A YOGI CHA BLOG

Why it works to start with you

Have you noticed that when you have something else to do than to socialise with people, something that you prefer to do, it doesn’t really matter if no one else knows?

When someone you had forgotten about isn’t responding to your invite, it hardly matters if you already have another date that evening?

It is because you realise you have value anyway.

It means that if I have a project that I’m excited about, if I feel that this IS me, then all of a sudden I’m less influenced of what happens around me. I can relate to other people from a place called “home”.

This means as well that if I don’t have that feeling, if actually I put my value in how other people respond to me, I feel worthless if I’m not tended to. My accomplishments, my looks, my skills are all dependent on the appreciation coming from the rest of the world.

The typical scenario that I’m thinking of is getting a negative response that makes me feel rejected somehow. A friend, partner, job situation…. And being able to say to myself “it doesn’t actually matter because I have [“fill in the blank”] and that makes me feel good”.

When you start to invest in your own life, when you begin to turn your attention inwardly, you start to develop that reassurance from yourself.

A friend said longtime ago “whenever I meet a new potential lover, with who I can feel I get really excited of the idea of being in a relationship with, I get scared to lose myself. So I always make sure to remember what I did the day before I met them. That way, I can come back to that when I feel insecure or if the relationship doesn’t work out. I know that I was fine the day before I met them.”

What does this mean? That I’m afraid to feel so good that my happiness depend on that other person. In that case I will stop myself from getting too excited about it from fear that I will fall so much harder if I allow myself to get in that high.

As if we were living in constant scarcity, waiting for that other thing/person to make us feel good again.

Like the child needing the parent’s approval to feel at ease.

But if you have something of your own, like a project that lies close to your heart, then you know that you will always have this. No matter what the other does.

This is why we start to feel more comfortable being alone, when we begin investing in ourselves.

This is why having a daily practice makes us less dependent on what other people does to us. Because the daily practice becomes our thing and more so, a thing that values us.

I am important and I show that to myself by staying committed to my thing, my practice, my routine.

When people feel lost and they get the advice to create some kind of routine that makes them feel good, it’s because it brings value back to themselves again. Something that is important, we do it with intention. We set off time for it, we focus on it and we get a feeling of accomplishment when it’s done. Right?

You have never really thought of it that way because you were shamed into thinking that it would mean you are selfish. This is why you didn’t understand that you needed to do the same thing with your own value. But it isn’t selfish. On the contrary. The more you come from a place of feeling good in your own skin, the more you give without expecting things in return. When you give without expecting back, it is felt. And it makes people want to just give and give back. And then we all just give without expecting. Darn, wouldn’t that be a wonderful world?

So start with the only thing you’re actually in charge of, start with you.