Episode Transcript
Have you ever been fascinated by royalty? Maybe in England, the royalty of England, or the royalty of the East ancient royalty? Have you ever been fascinated by that? And what about dignity? What is dignity? We're gonna be talking about royalty and dignity today on the Spiritual American. We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Welcome back everyone. Today we're gonna talk about royalty and dignity. And I mentioned in the intro that, have you ever been interested in royalty, like royal people like looking at kings and queens and so forth. What I'm gonna talk about is different attributes of royalty and dignity and how we can incorporate them in our life. Have you ever noticed someone who maybe wasn't in a high position, but always carried themselves with a certain dignity? What is dignity? I would say dignity is when my self-respect is intact no matter what. My self-respect is intact and I'm okay. And I know I'm okay. I have a good example of this. My sister's sister-in-law went through a lot of loss in the family and she is Catholic and she's very strong in her faith. And I remember there were two big losses in the family and she, when I saw her, she was very, her chin was up. She felt, she looked very regal and very royal. And normally you would be falling apart with this kind of thing. Two family members in a very short period of time. One was very close to her, but she was very calm and you could see her faith. Her faith was keeping her above what was going on. So royalty, one of the aspects of royalty is that you are above what's happening. You're remaining beyond it. Dignity means that I'm keeping myself respect, no matter what. What does it mean when you remain beyond? Does it mean that you're, that you don't care? She cared, but she wasn't going to allow the situation to beat her. And she wasn't gonna let it shake her, what she knew to be true about herself, about her faith, about God, and so forth. It's power, actually. So I'm gonna break down a little bit about the royalty part. Maybe make it a little bit, so that we could practice it. So one thing that I wrote down for royalty is self-respect and self-reliance. Self-reliance, like I'm not, I don't need anything. One of the ways that this shows up in, in royalty in life in when people are actually royal, like kings and queens, they don't take anything from anyone and they have a lot of rules about touching or communicating or being with other people. They have a lot of rules around that. Because they're trying to maintain a certain self-reliance, a certain distance from everyone, let's say, or from certain behaviors that would pull them out of their, the safety of their elevated position. Does this mean I'm walking around acting like I'm better than other people? No, but there's a way to create an awareness that I am, let's say I'm a soul. I'm a child of God and if I can maintain that awareness. With other people. I'm also giving them regard. So giving respect and self-respect. That's another aspect of royalty. You give respect and you have respect for yourself. Self-reliant. I don't need anything from anyone. One way of helping us with this one, a lot of times we're coming from a very dependent state. Unknowingly, not like we try to be dependent, but most of us are coming from an overly emotional kind of place. One way to start that kind of self-reliance is this idea of don't ask, don't take. So, what does that mean? That means that, let's say I feel like I am kind of caught up in a lot of relationships and I don't feel like I can get that detachment, that kind of royalty, or that maybe I'm not holding onto my dignity. Maybe I'm acting in ways that I don't like. Maybe I'm talking too much, maybe I'm not. Talking enough, maybe I'm isolated. You know, there are ways that maybe I am acting that I'm not happy with. So one way that I can start to change that is don't ask don't take. Look and see. Am I depending on anybody for anything? Do I ask people for things? Don't ask for anything is a big way to get yourself moving up a little bit in your self respect. I used to ask people for things all the time, like I'm not saying never ask anybody for anything. I'm saying that if you put into practice the practice of not asking, then that does two things. Number one, you're not bringing other people into your space. That's number one. And number two, you are forced to learn how to do it yourself, which can bring self-reliance, and you also get experience. I find that as we move along in our spiritual journey, the less we include other people, the better. Maybe we included people too much, you know, before maybe, and I'm not, again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have relationships and so forth. I'm talking from my own experience and I'm saying that what the relationships that were there, the boundaries were messed up. There was a lot of sorrow. I'm not blaming anybody, it's just the way the culture is and the way I learned how to be. But little by little through the spiritual effort, I learned how to find my own self-respect. And this don't ask, don't take is really good, especially if you have a situation like for instance, at work, let's say, I'm unhappy with the people at work and I don't like, I can't get along with them or I don't. They're not helping me or something like that. So what I can do is I can say, okay, don't ask. Don't take, don't ask anything from them. Don't take anything from them. Just focus on my own self. What that does is it stops the old stuff and it gives you a chance to figure out what kind of energy you have on your own. This is important because I think we've all been having maybe not so great boundaries with other people. Or maybe we have expectations. Maybe we're being needy. Maybe we're being people pleasing. Maybe we're, or maybe we're the opposite. Maybe we don't trust anybody. Maybe we're too detached. In that case, the dignity needs to be there too. Like let's say if I'm too detached, maybe I, maybe it 'cause I'm angry or I'm afraid. You know that I'm not, I don't have dignity there either. Is my self-respect there if I'm afraid of people. So these things need to be balanced out. So I wrote here, self-respect, self-reliance, and don't attack anyone. This is dignity too. Like let's say something happens and you know that somebody's wrong. If I attack that person then I lose my dignity. I lose my self-respect because I'm being attacking or I'm being violent. Even with myself. If I'm allowing like self-critical thoughts and so forth, I'm gonna lose my dignity at that point. I'm gonna lose my self-respect at that point. I have found that as much as possible, I do not allow any self-critical thinking anymore. Just don't allow it. It's an absolute no, not tolerated because how am I supposed to feel good about myself? How am I supposed to feel safe? How am I supposed to feel like my best self if I'm allowing that to happen? Or you're allowing other people to be abusive, right? You're not supposed to allow other people to be abusive either. So how can I maintain my self respect if somebody's abusing me or if I'm abusing myself? Or how can I maintain my self-respect if I'm unable to have a conversation with somebody, or I'm frozen in anxiety, or I'm frozen in social anxiety or depression or something, how is my self-respect? So whether it's, you know, maybe I'm too much or maybe I'm not enough, whatever dignity is where that middle ground comes in and where I feel like I have self-respect. I can depend on myself, but I'm not isolated. I'm detached and I feel like I'm beyond, but I'm still generous. I'm still participating. That would be the royalty. Here I wrote, living with yourself is the highest priority and is remembered in all situations. So what does that mean with dignity? It means that you don't wanna fall from your own sense of what is right in terms of behavior. You hear take the high road, people say take the high road. Sometimes that's not so easy. Sometimes we're already reacting. But what does take the high road mean? It means you give up the right to judge. You give up the right to attack you give up the right to hold on to negative thoughts and feelings about others. It's actually spiritual advice if you think about it, because if I'm holding on to negative thoughts about other people, do I have self-respect in that moment? No. Whatever I feel about other people, it's reflecting back on me and whatever I feel about me, it's reflecting on other people. Like I always quote with Jesus, love your neighbor as yourself. That's a law. Whatever I have going on inside of me, I'm projecting that onto others and vice versa. So, royalty and dignity. So what are the takeaways from this. Royalty would be self-reliance and the, the, trying to be beyond, I'm not struggling, I'm not taking, I'm not overly involved. But I'm able to participate with boundaries, with rules that I feel comfortable with, that I'm able to maintain my state. And then dignity is that I am not falling away in behavior. I'm keeping my behavior good no matter what. Sometimes we have to use the power of silence. Something happened recently where. Somebody made a mistake and I had to, you know what I was gonna do about it, and I had to think about it, and I had to think about what can I do that is not going to be accusatory to that person? How can I maneuver and still maintain my self respect? This was a good example. I'm not gonna tell the total example, but if something happened and somebody behaved a certain way and I had to figure out how can I maintain my self-respect in this situation without attacking that person, and I was able to figure it out. But I also had to ask somebody at one point, 'cause I was thinking I wanted to say something and then I got a kind of coach. There was some coaching there. But there's a way, there's always a way. I wanna say there's a way to maintain your self-respect. You don't have to attack. You don't have to get angry. You don't have to make them wrong. As a matter of fact, if you can get through it without doing that, you're gonna feel a lot better about yourself. So I'm gonna leave it there. That was just a little inquiry today. And what is the last thing I wanna leave you with is, what is it like to live a life with royalty and dignity? I'm gonna say, I mean, I haven't really thought about my life in terms of royalty and dignity, but if I put that lens on my life, I could say that I'm pretty much trying to go in that direction, living beyond any sense of struggle. Don't get too involved, you know, but participate nicely. And then always, always, always try my best to remain pure in intention, pure of heart. And always try to find the right karma, the right actions that's gonna keep me and my self respect and not go into violence. Think about it this week, if you, have you ever thought of yourself as royal? Have you ever thought of yourself in terms of your own dignity? See if you can catch yourself this week. Think about it. So I will leave it there. Remember, our slogan is Heal, Empower and Serve. And until next time, take care.
