39 ~ Nurturing Self-Love to Unlock Possibility

What if you could experience the same unconditional love for yourself that you naturally feel for a newborn baby? Imagine if your deepest desires were fueled by self-love, propelling you past self-doubt and limitations. In this episode of Desire as Medicine, we delve into how self-love intertwines with desire, acting as a powerful force that guides us towards more. By peeling away layers of wounding and embracing our true essence of love and joy, we open up a realm of pure possibility. Join us as we explore the profound impact of self-love on our pursuit of desires. 

Our conversation takes a deeper turn as we examine the significant influence of our environments and relationships on our self-perception and values. We discuss how consciously choosing where to place our attention and resources can create supportive surroundings that foster personal growth and self-love. Are your daily interactions and environments aligned with the person you aspire to be? Reflect on this with us as we highlight the extraordinary odds of our existence and the inherent worth it signifies. Through fostering honesty, love, and intimacy with ourselves and others, we invite you to share your thoughts and experiences on this beautiful, complex journey of self-love.

Chapters

• 0:08 Self-Love and Desire Exploration
• 15:41 The Power of Surroundings and Self-Love
• 23:46 Exploring Self-Love and Support

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. Piece that is often overlooked being responsible for our desire. Hey, everyone, welcome back. I am here, joined, as always, with my lovely co-host, hey, brenda how's it going?

Speaker 2: 1:39

Hey, catherine, so good to be here with you for another episode of our self-love series.

Speaker 1: 1:43

This is an absolutely beautiful series. It has been an absolutely beautiful series, for sure, and a really juicy series. I think we've been sitting with the parallels of self love and desire, how they intertwine, co-mingle, they meet at a corner or they're sort of one in the same. We were talking about in one of the episodes how self-love is like the backpack, the battery that helps us go after what we want. It helps fuel us and lean into our desires, versus the opposite of that right when we potentially were feeling self-doubt or we don't really feel good about ourselves, we don't tend to lean in towards what we want. We tend to just sort of collapse or fall back or shy away from what we're looking for. So we're going to continue to lean into self-love and all the pieces and parts that go into that. When I say pieces and parts the last time or not, that I think episode 38, we were talking about self-love not being about perfection. It's not about landing on a utopia where I can love myself now because everything is exactly as I want it to be, from head to toe, or in all areas of my life. Everything's perfect. So therefore I love myself. We're still leaning in towards. Well, what does it feel to love yourself as is? Like when you walk into one of those thrift shops, it says as is on the furniture. That's us. We're just looking in the mirror with a little patch that says as is. Can I love this as is? And the way I'd love for us to look at this today and Brenda and I are going to go back and forth on this is when a baby comes into the world, it pretty much has the as is sticker, right.

Speaker 1: 3:40

And what do we think about babies when they come in? We're like, oh my God, that baby's so cute. Even if you don't want to have children, you can't. It's really hard to look at a baby and be mean to it. I mean, if you're in your right mind, I'm not talking about people who are annihilated or inebriated or under the influence of something, but to a certain extent, I feel as though when I think of babies, I'm thinking newborn, I'm thinking from being born to, let's say, six months old, where the baby's not really doing much but breathing, pooping and eating, that they're pretty much a celebrity. We all want to see it like lay there, sleeping or awake, pooping or eating, like all of them are acceptable and it's celebrity status. We want to take pictures of the baby, we want to hold the baby, we want to be like. Show me pictures of the baby I. What comes to mind to you, for you, brenda, when you think of newborn zero to six?

Speaker 2: 4:48

I love this, catherine. This is so great, wow. As it turns out, I held a newborn baby yesterday. A baby is four months old, so this is a great metaphor that you're bringing up because it's so fresh in my body. And these babies are celebrities because they're little miracles. A baby is a little miracle. A baby is like the embodiment of newness, of possibility, of perfection, of just like God and the universe itself. Right, whatever your definition of God, I mean like in the universal way, like pure possibility.

Speaker 2: 5:31

And when you were talking, I was thinking about like, oh, that's what desire is Desire like? When we're really tapped into the essence of desire, it's pure possibility. And when I held that baby yesterday and we took so many pictures, it's joyful, it's just pure joy. And can we feel that way about ourselves? Can we feel that way about our desire?

Speaker 2: 5:58

And I think that this is one of the things that we talked about on our last episode, episode 38, about, um, our true essence being love, our true essence being love and joy and possibility, and anything else is just not us. It's our wounding, it's our hurts, it's all the smudge on top that tells us all the reasons why we can't have it, can't do it why we're this or why we're that. There are basically limitations. So what's coming up for me when you're talking is I love this metaphor of a new baby because, no matter what, even when the baby is pooping in a diaper and as I held this baby yesterday, he literally did poop and he made all these faces and we were cracking up because it was absolutely adorable. So talk about as is. We don't expect a baby to be perfect and he also spit up and we're like this is great. Can we be that way with ourselves when things aren't quite going the way we want or we're not looking the way we want? That's what's coming up for me.

Speaker 1: 7:10

Well, first off, I'm going to talk about the part that I'm sure many of us have heard before, which is we have a one in 400 trillion chance of being born. And that's like, I think, when we take 10, and what is it? The odds of being born is way less than one in 400 trillion. So it's even less than that, but yet when we think of babies, we're so clear on. This is the first time. They've done this Like. This is the first time that this baby yesterday was in your arms, pooping in the diaper with you. Everything is so. It's so clearly the baby's first time that everything feels adorable.

Speaker 1: 7:56

But when we, as adults, experience something for the first time, we think that it should be perfect, even though we've never had this moment in this way before, ever before.

Speaker 1: 8:08

Like every minute is a brand new minute. Every experience, even if it's the same, is in some way shape or form different because it's in a different timeline. But in so many ways we expect we have almost it's almost absurd. We're expecting a perfection out of our moments in a way that we would never expect it from a newborn, and so that's what's really up for me as we talk about self-love. It's wow, I can love a stranger's baby. I don't even have to know them, I just see the baby and the baby looks so innocent and so brand new and I recognize it's this baby's first time in the world in this way, in this moment, and I have so much love and appreciation for this baby. I don't know if I see and meet myself in the mirror in the morning or at night, when I have, like, my toothbrush and toothpaste, when I look at myself, if I have the same level of awe, appreciation or celebrity status for myself. And I'm just leaning into the fact that I am aware of this right now.

Speaker 2: 9:26

That's really beautiful. I love when you said unrealistic. Like we have these unrealistic expectations of ourselves and I'm sitting here listening to you going why is this? Why is it that we have this perfectionistic, unrealistic expectation of ourselves and yet we look at a new baby pooping and spitting up and we think it's adorable. And we don't even expect a new mother to be perfect Well, there's no such thing anyway. And where did we get this idea that we're supposed to be perfect? And why are we so mean to ourselves?

Speaker 2: 10:02

You know, I think it comes from the world around us, like, if we're tapped into the media at all, or social media. Me, growing up I was an 80s kid it was magazines. You know. We have pictures of airbrushed perfection all over the place and and today it's instagram, and I think people are getting more real than ever, thank goodness, but but wherever you turn, it's like fix this, how to fix your belly, and you know, in five easy steps, you know how to make your skin smoother, how to make your hair softer. Everything is like how to do it better, how to do it better, and I think that we're bombarded with these messages, and maybe this is something old that I'm saying. I think this is something that I feel like I've been talking about and tapped into for a really long time, but it still feels true. It still feels true that this is happening. How do we get out from under? It is what I'm curious about. How do we get out from under that Like for me?

Speaker 2: 11:15

I remember I used to watch the E channel about celebrities. This is like going back maybe 15 years. I used to watch about the celebrities all the time and I noticed, the more I was watching these shows I got like really super into them the more critical I was getting of myself because I don't look like that. I don't have that body, I don't have that tan, I don't have those jewels, I don't have those fancy clothes like in that level. And I just had to make a choice to say I'm not going to listen to this anymore, I'm not going to watch this channel anymore, because I was noticing that I was really hating on myself when I was doing it. So that is one way, right, you could just choose what you tune into. But even when we're doing that, the messages are already inside of us and it's all around us. It's in the women around us, it's like in our conversations.

Speaker 1: 12:09

It's in our friendships what's coming up for you Crazy thoughts I'm thinking of, sort of there's a cascade or a domino effect. You're talking to me about the way of celebrities. I don't have such celebrity awe. I know E Channel exists or existed. I was there for the 15 years ago, whatever. When people I also don't have a love for reality TV, it's not enjoyable for me.

Speaker 1: 12:41

I have a phrase that I use often. I'm sure I'm about to say it. I know Brenda's going to know it. I say this often. They don't call me for my birthday. I don't care. I'm really clear.

Speaker 1: 12:52

On the tables where I'm not sitting Like I don't sit at political tables I am not under the delusion that my vote is going to mean more at the polls than what I want it to mean. That a woman in her 50s showed up to vote of Hispanic or Latin descent, like that is the box that I'm trying to tick off. But I'm clear that that is what my vote is saying, not that my vote is saying something beyond that. I'm clear that the place for me to vote the loudest is with my dollar. The place for me to vote the loudest is with my dollar. So if I buy organic food, I am voting for organic food. If I buy fast food, I'm voting for more fast food. If I buy Spanx, I'm voting for Spanx. If I buy makeup, I'm voting for makeup. I'm voting for a particular aesthetic. If I'm purchasing false eyelashes or getting false eyelashes, like this is, these are the places that I'm voting, therefore saying I value this because I put my dollar behind it. That's one thing.

Speaker 1: 14:04

Then that's one thought that comes to mind of when you say how can it? Potentially we do it differently. That would be one way of doing it differently. And then the next thought is you said oh, the more I watched it, the more I was comparing myself. And it's like that's so interesting because the mind is clear on. I'm looking at something that's airbrushed, or I'm looking at someone who's done up and has a whole team so that they appear a particular way on camera, and yet I am comparing myself, who does not have a team and doesn't have to be done up, that I get to walk around in yoga pants in my life and sneakers, versus six inch heels and dresses where I can't really breathe, in corsets or some kind of bondage. Why would I be comparing myself to that? Like my brain understands that we're in different stages of our life and that our life is being lived differently, but yet it's almost automatic. And then the next thought behind that it's almost automatic came oh, I wonder if it's part of our.

Speaker 1: 15:18

It's Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right Part of belonging, that bottom piece of. We will always want to be loved, we will always want to belong, we want to be part of the tribe, otherwise we feel, uh-oh, I'm in danger. I want to be belong, we want to be part of the tribe, otherwise we feel uh-oh, I'm in danger. I want to have safety, I'm in danger. Potentially I will be ostracized.

Speaker 1: 15:41

So now I'm thinking, oh, this is a different way of voting and deciding who I want to be around. So if I value being more natural and not being done up, then it's not just oh, I'm not going to look at the Instagram perfections or the magazine perfections or my votes are you know, I'm not watching reality TV and I don't follow celebrities but bigger than that, what does my circle of friends look like and what are their values? Because I know that in this circle of friends and the people that I'm with, if I'm around people who have done tons of work on themselves and they have the eyelashes, the brows, that they're completely done up. I am aware that that is what I am going to subconsciously right, wanting to to a certain extent in my psyche, wanting to belong and wanting to be part of, because it's just happening underneath.

Speaker 2: 16:49

I love that you brought this up where you put your money, that you're voting with your dollar. And what I was also thinking about was with my attention, like where do I put my attention in my life and who am I surrounding myself with? And I think the more I've done spiritual work, I could feel how my circle has changed in a way, like I changed. I used to complain a lot and be externally oriented. That's the environment that I was in, because it matched me at the time and it's just shifted for me, like without any judgment on that. It's just shifted for me and my work has been to be more internally oriented.

Speaker 2: 17:38

That is what I am surrounded with now. I love this idea about where we're putting our dollars. I choose where I put my time and attention and my dollars, and I also really love the piece about belonging and safety. I think that's a really important piece to look at. It's so primal that we want to belong and maybe if we look a certain way or we act a certain way, we feel that we do belong.

Speaker 2: 18:02

And we talked about this in one of our episodes once I think it's episode 10 where we talked about change and this idea about am I okay? Am I okay over here, no matter what's happening in the world and no matter what's happening around me, am I okay? Like, how much do I need my external circumstances to change so that I am okay over here? And I think this comes back to self-love, because, you know, building a solid base, a solid foundation in yourself, where you don't need things to be different out there, helps build the confidence in here so that I am okay in the world, so that I do have that sense of belonging and safety in myself. And that has been one of the deepest, biggest lessons for me to learn, especially around self-love, because being okay is really loving myself, like learning how to take care of myself on really deep levels, so that I'm okay no matter what and that doesn't mean that I don't need other people, because I do. But I feel like I have resourced myself pretty well, that I, if I'm not okay, I know where to go and what to tap into to help me resource myself.

Speaker 1: 19:37

When you say you, so that you know that you're okay and you know what to do, so that you can tap in and resource yourself. When you say you, so that you know that you're okay and you know what to do, so you can tap in and resource yourself. Can you say more about that?

Speaker 2: 19:43

I think if I get stuck, like if I get stuck on something or something changes in my life or a job changes, I lose a job or just something happens that I would consider quote bad or challenging or that might knock me out. Things sometimes knock me out or I'll get a trigger. That's what I mean that I have learned to really look internally and ask myself what is getting touched here? What is getting hit? How can I love myself here? How can I take care of myself here? What is getting hit? How can I love myself here? How can I take care of myself here? And very often that is me going to my friends, going to my teachers or coaches and receiving help, knowing how to receive help and knowing where to go to get those things. Because it's not on Instagram, it's not on the E channel, it's not in losing 10 pounds or getting false eyelashes. I used to go shopping to feel better and that doesn't work anymore. I you know it just doesn't work anymore. Nor do I want it to. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 1: 20:56

Yes, thank you. I, um, I love all the places that we've gone to today. I know in episode 38, I think I've referenced it already today that we had left with the question of what is self-love? Do you treat yourself the way you would treat those you love? Today we're talking about like am I okay, no matter whatever my external circumstances are, and how is this in relationship with self-love? We've also introduced the idea of air quotes normal, like what is normal, and we've also introduced the hierarchy of needs right, wanting to belong, wanting to feel safe, wanting to feel loved, and sort of tying that in and weaving it in with what our normal is, where it's two pronged right, potentially our current normal, the way when, if we're re-evaluating and saying to ourselves, hmm, I'm surrounded by people that I don't necessarily agree with those values, potentially I need to change my circle of friends to be more supportive of what I value, because I want to increase the area of possibility and decrease where I'm currently putting my attention and decrease where I'm currently putting my attention, decrease the probability that I will be more like those around me, because the truth of the matter is that we are the average of the five people that we're closest to that. Data has been established and seen in many places over and over again, and we can use this information to better ourselves, better our environment, better our lives have us be even more resourced.

Speaker 1: 22:45

One of the things that pops into mind for me around this is I'm sober. I don't really drink alcohol. I don't have an allergy to it, so I would probably be able to drink, but I choose not to, and for the most part, it's not really a big deal. But someone who really identifies as like drinking for them is what has them relax, unwind, really be able to have fun. Me being in their orbit makes them uncomfortable, normally more often than not, because, yes, and it makes complete sense, right, they want to be able to hang out with people that do drink and have a good time in that way. That's important for them. Versus, when I'm around circles of people that are sober, it's completely a complete non-issue because it doesn't matter because they don't drink either. So whether what I'm doing is none of their concern like they don't care, right, that I'm not, what I'm doing is not of their concern, like they don't care, right that I'm not partaking in that.

Speaker 1: 23:41

So I love the trajectory of our conversation going from? What is self-love? Do we treat ourselves in the way that we treat others or the in the way that we treat those we that we love? And moving to, how can I now support myself with my tribe Like how can?

Speaker 1: 24:00

Am I really clearly in the rooms that I want to be in? Is it reflective of the person I want to be, of how I want to love myself, and what does that look like? Is there? Are there any changes that need to make, be made here, knowing that whatever I'm accepting, whatever I'm partaking in this is part of my normal, this is part of my acceptable, while remembering that I had a one in four trillion chance of being born or less, and when I came into this world, I was already a celebrity, and so were you. Like everyone listening, this is for us. So we're going to end this episode on that note. As always, we'd love to hear from you, let us know how this is landing for you, how self-love and the topic of self-love is evolving, and I will leave you with the question like how does your day-to-day, how does your normal look for you, and is it loving and supportive?

Speaker 2: 25:15

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

Speaker 1: 25:19

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.