Once you open your mind to all of the ways that you could possibly be negatively perceived, it is hard to close that box.
How do you feel when you sit with yourself?
Why do you feel the need to be fueled by other people's opinions of you?
Is it because you're running from how you feel about yourself?
That perception that you're basing your worth off of isn't even about you.
It's somebody else's projections onto you.
And that's just more of a reason to not allow it to affect how you see yourself.
Your self-perception needs to be separate and protected from the rest of the world.
Things that are not even mine to carry.
I have carried them, and I've carried certain ways of thinking or seeing myself and perceiving myself that were not even mine to begin with.
Oh Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Flowering Philosophies.
I am Inaya.
I was just here this morning drinking a little espresso.
See, I'm always drinking tea.
I'm not much of a coffee person, so this is kind of dangerous.
Whenever I get caffeinated on the coffee, I'm another type of person.
And the crash and the anxiety is real.
So I try to avoid this, but there are just kind of some days during the month or just like whenever I have a lot of stuff to do.
I'll have a little espresso in the morning.
It will definitely put me on a on track, on a track for the day, on a very hyper track for the day.
So you are witnessing me about to get to that state, um.
But yeah, i'm cozy here today.
I kind of wanted to set up a little table with you guys because, ever since i've moved, the only table i really have is my tiny kitchen table and it's sort of in the dark in a corner, and i miss having like a little floral arranging table in front of me, similarly to the old dining room table that i would work at previously.
So welcome, welcome to the dining room table.
I'm very excited about the arrangement that we are making.
We have some of my favorite flowers to use and I wanted to do something pretty summery kind of a hot pink summer vibe, you know.
I felt really lucky to find these flowers, specifically because there wasn't really a wide selection when I was shopping.
But these guys, I've never seen this type of color before, with the bright pink in the middle sort of fading to the purple.
I thought it was really beautiful, so that is definitely the highlight of our arrangement today.
Today, i wanted to today.
Today, i wanted to discuss with you something that i've been thinking about for a while.
I know a long time ago, about a year ago, over a year ago I made a video called Turning Jealousy Into Inspiration.
This was about how to kind of grapple with the feeling of envy when we're feeling that way, when we're feeling jealous kind of what that means, and how we're able to convert and transmute that into inspiration.
How, whenever we are jealous sort of being honest, being honest and transparent with ourselves when we do feel jealousy, come up and think about where is this stemming from?
This is stemming from me feeling like I don't have this thing, or there is a lack of this thing and I want this thing, and seeing somebody else have it is making me feel threatened by my lack of not having it.
Just gently switching that mindset to.
I see this person has this thing.
I feel as though I would like that too.
I'm gonna allow myself to be inspired by this.
In fact, I'm going to encourage them and I'm going to celebrate the fact that these things do exist, that this person is showing me an example of that and that I can have it too.
The fact that somebody else has something is not a threat to you having it.
If anything, it is an example and it shows you that you can also have that thing.
It's no fun to want to rob somebody of something you ultimately wish you had, right?
I think, being happy for each other and choosing to sort of switch that mindset of I need that thing too, I'm happy they have it, and how can I do it too?
Just a little bit of inspiration feeling inspired rather than threatened can totally change our lives.
So i made a video about that a while ago.
But i kind of wanted to talk about the other side of the coin, not when we are feeling jealous necessarily, but maybe when other people are i don't know maybe not even jealous, but just sort of judgmental or perceiving us.
I think i've also made a video called the risk is worth it, and that is sort of an answer to the question of how do you put yourself out there?
Why do you make youtube videos being so vulnerable?
I want to do the same thing, but i'm too scared to put myself out there.
Right, that video i talked about how sometimes yeah, it is a risk, but it is worth it.
At the end of the day, if there's something that you want to share with the world and you want to put yourself out there, it is worth the risk of other people's judgment and perception of you.
It is worth it to push yourself to do it.
Anyway, if i'm gonna say all that and stand by that, i'm gonna have to talk about what you are going to have to do.
Once you put yourself out there and once you are perceived, once you are judged, once you are bullied, then what do we?
How do we just keep going?
And that is kind of The question I've had to answer myself and what I find myself still trying to answer and figure out which is why I was thinking about it and wanted to chat with you guys about that today is sort of this idea of evil eye and envy in so many different cultures.
Evil eye oho, nazar it's called so many different things among so many different cultures, and i think it ultimately, to its core, represents the same thing.
Evil eye is, from my understanding, whenever you are being perceived, whenever there are eyes on you and there is some sort of envious, negative energy coming from that perception, coming from that view of you, coming from whoever is looking at you.
Whenever you see that evil eye symbol, that's a representation of the eye and people wear that as a source of protection so that the eye catches any sort of evil eye.
Instead of it going straight into you, that symbol will catch.
Okay, and I know that not all of us believe in all this and you don't really have to get super metaphysical with it.
I wanted to talk about yes, that side of it, but also what is the reality of evil eye and envy and being on that receiving end of sort of a negative perception or an envious perception or judgment in general?
Evil eye and envy does not look the way that I think we always assume it will look.
If we do want to go on that sort of spiritual, metaphysical side of things.
People see it sort of like a curse that is being put on them, like somebody is giving them evil eyes, somebody is envious of them, somebody is negatively perceiving them.
Therefore, bad things are going to start happening in their lives.
And I'm not here to rob anybody of their beliefs and how they perceive things.
I just wanna share my own experience with sort of being on the receiving end of this energy, because it's not really a joke.
It can show up in many different ways.
And personally, my belief system is I don't believe that somebody can just look at me and then a million bad things are going to happen in my life, right?
But I believe that when we are being negatively perceived or we are being wished ill upon, I do think that that shows up in our lives.
And it's kind of about how we allow it to show up and how we tune into it and how we perceive it.
Evil eye doesn't always look like some sort of curse.
I think it can be as simple as somebody perceiving you and letting you know what they think about you.
That then can seep into your own perception of yourself.
So perception and self-perception are a big part of this.
For a lot of us, are my flowers getting toasty right now?
No, I don't think so.
We can tend to give in to people's perception of us, okay?
We have egos, that's just how it works.
If you have an ego, you're gonna want some feedback, right?
That is how we exist as humans.
We go about our day, we go into the world and we live off of other people's validation, for the most part, whether that is at work, what we have to do, what we're supposed to do, how can we show up best for that role?
How will we be judged and perceived based on our actions right?
And that's just a work example. in friendships as well, in our passions, and in life.
We show up, we interact with others, and we ultimately base our self-perception off of how other people see us too.
It's natural.
I think, of course we'll get into it in a second.
It's very important to have a strong sense of self.
But...
Don't beat yourself up when other people's perception plays a part in how you see yourself, because that is ultimately how we survive and understand the world around us and take things in.
Interacting with others teaches us a lot, but all types of validation can be harmful at the end of the day.
So i think if we are getting positive feedback from the world around us about what we're doing, how we're acting, this and that, ultimately it's gonna feel good and it's gonna kind of feed our self-perception in a way.
Whenever we get positive reinforcement, when that positive perception is the basis of how we perceive ourselves, then we feel good and we feel validated and we feel like okay, i'm doing something right.
But whenever there is negative perception, that can really start to infiltrate with our self-worth and how we see ourselves as well.
And it can kind of start to muddy the waters of how we see ourselves, right?
When we look to other people's opinions to validate us in a positive sense, we are also going to allow the negative opinions to affect us as well.
And I'm speaking from personal experience, right?
I've been making YouTube videos since I was 12 years old.
Didn't really feel like a problem for a long time because it was kind of just a personal thing.
It was just something that I did.
I felt like everybody in my immediate world was approving of it, whatever.
But it wasn't until I started doing my podcast and putting myself out there vulnerably and my thoughts out there vulnerably that things started to shift a little bit.
In the beginning, I felt awesome about it because it was just what I wanted to do.
It was something that I was doing out of my own heart, my own actions.
And whenever I saw that I was able to connect with the community, that felt very positive, right?
I'm not saying that we shouldn't allow that in.
It's beautiful to have that positive feedback from others and connection with others.
So when I was going on the journey of sharing more of my thoughts and my writing and myself on the internet, in the back of my mind I always thought okay yeah, like this is fun and this is great and this allows me to connect with people, but let's make make sure that we are always doing this for ourselves and that we're not letting too many voices sort of come into this process and this creation, because this is ultimately founded on our own interest and our own passion and it's not really dictated by what others have to say or think, and it's wonderful that it's positive, but let's make sure that we're not basing our worth or our creations off of that feedback necessarily.
We can allow it to come in and consider it and appreciate it, but how can we not let it completely affect or infiltrate with what we're doing?
I had that thought in the back of my mind for a while.
And so, whenever you do put yourself out there, whenever you are being vulnerable or you are putting yourself out there to be judged or to be perceived whether that's the internet or in your daily life or anything when you do decide to kind of put yourself out there, wear your heart on your sleeve, be vulnerable, be yourself, be authentic, show up unapologetically, as some say right.
Whenever you do decide to do that, there is a risk that you are going to be positively perceived or negatively perceived.
So yeah, like we said, it feels great to appreciate the positive perception, but what are you going to do when the negative one hits?
The creations and the authenticity start to get ripped from you when you start really considering the perceptions.
When that negative perception started to trickle in a little bit, it had me overthinking my creations and what I was doing.
Once you open your mind to all of the ways that you could possibly be negatively perceived, it is hard to close that box.
It's kind of like Pandora's box or whatever.
When you open it, it's just like, whoa, like endless sort of negativity comes out.
So it's like when you allow yourself to be at the mercy of one negative comment or perception or judgment or whatever, and you give into that and you allow that to kind of leak into your own self-perception, it can be endless sometimes.
And I found myself.
The past few months I have been hit by evil eye, by envy, by perception negatively.
It has affected the way that I have seen myself.
That is when we know that we are putting our self-perception and the perception of others a little bit too closely to each other.
Goodness oh, that is a close one.
Okay, if you guys learn anything from flowering philosophies, you should learn that candles are a fire hazard and should not be put close to plants or fabric.
Okay, do not do this at home.
You can't even see the cute little holder that I have here.
You just see the candle sticking up.
Hold on one second.
Let's make this worth it.
There we go.
That's cute.
Okay, and this is safe, you guys.
I just shook the table and that's why it came crashing down.
What I was saying was that's when we know that we've come a little too close to allowing other people's perception to sort of sink into how we see ourselves.
The whole industry of social media is based off of numbers and whenever you are sharing yourself and your vulnerability with the community and this and that, and you're also aware of numbers and you're basing your worth, or what is good and what is not, off of those numbers.
Whoa.
That is whenever we are really allowing other people's perception literally to affect our self-worth.
It doesn't always have to be negative judgment.
It could be that positive reinforcement or the lack of that, or the absence of that, or feeling so addicted to positive reinforcement that the second that it's not there as strongly or it is negative it's going to feel so involved with our self-worth and like we need this type of validation to survive, or the negative perception could totally kill how we see ourselves.
Or the lack of positive reinforcement or perception.
I've learned that you can't really just go willy-nilly and be all vulnerable and base your worth off of positive reinforcement right.
You really have to have strong boundaries with how other people perceive you and how you perceive yourself.
Wow, it's really pouring, guys.
And I have a tin roof, so if you hear the rain, that's pretty magical.
It's like you're here with me.
Listen.
Having boundaries with other people's perceptions of us and how we perceive ourselves is very important and i say boundaries right, i don't say a complete disassociation or cut off right, because it's great to have self-awareness, but sometimes also sourcing a bit of awareness from other people's opinions of us can be helpful.
If somebody is critiquing us and giving us feedback, I think that it is valuable to listen to those things and to understand those things and to take them in and process them accordingly.
But whenever they have the power to completely shift our feeling of self-worth or how we perceive ourselves entirely, that's when things can get a little messy.
So I'm just saying that it's important to have these boundaries, right?
I found for myself in some of my darkest stages um aka, literally like the other day, like i'm not.
I'm not perfect.
I'm still learning and embodying these things by going through them and going through the mistakes and the failures of this whole journey.
Right, i always say failure is in your favor.
Never be afraid of failing or making mistakes, because that is how we ultimately are supposed to grow into the next beautiful version of who we are meant to be.
Whenever we're starting our days, ending our days, it is so easy to just pick up that phone and to look at okay, how many likes do we have?
Or okay, did this person text me?
Okay this, that like.
We're constantly looking for that feedback to validate how we feel about ourselves, and that's, it's normal.
I think we're all of our brains are addicted to that little bit of dopamine from that notification, or checking this thing, or seeing how we're being perceived in this way.
Is it good?
How can I be better?
Like, stepping away from that and sourcing our self-worth from other places is is not always easy.
And that is just sort of the rush of like positive perception, let alone like how negative perception affects us.
That's a whole other thing.
But like boundaries with it is very important.
And when we are starting our day on that search for our ego to kind of be fed and sort of get that dose of dopamine starting our day off.
As such, let me just say, Whatever you're starting your day with, that is setting you on the track for how the day is going to be.
Could the day change and fluctuate as it goes on?
Sure.
But whenever your brain is fresh and those pathways are ready to sort of be running when you wake up in the morning, how are you going to start that track?
How are you going to get up and running?
Because i'm telling you the first moments of how you start your day.
They matter, and also how you end your day, that matters.
You know how people say oh, think about this thing if you want to dream about it.
I know that doesn't always work, but it does most of the time, like last night.
I was thinking about something for a while and i was reading a certain book and all of it came up in my dreams and therefore affected how i felt when i woke up.
So beginning and ending your day with some sort of practice that grounds you and reminds you who you are right,
Not who others say you are, not how you're being perceived on the internet or by this person you like, or this or that, or how you might be seen to the world right.
Of course, like I'm not saying that all of these things are just going to magically disappear from our lives.
No, we understand ourselves through the perception of others, through interacting with others.
But how do you feel when you sit with yourself?
Why do you feel the need to be fueled by other people's opinions of you?
Is it because you're running from how you feel about yourself?
How do you feel when you sit with yourself?
How do you feel when it is just you and you? because that's going to give us a lot of answers.
I'm not saying that all day.
We need to be in the most disassociated mindset of not taking in what anyone says and being so grounded in an egoless perception of ourselves.
No, I mean, that would be great.
I think we would be living on cloud nine every day if we could do that.
But I know that's not always realistic, right?
But if we can just begin and end our days with some sort of intention of sitting with ourselves, whether that's writing out our thoughts.
I don't want to just sit here and preach meditation and journaling and all these things over and over again, because I know that sometimes we push off these practices because they feel cliche or they're not doing anything.
But I promise you they are.
These tools are meant to be things that work over time when you are consistent with them.
So you really got to just trust that process and do what makes you feel best with yourself.
And I'm really talking about sitting with yourself.
I'm not saying putting on your favorite show, this and that.
Of course, like that is fun to do things with yourself in your alone time and what entertains you.
But I'm talking about more.
So sitting with who you are and making peace with your emotions, your feelings, what you're going through.
Grounding yourself at the end of the day, in your own presence, in your own self-perception, and asking yourself where is that self-perception coming from?
How do I feel about myself deep down?
Not based on what others might say about me or if I can get myself to be at a certain point to where others can see me this way.
No, how do you feel about where you're at right now?
Because that is going to dictate where you're gonna go.
Learning to have those boundaries with other people's perceptions of you can allow us to come back to what is most important, which is how we view ourselves, how we perceive ourselves.
Not your face, not your hair, not this and that, but you.
Making sure that you are feeding your perception of yourself, That you're not allowing it to be built on others' opinions of you.
You are creating that perception of yourself based on what you love about yourself, based on what makes you feel grounded, what makes you feel calm, sorting out and processing your own emotions, having a relationship with yourself.
That is going to dictate how you show up to the rest of the world.
That is going to dictate if you're going to stay strong in what you love and what you want to do, or if you are going to ultimately live for somebody else.
That you're going to live for somebody else's approval, somebody else's opinions.
You're going to wait for somebody to tell you that you can do it, or that you're good enough, or that you're not good enough.
And other people's perception of you is a projection of what they are feeling inside, you know?
Like, it doesn't even really have to do with you.
If somebody says you're ugly, it's like, okay, thanks.
How do you feel about yourself?
Somebody who tells you you're ugly is probably not feeling too great about themselves.
Perception that you're basing your worth off of isn't even about you.
It's somebody else's projections onto you.
And that's just more of a reason to not allow it to affect how you see yourself.
Your self-perception needs to be separate and protected from the rest of the world.
And I think this is true in all senses, but especially when you're wanting to put yourself out there or put your creations out there, or you're just ultimately scared of judgment.
I think that is when it's most important to realize no, having a strong sense of who.
I am being patient with that journey, learning who you are every single day, holding your own hand, observing where you feel scared, where you feel insecure, where you need support and help.
It could be very true that whenever you are sitting with yourself in the beginning or the end of the day, it could be that you feel so extremely anxious without checking your phone before bed, or without checking your phone when you wake up.
And it's not about pushing that down and being like, oh my gosh.
Okay, Anaya said I should sit with myself, so I'm just going to sit and i'm just gonna be miserable and anxious and i'm gonna check my phone a little bit.
Like it's not about that.
It's not about pushing away the need to pick up the phone.
It's about asking yourself okay, okay.
I see that i'm feeling really anxious right now.
I'm saying i really want to get this sort of sense of worth and validation from my iphone here.
How can i sit with myself for a second?
How can I hold this part of me and see that she's freaking out and like, oh my gosh, she wants this phone so bad and she wants to validate herself through the opinions of others?
How can I sit with that anxiousness?
How can I recognize, oh wow, this is how she has been surviving and resourcing her worth.
How can I sit with that part of me and hold her and tell her, I'm here, let's just sit for a second.
In these grounding practices or in these boundaries that you're placing between yourself and everyone else's opinions of you.
In those moments, in those times, it might not feel very pleasant.
It might feel really terrible to rip yourself away from the usual places that you're gaining validation from.
It might feel very hard to just sit with yourself if you have naturally been resourcing your sense of self-worth from other places.
It's going to feel scary, it's going to feel painful, it's not going to feel safe and familiar.
But that's the journey.
Right is learning how to feel safe and familiar with ourselves, sitting with ourselves, being within our own love and our own company and reminding ourselves who we are, beyond all that sense of ego and perception.
Who are we at the core?
If everything that we base our worth off of went away tomorrow?
I know that that's kind of drastic, but it's like if people's opinions of you changed or if you weren't getting a sense of positive reinforcement every day.
How would that alter your sense of self-worth?
You know I'm actually hold on.
I know that I'm so late to this because everybody, and their mother, has read this book and I'm years late, but i'm currently reading the seven husbands of evelyn hugo and i literally have like five.
How many pages do i have left?
Okay, i'm spoiling it for myself, but i literally have whatever this much is left.
I'm not gonna spoil it, but it's a story of a woman who comes from poverty and works her way up to the top of Hollywood stardom.
She did that through leveraging others' perceptions of her, and ultimately that was the foundation of her being, of her life, and she found herself wishing for that for so long until she realized that ultimately it was unsatisfying and it was always sort of a chase for more, and how she was being perceived allowed her to get what she wanted and also became a nightmare at the same time.
If everybody's perception of her had altered or changed so much about herself, and her life and her perception and her worth would change too, like success, her health, her well-being it was all dictated on other people's opinions and how they viewed her.
That is whenever things are ultimately out of our, And I don't think that we should ever be in a position like that.
Of course naturally, if you're going to be a successful, beautiful Hollywood icon yes, of course you're going to base your worth off of the feedback of others, people who are viewing your films and your acting.
You have to be a certain way and show up a certain way in the world, and how people perceive you is important whenever it comes to certain accolades and where it is you want to be.
But how do you not allow that to sink into your own perception of yourself?
The reason I even wanted to make this video is because I find it to be near impossible to not start our day with so much information as to how other people perceive us.
It's literally in a handheld device that we can take anywhere with us.
We can check in to see how we're being perceived literally at all times, which is not natural or normal.
I remember growing up Remember that movie Cyber Bully?
I don't know if you guys remember that with Emily Osment, but they used to show us that in school.
Or I just I remember watching it and it was kind of like a lesson on self-harm, bullying and how far that can really go and all these things.
And I remember it was like so revolutionary in the early 2000s to like all the parents and everything who watched that, because they realized oh, this is a new form of bullying, because the internet and communication on the internet and social media was all becoming a thing.
I just remember like my mom always saying yeah, it was so different for us back in the day because, you know, we would just go to school and if there was some crazy stuff going on or people bullying us, we could just go home and get away from it, but you guys can't escape it.
And I was just like yeah, that's true.
But now it really does hit me the fact that wow, we actually can't escape people perceiving us
And if anything, we crave that positive reinforcement from being perceived.
Being perceived has become such a natural part of how we show up and how we exist in our culture.
Because the internet is such a big part of all of our lives, I don't think we realize the harm that we are doing to ourselves.
Are we getting enough reinforcement in this way or are we not?
It is not a good way to start the day.
And guys, I'm talking to myself here.
Course i'm speaking with you too, but like i'm only speaking these things because i am actively or have been going through this, it does require that bit of self-discipline, having these boundaries of being like you know what.
I'm not gonna check my phone first thing in the morning.
I'm not saying that it can't be a part of your life.
I think the internet, social media, everything it can be a tool for communication, for understanding, for learning, for entertainment, everything.
I'm not saying that we're gonna throw that out the window.
I'm just saying let's consider how we are starting and beginning our days.
What is the foundation of how we perceive ourselves, and how much are we allowing other people's perception affect us?
That's how I think evil eye works.
I don't think it's somebody stares at you and wishes badly upon you.
I think it's whenever you allow any sort of opinions and other people's judgment whether that's positive or bad start to leak into your own self-perception and overthinking that.
And almost like if somebody is judging me in a certain way based on their own perception.
It is very easy to look at yourself through the eyes of these people, through other people's eyes, and that's when I ultimately feel like I've fallen to evil.
Eye is whenever I'm living my day starting to think things that I never thought before about myself.
The second we start.
Remember I said it's Pandora's box.
When we start to give in to that perception that other people have to us, it's very hard to separate ourselves again.
I don't want to base my own worth on how others perceive me.
So having strong boundaries is important.
My friend asked me the other day because I was telling her about how I've honestly had trouble coming on camera and talking about things that are true to my heart, because I don't really want to give them up to be perceived.
I'm afraid of being perceived based on how much it has affected how I see myself and my worth.
I was talking to her about that and how it was kind of disrupting my state of creativity.
It was creating kind of a block for me.
And she asked me, OK, well, what inspires you?
And I think that's a great question to ask all of ourselves because, even if you're not an artist or you're not dealing with a creative block, i think, just in terms of how we love ourselves and our perception of ourselves, to learn what makes us feel closest to that.
I think sometimes the question of what inspires us can give us those answers.
I thought about it and i answered her question and i said well, um time with my friends inspires me.
Reading, going on walks swimming writing, like I was listing all these things that inspire me.
I was talking about flowers, all this stuff.
I realized you know, those are the moments that I feel close to you.
Know, now we're getting like kind of.
I hope you're following me.
If you're this far, you're following, right?
When I say being with yourself, that is whatever it means to you.
Maybe you're not thinking about how you're being perceived or what you look like, or this or that right?
All those external sort of egoic ways of existing.
When you feel as though you're far from that and when you feel like you are genuinely with yourself.
You know a lot of people find it through their craft right.
Like if you're a painter, when you're painting and you were in that moment with just yourself, or god or nature, or in that moment with just you, whatever that is.
Finding more of those moments.
That's what i mean by having these boundaries with the rest of the world and putting some of that energy into ourselves and our self-perception.
What are those moments of inspiration for you?
When do you feel like you are truly with yourself, like you are giving back to yourself and it is not based on the opinions of others or how you're trying to be seen?
What are the moments that make you feel like you?
And doing more of that.
So like I said, reading, swimming, right?
These are just activities at the end of the day, but they make me feel as though I am spending time with myself.
They help me sit with myself or with God or just stillness in presence, right?
My enjoyment of these things is not based on the perception.
Wow, it's getting really dark in here, guys.
A storm cloud. is hovering over us.
When do you feel like you?
And it's not based on anybody else's perception.
What are the things that you enjoy for you?
And how can you bring more of that into your experience?
It's all about remembering who you are and remembering these things through what you love to do.
I find myself feeling this way when I'm doing things that I loved to do As a child.
It might sound funny, but like I loved to swim when I was little,
Like it felt like when I was just going underwater and having fun in the water, that it was just me and it was just me.
Like that's it.
It wasn't other people.
I was never on a competitive swim team and people telling me I was swimming fast enough or bad enough, or this or that.
Like I didn't, it was just fun.
It was just fun for me.
I find myself when I do that now, it's that same feeling.
And that's just one example.
But what are those things that you loved to do for no other reason besides the fact that you just loved to do it?
You're not what people say you're good at or that you're bad at.
You are you.
You know what you love.
You know what makes you feel grounded.
You know what makes you feel safe.
You deserve to feel at peace with yourself, and i'm telling you, when you have that, nothing can touch you.
And that's what i kind of want to get into in this last part is protecting yourself.
I grew up with the understanding of evil eye sort of being something very, very negative that you have to protect yourself from.
Yeah, I understand.
I see, I mean, we're making this video, right?
Because sometimes the perception of others can be very strong and affect how we see ourselves.
I totally understand the urgency and the fear.
But I think whenever we sort of add that urgency and fear, we're sort of giving more of our power away in saying yeah, you know what this is going to very negatively affect us and can touch us.
No.
When you decide that your energy is untouchable and you know who you are and you know what you love and, at the end of the day, you are the one going to bed with yourself.
You are the one waking up with yourself, without everybody's projections of themselves onto you.
You know you at the end of the day.
When you are grounded in that and you decide that nobody can take that away from you, nobody can.
It really is as simple as a decision that you make.
The second, that a negative thought that comes into my mind.
I'm not always saying it's from other people, right?
Of course, like that can maybe ignite some of our insecurities and our doubts, but any time, that sort of negativity, that self-doubt or that need to base our worth off of other people's understanding of us,
It's our decision if we are going to give into that or not.
Are we going to follow that path down?
Because we know where it ultimately leads us every single time.
Or are we going to make a different decision?
Are we going to say no, I'm not going to base my worth off of these opinions or these perceptions of me, or the lack of, or the judgment.
I am going to sit with myself.
I am going to remind myself who I am, what I love, why I'm here.
I'm going to continue to learn about myself.
I'm going to continue to sit with myself, what I need.
I'm not going to search for answers in other people's perception of me.
It's just, it's just a decision because let me tell you, that is just, it's always going to exist.
The judgment is always going to exist.
People will constantly be negatively perceiving you your whole life, or positively, you know, like that perception never goes away.
But we get to make the decision of how much it affects us and how.
I sort of protect myself from falling down that path.
I will literally out loud sometimes and I'll feel kind of ridiculous and have to force myself to do it sometimes.
But if I am doing something and I'm feeling that sort of negativity trickle in and you know the reason why I even bring up evil eye is because sometimes it feels like it's not being sourced from how we feel about ourselves.
It feels like it's coming from something from the outside.
Anytime I feel that and I'm starting to feel negatively, I will, like, stand up.
I will stop what I'm doing.
I will say out loud whether this is in the form of prayer or just speaking it aloud.
I will say I do not align with these thoughts that are coming into my mind.
I am no longer associating myself with these doubts, with these insecurities, with this negative energy, and I am only welcoming what makes me feel healthiest happiest, best and good.
I am protected from any of this negativity, from any of this doubt or this darkness or this anger.
Sometimes I will say I expel this from my experience. just getting up and being aware of it.
I think that's a big way to protect yourself is be aware of it.
Don't give in.
Don't give in to these doubts and these feelings.
Stand up and expel it from your experience and say that this is not welcome here.
Just saying this is not mine.
I give this back.
Like a lot of my self-doubt and insecurity comes from my family and like how my Parents perceived themselves and therefore that's going to trickle onto like how I see myself, things that are not even mine to carry.
I have carried them, and I've carried certain ways of thinking or seeing myself and perceiving myself that were not even mine to begin with.
So I think a big thing that I always try to say is I expel this way of thinking and these insecurities from my experience.
I am giving back this perception of myself.
I am giving back this energy that is not mine to carry and I am calling back what is mine.
I call back all my energy from all people, places and things that have been taking it without my permission.
And what that even means.
I know sometimes people don't really like the language of energy and this and that, but energy is everything okay.
That is literally energy makes up all of what is around us.
And that is real.
Like what you give off, what you're producing inside, everything is energy.
You know, people say, oh, I love your energy, right?
Our energy is our efforts, how we come across, like who we are inside, what is radiating off of us.
Sometimes people can take advantage of that.
The whole thing that we've been talking about is when other people's self-perception or their own shit that they have going on, their own projections start infiltrating into ours.
That's an example of people seeping into our energy or our energy being given away to places that maybe they weren't supposed to be.
I think it is as simple as a decision to say no.
I'm calling that power back to me with that intentional decision of I'm not allowing my feelings, my heart, my precious time and energy to be taken from me or to be scattered in all these different places.
I call it back and I give back any sort of negative perceptions or any sort of negative beliefs that are not mine to carry, that I have picked up from different places or people and things.
I give Give that back.
And I call back my power, my energy, my motivation, my confidence, my patience, my understanding, my love.
I call back all my energy to me right now.
It's just about making that decision that nobody is going to fuck.
Sorry.
That nobody is going to.
Yes, people can have their opinions, people can have their projections, and that is okay.
You're not trying to control or change the way that you are perceived.
You're just not going to allow it to affect your self-worth, how you see yourself, how happy or unhappy you are with yourself.
That is your decision.
Being perceived is a product of how you show up, and how you show up in the world is your decision.
Don't allow it to be based on others.
Protect yourself in the form of doing what feels good to you, of having boundaries with yourself and people's perception of you.
How you start your day, how you end your day.
What are you spending time with yourself doing?
How do you see yourself outside of other people's perceptions?
And just being wary and protecting yourself and understanding that we do have a choice.
