deserve that, So recognize
(26:43):
why you focused on what you focused when you did.
The next type of guilt, which is really interesting, is
the guilt of not having pain, or the guilt of
having privilege, or the guilt of safety and security. It's
really fascinating to me that people who grew up in
well or safety often feel guilt for having that. It's real.
(27:05):
I've actually sat down and spoken to people who feel
guilty that their parents were successful. They feel guilty that
they didn't have to think about survival. They feel guilty
that they had privilege growing up. And if you've experienced that,
it's important to share that with others, because again, it's
(27:27):
a guilt that you carry that is valid. And often
these people don't feel like that guilt is valid. They think, oh, well,
how can I feel guilty because I have everything? But
then I feel guilty for having it right because I
can see that other people don't have it. What I've
seen people in this space beautifully do is that they
try and share it with others. They try and do
philanthropic work, charity work, support work, they try and do
(27:48):
healing work. It's so powerful to see people who realized
that the privilege they received was to be turned into purpose,
The privilege they received was to be taken as a
responsibility to help help other people and to share it
with as many people as they could. I think it's
also important that you build something of your own and
people may not perceive it that way, but you try
(28:11):
your best to do that. And the final one I
wanted to address was guilt from having got through something
difficult when others didn't, often known as survival guilt. This
can be really, really tough when you think you got
through something and other people didn't. But it's a beautiful
opportunity again to help others through their journey, to share
(28:32):
your healing, to share your pain. And I think the
biggest challenge with guilt is we feel like our guilt
is not valid. We feel like somewhere deep inside of
us we shouldn't have that feeling. But the truth is,
the more we share it, the more we talk to others,
the more we express it. To therapists, to coaches, to
friends to family members. The more we create safe, vulnerable
(28:53):
spaces to share these things, the healthier our society becomes
because we realize that everyone is deal with something, but
helping people through their journey, helping someone who's a couple
of years behind you on the journey is a beautiful
and powerful step to take in your own healing. I
really hope that this helps you today. I want to
(29:15):
thank you for listening. As always, I appreciate you letting
me riff on some of these topics that are so important,
and I hope there's one insight you take away from
today that transforms your relationship with Sham and Gil. Thank
you for listening. Make sure you leave a review, make
sure you share this episode with someone who could use it.
And I can't wait for you to come back next
(29:36):
week or tomorrow or later today for another one. Thank
you so much. Sometimes life feels like a roller coaster.
One minute we're rocketing upwards, the next we're heading straight down.
(29:57):
But in reality, even coasters let us coast sometimes so
we can catch our breath, and in life we can
learn to create more of that smooth sailing. It all
comes down to finding the middle path. The next seven
minutes are about equanimity and the value of returning to center.
(30:21):
I'm Jy Sheddy. Welcome to the Daily Jay. Now let's
begin to get centered here by tapping into the breath.
Take a big breath in and release a big breath out,
really filling yourself up and letting it all go, coming
(30:50):
in to the present and settling with focus. Just like that.
So when I was young, I played a lot of soccer,
or as I called it back in London football, and
I had this coach who said something I'll never forget.
(31:11):
He told us, when you win, celebrate for a night,
but then get back to training. And when you lose,
cry for a night, but then get back to training.
He was a monk and didn't know it. And really
that's how we should approach all of life. When something
amazing happens, it's easy to want to hang out in
(31:33):
that space and we should enjoy it, but too often
we try to cling to that feeling. It's the same
when negative things happen and we let ourselves wallow instead,
we're better off if we find our way back to center.
When I studied as a monk, our teachers would emphasize equanimity,
(31:55):
which is kind of a fancy way to say composure
and evenness of temper. We were encouraged to experience an
emotion but then come back to a steady state of calm.
I like to think of equanimity as the balance point
on a seesaw, neither up nor down. But often we
(32:17):
experience life as a series of highs and lows, which
can make things feel out of control or unstable. It's
like we're constantly feeling these big swings. One day we're
over the moon, the next we're down in the dumps.
I've also noticed that many of us feel pressure to
(32:38):
be happy all the time, and when we don't feel
that way, it's like we're somehow failing. Equanimity helps with
both of these issues. First, it allows us to access
skillness and withstand the pull of our emotions. When it
comes to the roller coaster of life, we don't have
(32:59):
to say they strapped into the ride. We can step
back and watch the cargo by observing we can still
feel happiness and sadness, but they're not driving us, and
in turn, hopefully life won't be so unsettled. We can
focus on feeling peaceful instead of positive What I mean
(33:24):
is that we can release the pressure to feel joyful
all the time, and ironically that actually results in a
more positive feeling. When we learn how to return to center,
we're calmer and less reactive, and while life is swirling
around us, we can rest in the eye of the storm.
(33:48):
With that in mind, let's work on our equanimity as
we turn to our meditation. First, get a little more
comfortable wherever you are, relaxing your body and tuning in
to yourself. Find something to anchor you in the present,
(34:13):
whether it's your breath, a sensation in your body, or
a point of contact with the ground. See if you
can rest gently here, leaning in to this calm center.
(34:41):
Remember the goal here is to be more peaceful and
less reactive, to step outside the swirl. Of course, your
(35:02):
mind may start to wonder, thoughts or emotions may start
to tugget you. You may even feel like you're getting
caught on a roller coaster. If that happens, see if
(35:24):
you can get off the ride watching your thoughts or
emotions fly past without allowing them to whisk you away.
Then always come back to center. And now let's open
(35:56):
this up. As you go through life, do you often
oscillate between high and low or do you feel pressure
to chase positivity? What could you do to embrace equanimity
(36:17):
in your day today? Can you make a point of
trying to return to center. I know this might not
always be easy, so have compassion for yourself. Whenever you
(36:38):
do experience a big swing, you can always come back
here to this session to help you find your center again.
Thanks for being here today. I can't wait to see
you tomorrow.
Hey everyone, I'm so excited because we're going to be
adding a really special offering onto the back of my
solo episodes on Fridays. The Daily Jay is a daily
series on Calm and it's meant to inspire you while
outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress
free life. We dive into a range of topics and
the best part is each episode is only seven minutes long,
(00:22):
so you can incorporate it into your schedule no matter
how busy you are. As a dedicated part of the
on Purpose community, I wanted to do something special for
you this year, so I'll be playing a handpicked Daily
Jay during each of my Friday podcasts. This week. We're
diving into strategies for managing your emotions. Of course, if
(00:43):
you want to listen to The Daily Jay every day,
you can subscribe to Calm, So go to calm dot
com forward slash ja for forty percent off your membership today.
Hey everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place that
you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. And
(01:06):
I am so so grateful to you for all your
incredible reviews on Spotify and on Apple. It's incredible to
read through them. Please please please make sure you leave
a review. It makes the world of a difference. And
I wanted to point out some of the incredible expert
conversations that we've had this year in case you missed them.
We had doctor Peter Rettier, who's a phenomenal expert in
(01:29):
longevity scientific ways to slow down aging. I highly recommend
you listen to that. We also had doctor Zach Bush
on science based approaches to healing your gut health if
that's something that you're struggling with. I also talked to
one of your favorites, Dr Joe Dispenser in May on
the twenty ninth about why stress and overthinking negatively impacts
(01:52):
your brain. These are just a few of the experts
that we've had so far in the last couple of months.
I highly recommend you go back and take it listen now.
Today's episode is about a topic that I deeply value
because I know how challenging it is when you're experiencing
it in your life in your mind. I've personally struggled
(02:14):
with it for so many different reasons. I know so
many people in my life who've struggled with it for
so many different reasons, and I believe it was important
to address with you today because I know so many
of you may be going through it in your own way. Now.
Of course, I'm talking about shame and guilt, and we
(02:34):
all feel shame and guilt for different things in our life. Today,
I'm going to be talking to you about the different
types of experience that we have and what are the
practical steps we can take to feel better. But first
of all, what I want to do is I want
to talk about the difference between shame and guilt. Now,
Brene Brown has done some phenomenal work in this space.
(02:55):
If you've not read her book Daring Greatly, I highly
recommend it to understand more about this topic. In the
words of Brene Brown, shame is I am bad. Guilt
is I did something bad. She goes on to say,
how many of you, if you did something that was
hurtful to me, would be willing to say, I'm sorry
(03:17):
I made a mistake. How many of you would be
willing to do that guilt, I'm sorry I made a mistake. Shame,
I'm sorry I am a mistake. I love this disconnection
because it's so subtle, but it's so very important. How
many of us know that the voice in our head
(03:39):
makes us the problem. Not that we have a problem,
but we are the problem. Not that we made a mistake,
but we are the mistake. How many of us walk
around life thinking that not that we did something wrong,
but that we are wrong. And it's so subtle that
you might just miss it. But the inner critics voice
(04:00):
will give you a clue. If you listen closely to
the inner critic, you'll be able to very clearly understand
whether you say things like I made a mistake or
I am a mistake. Now I want to go on
to share the incredible worlds of Paul Ekman. He also
said that the distinction between shame and guilt is very important,
(04:22):
since these two emotions may tear a person in opposite directions.
He says, Paul Ekman, the wish to relieve guilt may
motivate a confession, but the wish to avoid the humiliation
of shame may prevent it. How many of you have
ever been caught in that mess where you want to
(04:43):
tell someone how you feel, or you want to tell
someone that you know that they're going through something or
whatever it may be, but at the same time you're
scared of what that comes with We get caught in
the middle, and I know so many of us experience
this in so many different ways. Before we we dive
into the different types of guilt and how to overcome them,
(05:03):
I want to talk to you about the different types
of guilt that we experience. Using research from BioMedCentral dot com,
so they ranked the percentage of all things people felt
guilty about. Number one was telling lies or withholding truth
and information. That's the number one thing we feel guilty about,
(05:29):
and this comes from the category of feelings of guilt
related to misconduct and mistakes being made. Now, the second
thing that people felt guilty about, or the most frequently
stated reasons for feeling guilty was not spending enough time
with family members, not taking enough care of family members,
(05:50):
and not being there for family members. I think we
can all identify with that type of guilt, and we
will be coming on to this moving forward in this podcast.
The reason I'm sharing these with you is always to
help you recognize that you're not alone, to help you
recognize that we all have these emotions and experiences, that
(06:13):
there is no one including me, who has perfected this,
figured it out, mastered it and gets everything right. I
think it's often our desire for perfection that creates so
much of the guilt and shame we experience. Our desire
for getting everything to line up, be perfectly balanced, be
fully aligned, centered, grounded, it doesn't exist. The third thing
(06:37):
that we most frequently state that we feel as a
reason for being guilty is misbehavior towards someone or thinking
bad about someone. And this comes from feelings of guilt
related to other people. But this could be anyone from
the person you bumped into on the street, all the
way through to the person you cut off in the
(06:58):
traffic and later on your thinking, oh, I wish I
didn't do that, they didn't deserve that. It's really interesting, right,
It could be anything misbehavior towards or bad thinking of someone.
Maybe you said something gossipy about a friend. Maybe you
said something that you wish you could take back. Maybe
you shared someone's private information with someone else. Right, these
are all things we feel guilty for. Rank number four
(07:22):
was subjectively perceived responsibility for life situations, events and circumstances
and death, circumstances of others not being able to help
and support. Right. So this is really interesting because often
something bad happens to someone and we blame it on ourselves.
(07:42):
We think it must be my fault. Some of our
friends from London were visiting la last year and one
of my friends recommended that they park in a specific
parking garage, which was safe and recommended, and unfortunately all
of their stuff got stolen from their from that parking garage,
and that friend of mine feels guilty for that reason constantly,
(08:07):
because he takes responsibility for that event happening to those individuals. Now,
of course, this can become far more extreme when it
relates to people passing away not being there with them
not being in there. You know a lot of people
have this guilt if they've lost a family member that
I should have been on the plane with them. I
(08:27):
wish I was in the car with them. It wouldn't
have happened if I didn't ask them to do this, right,
We all have that guilt. So again, a very valid
and genuine form of guilt. Number five neglecting someone, not
taking enough care of someone, not being there for someone,
Another one not achieving something, sense of failure. The next
(08:50):
one negative self attributes or flaws. We feel guilty about
them because we take responsibility for them, and then there's
divorce and breakup, cheating, having affairs problems, issues in relationships
and marriages, not spending enough time with children, procrastination and
(09:10):
waste of time, being unproductive. How many of you have
that where you haven't been productive, you haven't been effective,
and then you feel guilty about it. You think, oh,
my gosh, I could have done all of that by now,
could have launched that podcast, I could have written that book.
I should have done that, I should have done this,
and then it never happens. That's what's really interesting about
guilt is that guilt blocks growth. Guilt can be used
(09:31):
as a launch pad, it can be used as a
great incentive for change, which I'll come on to in
a moment. But at the same time, guilt blocks growth.
If we just grow guilt, right, if we keep just
growing a sense of guilt, it will block our growth
because we get so negative about who we are, what
(09:52):
we do, how we behave, and we feel we have
missed so much time, we have missed so many opportunities
that we now feel that we can't turn it around.
It's almost like negative math working against us. It's like
we're like ten zero, right, We're losing ten zero in
the world of guilt, and now we're like, well, even
(10:13):
if I do one thing, it will still be ten
to one. I'm so far away, that's what it feels like.
You're like ten goals down. Then it continues with unfavorable
health or self indulgence. We guilt ourselves of what we
eat and if we do or don't work out. And
it's really interesting, right, those are the top categories of
guilt that we as humans experience, and I think all
of us could agree that we've all experienced them at
(10:36):
one point or another. So now that we understand the
difference between guilt and shame, I want to focus in
on the different types of guilt that we experience in
our lives and what we can do about it. Remember,
guilt is I'm sorry I made a mistake. Shame is
I'm sorry I am a mistake. And I want to
(10:56):
shift us away from believing that we are a mistake
or that we ourselves as an entity, are wrong, are lost.
We say things like I am a failure. No, I
have experienced failure. And that's what I want you to
do with the inner critic in your mind. I want
you to start making that switch where instead of every
(11:18):
time you catch yourself saying I am a failure, I
am a mistake, start replacing it with I have experienced failure.
I failed at this, this particular event failed. I think
it's important to start disconnecting your identity from an emotion
and a statement. Right. The mistake we make is when
(11:42):
we mesh together our identity with a word, we start
to identify with that word, and that becomes a belief.
Once that becomes a belief, it becomes a repetitive habit
in our lives, and then it feels like normal. It's
almost like when someone says something in your head think well,
I'm a loser anyway. So what's the point. Right, So
(12:03):
once you start creating that distance, Now, how do you
start creating that distance? You ask? The first way is
to what you're in a dialogue and make that difference.
The second is to recognize and go back to when
you have felt guilty. Reflect and write down the top
three times or even one time that you have experienced
(12:27):
guilt and shame and when it really started leaning into shame.
And now, in hindsight, I want you to look back
and recognize, is it true that you have also been
not responsible in certain challenges. Is it true that you've
also won as well as lost and failed in different things.
(12:50):
Is it true that there is more diversity in your
experience then there is consistency. Is it true that if
you think you are a mistake, that you've also got
certain things right and done things well and made people
feel good. Noticing this discrepancy is what helps you accept that, yes,
(13:11):
I have made mistakes, but I am not a mistake,
and even repeating that, recognizing and accepting. Remember, we're not
shunning our mistakes. We're not trying to push them away.
We're not trying to pretend that they didn't happen. We're
not trying to be in denial. We're accepting they happened.
We're accepting we made them. But we won't accept that
we are them. We're not going to accept that we're
(13:33):
defined by them, because our life shows us that we
have a bit of both. We've all won and failed,
we've all been stuck and focused, We've all made mistakes
and got things right. Please recognize that now. The first
type of guilt that we experienced that I want to
(13:55):
talk about today is guilt over a past mistake. How
many of you replay your past mistakes in your mind.
Maybe it was in a relationship, and you think to yourself, well,
if I didn't do that, they'd still be here. If
I did do that, they'd still be here. I ruined
(14:18):
that I messed that up. I had such a good
thing going. But maybe if I just didn't open my mouth,
maybe if I didn't set those boundaries, maybe if I
didn't push so hard. We all experience guilt over past mistakes,
and sometimes these guilts get so deep rooted that they
start to impact all of our lives afterwards, they start
(14:42):
to impact everything. What ends up happening is that when
you feel guilt over a past mistake, you now reflect
and project that guilt onto new people at work, new
people in your relationships, friends, anyone that comes across your way.
And so it's so important to address this. It's so
important to accept it. It's so important to focus in
(15:04):
on it. If there's a guilt over a past mistake,
if you can, if the person is alive and accessible
when you prepare or when you feel prepared, the best
thing you can do is actually reach out and try
and solve it right. If you have done something that
you don't feel proud about. If you feel you've done
(15:25):
something that you don't feel represents who you are, and
there's a pass mistake that is haunting you or lurking
there behind you, it's important that you can reach out
and set the record straight. And that's a really beautiful
thing to be able to do. So now let's say
that you are going to reach out. I think it's
really important that you prepare before you do. Often we
(15:47):
have this knee jerk reaction to just pick up the
phone and say I'm sorry, you know, and we're not
thinking about how it may affect the other person. We're
not thinking about what it may mean for us. And
often if the person is not accessible or or you
may actually in your preparation realize I don't think talking
to them directly is going to do any good. It's
important to check in with yourself and share that apology.
(16:11):
You may share that apology energetically, you may share that
apology as a healing practice. If you don't feel that
person is accessible or you may not be connected to
them anymore. And I remember when I was on my tour,
I met so many people who would say to me
they haven't spoken to someone they love for years now,
if you remember, if you did come to my tour,
(16:33):
and if you didn't, I hope you will come to
our next event. But at my tour, I encourage people
to call people that they hadn't spoken to for whatever
challenge they'd been going through personally. It could have been
a couple of years, it could have been ten years.
And everyone who made that call it wasn't a fairy
tale ending because that wasn't the goal. The goal was
that that person had the courage to sit in the discomfort,
(16:58):
to share how they truly felt because it was healing
to them and they felt the other person needed to
hear it too. We had people calling up ex partners
saying I'm sorry for how I dealt with the divorce.
I'm not asking for you back, but I want you
to know I love and appreciate you. We had people
reaching out and saying you're my brother, I love you,
I'm so sorry that we fell out two years ago.
(17:18):
We had people saying I'm sorry that this event got
in the way of our friendship, and whether the person
on the other side was amicable or reciprocal. What I
found is that the person who shared it felt the
most healed and the person who received it found some
solace in it. The second thing that you can do
with guilty of a past mistake is change your behavior
(17:40):
in the future. This is the best remedy for yourself
and others. The only way you make yourself feel better
about the past is by doing better in the future.
Let me say that again, the only way you make
yourself feel better about the past is by doing better
in the future. You can't make yourself feel good about
(18:02):
the past if you continue to behave badly in the future.
It doesn't work that way. We can't change the past.
We can't solve the past. We can't edit the past.
But when we edit the present, we create the future
that we've really wont right. We can't edit the past,
and we live in the past just kind of doing
(18:23):
mental exercises trying to figure it out. But it doesn't
work that way. And I want you to recognize with
all of this guilt and shame that if you experience
a sense of guilt, it just shows that you're reflective.
I always feel that way. I experienced guilt and I've
started to recognize that it just shows that I care.
(18:43):
It just shows that I'm reflective. It it shows that
I'm allowing myself to question myself. I'm allowing myself to
not think that everything I do is right and perfect
and wonderful, and I think that that's a great quality.
It's shame that we want to shift away from, and
guilt if if it's not taken care of, will very
easily grow into shame. And so while shame is unhealthy,
(19:10):
guilt is something we have to deal with. It's showing
us what we need to heal, but it's also showing
us that we're reflective, introspective beings. So I don't want
you to guilt yourself for feeling guilt. I want you
to feel heard and seen and understood. I don't want
you to guilt yourself for feeling that way. The second
type of guilt is guilt because of how someone made
you feel. Now, this may be guilt where you didn't
(19:32):
see any involvement, You didn't see or feel any responsibility,
but someone came back at you and told you. Someone
may have told you, hey, you said this to me
and it made me feel this way. You did this
and it made me feel this way, and now you're
feeling guilty because of how they've expressed that to you,
and in this opportunity, it's always important to acknowledge the
(19:54):
person's feelings. It's always important to acknowledge that there is
some truth in how that person feels, even if that
wasn't your intent, even if that's not what you were
trying to do. And I think often this guilt can
lead to more guilt if we actually shun the other
person away, if we act as if it doesn't matter,
that's not what we were trying to do, we go
(20:15):
into defensive mode. What ends up happening is we actually
make them feel worse, and we make ourselves feel worse
in the long run. So acknowledging that there is some truth,
there is some reality to that person's emotions and feelings
is important. The second step is recognizing what is your
(20:36):
part and what may have been misconstrued by them. I
think it's so important to recognize that there are always
always two sides to that story, right, there are always
we look at everything from our subjective lens. Often I'll
sit down and think where do I have this viewpoint from?
Why do I have this vantage point? And I'll recognize
(20:56):
there's so many biases in why I even said that
all got there right. There's so many biases happening every
single day of why I even said something, why I
got to that point, why I made it in the
way that I made everything else. When you start becoming
aware of that, you can actually better explain it. The
other day, Rady called me up and she had a
really urgent question for me, and I was really tired.
(21:19):
I hadn't eaten all day, and I said to it,
I said, RADI, if I respond right now, I'm not
going to give you my best answer. Do you mind
if I just get something to eat first, I'll tell
you straight away. And that was me protecting myself from
behaving in a way that I would later feel guilty about,
or from having her have to tell me that, hey,
I didn't like the way you spoke to me, and
then I would defend myself and be like, oh, but
(21:40):
I was tired. You don't even understand. You didn't even
ask how I was, when actually the truth is, by
being reflective, I can actually preempt that. Now, let's say
your situation is a bit more serious than that. I
think it's important that you own your part, but you
don't own all of it. You recognize your involvement, you
recognize your part, but you accept that there are other
(22:02):
reasons as well. Now, if you're on the receiving end
of that and you're like, well, I want that person
to accept all responsibility, I think often that even if
it feels that way, and by the way, there are
situations where it is just the other person's action and
it is just the other person's behavior, like you don't
actually you weren't old enough, you wann't thoughtful enough, you
(22:22):
wren't wise enough. Like that is real. And in that situation,
you're not taking responsibility for the experience or the event.
You're saying taking responsibility for the future you want to build.
I think this is a really subtle difference. I want
to point out that if you're not at fault, you
never accept responsibility for the fault or the event or
(22:46):
whatever happened. You accept responsibility for the future you want
to build and create. That's one of the things that
coaching focuses on is that coaching is not telling you
to take responsibility for the mistakes that happened to you,
or the issue or the abuse you received with a trauma.
That would be so unhealthy to tell someone to do that.
That is not what we're saying to do here. What
(23:07):
I'm saying is you're saying, I want to live a
great life from now and I went through this, I
experienced this, this happened to me. But I'm going to
take charge of where I want to go. Another step
here is to recognize what parts of it you're willing
to take responsibility for, as opposed to just feeling guilty
because of how they're making you feel. I also want
(23:29):
to recommend in all of this process that therapy is
such a powerful form. I partnered with Better Help several
times on the podcast. We had some really phenomenal conversations
with so many individuals who are dealing with different challenges
and showed how therapy can be powerful for that. I
highly highly recommend that because it can be really really
(23:49):
important to do that. Therapy is a great safe space
to reflect on these things so that you don't lead
to more negative behaviors towards yourself or unhealthy ideas towards
yourself at the same time being able to grow. Now.
The other guilt that we experience is what I mentioned earlier,
the guilt for not making time for others right the
(24:09):
guilt or the feeling of letting someone else down. And again,
going back to our earlier principle, make time now, Make
time now. If you feel guilty about not giving someone
time before, make time now now. You may say, they
don't want to spend time with me anymore, jay I
lost them. They're not around anymore. Make time for the
next person, Make time for other people. Make time for
(24:31):
people who've always made time for you. Go out there
and make that change. Don't be selfish and just want
to make it for that person that you can't get back.
Make it for another person and know that you're doing
it for that reason. Know then be aware that, hey,
I'm making time because I recognize that happened in the past.
I now want to make time for people I care about.
This second point is really important, and I want you
(24:52):
to write this down because I think it's often missed.
Recognize what your priorities were when you didn't make time
for the people you wanted to make time for. What's
really interesting is once we start living with a benefit,
we get we forget why it was our focus. Let
me explain to you. Let's say a parent works really
(25:14):
hard to put food on the table and provide for
their family. Now, when they may not be financially as unstable,
they may look back and think, oh my gosh, all
those years I just spent working. I wish I had
spent time with the kids. But the truth is it
wasn't plausible, Like it wasn't possible for them to do that.
They needed to work hard in order to pay for
(25:36):
the bills in order to take care of their family
at that moment in time. And I feel we forget
the priorities when we get a result. Right now that
you have the time, or now that that parent has
the time or has the financial space to have more
time with the kids, they now guilt themselves. But the
truth is you didn't before. So it's so important to
(25:58):
recognize what your prior authorities were at the time and
why they existed, because I think for so many people
we missed that, right, We miss that, We don't recognize
that actually at that point, if we would have spent
time with that person, then maybe we would have lost
that on a lot more, or maybe we would have
had really bad anxiety, or maybe we would have had
(26:20):
a lot of other issues. Right, think about what would
have been lost if you completely shifted over because sometimes
we have this nostalgic view in our mind of oh,
it could have been like this, it should have been
like this, But we often are beating ourselves up when
we never deserved that. We don't deserve that, So recognize
(26:43):
why you focused on what you focused when you did.
The next type of guilt, which is really interesting, is
the guilt of not having pain, or the guilt of
having privilege, or the guilt of safety and security. It's
really fascinating to me that people who grew up in
well or safety often feel guilt for having that. It's real.
(27:05):
I've actually sat down and spoken to people who feel
guilty that their parents were successful. They feel guilty that
they didn't have to think about survival. They feel guilty
that they had privilege growing up. And if you've experienced that,
it's important to share that with others, because again, it's
(27:27):
a guilt that you carry that is valid. And often
these people don't feel like that guilt is valid. They think, oh, well,
how can I feel guilty because I have everything? But
then I feel guilty for having it right because I
can see that other people don't have it. What I've
seen people in this space beautifully do is that they
try and share it with others. They try and do
philanthropic work, charity work, support work, they try and do
(27:48):
healing work. It's so powerful to see people who realized
that the privilege they received was to be turned into purpose,
The privilege they received was to be taken as a
responsibility to help help other people and to share it
with as many people as they could. I think it's
also important that you build something of your own and
people may not perceive it that way, but you try
(28:11):
your best to do that. And the final one I
wanted to address was guilt from having got through something
difficult when others didn't, often known as survival guilt. This
can be really, really tough when you think you got
through something and other people didn't. But it's a beautiful
opportunity again to help others through their journey, to share
(28:32):
your healing, to share your pain. And I think the
biggest challenge with guilt is we feel like our guilt
is not valid. We feel like somewhere deep inside of
us we shouldn't have that feeling. But the truth is,
the more we share it, the more we talk to others,
the more we express it. To therapists, to coaches, to
friends to family members. The more we create safe, vulnerable
(28:53):
spaces to share these things, the healthier our society becomes
because we realize that everyone is deal with something, but
helping people through their journey, helping someone who's a couple
of years behind you on the journey is a beautiful
and powerful step to take in your own healing. I
really hope that this helps you today. I want to
(29:15):
thank you for listening. As always, I appreciate you letting
me riff on some of these topics that are so important,
and I hope there's one insight you take away from
today that transforms your relationship with Sham and Gil. Thank
you for listening. Make sure you leave a review, make
sure you share this episode with someone who could use it.
And I can't wait for you to come back next
(29:36):
week or tomorrow or later today for another one. Thank
you so much. Sometimes life feels like a roller coaster.
One minute we're rocketing upwards, the next we're heading straight down.
(29:57):
But in reality, even coasters let us coast sometimes so
we can catch our breath, and in life we can
learn to create more of that smooth sailing. It all
comes down to finding the middle path. The next seven
minutes are about equanimity and the value of returning to center.
(30:21):
I'm Jy Sheddy. Welcome to the Daily Jay. Now let's
begin to get centered here by tapping into the breath.
Take a big breath in and release a big breath out,
really filling yourself up and letting it all go, coming
(30:50):
in to the present and settling with focus. Just like that.
So when I was young, I played a lot of soccer,
or as I called it back in London football, and
I had this coach who said something I'll never forget.
(31:11):
He told us, when you win, celebrate for a night,
but then get back to training. And when you lose,
cry for a night, but then get back to training.
He was a monk and didn't know it. And really
that's how we should approach all of life. When something
amazing happens, it's easy to want to hang out in
(31:33):
that space and we should enjoy it, but too often
we try to cling to that feeling. It's the same
when negative things happen and we let ourselves wallow instead,
we're better off if we find our way back to center.
When I studied as a monk, our teachers would emphasize equanimity,
(31:55):
which is kind of a fancy way to say composure
and evenness of temper. We were encouraged to experience an
emotion but then come back to a steady state of calm.
I like to think of equanimity as the balance point
on a seesaw, neither up nor down. But often we
(32:17):
experience life as a series of highs and lows, which
can make things feel out of control or unstable. It's
like we're constantly feeling these big swings. One day we're
over the moon, the next we're down in the dumps.
I've also noticed that many of us feel pressure to
(32:38):
be happy all the time, and when we don't feel
that way, it's like we're somehow failing. Equanimity helps with
both of these issues. First, it allows us to access
skillness and withstand the pull of our emotions. When it
comes to the roller coaster of life, we don't have
(32:59):
to say they strapped into the ride. We can step
back and watch the cargo by observing we can still
feel happiness and sadness, but they're not driving us, and
in turn, hopefully life won't be so unsettled. We can
focus on feeling peaceful instead of positive What I mean
(33:24):
is that we can release the pressure to feel joyful
all the time, and ironically that actually results in a
more positive feeling. When we learn how to return to center,
we're calmer and less reactive, and while life is swirling
around us, we can rest in the eye of the storm.
(33:48):
With that in mind, let's work on our equanimity as
we turn to our meditation. First, get a little more
comfortable wherever you are, relaxing your body and tuning in
to yourself. Find something to anchor you in the present,
(34:13):
whether it's your breath, a sensation in your body, or
a point of contact with the ground. See if you
can rest gently here, leaning in to this calm center.
(34:41):
Remember the goal here is to be more peaceful and
less reactive, to step outside the swirl. Of course, your
(35:02):
mind may start to wonder, thoughts or emotions may start
to tugget you. You may even feel like you're getting
caught on a roller coaster. If that happens, see if
(35:24):
you can get off the ride watching your thoughts or
emotions fly past without allowing them to whisk you away.
Then always come back to center. And now let's open
(35:56):
this up. As you go through life, do you often
oscillate between high and low or do you feel pressure
to chase positivity? What could you do to embrace equanimity
(36:17):
in your day today? Can you make a point of
trying to return to center. I know this might not
always be easy, so have compassion for yourself. Whenever you
(36:38):
do experience a big swing, you can always come back
here to this session to help you find your center again.
Thanks for being here today. I can't wait to see
you tomorrow.
Host
Jay Shetty
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