How You Can Feel 'Enough' in a World Obsessed with Material Wealth | EP 20

What Does it Truly Mean to Feel Enough?

In this thought-provoking episode, hosts Hélène and Dr. Stephanos Ioannou explore this intriguing concept, deconstructing societal constructs that mold our understanding of success, happiness, and fulfillment. Challenging the deeply ingrained societal programming and emotional straightjacket society often imposes.

Hélène recounts a moment where she is overwhelmed with emotion, on the brink of tears, as she is about to board a plane. Sitting there questioning how that would make others around her act.

They discuss how, from childhood, you’re conditioned to prioritize material success over emotional well-being. Questioning the value society places on wealth and status, pondering whether these are true indicators of success or merely distractions from finding genuine contentment.

Chapters:
04:40 - Material Wealth Doesn’t Guarantee Happiness
09:02 - Suppressing Emotions Is Dangerous
17:42 - Overthinking Distracts You From Clear Purpose
22:24 - Your Path and Parental Expectations
30:17 - Money Comes From Serving Humanity

Hélène and Dr. Stephanos examine how societal expectations shape our self-perception and the choices we make, often leading us down paths that don't align with our authentic selves. They urge you to question these imposed values and discover what genuinely fulfills you on a personal level.

The hosts also touch on the dangers of seeking validation from external sources. They highlight how societal pressures can lead to destructive behaviors, as individuals strive to fill an inner void with superficial achievements or self medicate.

In contrast, they offer a powerful perspective on self-acceptance and the courage it takes to pursue a life aligned with one's true passions and values.

Press play and be guided through a journey of self-discovery, challenging societal norms, and embracing the full spectrum of human emotions.

And remember, you are enough as you are.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Receive Exclusive Tips, Strategies, & Early Access to Events Directly to Your Inbox
Sign up for the Empowered New You Newsletter

Ready for a change?

Tackle stress, depression and relationship hurdles.
Talk with Dr. Stephanos Ioannou in a dedicated  1:1 therapy session
Tap Here to Book your session today

Designed for women, eager to awaken their fullest potential.
Join Hélène for a 1:1 Empowerment Session
Click Here to Schedule your call with her today

Empowered New You Events:
https://drstephanos.com/events/

Book Dr. Stephanos Ioannou for your Corporate Seminar and/or as a Keynote Speaker: info@drstephanosioannou.com

Contact us with questions, ideas, or feedback:
Health Pod Podcast

Follow our socials:
@iamhelenealexiioannides
@drstephanos_neuroscientist
@wearehealthpod

Support the Show:
Share this episode with a friend
Give us a review in your listening app of choice

Transcript

Hélène Ioannides [00:00:00]:
Welcome to HealthPod, your self development hub

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:00:02]:
on mental health, psychology, and spirituality.

Hélène Ioannides [00:00:06]:
Can you imagine a society where our programming was different?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:00:10]:
A lot of our programming that has come through our parents has taught us That now is not the right time to have a tantrum.

Hélène Ioannides [00:00:22]:
There's time for afternoon activities. There's times to be at school, there's times to do your homework, but there is never a set time to even feel your emotions?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:00:34]:
Because there's never time for presence. We've been programmed to work like machines. It's as if society has primed us to behave in a certain way so that we can feel enough and not feel ostracized by what society expects from us. What is your own Personal gift. Whenever you wake up in the morning and you you chase that or you attract that passion or If you're in service to society, you feel enough.

Hélène Ioannides [00:01:15]:
Here we are again.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:01:16]:
It's me and you.

Hélène Ioannides [00:01:17]:
It's us, baby. It's us. So today, we're talking about acceptance. Acceptance by our Society, our ecosystem, our closest people around us, and how that plays such an important role on who we become And how much we need that in order to feel safe in who we are.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:01:51]:
Such a huge topic. And, if we just want to cut to the chase Really quickly, a lot of the time, success in modern day society is being Communicated in the form of wealth that you accumulate because Status. And status. Because money, it's a common language age that everyone speaks. Mhmm. Very few people are gonna speak about their emotions, their successful relationship, How they're raising their kids, but everyone understands money, possessions, Fame, status. And it's a a very treacherous place to navigate as an adult. Because a lot of these things, when you manage to achieve them, You recognize that that's not you, that those things are not really serving you, are not really giving you The happiness that people taught you.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:03:03]:
It would. It would.

Hélène Ioannides [00:03:05]:
This is what I say. When a person you you imagine a person living in Africa, that their main goal is to survive, to basically feed their families? And that becomes their sole purpose in everything that they do, and that gives them direction? Now when you are born into a family that already has wealth and already has status, And you are told by society and by the people around you, your partner, your friends, that that's the most important thing, but you are already there because you are born into that? What what is your direction then?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:03:49]:
Mhmm.

Hélène Ioannides [00:03:50]:
Where where do you go with that? You come to an awareness very quickly that it's either through drugs that you're going to feel something, or You understand how empty you are. And with that emptiness, you are trying to fill that void with

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:04:15]:
A lot of wrong decisions.

Hélène Ioannides [00:04:16]:
A lot of wrong decisions.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:04:18]:
A lot of wrong decisions because starting by happiness, I think that many people should strive for being content.

Hélène Ioannides [00:04:29]:
Exactly. Feeling whole. Feeling whole.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:04:33]:
And we see this in in different manifesting in different forms.

Hélène Ioannides [00:04:38]:
Mhmm.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:04:40]:
We see, We don't wanna overgeneralize over here. But if you've been sold a story Mhmm. That by Accumulating fame and wealth, you'll be happy. And eventually, you reach that point That you do have those things Yeah. Because someone along the line made you not feel enough, and you strive to To accumulate those things that would eventually make you feel enough, and still you don't, The next avenue you will take to feel validated is potentially through Drugs through multiple relationships.

Hélène Ioannides [00:05:27]:
Mhmm.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:05:27]:
Because if we don't feel enough with ourself and we're Striving for happiness through an outside source, then that void that we have inside of us never fills up. It's like a black hole that sucks in anything and everything, including yourself. And you start becoming self destructive. And I would like to mention something here. When Bob Marley was asked by an interviewer, are you rich? But Marley turns to the interviewer and asks him What

Hélène Ioannides [00:06:09]:
do you mean?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:06:09]:
What do you mean if I'm rich? And the interviewer says, do you have $1,000,000? Do you have 10,000,000? He turns and tells him, The way you're defining it, if I'm rich, I'm not that type of rich. And Bob Mar Bob Marley was rich in life or high In life. Because he he used to appreciate every single thing. He used to do something that he was happy with, and money didn't really have much value Yeah. For him?

Hélène Ioannides [00:06:54]:
Can you imagine a society where our programming was different? Where we were where we were programmed to value emotions over wealth to value

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:07:14]:
Service.

Hélène Ioannides [00:07:16]:
Quality Quality. Quality of time with people as opposed to getting things done, and also having the ability, training people to feel into hold all of that emotion, whether it's pain or happiness, but to really embody it and to have that permission to embody it, and live within that space within your body that you feel I'm having a human experience? It's not about accumulating more stuff or trying things to get you to a place, but actually going within. And by going within, to have the capacity to be. I remember we were sitting in the airport, and we'd heard of a story of A friend's father had passed away.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:08:23]:
Mhmm.

Hélène Ioannides [00:08:23]:
And I was feeling really emotional, And I wanted to cry. We were just about to board the plane. And In that moment, I thought to myself, if I was to just sit here and cry and allow this emotion to come through, How would I be perceived by everyone around me? What what what would they do? What would the response be? Do I even have permission to do that? Like, I give myself permission, but people's response around us.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:09:01]:
They program us to

Hélène Ioannides [00:09:02]:
activate it. Us to to become more submissive, less emotional, and not giving us the ability to say, you know what? Right now I feel sad, but let me feel it now. Let me be able to sit with it. Let me be able to experience what needs to come through as post you know, as soon as you start crying, there'll be I can imagine an old woman coming over to you and saying, you know what? Don't cry. Mhmm. Don't cry. It's okay. What's wrong? There always has to be a why, and there always has to be a let's let's push down those emotions because it's giving other people around you the capacity to potentially feel as well?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:09:53]:
Yes. Because emotions are contagious. And, we've learned through this Stress and anxious based society.

Hélène Ioannides [00:10:03]:
Vaping, phones.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:10:04]:
Phones to suppress a lot of our emotions.

Hélène Ioannides [00:10:07]:
We disconnected.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:10:09]:
Yes. Because a lot of our programming that has come through our parents has taught us That now is not the right time to have a tantrum to express your frustrations because you need to go to school. You need to to be there. When you you need to be at the party, you need to behave at a specific way. And there's never ever the right time to express emotions. And a child has never felt supported to express those emotions because His or her parents never gave them the space to express those

Hélène Ioannides [00:10:52]:
It's like there's time for parties. There's time for afternoon activities. There's times to be at school, there's times to do your homework, but there is never a set time to even feel your emotions?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:11:07]:
Because there's never time for presence. There's never time for presence. And human experience, it's It's a beautiful gift. Mhmm. And the only way you can fully embody this experience is by being present And expressing what you want to express at a specific time. You wanna be sad, you can be sad. There needs to be the space For that, to allow yourself to to process those emotions? You don't have to Sitting in front of the computer and make a sale on, I don't know, some stocks. You don't necessarily have to do that Because you are humans, but we've been programmed to work like machines.

Hélène Ioannides [00:11:50]:
Exactly. As soon as you feel something, it's like, yeah, take out the phone. Let's scroll into Instagram. As soon as you feel something, let's just go and do something else because it's not the time to feel, and the the capacity To also be able to experience unpleasurable feelings, it's almost like we're We don't have the ability to or, you know, people before us, our parents, our society, our friends have never deemed that as acceptable? So therefore, you don't create space within yourself? You don't give yourself that time, which is what we ought to all do as humans. This is where therapy comes in. This is where being able to sit with your emotions to understand what you're going to do, bring awareness to who you are, who you're becoming without the programming that you the conditioning that's been given to you, that you've been born into to question it, to have the ability to sit and think, hey. Does that actually represent me? Or was I taught this? Was I taught to behave like this? Don't don't wear that. That's too that's too short.

Hélène Ioannides [00:13:08]:
Go and change how you're dressing. Don't speak so loud. You're too much. Behave this way when you're in, you know, when you're in public, you need to Mhmm. Carry yourself in this manner?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:13:22]:
Because we've all been dictated on how on how to behave, and we've never Listen to our own self. It's as if society has primed us to behave in a certain way so that we can feel enough And not feel ostracized by what society expects from us. And if we dare To go against what society expects from us, then you find yourself without friends. You find yourself not feeling proud for yourself because we we define pride of We define feeling enough based on what society believes of us, not what we believe. Exactly. Of ourselves. We have parents comparing their children to other children or to other adults. Mhmm.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:14:16]:
Oh, Look at x, y, zed. He's doing this, and he's making so much money.

Hélène Ioannides [00:14:22]:
Mhmm.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:14:22]:
Now behind Every every every person's story is also their need for validation. That's why they're saying that story. From one point of view, that story Could be truth, could be telling the truth. From another point of view, it could be full of lies. But Each person has and this comes to what you said to me in regards to the human experience, Is that every person's path is different.

Hélène Ioannides [00:14:54]:
Yeah. And we all have Our own time.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:14:57]:
And we all have our own time. Some people are gonna blossom in a different way.

Hélène Ioannides [00:15:04]:
And at a different time?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:15:06]:
It doesn't mean that every person is gonna blossom into a green flower with a dollar sign. Some people might blossom as red flowers with a heart sign because that's their trauma. That's that what they're seeking for. That's what they're looking for in their life. You could should definitely strive to be the the best version of yourself To find wholeness within you, but it doesn't mean that what society defines as being enough, You should stick by that rule.

Hélène Ioannides [00:15:41]:
When you say society, you mean everyone around you?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:15:44]:
Everyone around you.

Hélène Ioannides [00:15:44]:
Your partner, your parents, your Friends. Everything. Your whole ecosystem.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:15:52]:
Everything. And and we see nowadays parents Comparing themselves to their children, and they're saying, oh, you have so much opportunities.

Hélène Ioannides [00:16:05]:
Is like When I was your age was I would do this.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:16:09]:
It's like comparing, I don't know, the mp3 player to the cassette player. You're comparing That's

Hélène Ioannides [00:16:15]:
a good one.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:16:16]:
Apples and grapes.

Hélène Ioannides [00:16:18]:
Yeah. Different times

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:16:20]:
Different times.

Hélène Ioannides [00:16:20]:
Different environments.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:16:22]:
Different requirements, different needs, society is moving forward. We have, I don't know how many billion people on the planet nowadays. Mhmm. We'll have so many different forms of information. And one thing that the older society, older generation Didn't have that we do. They didn't have so many distractions

Hélène Ioannides [00:16:47]:
Yeah.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:16:48]:
As we do. Mhmm. And By not having so many distractions, it means that your goal is much cleaner and clearer In your mind, where you wanna go to, where you wanna head to. Mhmm. But all these distractions are keeping The younger generation occupied. Could be opinions. Could be social media. It could be wealth and money.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:17:15]:
It could be forms of entertainment. All these kind of things.

Hélène Ioannides [00:17:21]:
Yeah. Which has been designed that way.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:17:23]:
Which has been designed this way so that we we We never feel enough.

Hélène Ioannides [00:17:28]:
Yeah. We're always chasing our own tails in a in a way that doesn't allow you to ever Sit with your emotions and to feel complete because you're too busy. You're too busy, full stop.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:17:40]:
You're too busy.

Hélène Ioannides [00:17:42]:
And in that busyness, we lose ourselves. Whereas when you look back, you know, generations before us, there was one objective, and it was very targeted. Therefore, there was no yeah. There was nothing to distract them from where they were going, and it made their inner world much more simplified? There was no questioning around it. However, I must say that With this questioning also comes our own ability to question our programming Mhmm. And where we are at. To look at this whole picture and say, woah. What the fuck is going on here? Like, Are we actually all after the same thing, fame and wealth? How could this be? It makes us question.

Hélène Ioannides [00:18:39]:
It does put a question mark there that really brings awareness into into the collective? And we see that on a much more global scale where people are wondering why am I not feeling enough?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:19:04]:
Mhmm.

Hélène Ioannides [00:19:06]:
What is it? How comes if I have been taught by my parents, by society, by my friends, by my teachers at school, That this was the way that I was meant to be going, and yet I'm going in that direction. But I still feel That this somehow doesn't align.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:19:32]:
Mhmm.

Hélène Ioannides [00:19:35]:
We're lifting that veil?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:19:39]:
We are lifting that veil. And I think one of the biggest Questions that every person needs to ask before they they depart into another world Or if they're gonna ever come back is what is your own personal gift? What is that gift, and what is that passion that whenever you wake up in the morning and you You chase that, or you attract that passion, or you're in service to society. You feel enough. It could be cleaning the staircase of a building. It could be be Anything. Anything. You could be a doctor. You could be a singer.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:20:29]:
You could be an artist. You could be anything you wanna be. What what makes you happy? What are the stress levels that you're willing to take to feel content and happy in your life? What is your own ideology around studies, education, money, wealth, relationships?

Hélène Ioannides [00:20:48]:
The job that you wanna do.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:20:49]:
The job that you wanna do.

Hélène Ioannides [00:20:50]:
The career that you wanna follow Or not. And I think the the ability to be able to sit and think, what is it that fulfills me As a person, we're individual. We are unique. We have our own ways of thinking, and We each have our own dreams. Like, if you were to say, you know, oh, one of your goals is to become a marine biologist?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:21:16]:
Mhmm.

Hélène Ioannides [00:21:16]:
That doesn't that doesn't thrill me. That doesn't drive me. Irrelevant if it was to be attached to, you know, amount huge amounts of wealth? And the same with being a doctor. Like, to me, that sounds really boring. But why? Why does that sound boring to me? Why does that not interests me? Because something else is calling me. So what is that thing that is calling you individually? This is what I invite you to sit with and question, what is my heart's deepest desires?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:21:49]:
This, what you're saying, it takes a lot of courage To seek the answer of that question. Because a lot of a lot of us in our programming, Through guided by own personal trauma to feel enough. We choose a career path

Hélène Ioannides [00:22:07]:
That's really predefined.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:22:08]:
That's predefined, And we will receive the validation of our trauma through other people's opinions. That's why I chose to become a doctor. That's why I chose to become an academic. But once you realize that

Hélène Ioannides [00:22:23]:
Can you elaborate on that

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:22:24]:
a little bit? Once you realize that, oh, I'm being guided to become and I'm gonna speak about myself As a a professor of, neurophysiology, because my parents have always Admire people that had higher education. Mhmm. And you realize that, Oh, shit. That that's that's really not me. That these are my parents speaking through me so that I would receive the their validation and accept I would receive the validation of society for my title, but, god forbid, you wake up one morning, you're like, This is not what I wanna be doing the rest of my life. Reading books, transferring that knowledge To my students having a predefined agenda of what I should be teaching, My students governed by the pharmaceuticals, companies that want to prescribe prescribe specific drugs And make people behave in a specific way and put certain mental health tags for people to believe that they want to be sick So that by them identifying as being sick, they would funnel Money into the pharmaceutical industry, and then you realize that, shit, I'm I'm a part of the this System. Chain That wants to keep people hostage of never feeling enough and going into this infantile state of believing that they will always be sick. This is definitely not the life that I would like to live.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:24:13]:
If I'm sick, I'm sick. That's predefined for me. Those are my life choices. It might be my programming. It might be anything. This is my life path at the end of the day. But if today was my last breath, if today I was taking my last breath, At least I know that my ship My was directed in towards the island that I wanted to take my life 2. It was not directed to something that my parents, that society has predefined for me.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:24:58]:
So at least, even if this was the last breath that I'm gonna take on on this planet

Hélène Ioannides [00:25:06]:
you were taking in a direction of your heart?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:25:09]:
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Which

Hélène Ioannides [00:25:14]:
takes A lot of self awareness, courage, and Introspection to be able to understand that what you have been doing, working towards your whole life, or even perhaps at any point, wanting to change direction? Say you were doing something that fulfilled you and then you wanted to change career, to make that shift takes falls?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:25:55]:
And that's why most people at the age of 40, they decide to change professions Because they realize that this doesn't serve me anymore. Even if I'm making shitloads of money. So Even if I'm famous, it doesn't serve me.

Hélène Ioannides [00:26:10]:
So the question there is once you hit a certain certain age, does that mean that you are actually accepting yourself for who you are? You've understood who you are. Therefore, the validation of society, of people around you, of your coworkers isn't as important, and you are able to look within and understand, Okay. The most important validation I need is from myself. So, therefore, what makes me happy?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:26:42]:
So when does a person feel enough? Hello, everyone. Thank you for watching and listening. 

This episode is sponsored today by Limassol Psychological Well-being Center, where we specialize on corporate seminars and events for your company to have a healthy Ecosystem. I have today for you a free resource, a free webinar where you could all subscribe to learn what we do With c level executives and how, as an employee, you can increase your productivity and reduce stress. If you're this type of person, then Do not forget to subscribe on our free webinar, and I cannot wait to see you there.

Hélène Ioannides [00:27:20]:
That's a big question.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:27:21]:
That's a big question.

Hélène Ioannides [00:27:22]:
That's a big question. I think every single person needs to sit with themselves and figure out what does that even mean to them? What is enough? How do I come into full acceptance of myself and knowing who I am without needing Stefano, my parents

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:27:54]:
My job.

Hélène Ioannides [00:27:55]:
My status, my job to tell me who I am when I understand and I've accepted myself and love myself and know yourself on such a deep level that you're able to say, I am enough?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:28:30]:
Feeling enough should Be so simple for every

Hélène Ioannides [00:28:35]:
human It really should be.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:28:38]:
That Just by waking up in the morning and opening your eyes, looking at the sun, You should feel gratitude, taking your 1st breath, your 1st conscious breath. You feel grateful For being alive, going even to the toilet, flushing out what you no longer need, And making space for something new, for your body to receive, should feel enough. Every person should feel enough just by feeling, just by being in the present moment.

Hélène Ioannides [00:29:23]:
We've come here on this Earth to have a human experience, and our hardest task is being human?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:29:35]:
The irony. This is the irony. Because if you start peeling the veil and you recognize that a lot of this programming that you have for feeling enough doesn't come from you, That comes from expectations of others and not the reality of your life. You realize that All what I'm striving for is fake.

Hélène Ioannides [00:30:05]:
Yeah.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:30:07]:
And if we were to finish to this conversation By just giving something a little bit more tangible

Hélène Ioannides [00:30:16]:
Mhmm.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:30:17]:
To our audience. Something that stuck with me for many years is what Oprah Winfrey said because I know that a lot of people out there are Striving for money nowadays is that when you recognize How you can be of service to humanity, money will come. And service to humanity comes from many different ways because we're a collective. We all need each other to survive from the Person that picks up our garbage, to the plumber, to the doctor, to the lawyer, Everyone plays a crucial role. Not everyone is good at it Because it doesn't come from a place of passion. It doesn't come from a place of pride for What they're doing and how they're being of service.

Hélène Ioannides [00:31:29]:
Yeah. Which is reminding us where we came from. If you remember where you came from and who you used to be and take moments of appreciation for your every breath, for your every movement, then You are remembering that you are love, and the acceptance that we search for from other people and that validation is because of their own lack of self love

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:32:08]:
Mhmm.

Hélène Ioannides [00:32:09]:
That was inputted into our own programming? So, therefore, the more we are love,

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:32:19]:
the

Hélène Ioannides [00:32:19]:
more accepting we become of ourselves and everyone around us?

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:32:23]:
We're here to be loved and give love.

Hélène Ioannides [00:32:27]:
No.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:32:30]:
Having said that, we have come to the conclusion of today's episode. You're enough as you are. Do not expect from anyone To accept you. Learn how to accept yourself and especially Accept those parts that need more love, that you're not comfortable with, So that you can become whole and remember why you have come To this earth, to be loved, to serve, and be loved.

Hélène Ioannides [00:33:13]:
Thank you for watching. See For you guys, if you like the work that we are putting out into the world, please make sure you like this video and you subscribe to our channel. It really helps the work that we do.

Dr. Stephanos Ioannou [00:33:32]:
And if you would like to follow our journey on our IG accounts as well as learn more about our services, we provide everything for you in the description below. Thanks for watching.