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Writer's pictureEmily Eldredge

📺 IWFGG | The Power of "Patient and Gentle"





 

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: Hello, Hello, everyone! My name is Emily Eldredge. I am the host of Inner Work for Greater Good. I'm sorry I just got off of another Zoom. So I haven't changed my name. I'll change it. It is Emily Eldredge at ChangeLight. There we go, Rename. Here we go. Now Now we're ready to go. I know it's sort of like a mess sometimes, but I really not that much of a mess i'm just not always. You know. I've got other stuff going on,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: so that, and i'm happy to be here again this week with you. My name is Emily Eldredge. I am the founder of ChangeLight Inner Work for Greater Good. Hence the name of the show and the creator of the ChangeLight System, which is all about accelerating your ability to feel good and do good, so you can make a bigger difference in the world just by being who you are and doing what you do. Uh, and so um I This week I want to talk about something that came to me that I realized is something I do for

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: myself, and I teach people, you know, remind people to do for themselves as well, and I figured i'd share it with you, and that has to do with two words, patient

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: and Gentile. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, sometimes, when we're struggling uh we're dealing with what maybe we're dealing with a crisis, or maybe we're dealing with a tough emotion or having a rough day, or we're going through a rough period of our lives, you know. Sometimes people will say, Well, you need to be patient with yourself, or you need to be patient. Um! And then other times people might say, we need to be gentle with yourself. I like to put those two together and say that really something that we definitely need more of, and especially when it comes

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: to inner work, is, Be patient and gentle with ourselves. So this is something that I frequently remind myself. Now, why are these two words really important? And what does this mean? So, being patient. So in my previous episode I talked about how you know so often we're in such a hurry. There's this sense of urgency in the world as though, like everything is going to come crashing down. If we're not in a hurry.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: We're not getting things done quickly that people are always expecting things, and there's deadlines, and there are all kinds of reminders around us that we need to hurry up um, or that we somehow even need to be in a rush. I live in New York City. So you talk about a rush city. There are certain areas that yeah, it feels like everyone's in a rush. No, or you've got to catch that train, or that's subway or that bus, you know. Things go on a particular schedule, and so there's certainly a lot of reminders for us in our world that say, Well, you need to hurry up,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: you know, and you need to move faster. But something I said in last week's episode was basically. Like, Well, where is that really coming from?

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: Because, you know, Is Nature trying to get us to hurry up uh is the you know Where? Where? Where's that really coming from? And I did talk about it in terms of a um like societal point of view. Is that a lot of times. We're really steeped in this need to, you know. You know. Um um! This sense of urgency, but how so much of it is artificial? I understand that we've got schedules, and we've got deadlines to meet, or we've got, you know. Maybe children that need our attention or or older, You know

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: you know, adults are parents, or whoever who needs things. Or maybe there are those of us who are very impact oriented, and they're you know. I mean, you look at the situation with the climate and the climate crisis, and all of this, and there's so. Yes, there. There are certain situations that are definitely urgent if you are an er doctor or a paramedic. Yes, you've got to get to that. That. That patient to get them to the hospital, you know, to save their lives. So there are certain circumstances we're absolutely.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: The urgency is important, and and and speed it, you know, hurry into to achieve that mission or that goal, or save that person's life. It's really really important. But in a lot of our lives, and especially i'm always talking about your inner life and what's going on inside, Because what's going on inside greatly greatly impact how we perceive what's going on around us, how we deal with it, how we feel within how we feel about ourselves, how we feel towards our

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: And so what happens, though, too, is that we can then internalize that external sense of urgency, and then in patience and hurry up, and we tend to apply it to ourselves. So this is but but, however i'm capable, so this is why the word patient is so important when it comes to us dealing and working with ourselves, and being present with ourselves and processing our emotions being patient, What I found is that when it comes to certain

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: emotional uh, you know, having certain emotional shifts or emotional healing, that actually being impatient with ourselves doesn't work, not only does it not work,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: it makes it worse. Why is that? Because

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: and I've talked about this in terms of the physics of emotion. So why in the past I've talked about when we have an emotion that comes up Oftentimes, you know, there's that unconscious usually. But that reaction of like I don't want to feel this way and trying to push down on it, or push against it, or struggle with it in some form or another. But what happens is that? Does that make the emotion magically disappear? No, in fact, it often makes it worse. It causes that emotion or that feeling of that energy to

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: push back. And why is that this is just a summary of my whole physics of emotion thing?

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: Because it's like Newton's third law. For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. So if we push against that, we're going to get all this resistance, and i'm talking in energetic terms, i'm talking in emotional terms. I understand that certain things need to be resisted against in society, et cetera. I get that. But we're talking internally, and so internally. If you've got that pressure. Then it it's going to make it. It's just going to fight back.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: So when we're in patient with some part of us like. So if you think Of've been patients like? I'm. I'm impatient with this feeling, and I just want to get it out right. What are you doing? You're trying to push it out. What's going to happen? It's going to push back, and you're going to end up in a struggle with yourself, an emotional and energetic struggle inside, and that's just going to make it worse. So trying to hurry our own self work our own in our work trying to speed up the process so that we, you know, get rid of this feeling, or

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: for free of that block, or whatever. In my experience, I found that doesn't work. It makes it worse. Now i'm not saying, don't take responsibility for what's going on inside. I am not saying, don't take certain actions to try to shift those feelings. Of course, I mean that's what my work is about. People come to me because they're struggling with an insecurity, or an inner critic, or you know, wound or something, and they're like. I am so sick and tired of this. I want to be free of this, and I take them to the work and we heal that part of those parts

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: they're struggling with, and so yes. But however you'll find like if you ever work with me as a client. You see. I don't try to rush the process. If anything, I found that it backfires There's no point in me trying to rush that person to a hurry up and to get that result, because it's just going to create resistance there, that part, or they will feel some kind of pressure for me. And then What's the automatic response? Is you it usually to push back. And so that's

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: why, being patient when it comes to our own emotional well being our own inner work when it comes to how we're feeling when it comes to blocks when it comes to triggers, when it comes to things that we're struggling with, or that are causing a stress or pain on the inside, It's really important to be very, very patient

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: with ourselves. So being patient with yourself is really important. But there's another word, and that other word I love to use is Gentile. So some pipes. Some people might also use the work kind, but I really like the word gentle, because it implies that you're being kind, like soft and kind with yourself. Consider why the word gentle is so important, so

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: well, let's just take it from that whole pushing back perspective. Is this a gentle thing? Is this us being gentle with ourselves? No, this is us being hard on ourselves. This is us pushing ourselves or pressuring ourselves. That's not gentle.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: Being gentle means not being hard on yourself. What's the opposite? It's like they hard when you're hard on someone or when you're gentle on someone, right. These are opposites, and a lot of times people will come to me in such states of intense inner struggle or chronic stress, or whatever, because they're being so hard on themselves or part of them is being hard on them. And in their critic right? Those are the those are the ones that tend to be

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: hard on us. Now, where did we learn to be hard on ourselves, Oftentimes from our environment from expectations that were put on us. But then also, sometimes, you know, I've met people who are like No, my parents were really nice to me. I'm learned. I'm the one who's hard on myself. I'm the one who self critical. So, for whatever reason they've got parts inside of them that are being hard on them that are being, you know, extra pressuring or extra, like nitpicky

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: or extra suppressing or oppressive. And so that's where the being hard on. So from that inner critic perspective, Does that work?

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: Does that really work for us to be hard on ourselves? And that's where you sometimes. And this is where it's an interesting moment, because sometimes we do have to step back. And question Is this working? Because what often happens is we often learn whether we're watching other people in the way they treat themselves, or the way they treat us, or they treat other people. We, we so many of us take on the belief that somehow criticizing ourselves as a way to get us to change

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: or being criticized. You know, criticism is somehow a motivation for change, and

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: it can't. I wouldn't say criticism is the thing critiquing

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: or constructive. Feedback might be a better way. Criticism, though, often implies that you're criticizing or judging you're being awful. You're being mean. I don't find that that's actually the most effective at all way of affecting change. If anything, it's a form of control control of self or control of others, but critiquing, obviously having standards and holding people to higher standards and helping them get there and saying, Well, here's where you fell short, this can be very, very helpful.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: But criticism is where there is implied in that

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: that that hardness that um that judgment, that negativity, and so in by contract. So that's being hard on ourselves by contrast. When we're gentle with ourselves. When we apply a soft pressure,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: what happens is a softness? There's a soft response. So if you play a hardness,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: you you're gonna get a hard response somewhere or another. You might have some parts of you that comply with that hardness, and do sort of just try to comply with whatever is coming at them. But then you'll have other parts that will push back, and that's where you're going to keep that struggle so instead, What's the answer? Is it to be hard on ourselves?

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: No, it's to be gentle, soft, and kind, gentle with ourselves, not apply a hard pressure, but a soft,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: just a softness, and a kindness. That is where you can get real effective results, especially when it comes to in your work. So i'm always talking in terms of what works. I am not interested in just doing something because it's nice. Now i'm like what works this is what works being patient and gentle with ourselves. Now, if you're like me, you probably have a part of you that wants to push back against that. No, we've got to hurry this up. We've got to,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: and in that case, then be patient and gentle with that part and say, okay, and notice it as I've talked about in many times like, Listen to it, turn towards it, understand it, figure out where it's coming from, because it may be coming from that old approach. That's all about. No, you've got to hurry this up. We've got all these fears. We've got all these stresses. We've got all these things we've got to do. But again,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: is it? Does it actually work for you to then be hard on yourself to put pressure on yourself and to just okay and go with what that part is telling you to do. That's just so fast or hard driving, or whatever it is. So again, That's where you might notice that when you're saying well, I want to be patient and gentle with myself. You might notice that there are parts of you that push back against that. They are like. No, no, no;

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: but in that case it's probably because they're carrying a lot of fear, and because they think that there's some kind of better results Going to come from something better is going to result from hurrying this up, or you know, pushing this forward, and i'm not going to say. You know there may be times when yes, that can be the approach, the best approach. But I would say as a whole in general in our lives. In my experience that is not the most effective approach. If you want to live a life

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: that is feels good and joyful and free and good for you. That's not driven by stress and fear, because when we let those stressed out fearful pressuring whatever parts of us prevail,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: then That's how we'll tend to live our lives. And for my experience that is not a recipe for joy that is not a recipe for peace. So in my experience, the recipe for peace, or or a big part of

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: a big reminder that we should have, or at least I know it works for me. Okay is, Be patient and gentle with yourself. Don't. Try to push this too hard. Don't. Try to get some inner. Shift faster. Then it's ready to to that it's ready for.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: Sometimes there are parts of us that need that patients. They need that gentleness. In fact, most of the time. That's what those parts need from us. They need us to be kind and soft and gentle with them, and by doing that we're being that way with ourselves. So I have a few questions to consider.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: Does our world, when it comes to patient? Does our world need to speed up? Is that really what our in the world needs for us to speed up and get faster.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: I mean, this is where we're talking about in terms of how we treat ourselves and how it affects the world. Does it really need us to speed up, you know,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: for all needs to slow down? That's what our world needs. Does our world need to be harder and cooler

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: in other words, less gentle. No,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: her world needs to be more kind and gentle. Would you agree? We need a kinder and gentler and softer world. It's good for all.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: So question to ask yourself, How am I serving the world by being impatient with and hard on myself? How does it serve the world for me to treat myself this way? Does it serve the world?

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: How does it actually impact how I show up for others? And the difference that I make? Does it make it better,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: or in the long term? Does it make it worse? Something to consider,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: and also a final question: How am I serving myself

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: by being impatient with and hard on myself? How am I really serving myself? How does that really serve me

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: to treat myself that way. Another way of asking this is, Does it work? Is it working?

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: I would argue that it's probably not that maybe in the moment it gets you more motivated, maybe,

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: but long term it can really lead to burnout and way too much stress and inner struggle. Then it's really worth.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: So those are just some things to consider. Consider. What is it doing to me, my being hard and in page on an impatient with myself? And what if, what if rather than being impatient and hard on myself or on yourself. What if you were to be patient and gentle

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: with yourself? What if you were to take a different approach. The other one isn't working. What if you were to try a different approach?

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: See what happens? All right. So that's what I got for you today. I hope it was helpful, as always. I'm. Emily Eldredge. I'm a ChangeLight dot world. Please do check us out. We have some big announcements coming. We have some big releases coming launch.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: I won't tell you the specifics yet, because we haven't officially announced it yet. But just no, just you know. Wait for it. Uh, follow us on Instagram. Follow us on Facebook ChangeLight that world. Look for us all right. And with that I hope this has been helpful. Be patient and gentle with your

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: and gentle.

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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight: See how notice, even just saying, it makes me relax, patient, and gentle with yourself, and let me know how it goes. You can always email me all right. I will see.


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