I am ME - The Yin and Yang through the ages

~ Episode with transcript ~

Tune in as I discuss it all as it applies to kids, teens, and adults!  

The LAW OF POLARITY - POWER OF OUR WORDS - YIN and YANG for HARMONY WITHIN 

• The "secret" of using words and our own language to foster, maintain, and establish harmony from within.  
• To turn any deficit into an asset
• To diminish non - serving fear-based thoughts.
• To decrease anxiety.
• To use our language to set our best intentions for ourselves.
• To foster positive / self-serving attributes. 

👉 There is an ART and a SCIENCE to the PROCESS.  Skills that can be taught starting at 3 years of age and is ongoing for a LIFE SPAN. 👈

Transcript

0:27

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Concurrency Corner, where the heart, brain, and body align to live in harmony with ourselves. I'm your host, Chandra. As a lifelong teacher in my field of expertise and as a lifelong student, I teach what I learn and I practice what I teach. This is episode number 10, I Am Me, the Yang and the Yang Through the Ages. So, I had originally planned to do this episode on the early school years, following suit, having done the last episode on the preschool years. However, I feel like this one is a good episode as a segue as it has to do with all the developmental milestones that one goes through from birth to death. In regard to that, this episode has a lot to do with how we speak to ourselves, how we formulate our own self talk, and how the words that we use. When we speak to ourselves, and when we speak to others, really has an impact on establishing, establishing, fostering, and maintaining that harmony within, and harmony with others in our circles. So, there are two main parts to this episode. One is how we can use our words to our best advantage, how to truly set attributes and intentions within. There is a secret that I'm going to share in this episode of how to really use our words for setting our best intentions, for setting our best attributes that we believe about ourselves, and we want to believe about ourselves in order to continue to grow as individuals. And to use those words to restore harmony within. And to have that harmony within in order to overcome any fears that may be holding one back. No matter what the age is. This is a skill that can be taught starting at the age of three. And this is really the golden ticket to learning self talk. to fostering that self talk and modeling that self talk. Number two part of this episode is the yin and the yang of our being and what that actually means in regard to fostering, restoring, and continuing harmony from within and between people in our own relationships, in our own circles. And the yin and the yang is really about restoring and promoting that balance. And it's not an equal balance, always, but it's promoting that self awareness to be able to restore balance when it may be needed. So first, let's break the I and me down. Who out there has heard of the poem, I Am Me? There are various different variations of this poem, but what it's really referring to is I am me. I am the me that I'm becoming. I am the me that I want to be. And it's identifying the I am the me as in who I truly am at my essence. The whole purpose and the intent of the poem, when broken down, is saying I am becoming. I, if you break down the English language, is identifying the person, the individual. And as we learn in grade school, Early on in our education, I, the first person speaking or writing, is the pronoun. The pronoun in the first person singular pronoun, and as I, as the smallest word in the English language, aside from uh, I is the most powerful word in the English language. I is one of the most affirmative words. If you think of Martin Luther King's speech, I have a dream. When he first said that line, I have a dream. People stopped to listen, because everyone wanted to hear what he had to say. In any public speaking course I've had in my life, which I've had plenty in undergrad and graduate school and then even beyond, I is always the first thing that I was always taught to start with, as far as, you know, I feel this, or I think this, and segue that into whatever I'm speaking about. And it immediately captures the audience, because they want to hear what you're saying, because it's a very powerful word. For instance, there's been many times where I've worked with kids and teens, and I've heard them say, I can't do this. Or, I'm going to mess this up. Or, I am not a very lovable person. And when you say those words, the body, the brain, and the heart, and the rest of the body, is listening, and it almost becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Because, guess what, when you tell yourselves, I can't do this, I'm going to mess up, chances are, that's going to happen. And the person is going to be less likely to be able to carry through with whatever they're doing and to overcome any obstacles or fears because they're already diminishing their self confidence going into it. Then, if you look at the word me, in the English language, me is the speaker used to refer to himself or herself as the first person singular pronoun as well. So if you look at me as in the statement I am me, me is what the person is identifying as, who they are at that core, who they are becoming, who they believe they are. So if you replace I am me with I am whatever it is that the person wants to work on or be better at or succeed at, they are going to do that. So at this point, you may be wondering where I'm going with this. Bear with me. The I am me statement and how we use the I am me statements in our lives and how we teach children to use this statement in their lives has some pretty cool implications on how it can benefit them. So I have worked with countless teens, kids, adults, in my career of 20 plus years of experience. And I have done my own reflections through the course of my life. As a little segue, I will say one of the best things I have done through all of my trainings is to be on the other side of what I teach and to help others. In that process, I have continued to grow, continued to shape my own language. And I can't even begin to tell you how many ways I have grown through my life, through those self reflective processes. Not always easy, but certainly life changing. So to teach is to do, and to do is to teach. To do that is to truly believe what you're selling, right? And I'm talking about this because it works. It's something that I use with my own children. I use in my own life. I've used with countless others. So when I've worked with kids and all the training that I've received, there's always one thing that is a catalyst for any of the behaviors, for any of the symptoms, for any of the anxiety related things that are going on in the person, for any of the emotional dysregulations. For any of the self sabotaging behaviors that one may be involved in. For any of the addictive behaviors that one may exhibit. Always a fear at the root that acts as a catalyst. And fear can be on any spectrum. It can be minor to moderate. It can be to the point where it's really interfering with one's life. There are many different levels. However, I've said this in previous episodes, and I'm going to say this again, because it is so vitally important. We innately only have two fears that we are actually born with. Do you know what they are? The fear of loud noises and the fear of falling from high heights. Those fears are instinctual in us for a reason. Back to our ancestors, we had to be aware of Things sneaking up on us and had to be aware of high heights and not falling off a cliff or anywhere else, especially if they were sleeping on ledges of mountains. Every other fear that anybody has is deep rooted as part of a core belief that is derived from family upbringing, from nurture. from societal parameters, expectations, um, religion, whatever it might be. The only fears that we really have are the ones that I named. All the others are there because we fed them. Because they were instilled in us at some point, somehow, some way. And we fed that fear with our own rationalization of The thoughts that go into feeding that fear. And the more you feed that fear, the more intense that fear can be. And the more that fear can keep anyone from living the life that they feel that they want to live. Or from doing things that they may enjoy. That fear can get in the way of taking chances from, you know. Simple as making new friends or, you know, changing jobs, whatever it might be. It could be a fear of failing, a fear of disappointing others, a fear of being alone, a fear of loving and getting hurt, a fear of being loved, a fear of abandonment. Whatever the fear is, it is there for a reason. It was formed to protect the person at one point in their life. Or it was there for motivation. Whatever the reason may be, at some point in a person's life, it may no longer be needed as a part of their being, as a part of their core belief. And so shedding those fears and to understand what is really at the root cause of People's behavior or keeping them from doing certain things in their life or from someone who has anxiety. I see that a lot with children. Children who have anxiety or emotional dysregulation or even outbursts that look like anger from a behavioral perspective. A lot of times there is a deep rooted fear that is driving a lot of the anxiety or emotional dysregulation. or any of the anger. Once someone is able to reflect and really get at the deep root cause of the fear that may be driving some of whatever's going on in a person's life, to be able to reflect, understand that fear, and then to be able to shed and release this or any constructed fear during childhood is going to alleviate any of the anxiety, any of the angst one may feel, and break free from any of the constraints that they may place on themselves or that may be causing them some discomfort or anxiety in their life. And I do guarantee that when somebody does go through this and is aware of their driving fears and works through what I'm going to speak about in a minute, It provides a sense of harmony within, and a sense of peace, and a sense of contentment. Because they are becoming more of their true self. So I am me, as in I am becoming me. So moving on, I'm going to give you an example of four different fears that I had in my life at one point. that I became aware of, and did something about in changing the way that I speak to myself about those fears, and changing my thought process in regard to those fears. So, the four were, failing, public speaking, but when you actually got down and dug a little deeper to the public speaking, it was really about feeling embarrassed. The other one, third, was being hurt. I was really good at, It was keeping people at a distance and not feeling too deeply because I was afraid that I would be hurt by their actions or the relationship ending or whatever it might be. The fourth one was Being vulnerable, and when you actually look at that one, it means that I kept people sometimes at a distance, and I was a little closed off at one point in my life, and so the opposite of that really is to be open. And the opposite of hurt is to heal. The opposite of feeling embarrassed is to believe that you are confident, and to have confidence. And the opposite of failing is strength. So when you look at the synonyms of all of these fear based words, and then you look at the antonym, and you go with the opposite. So first you identify the fear, right? Whatever that might be that's driving behaviors or not wanting to do something. Then you look at the opposite of that fear. Because the opposite of that fear is the way to overcome that fear and to be less like that fear and to not feed that fear with your thoughts that are continuing to develop and maintain that core belief of that fear. So when you actually say the opposite, as in failing, If I have the fear of failing, and then you say, I am strength. So you replace the word me with whatever the opposite of your fear is. So I am strength, I am confidence, which is the opposite of embarrassed. I am healing, which is the opposite of hurt. And I am open, which is the opposite of closed or keeping people at a distance, which was really the truest nature of why I had a fear of being completely vulnerable. And so with all those, I'm not going to go into the great reasons why I had taken on some of those fears because there is a very valid reason due to nurture and upbringing and different things in my life that And yeah, at one point I was emotionally hurt, and so I started to build up those defenses. And the more that I fed that fear in order to protect myself with my own thoughts to protect myself, the more I fed that fear, the more that fear grew within me. And then that fear, those fears, all became part of my core belief system. Until I recognized what the fears were, until I understood why I had them, how they became the fears that they became, and then how to speak to myself using attributes in the way that best serve us all, and that is by using the I am me statements. And I guarantee this works with Everybody. You can start this as young as three years old. If a child is afraid or is exhibiting some anxiety relating to school. Getting at the root of what that fear actually is. It might not be a fear of school. But it might be a fear of something that is happening in school, as far as a fear of saying the wrong thing, a fear of getting yelled at by the teacher, a fear of talking to somebody new. Whatever that fear is, finding out what that fear is, what's driving any of their behaviors, and then replacing that fear with the opposites and teaching them to say, I am. Whatever that opposite is, in those moments before they're going to school, in those moments when they are feeling fearful, and over time, that is how those thoughts, those fear based thoughts, become challenged to prevent them from becoming core beliefs. As adults, we have fed any number one of our fears over time. And, you know, on LinkedIn, I see it all the time, people talking about change and being vulnerable and I think these are all fantastic messages, but when you get down to the root of it, it's not just always about welcoming all those things, but it's really about looking inward and looking at what is stopping a person from making changes, what is preventing a Living their truest life in harmony. What is preventing a person from doing the things that maybe might help them with their career, their personal life, or whatever it may be. And it's really getting at that root and really learning how to adjust. How to challenge those thoughts by replacing them with the opposite of whatever our fear may be. So, how does this work? This is all based on the law of polarity, which is one of the universal laws. So, the law of polarity is that everything has an opposite. You cannot know black without knowing white. You cannot know love without knowing hate. You cannot know cold without experiencing hot. And it's on a polarity spectrum between opposites. And our brain, our body, our heart You can't know complete bliss unless you know complete sadness. You cannot know whatever that level is for you because all of us have a different level of hate, a level of love, a level of bliss, a level of joy, whatever that is. It's all subjective to the person. However, there's a reason we have opposites. There's a reason we have synonyms. And we are taught those things in grade school in the English language. It goes beyond just understanding the parts of the sentence and being able to underline the correct parts in grade school and get a grade on it. The deeper part of it is, is because that is how our brain works. In order to know what your fears are, you must know what the opposite is. And if you want to overcome that fear, then you feed the thoughts. of that opposite fear that are going to help you propel to the next level, to overcoming that fear, to really raising your own internal polarity with any of the feelings and the thoughts that you want to feed yourself. To establish your own core beliefs that are better serving and more positive rather than sabotaging or keeping a person from doing the things that may feel more congruent in their life and may help them live in more harmony. This then brings me to the second part of this episode which is the yin and the yang of our being and what that means in fostering, restoring, and continuing harmony from within between ourselves, the relationship with ourselves. and relationship with others. So, just a real quick snippet of some history. The Yang and the Yang principle dates back to the 3rd century BCE or even earlier. So the yin and the yang is a fundamental concept in Chinese philosophy, medicine, and culture. As the yin and the yang is the black and the white circle symbol illustrates, each side has at its core an element of the other. Neither side is superior on the other end, as an increase in one brings a corresponding decrease in the other. A correct balance between the two poles must be reached in order to achieve harmony. So what does that really mean? It means that one side of whatever is going on, whatever side of that polarity is within an individual, in order to balance out the deficit, or the obstacle, or whatever. Whatever the symptom of the behavior may be, is to adjust and balance out the other side in order to have a yin and a yang harmony within the two polarities. And it doesn't mean there's always going to be a perfect balance, but it is recognizing what is maybe off and how to offset that. So if we think about the human body. The human body is always trying to re harmonize. The human body always wants to be at a homeostatic level. Think of just a pure example of when someone has an illness and they run a fever. A person runs a fever and a temperature because the body is trying to rebalance and to achieve homeostasis. It's trying to rebalance the yin and the yang within. That is on a physiological level, it goes into the emotional and the mental level as well. So when a person is experiencing anxiety for whatever reason, understanding what the fear that is driving that anxiety. And then to understand how to balance out that fear to help and better serve the person to formulate their own positive core beliefs. To explain this in the most simplistic way because there is so much on the ying and the yang and what that truly means with an individual, what that truly means. In the universal aspect of a person and their being and how they fit into the world. When we look at the yang and the yang to summarize, we really are just looking at how it's that harmony within, and you hear people throw around the words, it's the yang and yang of life, or it's the yang and yang of a relationship. And to truly define that, it is what provides that feeling of pure harmony. As if you are living in congruence between the heart, the mind, and the body in all aspects of your life. And that is mentally, emotionally, physically, intimately, intellectually, spiritually, whatever all those things mean to the individual. But it also comes down to relationships. The first relationship we have with anybody is ourselves. And to have that first relationship with ourselves being built and fostered on a way that we understand how to harmonize our own feelings, how to harmonize our own wants and desires, and how we fit into the world to be best served in a positive way, and then to look at the relationships that we form with others, the harmony within those other people will happen. Those other people will come into people's lives when they are supposed to because of the harmony that they are feeling within and the harmony that they are projecting to the outside world. And when you look at relationship psychology, which is something that I studied for quite a while also when I was in graduate school and did some research projects on it, there's a reason why people who have more of a narcissistic personality may. end up with or be attracted to those who have more of a people pleasing tendency or persona or are more codependent. Because the person who has more narcissistic personality is looking for what they are lacking. And the person who is more of a people pleaser and has some of those attributes of being codependent is looking for something they are lacking to balance that out. And as those two people grow in different ways, typically it's the one who's more codependent than the one who has some of the narcissistic attributes, although it can happen that way. But the two people are attracted to each other from the beginning because the body, the brain, and the heart knows that it wants to balance out and reach that homeostatic harmony. So it uses those two people to do so. However, when a person is understanding themselves and understanding their own inadequacies or fears or whatever might be driving any of their behaviors, then that person is able to reestablish their own harmony from within, and that's when the personal growth happens. And so, as we go through all of our developmental stages in life, from birth until the day we are no longer here on this planet, we are going through constant changes and constant evolvements, and it's a constant process of reflecting and understanding. What those fears may be and what those fears may have been fed with our own thoughts to become part of our core beliefs over time. So to summarize that concept, when we are able to honestly look at our fears, what's driving our behaviors, and when we are able to use the I am me concept to balance out the harmony within and to have our own homeostatic level within emotionally, mentally, and intellectually, and all the other things that I had named previously, people are less likely to have to be with somebody in order to fill the yin and yang gap that they may be lacking from within themselves. So instead, when a person has that complete harmony within, and they themselves have that yin and yang balance within, then to be with another individual, a friend, romantic partner, whatever it is, who has That Yang and Yang also in balance, so they are two complete, balanced people coming together. And therefore, that also makes for a healthy relationship, whether it's a healthy relationship between friends, between peers, between romantic partners, whatever the relationship may be. And to go back to what I had stated earlier, the first relationship that we ever truly have. as young, young children, infants even, toddlers, is the relationship with ourselves. So when we are able to harmonize and balance that relationship with ourselves and to have that yin and the yang, then comes the relationship with others. And to find the relationships with others, that they also have the yin and yang and the balance. And they're two balanced people coming together for a very healthy relationship. It's, you know, from a kid's perspective, it may be even why one child who is more of a rule follower and afraid to step outside the lines or break any rules may be attracted to somebody who is more willing to step outside the lines and to break the rules. And so they work, right? One is getting something from the other and the other is getting something from the other. So they are. Innately subconsciously balancing out that yin and yang and that harmony between themselves. However, when we go back to the IME statements, when they recognize any of the fears that they have, you know, it could be fomo, a fear of missing out, you know, for one person, a fear of breaking rules, a fear of failing. Whatever that little fear is that can grow within a person over time, understanding what that fear is, understanding how to balance that out with the yin and the yang within, and understanding the opposite of that fear. And using the I am blank, whatever that opposite of the fear is that the person wants to be of. As I mentioned earlier about the developmental stages that one goes through life, there are actually seven that are pretty influential. One is infancy. Two, early childhood. Three, middle childhood. Four, adolescence. Five, early adulthood. Six, middle adulthood. And seven, old age. So, if you think about all the different developmental milestones that one goes through in life, not just cognitively, but also mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, intellectually, whatever, The person is going through, there are all of these different chunks of stages. And during all of these stages, we are all going through different transitions in our life. Everyone is. And when we are transitioning through those stages. of life, we are also growing, we are evolving, we are moving forward, not just in physical growth, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually. And so as we're going through life and having those reflective moments of really what's going on and if we have any fear based things, and I'm speaking about this because anxiety is through the roof as far as being diagnosed in individuals, but is it really major deficits or is there a way to turn some of those fear based things that are driving any anxiety like behavior into assets, and the way to turn those into assets is by understanding the fear, understanding the thoughts, the cognitions, and the core beliefs that may be fed into assets. The underlying fear based thoughts over time and challenging those with the I am me statements in order to understand and learn how to speak to ourselves in a better way through all of the developmental stages, how to use those words and use our own self thoughts and core beliefs to Be the change that we want to see, to understand and to know that we internally really have the power, everybody does, from the age of young childhood into adulthood, to be the catalyst for what we want for our life at every moment, and that we, as people, as humans, are completely capable of Controlling and influencing our own thoughts, our own feelings, and establishing our own yin and yang from within to be in harmony and to be in congruence between our heart, our mind, and our body. This is all a really brief snippet of part of my program that I helped Children, teens, young adults, and parents go through in order to turn any of their deficits into assets and to understand what any of their fears may be that are holding them back from certain things in one's life. I'm going to leave you with a quote, I am the I of my being as me is the becoming of my being as is. We are the yin. and the yang to the art and the science of the process. No person, no place, and no thing has any power over us, for we are the only thinkers in our mind. When we create peace and harmony and balance in our minds and within in all aspects of our life, we will find it in our lives to be in true harmony With ourselves, and with those in our circles. I thank you so very much for tuning in. Please share this with anyone you know who may be able to benefit from hearing this episode. And please join me next time as we continue this journey together. Have a wonderful day. Until next time.