Discovering Self-Worth Beneath the Surface | Jada Pinkett Smith EP 598

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11What opened up for you when you started to see your own light within you? What was the focal point that stayed with you today? Because it sounds like you didn't have that light within you for decades. No, for decades. Maybe since you were a little girl. I got to see that we're all made of light. I got to see that the mind, you got to be careful with the mind. and that it's the spirit to cultivate and the mind should follow the spirit. The mind is not the leader. And so it was readjusting, right? Making the spirit in you the leader? Like, I was like, oh, I've been depending on a level of intelligence.

0:54Like, oh, if I know about this, if I know about Christ, if I know about the, you know, Muhammad, you know, the prophet. it's like if I know all of these things then I'm gonna be good because I'm smart knowing's not fully believing right yeah right and so it was like cool I know these things but I'm still not right yeah I know these things great now you gotta cultivate spirit and heart you gotta cultivate that how did you learn to cultivate that oh now that's a whole nother process right i'm still learning you never arrive listen i've been on this journey since day one right it's just that along the way you know different gates opened up and we learn along the way what to to get out of the way in order to get closer to that which is more true that night of ayah was the beginning of the next gate of like okay great you've got intelligence about all these religions.

2:02Bravo. Now you've got to integrate it all. Now you've got to integrate. Now you have to apply, and now you have to learn how to cultivate a relationship with the Great Supreme. Yeah, and it's almost unlearning the last 40 years of your life that has been so familiarized. In your book, where you talk about familiarity of trauma and chaos in life, you mentioned the word chaos and trauma in relationships, in life, in family dynamics. It's like this familiarity. Just because it's familiar doesn't mean it's healthy or the best thing for you. Right. And that's the thing. It's like people go, didn't you see the signs?

2:42And it's like, pause. Let's talk about signs for a minute. You don't know a red sign. If that red sign is familiar. If it's all you know. If it's all you know. Now you've got to unlearn some things to go, oh, right, that is a red flag, right, you know? It's like, okay. So it's such a process of trusting, peeling back, trusting, wanting to step out of that which you see as familiar. Oh, it is excruciatingly challenging, like, to have to leave all that you trust. Look, that's what you call your quintessential extreme midlife crisis. Wow. Because it felt like I've been in crisis. The Great Supreme was like, all right, I'm just going to have to crack your head wide open.

3:38The thing that I realized, too, is like when it came to those suicidal thoughts, yes, something needed to die. But it wasn't me physically. What was it? It was the thoughts around myself, how I felt about myself that I had to rehabilitate. Wow. That I'm still rehabilitating. You're not perfect yet, Jaina? No. Wow. I'm trying, though. It's a charity. I'm trying. I don't even know if we shouldn't be trying to be perfect. You know what I mean? You can't. In this human form, we're not meant to be perfect. When we get to perfect status, guess what? We don't need to do this. We're gone. We're gone. We're gone.

4:20You mentioned something before, you're on this journey, this process. And for me, I've been in a healing journey for the last few years. And my coach therapist said, you know, healing is always going to be a journey. You know, it's always going to be a different level of letting go and surrendering of something that was, of allowing something in your ego to die, of transforming it again, of forgiveness, of peace, of grace, of yourself and those around you. or society, the world, politics. Like there's always going to be an ego death we're going to have to need to go through and keep healing. Yep.

4:56Right? It's right when we think we've got to figure it out. It's like, oh, the universe did. Oh, my God, it's up to you. So I think it's, you know, I love that you're on this journey. And I'm curious, when you turned 40 and all this went down, if there was a scale, a self-worthiness scale that you could reflect on and think of where you were at at that time, 10 being the highest level of worthiness and one being, you know, not at all, where were you on that scale of self-worthiness at 40? Oh, I was below zero. Below negative. I was negative. Even though you were able to create and have, you know, all this success on the outside looking great.

5:32Yep. Money and fame and all these different things. You were negative in the worthiness category. So I'll tell you the thing that I've learned about that is that you can have talents that you're really good at, but that doesn't feed the totality of your self-worth. Where does it mean? You go, oh, I'm good at that thing. And people find value in me and that thing. People think I can act and I can dance, and so you want to do more of it. So in my teens, I'm driven. I'm good. I can hustle. I've been, you know, I got talent, you know, I got girth, I can go to LA, I can make something of myself. Get to LA, bust through doors, skyrocketing.

6:20Still nothing. I could tell, I'm like, so you mean to tell me I gotta sing and dance for people to love me? And that pissed me off. They love me for my talent. They love me for my talent, even like a father who didn't want to raise me wanted to now be in my life. And I got to see that's not true. It's not authentic. So people finding value in you for your capabilities, we know within our soul, that's not us. It's not the thing we're asking to be loved for. And so it doesn't feed that authentic place of self-worth. Right.

7:12Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

8:07Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.