3 Steps to Embrace Embarrassment & Ease the Brutal Inner Critic l S1E021

Linda Orsini: 00:00:08

Hello and welcome to a call for love. I believe the most powerful gift you can offer yourself is to give and receive love more freely. I'm your host Linda Orsini meditation guidance spiritual coach. Everyone has the desire to be seen, heard, respected and loved. The journey to becoming more connected to your greater purpose lies within the ability to live from the deep source of love within you. Let's begin.

Linda Orsini: 00:00:39

Welcome to a brand new episode of a call for love. Where this week I want to dive deep into moments of vulnerability, growth, self reflection, and you guessed it embarrassment, which is definitely a call for love. Today, I want to share a personal story that is really actually super embarrassing to share, but really profound because it taught me a lot. It taught me invaluable lessons about self compassion and the power of our words. And the reason why I want to share this with you today is because I took a look at the analytics for the first 20 episodes of a call for love. And you'll never guess which was the most listened to episode. It was actually the most embarrassing episode for me, but the most raw and authentic. It was the episode number four titled Three Steps to sue the brutal inner critic, or those who know me the pink bunny episode. Every time I wear my pink fluffy and cozy pink jacket out, people giggle and they say is this the pink bunny? And I say yes, it is. If you haven't listened to episode four, you may want to go back, I will put a link in the show notes. But just to give a quick summary. I found myself in a really uncomfortable situation during the holiday season. And I was dressed inappropriately where everyone was wearing fine attire black gowns, and I was wearing my pink fuzzy Lululemon jacket that is very pretty, but not very appropriate for the occasion. And my self esteem took a huge hit with tons of negative thoughts consuming me. And this is where I now being a student of wellness really understand mindfulness and self compassion. But back when I'm sharing this story, I did not know all the tools and techniques. In this podcast episode, I would like to use the same three principles of mindfulness, self compassion, to grow and learn because I continue to witness my clients are so incredibly hard on themselves. It is really just shocking. We are so critical and brutal to ourselves using those internal words on ourselves over and over again. i Why did I do that I can't do this. I'm stupid. I'm dumb. I'm overweight. I'm not this. I'm not that all these negative, really harsh and hard things that we tell ourselves which are not true, I might add. But this week, I'd like us to remind ourselves of the significance of our words, and the profound impact they can have. So let's dive in. Have you ever found yourself in a super embarrassing situation where you unintentionally said something that completely missed the mark. I was standing in the studio one day and several of us were talking about our most embarrassing moments. I mean, it is quite funny. You've maybe done this around the dinner table or with friends or family. But it is quite shocking the laughs that you get because it's just over ridiculous of the things that we've said and done. Now they're only funny in hindsight, but during the moment or in the moment, they are not funny at all. Well, this happened to me. And I have to say this was a long time ago was about 25 years ago. And imagine that it's still in my mindset, which I really do not want to keep there. But it is a good learning lesson. And it brings me back to humility and being humble for my naivety actually because I was very naive, but it did not. It did not come up very well. So let's begin. I had my first son then and he was playing hockey in our little cul de sac. And I had met a neighbor's friend and And I was talking to her and our kids were playing together and she was going on and on and talking. We were having a great conversation. And I was puzzled because I felt like she had a little bit of an accent. And I am not good at guessing accents. You know, when people say guess how old I am, or guests, you know where I'm from? Guess what nationality I am. I never fall into the trap of guessing because it is not my forte. And I probably learned it through this occasion. So we were talking and she had an accent. So I didn't want to say, Are you from such and such place? In case she wasn't and she got offended. So I thought I would be quite neutral. And I said to her, I really love your accent. Where are you from? And she said, she says, it's not an accent, it's a speech impediment. Well, my jaw dropped, you know, when they say fight, flight, or freeze, I froze. If I could run away, I would have run away. But I was too shocked and too stunned and too embarrassed to do or say anything. So I just stood there, trying to think and be in the moment and recuperate from this huge shock of though I was completely mortified by what I had said so thoughtlessly, actually, I had no other alternative than to be present with her in the moment and with my emotions, and I was trying to really catch my breath. Because I think I stopped breathing. I was so embarrassed. It's like, you know, those times where you maybe see a woman, and you have mistakenly said, When is your baby do and she has said, Oh, I already had my baby. And once again, never doing that again, not a good thing to say. being embarrassed as I stumbled and fumbled to know what to do and say was a huge challenge. In the moment, it was like I was in a time warp where everything was moving in slow motion. But of course, time was going as consistently as it always does. Now I realize after reading Brene Brown's book Atlas of the heart, that embarrassment is when we feel exposed, flustered and clumsy, because it creates a feeling of self conscious discomfort to a minor incident that was witnessed by others. That's the definition that Brene gives of embarrassment. Well, I You didn't really actually need to tell me that I knew it and I felt it. However, it's really nice to know that it's a legitimate feeling. And it does have a definition. In case you are wondering. I'm sharing this story with you today because in this episode, I want it to be a reminder that even in our most embarrassing moments, we do have the capacity to embrace our humanity, learn from our mistakes and emerge stronger and more compassionate, more aware. That is why I never guessed where people are from. In the myths of hilariously embarrassing moments, which I did experience. And I know as a listener you may have as well. You may have been tongue tied and tripped over your words and fumbled and blurted out the most cringe worthy comments. And I discovered a comic twist, actually, to the three steps of mindfulness self compassion. A lighter version of episode four, relating to mindfulness self compassion in three steps is to navigate embarrassment with a sense of kindness and a little bit of laughter, offering a path towards embracing our awkwardness, our clumsiness, our mistakes with a smile, and announced to humor. So let's begin here with step one, following mindfulness of compassion with a little bit of lightheartedness. So as you can imagine, my cheeks flushed a vibrant shade of crimson, oh my goodness, it was my I felt my cheeks burning and I became acutely aware of the absurdity of my words in that moment, in that precise moment. I wholeheartedly embraced all the discomfort and surrendered really to the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. And instead of evading or suppressing it, I actually chose to fully embody the awkwardness because I couldn't run away and I didn't want to run away. So I allowed every sensation to wash over me with a wave of Oh, lightheartedness,

Linda Orsini: 00:10:01

I really could not deny that I what I said could possibly have hurt her. I'm sure it did. I don't know, she was maybe middle aged like myself. And she had probably run into this before, but I really needed to claim it by naming it. So I through this embodiment, awareness, I said to her, Can you please forgive me? I am so sorry, I said that I had no idea. I really felt all the nerves, tingling, my heartbeat quickening. And I froze in this raw experience as I tried to just apologize and find some compassion for her situation, while really dealing with my embarrassment. And of course, she was very gracious, which I really appreciated. But I truly acknowledged my, my blunder. The next step is after you're fully present, and I did name it to claim it. I had to offer myself some self kindness, first to myself so that I could express it to her. So instead of berating myself over an epic foot in the mouth moment, I chose to really shower myself with some self compassion, and loving kindness towards this woman, I cracked a joke about my impediment of not hearing well enough to know the difference between an accent and a speech impediment. I mean, we're all put in these situations where we put the emphasis on ourselves to try and deflect the attention away from the awkwardness, at the experience in the moment, just through our expense. I know this probably has happened to you. So I took it upon myself to kind of, you know, joke about myself and being not able to know the difference, which is quite really silly, some verbal acrobatics, to ease the tension and show some self love to herself and myself, through laughter because laughter is the best medicine for those cringe worthy blunders. It's a call for love, a call to show up and say sorry, authentically, and truly, because we do not intentionally try to hurt others, if we can help it, at least I hope so. We are human. And that's the last step of mindfulness, self compassion, common humanity. I didn't truly know or appreciate the magnitude of how healing it is to relate our life and experiences to that of common humanity back then. But now I do. And I bet you've had your share fear of embarrassing moments that could rival mine. I have learned since then, and maybe you have to how to appreciate that we're all in this together, that we're all sharing in this game called life through our shared humanity. Now, when I feel embarrassed, I find comfort and a sense of camaraderie in knowing that we are all part of this collective consciousness, this experience of being human and things are going to happen, we are going to say or do the wrong thing. As long as we can show up being kind to ourselves, and being extra kind to the person who may have hurt or offended, we can really embrace a call for love, we can be present to loving kindness, I truly try to hold space for my mistakes. Now. I try not to push them away. Even if it requires that I take a step back, if it's through an email, because it's not in direct contact. I really try to own up to my blenders to my humaneness, and really work towards clarifying and healing a relationship or a circumstance. And you know, that could take a little bit of time where you pull back, but it's never too late. It's never too late to go back to say to the person. I'm sorry, I didn't know better. I know better now. Please forgive me. We can really open the door to self compassion for ourselves and for others to release the brutal inner critic so that we can show up kinder and more whole for those around us. Remember, life is short. And if we take ourselves too seriously, and if we hide under a rock because we're too afraid to really stand up and show our authenticity or wrongness or you Nunes through naming it to claiming it and apologizing and really with a deep sense of care and compassion, then we can really rise to all the circumstances in our lives. And that's what I want for a call for love. That's what I want for my life. And that's what I would like for all the listeners here, owning up to our blunders and apologizing sincerely and wholeheartedly is where it's at. I know, I'm going to make another mistake. Probably because with my hypnotherapy, I should never say I know I'm going to make another mistake. But I also know I'm human, and 90% of our brain functions from the unconsciousness so it's a pretty much assured thing that I am going to run into another incident. And I feel like I have more tools in my toolbox to support myself and those around me. If you've been listening to a call for love podcasts, I want to thank you so much for your ratings and reviews and your emails. hearing from you really helps to inspire me each and every week to continue with this podcast. Please reach out and share with me your embarrassing moments and how you navigated through it, if that resonates with you. Thank you so much for your kindness. I appreciate you deeply. From my heart to yours. Namaste.