Last week, I had been emailing a brand back and forth with the proposition to collaborate on an exciting brand campaign. As an anti-diet influencer in an industry focussed on weight-loss, I receive many offers from brands that I ultimately decline. It is rare for me to find a client that aligns with my values.
So, I felt relief when this opportunity came through. I can pay my bills this month without dipping into my savings. I felt validated, brands still want to work with me, I am still relevant; I am still loved.
However, upon checking my inbox before I went to sleep, they emailed to reject me from the campaign as I didn’t have a large enough Australian following. I felt devastated by this rejection. It triggered my insecurities, and past feelings and thoughts came flooding back to me:
Nobody wants to work with you
Nobody has even signed up to your newsletter
Nobody is interested in what you have to say
You are irrelevant
You are useless
You are unloved
This nursery rhyme played like a loop in my brain:
“Nobody likes me, everybody hates me.
I think I'll go eat some worms!”
Quite embarrassing; this the level of victimhood. Now for the Second Act, ahem:
You don’t deserve to feel bad
You are over-reacting
You are in a privileged position
How dare you even ask to feel like a victim?
This style of chatter used to be extremely loud in my head. It was so bad some days I couldn’t move from my bed, I felt paralysed with fear and self loathing. My self esteem was at an all time low, the only way to relieve the voices was through medication. I still remember the first time I took Lorazepam. I cried because I felt so much relief.
Through medication, therapy, and positive self talk, I was able to slowly disregard the negative voices, but I was triggered last night and began spiralling again.
Just as I was about to plunge head first into a pit of self hate, I paused. I reminded myself of all the reflection, meditation, and contemplation I have been doing these past few months. One part of me said, “Be quiet, let me be a victim”, the other part was curious. It said, “Let’s see what happens if…”
Instead of choosing to numb myself with TikTok videos, I picked up Zen And The Art of Saving The Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh and started flipping through it. I read this one line:
You are as wondrous as the sky
I had read this previously, and I had nodded along. Yes, this is a truth. But the truth hits different when you’re suffering. It felt so beautiful to remind myself of this truth. To allow and honour my feelings of rejection, to hold myself with compassion and love. To not seek to numb or deny my feelings. To respect how I felt.
As I kept reading, both truths revealed themselves to me. I’d read about the Two Truths before, but now I saw it.
The theory of the Two Truths has a twenty-five century history, originating with Buddhism:
It is said, according to the Pitāpūtrasamāgama-sūtra, Siddhārtha became a buddha “awakened one” because he fully understood the meaning of the Two Truths—Conventional Truth (saṁvṛti-satya) and Ultimate Truth (paramārtha-satya) - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Let’s explore them in a bit more detail:
Conventional Truth is the truth that pertains to the physical world. The sky is blue. I am born and I will die. It is a way of intellectualising the world. It is mind centred. You could view this as your ego. It is necessary.
Ultimate Truth is the truth that pertains to the non-physical world. It is a deep knowing. It is intuition and understanding. It is heart-centred. You could view this as your soul. It is necessary.
Nirvāṇa, ultimate freedom from the suffering conditioned by desires, is only ever achieved… from a correct understanding of Two Truths. Knowledge of the Conventional Truth informs us how things are conventionally, and thus grounds our epistemic practice in its proper linguistic and conceptual framework. Knowledge of the Ultimate Truth informs us of how things really are ultimately, and so takes our minds beyond the bounds of conceptual and linguistic conventions. -Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
I am often in denial of Conventional Truth when it comes to ‘bad things that happen to Madalin’. I let the negative voices swirl around my head, I let them become Conventional Truth. But really, they are not truth. It’s true that I don’t have a large proportion of Australian followers, but that doesn’t mean I am unworthy. It’s true that my following has decreased since I changed my message, but that doesn’t mean I am useless. It’s true that I don’t have as many story views as I used to, but it’s also true that I don’t put as many effort into creating content! None of these truths make me less loveable.
For me to understand the reality of Conventional Truth, I require Ultimate Truth to support me. Ultimate Truth is necessary for me to understand Conventional Truths without my useless, debilitating, and let’s be honest, quite rude voices. Ultimate Truth holds me in infinite love, compassion, and patience. It pours through me. Remember, you are as wondrous as the blue sky. Do you see?
With the power of Ultimate Truth, I am able to provide myself with the reason and rationality of Conventional Truth. And I am able to remove myself from the pit of shame and despair.
I was giddy with delight! It took me about 15 minutes to get out of my victim mindset. Usually this would have taken me days or even months. Actually, I was in this mindset for years. And now. Boom! I ran to tell my husband, “guess what I just did, I’m enlightened!” I was so so proud haha.
I also thought, this is a great lesson to share with people on my newsletter (even if there aren’t that many of you lol!). I felt grateful for my suffering, for the lessons I was able to learn, for the ability to sit with my discomfort, to speak kindly to myself, and to love myself. I felt an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and love.
Look. I’m no buddha but we all have a little buddha within us, and if I can do this, you can do this too. We all deal with rejection, humiliation, and shame at some time in our lives, thus finding a way to cope and deal with these feelings is life changing.
Tapping into Ultimate Truth will allow your heart to provide the compassion and love required to listen to Conventional Truth in a rational, reasonable, non-judgemental way.
So how to tap into Ultimate Truth? It won’t cost you a $1. It’s totally free and available to you right now. The answer is through mindful meditation, which I write about here and here. I will continue to bang on about this because it is quite simply, life shattering.
We are all on our own journeys, and I do feel that I have learned my lesson relatively early on. I can’t tell you what to do, but honestly, a part of me feels like it’s not fair to keep this knowledge to myself. If I can help anyone to heal, to love themselves, to quieten their negative voices, and to water the seed of compassion and understanding, I will do my bestest.
I love you.
And don’t forget how truly wondrous and beautiful you are :)
Maddy x
Felt compelled to comment after reading this! I love your newsletter and look forward to it. Really enjoy your content.
I’m now going to go and buy ‘Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet’ - you make a difference (even if not that many people read your newsletter)