we all face a deep unworthiness and are convinced there is something (or a lot) fundamentally wrong with us. this episode unpacks why you can’t be reduced to any one given aspect of your being or experience, or what society projects onto you and you in turn internalize as your own (eg, Beauty according to the colonial paradigm). you are infinite, complex, and multi-dimensional. you are love. you are divine. you are a multidimensional being forced to over identify with a one-dimensional identity that will reproduce the social order.

you are not your productivity, your job, your social status, your “success”. you are not your failures, regrets, or mistakes. you are not the chapter of life that you are currently in. you are not what you fixate on about yourself. what if you are love? what if you are more complex, deep, layered, and awe-inspiring than the reality you've been given will ever let you see or understand?

i hope you enjoy this episode, made with love <3 

ADVICE COLUMN:

☎️ seeking advice and want to PHONE IN with a question? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠submit a voicemail here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

📩 OR WRITE IN an advice question anonymously at the ⁠⁠⁠⁠ASK Ayanda form⁠ here⁠⁠⁠.

🎥: Watch the video of this episode on Spotify or YouTube.

Sending all my love to you today, sunshine. 

Key quotes from episode: 

“You are irreducible. You cannot be reduced to anything. You cannot be reduced to what the society has defined as deficient in you."

"I cannot be counted. I cannot be measured. There is no way to take a Being, who has a lineage, millions of cells conspiring to keep them alive, and quantify their existence. That is the colonizer's way."

"We become reduced to what society wants us to think about ourselves, because as long as we carry shame within us, we are less likely to demand anything from the social structures that surround us. Because we believe WE are the ones to blame for our own deficiencies, and we take that out on one another"

Time stamps

(06:22): You are irreducible

(08:20): Social media and quantification of self

(14:50): Society's mis-education

(16:55): Everything is a mirror

(26:19): Reduction, blame and alienation

(30:07): You are love

(40:37): 7 ways you are infinite

(45:12): Spotify Interact

(48:54): Rumi poem

Sources mentioned: 

Poem: A gift to bring you by Rumi

Book: You Are the Universe: Discovering Your Cosmic Self and Why It Matters by Deepak Chopra

Quotes: Quotes on the nature of love by A. H. Almaas

Essay: Marx on Alienation by Dan Lowe

Background music: Sleeping Vibrations: Inner Abundance Sound Bath

Join the community: 

my newsletter: ⁠ayandastood.substack.com⁠ please join me here!

follow me at ⁠⁠@ayandastood⁠⁠ on TikTok and ⁠⁠@ayandastood⁠⁠ on IG

every Sunday: Join ⁠showing up together⁠, a virtual working session every Sunday on Zoom from 9am-12pm EST.