Soul Sessions by CreativeMind

Art of Self-Compassion

April 12, 2020 Debra Berndt Maldonado & Robert Maldonado, PhD. — Life Coach Training & Personal Transformation Experts. Season 2 Episode 7
Soul Sessions by CreativeMind
Art of Self-Compassion
Show Notes Transcript

In our weekly Saturday Soul Session we discuss how to practice compassion on yourself through having compassion for others. Are you self-critical and hard on yourself? Do you feel that no matter what you do it isn't enough? Do you regret your past mistakes and obsess over how you could have done things differently? 
 
Understand how to cultivate more self-compassion, how to look at past mistakes with non-judgment and how to be more loving to yourself and others. Ultimately, we see others as we see ourselves. Having self-compassion will also lead to more harmonious relationships and love in your life.
 
 Join us weekly live in the Creative Mind Coaching FB Community for our Soul Sessions every Saturday.
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Art of Self-Compassion

Mon, 8/10 3:59PM • 1:24:18

SPEAKERS

Debra Maldonado, Robert Maldonado


Debra Maldonado  00:00

So this is our weekly Saturday. It's kind of like our church. It says soul session where we talk about spiritual topics, personal topics. Yeah. Based on Jungian psychology, Eastern philosophy, and brain science, some fun science


Robert Maldonado  00:20

Science and some mindsets. How do we apply all the great knowledge in a practical way?


Debra Maldonado  00:27

Yes. And so if you're new to our group, I'm Debra Maldonado. And this is my wonderful husband and partner in crime. Dr. Rob Maldonado.


Robert Maldonado  00:40

Yeah. And so we started doing these talks. Mainly because we saw definitely a need but we also wanted to serve and we also wanted to introduce people to our work like what do we do you know, what is union coaching? What is Eastern Bloc? for you the way we practice it in coaching, you know, coaching method. So it is an opportunity for people to experience that. And so a few questions if they're up for that.


Debra Maldonado  01:11

Yeah, so it's a depth psychology, which means that we work with the unconscious mind, and not the programming. As far as you know, like the Freudian kind of subconscious programming, it's more that we see the unconscious is alive and dynamic. And it's not this, like just a computer program that we rewire. It's actually part of ourselves that we can't see. And most of what we can't see is all our brilliance, learned magic, all our power. And that's really our job as coaches in young and coaching is to really help you see that you're not your ego and step into and have access to more parts of yourself that you could that are hidden and that have been hidden over time. And now, it's we're making a conscious so today's topic is The Art of self compassion. And the reason why I wanted to teach this is because it's one of the things that I have to work on constantly, all the time. Some people have it more than others. But we all are so hard on ourselves, especially now there's so much going on in the world and everyone's kind of magnifying. All the things that we used to worry about are magnified. And, you know, regrets we've had things that we should have done before this happened, things that we could have been prepared for. And even mad about how we're handling it, how we're handling life. And, and really this talk is about how can we love ourselves? Regardless of what happens in the world, and what happens with ourselves.


Robert Maldonado  02:49

What is the self that we talked about when we say self love or self compassion?


Debra Maldonado  02:55

So I'm going to define compassion and compassion, isn't it? wrote this down so we can have the definition is being warm towards oneself when encountering pain and personal shortcomings, rather than ignoring them, or hurting oneself with criticism. That is self compassion. It is really wanting to in the midst of a mistake, when things aren't going the way you want it to, or someone's mad at you. It's that be able to have compassion for yourself and not beat yourself up. Raise your hand if you've ever beat yourself up before in any kind of endeavor that we have in life. And you know what I want to say too, before we start going into why, personally, Rob, don't you think that I think people who do personal development actually are more self critical than people that don't because we are working on ourselves. And you know, other people are that blissful ignorance, you know, where they think they're fine.


Robert Maldonado  04:05

I know I agree, you disagree. I think the more ignorant you are of your own mind the way it works. You You're not doing the self analysis. The more you're confused by the world. Well, you're projecting it. Yeah. Because you're thinking it's out there. You're thinking things are coming from the boss from the, you know, the friends, the wife, the family, whatever it is, instead of seeing it for what it is that this is part of your own psychology. 


Debra Maldonado  04:33

So I would say people that are unconscious, really, mostly direct the criticism externally? Where I think when we start to learn, turn inward, and really pay attention to our thoughts. I think people that in the first level of personal awareness, we tend to get really critical with ourselves because it's almost like a lot of people say it's my fault. Now I know that I created this and that kind of would it Why is my mind creating this and we we get there using ourselves up where someone who's not conscious tends to project and blame the world for their problems and don't take any personal responsibility. So that's what I was thinking.


Robert Maldonado  05:12

Yeah, well, it's the those of the the Western culture is that you can make your mate make anything out of yourself that you're willing to work for. So what that implies, right that if, if you're not making it, and if you're not living your dreams, that it's your fault. Yes, right. It's implied.


Debra Maldonado  05:33

You're blocked. You're not finding love because you're blocked, you're not enlightened enough. You're not using your mind in the right way. A lot of our clients when they first start doing the work and we talk about how to create your life. They often get into that self criticism like they're trying like they basically in a lot of our clients are very, very successful in their careers and they're trying to apply that success, like, work hard, study hard. And then I'll have all the answers and that kind of intellectual way of approaching personal development. Yeah. And then they get frustrated because it's a different the way you succeed in the material world is different than how you succeed in the spiritual world and growth. It's just two different mechanisms. We try to apply what we know in business. And if you study hard, and you work hard, you get what you want. But in personal development, it shouldn't be so hard. It shouldn't be so tough. And it's not something that you if you, the harder you work, the easier it becomes. It's actually the opposite. I feel like when people that try too hard, you get the opposite result.


Robert Maldonado  06:47

Yeah. Yeah. So but let's back up a little bit because we have to define how we see the individual and we have a unique way that might not translate unless we explain it a little bit. So we know that everyone has an ego. And that ego creates a personality in a sense, right what Jung call the persona. So a lot of people when they talk about self compassion is self love. They're thinking, if I love this persona, this personality, if I love this ego.


Debra Maldonado  07:31

And it's like ego maintenance, it's like making the ego building it up.


Robert Maldonado  07:35

Yes. And there's nothing wrong with that, of course, we need a strong ego. We need a good personality to get along in the world.


Debra Maldonado  07:42

We can't be a jerk that we're called and expect things.


Robert Maldonado  07:47

But we know let's say in our deeper like you were saying, it's a depth understanding. It's a depth coaching. It's not just fixing.


Debra Maldonado  07:58

Making it pretty on the outside, a makeover, you know.


Robert Maldonado  08:01

Yeah, makeover polishing your speaking techniques, those, those kind of things.


Debra Maldonado  08:11

And those aren't bad but they're not transformational. They're they're good for making the persona. That's right or pleasing.


Robert Maldonado  08:19

But what we're saying is that a lot of people think that that's what self compassion means being compassionate with their persona personality. Now, there is something to that, of course, but in depth psychology or depth coaching, what we're talking about is there something deeper, the true self is deeper than that personality. Right. The personality we can say is an expression of that deeper self. But most people because they over identify with a persona, and they think I am the personality, they lose, touch. With their true self, right with their true essence. And so when they go about working, doing this personal development, they're shining out the persona, right there, they're making it better. They're saying, I want to be more confident. I want people to perceive me more as confident.


Debra Maldonado  09:20

And together and kind and good, following the rules and all this thing. So, when we talk about that bigger self, you know, we need to distinguish between that persona and then who we really are. It's kind of like that witness we talked about in our spiritual course, is that pure awareness is really, that that's where that compassion comes from. Your ego trying to fix your ego is kind of like rearranging the furniture. Let's think positive and tell myself I love myself which isn't bad, but it's still like your egos trying to fix your ego and so on. I know a lot of you are probably going watch. Because they think that's what I've been doing.


Robert Maldonado  10:07

I've been doing all these affirmations.


Debra Maldonado  10:09

No, but I've been doing all this work. And I've been trying I using my ego to fix my ego. And so what we want to do is we want to have a place from that higher place, and it's almost like a parent, like a mother has compassion for her child, when the child makes a mistake, you know, that kind of nurturing that we have. And it's so that higher self has the compassion for that little ego that messes up that has programming and conditioning that leads them to pain. And it's like that kind of tenderness. It comes from that divine self. And for some people, they can think of it as God you know, God has compassion for me because if you think about almost all religions and all teachings is there's this compassionate father. But then we tend to hear the myth of sins and punishment and all that and that kind of felt that takes away from that higher idea that there's there's this pure self that doesn't judge the ego for what it does. So let's, before we get into that, let's talk about how we how we got up with this ego in the first place. And that's very critical. And, and you were talking to me earlier, we were talking about how the internal how we internalize the voice.


Robert Maldonado  11:27

Yeah, so yeah, so just in, let's say universal experiences, things that we all experience. We we all kind of are raised by our families, by our parents, or a parent figure. Now what happens what we know from many years of research and kind of direct observation and clinical settings is that people internalize the Parents, their parents voice becomes part of their own mind to where the parent doesn't have to be around. But you hear your parents voice.


Debra Maldonado  12:11

And it almost like on purpose, right? Because the child would have to find a way to behave. So they kind of like parent themselves when the parents away. So that mechanism of you remember the rules?


Robert Maldonado  12:24

Very, very adaptive. Do you feel guilty when they know they broke the rules? And absolutely, absolutely not. Now, by extension, you know, and, and many people don't talk about this. We also internalize our, our, our siblings and our peers. And so, we all know that we, we tend to get bullied when we're kids. Somebody is gonna bully us someone somehow you bullied Rob, if it's not a teacher, it's a little guy and you know, and then your class Little girl in your class, whatever. we internalize those voices as well. They become part of that little voice, the ego voice that we hear. That is very self critical. So think about that. All the experiences you've had with authority figures, parents, siblings, siblings, that would tease you.  Right. Yeah.


Debra Maldonado  13:29

I just, I always say that you teach the one you love the most.


Robert Maldonado  13:33

That's right. But it has that kind of did as a little sting to it. And internalize. Now, that person doesn't even have to be there. You'll hear that little criticism, that little tinge there. on doing everything you're, you know, working out, going to work, whatever you're doing, that little voice will be in there. So you have to To be able to work with it, and you have to understand it otherwise, you're always replaying all that past history through that self critical voice.


Debra Maldonado  14:09

And so we have this self critical voice, which helps us fit in. It helps us socialize with the group. Because we learn like the barriers of our behavior. So we will. So like when we're kids, if we're shouting in class, in a group, and the teacher says, Robbie, you should speak in your inside voice, enemy, and in a critical way, you know, don't be too loud, then you you learn that you should be quiet. And then the next time you're in a board meeting, you're not going to shout out. So it does help us conform and have these social norms. But what happens is we create this rigid rulebook of how we should be and if we, and we're human beings and we don't give any room for failure because anytime you step out Outside of those rules, you could be cast out from the crowd. You can be cast out, you can be shamed. And so we have this mechanism called guilt that prevents us from doing bad things. But the guilt turns into self criticism. It's like when we feel guilty that it's like the tape starts running. And it's like, I know, I shouldn't have done that. And I can't believe I did that. And I should have done it differently. And, yeah, not that I know what that's like. But that's where that mechanism is in place. And the whole structure of the ego is to survive and keep us people liking us. So if we understand where it comes from, now we go okay, now I understand this critical voice is a byproduct of my early life experience. The messages I've heard early on that I'm now internalizing, and that its intention really is to keep me in line so I don't make a fool of myself or You know, lose money or lose love or the withdrawal of abandoned by people, you know that real fear, then we understand, okay, now I know what that is. And then you try to make a decision of do I want to criticize myself or where do I let this go. But most people, they just beat themselves up into submission. They are there, then they they're narrow, they don't take as many risks. They maybe become really shy because the times they've reached out, they got their hand slapped. And so then we end up becoming smaller and smaller. And our ego creates this very narrow like lanes for us to act in, and then we're not free, but they're frustrated. And so then the ego has this wonderful mechanism that young talks about, well, Freud talked about it too, and it's called projection. And so when the inner voice becomes too nasty for us to handle, we have to get rid of that energy. It's like it can be very harmful for you. If you just kind of beat yourself up, so all that energy has to go somewhere. So guess who we give it to? Everyone else. They're doing it wrong. They're doing it wrong, they hurt me. I hate my boss. You know, we have bosses that are highly critical, and then they think they're criticizing me. And we feel like there's people out there that are criticizing us from the external. And we then it kind of reinforces that inner criticism.


Robert Maldonado  17:28

Yeah, you have this interesting phenomena that the way you judge others, if you're if you observe the way you judge others and the things that you project onto others. If you understand that, that's part of you. Then you see that that's the way I judge myself as well. Right by the yardstick, I measure others, I'm measuring myself as well. So if we're harsh with others, very harsh in in in our city, Have them and we say they're stupid. They're mean they're ignorant. Yeah, they're mean whatever they are on. That's also happening with us. Right? We have to be very clear on that, if you think No, no, I it's clearly them because this is the argument a lot of people make right. Other people agree. Yes, that the boss is the bad one.


Debra Maldonado  18:24

Or like, I think I remember in love and dating before I met you. I mean, my critical voice was on like, what do they call it DEF CON five. And, and then the men I would mean, I would interpret that whatever they did is criticism or, you know, people would give me you know, advice or something and I would my bosses, I would take it so critical. And then we I didn't know the idea of projection. Someone just said I wish more people understood it. I wish I understood it. Because I didn't realize that the way they were talking to me or the way the men were treating me was the way I I was treating myself with Dr. Respect, lack of self love, you know, they were not nice to me. They didn't honor me. And I wasn't honoring myself. So why would I have someone else come in that's didn't match my inner voice. So, like, think about your life and who, you know how people are treating you. You can look at their also. That's how you treat yourself. Or you think it's okay, because that's kind of like, Well, I'm not good enough anyway, so I should tolerate that. So that's where this comes in. And then we still feel bad. We have that negative voice. So we want to make it clear that everyone has a critical mind. It's like we're born into us.


Robert Maldonado  19:46

It's adaptive, yeah. we need it. And shame and guilt. We need those things. Otherwise we do terrible things to each other. But when they become when we become over identify with a person No, no, that's the danger that we feel the guilt and the shame, as defining us.


Debra Maldonado  20:06

Like I was saying, we were talking about this earlier I said, you know, it's, I think a lot of people and I know I do this too, is we confused what we do. And what we've accomplished in our life is our human life. as to who we are, we confuse that we're the persona. So I'm the person who has this successful business, I'm the person who has a relationship or doesn't have a relationship on the person who is kind all the time. I'm the person who never hurts anyone's feelings. I'm the person who blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then we think if we violate those rules, then we're not that person anymore. Right, that our self identity is so tied to our behavior, and what we have in our accomplishments, so behavior and accomplishments does not define you and in our culture in the way we were raised. It's exactly how we're taught to be defined. What's your education? Look at your resume? What have you done what your life did? Where did you get it? What do you How did you score on that test? How much money do you have in the bank? I know so many people that have so much shame around debt, you know, have credit card debt, I'm so upset. I'm so ashamed of it. And their whole life is consumed with hating themselves over it, instead of having compassion. And if you hate yourself over it, guess what? It's gonna keep happening. So it's not like it's going to solve anything. And so we have to first of all, look at what is this? What is it that we're doing is that we're making the things that we do define us. And we all make mistakes. We all screw up. We all hurt people's feelings. If once we understand that we're all like, that's part of being human. And and then that can give us a break and give us more compassion. Because everyone does this to each other. We always step on each other and hurt each other and unintentionally. Now, of course, there's the psychopaths that are like Oh, The fringe of society that are intentionally harmed. 


Robert Maldonado  22:02

Are you projecting?


Debra Maldonado  22:03

No but 99% of us are very normal, ordinary people that are just trying to live our lives and acting out of insecurities and past patterns and past karma. And, and we're just, you know, trying our best. And if we hold, you know a lot of people on Facebook and social media, they compare their, their what other people have watched the posts and everyone's posting how wonderful their life is. There's a few people that kind of comment on their terrible life. But most of the time they're bragging about their life and you're talking about Instagram isn't Instagram, my face. Anyway, they were comparing their outsides are with their persona, which is what's on Facebook is just a persona. It's not who they really are, to how our voice inside our head is. So our inner voice is so critical. And then we're comparing it to these people that are like, dancing on the beach and, you know, hugging I'm celebrate My fifth anniversary with my husband and I have great love in my life. I'm so grateful and you're just seeing what they want you to see. And of course those things are great. But we tart start thinking like, Oh, they don't have any negative thoughts. They have everything in their life. They have it all together and me, poor me, I'm like still struggling, you know, inside. And, and we don't realize that that external is not defining what's going on in their head.


Robert Maldonado  23:27

Yes. So from that perspective, then the self that is being compassionate towards the persona is the higher self.


Debra Maldonado  23:37

Yes. Right. The pure awareness that we are that's never been harmed, that's not attached to positive or negative. That doesn't define itself by its accomplishments or what other people think, you know, it's really just it's pure love.


Robert Maldonado  23:53

Pure bliss, pure awareness. And the person that is beating themselves selves up continuously then is it pretty much just buying into the persona? Yeah. Why? Why isn't this persona better? Why isn't it making me happy? Why? Why isn't everyone accepting me? And adoring me? Because I'm trying my best.


Debra Maldonado  24:21

And yeah, and you you you want to we secretly say, I know a lot of shy people will say, Oh, I don't want that attention. But we secretly want people to love and adore us. That's what the ego wants. The ego wants to feel safe to feel accepted to feel loved. And so what we what happens is that either we act out of that consciously, we say, hey, I want to be loved and let me do nice things for you. And you're overly generous and giving and pleasing, or you the opposite happens, where you go, I don't need anybody, but you really secretly do so you put that in your shadow, but it doesn't change whether you're outwardly trying to please. You're saying I don't need anybody, that critical voice is still there. And then the the people that say they don't need anyone will find fault with other people though. They'll judge the men out there. If they're dating like well then a you know, guys are so terrible and there's no one out there and they're all like looking for 20 year olds that are size zeros and no one's gonna like me. And then the anger about that, but that's their own self criticism that's their own own. That critical voice that saying you're not enough. And and then we see it projected out there. And then we prove it to ourselves. And then we're in this loop of we see it out there. we criticize we see it out there we criticize. And so how do we break the loop by first? The first step is understanding what we're dealing with here. That are what we have in our life, our accomplishments, our persona, what we what people think about us is zero to do with who we are. And second, is to have compassion for the part of us when we're getting credit. When we get that obsessive critical thinking, we have to take a step back we call meta consciousness where we're watching those thoughts and seeing them for us. They truly are. See what a lot of people I think do is they watch the thoughts and try to change them to positive. Or they go, they try to bargain with those thoughts and they're trying to fix those thoughts and make make them better like, Oh, well, it's okay. You think that way, but everything's gonna turn out, okay. You know, and you're like, kind of positive. Like, that's what I'm saying, using your ego to fix your ego. What you want to do is you don't want to fix those thoughts. You just leave them alone and you see them for what they are. If you jump in and try to fix them, what's going to happen or make a story up to cover it up. You're actually just, yeah, you know, you're believing them and then giving them energy.


Robert Maldonado  26:47

Right? Well, you just through CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, the whole approach is essentially what you described. 


Debra Maldonado  26:57

Well and it's good for a temporary I mean, It's good to get you functioning, but it's not going to lead you to transformation. So is that a bad thing?


Robert Maldonado  27:08

No, I agree. I mean the again if we internalize our parents and the critical parts, right i mean we we internalize their their positive voices Well, obviously, but the mind has a negative bias. Meaning if you meet 10 people in a day and nine of them say you're doing great I you know, I love what you're doing and carry on Good job. But one person says, you know, who the hell do you think you are?


Debra Maldonado  27:46

That's never happened to me. 


Robert Maldonado  27:47

Never happened to us. That one person is going to stick in in your mind and your mind is going to try to resolve it somehow. So it has the mind has a negative bias. So the voices that we internalized from our parents or peers or grandparents all that it tends to be slanted towards the negative critical bias. So we're always self criticizing. So the nature of the work, it's not to fix that little voice said, it's not to make it positive.


Debra Maldonado  28:26

Because then you're believing it's real. So you have to fix it.


Robert Maldonado  28:29

That's it. Because a lot of people get caught in the you know, I can't, I can't steal my thoughts. I can't make my thoughts positive all the time when they're happy and holding that vision. Well, you're not going to be able to do that.


Debra Maldonado  28:44

It's like you emtpy the open ocean with the spoon, I always say it's like, trying to like empty this, this fast conditioning of the ego and saying, let me just take a little off the top here. Yes, and it's not really helping.


Robert Maldonado  28:58

Plus you don't want to get rid of the, like you were saying earlier, it's a very useful function to be self critical but you want to understand its nature.


Debra Maldonado  29:08

That critical thinking is better than criticizing thinking, yes, you're critical. You're just looking at it in a critical way. Like, how can I make this better? But criticizing is personalizing it. Yeah, you are terrible. And you shouldn't have made the mistake in the first place.


Robert Maldonado  29:23

Yeah. And it boils down to this, how you understand that voice that you understand its nature, its function. That way you see it in equal par with your immune system, or your digestive system is simply doing its function. Its job. There's nothing wrong with you. When you're when you're over identifying with it. You think this is me? Hmm, that little voice is me. And it's defining me and therefore I'm trying to fix it all the time in China, you know, make it do what I wanted to do. But that's a futile mistake. Because you're going to be frustrated and you're going to be kind of chasing your tail. Right, because it's always kind of a self defeating approach to try to fix that part of your mind.


Debra Maldonado  30:16

Yeah. So the best way is is a very simple way to love yourself more is to love others. It's like St. Francis, having compassion for others. And it may seem weird but remember the projection is always going on we're always projecting when we see others as we see ourselves so if we can have compassion for others when they make a mistake, or they you feel like they've harmed us in a way and and and i'm not saying put up with bad behavior, I'm not saying be a doormat, but I'm saying that we we let go of the judgment because they're acting out of their conditioning. Understand banning it and not carrying it around with you. There's actually a story of Buddha story where two monks are walking down the street in the valley and there's a river there and there's a woman there standing at the river. And they got the one monk is like, you know, we, you know, we're not allowed to touch her, you know, she's a woman and he's like, I'm gonna help her. So he picks her up, carries over to the other side. And then about an hour later, the monk is like, I can't believe you did that. I can't believe you touched a woman you violated our our vows. And, uh, and he was going he was just going off on the monkey the monkey goes, I left her down a mile ago, a hour ago. Why are you still carrying her? And it's that kind of like, understanding of what do we want to carry with us? others that Do you know things and and how can we have compassion You know, one of the biggest things I hear a lot is a lot of my clients are in corporate jobs. And they have bosses that are terrible. And it's that kind of like, the bosses are negative to them. And then they want to, it's almost like this battle, you know, you want to be right. You want to like, tell the boss off and have your power back and it's his power God. What if you had compassion for that boss because you're more wise, you're more evolved than her or him. And you're seeing that they're acting out of ego out of fear. And then that would be a way out. It doesn't mean again that you put up with bad behavior. You don't state your boundaries, but you don't have to carry this kind of criticism about them in a way in in a harsh way. Like they're they're trying to harm you that beating up that person. When you're in a relationship, the same thing like Jimmy left me for another woman. I'm just gonna obsess over it forever. What a terrible man he was. Now, that's not getting you anywhere. It's your mind is just saying trying your ear. is trying to like protect you from another guy like Jim. But it by beating you up about it, beating yourself up about it and then projecting it onto him.


Robert Maldonado  33:08

Yeah. Yeah that, that compassion towards others is a strange phenomena because we were, again, most of us operate on the materialistic assumption that what we're seeing is some objective reality out there. But if we understand projection and take it to heart, it means what we're seeing in the boss or in the in the X or the dating partner is really our own mind. We're seeing our own projection on them. Right? When we understand that, then we're compassionate from a deeper place. It's not about oh, I have to be a good person and forgive these people. Yeah, it's not that it's more that I'm Seeing that I'm seeing my own mind. If I want to be kind towards my own mind. Instead of beating my my mind up, I have to understand that what they're showing me is for my own good.


Debra Maldonado  34:17

Yeah, right. Yeah. Cuz that if I can have compassion for a person who's done harm or right perceived has done harm where it made a mistake even not even cause harm but even just make a mistake then I can have compassion for myself. 


Robert Maldonado  34:32

Yes, yes, that's good because it's easy to like the people that like us.


Debra Maldonado  34:39

Yeah, yeah.


Robert Maldonado  34:41

And to be kind and compassionate towards people that are friendly towards us, but the person that irritates us or the actively goes against us. Now you're talking about, you know, if you can, if you can be compassionate in those situations, you're gaining ground there. You're opening up your mind to that deeper self, right? You're expressing the deeper self, instead of, you know, just trying to defend your persona against this other parent, person that's in your way. And it's very, it's very powerful practice. I mean, that's why passion is, is at the heart of so many, so many devotional, spiritual traditions.


Debra Maldonado  35:27

So the practice is to have compassion for others, and then you'll have compassion for yourself. And if you do feel strong enough to do this, you have compassion for yourself, and even having compassion when you don't have compassion. Like I think a lot of people will. The ego is very funny. If you say, I'm going to practice self compassion, and then you have a whole day of negativity, and then you judge yourself and criticize yourself for having the negativity and beating yourself up for not being compassionate. You don't want to do that you want to have that you're you're always doing your best. You're always you know, your ego is very reactionary. It has a lot of conditions in it. It's like we're, you're working against the tide of your conditioning to have this awareness. It's it's not a battle or a journey that most people go on. Most people just flow with the conditioning and blindly react to life. When we go against the flow of our conditioning, and we start to become our true self. There's friction, there's tension, and it's a tougher battle, but we can do it, we can do it. And it's it's really where the freedom is, it's going against that. Another great idea this, I read this in a book way back in my beginning of my self help journey. When I lived in Colorado, I read a lot of books. So it was my friend. It was like the beginning. I was like 29 and all my friends, were going to meditation retreats, and I never did yoga before and all these new things are coming into my life. It was coming from New York. And I read this book by this woman who took it did a walk about with The Aborigines and she was an American woman and very rare that she would get exposure to their culture. But one of the the techniques that they did, or the rituals they did, which I found the most profound, though, the one I remember the most, is that when they're every time a child is born into the tribe, they get their unique song. They have a little song and everyone knows everyone's song. It's kind of like your true self, and it's who you really are. And, and the way they police people is that if you do something wrong, that's outside the rules of the group, even if you murdered someone, or hurt or stole food or did something slept with someone else's wife or whatever it is ever sin or whatever the group rules were, instead of punishing them and putting them in a jail, what they would do is they would get in a circle, and they would put that person in the center of the circle, and everyone in the tribe would sing their song and then the person would get down to their knees and be in tears, and remember who they were, I mean, it was a beautiful ritual. It's like, why can't we do that? Why can't we just instead of someone being a group, give love and compassion for that person. And I just thought that was a beautiful thing. So just picture that in your mind, that remembering who you are and that tenderness of your true self, have a you know, putting you putting your ego in the center, just saying it's okay. You know, that's okay. Like, you're human. Yeah, having compassion for our human tendencies. And really understanding that most of what we do is not conscious. We don't intentionally try to harm people. Like I said, maybe there's a string of mental illness, you know, an extreme fringe of people that are tend to harm but most of us are just good people. And we're just most people have good intentions and some people are more insecure than others and wreck things and but they're not doing it to harm you. They're doing it for self preservation and that a lot of times can appear to look like they're trying to harm you. But what they're doing is out of self preservation out of fear. And so that's what I think the doorway to compassion.


Robert Maldonado  39:09

That's a great story. It reminds me of whales, they, in certain whale species, each whale sings its own song. And it every time it migrates, it adds a little piece to it.


Debra Maldonado  39:23

That's wonderful. Yeah. And so when we think about our true self, and we think about that, who we really are, it's interesting how we have these mechanisms for guilt. And, you know, the ego has all these mechanisms, but the self and it's all powerful wisdom has also gave us the ability for compassion and love. And so we do have the capacity to be harmful and mean and terrible and upset and, and have suffering. But we also have this powerful ability and we need to cultivate it. So it's a cultivation And a practice it's not you can turn it on with a switch. But start that today when you see hear yourself thinking negatively or judging others just think about that they're just they're humans acting out of fear you know and not in a superior like oh I'm so spiritual in there they don't know but it's more of that kind of that compassion for wow they must really be suffering you know we have a lot of people in our in our groups and our you know customer service and some every once in a while I'll get an email from someone who's really angry at something that we did or you know, didn't get there download or no you just and we just had the compassion and I think to myself wow this person is in a lot of pain. You know, they're really scared and so what I used when I respond I could respond in such a kind way and compassionate way and with truly compassionate, not slimy, you know, like, Oh, I'm gonna be nice to you so you'll be nice to me and feel guilty. No sick truly compassionate way. They their defenses go down right away, you'll find that you work with difficult people, the more open and compassionate you are and less defensive, their defenses go down. But what happens is usually, yes, we get defense and they get defensive and so all relationships So, really, especially now if you're in close quarters with someone you love, compassion is the key compassion for them for they're making weird noises when they're brushing their teeth or they're leaving the bathroom lid open or you know, leaving some food out and it got spoiled. You know, whatever. Now using all the toilet paper. You're gonna say that.


Robert Maldonado  41:46

So yeah, it's it's a little early. But, you know, the these practices, I mean, they're so powerful in and we don't want to just kind of make them these little niceties that we Practice on Sundays or when we go. When we think about spirituality. The Dalai Lama says, compassion is like, it's a necessity. Now, if we want to really survive as a species as human beings, we need to make it a central part of our, of our mind, right, the way we we observe the world, because it's at the base of how we relate to each other, you know, and the thing about wars and conflicts. It's just the collection of people projecting their own stuff on to other people. Other groups. Right?


Debra Maldonado  42:38

Yeah. They're the bad group. They're the ones that have these problems are bringing these problems, especially politically, people are so divided, especially in the US, I'm sure another culture in the UK, there's a lot of division too. And the worst thing we can do is just be so mean about the other party, you know, and be like, they're stupid, and they're, they don't know what they're talking about. And it's like, well, maybe they, you know, I think if we really got together and talk to someone, you probably believe the same things. So we have to kind of have compassion for people what they believe in. If you disagree, that's fine. But you can still have compassion for them. You know, it doesn't mean that they're right. But you can have compassion that they have an idea that may be different than yours. But that's their mind and you don't have to respond to it. When you're responding to it, then you're kind of working with yourself. Yeah, you're in the shadow again. That's why Shadow Work is so important. We have, you know, it's really life changing to do the Shadow Work. You can do a lot of personal development work, but if you don't do the Shadow Work, you're still polishing up that ego maintenance, and that's why it feels as though you're revisiting things over and over because you haven't really faced the shadow. It's very powerful. Have a great rest of your day. Enjoy the sun or wherever you're going and see you soon. Take care. 


Robert Maldonado  1:24:14

See you next time. 


Debra Maldonado  1:24:15

Bye bye