Alright, so Abby and I today are talking about
self
yeah. Self love, which I feel like, um, I don't know, like everyone's talking about. , but it's also so important. But what does it actually mean? Yes. And I feel like how is it, how are the ways that we can really practice it and how is it really relevant versus, you know, saying we love ourselves or going through the motions. And so I think it's still a really important topic, even though it's still
well, it's very, yeah. And the other thing too that just occurred to me as you were talking is like so many people are talking. Self-love and also like self-care. And I feel like conflating those two things and being like, oh, well, you know, if you schedule in like a nice bath every week and you're like drinking a lot of water and whatever, getting massages, then like Woo, self-love, self-care, all of that.
And I think what's more interesting to both you and I is all of the ways in which self-love is like none of. , like ooey-gooey things that feel really good, like sometimes self-love is giving yourself like permission to feel really horrible and like not beat yourself up about it, or letting yourself sit in your feelings and not immediately rush to make yourself feel better or distract yourself or.
Yeah, I think there are so many ways that we get to love ourselves and get to choose to love ourselves that are not necessarily what you would hear about, I think in mainstream. Right.
Personal development, . Yeah, because you know, I mean, it's taken a long time. I feel like, specifically for women to give themselves permission to do the things like the massages and the pedicures and the hot bath. Exactly. Dropping into that slow down, that feminine. Right. It's been a lot of work and so I think that that's where the self-love movement really began. Was, Hey, give yourself permission to take care of you.
And now you and I are really talking about like, taking care of you actually looks a lot different than the hot bath, which I subscribe to basically daily, a hotter bath, but that means nothing if I'm unwilling to hold myself through discomfort, through tears, through, you know, through really looking at myself and taking radical responsibility for. the ways that I show up that may not be where I want to go or who I actually wanna be anymore. Right.
And that is like deep self-love and I really, I have, I have felt that in my own life, a lot of self-love, even in the last year, more so, has been about doing the hard things. Mm-hmm. , like doing the things that are uncomfortable. because that is the practice of self-love because that is me holding myself to who I wanna be. And it isn't all about like the merry-go-round in rainbows and eating the gummy bears and the ice cream without feeling guilty about it.
Yes, that is also part of it, but it's really meeting yourself deeper. Um, and really excavating a lot of who you've been and what is what, what, what dirt in that excavation is still serving you. What is old and needs to be, you know? Mm-hmm. composted in a different way. Um, and so I know you and I are really passionate about, like you said, feeling our feelings mm-hmm.
and, uh, is self-love without skipping over and being like, oh, I gotta be positive, or I've gotta, and putting pressure on ourselves to be something other than we are in that moment.
Exactly. And. and I was actually, so I, I had a, a client call with a woman about emotional eating a couple days ago, and it inspired this post that I have yet to post, but I wrote down Happens. Yeah. Which is like, what if, what if the things that we think are our worst habits are actually our most radical acts of self-love? Because. , for example, like in this person, and I could say for myself, like biting my nails is always something that like bothers me. That is like a habit.
A habit that I, I hate, you know, not, not that I hate about myself because obviously I've done a lot of work. Um, but a habit that is annoying. And for this other person, it's like, what if you know, you, you're using food because you, uh, when you grew up, you were in an unstable environment. Food was the thing that you saw, you know, being used in celebration and for comfort and like to grieve when things happened.
And what if by you choosing to use food in those ways was your way of, of nurturing yourself and your way of allowing yourself to feel these feelings and not necessarily just like shove them away, but that's how you gave yourself love. And so it's, it's like getting to the core of these things that don't need to be judged as bad or wrong. They just are. And maybe they're just not serving who you would like to step into and that's okay.
But then that's where you kind of get to do the work around that. But it's, I think, learning that we get to start at this baseline of everything about you in this moment is, , everything is baseline. I don't even wanna say good because again, I kind of hate using like the, the good and bad or good versus evil construct, right? Like every, every part of us is, is okay. We're all
well, yeah, it's absolutely okay because it's all, it's all ways in which we created. Our safety created this, this feeling. Mm-hmm. of I'm gonna be loved and I'm not gonna be abandoned. Right. The core, the core, core wounds. Mm-hmm. what is all okay. Because it is all a part of our subconscious programming, those patterns. Mm-hmm. . And that is how we got to where we are now.
And had we not had those, maybe we wouldn't be where we're at and maybe it would be a little bit more dire straits or we don't know. Right. So I love that because it's like when we really take the view, the perspective, When I was a little person, a little girl, or a little boy, this is what I learned.
This is what I taught myself or learned from society or whatever, my caregivers, in order to feel okay, to feel good, to feel safe, to feel loved, all the all the core things that we really need, then it is okay. When you really take that perspective of like that little girl, your. Learn to emotionally eat. Yeah.
Is a possible, and if you live in a chaotic environment and you're trying to just figure out how to give yourself some stability, yes. Like all of the ways in which we learn to keep our internal state as like in as much homeostasis as possible.
Right. Acknowledging too, like for myself, my homeostasis. Um, living in a lot of chaos and learning to be calm in that and, and then recognizing now. Right. And part of my self-love journey has been to recognize that I actually get to learn a new homeostasis of it is okay and safe to be calm and calm. Mm-hmm. , Abby: you don't have to say The calm And the calm. Yeah. The calm and the call. I'm like, I don't have to subconsciously create a situation in.
, there's some chaos going on outside of me, and then I'm like, okay, I'm, I can, I'm the calm in the storm all the time. It's like, why can't I just be calm in the non storms too? Mm-hmm. , you know, so it is that self-love. It's like, okay, well that's okay because that was my, that was my world for a long time growing up was. , the chaos and the storms. Right. And being like, okay, I'm calm and I'm strong in this, and now God, that doesn't actually feel good anymore. . Right, right.
And you know, you've been on this journey with me and so now it's the really deepening into I am safe with myself. I am safe and quiet. I am safe on the sunny days. Mm-hmm. not, you know, and so the, the self-love journey is, is really so deep. And then we can use the practices. To really like. I don't know, like, what's the word I'm looking for? Like kind of just n nurture or hold some of that together. So like the hot bath, right. Or even sometimes the cold bath, because that is
active. Not for me, but for you. That's great. Yeah. So the
Cold Bath, you know, I do cold baths, ice bath to help, um, activate my nervous system and hold myself in that activation. Discomfort. In the discomfort. Yes. And, um, breathe through that and helps, you know, my anxiety and all. I mean, you know, we, there's so much, so many benefits to it if you're called to it. Then we get to use those practices. My point being is to kind of like nurture the deeper work that we're doing, that we're doing. Mm-hmm.
, you know, and be really soft with ourselves through, through that process. Because as you know, it's not all rainbows and butterflies, but it's Right. So beautiful on the other side. Well, and
you get this, you get to then choose what other ways in. , you get to nurture yourself. What other ways can you feel, get those same, feel good feelings, or come back to homeostasis or feel very at peace and very comforted, very supported that support the life that you then wanna be living, moving forward.
And like everything that you're talking about, and I know for me, like going back to my own c. , I was very, I was the youngest of a lot of kids and everybody, it was very chaotic in terms of just everybody, you know, doing a lot of things and, and I think my role was more of being like the peacemaker or the one who like was not a problem, quote unquote. Or the one who was like, you know, she was the easy child, you know? And like taking pride in being easy and then feeling like now as an.
Well, what if I'm not easy? What happens if I have an opinion? What happens if I have a voice and I, you know, make some ripples or make some waves? And that has been a fun learning experience for me, , especially with my parents in the last few years. yeah. But, but in a way that feels really good and feels like a, a big stretch for me, but like now I know how to hold myself through that. , you know, hold myself in, in the voice that I have and in the boundaries I've created.
And you know, that can be a whole other podcast on creating boundaries, which I'm sure it will be.
Yes. Absolutely. And I, I relate to you in that a lot. Cause that's one thing my mom always said was like, you were such an easy kid. Mm-hmm. , you know, it's so easy. And part of me is like, I don't know that I ever thought that I had a choice to be otherwise . You know? Like, I don't think that there was an option for me not to be. So I think you and I both identify with that of like, we were not the problem children. And so navigating like, I might rock the boat with my truth. Mm-hmm.
what I'm actually feeling here and can I. , you know, rocking the rhythm of that as other people are feeling those ripples, but that's their ripples of discomfort, not mine, right? Like, yes, I might feel like I'm the creator of it, but am I actually, or is their response to the creator of the ripples, right? And so really like watching that, watching that big picture of this is uncomfortable. And if I need to get my life jacket on.
In the creation or the response of the ripples, then, then I will, you know, whatever that means for you. Right. Like mine is, you know, we both have our different ways of really the self soothing mm-hmm. in ways that I'm now serving, not in the old ways. Right? Like, like you noticed, like biting your nails. I was a nail biter for way more years of my life than not. Um, but we do, we have all these little ways in which we soothe that are like, maybe that's not.
Not the greatest, but um, and I also love that you brought up boundaries. Cause that is such, it is, it's really its own podcast, but that is really, again, gonna create ripples and waves in your life that you get to learn how to hold yourself through the discomfort. And the last thing I wanna say on all of this for me, so I not just taking up, you know, just chit-chatting the whole time, is that reminding yourself. that discomfort is just a feeling. It doesn't mean anything is actually wrong.
Mm-hmm. . And so whenever I'm feeling that like those changes and really that deeper self-love and like, oh, this is uncomfortable, this is sticky. Somebody might be mad at me, or whatever's feeling, it's, it's reminding myself that it's actually not bad. It's just mm-hmm. uncomfortable.
Right, right, right. And, and learning to distinguish between those things is also. It's own act of self-love, it's own act of love, of just, it's so like learning to be, you know, which again, we're gonna talk about this I'm sure more and more on every podcast, but like learning to be very, um, just observing in tune with, with your thoughts, with your body, with your emotions, with how everything is feeling, what happens when you think something.
and how does it, then, how does that emotion then live in your body? Where does it live? Mm-hmm. and, and being able to kind of look at that and, and see and feel and understand if any of that is even real. Like the emotion can be real. The thought oftentimes is not real. You know, it's like real in the sense that you had it. I guess real and more of the sense of being true or untrue or maybe true for you in the moment.
Right? Yeah. And is that just. A belief that I've held for a long time that I've made to be true versus is it belief that I've held for a long time that I'm deciding maybe there is some not truths to it that maybe,
maybe it's not all the way true.
Yeah. That I subscribe to this belief because I needed to and I You don't even have to know why you needed to, right, right. You have to dissect the roots of like why I needed to. It's just okay, but now I get to remember that beliefs are subscription. and I can unsubscribe at any time while holding my right, like you said, really feeling the map within my body and where I'm holding that belief and where the activation is and where I need to really like say, Hey, I see you, right?
Like, I'm so big and I teach my daughter this too. Well, where do you feel it in your body? What does it. Saying, what is it telling you? Mm-hmm. , you know, maybe it's, I'm scared, maybe it's, I don't know if I can do this, whatever it is, but really being like, okay, I see you and seeing that part of you by actually verbally acknowledging mm-hmm. Okay. I see you insert, you know, emotion, feeling sensation right. Of you.
Um, versus like you said earlier, you know, pivoting to the positive too soon.
Right. Right. I started laughing or I I got an idea when you were talking about like how all of these beliefs are just subscriptions and how, you know, there's a, there's that app that I always get, um, I always get it on Instagram. That is a targeted ad to me where it's like, hey, Here's just this one app where you can go through all of your subscriptions and like unsubscribe from, you know, which ones you don't wanna be paying for or like whatever, you know?
I'm like, wouldn't that be so nice to just, just like have an app that's like, hmm, do I wanna unsubscribe from like all of these beliefs? Yes. We're just gonna like, click that button off and then that's done and let's move on. . Oh, I wish it were,
I wish it weren't . I know, but the human psyche is so much more complex. , Abby: it's so much more. Oh my gosh, yes. Um, so, oh, go ahead.
No, one thing I was gonna say too, um, because I feel like we could go down in this rabbit hole of talking about like how to identify feelings and all of that stuff, but I just, I was thinking about, I mean, when we had had talked about this theme of self-love and talking about this, one of the things that came up for me was, when I was really, I even started with this journey. Yeah, I was, I was, okay.
So I kind of started on my personal development journey and I remember, um, it was, I think Christmas night and I was at my grandma's house and I remember, and I just broken up with my, you know, long-term boyfriend of five years. And I remember just laying in bed thinking to. How, like silly things like, well, whatever they are, what they are. But thinking, oh my God, it's gonna be like, am I ever gonna, am I ever going to fall, like fall in love again and.
It was so much easier because I had always, you know, when I was out, you know, I'd be out or whatever without him. And I feel like, you know how Gales can just like tell if you have a boyfriend and whenever you're like with somebody else, that's like when they flock to you and you're like, no, no, I don't have, like, I don't have time or space for you, whatever. I'm with somebody else. And then when, when you're single, sometimes it can feel like. Crickets. I know. Yes. I'm single right now.
And I, I would agree. , Abby: they're like, I'm feeling crickets. So many crickets. But they make beautiful music. They do . Abby: Um, but I was thinking, I was laying there thinking, oh my God, how like it's so much easier to. it's, it feels so much easier to find love, like when you already have it, you know, when you already have the thing. It's so, it feels so much easier to attract that. And I got this voice in my head that was just, you know, it wasn't mine.
It was, it was, I feel like the first time you really heard, you know, voice of intuition, voice of like angels guides come in being like, but what if you were the one who already loved you? Because I was like, it's so much easier when you already have someone who loves you. And they were like, well, what if you were the one who already loved you? And I was like, well, that is a fucking novel concept. Well, what a mind bender. . What?
I love this cause this goes into the depths of self-love of where are you looking for somebody else to fulfill for you exactly what you are not giving yourself. Mm-hmm. . And that is the creating the safety within yourself of like, okay, I was. Putting my power over here, my energy over here and, and you know, either subconsciously or outwardly consciously blaming this person for not being able to fulfill this. But have I actually even tried to give that to myself? Exactly.
Mm-hmm. , like so many, I think so many women are oftentimes like, you know, when it comes to dating or it comes to being in relationships and they're always so concerned. How their partner's feeling about something or if it's something that their partner is gonna be okay with. And, and I, you know, have to call it back to, okay, it's great that you're, that you're wanting to be a good partner here, but what do you think about this?
Is this person, even the kind of person that you wanna be with, who cares if they, if they don't like you, do you even like them? Like, are they even the kind of partner that you wanna be with? Are they even. Did they even have any or all of the qualities or whatever, and just taking it back to, okay, no, what do I actually want for myself? What am I looking to create for myself in my life? Not even just in relationships, but Yes. With any relationship that
you're in. Yeah. Relationship with job, with money, with success, with career. Yes. All of friendships, sisterhoods. Yeah. And. Am do I like who I have to be in order to maintain this relationship? Does it
exactly, am I making myself small or, or am I making myself less?
Yes. And am I molding and I, and I am I bending to try to understand to become somebody different, you know? and that that self betrayal becomes really loud when you be, let yourself be really honest and also let yourself walk through the fires of potentially being very alone for a while. Yeah. When you no longer allow yourself to betray yourself, people will fall away and it will get a little lonely.
Or, I don't even have to say I don't, haven't experienced loneliness in a long time as I've, you know, walked through the fires of my last 18 months of a lot of alone. But it is a, there is a, an alone energy around it, but not lonely because the depths of which you hold yourself in that sense, that real self-love, like you and I are talking about. Authentic, raw, unfiltered. Mm-hmm. self-love.
Straight from God, straight from the earth, straight from, you know, like there's, there's no cleaning it up because it's so raw that, that, that loneliness dissipates. But it is, you know, it's a journey of like, okay, some fire, you know, some things are getting burnt down or a lot of
things. Well, and you know, like you're saying, people will fall away. You will actually find yourself probably maybe for the first time, Hmm. Price. So it might feel, I don't know, it might feel lonely as if the people who are not really meant to be in your circle are no longer there. And that is a different kind of discomfort because as part of the human experience, we wanna be social and part of groups and part of things.
And it's not saying that you need to like get rid of all of your friends, it's. God again, like back to boundaries, like holding, holding the, you know, your circle open for only the people of the highest, like who are gonna help you and you help them be kind of the best versions of yourself. Yes. And putting yourself in relationship to people only with like the highest standards. Yes. In that.
and recognizing when you, when you do feel that distortion that, that, you know, that messy, that kind of muddy energy mm-hmm. , it doesn't mean the other person or experience is bad, it's just Right. Not, it's just not meshing with your reality, your experience, and the way that your soul would like it too. Mm-hmm. , you know, but it's like I. , you know, I met you right bef right before kind of du like at the very beginning of so much of my life burning down and losing a lot of people.
And so I wanna remind people too, that like as things are burning and as you mm-hmm are unwilling to betray yourself. And your truth, and you're willing to walk through the, that forest solo. You find other people, you know, like my Abby, you know, you find these people that are like, Hey, do you mind if I walk with you for a while and let's talk about the flowers and the birds and oh man, there, it's the whole forest step here burnt down. You're like, yeah. You know, so it's like you find.
Or they're delivered to you. You don't even find them. They're there, you know, they're, they've been on the path all along waiting for you to take that right or that left on the, on the path that is really of your. Your highest, healthiest good. It's just right. Leaving behind the comfort zone in order to do to, to become that and to walk that.
Right. And you know, again, this could be, well this will be a whole other podcast just on energetics of things, but it's like when you're the energetic of who you're holding space for, who you're holding. Like the energetic of the blueprint of the kind of person that you'll allow into your field. Mm-hmm. those people will then start to come into your field and other people will just naturally fall away because you just don't have, you don't have space in, in your zone for them anymore.
Yeah. And it just is how it is. And it
becomes less about them being bad or good and just more, yeah. Okay. That's
different. Not, not for. May, and maybe they served you well and taught you a lesson at some point in your life, and then you get to move on and you both get to move on.
Yeah. And also I'm not for them and that doesn't make me bad or better or worse or anything where Yeah, it's just, it just is. Yeah. And you know, also when you personalize it, it's another layer of self-love of like, okay, I'm personalizing this. How can I pull back my projections or whatever I'm feeling and and nurture what I most need, but it really becomes this beautiful trust of life leading. Mm-hmm. bring you exactly what you need, when you need it, who you need, all of the things.
And your job is to continually tune into yourself, nurture yourself, and take
the next step. Yeah. And create the standards around what you are available for. Yes. And those of experiences are then going to. You'll be guided to, they'll be delivered to you and you'll go for it.
Decide over and over, you know? Mm-hmm. , I mean,
it's not
a one time decision. No, you, we have to have to decide again, like, okay, this is my okay. Because just because we create a standard and a boundary. We're then going to get the opportunity to, to, that's it. Become who we said we were becoming. Yeah. Right. And so that is like sitting in the discomfort of like, this has to be a no, because I know that this crosses the boundaries, but it's really uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. . So we get opportunities to, to fall back into old patterns.
And it doesn't make us right or wrong, it just gives us more practice or, or send the discomfort of like, oh, okay, this is, I'm no longer available for this. And so if I say yes to this, then I'm sending mixed messages not only to myself, but to. the world and mm-hmm. , we get to decide.
Yeah. And taking it back to our original topic of self left , I mean, this is, I feel like the true depths of what it means in reality is choosing every day who you wanna be, what you're available for. That regardless of like how it all goes, you are gonna sit, sit with yourself, love yourself, nurture yourself through it. Even if. You fuck it up because we all do. We're all gonna like, do stupid shit. And, and is it stupid?
It might feel stupid to your human brain, but maybe it was the lesson you needed to learn and just like allowing all of the things to flow through you and you to flow through it while continually making the choice of what you want and who you wanna be.
Yes. And and yeah. And choosing. Yeah. And that's not bad. No. Like keeping yourself is so good. . Abby: So good. So good. , so good. And it's just uncomfortable in the beginning. And it's still uncomfortable. I mean, there's times that, that even now I'm like, oh, this feels a little bit, you know, quote unquote selfish. But is this what's going to fill my cup to be able to then fill others? Exactly. Um, and if the answer is yes, then it is no longer self selfish from it.
The negative way that we've learned of the definition of selfish, you know, it's, it's selfish. It's actually really nurturing. So then I have my natural nurture in me, doesn't feel empty. My natural nurturer actually gets to expand and like water. All the things around me from a place of. Oh my God, this is so joyful. Exactly. I was like, joy. Yeah. This is my natural state. You know? Whereas if I just, if we don't listen, we're, we're really doing it from the emptiness that we know.
That creates resentment and there's a whole ripple effect and just an opportunity for us to get back in alignment if we fall back into those pleasing patterns. But yeah, you know, I think you and I are making it really clear that we could just talk about this subject for like five more episodes. . I
know I just had a vision of you just. Like kind of, um, walking, not even walking, but like skipping around like a yard with like a watering can and just like, just watering little like sparkles of water on like different areas of your life and different people and being like, see, and this is what it looks like. This is great. You know, graphic gonna just let it spray all over myself and then I'm gonna fill it up. I water everything around
me. I like that visual though. It's true. You know? It's true. Yeah. That's the way it gets to be.
It is. So I think this was a. A good, um, pretty good take,
take off point of self I'm just getting started.
It's a good takeoff on this. And we've dived into several other topics that we can go into in more depth.
Yeah. But I think that, you know, the foundations of what it is are obviously very covered in this, in this episode. And so, you know, let us know. Share with us like what are your favorite. Ways to practice self-love or what have you learned about yourself in the process. And also if you'd like to hear more, you know, drop us talk, what you wanna hear and talk about and want us to go deeper
into. Yeah. And if you wanna share your journey with it, we'd love to hear it too. Yes,
absolutely.
So, okay, well this is so much fun, , and we'll talk to you soon.