Why Striving Harder Doesn't Work In Our Interior Journey

EPISODE 85 | WHY STRIVING HARDER DOESN’T WORK IN OUR INTERIOR JOURNEY

A lot of people that I know who are successful in their career, hold themselves to very high standards, push themselves very hard, don't allow themselves to rest very much in order to accomplish the goals that they have set their eyes, their sights on, right? And pure grit and hard work can bring us very far in many areas in our life. Of course, there is a cost. There is a hidden inner cost.

[00:00:30] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:01:07] Good morning, and today is day 10 of my IG Live challenge of going live for 30 days straight, to talk about different topics on the interior journey. So, today I'd like to talk about something that I think practically anyone who has begun to take the interior journey seriously, will experience and that is this conundrum or the strange phenomenon we find, that just as we have begun to get really serious about working on ourselves, on seeking healing, on wanting to grow closer to God, wanting to deepen our prayer life, for example, all these things - why is it that our old methods at getting results in, let's say, other parts of our life, particularly striving harder, trying harder - why is it that it doesn't seem to really help us in the interior journey. 

[00:02:08] Okay, so, let me clarify. At the start, putting in more effort does get us kind of like more results. Okay, so, when we have just started for example, trying to instil the discipline of having some regular prayer time every day in our lives when we begin to let's say journal or learn to sit with our emotions or go to see a spiritual director more regularly; some of these things - when we just start, often there will be an experience of a lot of seeming - a lot of progress, not just seeming, but real change, right?

[00:02:51] Like maybe if we've gone for some powerful retreat and we feel very inspired and we have experienced some healing and now we're responding to that love that we have experienced. We can see some growth, we can experience that we're closer to God or we're closer to ourselves or more aware of how we are feeling, more aware of our wounds, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:03:12] But since this is a long-term journey, right, and since this is really a marathon, it's a lifelong process, it's a lifelong journey. At some point, we will always feel like we're slowing down, or we're regressing, or we're getting stuck. Now, at this point, I think almost everyone I know, whom I've spoken to, who has an interest and a desire to deepen their interior journey, will at this point, try to power through.

[00:03:45] OUR INNER CRITIC
What do I mean? You're going to try harder. I'm going to strive harder. For example, I'm finding it difficult now to maintain my, let's say, daily discipline of, for example, half an hour prayer time, right? And I'm just going to knuckle down. Maybe even shame myself or criticize myself into doing that half an hour of prayer time.

[00:04:14] What do I mean? We may not be aware when it happens, but let's say, let's say that your whole life, the self-talk that you have in your mind often has an inner critic that is kind of like waving a whiplash, right? Threatening to punish you if you don't do what you're supposed to do. If there is a lot of, kind of like, tough love kind of talk that includes things like, "come on, you're better than this". Or "don't be lazy", right? Or "you're so lazy". Like, you know, look at what the saints do. They do so much more than this, and you can't even do half an hour a day. For example, right?

[00:04:51] You may not even be aware that that's in the monologue or the dialogue that you have inside your head with yourself, that that's the kind of voice that you've heard.

[00:04:59] Now, in the past, this may have applied to other areas in which you're striving hard. Could be studies, could be work, right? Could be in the context of leadership or anything. There is, in so many of us, a lot of conflict in ourselves, right? The experience of our inner parent is maybe a very critical one. A very challenging one.

[00:05:24] Could be the voices of our teachers that we had when we were younger. And because in the past, in other areas of our life, when we need to get some kind of result, that harsh critic, or that kind of inner dialogue we have with ourselves, had helped us to grow, to get somewhere, okay?

[00:05:44] So, a lot of people that I know who are successful in their career, hold themselves to very high standards, push themselves very hard, don't allow themselves to rest very much in order to accomplish the goals that they have set their eyes, their sights on, right?

[00:06:03] And pure grit and hard work can bring us very far in many areas in our life. Of course, there is a cost. There is a hidden inner cost and a lot of times, a lot of external success masks and covers up a lot of inner brokenness. It's like imagine in ancient Egypt, the incredible pyramids of Egypt, right? It's a wonder of the world. It's one of the seven wonders of the world. But at what cost were they built? How many lives were sacrificed? 

[00:06:41] And not just in terms of the biological life, right? It was built on the backs of slavery, of a lot of pain, a lot of loss. Now, in our lives, in our personal lives, there are many equivalents to the Egyptian pyramids.

[00:06:56] And those of us, I would say, who are very successful externally, we're doing very well in the world, who maybe did very well in school. Or whether or not we did well in school, we've found some modicum of success and that we have some kind of a status, right? And people look up to us.

[00:07:10] Now, this could be in a corporate space, in a professional space, or it could be in a homeschooling space, it could be as a parent, it could be somebody that other people look up to as an amazing parent because you have managed to raise children who are really talented or, really accomplished, for example. Or even in the spiritual religious space, you could be someone who is seen as very devout, very holy, as a spiritual leader that people look up to.

[00:07:39] When we have experienced success in one place or another, we can often begin to feel a bit of imposter syndrome, when we know that the internal reality of our lives, the foundation, is maybe not that solid yet. But now we begin to feel the pressure of needing to keep up appearances, right? Because we've reached a certain place, maybe some people put us on a pedestal.

[00:08:09] BEING STUCK AND REGRESSING
And this is when our inner dialogue can get harsher because we are afraid to lose what we have now achieved, so to speak. Right, and whatever efforts we may have put in before that had worked. And then as an interior life, now, we kind of feel like, oh no, maybe I'm stuck. Our instinct usually will be to try harder and to use all the methods that we had used in our lives, now, for the interior journey. 

[00:08:39] So, this includes criticizing ourselves, shaming ourselves into compliance, into doing what we think and believe is right. It includes shutting down our senses to power through. What does that mean? It's like an instinctive, this reaction. If I allow myself to feel, then I won't be able to succeed because, you know, I'm going to recognize that I'm tired. I'm going to recognize that I don't want to do this, maybe - and this is actually very normal, right?

[00:09:12] When we have started our interior journey, somewhat, when we begin to pray more regularly, things can begin to surface from our subconscious, and they tend to be messy things, unruly things, difficult emotions that we haven't felt in years and years. And now, when this kind of starts bubbling up to the surface, we get scared and because we think, many of us, as we begin this journey, we have this very romantic ideal that the interior journey is peaceful, inspiring just full of lightness, that it wouldn't be messy at all, that it would just be a linear line, right? A linear line of progression of getting better and better, holier and holier, more and more integrated, more and more authentic.

[00:09:57] And when in our actual experience, we begin to find that, oh, how come I'm beginning to feel emotions that I didn't feel before, like a lot of angst, a lot of anger of envy. Or why is it that something that I used to struggle with a lot when I was younger, let's say - I know the tendency to binge, whether it's food, whether it's junk food, or whether it is, you know, TV or videos - something that I guess a lot of us still have a difficult relationship with, but some of us at an earlier point in our life had powered through.

[00:10:31] I've done that before. I have always had a tendency to binge anything, actually. Could be television, could be food, could be books. It's a pattern sometimes that once I start, I just can't stop. I just need to consume more and more and more and more. And even when I can feel that it's out of control, sometimes, I have to wait until I've reached a point where I'm just utterly exhausted or just sick of whatever I've been binging on.

[00:11:00] And then I will swing the pendulum the other way and become very ascetic. You know, it's like completely no, I'll throw everything out, I will cancel all my subscriptions whatever it is. So, it's like a one or zero thing for me. And then I will be very harsh with myself and say, now, I'm going to be very disciplined.

[00:11:16] It's like absolutely zero tolerance for any of this bad behaviour, this binging behaviour, right? Completely missing out that my tendency to binge; that compulsion or the addictive thing that I have in consuming was actually a way of numbing myself, was actually a way of for me to dissociate. I didn't know any of that, you know?

[00:11:42] PONDERING WHAT'S BENEATH OUR ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOURS
And I think a lot of us who don't study psychology and are not so familiar with all this literature, we won't be aware that that's actually what's happening when we are binging on something. When we are indulging in our addictions, we are actually trying to distance ourselves from something that's very difficult to feel, from the pain that is inside of us. Many of these things we developed when we were very young as a way to survive. Because when you're a very young child and you can't get out of that situation which is causing you pain or grief, emotional pain, sometimes even physical pain, you learn to dissociate, right?

[00:12:19] And then even as we grow up, we keep up that habit because it has worked before. And over time, of course, it becomes maladaptive. It begins to harm us. These habits of just disconnecting from reality harm us, but we don't know that. Right, so, when we begin to take, let's say, the interior life seriously, want to grow in holiness, and then we recognize that these habits that we have had, that they are harmful, we may even label them as sin.

[00:12:47] And sometimes they are sinful, right? A lot of times when things are not in right relationship, in the right context, in the right relationship with us and with God, then it becomes sinful. But the difficulty and the challenge is when the only vocabulary we have is that of sin and virtue, we can exacerbate, like worsen this loop of shaming ourselves and criticizing ourselves and trying to force ourselves to comply to do the so called virtuous thing or the right thing to stop sinning so to speak, right? To do what we think is going to help us grow closer to God by forcing ourselves to do so now.

[00:13:29] That's very unfortunate because that's a very one-dimensional way of seeing the issue. When we just see things in terms of sin and virtue, for example - so, in this case, if I look at my past behaviour of binging on junk food, I'll be like, oh, gluttony, for example, right?

[00:13:52] Or binging on videos, whether it's drama serials, and not being able to stop. Like, literally, I've had the experience where even though I'm tired and I'm hungry, I just can't stop. With things like Netflix especially, it's so easy. It just goes on to the next episode, right? I know, there's a part of me that knows something's not quite right. That I find it so hard to just - I don't have the freedom to stop, right? I don't have the interior freedom to start and stop when I want to. But there's a part of me that goes along with it, and then I feel even more ashamed of it, and then when I finally get my so-called act together, like I said, it's a hard stop.

[00:14:31] Right, and I forced myself to stop doing it without asking the deeper question. What is this emptiness or this anxiety or this pain that I'm trying to run away from that binging on all these videos. I've brought it before into confession, as well in a sense of like I feel like it's a horrible use of my time It's a waste of my time and therefore so sinful. And not to mention, maybe sometimes the content of the things that I watch is less than edifying, right?

[00:15:01] But sometimes, there's something that the lower baser parts of myself gravitates to when I'm in pain to distract myself from maybe feeling lonely. Sometimes, it could be that both my husband and I have been very busy for a period of time at work and we have not been emotionally as connected or spiritually as connected.

[00:15:26] And because maybe I'm not so aware of it, but actually, deep down in me, I'm feeling neglected. This has happened many times before, right? And because there's another part of me that's rational and thinks, well, he's busy, justifiably busy, right? He has to do his work and he's earning his keep; he's providing for the family.

[00:15:46] I don't want to inconvenience him. I don't want to be a nag. I don't want him to feel like I’m clingy or needy and so, I do not express my actual need. I don't allow myself to be vulnerable, for example, right. And then what happens, is that often, I will find myself starting to indulge in these compulsive or addictive behaviours. Could be television or something else that is actually just distracting me from my loneliness and the feeling of neglect.

[00:16:16] So, if I hadn't discovered that there is something else going on underneath that behaviour, whether it's a behaviour I want to stop, or a behaviour that I struggle to do which I want to do, such as having a more regular prayer life. For some of us, that kind of, I want to spend half an hour a day with the Lord - I can become very rigid. 

[00:16:44] And I interact with myself in the exact same way that my younger self or my inner child has been wounded and has been hurt. Now, when we do that, when we are trying to strive harder in our inner life, often what we'll find is that we will feel more and more discouraged because we will keep seeing how we've fallen short.

[00:17:04] We'll keep feeling worse and worse about ourselves. Or if we think we're doing well because we are able to kind of like force ourselves to be very disciplined, for example, in prayer and fasting, in whatever area of service that we are proud of, the other flip side is that we can really become like the Pharisees.

[00:17:27] We become very self-righteous because we peg ourselves to what we're able to get ourselves to do through our efforts and our knowledge, right? And we think we are very holy. And then we become very harsh in judging other people who we think should be able to do better and they don't. So, we're better than them. Now, the hidden thing of course, for even with this kind of pharisaic mindset - okay, and I just want to say I’m not just pointing a finger at other people. I identify as a recovering pharisee, as someone who used to take a lot of - I think I wanted to say a lot of pride, but really the pride was also masking I think a lot of relief when I am able to so-called measure up, you know? 

[00:18:09] So, when God has given me grace to operate at a certain level externally of what I think is spiritual virtue and spiritual maturity, I'm very relieved that I can do it. But I also take a lot of pride in it and I judge others. But more importantly, when I'm in that space, when we are in that space, we will judge the weaker parts of ourselves, the parts that are struggling, the parts that are vulnerable and broken. We will judge them very harshly and they will not dare to reveal themselves to us.

[00:18:40] And when the interior journey, and we see it through the lens of integration, right - the interior journey is not just the journey of the spirit to God, or soul to God. Yes, but there are other dimensions to this journey. When it is about all of us, the fragmented parts of us, becoming whole, Christ bringing the fragmented parts together again, then it is a problem that the most vulnerable, weaker, struggling parts of ourselves do not feel safe to be with us. Do not feel safe to reveal themselves to us.

[00:19:13] Often times, that means that we cannot see where we need redemption and healing, okay? So, our old methods of trying harder often actually worsen this problem. So, why is it that even the more classical, spiritual kind of sense of the interior journey - if you look at the literature, the writings of, let's say, mystics, or those who are spiritual directors and maybe more renowned spiritual directors, who speak about the soul in terms of being.

[00:19:51] If you have gone for regular spiritual direction and you're familiar with, let's say, retreats - not so much to preach retreats with a lot of a big crowd and a lot of praise and worship and all that. I'm referring more to the individual kind of retreats where you really enter into silence to have a lot of time set aside for rest, for prayer, for you to encounter God.

[00:20:14] You'll find that what actually brings us deeper into the space to be integrated, to see truth and to be able to receive truth, would be words like, or activities like being - they're not really activities right - but like being. Being still, instead of the frenzied striving, is being still. Experiencing what draws us, what we're attracted to. The beauty in nature, for example.

[00:20:49] You know, when we're in retreat, when there are fewer distractions, we kind of give opportunities for ourselves to discover what we're drawn to without judgment, right? But the drawing of the soul to God is very different from us driving ourselves towards God.

[00:21:07] KNOWING WHEN IT IS TIME TO RECEIVE
And the old methods that we have of working harder, striving harder, it's almost like we're trying to drive ourselves towards God, right? My time, my way, the speed at which I want it to happen. Versus a very organic way of just allowing myself to be, and then noticing what draws me to God. When God draws me to Himself, the whole feeling and experience is so different from me driving myself towards God.

[00:21:34] And it's a lot more effective and a lot more effortless. It doesn't mean that it's easy. Okay, simple and easy are different. But we actually do make, in a sense, progress with a lot less effort because we are riding on that grace of God drawing us. Another word to give you would be receiving. A lot of our old scripts for getting results is not about receiving, it's about giving, right?

[00:22:06] Give of yourself more. Give, give, give, give, give. We give so much. We are driven so much to give when we are empty. We squeeze as much as we can. You know, we squeeze ourselves as much as we can. We want to squeeze out every last drop of whatever love there might be for others because this is what it means to strive harder.

[00:22:28] But when you're empty, you're empty. You know, when your tank is empty, it's empty. No matter how much you strive, it's going to be empty. So, what would help instead? Learn to receive. Stop trying to give so much. Recognize when it's time for you to receive, to lay back. Yes, there'll be parts of you that will feel this is really wrong and uncomfortable because you're so used to striving. That could actually be the imprint of trauma in you, that you can't rest. You can't just relax and be but that's exactly what you need receiving.

[00:23:04] And instead of pushing harder, it's what the soul needs and what we need is often a softening, okay, really a softening into reality; a softening into the current reality that may be difficult for us to behold. But instead of just having this knee jerk reaction to work harder to change reality, it is softening our gaze so that we can receive the truth of reality, whether it's outside of us or something that God is revealing about us, inside of us.

[00:23:49] And instead of the old script of, "I will do it, I want to be in control and I will do it, I will be the one that will strive". The flip side of this is letting it be done. Letting it be done to me. Letting it be done for me. You know, it's really like Mary said, " Let it be done unto me according to Thy word".

[00:24:20] There is a lot of trust and a lot of surrender that's needed, of course, to be able to say let it be done. But precisely, it's different from I will do it. I will pull myself up by the bootstraps and I will make myself run the race. Instead, it is "Let the Lord do it for me and do unto me what He wills, what He wishes, what He desires". Because I know what He wants is for me to be with Him, right?

[00:24:50] So, in a sense, the ultimate objective is the same. I want to be with God, but instead of me working harder and harder in the ways that I know how to get to God, I learned to let it be done to me and for me. And there is this sense of allowing - allowing myself, of melting and softening.

[00:25:18] Now, so, that's the contrast. And I want to say, you will often find - and I'm sure if you've tried this for some time yourself- you will know that what I say is true. That by learning to be, learning to rest, learning to be still and silent and to receive and to soften and to let it be done to you and for you and to be more allowing to yourself, often you will find you actually make a lot more progress in the interior journey; of integration, of becoming more secure in God's love, of experiencing God's love more. But it's not easy, right? It's not easy because it's very counterintuitive and it goes against the grain of what has been so deeply embedded inside us. 

[00:26:05] SPIRITUAL ASCETICISM
Now, there's a question or an objection I can imagine. Someone who, you know, if you're listening up to this point may ask - because this would be my younger self's objection - and I would ask, what about spiritual asceticism, right? Like this whole tradition, holy tradition of fasting, of depriving myself of sleep, of disciplining my body, of disciplining my senses - where does all this being softer, receiving, allowing myself, not shaming myself and not being so harsh to myself - how does that fit in with this holy tradition of denying my body, denying my senses so that they can be better ordered to love God? 

[00:26:48] Okay, first I want to say, I'm not claiming to have any authoritative answer or response to this. What I offer will be my observation, my own conclusion so far, from what I've understood and learned and experienced. And I offer it for your own pondering and discernment, okay? Because a lot of these things - the jury is still out. What do I mean by that? The ultimate goal is union with Christ and union with God and for us to become more whole and authentic, right? That's the that's the objective in a sense the goal in to become whole in Christ.

[00:27:30] There can be many ways, in many different methods and some may work better for some person and other methods may work better for another person and there are so many contexts that are different including historical context, cultural context, geographical context, how old you are, what state of health you are in, what kind of trauma you have experienced before, right?

[00:27:51] So, there are many factors that we can't all consider. One thing I learned that for myself, why is it that using that way of striving didn't help me, was because at the heart of any journey towards God has to be love and it has to be the ability for us to receive God's love.

[00:28:14] Now, if fasting, if asceticism, in a sense of punishing yourself or disciplining your senses can allow you truly to experience God's love more deeply and then be able to return that love to God more generously. And how would you know that? You'd know that by the fruits, right? We always tell from the fruits. Are you growing in patience, in joy, in humility, in compassion for others? Are you becoming a better witness for the kingdom? Is your life aglow with Christ more than before? If it is, then great, it's showing the fruit.

[00:28:57] But if asceticism and fasting and trying to discipline your senses and all that is making you bitter and resentful and self-righteous and judgmental - which honestly, I know a lot of people who are - and I used to be like that. Like the extent, the more I'm able to do all these hard things, I think in a sense, secretly, I'm actually getting more proud, right, because look at what I'm able to do.

[00:29:18] It could be that asceticism is again, something that's not really meant for beginners. By beginners, I mean if there is a lot of healing that needs to happen first in your relationship with yourself. If you don't trust yourself and you don't know how to be soft with yourself, and you only know how to be hard with yourself, that's going to harm you.

[00:29:40] PUTTING ASCETICISM IN CONTEXT
But if let's say your relationship with yourself is really at a better place, you are more integrated, you are more confident in being loved by yourself and in being loved by God. Just think of a relationship of parent and child, right? If there are times when the parent really dotes on the child and loves the child and allows the child to express herself and rest and all that, when the parent also wants to lovingly discipline the child and make her do hard things and maybe in a sense, be a bit tougher on her. Even though it's challenging, the child will respond, and then the child will grow from that. Why? Because there is already that foundation of trust and of love.

[00:30:19] But if the relationship between the parent and the child just consists of the parent driving the child to do hard things, to achieve things, and shaming and criticizing, and depriving the child of anything that gives her joy or pleasure, the child's not going to flourish.

[00:30:35] So, it's not in the "what is being done" or "what is doing". I think it's in the relationship, right? So, if you are wondering what role does spiritual asceticism come into play, am I denigrating or saying that all these things about fasting and disciplining our senses is not important. I'm not saying that.

[00:30:55] But I'm saying as we learn more about what it means to be human, what science is telling us about all the different parts of being human, I think we need to put what we understand from the spiritual realm into context. A lot of these things that I'm saying now have already been articulated in the context of many one-to-one spiritual direction sessions.

[00:31:28] If you have the privilege of having a wise and good spiritual director, oftentimes, they know what is it that you need. Oftentimes, if they know that you are striving or pushing yourself too hard in a way that is maybe harming you, you may have been so called scandalized by a spiritual director or a priest who is telling you to rest, to take it easy, take care of yourself. I used to be, right?

[00:31:49] So, they may not have been able to explain to me, like what I just explained to you; the, the context as to why it is that sometimes asceticism or striving harder is not the answer. But they really have the intuition and they have the observation, they have the experience to know that this is how it works.

[00:32:10] But now, in this time that we live, in this day and age, with the development of human consciousness to the stage where it is at now, with the development of sciences to where it is at now, there is new language to help support what people have already been putting into practice; what many wise spiritual mentors and teachers and directors have already been able to put into practice, right?

[00:32:32] So, there may be some things that we can say are good, certain practices can be good. So, for example, if you want to build up your upper body strength, and you want to do it by push ups, maybe it's a good ideal to work towards 100 push ups a day, for example.

[00:32:50] I don't do that, okay? But whatever it is, those of you who go lift weights or whatnot, you need to build your way up slowly to being able to do that. And if we are very stuck in our old scripts that are very trauma based, the scripts that we had learned to cope with to help us kind of like maybe achieve or run away from pain or avoid pain by just striving harder, we are going to find that it doesn't work for the interior journey. Okay, so that's why. Today is just talking about why your old methods of getting results, why striving harder - why it won't work for the interior journey in the way that you know it.

[00:33:29] HOW MUCH SLACK SHOULD I BE GIVING MYSELF?
Okay, I just want to do a quick Q&A, as in a share a question that had come in, and then a resource. Okay, and I'm going to close today's session. Okay, so here's a question that came in. And this is someone that I'm working with. So, she has become more aware of her scripts. Okay. So, scripts are like the programming that runs in the background. So, she's aware that she has all these scripts. and she said, as I become more aware of my scripts and discover also at the same time, who I truly am, that my real self, my true self is different from my scripts, right? 

[00:34:01] I struggle with knowing how much time to be with myself or to listen to myself. Like, how much time to listen to my body. There's a tension there, she was saying. And how much to be patient with myself in this journey by allowing myself to rest or to seek comfort in things that I previously used to escape reality. Okay, so she's wondering like well, how much slack?

[00:34:26] Okay, basically the way I interpret the question is how much slack do I give myself, right? How much rest before it's enough and when I want to seek comfort in things that I previously used to escape reality. So, I guess in my own example would be, let's say, comfort eating, okay, eating comfort food.

[00:34:40] Or maybe, you know, just allow myself to watch mindless - watch some videos mindlessly. Okay, I may know that these are not really solutions, that they are a way of me just kind of disconnecting, right? But how much do I allow myself to do that? Okay, so, in response to this question, to this person who sent me this question, I just want to say, can you notice that even your question is coming from a place of you trying to be in control of your journey.

[00:35:14] Because you want to know exactly how much time do I give myself to listen to myself, to be with myself, to rest. How patient should I be with myself? How much allowing do I give myself? Before I kind of like stop, right? Is this okay? Is this okay? Now, this is normal. But I just want to point out that even the place from which your question is coming from is still within your old script, okay?

[00:35:40] And it's still - you're still thinking very much. You're still using your mind a lot to try and understand and control. I would say, you have to figure it out slowly. There is no one answer to this. You have to figure out slowly as you continue to do the work in the sense of just learning to be, learning to rest.

[00:35:58] It's okay! I mean, what's the worst that can happen? You realize, oh, maybe I gave myself too much slack and then there was some uncomfortable consequences that came. And then next time, maybe I do something a little different, right? And it can also be as simple as well, how much rest do you give yourself? Well, if you're still tired, you know, you need more rest and rest as much as you can. But if then now, you have an appointment or you have to go to work and you know, then you go to work and you know that you haven't caught up with the rest that you need.

[00:36:28] TRY SOFTER
Then maybe you see whether you can plan to take some time off or what options do you have to give yourself opportunity to catch up with the rest that you need. I mean, that's just an example. It doesn't have to be so complicated. It's not meant to be so complicated. It is our old scripts that often make it into a very complicated endeavour. And continue to avail yourself to situations or therapy or spiritual direction that allows you to be more aware of how to ease into the flow, okay? How to receive and how to soften. So, speaking of softening, this is the resource that I wish to share with you guys. It's a book called Try Softer and it's by a therapist who is also a Christian, Aundi. 

[00:37:16] And it's in the title. It's in the title. Okay, instead of "try harder", Try Softer and she is someone who for her whole life was always - all she knew was how to work harder and strive harder to try and make things work. So, even the healing journey, a lot of us we think that the way to do it is to work harder to try harder to strive harder. And that can actually be counterproductive.

[00:37:40] So, I invite you, especially if you're a reader, to check out this book, Try Softer. It's a very wonderful, easy, welcoming introduction to also some of the new things, new discoveries, or relatively new, I think, in terms of the popular - like, you know, people who are not experts, right, to understand things like the fight, flight, freeze response, about a window of tolerance, about emotional regulation, a bit more about the nervous system and the role that our nervous system plays in our emotions and in our journey of integration.

[00:38:17] The interior journey is ultimately also a journey of self-leadership, of learning to be led by God, but also to lead ourselves with God because He gives us that authority over ourself as well to govern ourself. So, I really invite you to check out Try Softer as a resource and a follow up to what I talked about in this Live.

[00:38:41] Okay. And if you have any questions that arise, please send me a DM. I'm happy to try and address that in another video.

[00:38:50] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

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