October 3, 2023 • 34 mins
Ever wondered what self-love truly means? It's a term bandied around, often misconstrued as narcissism or vanity. Well, dear listeners, we're here to set the record straight - self-love is all about recognizing your worth, accepting your flaws, and being kind to yourself when you stumble. It's not about reaching some unattainable standard of perfection. It's about empathy and compassion, extended to the person you should care about the most - yourself.
In our insightful chat, we delve into the nuances of self-love, differentiating it from self-care, and explaining why both are vital for a fulfilling life. However, if you think self-love is a tricky concept, don't worry, we've got your back. We break down the keys to self-love into five accessible components: compassion, courage, curiosity, clarity, and choice. We also discuss the power of grounding ourselves, treating ourselves with the same care we would show to someone we truly respect. We dive into the concept of the 'mother archetype' and how it can guide us in reparenting ourselves, fostering compassion, and grace.
In the realm of self-love, inner archetypes play a significant role. We explore the mother, lover, and queen archetypes, revealing how they can fuel our inner love. The warrior energy, though often getting in the way of self-love, isn't left out. We talk about how to navigate it for a healthier relationship with ourselves. So, what does self-love look like for you? We encourage you to join our enlightening discourse as we journey through the fascinating world of self-love.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, shifters.
This month, in October, we aregoing to talk about self love,
and we are going to talk aboutit in real ways.
The episode that comes afterthis one will be a round table
from some of my favorite peoplethat will talk about what their
version of self love is.
But in this episode we're goingto talk about what self love is
(00:24):
, what it is and how we can havemore of it.
So let's get started, becauseself love is so hard, isn't it?
We often don't even know whatself love really is, so it can
be really, really challengingfor us to really step into self
love, and it's such a likegitchy kind of word where we're
(00:47):
not even sure what that meansanymore.
Almost like when we say stress.
Stress is just all theuncomfortable emotions that
we're having, right?
Well, self love, it's notsomething that we're taught, and
I can tell you this because, infact, I looked up the
definition and I want to readthe definition to you as I found
it.
It says the instinct by whichone's actions are directed to
(01:13):
the promotion of one's ownwelfare or well-being,
especially an excessive regardfor one's advantage.
Second conceit vanity.
So if we're taught that selflove is a negative if it's wrong
, right.
There's a really negativeconnotation to that, as if all
(01:34):
people who have self love aresomehow narcissists.
I think that that's such crap.
It's no wonder that self loveis such a hard thing for us
women to really grasp onto.
Even in midlife, even after 40years of living, self love can
be really hard to grasp ontobecause we have this cultural
(01:55):
identity that self love isnarcissism, conceit, vanity,
manipulation, even and this iswhat religion communities a lot
of them love this definitionbecause they can encourage you
to take care of only otherpeople.
(02:15):
But there's some huge problemsin that and I don't believe in
that, and the reason is becauseI think that the world would be
a better place if we all had areally grounded sense of self
love.
And what I mean by a sense ofself love is that we really do
focus on ourselves.
(02:36):
We focus on how we're showingup, how we want to show up, what
it is that we want to show up,what it is that we need in life,
asking for help.
All of these things have to dowith self love, or my version,
my vision of self love.
And here's the bonuses of whenwe actually work on ourselves
and work on our self love.
(02:57):
When we love ourselves deeply,we can work deeply on ourselves
because we feel deeply incapableof becoming better.
So when we have a lot of selflove self worth, self esteem it
means that we actually feelcapable of doing better and we
(03:19):
encourage ourselves to do better.
So we focus on the thing thatwe actually control, which is
ourselves, how we show up tothings.
It's not about focusing onothers and that's not to say
that when we have a lot of selflove, we often want to care for
(03:40):
others.
If we're all full up and wefeel really good about ourselves
, we usually have the energy andthe wherewithal to take better
care of other people.
So when we are focused on selflove, it means that we're
focused on what we can controland then we have more to give.
When we have self love, we havemore courage and resilience to
(04:03):
go through tough stuff.
So when we have self love, wehave a lot of compassion for
ourselves.
This isn't about self love.
I become perfect, so I justthink I'm better than everyone.
Self love is really loving allthe flaws, all the icky stuff
about ourselves, the things thatwe don't like about ourselves,
(04:24):
being compassionate when we makemistakes.
So when we are morecompassionate, when we embrace
more of our humanness and ourability to make mistakes, that
means that we actually can movethrough things a lot smoother.
We can try things that are alittle bit riskier, at least on
(04:45):
the uncomfortable side, and wecan actually move through them.
So that's really essential Ifwe want to have emotional
agility, the ability to have allthe emotions and keep moving
forward, have the fear and keepmoving forward.
A lot of that comes from selflove, and I know that a lot of
us think that it comes fromshaming ourselves.
(05:06):
Because if you grew up Catholic, like me, that was one of the
things.
Every time we make a mistake,we got to punish ourselves so we
don't make that mistake again.
And let me tell you what BreneBrown says about that.
Brene Brown says that shamebreaks the very part of us that
thinks that we're capable ofchange.
Shame breaks down the very partof us that thinks that we're
(05:29):
capable of change.
What can help us move forwardis self-love, because that
self-love can lead toself-confidence.
And if we think about this froma parenting example, right, if
a parent's always telling youyou're not good enough and
you're making too many mistakesand you're doing it wrong and
you're not enough or you're toomuch, then we don't build that
(05:52):
self-confidence.
But if we're encouraged andloved and supported, we build
self-confidence and we can domore.
So this is a way where we'rebuilding our own self-confidence
by parenting ourselves in areally, really great way.
Another thing that happens whenwe have self-love is we fulfill
our own needs without expectingothers to do it for us.
(06:15):
We get clear on what we wantand we get more of it.
The way that I was taught wasyou fulfill other people's needs
and then you kind of sit backand wait for other people to
fulfill yours.
And there's a lot of thingsthat are wrong with that.
One of them is I played thisgame for so long and I would try
to do things for other peopleso that they would feel loved.
(06:39):
But the problem was I wascoming from my perspective, so I
would have to guess what it isthat would help them feel loved.
Right, I would have to guessall that stuff and then I'd have
to try to give it to them in away in which they wanted it.
All of that when really, if Iknew what I needed, I could
fulfill that and not getresentful Because I always see
(07:02):
all these memes that are like ohwell, don't expect other people
to treat you the way that youtreat them.
Of course their experience isdifferent, the way that they
want to be treated is different,so they don't really see the
world in all of the ways that wecan perceive it.
There's a billion, there's 6billion, 7 billion people on the
planet.
There's probably 6 or 7 billiondifferent ideas of what love,
(07:27):
what friendship, whatpartnership looks like.
And so when we go after gettingclear on what we want and
really fulfilling that forourselves or asking for specific
help around that, it's so mucheasier for the other person to
give us what we want and theydon't have to guess.
So we don't have to keepguessing what will make everyone
(07:50):
else happy if we know what willmake us happy.
And again, that doesn't meanthat we're not serving other
people, but when we're fulfilled, we naturally, as a species,
will help other people if we aretruly fulfilled.
So I just want us to see thatwe don't have to get resentful
and other people aren't going tosee friendship, partnership,
(08:14):
whatever relationship, the sameway that we are.
They're not going to want thesame things.
They're probably not going toneed the same things.
So if we can all have enoughself-love to really know
ourselves, to really get in deepwith ourselves, then we can
figure out how we can movethrough life getting what we
want and what we need in a goodway.
(08:34):
We can ask for it more clearlyand we don't have to guess what
everybody in our life needs sothat we can be that people
pleaser.
When we're in a contract andthis goes back to that same
point is often we build thesecontracts like I'm going to do
(08:56):
these things for you and thenyou're going to do those things
for me.
But what happens when we dothat, when we are in this world
where we truly believe that it'sall about serving each other
and not ourselves, is that onceyou stop doing that one thing
that I thought you were doingfor me, then I get resentful and
I might stop doing the thingthat you need, and so this whole
(09:19):
house of dominoes falls, and wedon't want that.
So avoiding that house ofdominoes is by really taking
good care of ourselves.
Again, this doesn't mean thatwe're not going to serve others.
Of course we are.
That's who we are as a humanspecies.
We want to help others, and alot of us are helping other
people when our needs are notbeing met.
(09:41):
We're giving people what theywant when we're not getting what
we need, and when that happens,our gas tank is running empty,
our energy is running empty wecan get more into that wounded,
child part of ourselves andstart telling ourselves stories
about how other people don'tcare about us and we don't care
about ourselves.
(10:02):
But self-love is all about howdo I care for myself, my needs,
my wants, so that I can givemore.
So if we really looked at itthat way rather than the
dictionary definition, which iscrap, that is where we would
stand.
It would be with I'm going totake care of myself as much as I
(10:24):
can, ask for help where I needit, and then I can take care of
other people as well.
And I really learned aboutself-love when I was on a woman
within weekends.
If you haven't looked up womanwithin international before,
there's regions all over theworld that help women go through
these transformational weekends, and I sat in this room of 60
(10:50):
women and the only way I gotconvinced to go there was, out
of the 48 hours, there would be24 hours of silence, meaning
there was no chit chat, right.
So I thought, well, if I can'ttalk, I can't mess things up,
right, I can't embarrass myself.
But what I really learned inthat silence was that when I'm
(11:13):
in my own pain, when I'm in myown discomfort, I really want to
take care of other people,because that's what I was taught
right.
So in the past, when I wasuncomfortable, I would start
going oh how are you?
What can I do for you?
How can I support you?
And it was a way of avoiding myown stuff.
(11:34):
I was avoiding looking at thehard stuff that was going on in
my life.
I was avoiding looking at theuncomfortable stuff, the
uncomfortable feelings, and so Ireally wanted to care for
someone else.
And that was like a big thing.
Giant light bulb in my life waslike wow, when I'm
uncomfortable, I wanna take careof other people.
(11:56):
And I'm not saying that that'sa bad thing.
What I am saying is it helpedme avoid the work and the inner
processing that I needed to dofor what had been going on in my
life.
And so sometimes we can serveother people as a distraction of
really doing our own work,because isn't it easier to go do
(12:18):
something for someone else,make someone else happy, do a
lot of people pleasing, and thennot have to think about my own
stuff.
But the thing is, when I'm doneserving other people, my stuff
is still there and then I haveto find a different distraction
and a different way to avoiddoing the work.
Or I could do the work right,and that's the work of self-love
(12:43):
.
Self-love is not like some bigfuzzy thing where we just care
about ourselves and we justindulge ourselves in everything.
For me, self-love is actuallydoing the work of seeing
ourselves as worthy of love andaffection, even though we are
(13:04):
the closest to ourselves and wecan see all the mistakes.
We can see our flaws, ourembarrassing moments, our
discomfort, our fears, all ofour not-enoughness or too
muchness.
Right, that is the work ofself-love.
It's accepting all of thosethings that make us really
uncomfortable with ourselves,that make us really really human
(13:29):
.
Right, self-love is sittingwith that discomfort until we
can move through it.
Self-love is also having thathuge compassion for ourselves.
Compassion and I was likecapital C-O-M-P-A-S-S-I-O-N, all
(13:50):
capitals.
Compassion because we're human,we're not robots.
And in this world today, this,technologically, two plus two
equals four, and everythingshould make it easier, Like
everything, all the technologyand everything should just make
our lives easier, and so we knowwhat we should do right.
And, as Maya Angelou said, whenwe know better, we do better,
(14:14):
and I'd love to believe that'strue, but I know that there's a
lot of things I know better on,and I still do them right.
So I want us to give ourselvesa break that just because we
learn something doesn't mean weapply it every time.
And that is human, that is nota malfunction of ourselves.
(14:35):
That's actually really seeingthe humanness in us, that we
have ego, we have emotions, wehave fears, we have things that
are going to throw us off track.
So we may not always be 100%the best person, our higher self
, the best person we wanna be.
So that's what compassion isabout is really being gentle
(14:59):
with our humanness, as I alwayssay, is really understanding
that our humanness means thatwe're not robots, we're not
going to get it right all thetime, and having enough
compassion to go.
Yep, that's very human of me tohave an ego and wanna get
defensive, or that's very humanof me to try to shame myself
(15:19):
into acting better.
Right, but having thecompassion and being able to
witness it and still loveourselves through it.
Another way of self love isseeking clarity, knowing more
about ourselves, reallyunderstanding ourselves.
We just went through the sagearchetype in the modern midlife
(15:40):
mentorship last month and thisis all about knowing everything
about ourselves, knowing how werelate to the world, how we
relate in relationships, how weshow up for ourselves, how we
show up for others, how we showup for the world.
Right.
We can't get that clarity ifwe're so busy distracting
(16:01):
ourselves by serving others orwhatever addiction.
Whatever is our distraction inour life?
Scrolling Facebook, right?
The clarity has to come throughlots of work and processing and
asking ourselves really goodquestions.
Another way that we have selflove, another key of self love,
(16:22):
is having courage, havingcourage to go, do the things
that we wanna do.
We have a calling in our heart.
It's about looking at that fearin the face and being able to
take a breath and moving forwardanyway, even with those fears,
right.
(16:42):
So courage is one player in howwe really love ourselves.
Another one is being reallycurious instead of judgmental,
because that's where we want togo.
Right.
We go back to shaming andjudging ourselves for being lazy
or loud or bitchy, whatever itis right.
(17:04):
So instead of having thosejudgments.
Self-love is about being curious.
Hmm, that's interesting that Ishowed up that way.
I wonder why I showed up thatway.
I wonder what triggered me.
I wonder how I can do thatbetter in the future.
Curiosity kills judgment.
We want to stay in curiosity.
And then one of the other keysis making really good choices
(17:29):
for ourselves, and this one canbe hard, especially if we
haven't done the other thingsright.
Compassion, courage is hard.
If we're making really poorchoices for ourselves to avoid
those things, right.
If all we're doing isdistracting ourselves, then
those choices are not leading usto self-love.
They're leading us to justliving a distracted life.
(17:54):
Another thing that I think isreally important when we talk
about self-love is self-worthbelieving that we are worthy of
what we need and want.
Often we want other people toprovide our needs and wants for
us, because it's a way ofexternal validation of them
telling us that we are worthy ofthat.
We are worthy of having beingreally well taken care of, right
(18:18):
, so we need that externalvalidation.
But self-worth is about ourinternal validation, us deciding
that, wow, yeah, I makemistakes sometimes, but you know
what?
I'm also really awesomesometimes.
Right, and that's okay for usto sit in as well, okay.
(18:39):
And then I have notes herebecause I don't want to go way
too off and I know I could talkabout this all different.
So when we talk about self-careright?
So people have a huge thingaround self-care.
It could look like Manny andPetty's, which isn't my thing,
but if it's yours, hey, that'syour self-care.
(19:01):
Self-care for me could be a hotbath, could be reading a book,
it could be painting or doingsomething creative.
Self-care is also how I takecare of my health, right.
How I take care of my body, howI take care of my mental health
, how I take care of myemotional health, all of those
(19:21):
things, the things that we do,for self-love is how we care.
So self-love is a way of seeingourselves and being with
ourselves.
Self-care is how we care forourselves.
So both are important and onedoesn't have to come before the
other.
Some people find self-loveeasier than actually committing
(19:44):
to the habits of self-care, andsome people find doing the
things is a lot easier thanperceiving ourselves as a loved
being or a being worthy of love.
So both are important and Ithink that care is this action.
Love is a perception, right?
So self-care is an action,self-love is a perception, it's
(20:08):
a feeling, it's an emotion.
Right?
If we're having a hard timeloving ourselves, we can still
choose to care for ourselves,and vice versa.
So I don't want you to thinkthat just because we have one,
we have the other, and I thinkthat they're both really, really
important.
Self-love is like a statementof us telling ourselves I really
(20:30):
care about myself, and afeeling of like, yes, I'm going,
I want to take good care ofmyself, I deserve to take good
care of myself, and self-care isall about how that plays out,
how we do the things that carefor ourselves.
Okay, just wanted to make surewe had a really clear
(20:53):
delineation between those two.
So this month, in October, we'regoing to be going over these
five keys of self-love that arein my client experience.
For the self-love half-day,we're going to talk about the
five keys that I've come up witharound self-love not
necessarily self-care, althoughof course, self-care is linked
(21:14):
but self-love and those partsare compassion, courage,
curiosity, clarity and choice.
Those are the things I'm goingto be breaking down in the odd
numbered episodes in October.
I hope that you'll tune intoall of them because they all
have really good tips andrituals and exercises that you
(21:36):
can be doing, and especiallylike when we combine that
compassionate curiosity.
It's so often that it's the waythat we've shamed ourselves or
the messages of shame that we'vetaken on that is preventing us
from actually loving ourselvesLike we're not, we're not enough
(21:56):
or we're too much in order tobe accepted, worthy and loved,
and that's not true.
We're all welcome to step intoself-love.
The big thing is going to begiving ourselves permission.
This is the hardest part whenit comes to any shift, because
we have these old defaults inour brain that says self-love is
(22:19):
selfish serve other people.
Other people can validate yourworthiness by how much you serve
right.
All of those things we stillwant to give ourselves
permission and I want to tellyou I still have challenges with
this.
(22:39):
When I wake up in the morning, Iwant to go straight to my
computer, I want to get somework done right, because that's
where I have put the value on mein my past, this big warrior
archetype that you know seestuff to do, go do this stuff
right.
Got a goal, go directly there,do all the steps and get there.
(23:00):
And for me, I know that I needto be more spiritually grounded
as I've gotten older and Iunderstand what self love is.
For me, self love is reallygetting grounded in myself, in
my inner wisdom, in my knowing,in that inner light, god,
(23:20):
whatever it is that you go for,but for me it's about really
being with myself and groundingmy day before I start.
Now.
That is really hard for mesometimes because my warrior
archetype has been so rewardedfor being busy, for doing the
(23:43):
things, for really movingthrough right and getting things
done right.
Productivity was really what Iwas rewarded for as a child, so
it can be really hard to putmyself first, rather than
getting that external validationfirst right or feeling good
(24:03):
about myself that I'm doing whatother people think I should be
doing.
So one of the permissions Ihave to give myself is to give
myself that hour in the morningto really take care of myself,
to really get grounded first andthen move forward.
Because, as much as I thinkthat the work is hard, the work
(24:25):
is the easiest part for me.
I could default into workanytime and just get things done
because I feel productive, butthat's not necessarily self-love
.
So I just want us to reallygive ourselves permission and
give ourselves what we reallyneed, not necessarily what our
(24:45):
default is right.
So what does?
What are the exit points ofself-love?
What do the results look like?
Right?
For me, the ultimate thing istreating ourselves like we would
.
Another person that we trulycared about and loved, taking
ourselves on dates, using thegood China for ourselves even if
(25:07):
there's nobody else around,making a meal maybe that we
would make if there was morepeople.
I know I used to say, ah, doesit make sense just to cook for
myself?
Does it?
Of course it does.
It's a way that we're show.
It's an act of love forourselves.
Is making ourselves a reallygood meal.
So you don't have to be inrelationship.
(25:28):
In fact, I know it was actuallyeasier for me to love myself
when I wasn't in relationshipbecause I had so much more time
to really think about myself.
Now I have to give myselfpermission to care about myself,
even though I'm in relationship, even though I have a partner,
and that really takes thepressure off him, because I'm
(25:50):
not asking him to fulfill all ofmy needs.
I'm seeing myself as someone Ilove, so that I can take care of
my needs because I really careabout this Christina person.
That's where I want you to be.
It also looks like creating goodboundaries for ourselves,
following through on ourcommitments to ourselves, right
(26:12):
Saying, focused on what wereally want, showing up the way
that we truly want, not just byhappenstance.
So all of these things are whatit looks like to really love
ourselves.
Boundaries, especially, puttingdown perfectionism, and loving
who we are in the unique waythat we do things.
(26:33):
That can be self love.
I just want to talk reallyquickly about archetypes and
self love because I'm sorry,because I think that archetypes
are really important.
They can help us step intodifferent energies and see all
the different parts of ourselves.
So when we talk about self love, one of the biggest archetypes
(26:56):
that come up for me is thatmother archetype.
Now, the mother archetype isthe creator, right.
She burrs things, whetherthat's children or businesses,
or ideas or projects or books,whatever it is right, anything
that we think of in our mind,and bring through to fruition,
nurture it right and take careof it.
(27:18):
The mother archetype is soimportant because that is how we
can re-parent ourselves.
Right, that is how we canre-parent ourselves.
So, even if you don't havechildren, you can imagine how we
would treat a child.
(27:38):
We wouldn't sit there when theymake a mistake and go.
Oh my God, you're so stupid.
How could you not know how todo that?
What's wrong with you?
Why do you do things like that?
Right, those kinds of questionsaren't necessarily going to be
helpful.
That's gonna put that child inshame.
But if we can becompassionately curious and
start saying, wow, that'sinteresting.
(28:00):
How did you come to thatconclusion?
Why would you have made thatchoice?
Could you make a differentchoice?
You know, next time Could therebe different consequences or
outcomes next time If you didsomething different?
Right, there's a compassionatecuriosity when it comes to
mothering.
We're not there to torture thatchild.
(28:21):
We are there to really care forthem, help them be guided, help
them learn by teaching them ina good way how to keep moving
forward, how to learn things,how to how to live their lives
in a good way.
Right, that's what we're therefor as parents.
(28:42):
So, getting into our motherarchetype and really seeing the
wounds of that inner child andthe terrible stories that
they're probably shamingthemselves with, and caring for
ourselves like we would children, right, we also have a lover
archetype, which is all aboutthe beauty of things, of being
in connection with ourselves andothers, our sensuality, our
(29:05):
sexuality.
That's another way that we canlive on ourselves right, of
being a really good lover toourselves.
And I don't mean that justsexually, I mean like taking
ourselves out on dates, treatingourselves like we would,
someone that we were in thatspace with, that we really truly
loved and cared about.
(29:26):
We can also use the queenenergy to empower our inner love
, right, because our queenenergy if you think of a
sovereign they see the wholekingdom and all of the people
and realize everybody's gotmistakes and all we can do is
our best, right.
(29:47):
And so that they can see thebig picture and plan for the
bumps in the road and reallylove ourselves through it,
empower ourselves through it.
And I would just give you yourwarrior one hint is that self
love isn't necessarily thewarrior's domain outside of
protection.
So when it comes to makingboundaries, that's something
(30:10):
that the warrior can definitelydo for self love.
When it comes to self care andactionable things, that's
something our warrior can do,but a lot of the time our
warrior energy is actuallygetting in our way of self love.
So we just wanna be weary ofthat.
When I wanna run to my computerfirst thing in the morning and
(30:33):
start doing work so that I canfeel productive.
That is not self love for me,right?
I don't know what it looks likefor you, but that is not self
love for me.
That is me going back to thatplace where I'm only worthy if
I'm producing.
I'm only worthy if I'm creatingsomething or making something
(30:53):
happen or following the steps tomy goal.
And sometimes we have to letthat warrior down and say, hey,
warrior, I don't really need youright now.
If you just wanna give yourselfa rest, I'm gonna step into love
or energy and really getconnected with myself before I
start my day, and then I canstep into warrior, right?
(31:15):
So warrior should be an energythat we step into consciously
rather than just our defaultthat shows up all the time and I
know you, gen X, I know thatthat's how we show up is we are
constantly thinking that what wedo is more value than anything
else.
So this is where I wanna leaveyou for this week, but this
(31:39):
whole month is gonna be aboutself love.
So if you're just findingepisode nine now, I want you to
go through the rest of the monthand see what you think about
self love, see if this can shiftyou a little bit.
And I just wanna leave you withthe question to start off with
was what does self love looklike for you?
(32:00):
That's it, thanks for joiningus this week, and I will talk to
you again soon.
Welcome back, shifters.
This month, in October, we aregoing to talk about self love,
and we are going to talk aboutit in real ways.
The episode that comes afterthis one will be a round table
from some of my favorite peoplethat will talk about what their
version of self love is.
But in this episode we're goingto talk about what self love is
(00:24):
, what it is and how we can havemore of it.
So let's get started, becauseself love is so hard, isn't it?
We often don't even know whatself love really is, so it can
be really, really challengingfor us to really step into self
love, and it's such a likegitchy kind of word where we're
(00:47):
not even sure what that meansanymore.
Almost like when we say stress.
Stress is just all theuncomfortable emotions that
we're having, right?
Well, self love, it's notsomething that we're taught, and
I can tell you this because, infact, I looked up the
definition and I want to readthe definition to you as I found
it.
It says the instinct by whichone's actions are directed to
(01:13):
the promotion of one's ownwelfare or well-being,
especially an excessive regardfor one's advantage.
Second conceit vanity.
So if we're taught that selflove is a negative if it's wrong
, right.
There's a really negativeconnotation to that, as if all
(01:34):
people who have self love aresomehow narcissists.
I think that that's such crap.
It's no wonder that self loveis such a hard thing for us
women to really grasp onto.
Even in midlife, even after 40years of living, self love can
be really hard to grasp ontobecause we have this cultural
(01:55):
identity that self love isnarcissism, conceit, vanity,
manipulation, even and this iswhat religion communities a lot
of them love this definitionbecause they can encourage you
to take care of only otherpeople.
(02:15):
But there's some huge problemsin that and I don't believe in
that, and the reason is becauseI think that the world would be
a better place if we all had areally grounded sense of self
love.
And what I mean by a sense ofself love is that we really do
focus on ourselves.
(02:36):
We focus on how we're showingup, how we want to show up, what
it is that we want to show up,what it is that we need in life,
asking for help.
All of these things have to dowith self love, or my version,
my vision of self love.
And here's the bonuses of whenwe actually work on ourselves
and work on our self love.
(02:57):
When we love ourselves deeply,we can work deeply on ourselves
because we feel deeply incapableof becoming better.
So when we have a lot of selflove self worth, self esteem it
means that we actually feelcapable of doing better and we
(03:19):
encourage ourselves to do better.
So we focus on the thing thatwe actually control, which is
ourselves, how we show up tothings.
It's not about focusing onothers and that's not to say
that when we have a lot of selflove, we often want to care for
(03:40):
others.
If we're all full up and wefeel really good about ourselves
, we usually have the energy andthe wherewithal to take better
care of other people.
So when we are focused on selflove, it means that we're
focused on what we can controland then we have more to give.
When we have self love, we havemore courage and resilience to
(04:03):
go through tough stuff.
So when we have self love, wehave a lot of compassion for
ourselves.
This isn't about self love.
I become perfect, so I justthink I'm better than everyone.
Self love is really loving allthe flaws, all the icky stuff
about ourselves, the things thatwe don't like about ourselves,
(04:24):
being compassionate when we makemistakes.
So when we are morecompassionate, when we embrace
more of our humanness and ourability to make mistakes, that
means that we actually can movethrough things a lot smoother.
We can try things that are alittle bit riskier, at least on
(04:45):
the uncomfortable side, and wecan actually move through them.
So that's really essential Ifwe want to have emotional
agility, the ability to have allthe emotions and keep moving
forward, have the fear and keepmoving forward.
A lot of that comes from selflove, and I know that a lot of
us think that it comes fromshaming ourselves.
(05:06):
Because if you grew up Catholic, like me, that was one of the
things.
Every time we make a mistake,we got to punish ourselves so we
don't make that mistake again.
And let me tell you what BreneBrown says about that.
Brene Brown says that shamebreaks the very part of us that
thinks that we're capable ofchange.
Shame breaks down the very partof us that thinks that we're
(05:29):
capable of change.
What can help us move forwardis self-love, because that
self-love can lead toself-confidence.
And if we think about this froma parenting example, right, if
a parent's always telling youyou're not good enough and
you're making too many mistakesand you're doing it wrong and
you're not enough or you're toomuch, then we don't build that
(05:52):
self-confidence.
But if we're encouraged andloved and supported, we build
self-confidence and we can domore.
So this is a way where we'rebuilding our own self-confidence
by parenting ourselves in areally, really great way.
Another thing that happens whenwe have self-love is we fulfill
our own needs without expectingothers to do it for us.
(06:15):
We get clear on what we wantand we get more of it.
The way that I was taught wasyou fulfill other people's needs
and then you kind of sit backand wait for other people to
fulfill yours.
And there's a lot of thingsthat are wrong with that.
One of them is I played thisgame for so long and I would try
to do things for other peopleso that they would feel loved.
(06:39):
But the problem was I wascoming from my perspective, so I
would have to guess what it isthat would help them feel loved.
Right, I would have to guessall that stuff and then I'd have
to try to give it to them in away in which they wanted it.
All of that when really, if Iknew what I needed, I could
fulfill that and not getresentful Because I always see
(07:02):
all these memes that are like ohwell, don't expect other people
to treat you the way that youtreat them.
Of course their experience isdifferent, the way that they
want to be treated is different,so they don't really see the
world in all of the ways that wecan perceive it.
There's a billion, there's 6billion, 7 billion people on the
planet.
There's probably 6 or 7 billiondifferent ideas of what love,
(07:27):
what friendship, whatpartnership looks like.
And so when we go after gettingclear on what we want and
really fulfilling that forourselves or asking for specific
help around that, it's so mucheasier for the other person to
give us what we want and theydon't have to guess.
So we don't have to keepguessing what will make everyone
(07:50):
else happy if we know what willmake us happy.
And again, that doesn't meanthat we're not serving other
people, but when we're fulfilled, we naturally, as a species,
will help other people if we aretruly fulfilled.
So I just want us to see thatwe don't have to get resentful
and other people aren't going tosee friendship, partnership,
(08:14):
whatever relationship, the sameway that we are.
They're not going to want thesame things.
They're probably not going toneed the same things.
So if we can all have enoughself-love to really know
ourselves, to really get in deepwith ourselves, then we can
figure out how we can movethrough life getting what we
want and what we need in a goodway.
(08:34):
We can ask for it more clearlyand we don't have to guess what
everybody in our life needs sothat we can be that people
pleaser.
When we're in a contract andthis goes back to that same
point is often we build thesecontracts like I'm going to do
(08:56):
these things for you and thenyou're going to do those things
for me.
But what happens when we dothat, when we are in this world
where we truly believe that it'sall about serving each other
and not ourselves, is that onceyou stop doing that one thing
that I thought you were doingfor me, then I get resentful and
I might stop doing the thingthat you need, and so this whole
(09:19):
house of dominoes falls, and wedon't want that.
So avoiding that house ofdominoes is by really taking
good care of ourselves.
Again, this doesn't mean thatwe're not going to serve others.
Of course we are.
That's who we are as a humanspecies.
We want to help others, and alot of us are helping other
people when our needs are notbeing met.
(09:41):
We're giving people what theywant when we're not getting what
we need, and when that happens,our gas tank is running empty,
our energy is running empty wecan get more into that wounded,
child part of ourselves andstart telling ourselves stories
about how other people don'tcare about us and we don't care
about ourselves.
(10:02):
But self-love is all about howdo I care for myself, my needs,
my wants, so that I can givemore.
So if we really looked at itthat way rather than the
dictionary definition, which iscrap, that is where we would
stand.
It would be with I'm going totake care of myself as much as I
(10:24):
can, ask for help where I needit, and then I can take care of
other people as well.
And I really learned aboutself-love when I was on a woman
within weekends.
If you haven't looked up womanwithin international before,
there's regions all over theworld that help women go through
these transformational weekends, and I sat in this room of 60
(10:50):
women and the only way I gotconvinced to go there was, out
of the 48 hours, there would be24 hours of silence, meaning
there was no chit chat, right.
So I thought, well, if I can'ttalk, I can't mess things up,
right, I can't embarrass myself.
But what I really learned inthat silence was that when I'm
(11:13):
in my own pain, when I'm in myown discomfort, I really want to
take care of other people,because that's what I was taught
right.
So in the past, when I wasuncomfortable, I would start
going oh how are you?
What can I do for you?
How can I support you?
And it was a way of avoiding myown stuff.
(11:34):
I was avoiding looking at thehard stuff that was going on in
my life.
I was avoiding looking at theuncomfortable stuff, the
uncomfortable feelings, and so Ireally wanted to care for
someone else.
And that was like a big thing.
Giant light bulb in my life waslike wow, when I'm
uncomfortable, I wanna take careof other people.
(11:56):
And I'm not saying that that'sa bad thing.
What I am saying is it helpedme avoid the work and the inner
processing that I needed to dofor what had been going on in my
life.
And so sometimes we can serveother people as a distraction of
really doing our own work,because isn't it easier to go do
(12:18):
something for someone else,make someone else happy, do a
lot of people pleasing, and thennot have to think about my own
stuff.
But the thing is, when I'm doneserving other people, my stuff
is still there and then I haveto find a different distraction
and a different way to avoiddoing the work.
Or I could do the work right,and that's the work of self-love
(12:43):
.
Self-love is not like some bigfuzzy thing where we just care
about ourselves and we justindulge ourselves in everything.
For me, self-love is actuallydoing the work of seeing
ourselves as worthy of love andaffection, even though we are
(13:04):
the closest to ourselves and wecan see all the mistakes.
We can see our flaws, ourembarrassing moments, our
discomfort, our fears, all ofour not-enoughness or too
muchness.
Right, that is the work ofself-love.
It's accepting all of thosethings that make us really
uncomfortable with ourselves,that make us really really human
(13:29):
.
Right, self-love is sittingwith that discomfort until we
can move through it.
Self-love is also having thathuge compassion for ourselves.
Compassion and I was likecapital C-O-M-P-A-S-S-I-O-N, all
(13:50):
capitals.
Compassion because we're human,we're not robots.
And in this world today, this,technologically, two plus two
equals four, and everythingshould make it easier, Like
everything, all the technologyand everything should just make
our lives easier, and so we knowwhat we should do right.
And, as Maya Angelou said, whenwe know better, we do better,
(14:14):
and I'd love to believe that'strue, but I know that there's a
lot of things I know better on,and I still do them right.
So I want us to give ourselvesa break that just because we
learn something doesn't mean weapply it every time.
And that is human, that is nota malfunction of ourselves.
(14:35):
That's actually really seeingthe humanness in us, that we
have ego, we have emotions, wehave fears, we have things that
are going to throw us off track.
So we may not always be 100%the best person, our higher self
, the best person we wanna be.
So that's what compassion isabout is really being gentle
(14:59):
with our humanness, as I alwayssay, is really understanding
that our humanness means thatwe're not robots, we're not
going to get it right all thetime, and having enough
compassion to go.
Yep, that's very human of me tohave an ego and wanna get
defensive, or that's very humanof me to try to shame myself
(15:19):
into acting better.
Right, but having thecompassion and being able to
witness it and still loveourselves through it.
Another way of self love isseeking clarity, knowing more
about ourselves, reallyunderstanding ourselves.
We just went through the sagearchetype in the modern midlife
(15:40):
mentorship last month and thisis all about knowing everything
about ourselves, knowing how werelate to the world, how we
relate in relationships, how weshow up for ourselves, how we
show up for others, how we showup for the world.
Right.
We can't get that clarity ifwe're so busy distracting
(16:01):
ourselves by serving others orwhatever addiction.
Whatever is our distraction inour life?
Scrolling Facebook, right?
The clarity has to come throughlots of work and processing and
asking ourselves really goodquestions.
Another way that we have selflove, another key of self love,
(16:22):
is having courage, havingcourage to go, do the things
that we wanna do.
We have a calling in our heart.
It's about looking at that fearin the face and being able to
take a breath and moving forwardanyway, even with those fears,
right.
(16:42):
So courage is one player in howwe really love ourselves.
Another one is being reallycurious instead of judgmental,
because that's where we want togo.
Right.
We go back to shaming andjudging ourselves for being lazy
or loud or bitchy, whatever itis right.
(17:04):
So instead of having thosejudgments.
Self-love is about being curious.
Hmm, that's interesting that Ishowed up that way.
I wonder why I showed up thatway.
I wonder what triggered me.
I wonder how I can do thatbetter in the future.
Curiosity kills judgment.
We want to stay in curiosity.
And then one of the other keysis making really good choices
(17:29):
for ourselves, and this one canbe hard, especially if we
haven't done the other thingsright.
Compassion, courage is hard.
If we're making really poorchoices for ourselves to avoid
those things, right.
If all we're doing isdistracting ourselves, then
those choices are not leading usto self-love.
They're leading us to justliving a distracted life.
(17:54):
Another thing that I think isreally important when we talk
about self-love is self-worthbelieving that we are worthy of
what we need and want.
Often we want other people toprovide our needs and wants for
us, because it's a way ofexternal validation of them
telling us that we are worthy ofthat.
We are worthy of having beingreally well taken care of, right
(18:18):
, so we need that externalvalidation.
But self-worth is about ourinternal validation, us deciding
that, wow, yeah, I makemistakes sometimes, but you know
what?
I'm also really awesomesometimes.
Right, and that's okay for usto sit in as well, okay.
(18:39):
And then I have notes herebecause I don't want to go way
too off and I know I could talkabout this all different.
So when we talk about self-careright?
So people have a huge thingaround self-care.
It could look like Manny andPetty's, which isn't my thing,
but if it's yours, hey, that'syour self-care.
(19:01):
Self-care for me could be a hotbath, could be reading a book,
it could be painting or doingsomething creative.
Self-care is also how I takecare of my health, right.
How I take care of my body, howI take care of my mental health
, how I take care of myemotional health, all of those
(19:21):
things, the things that we do,for self-love is how we care.
So self-love is a way of seeingourselves and being with
ourselves.
Self-care is how we care forourselves.
So both are important and onedoesn't have to come before the
other.
Some people find self-loveeasier than actually committing
(19:44):
to the habits of self-care, andsome people find doing the
things is a lot easier thanperceiving ourselves as a loved
being or a being worthy of love.
So both are important and Ithink that care is this action.
Love is a perception, right?
So self-care is an action,self-love is a perception, it's
(20:08):
a feeling, it's an emotion.
Right?
If we're having a hard timeloving ourselves, we can still
choose to care for ourselves,and vice versa.
So I don't want you to thinkthat just because we have one,
we have the other, and I thinkthat they're both really, really
important.
Self-love is like a statementof us telling ourselves I really
(20:30):
care about myself, and afeeling of like, yes, I'm going,
I want to take good care ofmyself, I deserve to take good
care of myself, and self-care isall about how that plays out,
how we do the things that carefor ourselves.
Okay, just wanted to make surewe had a really clear
(20:53):
delineation between those two.
So this month, in October, we'regoing to be going over these
five keys of self-love that arein my client experience.
For the self-love half-day,we're going to talk about the
five keys that I've come up witharound self-love not
necessarily self-care, althoughof course, self-care is linked
(21:14):
but self-love and those partsare compassion, courage,
curiosity, clarity and choice.
Those are the things I'm goingto be breaking down in the odd
numbered episodes in October.
I hope that you'll tune intoall of them because they all
have really good tips andrituals and exercises that you
(21:36):
can be doing, and especiallylike when we combine that
compassionate curiosity.
It's so often that it's the waythat we've shamed ourselves or
the messages of shame that we'vetaken on that is preventing us
from actually loving ourselvesLike we're not, we're not enough
(21:56):
or we're too much in order tobe accepted, worthy and loved,
and that's not true.
We're all welcome to step intoself-love.
The big thing is going to begiving ourselves permission.
This is the hardest part whenit comes to any shift, because
we have these old defaults inour brain that says self-love is
(22:19):
selfish serve other people.
Other people can validate yourworthiness by how much you serve
right.
All of those things we stillwant to give ourselves
permission and I want to tellyou I still have challenges with
this.
(22:39):
When I wake up in the morning, Iwant to go straight to my
computer, I want to get somework done right, because that's
where I have put the value on mein my past, this big warrior
archetype that you know seestuff to do, go do this stuff
right.
Got a goal, go directly there,do all the steps and get there.
(23:00):
And for me, I know that I needto be more spiritually grounded
as I've gotten older and Iunderstand what self love is.
For me, self love is reallygetting grounded in myself, in
my inner wisdom, in my knowing,in that inner light, god,
(23:20):
whatever it is that you go for,but for me it's about really
being with myself and groundingmy day before I start.
Now.
That is really hard for mesometimes because my warrior
archetype has been so rewardedfor being busy, for doing the
(23:43):
things, for really movingthrough right and getting things
done right.
Productivity was really what Iwas rewarded for as a child, so
it can be really hard to putmyself first, rather than
getting that external validationfirst right or feeling good
(24:03):
about myself that I'm doing whatother people think I should be
doing.
So one of the permissions Ihave to give myself is to give
myself that hour in the morningto really take care of myself,
to really get grounded first andthen move forward.
Because, as much as I thinkthat the work is hard, the work
(24:25):
is the easiest part for me.
I could default into workanytime and just get things done
because I feel productive, butthat's not necessarily self-love
.
So I just want us to reallygive ourselves permission and
give ourselves what we reallyneed, not necessarily what our
(24:45):
default is right.
So what does?
What are the exit points ofself-love?
What do the results look like?
Right?
For me, the ultimate thing istreating ourselves like we would
.
Another person that we trulycared about and loved, taking
ourselves on dates, using thegood China for ourselves even if
(25:07):
there's nobody else around,making a meal maybe that we
would make if there was morepeople.
I know I used to say, ah, doesit make sense just to cook for
myself?
Does it?
Of course it does.
It's a way that we're show.
It's an act of love forourselves.
Is making ourselves a reallygood meal.
So you don't have to be inrelationship.
(25:28):
In fact, I know it was actuallyeasier for me to love myself
when I wasn't in relationshipbecause I had so much more time
to really think about myself.
Now I have to give myselfpermission to care about myself,
even though I'm in relationship, even though I have a partner,
and that really takes thepressure off him, because I'm
(25:50):
not asking him to fulfill all ofmy needs.
I'm seeing myself as someone Ilove, so that I can take care of
my needs because I really careabout this Christina person.
That's where I want you to be.
It also looks like creating goodboundaries for ourselves,
following through on ourcommitments to ourselves, right
(26:12):
Saying, focused on what wereally want, showing up the way
that we truly want, not just byhappenstance.
So all of these things are whatit looks like to really love
ourselves.
Boundaries, especially, puttingdown perfectionism, and loving
who we are in the unique waythat we do things.
(26:33):
That can be self love.
I just want to talk reallyquickly about archetypes and
self love because I'm sorry,because I think that archetypes
are really important.
They can help us step intodifferent energies and see all
the different parts of ourselves.
So when we talk about self love, one of the biggest archetypes
(26:56):
that come up for me is thatmother archetype.
Now, the mother archetype isthe creator, right.
She burrs things, whetherthat's children or businesses,
or ideas or projects or books,whatever it is right, anything
that we think of in our mind,and bring through to fruition,
nurture it right and take careof it.
(27:18):
The mother archetype is soimportant because that is how we
can re-parent ourselves.
Right, that is how we canre-parent ourselves.
So, even if you don't havechildren, you can imagine how we
would treat a child.
(27:38):
We wouldn't sit there when theymake a mistake and go.
Oh my God, you're so stupid.
How could you not know how todo that?
What's wrong with you?
Why do you do things like that?
Right, those kinds of questionsaren't necessarily going to be
helpful.
That's gonna put that child inshame.
But if we can becompassionately curious and
start saying, wow, that'sinteresting.
(28:00):
How did you come to thatconclusion?
Why would you have made thatchoice?
Could you make a differentchoice?
You know, next time Could therebe different consequences or
outcomes next time If you didsomething different?
Right, there's a compassionatecuriosity when it comes to
mothering.
We're not there to torture thatchild.
(28:21):
We are there to really care forthem, help them be guided, help
them learn by teaching them ina good way how to keep moving
forward, how to learn things,how to how to live their lives
in a good way.
Right, that's what we're therefor as parents.
(28:42):
So, getting into our motherarchetype and really seeing the
wounds of that inner child andthe terrible stories that
they're probably shamingthemselves with, and caring for
ourselves like we would children, right, we also have a lover
archetype, which is all aboutthe beauty of things, of being
in connection with ourselves andothers, our sensuality, our
(29:05):
sexuality.
That's another way that we canlive on ourselves right, of
being a really good lover toourselves.
And I don't mean that justsexually, I mean like taking
ourselves out on dates, treatingourselves like we would,
someone that we were in thatspace with, that we really truly
loved and cared about.
(29:26):
We can also use the queenenergy to empower our inner love
, right, because our queenenergy if you think of a
sovereign they see the wholekingdom and all of the people
and realize everybody's gotmistakes and all we can do is
our best, right.
(29:47):
And so that they can see thebig picture and plan for the
bumps in the road and reallylove ourselves through it,
empower ourselves through it.
And I would just give you yourwarrior one hint is that self
love isn't necessarily thewarrior's domain outside of
protection.
So when it comes to makingboundaries, that's something
(30:10):
that the warrior can definitelydo for self love.
When it comes to self care andactionable things, that's
something our warrior can do,but a lot of the time our
warrior energy is actuallygetting in our way of self love.
So we just wanna be weary ofthat.
When I wanna run to my computerfirst thing in the morning and
(30:33):
start doing work so that I canfeel productive.
That is not self love for me,right?
I don't know what it looks likefor you, but that is not self
love for me.
That is me going back to thatplace where I'm only worthy if
I'm producing.
I'm only worthy if I'm creatingsomething or making something
(30:53):
happen or following the steps tomy goal.
And sometimes we have to letthat warrior down and say, hey,
warrior, I don't really need youright now.
If you just wanna give yourselfa rest, I'm gonna step into love
or energy and really getconnected with myself before I
start my day, and then I canstep into warrior, right?
(31:15):
So warrior should be an energythat we step into consciously
rather than just our defaultthat shows up all the time and I
know you, gen X, I know thatthat's how we show up is we are
constantly thinking that what wedo is more value than anything
else.
So this is where I wanna leaveyou for this week, but this
(31:39):
whole month is gonna be aboutself love.
So if you're just findingepisode nine now, I want you to
go through the rest of the monthand see what you think about
self love, see if this can shiftyou a little bit.
And I just wanna leave you withthe question to start off with
was what does self love looklike for you?
(32:00):
That's it, thanks for joiningus this week, and I will talk to
you again soon.
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