Dr. Gail Brenner

Sacred Space for Awakened Living

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9 Loving Ways to Be Free of Inadequacy

inadequacy“Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now.”
~Eckhart Tolle

For some compelling reason, many human minds are inclined to think negatively. And the target of those negative thoughts is often ourselves.

We’re fearful of what might happen if we stretch into the fullness of our life path. We believe we’re broken, damaged, and inadequate. We live in the pain of unworthiness.

These thought patterns hang like a dark cloud, distracting us from joy, well being, and the brilliance of our infinite potential.

The Core of the Problem of Inadequacy

Our modern culture tells us that these thoughts mean we don’t love ourselves, and the fix is to love ourselves more. But how do we actually accomplish that?

We’re encouraged to repeat affirmations, change our thoughts, and remind ourselves of our accomplishments. It’s wonderful if these strategies work, but often they don’t. They might give relief for a while, but they don’t sustain the sense of optimism and trust we all deserve.

Why? Because they don’t get to the core of the problem, which is that we identify with these self-defeating thoughts. We believe that they’re true—when they’re not, and we think that they tell us the facts about who we are—when these thoughts can’t begin to describe our magnificence.

9 Loving Ways

This identity of lack and inadequacy needs to be addressed head-on. Here are nine ways to do just that. Why would we go on believing a false identity when the truth of ourselves, which is so freeing, is right here to be realized and lived?

1. Form a friendly relationship with your thoughts.

Do the thoughts say, “I’m a loser, I’ll fail, I’m unlovable?” See how they limit you. When self-defeating thoughts appear, take a breath and say hello. Once you recognize them, be empowered to make the choice to live fully and not according to the limits they impose on you.

2. Be clear about what you really want.

Remember that what you pay attention to is what grows. Once you become aware that you’ve been in the grip of self-critical thoughts, you’re now able to choose where to put your attention. You can keep feeding the negative content of these thoughts, or try any of these supportive options in the moment.

  • Breathe deeply and track the movements of the inhale and the exhale.
  • Be still and meet your inner experiences with love and understanding—instead of believing them.
  • Ask: How does life want to move me? How am I called to serve peace and happiness?
  • Go do something that brings you joy and delight.

3. Be super willing to let go.

Letting go of the identity of unworthiness is like saying goodbye to a friendship that you know has reached its end. It might take some time, but be very willing to feel open in your mind and body, make space for new ways of being in the world, and see people and situations through the eyes of caring and not fear and need.

4. Know the truth.

Not one inadequate thought can possibly describe who you are. These beliefs are false descriptions that the mind comes up with, but who is the “you” they’re describing? You, who you really are, are way too glorious to be defined by any thought. You are unlimited, whole, free, and infinitely loving. And something in you has a sneaking suspicion that this is the truth. Know and live this truth. The world is waiting for you.

5. Don’t let your feelings guide you.

If you believe you’re unworthy, you’re bound to feel hurt, disappointed, and sad. As you probably know, these feelings pull you in and drag you down. Instead of following them, establish yourself in the intention to move beyond limitation. Stand up and feel your feet on the ground. Take a couple of breaths into your belly. Feel confident in your body as you take a few steps. Go out there and live the totality of what is true for you.

6. Be harmonious within yourself.

Believing the identity of feeling damaged or inadequate separates you from your own experience. Rejecting the feelings that arise within only strengthens self-hate. End the fight by being so very kind toward your own thoughts and feelings. Just welcome them from a place of friendly neutrality as if they were clouds floating in the sky. No charge, no drama. This is the most loving way to be with yourself.

 7. Be here now—and not locked into the past.

Sometimes negative self-identities form because we internalize how people treated us when we were young. If you leave your mind unchecked, it will keep repeating this painful story forever.

Shift your attention away from  the mind and step fully into presence, the aliveness of your being that has never been touched by brokenness or insecurity. Breathe in the aliveness, as this is the true medicine for the division and negativity you feel. Over and over, choose presence and not your thoughts—in the name of freedom, happiness, and love.

8. Act as if.

Take one situation or interaction, and approach it as if you felt whole, confident, and enthusiastic. How does it feel in your body? What thoughts would you be thinking? Embody this intelligent way of being in your own direct experience.

9. Rinse and repeat.

Don’t plan on eliminating all thoughts of unworthiness. Instead, commit to meeting them with loving presence. Notice them, acknowledge them, then turn away from them while you stay rooted in the fullness of unlimited potential. Do this every time the thoughts arise, and eventually they will soften.

What About You?

Have you found freedom from inadequacy? Still working on it? Do you live your true magnificence? I’d love to hear… And if you’re reading by email, please click here to visit GailBrenner.com and to comment.

New videos: I’m happy to share two new video interviews. I had lovely conversations with Grace Bubeck and Evita Ochel. Please enjoy!

Always in love,
Gail

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The Must-Do Way to Heal from the Pain of Inadequacy

heal_inadequacy“Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make.”
~Eckhart Tolle

The problem of inadequacy is rampant in our society. Call it low self-esteem, need for approval, or the disease to please—if you believe that you are your conditioned habits, you’ll live with the sense that something’s missing.

The messages about lack are everywhere. Just watch ten minutes of commercials on TV. You’ll be told you aren’t young enough or thin enough, or that you don’t have the car or even cleaning product you need to be happy. We live in a culture of non-acceptance, which is supported by what many of us learn from our families of origin.

We’re taught that we’re not good enough, that we need exactly what we don’t have. It’s a legacy of lack.

The Pain Is Personal

Of course, this sense of lack seeps into our personal psyches. It might appear like this:

  • Living steeped in thoughts about what you should do or be to be acceptable and complete;
  • Needing others’ approval to feel okay about yourself;
  • Constant self-criticism;
  • Feeling that there must be something more to life;
  • Compulsive behavior that tries to fill your emotional void.

It’s like the bucket is always leaking. You rarely feel full, relaxed, and at ease.

Lack and desire are at the root of unhappiness. And feelings of personal inadequacy keep you searching, struggling to fulfill your needs and desires.

In Buddhism, it’s called the hungry ghost— that gnawing hunger to seek what you think you’re missing but which can never really satisfy.

You Are Already Whole

The invitation I’m offering to you here, right now, is to stop living in the false identity of “not enough,” to stop searching to get what you think you need in order to finally be adequate.

Instead, turn your into into the core of inadequacy to find out if it’s true. (Hint: It’s not.) Realize the possibility that, outside of the sad stories and hopeless feelings, the truth has always been here, waiting to be discovered.

You have always been all that you were looking for.

You are whole and complete, more than enough, full and overflowing—just as you are. You can wake up from the dream of personal lack, which is precisely the healing you’ve been looking for.

The Path to Heal from the Pain of Inadequacy

How to do that? Don’t believe the thoughts that try to convince you that you’re inadequate. Question these thoughts, and they’ll start to lose their power.

  • You observe them rather than believe them.
  • You realize you don’t have to take them as true.

When you stop and question your thoughts, you’ve put on the brakes to this painful habit. And that changes everything.

You realize that these thoughts appear, but they are not who you are.

Beautiful You

And who are you? Naturally kind and open-hearted…pristine…unaffected by anything that might have happened to you.

We’ve all heard the saying that you can see the glass as half empty or half full. I say, don’t just see the glass as half full.

Stop trying to fix what’s not actually broken in you and realize that your glass is already completely full and overflowing. Recognize that your fulfillment is already here, available right now, then go out there and enjoy your life.

Are you troubled by inadequacy? Have you found the way to heal from it? I’d love to hear…And if you’re reading by email, please click here to visit GailBrenner.com and to comment.

You may have noticed that there was a problem with posting comments on the site for the past few weeks, but this is now fixed. Feel free to stop by. I’d love to hear about your challenges and insights!

Always in love,
Gail

PS: This post is inspired by Chapter 7 of my book, The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life. To purchase the book for yourself or a friend, please click here.

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10 Uplifting Questions That Can Set You Free

10-uplifting-questionsNote: I’m happy to let you know that I’m going to be interviewed on a radio show today, and you can call in to ask questions. I’d love to hear from you! I’ll be on The Self-Improvement Radio Show with Irene Conlan on Thursday, April 30 at 1:00 PM Pacific time. Please click here for all the details.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves… Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

Speaking of interviews, there was a time when all I wanted was to know the answers. If someone asked me a question, my mind would get right on it, working hard to find just the right response. I wanted to know and get it right.

But now, I’m much more fascinated by questions than answers. I love to swim in not knowing, to float in the space that allows answers to arise. I don’t need to know, and I’m happy to tell my busy mind that it’s okay to be at ease.

Want to try it out? Take a breath, and let any of these questions flow into your consciousness—now and whenever you feel stuck. Your only job is to be receptive, curious, and open.

10 Uplifting Questions

1. What is most alive in me right now?

2. What is life asking of me?

3. What can I surrender right now that isn’t serving?

4. What false beliefs am I taking to be true?

5. Can I say “Yes!” to what’s happening in this moment?

6. What am I avoiding that is asking for my attention?

7. Can I welcome what’s happening in my body right now?

8. Can I stop, breathe, and simply be aware?

9. Who or what am I?

10. Can I open to what is present right now?

I’d love to hear what you discover. If you’re reading by email, please click here to visit GailBrenner.com and to comment.

And if you’re enjoying The End of Self-Help, feel free to write a review on Amazon. It helps others to know more about the book. Just scroll down to the end of the reviews and click on “write a customer review.”

Always in love,

Gail

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This Is Your Moment

your-moment
“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
~William Blake

The desire for freedom from our personal suffering appears by grace. Who knows how we end up on the spiritual path?

We get tired of things being so-so, or worse. We know there must be another way. And we get intensely interested in the possibility of moving beyond our habits to know the deepest peace and to live it.

I am so moved by each of you reading this and your clear intention to be free. So maybe you have the same question that frequently enters my inbox and gets posted on my facebook page. It goes something like this:

  • But I’m still attached…
  • I do what you suggest, but it’s not working…
  • The memories keep coming, and I’m still sad…
  • How do I let go?
  • I’m still suffering. How can I be free?

And here’s my answer: the solution lies in the moment. It’s only in this moment when you’re suffering, and only in this moment when you can find your way to peace.

Your Only Goal Is Peace Now

If think you’re going to get rid of any of your experiences, if you think your challenges will go away forever, think again. No matter how deeply you know that your essence is love and that you are one with everything, in the course of ordinary life, emotional reactions, stories, and distorted ways of seeing the world will arise. It happens to me all the time.

These experiences are conditioned, and you can’t control the fact that they appear. But, in any moment, you can control what you do with them.

You can continue doing what you’ve always done that perpetuates your problems: trust your thoughts, feed them with your attention, think and talk about what’s wrong, give importance to your feelings, act out your conditioned tendencies.

Or you can take the path of truth and freedom. In any given moment:

  • Welcome the fact that stories are present—but don’t feed their content with your attention.
  • Receive every feeling—and feel how it’s expressed in your body rather than getting caught in the drama.
  • Feel the urges that pull you to engage in self-defeating behaviors—but don’t act on them.

This is what’s so amazing. You can be at peace with your experience by welcoming it, but it doesn’t have to control you.

Every Time Is a Golden Opportunity—Your Moment

An opportunity is defined as a “lucky chance” or a “favorable circumstance.” Instead of being frustrated when you find yourself caught again in the grip of conditioned reactions, or thinking you’ve done it wrong or failed, take that moment as an opportunity.

It’s a lucky chance you’ve been given to find your way to peace, a favorable circumstance that invites you to return home to the truth of you that is always fresh, whole, and at ease.

It doesn’t matter how many times you get stuck—each one is an opportunity to clear the veils and illuminate your true essence.

Next time and every time you find yourself entangled by problems, say, “Thank you” for the gift you’ve been offered. Then don’t touch the problem with your attention. Lose interest in it—it’s not serving you anyway, is it? Immediately, you’ll find yourself: innocent, undisturbed, and so incredibly alive. Every time.

What About You?

Are problems bothering you? Can you take the opportunity in the moment to untangle the feelings and stories? I’d love to hear… And if you’re reading by email, please click here to comment.

Always in love,

Gail

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A Practical Guide to a Spiritually Connected Life

spiritually connected“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~Albert Einstein

There is always a way out of your personal suffering. Always. In any moment, you can stop, investigate your experience to see what’s false and what’s true, and live the truth that you are. This is what’s always available to you.

We’re experts at living the lies that we tell ourselves―that we’re limited and inadequate, that we need a relationship to be happy, that our judgments of ourselves and others are true.

But what about living the truth? Do you need to wait for divine intervention to live fully? Are happiness and joy not in the cards for you?

Your true nature, who you really are, is infinitely loving, overflowing with possibility, impossible to contain. You are the brilliance that lights up everything.

  • Do you melt when you hold a baby? It’s not the baby; it’s the transparency of love that’s so incredibly sweet.
  • Are you in awe of a beautiful sunset (like the ones we’ve been having in Santa Barbara lately)? It’s not the sunset; the beauty that is naturally you is right here to be seen in the outside world, with no separation.

I was in Starbuck’s this morning with tears in my eyes at the kindness all around me. It was the one heart seen everywhere.

For most of us, this awareness of the truth of things is hidden. We get distracted by our worries and dramas. We’re stuck chewing on thoughts in our minds, while we’re missing the full-on, juicy humanity and presence of the moment.

So here are some reminders. Living the truth of the way things really are, the way of happiness and peace, is not “spiritual.” It’s practical, tangible, and available to you right now. Align yourself with the essence of life with these heartfelt practices for a spiritually connected life.

Have no personal agenda

If you have an axe to grind, if you’re waiting for your needs to be fulfilled by others, you’re standing squarely in your personal self, and you’re suffering. Rather than pushing your agenda, switch your perspective entirely.

Be humble. Stop the fight with what’s happening and be a welcoming host for whatever appears.

Receive things as they are, as though they were gifts being offered to you, because they are.

For me, my mantra is, “Oh, this.” I’m no longer concerned about what should be happening or how I should be feeling. The reality of the moment is perfection. Who am I to argue with it?

See everything as yourself

In truth, there is only universal consciousness, which means that nothing is separate from anything else. See a tree? The essence of it is the same as the essence of you. Encounter another person? At the source, there aren’t two people, just life unfolding.

If this isn’t known to you in your direct experience, no worries. Just try out some experiments to see what it’s like:

  • Imagine being with a familiar person, deleting any history, then seeing them freshly as yourself.
  • Now take this new perspective into an interaction with them. What do you say or do?
  • How would you walk in the world if everything is you?

If you’re like me, the heart starts overflowing with tenderness and compassion. How can you hurt others when they’re you? This doesn’t mean you don’t intelligently say, “No!” when that’s called for. It makes you even more aware of how suffering moves people and brings clarity about what to do.

Let the one heart be illuminated, and live there.

Befriend the unknown

You can’t know anything beyond what is happening in this present moment. Worried about the future? You’re wasting your time.

We so easily project negative outcomes onto the future―when in truth we know nothing about what’s going to happen. How will that date go? What will that event be like? Really, you have no idea.

When you know that you don’t know, you’re totally receptive to what is. You live in wonder because anything can happen. You’re no longer limited by beliefs you hold about yourself, others, and the world.

Don’t be driven by fear

Fear divides, separates, and gets your mind spinning. Fear can be present in your experience, but you don’t need to listen to its advice. In fact, if you do, you’re out of alignment with the truth of universal consciousness.

There is a natural intelligence to life that guides you perfectly. To access it, you can ask, “What would love do?” or, “What would wisdom do?”

You already know what fear would do. It limits your expression in life and keeps you falsely entangled in confusion. Try out another way―to be aligned with fullness of life that is clear, open, boundless, and wise.

*******************

When you meet life with deep openness and receptivity, it will feel odd at first. After all, you’re stepping outside your self-imposed prison of false beliefs, and you don’t know what it’s like out here in the land of freedom. Let the cells of your body rearrange, be fully in not knowing and openness to what is.

Sure you can suffer, if that’s your choice. But if you’d like to know another way, consciously align your experience with what’s true. You’ll make the amazing discover that the end of suffering is so close, less than a nanosecond away.

Try out these experiments in your own experience. What is it like for you? I’d love to hear… And if you’re reading this by email, please click here to visit GailBrenner.com and to comment.

Always in love,
Gail

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