How to Love Yourself in a World That Says You're Not Enough | Branden Collinsworth | TEDxUNLV

[Applause] what's up what's up hello everybody as a yoga teacher and Human Performance coach it's my mission to help people unlock their Highest Potential and from an overflow of their own deep self-worth boldly share their gifts with the world when I was asked by UNLV what revolutionary idea I wanted to share with you all today it was simple it's that the greatest gift that you could ever give yourself is your own self-love show of hands how many of you all at one time or another have felt like you're not good enough I know I have see billions of dollars are made each year by convincing you that you are inferior from the time we are children we are told again and again that we are not enough are worth placed on an endless treadmill to Nowhere that leaves us all sick tired lonely and empty the revolution that we're all looking for is not an outer Revolution it's an inner Revolution it's a homecoming where we begin to love ourselves unconditionally where we see ourselves as we truly are which is whole complete and imperfectly beautiful Andrew Bennett said that the longest journey that you'll ever go on is the 18 inches from the head to the heart my journey started off on the east side of Las Vegas far away from the glitz the glamor and the famous Neon Lights the Las Vegas is known for my journey started off on the streets in the projects in a single parent household where every day me my mom and my little sister fought for survival where addicts jab needles into their arms and Young Boys Like Me grew up in fatherless homes my mom was a beautiful white woman who in a fling of passion had a baby with a beautiful black man and I was born when you mix white and you mix black you get brown so as a brown kid growing up in the projects with a white mom you never feel like you really fit in you're definitely too dark to be white but sometimes you're too light to be black so you fall into this in between space and you get picked on because you're not like the rest my mother had one rule for me though she said no matter what anybody tells you Brandon you tell them that if they have a problem they have to talk to your mom so FYI if any of y'all got a problem with me you got to talk to my mom see my mother was a mama bear and shout out to all the single mothers out there but she knew she had to protect me from a world that would slowly and methodically try to kill my light the pool of the streets is strong though and by the time I was 16 years old I was a high school dropout addicted to alcohol and caught up in street life slowly my innocence was replaced with hardness and like many of my friends I was headed to two places either dead or in jail for two years I spiraled downward and in my lowest I found myself sitting at a bus stop it was there that I made a decision that I was going to change my life if I was going to die on the streets I was going to at least try to do something to get out I wanted to prove to the world that I could be someone I wanted to prove to the world that I could be worth something I wanted to prove the haters the doubters the non-believers wrong that I was more than a statistic that I was more than escaped my skin color that I deserved to be seen and I deserve to take up space and with the chip on my shoulder I went on a 14-year journey to prove to the world that I was valuable I became the first in my family to go to college eventually going to UNLV and getting my Bachelor's degree at this very institution go Rebels [Applause] after that I went to the Ivy Leagues and got my Master's in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania I became a successful entrepreneur and began to train work and practice with some of the best in the world all over the world the accolades began to flow in and I became one of the only trainers in the world side globally to Nike and the little boy in me wanted to scream out look at me I'm valuable now I'm worth something now for 14 years I grinded and then one day as I sat on the balcony of my Las Vegas high-rise Penthouse that looked out towards the streets that once enslaved me I had a jarring realization I didn't feel any different than when I was on the streets I still didn't love myself I still felt worthless I still felt like I was empty inside but but I thought if you you got the accolades and you got the success and you got the money you were supposed to feel different everything had changed on the outside but on the inside I still felt the same two months later I took a trip to Bali Indonesia I walked into a yoga class and after the yoga class the yoga teacher came up to me and said Brandon you got it all figured out on the outside but on the inside you have no idea what's going on and until your worth and value come from within you will always be empty shortly after that I walked away from my old life moved to Southeast Asia and became a yoga teacher all those years out focused on winning the outer game only to realize that the only way to win the outer game is to win the inner game and since then it's been my vow to love myself just for being me do I fall short of times absolutely every day but my life has changed as a result of that all the great teachings point us back to ourselves whether it's yoga martial arts meditation or prayer we're told to go inside to tune out the chatter of the Mind tune into the heart and from there fall in love with what it is we are in the yoga traditions we speak of a concept called ahimsa ahimsa means Compassion or non-violence for a lot of us it's easy to extend compassion outward but it's really hard to extend that same compassion towards ourselves in fact for many of us if our friends spoke to us the way we speak to ourselves we probably wouldn't be friends with them anymore our bodies are always listening and what we say about ourselves what we think about ourselves what we believe about ourselves matters I'm here to tell you that it doesn't matter how much success you achieve it doesn't matter how many accolades you get it doesn't matter how much money's in your bank account if you don't love yourself you will always be empty true self-love is unconditional it's an opportunity to celebrate all parts of yourself even the parts of you that nobody celebrates and these are some important questions to ask yourself can I love the parts of me that nobody celebrates can I love the parts of me that I deem most unlovable can I love myself like there is nothing to fix your wounds your pain your failure your shadows they deserve your love too and this is not about bypassing this is not about not changing some of the things that need to be changed this is about remembering that self-hate and self-love cannot live at the same time this is an opportunity to radically love yourself nourish yourself and express yourself unforgivingly and I say radical self-love because when our lives are built off the foundation of I am more than enough and I choose to treat myself that way everything changes so how do we cultivate self-love in a world that pushes us towards so much self-hate here are six codes I've learned about self-love on my journey from the streets to the skies first self-love says nobody is you that is your power you've been gifted one of the most miraculous things in the entire universe human life but more importantly than that it's your human life and who you are and what you are is sacred one in Infinity never has been never will be again another you self-love says own who you are all of you the world doesn't need any more clones the world doesn't need any more fake the world doesn't need any more artificial the world needs you to be you when we celebrate what it is we are we create the space for our gifts our talents our strengths to come to life in the most beautiful way possible self-love says treat yourself like you are valuable a couple years ago my therapist asked me Brandon do you see yourself as valuable and after so many years of doing the Deep work the answer was finally yes self-love is a byproduct of self-worth when we inherently see ourselves as valuable we begin to treat ourselves a whole lot better and this inner love radiates outward when working with clients more importantly and getting them to start a workout routine or begin a meditation practice the real goal is to get them to treat themselves like they are worth something when we're standing in self-worth a new standard is set and it ripples outward into every part of our life from the nourishment that we put into our bodies to the personal boundaries that we set for ourselves to the relationships we choose or choose not to be in to the career or educational past we choose or choose not to take these all change for the better when we're standing in our worth self-love says stop comparing yourself to other people it's easy to go on social media on the gram and all of a sudden be hit with the endless highlight world of other people's lives and if not careful we get lost in what we are not rather than what we are growing up in the streets one of the ways I dealt with poverty was comic books and my favorite comic book series was the X-Men and what I love most about the X-Men was that they were these ordinary individuals with extraordinary powers and what made them powerful was not their similarities it was their differences and the more they focused on their differences their uniqueness their magic the more powerful they became comparison kills our gifts comparison kills are magic comparison kills our confidence and this might seem counterintuitive in this achievement culture that we live in but when we compare ourselves to others we discredit all that we are when we stop comparing ourselves to others we create space for authenticity to flow and authenticity my friends is the most powerful filter you can wear it invites the right people in and keeps the wrong people out it invites the right opportunities in and keeps the wrong opportunities out and most importantly it's sustainable because it's you self-love says give yourself permission to be messy for a Star to be born a gaseous nebulous must collapse so collapse crumble this is not your ending this is your beginning it's a quote by Zoe Schuyler life is not supposed to be sterile and squeaky clean life is messy art is messy sex is messy birth is messy mistakes slip UPS failures this is how we learn this is how we grow they say in school a lesson is taught and then a test is given well in life oftentimes a test is given that inevitably teaches us a lesson I'm here to tell you that it's in the mess where you bring to life your most powerful message I'm here to tell you that it's in your mess where oftentimes you find the building blocks to build your most potent masterpiece throw out the idea of perfection perfect doesn't exist and give yourself the grace space and freedom to just be human self-love says you are always on time a few years ago I was going through a breakup super heartbroken so I decided to call up my mentor Mr mahalin AKA Morpheus and as soon as he picked up I began to tell him how I didn't know if I was going to be able to make it through this breakup and how I was so sad and in the middle of me speaking he cuts me off and goes Brandon have you ever tasted an orange he then went on to say isn't it amazing that you take this seed you plant it beneath the dirt the seed Sprouts it pushes through the ground it begins to grow somehow survives the seasons grows into this tree this tree grows branches branches grow leaves in this perfect fruit is created he then said do you not think that the same intelligence that is behind the orange tree is also behind you just like the orange tree we are all in a process of blossoming and of becoming the orange tree doesn't look at his former self negatively it knows that the entire Journey from seed to fruit was necessary it's easy for us to get caught up in one day I can love myself be myself express myself when I become rather than I can love myself be myself and express myself now knowing that just like the orange tree that just like everything in nature you are right on time this allows for us to begin to enjoy the journey and love ourselves right where we are lastly self-love says all love starts on the inside in yoga we often speak about not seeing the world as it is but seeing the World As We Are what we cultivate in our inner World emanates to our outer World our outer experience being a mirror of our inner vibration Gandhi didn't say change the world Gandhi said be the change you wish to see in the world so if you want more peace be more peaceful if you want more truth be more honest if you want more compassion be more kind and if you want more love be more love self-love opens up the doors towards infinite possibilities where our limits are transformed into limitlessness and our prisons are transformed into prisms of possibility my mother passed away four months ago my beautiful mother I spoke about earlier and one of the last gifts she gave me was a keychain and on the keychain it said it says you are the gift and so I wanted to share her words with you all as well today the keychain didn't say that your bank accounts the gift the keychain didn't say your body fats the gift keychain definitely didn't say your accolades are the gift the keychain said you are the gift a gift to your friends a gift to your family a gift to your communities and a gift to this world and your self-love is how you pay homage to the gift that you are each and every day so shine bright and remember that the world is a better place just because you exist thank you and namaste [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 169,372

Keywords: Acceptance, Connection, Emotions, English, Life, Positive Thinking, Relationships, Spirituality, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:50124]

Id: kadse8DqMkU

Length: 15min 21sec (921 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 06 2023