33 ~ How Do We Love Ourselves?

Have you ever paused to consider the depth of the phrase "self-love"?  It's thrown around so often, yet the true essence seems just out of reach. 

This episode begins our Self Love series where we uncover the layers of self-love that extend far beyond the mirror's reflection. This isn't your typical self-help spiel. It's a revelation, a call to action to treat yourself with the same fervor you'd bestow upon a beloved. This series of profound discussions might just change how you view your relationship with the most important person in your life: YOU.

In this episode and the upcoming series, we are challenging ourselves and you to redefine the concept of love and turn it inward. We touch on the subtleties of body image, the setting of boundaries, and the revolutionary act of building a relationship with oneself. 

It's about asking the hard questions: What does it mean to love ourselves?  Do we really love ourselves enough? How do we show ourselves exquisite care? 

Join us for an episode that promises to stir your soul and perhaps, ignite a love affair with the one person you're guaranteed to spend a lifetime with—yourself.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire, inviting you into our world.

Speaker 2: 0:16

I'm Brenda. I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life. Motherhood, relationships and my business Desire has taken me on quite a ride and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within.

Speaker 1: 0:32

I'm a middle school teacher turned coach and guide of the feminine, and I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children. I've never been married. I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate, as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of tired and wired and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker and a forever student, even after decades of inner work.

Speaker 2: 1:00

We are humble beginners on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.

Speaker 1: 1:12

On the Desires Medicine podcast. We talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked being responsible for our desire peace that is often overlooked. Being responsible for our desire. Welcome, welcome Listeners, friends, thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode.

Speaker 1: 1:38

Hey Brenda, hey Catherine, we are here today. We've been chatting about our wonderful episode, number 29, with Dr Stephanie Bridwell. In that episode if you'd like to tune in please check it out, but we're going to be referencing it a little bit here. In that episode, dr Steph was talking about one of her biggest desires right now, which is for her to have more self-love, for her to have a better relationship to self. She has a desire to just get to know herself more deeply, spend time with herself, and that just ricocheted in our bodies.

Speaker 1: 2:19

We're like yes, self-love, this is such a huge topic. It is a phrase that is thrown around a lot when we talk about self-love and it doesn't really mean much. I mean, we get it conceptually like, yeah, self-love, but it doesn't bring an automatic picture in my mind of what that means. Right, I don't picture myself hugging myself. I don't picture myself standing in front of the mirror saying sweet nothings. It doesn't elicit an immediate oh, I know exactly how to do that. It's actually pretty confronting, I would say. I think the first question that we start asking ourselves is hmm, do I actually love myself enough? Do I treat myself with exquisite care? The questions just start to pop up, and under the self-love there are so many subtopics. There's self-love and body image, self-love and age. What comes up for you? What other pieces fall underneath that umbrella?

Speaker 2: 3:32

So many pieces of self-love. It's really a topic that we're talking about so much these days. And also, what does it mean? Okay, so what comes up for me is just how important it is for us to love ourselves. I mean, you really hit the nail on the head and that episode with Dr Steph was wow. It was so great when she said at the very end of episode 29, I want a relationship with myself. Oh, wow, the bells and whistles went off in my body Because I've been sitting with this desire to talk about this topic so much.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Like you said, body image, self-love inside of that is like boundaries, like all the things, all the ways that we can love ourselves. And what does it actually even mean? It's just so revolutionary to hear a woman say I want to have a relationship with myself. So often we hear women talking about relationships with another person. We talk about relationships with our family or romantic love, but to say I have a desire for a relationship with myself, it's like boom, mic, drop. That is so inspiring and it really set us off on this desire to create this series here on the Desires Medicine podcast.

Speaker 2: 4:55

What does it mean to love yourself? What does it mean to love your body. Maybe it just means stop hating yourself. And we want to come in we're just coming in for a couple of minutes today to drop this topic because it's so huge there's no way we can cover this in just a couple of minutes and we want to have on a whole bunch of guests to really talk about all the different ways and show so many different stories of women who have been on the journey of self-love, because it really looks different for so many women.

Speaker 2: 5:29

I mean, my journey is different than yours, Catherine and we're going to have on some amazing guests to really share. What does it look like? Because there's not one way for it to be, and yet we do want to show some kind of a map for women. What does this look like for you? If you are hating on yourselves, it's so easy to hate on ourselves. We live in a society that profits on it but it's really revolutionary to love yourself, to love yourself, and if you're not there yet, then maybe just have the desire to lean into that a little bit more and investigate that for yourself.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Thank you for that, brenda. Yes, the desire to lean into that more. That reminds me of a conversation we had recently, actually when we were teaching one of our Desire Hour courses, where someone asked us well, what about desire and motivation? And I love that question because at first glance, the first thing I would say is desire is, or motivation is, really about commitment. We have to recommit all the time. Next up, I would say, well, if you want to go after what you want and you're committed, all right, then there's a little bit of discipline, potentially habit stacking, habit building. Then there's a little bit of discipline, potentially habit stacking, habit building things. There's identity growing. Are you becoming the person that gets to have the thing that you're trying to create? Do you have the tenacity, do you have the resilience that when you fall, that you're willing to stand up again and try again and just really know that there's no failure? Because if you're failing then that means you're taking a risk and there's potential high reward that really the only failure is quitting.

Speaker 1: 7:24

All these little nuances come up in my mind, but I've been sitting with since this topic sort of popped up to the surface relationship to self, with what if and I'm going to invite listeners to think about this question too. What if motivation to go after what we desire is synonymous with self-love? What if self-love is actually the fuel, the diesel fuel that will help propel us to go after what we want? And it's an interesting one for me to sit with, because what are the reasons that we pause to go after what we want? I can name a few, and again, this is a huge topic. We're going to really be delving into body image first. Self-love and body image. With some guests that we have lined up, the lineup is fantastic, but without even looking at that lineup and not going out that far, just staying here tight.

Speaker 1: 8:31

It's like, okay, sometimes I won't go after something because maybe it's inconvenient, right, sometimes I won't go after something because maybe it's inconvenient, right, but what has me put myself on the back burner? Why would I not be backing myself in that way? Potentially it's self-love, right, because how often are we so willing and capable to back a friend for something that they're doing? And we may be backing them and we're not even in agreement with what they're doing, but yet there we are, standing and we're like you just tell me what you need or what you want and I'm here for you. How often do we do that for ourselves? How often do we say to ourselves all right, I want to go to bed on time, but then we bring our phone into the bedroom. Or I want to eat more healthy, but yet, shake, shack, that burger just looks so good Like.

Speaker 1: 9:29

Where are the places where we say we desire one thing but then our actions do something else?

Speaker 1: 9:35

And I've often looked at that from the lens of I'm not committed enough, I don't have enough discipline, I clearly don't want it enough. And right now I'm starting to look at this from the lens of maybe I'm lacking some self-love in that arena. Maybe I'm lacking some self-love in that arena Because if I were sitting across someone and I don't want it to sound so dark and that person is potentially speaking in a way of self-harming or in a way that's not so loving, I would say, wow, that really doesn't sound that loving. Is there a way that you can be more accepting of where you are right now? That really doesn't sound that loving right Like is there a way that you can be more accepting of where you are right now? And so just some seedlings, some food for thought. But really, this is a pretty big topic, leaving me with just the question of like is it motivation to go after what we want is the best fuel and even better fuel for that more self-love.

Speaker 2: 10:52

Really beautiful, Catherine. Thank you so much for that. It's so funny because if we shift and reorient ourselves from motivation, production, results, perfection oh my God, perfection is like the opposite of self-love and we start shifting and reorienting to more of a place of softness and a growth mindset and expansion, we can actually learn from our mistakes and start building the skills and the capacity to have what we want. And the truth is falling and failing. It's just part of the human journey and we can learn so much along the way. Like a baby who's falling over, you know, they just they just get up again and they're like, oh, I fell, and we cheer them on and they get up again. And imagine we did that for ourselves. You know, imagine we just kind of laughed at ourselves or at least just didn't beat ourselves up, and instead of beating ourselves up, we just reoriented to. Well, what did I learn here and how can I apply this towards what I'm building in my life, whatever that is for each person, and then we can really start building and having what we want.

Speaker 2: 12:13

I think I love what you said self-love is the diesel fuel for desire and I love that we're breaking it down Like what does self-love mean, and what I hear is the beginning of this great conversation that we'll do over many episodes of backing yourself, choosing yourself, and one of my first lessons in self-care, like 15 years ago, was be willing to disappoint people. That was like, wow, are you kidding me? In order to disappoint people, you know, for the purpose of putting myself first, because in order to have my desires and have self-love, it is putting myself first and I have to be willing to disappoint people. Which means looking at my relationship to people, pleasing, Looking at my relationship to where I feel obligated, or all the places that I say no when I mean yes or yes when I mean no, the places where I override my system and then I go past my capacity and I'm cranky.

Speaker 2: 13:24

All of those things are where I don't have boundaries and I think that's in those places is where we build self-love. It's not manicures and hugging yourself. I love that we're breaking it down. What does it actually look like?

Speaker 1: 13:40

Thank you so much for that example. Yes, I think this, and many more, is what we're going to be looking at with our magnifying glass, hopefully really shining a light on zooming in on this topic for others. The desire I have is that we show women some possibilities, some different ways of looking at self-love. This is less about perfection, more about loving ourselves where we are and just taking baby steps right Baby, baby, baby steps. So I want to invite our listeners to stay tuned to. Please send questions around self-love, whether it's body image or something else that comes to mind for you, as we are curating the series. We're really excited for what's to follow and thank you so much for tuning in.

Speaker 2: 14:36

Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply intimate with ourselves and others. You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.