Self-Love…Really?! | RU005

Hello, and welcome to rediscovering you where you will find valuable insights, support and education to help you move through the difficult and often painful process of divorce with grace and courage and hope and find the ultimate gift of rediscovering yourself. I'm your host, Barb Greenberg, award winning author and founder of Rediscovering U. If I'd had access to a resource like this during my divorce, I would have not felt so isolated, I would have made much better decisions, I still would have breathed for that for so hard for so long. And I wouldn't have eaten so many boxes of macaroni and cheese. When women heal. Families heal when families heal communities heal. When communities heal, the possibilities are endless. Let's get started.

What do you think of when you hear the word self love? Does it sound sappy or conceited? Or absolutely wonderful? Does it seem an impossible request? Or do you say to yourself, I've got this it's a piece of cake. I had not even heard the phrase self love until I was in my 40s. And it seemed both too sappy and too much of an impossible request. So I was really surprised when a respected life coach asked to interview me on the topic. She explained that interview would be videoed and I went to work compiling as much information as I could, since I really don't know anything about it. And so, Google, here I come. And I read that self love is a state of appreciation for oneself, that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. Self love means having a high regard for our own well being and happiness, taking care of yourself and your needs and not sacrificing your well being to please others. That's good, right. And it can mean something different for everyone, because we all have different ways to take care of ourselves. So that sounded very nice. It sounded a little cold clinical, but it was good information. And during my interview, I shared that my journey to self love began when a trauma that included divorce, forced me down into myself. And your divorce may also be doing the same thing forcing you to look inward, to maybe more deeply reflect on so many aspects of your life, and of your yourself who you are, who am I now that I'm not going to be part of a couple anymore. And I don't know if you can relate to this. But until then, until my divorce and my kind of paying attention much more carefully to myself. I always focused on the outward on doing my best to make sure others believed and loved me. What do you think of when you hear the phrase self love? Does it seem sappy? Does it seem conceited? Does it seem absolutely wonderful? Because it seemed an impossible request? Or do you say to yourself, Oh, I've got this, it's a piece of cake. Well, I didn't hear that phrase until I was in my 40s. And I thought it was both awfully sappy. And way too much of a request for me to handle. So I was really surprised and flattered that a respected life coach in our area, asked me to be interviewed about this topic. Oh my gosh. And she said, we're going to be videoed. And so I went to work, compiling as much information as I could, I thought, Oh, this is good. I should probably learn this stuff, right. So Google hear a comment I read that self love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. That sounds nice, right? Self love means having a high regard for your own well being and happiness, taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your well being to please others. That's good, too. And it means something different for each person because we all have different ways to take care of ourselves. Nice definition. Kind of clinical but good information, right. So during my interview, I shared that my journey to self love began when a trauma which included divorce, forced me down into myself and your divorce may also be doing the same thing where it pushes you to look inward.

See yourself more clearly. Have a little more energy affection and pay attention to so many aspects of your life, especially now that you're not going to be part of a couple anymore. So I don't know if you can relate to this. But until then my focus has always been outward, I was doing my best to make sure others loved me. And that noticing my own heart at all, and I shared that my lack of self love affected every area of my life, including making decisions and taking any steps forward, because I knew from my experience, that if I had a misstep, if I made a bad decision, I could be put at risk of being belittled or discounted, or losing the love of others for which I was so desperate. And in the process of doing all that I was silencing myself, I realized I was silent. I also shared that when I, when I did focus inward. When my focus shifted to me, I began to feel as if I was meeting myself for the first time, or maybe like reconnecting to a really good friend that I hadn't seen in ages. And I thought, Oh, this is how you start a relationship. It doesn't start automatically with love. It starts with you meet the person and you become friends for a while, right?

So here I was, I was gonna make friends with myself, that was just wonderful. And as you go down into your heart, I believe that that's what will happen to you too. And you might be meeting yourself, possibly reconnecting for the first time, or possibly reconnecting at a different level. So I shared that because of this shift, I learned, I was gonna say, Oh, I learned all these things. But here's how it went. I learned to trust myself. Well, most of the time. I learned to be gentle with myself. Well, some of the time, I learned to say no, yeah, when I felt strong enough to do it. And I have to tell you, my favorite self practices, self love practices, were really simple. Curling up with a good book, going for a walk, journaling once in a while. That journaling every comes in handy for me it goes. So be patient and gentle with yourself as you're learning. Going through that shift. Because it's new for a lot of us. It's new. The Interview, this is what happened. The interview lasted for an hour, she turned off the video. The first things out of my mouth were my hair looked down horrible. My voice was too loud. I'm used my hands too much. I spoke too fast. She started to laugh. She couldn't stop laughing. She goes, Did you just spend an hour talking about self love? Oh, I was so busted. That was no good. And I thought, am I a fraud? And I thought, No, I'm just human. I'm just human. I'm doing the best I can we all make mistakes. And then I thought, oh, maybe it's possible to be a star crossed lover with yourself or like you almost connect but not quite. So I decided I needed to change something.

So first thing I did was I have three simple steps to self love. So I'll share them with you. Number one, practice. Just practice. Number two, make lots of mistakes. It's just fine. And number three, laugh as often as you can. So meanwhile, I'm like, Oh, I was planning to be friends with myself. And I was so critical right away. This is this is the how to stop start a friendship. So what am I going to do? Well, I did a few things. First was I needed to silence those voices that should have woulda coulda and what's wrong with you? And assuming you have those two? in mind, we're like my favorites. Were like, how could you say that? I can't believe we did that. Oh my gosh, that was terrible. I can't I can't believe you let that happen. It Oh, geez, what's wrong with you? You have spinach in your teeth. That was me. So one person told me and I like this one. She said, Whenever you hear the voices, and they get going, you just say, Oh, thank you so much for your input. And it quiets them down. And it really does it. They kind of kind of take a break. Like we've been working really hard. You know, it's like saying, You've been working really hard. Why didn't you just rest for a while, and then somebody else had, oh, I take it a step further. I imagine those voices out on a roll with a gold crown on their head. And it makes me giggle. And that heavy, dark energy from those voices dissipates, it's gone.

So you may have ideas that work for you. You may want to create new ideas that work for you. Or you may borrow one, take one of these, this is fine, whatever helps those voices settle down and make you smile. The other night thought I had one voice, super loud, tossing and turning all night, I was just not good. And it was that very large word, worry, oh my gosh, once I start worrying, I can, I can go on a roll, I'm on a roll, I can worry about everything, you name it, I can worry about it. And it couldn't fall asleep. Or it was like two in the morning. And I was almost ranting and raving What's wrong with you? Just you know, it'll be better in the morning, you can take care of that it's not such a big deal. It's not as a big deal as you thought of what's just on and not, you know, you know, those forces. So I realized, but that wasn't working because I was talking to myself. And I wasn't talking to my worry. So I took out my trusty journal, and I was like, I'm gonna talk to my right to my worry and say, What is this? So I said, this is how the conversation went, Hey, worry. Do you want to release? Or do you want to stay in hang out? Or do you want to take a nap? Or what do you want to do? And where it goes? Oh, thanks for seeing me and listening. You're welcome. Next time you speak up. What would you like for me? To say hi. I can do that. Let me know. You hear me? Okay. Would you like a hug too? Well, that would be nice. Anything else? I don't think so. If I think of something I'll let you know. Okay, sweet dreams. You too. Crazy. I know. It's a little weird. I don't do this in the grocery store. I just do this in the middle of the night in my own bedroom. But what happened was, I fell sound asleep. And the next morning, I was sure the worry would come find back at me. And I couldn't find it anywhere. It's like where did it go? It's not here. Oh, should I worry about that I'm not worried. Or this my worried. But that's a whole different topic. That's not for today.

Anyway, the second change was not of my making. Have you ever experienced friends or that you have during the divorce, they seem to drift away. Some some friends drift away. It's almost like they feel like they have to choose, and two sides that they don't use you which hurts. I know it hurts It hurt me. But it's interesting because eventually, the spaces they've left open in your life are filled by amazing friends that appear that believe in you, that lifts you up that that inspire you that feel make you feel so good. And like their presence is like really a gift. So if you're in that position right now, where friends are drifting away, be patient, because you will be amazed who comes into your life. The next thing that happened was very interesting. I was doing my best to stop silencing myself. But that was a tough habit to break. But slowly, slowly, my voice was coming back more and more as time went on. And my new friendship with myself helped me be more genuine. And there's a saying I love this, you know when you are in the right relationship, when you like who you are becoming when you're in it. And I thought, Oh, I'm in a great relationship with myself because I really like one becoming. That was wonderful. And as a result of that, there's another change that happens. You can start connecting with what really speaks to your heart. So I was seeing self love in my future. But that's a big commitment, right? A big step from friendship to love. So how in the world am I going to do this? And what if I blow it? And what if I make a terrible mistake? And I forgot that myself had been waiting for me all this time. She stayed there. And I know that yourself. It's been waiting for you to all this time. And so mistakes don't apply in this situation. Plus mistakes. We're human response to make mistakes. You and I are human. Perfect is really boring. And you never learn anything if you don't make mistakes. That's how you learn, to stand up, to walk, to talk, to ride your bike, and to even start a podcast because mistakes don't stop at a certain age. Darn right. Oh, but you can learn a lot. If you're willing and open to learn from your mistakes how Ever, I don't know about you. But for me, there are days I just want to go. You know, I don't need another life lesson, thank you very much, just leave me alone for a while. Thank you. Then I decided I'm going to take the plunge, I'm going to love myself. And it happened that I read a book called The Church of 80% sincerity, which cracked me up, it's by a fella named David Roche. And it really took the pressure off. And I'll tell you a couple reasons why he writes about how often it is so difficult to love yourself, especially unconditionally, because we all have so many conditions we put on ourselves, right? Plus, our culture keeps piling on more conditions, and helping us do that wonderful thing of comparing ourselves with everybody else, you know, are your teeth white enough? Or is your hair shiny enough? Is your car cool enough, or you're successful enough or smart enough or clever enough, or the list goes on and on and on and on and on. So he said, of course, the meds piled on top of the other issues we have that we've carried around with us about our self worth, that we're worthy to be loved. And so it's a lot of layers of stuff. To allow love to come in, especially unconditionally.

And but I found that the more you love yourself, the less you compare yourself to others, and the more your self worth grows, even the deepening friendship with yourself, that happens. So we're on the right track, right? You and I were on the right track. He also said this is so cute. He said, that love especially unconditional love has a shelf life of about eight seconds. Yeah, I was gonna ask you to guess guess what the shelf life was, but I kind of did a spoiler thing. It's he says it's a body of seconds. Which shouldn't make you gasp it should make you sigh with relief. Because he said you know, love is 20% Feeling by Love You are Love yourself. And 80% Action, action, what you do, to show your love to yourself. So the feeling doesn't always have to be there. But the actions make the difference? What are you doing with yourself? How are you treating yourself? What are you speaking? What kind words? Are you speaking to yourself? what ways are you comforting yourself? All those good things.

So, I remember, my mom used to say my dad didn't didn't say I love you very much. But she said, Oh, I know he loves me every time he gets up to do the dishes after dinner. That's his way of saying he loves me. So there's lots of ways to know that. And I love this. To love yourself. You start with reconnecting to yourself, becoming friends with yourself. And then your love can grow as imperfect with all our imperfections. Right? I have a quote. Arianna Huffington. From her book on becoming fearless. It says she says confidence in ourselves comes not from what we do, or what we accomplish, or what we wear, or how we look. But from a deep and complete acceptance of ourselves. And I feel this confidence and this deep acceptance of ourselves, happens when you begin to love yourself. The other thing that happens when you love yourself as imperfectly as it may be and as imperfectly as you may feel that you are your self love allows you to see your light and your spirit. And the beauty that is you.