Ep#062 Why We Need To Develop Self Trust

0 (1s):
Welcome to the Soul Science Nutrition Podcast, where you’ll discover that when it comes to your health, you’re so much more powerful than you’ve been led to believe. And now your host, she’s a holistic nutrition and lifestyle coach, chef author, and Yogi, Christine Okezie.

Christine Okezie (23s):
Hello, and welcome to the Soul Science Nutrition Podcast. I’m Christine Okezie. Thanks so much for listening to today’s special solo episode. I’ve come to know in my coaching work, that one of the biggest obstacles to caring for ourselves is self-trust a lack of faith that we have, what it takes to handle life’s unfolding. Ultimately self-trust is about cultivating a better relationship with ourselves. Self-trust is what gives us the confidence and the energy that we need to grow, evolve our potential and live a soul directed life. It’s the fundamental element you need in order to commit yourself fully full of faith, that you are capable of meeting any challenges on your way.

Christine Okezie (1m 10s):
Self-trust is something I felt compelled to emphasize today because it’s really what’s underneath all the unwanted self-sabotage and our struggles with stress related physical and mental health issues. So what is it that’s hard for us to trust? Well, it’s our emotions, our body, our appetite, our choices, our commitments, but ultimately it’s about our ability to know what’s best for ourselves. These are the things that we find so hard to trust now, a life without self-trust can cause us to feel quite literally weighed down by life because it’s the core of a lot of our suffering.

Christine Okezie (1m 55s):
It breeds self-doubt insecurity. All of which makes us vulnerable to criticism makes us indecisive, or maybe even easily influenced by others. And along these lines, a lack of self-trust is really at the root of people. Pleasing behaviors self-trust is a commitment to being kind and respectful to ourselves in spite of the outcome of our efforts, without it, we become vulnerable to that negative self-talk and debilitating self judgment, a life not grounded in self-trust has us living in the consciousness of regret, feeling like a victim of our circumstances without self-trust there’s a tendency to take everything so personally, and since self-trust keeps us from getting to know and understand ourselves trauma and core wounds go unresolved or unhealed, needless to say, there’s a lot of stress and tension that builds up ourselves from habitually.

Christine Okezie (3m 2s):
Second, guessing ourselves, suppressing our truth, going against our gut feelings over time. This internal stress can result in emotional reactivity, defensiveness anxiety, and of course have negative effects on our physical health as well. A lack of self-trust hinders virtually every aspect of our lives because it keeps us playing small fearful of making mistakes. We miss out on the growth and emotional resilience that comes from learning from our mistakes. Most of all, when we fear rejection, shame or being misunderstood, because we’re afraid of actually living our fully expressed selves.

Christine Okezie (3m 44s):
Well, a lack of self-trust keeps us stuck in an inauthentic life. So where does a lack of self-trust come from it’s early on, early on in those developmental years, we get the message that it’s not okay to be who you are. And we put away parts of ourselves that we perceive are not acceptable out of fear of rejection, a lack of belonging. We learn pretty early on to Don masks to comply as a result of messages that we get that were not good just as we are that we need to prove, achieve, be different. And that it won’t be okay if we mess up.

Christine Okezie (4m 25s):
So our central nervous systems assume a default mode of low level of vigilance in effort to maintain a sense of safety and belonging. Living in a prison of self distrust is often at the root of our tendencies toward anxiousness, difficulty, trusting others, and oftentimes not trusting life itself, because what I’ve known is that often underneath the belief that the world is untrustworthy or life is untrustworthy is the deeper core belief that I don’t trust myself to handle it. There is an experience sometimes more obvious, sometimes more subtle that develops a form of inner alienation.

Christine Okezie (5m 12s):
What do I mean by this? I’ve come to know that we lose this connection with a knowing a knowing that’s in the core of who we are, that we are pure goodness, that we are have inborn wisdom, pure love, pure magnificence. So how do we heal? How do we rectify this disconnection and heal from the inside out? Well, here are the key strategies that I coach my clients on in order to free up the energy to develop self-trust and not surprisingly, of course, I’m going to state that it begins.

Christine Okezie (5m 53s):
These, all of these strategies are grounded in a willingness to go deep. Yes, we need tools to balance our nervous system, plus a conscious commitment to getting to know the core of who you are. And we do this with the energy of compassionate curiosity, gentle self exploration strategies, where we learn to be friend our emotions and connect with our bodies messaging. It’s a very worthwhile endeavor because when you go deep inside yourself, you discover that there’s actually so much more right than wrong going within becomes this doorway to reset the suffering and the resistance, because ultimately you’re able to connect with a deep knowing of what’s true.

Christine Okezie (6m 45s):
And what really matters this courageous act of going within is a powerful means to build self-trust because it affirms to ourselves that we’re worth our own time and attention, and that’s the game changer. So what can that look like? First strategy is to practice self forgiveness. In other words, forgiving yourself for not knowing back then what you know now allowing yourself to not be so perfect all the time. That means acknowledging our regrets, our remorse, integrating new learnings that come from that. As my Angelou said, when you know better, you do better.

Christine Okezie (7m 27s):
Second strategy embrace the hard stuff. Oftentimes it’s our perception of ourselves and the limitations we’ve created that are really holding us back. It’s part of what I’m come to experience as the, what gets rectified or penetrated with the technology of Kundalini yoga. There are countless Kundalini, yoga, Koreas, and meditation for building self-trust self-reliance self-confidence because it recognizes that there’s this sense of trust is absolutely fundamental to move beyond our self-imposed and deeply embedded internal limitations.

Christine Okezie (8m 9s):
So using body mind and breath, you challenge yourself. You challenge yourself to do difficult things and you push beyond the external situation and thereby access that deeper inner strength. It gives you an experience of letting yourself try things that challenge the limitations you’ve set on yourself. This is the training of the mind. You’ll realize just how strong and competent you really are. That inner strength builds, and it becomes faith, faith that you can learn to rely on yourself. And then trust simply grows and grows with each new experience. You conquer next strategy, tame your inner critic.

Christine Okezie (8m 52s):
Our negative self-talk is one of the biggest impediments to developing self-trust. So we work on becoming curious, curious about that inner critical voice. Where does it come from? What are its intentions? How might I be able to talk to it or stand up to it? How can I weaken its script? And in the process of taming, this inner critic, we shift our relationship to it. This is key somewhat related to this is the other strategy, which is called practicing vulnerable. So we want to be human. We want to have the capacity and be in the practice of being able to take our mask off, being the real self, right?

Christine Okezie (9m 36s):
And that means letting our guard down every once in a while so that we can love, appreciate, and honor that real self. Now, this looks like for example, being transparent with our struggles and our difficulties with friends and families, I mean more than ever, we live in this social media, crazy world. We live in, in a state where we’re encouraged to present this literally airbrushed version of ourselves. So my guidance is we do stuff, try different things that actually rebel against that pressure to be a certain way to be perfect. We can voice our opinion, express a preference, set a boundary, admit we don’t know something. How about asking for help?

Christine Okezie (10m 16s):
Maybe when you just need a sounding board, these are all ways that practicing vulnerability can help us develop that important. Self-trust the next one is I often guide my clients to schedule self appointments and you know, this can take a number of looking like a number of different ways, appointments to read that favorite book appointments, to, you know, take a nap, scheduling exercise, scheduling meal, prep, keeping appointments with yourself helps you demonstrate to yourself that you are important and trustworthy. In fact, for me, and when I encourage my clients to do is to schedule and develop what I call a sadhana.

Christine Okezie (10m 60s):
A sadhana is basically, you know, a set time in the day, preferably early morning, if that works for your lifestyle to sit still with awareness, this can be a practice of meditation, yoga, breathwork, journaling, inspirational reading. I encourage you to find what practice gets you in a meditative self-reflective state doing your sadhana every single day, or at least on a relatively consistent basis will strengthen your ability to commit to things in your life and create a well of deep inner strength that you can draw upon when faced with challenges or difficult tasks. As my Sadhna developed and deepened, I noticed that one of the most amazing benefits of this is I cultivate strong powers of self observation for me, once again, doing my yoga practice every single day, cultivates this beautiful blend of discipline, devotion, and dedication, which in turn gives me the strength to detach from any unhealthy or unhelpful thought patterns.

Christine Okezie (12m 8s):
Now, Assad, that doesn’t need to be fancy or difficult. It simply requires that you pour your whole heart and soul into the practice. The way I see it as what better way to build self-trust than commit to a daily devotional practice of showing up and connecting with your authentic self, moving on set value based goals. So instead of setting goals, especially when it comes to health and wellness setting goals, because it’s something you should do or think is expected of you, let’s be intentional about this diet culture is a perfect example of the way we perpetually derail our sense of confidence.

Christine Okezie (12m 52s):
Our sense of empowerment. When I help clients set goals, we have to do the work of identifying their core values. What really matters for instance, why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to start eating better? Why is it important that you want to have? Why is it important that you need more energy? See when our goals aren’t consciously aligned with what we genuinely hold a value? Well, we lack the internal energy, the internal motivation to follow through. So we end up falling short. And once again, we prove to ourselves that we’re unreliable and can’t be trusted.

Christine Okezie (13m 32s):
So knowing how to set goals for our health, for our life that we can actually achieve is so key along these lines, let’s set reasonable goals because one of the things that derail self-trust, especially when it comes to positive lifestyle change is, is setting those unreasonable goals. I think it’s best to set smaller goals in service to the greater goal. So that over time step-by-step, we can build confidence. So instead, perhaps I want to lose 20 pounds. How about I will start every day, this week with a healthier breakfast along these lines, the next strategy I invite my clients to help them release the energy for self-trust stop being a slave to your to-do lists.

Christine Okezie (14m 19s):
This is a big one. Now, obviously I love lists they’re great organizational tools, but I think we all know that they can take on a life of their own and become a contributor to some serious anxiety and distrust. So we want to let go of the unrealistic sort of looming to do list, right? Letting go of that is actually an expression and embodied action of self-trust Find your truth. What do you stand for? What do you want to consciously stand for? What are your core values and our, my thoughts, words, and actions in alignment, finding our truth, doing the work that inner development is absolutely a game changer when it comes to developing self-trust.

Christine Okezie (15m 8s):
I think it was Socrates who said an unexamined life is not a life worth living. And what I think he meant by that is if that, if we don’t engage in self-examination, we deprive ourselves of that deeper sense of fulfillment and purpose in our lives, right along these lines. We want to find ways to get out of our busy thinking, thinking heads and connect with the wisdom of our heart, such a big part of how I coach is providing tools to help people cultivate their intuition tune into their emotions and feelings without resistance, learning to trust that inner guide above the chattering of the busy ego mind.

Christine Okezie (15m 56s):
It’s one of the best things you can do to build self-trust. And it’s why it’s so essential that we make time for those moments of mindful awareness and stillness connect with the body that’s right here and all the messages and the sensations, what a good inquiry that I like to facilitate these practices and this work of getting out of our heads and connecting to the heart is you might ask yourself periodically from time to time. What am I feeling in this moment? What is happening inside me? Because what I know to be true is that self-observation, and self-awareness creates that self knowledge and that self connection that ultimately leads to our ability to regulate our lives and develop self-trust savor the good part of the human condition because of our evolution is something called the negativity bias.

Christine Okezie (16m 60s):
That is we tend to give more importance in our mind to negative experiences than to positive or even neutral experiences. It’s an example, again, of that negative mind, that internal sort of critical egoic self, right? So one way to counter this because it is one of the biggest problems when it comes to developing a sense of self-trust, is that the next time you experience or create a positive moment, savor the good take a little longer than you usually would to enjoy it. I invite my clients when something good happens when they create a positive situation or takeaway, engage, fully engage fully in all the good sensations, the happy thoughts, the pleasant emotions that make you really feel it and make note of what you enjoyed about it.

Christine Okezie (17m 50s):
Along these lines of feeling good, and the healing power of pleasure and feeling good is exploring your creativity. So do what lights you up. I’m always telling my clients prioritize, feeling good, how you feel matters. Something. I always say, when we have that fear of disapproval or that fear of criticism, we can get cut off from following sensing and acting on those creative instincts. So ask yourself what past interests or passions did you put away? Or, you know, maybe there’s something you’ve always wanted to try honor your curiosity. And as they say, feel the fear and do in any way, moving on.

Christine Okezie (18m 33s):
So be discerning. This is another issue. When it comes to our relationship with ourselves, we want to be really discerning with who and what we surround ourselves with. So check out your inner circle, choose uplifting, authentic real people in your life. Choose to be really picky with your media consumption, Checking emailsfor example, multiple times a day, being on social media to, you know, to the point that it’s distracting you from this inner process, this inner awareness is going to drain that much needed energy that we need to do.

Christine Okezie (19m 14s):
eLeaP self-trust finally, I’m going to call this one going beyond your five senses. This is an invitation to ask yourself what if there was a higher force? What if there was a greater intelligence at work that had a vested interest in you? There is a term a person experiencing pronoia pronoia is a feeling a knowing that the world around them is conspiring to do them good. It’s the opposite of paranoia, right? So I love sharing strategies that give us an experience of that infinite source of energy that lives deep within us and all around us is arguably one of the most potent forms of energy for develop being self-trust.

Christine Okezie (20m 9s):
So Nurturing a relationship with ourself is like any other important relationship in your life if requires patients. So first and foremost, we want to go easy. We want to be kind, we want to really take in the fact that, you know, real inner work is courageous work and an unfolds. Step-by-step the practice of being patient with ourselves in this regard. In fact, in and of itself is one of the best ways to heal our challenges around self-trust. So bottom line developing self-trust is one of the most beneficial things that I think you can do for yourself.

Christine Okezie (20m 55s):
It helps build inner confidence, mental clarity, strong intuition, and emotional resilience. All of which benefit us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. And as I reflect living in these uncertain times, never has cultivating self-trust. That is the ability to find a sense of security and belonging within ourselves. Never has this been more critical for our personal and collective human evolution. Developing self-trust is not about becoming impenetrable or even eradicating self doubt and fear, but rather doing the consistent work to stop doing the things that drain our life force our spirit to reclaim the places in our daily lives, where we habitually give away our personal power and indulge the fear-based stories of our own making.

Christine Okezie (22m 3s):
Now more than ever, we need to root ourselves in our innate goodness and prioritize, listening to the whispers of our soul, become an Explorer of our innermost selves and retrieve the peace stability. Enjoy that all too often feels way beyond our reach in the world. That’s around us. So a closing quote that sums up this talk today is the only trust we need is that of our own judgment and choices about what is best for us. The only trust we need is that of our own judgment and choices about what is best for us.

Christine Okezie (22m 47s):
So if what I’ve shared resonates with you, and you’d like to explore how you can get started working on developing more self-trust in your life. Let’s talk, please visit my website and schedule a free discovery session@www.energeticnourishment.com. I also invite you to join me for a Saturday morning, Kundalini yoga and meditation class. Every Saturday, live virtual on zoom at 8:30 AM Eastern standard time. You can find the information and the registration link on my website as well as on my Instagram link @energeticnourishment. So I hope this has been helpful to you my friends, if you feel inspired, please do leave a rating and review.

Christine Okezie (23m 31s):
And if you haven’t already hit the subscribe button, I’d appreciate it. So it helps people find the podcast easier. Thanks so much, bye for now.