The Truths To Living A Peaceful & Courageous Life | Susan David

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

0:08I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to this episode of The Daily Motivation Show.

0:51What often happens when we get hooked, imprisoned by our thoughts, emotions, stories is we over identify with it. and so we start saying things like i am sad if we just think about the language it's so normal of course we say that i am sad i'm angry but i am sad what are we doing we are saying i am all of me 100 of me yes is sad there's no space for wisdom values intention calm like there's so much inside all of us that is beyond that difficult emotion but when we say i am we are literally defining ourselves with it. So it's not using the words I am, it's maybe something else. If we say I am sad or even I am being undermined, I am being undermined, again, you are creating a prison.

1:38I am, this is fact. I am being undermined. All of me is being undermined. So I've got no choice but to shut down in the conversation. So one of the ways that we can start defusing is recognizing that when we label our thoughts, emotions, and stories with an I am and then the word. It's a There is a cloud and you have become the cloud. And the cloud is the sad cloud. As opposed to I feel sadness. The power here is exactly that. The language, how you use the language. How we language matters. The words matter. What we can start doing is it's so simple. You can do it in a meeting. You can do it in a conversation with someone else.

2:17You can just start noticing your thoughts and stories for what they are, their thoughts and stories. So instead of I am sad, I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad. I'm being undermined I'm noticing the thought that I'm being undermined I'm not good enough I'm noticing that this is my I'm not good enough story this is coming up for me yeah this is coming up for me so when you start noticing your thoughts emotions stories for what they are what you are actually doing in effect is you're moving from being the cloud I am the sad cloud into recognizing and for everyone listening right now you are not the cloud you are the sky you know you are not the cloud you are the sky and there is a cloud there is a cloud in the sky you are the sky you are human and messy and capacious and beautiful and real and authentic and you enough to have all of your difficult thoughts emotions and stories and to still be the sky to still be the you.

3:21For every person listening, doesn't matter if you're 30 or 40 or 50, for every person listening, there is a child inside of you. There is a five-year-old, and that five-year-old is tugging at your sleeve, and that five-year-old is saying, see me, love me, hear me, connect with me. So I think one of the truths is going to be to turn and face your five-year-old child and ask your five-year-old what it needs. Does it need spontaneity? Does it need creativity? One of the truths, I think, is that when we hold our child inside of us with gentleness, and we also recognize that there is, however old you are now, whether it's 30 or 40 or 50, there's also a 70-year-old looking back and saying, see me, love me, do what's important.

4:11And so I think one of the truths is that we are not alone in the world. Even if we feel alone, we've got a child inside of us and we've got an older version inside of us. And that if we walk the journey with both of those people holding our hands, we have an infinite source of grounding and wisdom. So I think that for me is one of the truths. That's beautiful. There is a mythology that being compassionate towards yourself is about being weak and lazy. It's like letting yourself off the hook. It's about lying to yourself. When we think about a little child in a restaurant running away from its parents and looking back to make sure that the parents are there, it's the knowledge that the child has that his parents are there, that if something goes wrong, that they'll step in.

5:00It's that knowledge that actually allows the child to explore the restaurant and to learn and grow. And so I think a second truth is that self-compassion is doing for ourselves what we see with that child and the parents. And what I mean by that is it's when you are kind to yourself, it's when you have your own back, that you are actually more likely to take risks, to learn, to grow and be vulnerable. And so I think a truth is self-compassion is the cornerstone to thriving and resilience. And then I think that the third truth is a difficult truth. Before my father died, when I was little, I would go into my father and my mom's bedroom.

5:46And at five years old, a lot of kids become aware of their own mortality. So they start to recognize that one day their parents won't be there. And I would find my way into my parents' bed, night after night, after night, after night, after night, much to their dismay. and I would cry and I would say to my dad daddy promise me you'll never die and this was 10 years before my dad was diagnosed with cancer and I used to say daddy promise me you'll never die daddy promise me you'll never die and my father could have done the forced false positivity just be grateful for the time we've got together he could have done that but he chose not to he could have buffered me from the truth but he chose not to and what he said to me is Susie we all die it's normal to be scared and there was what I understood as a truth of the way that he was guiding me through those long dark nights is he was saying to me that courage is not an absence of fear courage is fear walking courage is about being able to hold your fear your change your concern, your sadness, your whatever it is in one hand and to move forward with your values in the other.

7:05Courage is not the absence of fear. And I think for me, it was very powerful because in a world that tells us to do away with fear, in a world that says, oh, you know, even in a pandemic, look for the silver lining. Never mind we're in the shadow of illness and death. There is actually profound resilience by being able to walk into the future holding both holding both your fear and holding your courage because that is what life is asking of us every day life is saying are you agile and it's born of a correspondence with your own heart

8:01Thank 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.

8:51Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

9:06Thank you.