630 Love Yourself Unconditionally with Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

"I am not my past, I am not my future. This is the only place I am able to express my will.” Do you ever have those moments when you replay a certain event in your mind over and over? It becomes so real, it’s almost like you are there. You start thinking, “What could I have done differently? Does this make me a bad person? Could I have handled things better?” I know when this happens I start judging myself. I become my worst critic, obsessing over how I lost my temper here or the person I hurt there. Ultimately, these moments don’t define us. What does define us is right now. What we do at this moment is who we are, and as long as we learned from our mistakes we shouldn’t judge ourselves. We need to forgive ourselves and stop the emotional punishment. To go more into this I wanted to bring you a clip from Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. for this episode of 5 Minute Friday. Don Miguel is a master of transformation, and he shares so much wisdom about forgiveness and moving forward with life on Episode 630. In This Episode You Will Learn: Why people judge themselves so harshly (00:47) What it means to forgive yourself (1:23) How we reward and punish ourselves (1:40) The illusion of our expectations (2:38) How to forgive yourself (3:28) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:10Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest. Had an incredible time connecting with Don Miguel Ruiz. And for those that don't know who Don Miguel is, he is a Toltec master of transformation. He is a direct descendant of the Toltecs of the Eagle Knight lineage and the son of Don Miguel Ruiz, the author of The Four Agreements. And by combining the wisdom of his family's traditions with the knowledge gained from his own personal journey, he now helps others realize their own path to personal freedom.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  First, they see themselves as who they are. They can't go back in the past and change their yes into a no or no to a yes, because life no longer exists in the past. So it only exists in my mind. And it probably didn't happen the way I think it happened. But I can't go back there. This is the result of that consequence. And this is the result of who I am. Now, true justice is paying for something once. Injustice paying it over and over and over again. So from that point of view is, why am I continuing to judge myself? Why am I continuously feeling this guilt? And it's because I haven't forgiven myself. I accept the truth, but I haven't forgiven myself. And to me, to forgive ourselves is to accept the truth and let it go. What I mean by that is to learn from it.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Now, sometimes we continue to punish ourselves because we're still attached to that domestication. Like I said before, domestication is a system of reward and punishment by which we model the behavior of an individual. If we live up to the expectation, we get the reward. And if we don't live up to the expectation, we get the punishment. And since part of our perception is emotions, that reward feels like acceptance, which feels like love, which means when we don't live up to the expectation, we get the punishment. Well, the punishment is our rejection, our judgment. And we don't get love. It's the lack thereof. And it's the way we learn conditional love. That's how we begin to love ourselves conditionally. So, most of the times, we begin to continue to judge ourselves over and over,

• 2:15Speaker 01

  because we are still not living up to that image. And here's the thing, that image doesn't exist, it's an illusion. And we still judge ourselves compared to this image that doesn't exist. Right. So, we're still looking at ourselves not as who we really are at this very moment. We're still chasing this elusive carrot that as soon as we get it, we're worthy of love. And until we get it, we can forgive ourselves. And that, to some people, that it's a motivator and that they drive through that obsession. Yeah. But when you realize that that's just an illusion, and then you realize you're never going to reach it. Yeah. Because that guy, that girl, never existed. Never existed. It was someone's point of view projected onto us, a mask projected onto us, and we believed it. Yeah.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  And when, when we realize that we're not that, when we realize that that image, nothing exists, then what is the truth? Well, the person who I am at this very moment. I'm not my past, I'm not my future. This is the only place where I'm able to express my will, this present moment. Yeah. This present moment that moves with me from the moment I am born until the moment I die. So, this is me. Flaws and all. Yeah. So, you can say from that point of view is, alright, reset the starting point. This is the starting point. This is me at this very moment. Yeah. So, all those more times, okay, I forgive myself because I didn't know what I was doing, which was true. Like, it's like Christ says, "Forgive them, Father, they do not know what they do."

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Well, forgive me, Father, I didn't know what I was doing. Or you can say, "Forgive me, Miguel, in my case, I didn't know what I was doing, but now I'm aware of it, and I'm going to learn from it, and I'm not going to repeat the mistake." And that's the lesson learned. So, I'm no longer going to use that spur to motivate me to become something I'm not, because I forgive myself forever saying yes to it. So, you can say from that point of view, a judgment is just simply that instrument by which I try to mold myself to being something I wasn't. As soon as I become aware of that, I can forgive myself forever doing that.

• 4:35Lewis Howes?

  Hey guys, if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show, then you'll love the free book I'm giving away right now. It's called The Millionaire Morning. It includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now, themillionairemorning.com.