17 – Do You Appreciate Who You Are Today?
What would happen if you stopped living in the shadow of your past and fully embraced who you are today? Do you see how you’ve grown? Changed? Do you appreciate how far you’ve come? Let’s take time to really see us for who we are and not define ourselves by who we use to be.
Transcript
Sharise Parviz: 0:01
Today I am wanting to chat with you about recognizing or appreciating who you are today. Who you are today, and are you seeing who you really are today or are you still seeing you through the glasses of who you were? So this morning I was meditating and this came to my mind and I was thinking about all the different ways that I’ve changed. Okay, I lied, I’m not, I wasn’t really meditating, I was in the bathroom, but that’s a form of meditation too. So there you go. It can be. Depends on how mindful you are about, about your business. Okay, but anyway, regardless, you know the funniest things happen in the, you know the most mundane places, like taking a shower or going to the bathroom or doing the dishes. Doing the dishes can be one of the most. I mean by hand, like taking a shower or going to the bathroom or doing the dishes. Doing the dishes can be one of the most. I mean by hand, like doing the dishes by hand, like washing. First of all, oh my God, here I am going off topic already, but first of all, it’s very soothing when putting your hands in water and it’s very grounding. And also just the chore of doing dishes is very grounding, but also nobody ever. Just the chore of doing dishes is very grounding, but also nobody ever wants to bother you when you’re in the kitchen doing dishes. So when you do the dishes, you have all the time in the world to think and to contemplate life and the world and and uh, and just you know, just be alone. So sometimes, doing the dishes, so many different ideas can come up. So you have a shower doing the dishes, so many different ideas can come up. So you know the shower doing the dishes, going to the bathroom, all great ways, all great times. For the most, you know interesting things to consider in your life, right, anyway? Or about life.
Sharise Parviz: 1:57
So anyway, as I was in my bathroom meditations, this thought came to mind is about change and recognizing that we are different today than who we were in the past. Now, I know, it’s true, there are a lot of people that don’t change. I mean, I meet people a lot. Actually, even in my own family I had an older brother who had severe depression and I’m you know, again, I’m not a big diagnosis person, but for the ease and simplicity of conversation using a quote unquote diagnosis like depression or this or that or the other. As far as a medical term okay, of depression, I don’t, like, I don’t. I use those terms as just a means of communicating the thought and the idea, because that way we all have common language, right.
Sharise Parviz: 2:52
So not necessarily that I necessarily believe that there is a, you know, chemical disorder that causes depression, but that’s for another day. So if you hear me say, oh, it’s the flu or it’s a cold, it’s not necessarily that I really believe that it’s a quote unquote flu or cold, because I don’t necessarily even believe those things exist. Or that. The diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar, all these things that really, to me, those are diagnoses that really are about I think I’ve said this before it’s a way of the medical establishment to put people in a box to medicate them and so and I’ve seen such miraculous quote unquote miraculous healings, but really recoverings from just proper food, proper eating and working through trauma. Now that may sound trite, especially if you’re someone who deals with depression or anxiety or things like that, and I get it because I think if you’ve listened to my story, I had a severe case of OCD and depression and anxiety. So you know you couldn’t tell me that what I wasn’t feeling wasn’t real. And I’m not saying it wasn’t real and I’m not saying, if you’re having those issues, that it’s not real for you, of course it is. I’m just saying it’s not necessarily what we think it is, it’s not necessarily what we’ve been told that it is from the medical establishment.
Sharise Parviz: 4:11
Okay, so, going back to my brother, so he was depressed for most of his life for various reasons that I can look back on, and became an alcoholic and actually died of alcohol poisoning and became an alcoholic and actually died of alcohol poisoning. And I remember when he died that you know, I was sorrowful, you know, and I was more sorrowful of the life that he had never lived, because he never really had a chance to live it and I don’t think he realized that he could have changed it if he could, if he did, and this was many, many, many years ago when he passed. But looking back at it now, I just think that there was really no chance for him or choice for him at that time, you know. And I have another brother who is an alcoholic now, and so my point in bringing that up is that you know I, no matter how much you me, anyone that sees someone that’s hurting and you want to see them change, we can’t do anything about it. You know, people change when they’re ready to change and people change if they want to change. And it’s true, there are some people that either don’t want to change, they don’t see how they can change, they’ve lost hope, and there’s not a lot you can do, because I I tried with people who don’t really, who aren’t ready to change, or who don’t want to, and it doesn’t have to be anything even as as extreme as being dying of alcohol, poisoning or or being an alcoholic. It could be just a change in their thinking about, about themselves. You know, and and and following into patterns and habits, and and you see it. You can see it because you’re standing on the outside and you’re sitting like, oh, why can’t you just change this? You know I can help you, but you can’t Not until and unless they’re ready. However, I do believe that there are many people and I see them in my practice all the time who do want to change, who do see that they don’t want to live the kind of life they’ve lived, or do see that they don’t want to have the same regrets in the future that they have from the past by making the same kind of decisions. Right, people want to change and people can change and people have. So that’s where all this was coming to my mind and I was thinking but do we even recognize and appreciate the changes that we make? And I was thinking about my own life and the different changes that I have made. So I’ll give you some examples.
Sharise Parviz: 6:59
So when we were considering moving, my husband brought up Florida and Florida during you know the, you know the pandemic. I don’t know what the. You know what the emasculating word we need to use anymore is, but whatever was sounded like a great idea. Florida, yeah, hello. The freest state of the free states, yeah, except no, absolutely not.
Sharise Parviz: 7:22
My dad had lived in Florida for a few years with work and I would visit him in the summers and I just remember Florida. Not only is it hot and humid and too sticky for me, but what really I didn’t like is like the lizards, like they get into your house, and the frogs, I don’t know, it just seemed like at dusk. This is how I remember it. Maybe I’m wrong. If you’re from Florida, let me know. And we lived, we were near Orlando, florida. I just remember that at dusk time frogs would just come out of nowhere and this was like in the suburbs of Orlando, and you could walk and you like had to dodge stepping on a frog. It was just nasty, it was just gross. So I told my husband absolutely not, florida is not. I would love it for all the other reasons that we would love Florida for and that people love Florida for.
Sharise Parviz: 8:11
I moved to Florida for, but I cannot handle bugs and the humidity and I can’t handle the lizards and I can’t handle the frogs. So no, so we go to Arkansas, because Arkansas is not Florida. So we go to Arkansas, right, because Arkansas is not Florida, right, it’s not a South, right? Anyway, first month we’re in Arkansas and we’re in the apartment, there’s a frog in front of my door. I freak out oh my God, get the frog away, get the frog away. And my son and his wife were visiting. He had just finished his bootcamp and they came down to visit because the boot camp was up in Missouri and you know, mom, they’ll eat the bugs. I don’t care, I don’t want a frog in my house. Kind of shooed the frog away, right, OK, now we’re on our property, right, and there was a frog.
Sharise Parviz: 9:04
Our first year or here we’ve been here a little over two years, you know there was like a little frog hanging out on our screen door, near our screen door, and I was like, oh no. And you know, michael says he’s not going to bother you, he’s going to, you know, eat the bugs. And you know nothing, nothing’s going to happen. I’m like okay, so I’d kind of sneak out the screen door and walk around it and all that. Eventually this little froggy, would you know, kind of I don’t know, warmed up my heart. It was kind of cute. And the more I looked at him I thought, yeah, actually kind of cute.
Sharise Parviz: 9:36
And then we, since then, have gotten frogs in our garage. They would come and sit in the puddle, like you know, when you have your car and the air conditioning runs, and after you park it, then water drips on the ground and they’d come and sit in the pond. There’s like three of them, little frogs, little tiny little things. Okay, so now I look at the frogs and go aren’t you cute? You’re just a little jumper, aren’t you? And now I’m like making friends with the frogs. I knew that I would make friends with frogs, right, okay, but I did. Now I like the frogs and I love hearing them and I see them and they jump. I don’t know they haven’t jumped on me and I’m not sure how I feel about that, but they jump near me and I’m good with it, I’m good. So that was one huge change for me.
Sharise Parviz: 10:21
You know, another change was cooking. For me, you know another change was cooking. So, even though I have always done like the organic foods ever since you know my own illness 20 plus years ago, and you know, always did organics, um, and spent the money to do so, I didn’t cook. I didn’t cook. You know I I tried to eat things that didn’t need cooking, need preparation, and then the kids, I gave them a lot of. I did. I feel I said it here now, but you do what you do Cause that’s all you know. Um, you know packaged foods and so like, but you know organic packaged foods, right, which we better now, but you know this is 20 plus years ago, right.
Sharise Parviz: 11:01
So it was like Amy’s beef and macaroni and beef with the kids loved, or Amy’s ravioli, or you know, a lot of times it would be fruit and meat, like organic lunch meat, or or cheese or cheese sticks, organic cheese sticks and an apple Right, it was a big thing. Cheese stick and an apple, eat organic cheese sticks and an apple. Right, that was a big thing. Cheese stick and an apple, eat your cheese stick and an apple, but anyway so. But I didn’t cook.
Sharise Parviz: 11:26
And I look back on it and you know I always say, oh, I don’t cook, I don’t like to cook. That was always my excuse. But really the truth is I was afraid of cooking. I was afraid of failing at cooking. That’s the truth. I was afraid that I I’d whip up a big meal and it would taste like crap and then we’d have to throw it away. And then not only did I ruin a good meal, now we’ve wasted all this money on the food. So it was really a feeling of failure, you know, and not wanting to fail, than it really was that I didn’t like cooking.
Sharise Parviz: 11:52
But when my husband got sick and I took over his healing, I didn’t have a choice and we moved into the GAPS diet, which is all cooking. I mean, you just, there’s no processed food, there’s no, there’s nothing. You got to cook I, I did it, I just had to do it. There was no, there was no option. And, and now that was at 53. I was 53 when that happened, and now I love cooking. And not only do I love it, right, I mean I really love it, I enjoy it. It’s actually become a hobby of mine. I now teach it. How crazy is that? I actually teach Now, I’m not a great chef there’s plenty of people who are better at cooking than I am but I can teach the basics, of course, of the GAPS diet, the GAPS protocol, et cetera, et cetera.
Sharise Parviz: 12:37
And you know fermented dairy and meat stocks and you know making your fermented dairy like your own yogurt, your own cultured cream, your own kefir all of these things kefir, kefir, it’s however you want to pronounce it. All of these things. I now teach others how to make, who you know, clients that come to me and start the program and I will do a cooking class for them, so they know how to make all these foods. Because, just as it was as scary for me, most of my clients have never really cooked either. So I totally get being freaked out about cooking, right? So my class cook with confidence is just a basic cooking class on how to eat these traditional foods.
Sharise Parviz: 13:21
So there was another change for me, right, it was a huge change, you know, I mean, at 53, learning to cook that’s crazy, right, after always denying my cooking, you know. And then even circumstances that change, you know. Another thing that came to mind is, you know, when you, I grew up in the hood, right so there weren’t any butterflies where I grew up in, in the hood, right so there weren’t any butterflies where I grew up. This is a story about butterflies anyway, but you know, then when I married my husband, we lived in Silicon Valley, california, and a really very well-to-do suburb, and of course, my husband planted a beautiful little garden and we would get butterflies that come to the garden and hummingbirds, and it was like, oh, look, there’s a butterfly and look, a hummingbird, oh my gosh. And you know, and it was just the most miraculous thing, like parting of the Red Sea, we’re seeing these butterflies and you know, something that we’ve never seen before. I mean, that’s what it feels like when you see one, and they are beautiful, don’t get me wrong. But, and they are beautiful, Don’t get me wrong.
Sharise Parviz: 14:22
But my point is now, you know, I have names for all my butterflies that are on my property, right, the hummingbirds we have. We have three and I have names. There’s Oliver, nick and Judy. And Oliver is the bully who wants to keep all of the flowers to himself and will chase anything else out of the way. He chases all the other hummingbirds away. He chases the butterflies away. He’s a big bully and he won’t share. And then Nick and Judy try to get there in the early morning before he gets there, to try to get what they can get the nectar that they can get from the flowers, before he comes and chases them away.
Sharise Parviz: 14:51
So now you know, it’s like we have all of the butterflies and the hummingbirds and all these things here. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not belittling seeing them in the city or seeing them on a suburb, because no matter where you see them, they are miraculous creatures. Right, you know the hummingbird and you. I mean then, when you these hummingbirds, what’s crazy about them is they get to know you and we read that they actually can recognize faces. I don’t know if that’s true, maybe it is, but it’s something that my husband looked at and told me about, and but they will come up, especially Oliver. Like I said, he’s a little bully, he’s a little aggressive and not hurt us. He won’t, they won’t try to pick us right, but he will come up and kind of flutter right in front of our faces Like whoa, and like he’s saying hello. It’s like, well, okay, good morning Oliver. I mean it’s, it’s crazy.
Sharise Parviz: 15:39
You know, I never thought I wrote a little article when we moved here from from the hood to a homestead, because I never pictured myself, ever pictured myself living on 22 acres. It’s just not me. I didn’t ever thought I would ever leave a city. You know, I mean never, I mean I always. I mean I thought if I had been single with no kids, I would have moved, I would have lived in New York. I mean you wouldn’t catch me in New York now, but you know, I did live in New York for a time and performed in New York. I loved it, um, but yeah, I never thought that this would happen.
Sharise Parviz: 16:16
So my point is all the different ways that we change, all the different ways that our lives change, circumstances change, and for the good, right, I mean you know there are not so good changes too, but I’m just talking about just the good changes and the changes that we make within ourselves. You know who we’ve become, you know when we are the kind of people that say, yeah, I can’t live this way anymore, my relationship, I’ve hurt my relationships, I’ve hurt myself and I don’t want to live another day living like I did. I don’t want to live another day in regret. And so we make these changes and we don’t recognize them A lot of times. We just don’t recognize them, you know. So I thought about that and I got out of the bathroom in my meditative state and I took out a piece of paper and I started listing all the different ways that I’ve changed, you know, and some of those ways are what I just shared and other ways is that, you know, even though I think I’ve told you I’ve, I jumped to judgment pretty quickly and I can have a critical nature.
Sharise Parviz: 17:30
I have learned to to twist that off, to turn that off, and immediately it still shows up. But I can immediately turn that channel and turn that criticism off, either for myself or for others. I don’t stay angry. I mean, I was born to fight. I feel like and I have been a fighter my whole life and very angry, and not that there’s anything wrong with anger if used appropriately, but I would use anger as an energy source for any time in my life I needed an energy source and would start fights, like with my husband. Yeah, I don’t do that anymore, you know, and there are a lot of just personality changes that I’ve made and heartfelt changes that I’ve made and deep spiritual changes that I’ve made and heartfelt changes that I’ve made and deep spiritual changes that I’ve made. My relationship with God is on a completely different level because when I’ve been a Christian and I’m quoting that, putting it in quotes I would say I’ve been an intellectual, yes and no.
Sharise Parviz: 18:37
When I was a child I knew God existed before. I knew God existed right, my family wasn’t overly religious in one way or another when I was young and my dad is agnostic, and then my mom, who was practicing Judaism at the time, now, later on in life, converted to Christianity, but it wasn’t really a lot of religious talk or God talk in our house, but yet I knew something was there. I just knew. It was just something in me that just knew that God existed, even though I didn’t have a name for it necessarily. Later I became a Christian, but I still didn’t really accept that Christ died for me. I still didn’t accept that God was really for me.
Sharise Parviz: 19:27
You know, I saw God, which is very typical, the Heavenly Father and I saw my Heavenly Father being no different than my dad. You know, my Heavenly Father, he’s just, he’s going to judge me, he’s going to criticize me. I’m not good enough, I’m just something to laugh about and laugh at. And these are all the thoughts that I believed that, you know, he really is no different than my earthly father, you know. And so, while I loved God, I didn’t believe that God really loved me. Loved God, I didn’t believe that God really loved me, although in my life I know, you know, it’s all these, all these dichotomies in my life I knew that he was protecting me, you know, I knew. And then I would say well, god, why? Because am I just here for your amusement, right? So all these feelings.
Sharise Parviz: 20:14
And then there was a moment in my life where I was struggling with a lot of pain, emotional pain, relationship pain, and with my father specifically, and I felt God speak to me. It wasn’t an audible voice, but I felt it and he said I was there holding your hand all the times that your dad rejected you. I was there. I’m holding your hand now to get you through this, and it was just another situation that I was going through. Yeah, and from that moment on I felt and saw and imagined and visualized God holding my hand and that was the moment that I knew God was not my dad. God loved me and God was there for me. All the times that I was rejected he was there. So all of these moments in my life, all these moments, these revelations that brought around change in my life and that created an impetus for me to make the changes I needed to make to repair relationships, to improve my life and my heart and my health and my spirit, you know these are all moments that I wanted to recognize and remember, right, and so I wrote them all down. And you know, again, it’s hard. Sometimes we don’t recognize when we make our own changes or when others make a change.
Sharise Parviz: 21:51
And like personality tests you know a personality test, like you know, the Enneagram or the DICS or there’s a few others. They’re fun and I have a few that I have my clients take and I look at them. I do not. I look at them as being a very broad, broad, broad, broad, broad representation of what someone is like. I mean super broad and I’ll tell you why, because I’ve taken personality tests and I’ll ask a question. I go well, I don’t know how I’d respond to that answer. It depends on the day, it depends on my mood. I might respond this way, I might respond that way. It just depends on what I’m feeling the day, it depends on my mood. I might respond this way, I might respond that way. It just depends on what I’m feeling that day. So, you know, I don’t think it’s a really great accurate.
Sharise Parviz: 22:35
Some people are really like this is who I am, I don’t know, maybe, maybe, maybe not. And then sometimes we could also taint it because we might want to be a specific, you know personality type. We might want to be a specific, you know personality type. So we may not consciously but subconsciously, answer in a way that we think we want to be seen as versus how we really feel Okay. So again, I don’t necessarily trust personality tests, like a lot of people do, as being like this is who I am Right. Okay, it’s a tool, it’s a very broad brushed tool, but that’s all it is, is a tool.
Sharise Parviz: 23:13
And another way that personality tests can fail and I can tell you this from my own experience is I will take a personality test and again, I do it because they’re fun to do. Come on, they are. But I will do it and I will answer from the point of view of who I was, not who I am now. And I remember recognizing that I’m like I’m answering this not the way I would do it now, but how I’ve done it for so long in my life. Huh, wow, you know, and I was seeing all the because I’ve, you know, taken personality tests in the past and then taking them now, and I was just used to kind of answering them in the same personality type.
Sharise Parviz: 23:58
But the truth is that’s not who I am anymore, you know, I mean, there are some things in me that I’m, I mean I’m always going to be a fighter. I really believe that. And I’m okay with that now, because God had spoken to me and said hey, your anger is not bad and your fight is not bad, it’s just misplaced, you’re just focusing it in the wrong place. Okay, okay, because I would say God, stop. I don’t know why I’m such an angry person. I don’t know why I’m such an angry person. I stop. I don’t know why I’m such an angry person. I don’t know why I’m such an angry person. I do hash it out with God.
Sharise Parviz: 24:29
Let me tell you and I just remember feeling, hearing, saying however, however, I hurt him, your anger is not the problem, it’s where you’re placing your anger. That’s the problem. Where you’re placing it isn’t who deserves it and it’s or where I need you to put it to make a change. And I, whether it was my husband or whatever, and I was up with the anger itself, it’s not a problem. And and my fight, my fighting spirit, is not a problem. But choose who and what it is that you’re fighting and don’t fight your friends. Right, be a fighter, but just be careful who you who you are fighting, because you could be fighting someone who’s not the enemy or something that’s not the enemy, okay, so anyway.
Sharise Parviz: 25:25
So I sat down and I made a list and I started to think about all the different ways that I have changed and I started to celebrate Wow, my gosh, and even in my 50s, how I’ve changed. You know, and every day is a day of growth and a day of learning, if you, you know, let it be. And the reason why it’s really important to recognize our changes is when we celebrate how we’ve been, we’ve changed. We recognize it and we like, celebrate that and give thanks for that, then we are more open to recognizing how somebody else has changed. Because if we are still looking at others in the same way we saw them in the past, but they’re not that way, we’re really impeding the opportunity for healing and reconciliation. And you know personally I’ve seen that in my own family, you know, and where you’re still whether it’s a parent or it’s a child, an adult child where you’re still seeing someone as who they were and not really looking at them with fresh eyes as who they are. And so then, when we keep looking back at who they were, we keep bringing up the old stuff and we never allow it to just heal and then be buried, right, heal and then just be put away. Let it be healed and be given to God to do what he wishes with it. Let it go. We are not able to do that because we’re still seeing from who we were or who they were, from who we were or who they were, and we can’t allow then for the beauty of this new person, whether it’s us or them, to come into our lives and for a mature relationship with ourselves or others to emerge and we just stay stuck.
Sharise Parviz: 27:26
So you may want to try this yourself. Actually, I’m going to put two parts to this because I think I’m going to go back and do this as a second part. Make a list of all the ways that you’ve grown, you’ve changed for the better. You know new circumstances, you’ve explored new experiences. That may be like I would never have done that before, and look what I’m doing how you’ve broadened your horiz doing how you’ve broadened your horizons, how you’ve broadened your viewpoint, how you’ve deepened your relationships, how you deepened your spiritual walk all anyway, any different way, right.
Sharise Parviz: 27:59
Or just how you decided to add more variety in your life in some way, you know, or started a new project or something or a new hobby, but whatever it is, make a list of all the different ways that you have changed and then celebrate that. One of the ways you can celebrate is super simple. You don’t have to go out and buy something. I mean you can if you want. But one of the great ways to celebrate yourself is with a funky move like give yourself like a yes and punch the air or be silly with it. You know. Or jump up and down, or imagine you know, experience yourself, imagine doing cartwheels in your head Right and bring that as a, as a symbol, a metaphor of your celebration, of your change.
Sharise Parviz: 28:44
Change. After you’ve made that list, you can do what I’m going to do when I go back into the house and that is make a list of people that you’ve had difficulties with in the past, people that you’ve had difficulties with in the past and still want to have relationship with Okay, and really still want to develop. You want to change, maybe, the way you see them because you want to have a better relationship. Now, I’m not going to get into, I’m not talking about an abusive relationship and that kind of thing like that. That that’s another topic. But I’m just talking about disagreements or the way you view life or the way you know things or or whatever however they may be, have been in a way that hurt you. Again, I’m not talking about physical abuse here or verbal abuse. Let’s keep it simple. Let’s just talk about things that you didn’t see eye to eye or they just had a peculiar personality that just kind of irked you.
Sharise Parviz: 29:48
But maybe that person has changed, maybe they’ve grown, maybe they’ve matured, and try to see that person with new eyes, as a new human being, as a new person, new creation, and see if that won’t help, and see if that won’t help your desire or your feelings of just wanting to connect and be with this person and I’m not saying lie. If they haven’t changed, well then they haven’t changed. Can you love them still, or is it something you need to keep distance with? But that’s something you have to decide. But if it’s someone that you just have refused, really come on. You know you’ll know it. You really refuse to look at them in a different way, even though and maybe even feel a little guilty about it.
Sharise Parviz: 30:38
Who knows? But at least maybe there’s a part of you that goes, yeah, but I still want to be angry, right? Okay, so you know that could be that, right, you want to hold on being right. I’ve been there. I’m not saying this to you, I’m just throwing this out here. Use it or don’t, however you want, right. I always say you know, try it on, see if it fits, if it doesn’t, hang it back up on the rack, just. But if there’s something that maybe you haven’t been fair in with someone else, and seeing how they’ve changed, maybe make a list and see how they have and see if that doesn’t really just change the way you see them and the way you will communicate with them in the future. I don’t know. Just something to think about. Anyway, it’s time for me to go. Have a beautiful day today, and I will catch you in a couple of days and let you know how things are moving. All right, have a great day. Bye-bye.