Remembering who we are is an important part of reclaiming ourselves, but the journey to reclaiming ourselves is a process of forgetting & remembering. 

This week Belinda & Sonya are talking about an important part of the self love journey & the road to more self-compassion.

They share their experiences with the lifelong practice of remembering themselves (and forgetting themselves), and why finding grace for ourselves is foundational to having compassion for others.

Join us as we discuss: 

• 02:24 How losing and remembering ourselves defines the cyclical process of reclaiming ourselves.
• 14:42 Why our perception of others can trick us into thinking we’re the only ones experiencing negative emotions.
• 15:10 The ways that human responses to grief and loss are labelled as character flaws.
• 17:02 Why being amazing doesn’t mean being perfect.
• 24:26 How we abandon ourselves when we’re most vulnerable by judging ourselves for experiencing our feelings.

Resources mentioned in the show: (If appropriate)

• No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model, by Dr. Richard Schwartz https://ifs-institute.com/nobadparts 
• Psychotherapist & Author Matt Licata, PhD https://mattlicataphd.com/ 

Learn more about Sonya & Belinda: 

—> Sonya Stattmann is the host & creator of Reclaiming Ourselves™. She is a TEDx & corporate speaker and has been working with leaders around personal development for the last 22 years. She teaches workshops & offers small group programs around emotional intelligence, transformational & embodied leadership, and energy management. You can find more about her here:

Website: https://www.sonyastattmann.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonyastattmann/

—> Belinda Haan, co-host of Reclaiming Ourselves, is a gifted Masters-level certified professional coach who has worked with leaders and executives in various Fortune 500 corporations worldwide. She is a mindfulness and compassion teacher and facilitates group and individual therapeutic interventions that promote inner connection and belonging. She is personally passionate about bridging the gap between science and spirit, using an empathic, grounded approach that weaves contemplative practice and accessible personal development with her clients. You can find more about her here:

Website: www.belindahaan.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/belinda-haan-b1b02815/

What you can do next:

1. For more episodes, opportunities, and information on the hosts, visit http://reclaimingourselvespodcast.com/
2. Love the podcast? Get episodes delivered to your inbox with articles related to the topics we talk about. You can sign up at http://reclaimingourselvespodcast.com/
3. Need a little weekly magic? Sign up for Worthy Love Notes & weekly affirmations here https://www.sonyastattmann.com/self-worth-affirmations-2/  

Thank you for being you. We are so honored to have you as a listener!

so often in self development and psychology

and mental health and all these places, we look at the forgetting.

Evil thing that's now come and sabotaged us and taking us out of where we wanna be.

And another pattern is here, how long do we have to work with this pattern?

But looking at it as if it has a purpose, understanding that it's part of our

deepening, it's part of our growth.

I think that's really a powerful thing to talk about.

Yes, absolutely.

And you know, it's in those more, difficult moments or the moments of

suffering or, or resistance to what's happening, the, the difficulty,

the darkness, whatever you wanna.

Call it whatever the experience is.

And I think there's a scale on, these experiences as well.

But without those, how do we access the light?

How do we access the deeper parts of ourselves that are

waiting there to be liberated,

If you know there is something deep inside of you

that is yearning to be seen, to be known, and to have expression.

If there's something you need to reclaim and remember: maybe it's your

power or your purpose, your gifts.

This is the podcast for you.

Welcome to Reclaiming Ourselves.

I'm your host, Sonya Stattmann and I'm honored to have three amazing

co-hosts, Laura Shook-Guzman, Belinda Haan, and Emily Soccorsy, here with

me on this journey to self discovery.

Every week we're gonna help you unravel and remember what it means to reclaim

yourself, to own who you are, to recognize your innate worth and greatness.

Now this podcast is a deep dive into self-development,

healing, and empowerment.

So hold on.

Here we go.

Hello and welcome back to Reclaiming Ourselves.

I'm so excited for the episode that we have today.

We're gonna kind of explore and unpack a topic I love discussing, and I think

it's a really important topic, and it's kind of around this idea that.

Reclaiming ourselves is not like this consistent, constant process.

It's kind of a, a forgetting and a remembering and a forgetting and

a remembering and kind of a, we're gonna sort of talk about the cyclical

process of reclaiming ourselves.

And I've got here today, Belinda Hahn, and I'm so excited to have her in the studio.

So, welcome, Belinda.

thank you Sonya, and hello everyone.

I'm so excited to be here.

This is one of my favorite topics and I certainly have an embodied experience

of forgetting as well as remembering

Yeah.

And so maybe let's just start with sort of talking about this concept or this idea.

So what does it mean when we say, you know, we forget and we remember,

let's, let's kind of start with that

Well, I think remembering, for me, remembering is about connection

to ourselves and our true selves.

we can connect with our.

Either Okayness or our wholeness, or our groundedness.

Spaciousness, and in that place, We are able to be more present.

compassion is naturally here.

Uh, we're able to sort of make values, align choices and we're

able to sort of flow with life.

And that doesn't mean that there's no, no difficulty.

It just means that we're able to sort of allow it and meet the moment with

whatever is required and forgetting.

Is really when we forget that we are, beyond the content of our experience

and what, you know, our emotions, thoughts, what's happening externally.

Beyond that, we have forgotten that underneath all of that we

are whole complete, and we have a.

Unlimited pool of joy and compassion within and that, that sort of takes

us, you know, maybe we're triggered by something or we have some kind of

difficulty or suffering and the little switch on our conditioning happens,

you know, there's a threat response.

We get hooked, um, by, you know, past conditioning.

We might do things that we don't really wanna do that maybe is not values

aligned, or we can really deeply resist what, what is happening in the present

moment, whether that's our in inner experience or our outer experience.

And for me, so I'm still working with the duality of this because it's easy to say

remembering is good and forgetting is bad.

And I have spent, because I have had both of those experiences, it's

obviously easy, you know, natural to grasp onto the remembering because

that's when you know everything's flowing and life is, um, full of.

and to say, oh, I don't wanna, I don't wanna be in forgetting, so how

do I quickly get back to remembering?

But forgetting is an inherent part of our.

Our journey to remembering, it's a transient, transient nature of

knowing our ourselves more deeply, you know, our different conditionings,

the different things that still need to be looked at to uncover the joy.

And what I've, spent a lot of time trying to work out the formula to

get from forgetting to remembering . I've got these beautiful visuals.

Mind maps, , but, but what I've realized is that it just

naturally arises once we surrender.

Like once we really let go of our grip of things not being what we want it to

be, or we are not what we want it to be, then it just actually naturally arises.

Yes, I agree.

I mean, I feel like, you know, there's so many like frameworks

we could use for this topic.

Right.

you know, you can look at, we were in a space of responding, which to me is the.

Is the remembering, or we're in a space of reaction, which

is, you know, the forgetting.

And I think we can also look at it from like parts work, right?

the self, the big self, the essential self is the remembering and the

forgetting is all the protectors and the parts of ourselves that are,

activated and seeking to help us survive.

Um, so I think there's like all these really wonderful ways in which we can

explore and talk about this topic.

But I love this idea that the forgetting has a place in process, right?

Like it's not the bad thing that happens, or it's not just because we've had trauma

or it's not just because, I don't know all these ways in which we judge it

or look at it, but instead, This part is part of the process that helps us

deepen our understanding of ourselves, that helps us remember who we are.

Even more like that is a really powerful way to explore it because I

think so often in self development and psychology and mental health and all

these places, we look at the forgetting.

Evil thing that's now come and sabotaged us and taking us out of where we wanna be.

And another pattern is here, how long do we have to work with this pattern?

But looking at it as if it has a purpose, understanding that it's part of our

deepening, it's part of our growth.

I think that's really a powerful thing to talk about.

Yes, absolutely.

And you know, it's in those more, difficult moments or the moments of

suffering or, or resistance to what's happening, the, the difficulty,

the darkness, whatever you wanna.

Call it whatever the experience is.

And I think there's a scale on, these experiences as well.

But without those, how do we access the light?

How do we access the deeper parts of ourselves that are waiting

there to be liberated, for us to become more authentic, to become.

Connected to what we genuinely want rather than what we have been

conditioned to want, or, or, or whatever.

So without that, the forgetting, we can't actually deepen into the remembering.

Yeah, I love that.

And, and I think, you know, the other really important part of

this topic, this conversation, is that it doesn't stop, right?

Like I think there sometimes we have this idea that one day we'll be enlightened

enough, one day we'll be aware enough, one day we will reach some pinnacle of

success, you know, our self development or whatever, that we will stop.

Right.

That we'll stop reacting, that we'll be able to handle

everything that comes our way.

And, and that's so unrealistic.

Right.

And, and I know I've had so many times where even though on one level

I understand that I still forget.

Right.

And then I, I get caught up in like striving for some place of ease

that it will just always be easy at, clinging to that, remembering

and clinging to that awareness.

And, trying to really embrace that.

I will still have hard times that, like, forgetting something and then moving to

that, remember it, it can be a really challenging process and I don't think it,

gets to this place where it's all easy.

Absolutely.

Oh my gosh.

And this is, this part of the conversation is really just an ongoing journey for me.

Because I'm a proactive person, you know, who's always sort of been able to problem

solve and all of that, and I, I remember the despair that I felt at different times

because I have forgotten, even though I.

Intellectually, no.

I just need to surrender.

You know, all of the, the formula that I, in my mind I've thought this

is the formula to get to remembering.

but it's the, the forgetting, the, the journey is, it is never ending.

It really is never ending.

And.

We can have a preference for it to end , we can have a preference to live in

the light and, and live in remembering, but that's just not how things work.

And, and I know that at different times I've been like, I can't believe

I'm still hooked by my inner critic.

just like, what is going on?

I have done so much therapy.

So much self-reflection, so much meditation, so many things, you know,

to, but really what I was trying to do was get rid of the inner critic

exactly.

the motivation was to get rid of it.

And so then when it kept popping up, I'm like, why are you still here?

You know, that's just, and the frustration that happens.

But what, what I've found is that those deeper patternings do continually come.

And I can sort of have the, the view.

I thought I dealt with this.

I, there's something really wrong with me.

Why?

You know, I've had, I've spent so much time working on this, but actually

it's not that I haven't progressed in inverted comments, , but that I'm

actually seeing it from a deeper, deeper level and a different angle.

And, and so there's so much benefit in that because it liberates us every time,

even though it's painful, sometimes we can be really possessed in, in our

conditioning and really, you know, and as we grow in awareness, that can be

even more painful cause we've got this.

This observer that's going, I cannot believe that you are forgetting.

Like, don't you know, blah, blah, blah.

what?

Why aren't you doing all your practices

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

but that there's, there's, there's actually a deepening

happening and an opening happening.

that deeper connection to self that actually happens through seeing

the same pattern in different.

Yes, exactly.

it's so funny cuz you know, even talking about this, I feel like.

I've gone through so many cycles of this, right?

So many perspectives of this, so many, so many times I've forgotten and remembering

it's just like this constant process.

but yeah, I still get to points where I think We're good, right?

Like I still get to points where I somehow bind this lesion.

We're good, we're good.

Like, you know, and then the next thing kind of surfaces and I think when we

forget ourselves, It's a really intense process and, and like you said, I

mean there is a, a gradient, right?

Like, you know, we can forget ourselves a little bit or we can

forget ourselves a lot, right?

And so, you know, depending on what pattern we're facing, what we're

looking at, what we're surrendering to, what we're contemplating, right?

It can be this really kind of mild forgetting where we just kind of

lose ourselves for a little bit.

Or it can be this really intense forgetting where we're

almost like another person.

, right?

Like we're, we're totally not ourselves and we're like, what is happening here?

and so I think just being able to talk about this, right?

to embrace this, to explore this, to look at it from this level.

I think this is a really important conversation because even a lot of

people that I know who are, you know, well into the self development field,

do a lot of work on themselves.

They still.

Beat themselves up when this surfaces right.

They struggle with the forgetting.

And so I think, you know, this is so important cause I don't feel like we

talk about this enough in our circles to be like, this is normal, this is

natural, this is just part of the process.

This has a purpose.

And I think if we can embrace that, it's gonna, it makes it, I don't

know, I don't know if easier is the right word, to more tolerable or

stomach.

yes.

A absolutely.

Like I wholeheartedly agree that if we could build a societal and cultural

NA narrative about the importance of.

Difficulty and suffering , you know, like that, that is just not part of Instagram.

It's not part of even friendship conversations.

it's not part of, the narrative in society that we suffer

and that we have difficulty.

And so what, what can happen is then we suffer and have difficulty, and we

assume that there's something wrong.

yes.

you know, why can't we just be stronger and more resilient

like all of those other people?

But the reality is that we are under a delusion, , that no one suffers except

for us, . And, and, and the reality is that we all have our cross to bear.

We all have our challenges, we all have our points of

activation, points of struggle.

And you know, like you said, sometimes it's little struggle.

Sometimes it's.

You're on your knees in that despair.

But there's, there's very little conversation.

And certainly when we were growing up,

Oh yeah,

you know, just get over it.

You're okay.

Oh, there's nothing to be sad about.

All of those, those kind of just very normal human responses to life, we're told

that they're wrong and they don't belong.

And so we.

Assume that we're doing something wrong or that something, we're

not able to handle this better, and so then we start constructing.

I'm not going to feel difficulty and suffering anymore because that means

that there's something wrong with me and then that's just too painful,

so I'm just going to do these other things so that I don't have to allow.

because it is really truly about allowing our suffering and

difficulty without judgment and with a compassionate awareness.

That is where the liberation comes from.

Like I've definitely at different times thought, I just wanna be free to

be me, and that really what I'm, what I'm actually working through is that

that's actually just about allowing.

Every experience to be there as it is with compassion.

That is the practice.

It's not about getting rid of the inner critic or getting rid of

suffering and difficulty because it's not actually realistic.

Yes.

I love how you mentioned it as a practice because you know it's not,

you know, this mission or this ultimate goal that we're looking for, right?

practice and no matter how, Much, you know, how skilled you are.

It's still a practice.

we have to embrace it every day.

We have to accept it, we have to practice with it.

You know, it's not just something that we're going to arrive at, like, oh, here

we are, we're all self-developed and good.

Right?

It's like every day it's a practice and, and I think, you know, if

you drill it down, Even in this, this idea of this podcast, right?

Or this idea of remembering or reclaiming ourselves, right?

I feel like so often people are trying to grasp this kind of idea of

empowerment or this idea of like, I'm gonna find my amazing self, right?

And yes, you are amazing, right?

It there is an amazing self.

It is about being with, it's not about being perfect.

It's not about being amazing.

It's not about being calm all the time.

it is about embracing whatever shows up, whatever is there, whatever

flows into your life, right?

It's about being with of those things, with compassion and, you

know, that looks very, very different.

Like, you know, in a lot of.

Uh, studies I've done around trauma and different things.

people will talk about how Being activated, be having

reactions is totally normal.

we are wired to have reactions and to to react to other people's nervous systems.

For instance, like our nervous systems talk to other people's nervous.

If we aren't having an activation when other people are activated

around us, that is not normal, right?

That is suppression, that is trying to be something we're not.

Now, what you know, we can get skilled in is embracing that

activation or embracing that reaction.

And then finding a way to be with it, right?

Finding a way to navigate our nervous system, finding

a way to regulate ourselves.

And so like that is something we can get skilled in and practice with, but

we are never going to be naturally at a place where like, we're never activated,

we're always zen, we're always calm.

and I really think in the self-development world, like this is not really.

Stood because so many people are still trying to be calm.

And then when someone reacts in front of them, they're like, you

know, they judge and they're like, oh, well I'm just gonna stay calm.

like, that's the goal.

And so I think this is a really important understanding that we need to

have, that it's okay to be activated, that we're all gonna be activated.

That is just part of the process.

And then we can practice being with that so that we're

able to regulate more effect.

Yes.

A hundred times.

Yes, I totally and wholeheartedly agree and just wanna pull out

the, the practice part, you know?

That's so true.

And, and even the ordinariness of this, you know, I think that sometimes we can.

Feel.

I know it's certain I'm talking for me , that I just need one more therapy session.

One more insight, one more book, one more training, one more great conversation.

One more like flash of insight and then everything's gonna be okay,

but, but it's actually not real.

I mean, there can be moments of huge insight and huge

remembering and spaciousness and that's all really wonderful.

But really, it's actually very.

It's a brick by brick, day by day, moment by moment practice.

yeah.

I love that.

So much of this striving right, is rooted in the way that we've

been trained or in the survival mechanisms that we have, right?

And I don't think we realize how invasive these thoughts are, right?

Like how much of our being is focused on, getting ahead on, competing.

being the best of ourselves, right?

Even though we might say, oh, I'm not competitive, or I'm not

trying to achieve anything for anybody else, that we struggle to

be the best of ourselves, right?

We're always kind of moving to this achievement, trying to be better,

trying to trying to be perfect, right?

idea is so root.

Everything and every system and every thought process, and every way we

respond, and I don't think we really understand how deep it goes, whereas

when we start to look at just, being with whatever comes, right, not fixing

it, not transforming it, not, removing it, not becoming better over it.

Right?

We.

Look at being with whatever's here that's so foreign to the way that we look at

the world that's so foreign to lens that we look through you know, right

now in the point in my life, I feel like I'm really in this, like deeply this.

You know, not achieving, right?

Like not being productive, being okay to just sit with where I'm actually

at and not try to be anything else or transform myself or improve myself

and it is a frigging struggle because it is like in every layer of my

being.

Yes, absolutely.

And, and I know like you and I are not new to this, like we have been, you know,

discussing this together and, you know, on, on our own personal journeys as well.

And, and I mean, I also am really in this too, and, and I am.

I've just noticed ahead of every single episode for this podcast, it's like all

of the shadowy materials just coming up for me to look at and, and you know, I

have been absolutely deep in forgetting, you know, in the last few weeks I've

got really sick, really, really sick.

And yet I just was reading Buddhism books and all of this, which is all

beautiful, but there was a desperation.

To it.

Like, please, can I just get rid of this suffering?

I don't wanna be sick.

This is inconvenient.

and don't you find that these things also do come up at inconvenient times as well?

We, and then the resistance is just really, um, really up.

And, and so it's, gosh, it's such a journey and humil.

Such a journey in humility and the deep suffering that I've felt on

a psychological, emotional, and physical level in the last three

weeks has been really, really peak.

And I'm starting to, thankfully having some more light come in

as I've been really practicing.

Surrendering to this moment and bringing compassion to this moment, and the

little nuggets are coming through.

So I, I would, if we would've spoken last week, I would've said, this is terrible.

I just don't want this.

And I've done, there's nothing that I've done, no personal development's worked,

you know, all of that kind of thing.

but now on the other side, you know, as I.

Little bits of light can be shine, shine.

Upon this experience, I have gained a deeper understanding of myself and, and

so when we are in that real suffering or real, really possessed by our conditioning

or, or in that deep forgetting, we just think there's no point that,

you know, what's the point of this?

I've done, you know, I've done all this work and nothing

has actually worked, but as.

as you open to the experience and to what you are, what you're experiencing

internally with a little bit of acceptance so that compassion can come in.

It's afterwards that you go, wow, gosh, I really have a

deeper understanding of myself.

and this is a really interesting pattern that I'm noticing in my times of greatest

need , like when I really, really need support and need to be on my own side.

I have abandoned myself, . It's, it's just such a pattern for me to, in,

in the times of most need to just really judge myself for suffering and,

and, and really sort of see, oh my gosh, I should be, you know, open and

spacious and accepting and all of that.

And, and partly I think, It's, it's because I sometimes see forgetting bad,

remembering good . But actually, if I can deepen down to the truth below this,

that both exist and there's a part of me self that can hold it all, it can hold

all of the ways that I'm constricted.

Misaligned and all of that, and my openness and spaciousness, they both exist

and at the ground of this is the ground of being, which is able to hold it all.

Yes.

It so much reminds me of like, the, yin and young right?

Right.

It's like, these are two halves of one thing.

Not like we want one thing and not the other.

Because remembering is a part of forgetting, and forgetting

is a part of remembering.

And there there is like this really powerful.

Place that you can hold it when you can hold both.

And you know, I was thinking as well.

it's so amazing when you're able to recognize that this

is life's process, right?

And to create space for it.

Because one of the things I've really struggled with in so much

of my life is, you know, like so many other people, I busied myself.

I filled my whole schedule.

I, there was no time for forgetting, right?

There was no, I didn't build in time to go through a process.

And so then when something happened, right, when a reaction

happened, when a sickness happened, when you know, something, you

know, fell upon me in my life.

You know, there was no time to process it.

There was no time to go through this, you know, natural unfolding

so that I could remember.

Again.

everything was too busy.

And I think when we understand that this is life's process.

That reaction is going to be normal for the rest of our lives, and that we need

to slow down to build space in to, you know, move easily and moved in difficulty.

Right?

that is a really empowering process that changes the way we operate in

the world and operate in our lives.

because the truth is, is that the remembering comes when we

surrender to the forgetting.

Totally

Surrendering requires space, right?

If we, if we're so filled up, that every moment is pulling us

forward, every moment is a have to, every moment is an obligation.

There is no ability to surrender, and therefore no ability to remember

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

So, so true.

And when we are really busy, yeah.

Like you said, we just can't, it's just an inconvenience, that, that this is here.

And so we just.

Well, I do just then could get busier because it's just like, oh gosh, there's,

and then we can feel like, oh, there's this darkness just waiting for me.

I better get busy so that I've just, but if we, if we can even,

dip down, you know, we looking at ways and rituals of connection.

So that we can process as we go, and I know that sometimes when I'm in

that remembering spaciousness and really productive time, I can just

go with it a hundred miles an hour.

But what I'm really trying to do now is just get a little bit stronger

rituals of connection to allow the space for what's actually present, which.

Can be really difficult, emotions can be overwhelmed, all of that kind of thing

so that we can continue to connect with ourselves so that we don't wait to, to

a crisis point, um, all of the time.

Yes.

Yes.

It's funny, I was just reading, Richard Schwartz's book, the No Bad

Parts, like

Yeah.

Oh, it's one of my favorite books,

Yeah, it's a really good book.

And, you know, I love this, this thing he talks about in the introduction cuz

he, he talks about how, you know, so many people came to him for therapy when

they were at this crisis point, right?

Like something major happened.

And other than that they felt like they were successful,

they were moving through life.

And then, they finally had this moment right when a crisis happened where

some light could get through the cracks of their protective foundations.

And then he ma he has this line that I think is really important.

He says, those can be wake up call events.

If I can help them keep the striving, the materialistic, the competitive

parts of them that had dominated their lives from reclaiming dominance,

they can explore what's inside of.

. I can really feel that or this powerful visual right?

Is that, we wait until we have these major crises for the light to come

in, for the crack to come in, right?

Cause we spent our whole lives with these protective parts dominating every

moment to be busy, to be materialistic, to be productive, to be successful.

And we don't allow any of the integration, we don't allow any of.

Essential self parts to come through.

you know, that's such a, an important thing to realize.

And when we create space, and you know, I think we've talked about

this many times in this podcast.

When we create space, things naturally come up.

I mean, remembering is our nature like, and so is forgetting, right?

Forgetting.

And the activation is also our nature, but remembering is also our nature.

And so if we allow space, the parts of ourselves that wanna be integrated,

the parts of ourselves that wanna be heard, the parts of ourselves that

wanna be acknowledged, they naturally.

And I think that's one reason why we all run, why we you

know, are on the rat wheel.

Why we all are busy all the time is that we don't know how to face those parts.

We don't know how to acknowledge and look at those parts in so

many ways because we've been conditioned that they're bad parts.

Right.

That all of these things inside of us that are there, the grief or the anger

or the feelings that are there or the, the patterns that are at play that we

don't appreciate or like we consider them bad parts, and because of that,

we don't know how to navigate them.

We don't know how to deal with them.

Right.

I really feel like the, the key to the world is raising

emotional intelligence, right?

Like, that's the key to every single thing that's happening in the world.

Like that is like the solution because when people embrace their emotions,

they embrace all parts of themselves.

they wake up to their compassion, they wake up to their connection

I think that is gonna be a really, really amazing world.

Um, but it's very interesting.

How we're functioning in the world today and how, you know, clueless,

we are about our own bodies, right?

Our own systems, and how we

work.

Yes, uh, I agree.

I really do think emotions are the portal to.

Everything.

and I really do love that book as well.

Ifs is just, I, I love, love that work so much and, and when we come

to have intimacy with our little in, in inner family as internal family

systems talk about, we can really just naturally build compassion

because, you know, and I've got, I've.

As I do mapped out my internal family, what I, what I know of it,

I love

and, and you know, there's, I've got a very strong destroyer part

that just cuts everything, you know, and That destroy part is, is there,

when I'm under heightened threat, my nervous system is like alarms are ringing

and it's like a collapse response.

You know, I don't, you cannot take anything more on, um, you

just need to surrender into whatever is, is present and of.

I might have a preference for the destroyer not to be here, and

I might even say that's wrong.

I don't like the destroyer, but ultimately it's an innocent part

that's just trying to help me.

Stay.

Okay.

Yeah.

you know, and then there's other parts.

There's empowering parts that's saying you can do it and you know, and so

that can create a bit of internal conflict as we do have competing

parts and that sort of thing.

But as we start to sort of recognize that we've all got.

Different parts in, in us.

And as we can start building a relationship with those inner

parts, we empower ourselves greatly.

And we just can access so much compassion because these parts happen because we were

struggling and we needed support and we, you know, that was the, it was so innocent

and so beautiful and so intelligent.

And, and once we start to understand more about what's happening in, in our inner

world, Become friends with that, then we, we experience greater liberation, I think.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

And definitely my experiences, when we have compassion with our

inner parts, it automatically, it extends empathy and compassion

to everyone else's parts, right?

And so often when we're judging someone else or we're reacting to someone

else, we're activated by someone else.

It's because that part inside of ourselves.

Has not felt the compassion, right?

We've not had self-compassion for that part, or we wanna get rid of it, or,

you know, there's something that's triggered in us that we haven't looked at.

but when we embrace all of our parts, it's so easy to embrace

everyone else's parts and.

I just think that's so, so important, you know, and I think,

you know, turning that back around as well, not only, do we forget and

remember, but so does everyone else.

Right?

It's so easy.

I think as well sometimes when we're on the self development journey to be

like, Okay, I need more self-compassion.

Yes.

I forget and remember.

And then our partner does something and we're like, how could you do that?

How could you do that?

Aren't you more aware?

Like why aren't you more aware?

Like how many times we've been through this process, but they forget and remember

too, and that's the natural process.

And I think that, you know, this is really helpful when we really get this,

when we really kind of understand this to be able to extend that kind of love

and understanding to others because you know, especially people who aren't as

into self development or who haven't done as much work or, you know, even if they

have right, we all forget and remember.

And so it's being able to, to look at everybody with some grace to say,

oh, they're in there forgetting.

And that's.

And then, you know, hopefully they'll find the path to remembering.

But you know, we can hold a space and compassion for

that.

Yes.

And it's not up to us to solve them , you know, like that, that's

just such a natural, um, response.

Especially as we're on the path and we sort of know, you know, we know

a lot about personal development and growth to then, you know, share.

You just need to, I and I.

So, I mean, so guilty of this myself, but I, I just really, and I'm very

aligned to your emotional intelligence.

Um, you know, the importance of that, and this is, this is so related, is

our ability to hold space for others in forgetting and remembering, that

will change the world if we could just have, you know, if we could all

build our compassionate presence to be with others in particularly in their

suffering, and not make them wrong, not make their experience wrong, and

we make it wrong by trying to fix them or positive over it or whatever.

But if we can just hold space for whatever's present, including.

The suffering and darkness and know that it's actually, it's

just like fertilizer for them.

It's actually perfect.

You know, of course we can have a preference to deeply wanna alleviate

their suffering and we can do different compassion practices to

support them and, ask them, what, what can we do to support you?

It's not saying, Absolve responsibility or don't care.

But it, we care by showing them that they're okay.

We're here for them.

We can hold space for them, and we don't, we are not worried that

they're in suffering and darkness.

We, we, we can hold that because we love them.

We believe in them and we know that that exists in us too.

And, and I really have felt.

You know, really a big change in my ability to hold space for others.

Since I can hold, not all the time, hold space for my own difficulty.

As that grows, I can, I can do that more easily with others.

Yes, and that is it.

It's the capacity to, hold the darkness in ourselves or hold the

forgetting or hold the activation or you know, however you wanna label it.

You know, when we're able to hold that, it is so much easier to hold others.

And I think often When we want to so desperately alleviate someone else's

suffering, it's actually for me, a red flag to look at what is it that I,

am trying to avoid in myself, right?

What do I not wanna feel that they're feeling?

You know?

So sometimes we do this with grief, right?

Someone experiences such deep grief in our presence.

And instead of being able to hold that for them, we tell

them, oh, it's gonna be fine.

You'll find else.

Or, over time it will lessen or whatever we do because we have avoided

the grief inside of us from someone we lost or something that we've lost.

And, and so I think that's in so many ways, while we're afraid to hold

others in their darkness or in their challenge or in their suffering, is

because we haven't really held our.

Absolutely.

And what a gift we can give the world, our friends, our loved ones.

If we can build our capacity to be with our own suffering and

therefore be able to be with theirs, like this is a lifelong journey.

This is not.

A course that is one and done.

This is a lifelong, like you said, practice to keep coming back to

holding space for our own difficulty and therefore being able to hold

space for the suffering of others.

And, through being able to do that, we give them the gift of our belief in.

Yes.

and it's not easy.

Like, you know, in particular, I find it's really challenging with family, right?

It's really hard to.

allow your family to sit in their suffering, especially,

um, especially your kids.

Like, I least this is for me, like, my kids is the most challenging piece

for me to allow suffering for them.

it can be really difficult.

I think it's a, it's really important in this process to recognize that

we're all going through that, and the more we can hold of others and hold

in ourselves, the more powerful it is.

I feel like this is so helpful just to kind of embrace and understand

this process of forgetting and remembering and to just acknowledge

how natural it is and that it's this cyclical process that we're going to

experience for the rest of our lives.

, I feel like that's, you know, that's a powerful piece of it.

as we wrap up for today, Belinda, is there anything that you'd like to kind of

finish off with in terms of this topic.

Yeah, I just, I just wanted to sort of say when we are,

when we are aware, like after we've listened to this and we are, we're

aware that we've, you know, maybe been hooked by our conditioning, we're in

that forgetting place, that it's really natural for us to resist that and, you

know, to judge ourselves for being in that place and everything like that.

Um, that is actually just part of the process and we can even

welcome our resistances to.

What's present and, and acknowledge that we'd prefer things to not be

like they are or even acknowledge that this is really hard at the

moment with our hands on our heart.

But I just thought in closing, I'd share this, um, this quote by Matt Karta, who's

got some beautiful books, um, particularly I think useful in that forgetting place.

Um, even though you might, maybe reading a book is not always the right thing.

That's just my strategy.

. Okay, so this is by Matt.

We no longer need feelings to go away, but want to know them more fully to infuse

them with curiosity, warmth, and presence.

We are no longer willing to turn away from our feelings and sensitivity to

attack our own vulnerability, to bail out of our bodies, or to meet the inner

world with violence and aggression.

Even if we do not like what appears, we begin to sense that it too has a

place in the large inner ecology of what we are somehow intelligently arising

here as part of our work and our art.

Mm.

I love that and I really love This idea like it so aligns with

my values and philosophy that everything inside of us isn't.

Intelligent,

Yes.

it all has a purpose, a mission, something it's

trying to do in an intelligent way.

And when we, when we can embrace that, then we can look at it with curiosity to

be like, Ooh, what is this part wanna say?

Or what is this piece of us, trying to, to accomplish?

but recognizing that all of it is intelligent is a really powerful.

Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

I love that.

Well, thank you for such a great topic today, Melinda, and thank you

to all of our listeners for, for being here, and we will see you next week.

Bye everyone.

Hi, it's Belinda.

I hope you were able to get some little nuggets of wisdom or maybe some seeds

of compassion through this episode.

If you would like to learn more about this topic, you can sign up

to my newsletter@belindahan.com.

Have an amazing day, and I hope to see you next time.