Being Aware of Inadequacy Feelings and Caring For Them, Episode 127

A very warm welcome to season three of awareness that heals where we have progressed to be able to focus on one challenging emotion at a time. This will allow you to choose a specific emotion that you’ve had challenges with, and each one will have a progressive series of guided meditations that will allow you to go deeper and deeper into self-compassion. For me, it’s truly inspiring because each emotion has unique nuances for both self-care and responding to your environment at the same time, this is subtle and a rare skill as all too often we don’t stay aware of how we can care for ourselves as we are. I hope that you’ll not only find it helpful, but also give you deep resources that you can internalize when the emotion is most emerging. So allow yourself to just be aware of where your attention is right now and see are you thinking about an issue? Are you feeling a body sensation? Are you in an emotion? And just be aware of where your awareness is. As we begin,

(01:29)
Let your eyes close so you’re not distracted by the environment around you. And let yourself say, I want to discover what awareness is when it’s not thinking about something, when it’s not being taken over by an emotion or a body sensation. And you’re simply aware that you’re aware and that you have this unique human capacity for awareness without being taken over by anything. That’s the key. If you’re not taken over by anything you have just empowered yourself to be a free agent. Now, don’t expect yourself to get this right away. This is something that requires practice, but if you get the knack of being awareness even for a few moments, a glimpse you can see, it will give you more control and capacity to guide yourself in directions rather than having what might be playfully called a hostile takeover or take over by any kind of emotion or thought.

(02:55)
And as you glimpse that and you’re not, again, being discouraged because you don’t have a clear glimpse, but you have, let’s say, at least a mini glimpse, then ask your awareness to now focus on your feelings of inadequacy and where they either are now or where they’ve been in your past, where they’ve at least quickly drawn your attention. Now, all of us, if we look closely, are going to have some feelings of inadequacy. Even though it’s taboo, it’s right in there with death because our ego doesn’t want to believe we feel inadequate in any way. Usually, it’s a very brief visitor in our life, and for many of us, maybe never consciously, but when you look at all the areas that we could feel inadequate as human beings, of course we’re going to have some area or areas that that’s going to come in. So when you’re thinking of feelings of inadequacy, it could be any numbers of areas like your relationship to money, your relationship to yourself, your relationship to a family member.

(04:17)
It could be a relationship to your body image. There are so many examples. There’s too many to name. As you’re aware of your inadequacy feelings, see if you can just stay aware without suppressing it or without judging it, and just have a neutral awareness because that neutral awareness sets you on a course to be able to care for yourself. And speaking of caring for yourself right now, look for a place inside you that wants to care for yourself while you feel inadequate. Now, this may sound almost impossible, but if you really look at these two places at the same time or close to the same time, you’ll see it’s possible to be aware of feeling inadequate. And of course, I want to care for myself. I don’t want to abandon myself. I don’t want to just stay caught in judgment. So it needs to be genuine, not just in the head, but actually somewhere in your guts.

(05:36)
I want to care for myself while I feel inadequate so that I can develop the capacity to see the area where I feel inadequate and give myself a chance to really develop in that area. So just to repeat, you’re aware of your feelings of inadequacy and you’re looking and you’re saying, body, heart, can you find a place where I want to care for my feelings of inadequacy? And when you have those start to become close to simultaneous, you’re really changing the momentum and starting to understand the paradox that the more you’re aware of your feelings of inadequacy and you want to care for them, that’s one of the most adequate, profound places that any of us can find. Thanks so much and I hope you’ll continue to join us as we move to the third meditation.