Desire As Medicine Podcast
Catherine & Brenda interview people and talk to each other about desire. They always come back to us being 100% responsible for our desires.
Contact us by email:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
catherine@catherinenavarro.com
goddessbrenda24@gmail.com
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@CoachCatherineN
@Brenda_Fredericks
Desire As Medicine Podcast
58 ~ Self Love: Teachings & Takeaways Part 1
The self love series has been so transformative that we had to pause, reflect and digest. The series was inspired by the episode with with Dr. Stephanie Bridwell when she shared her desire to have a deeper relationship with herself. We kick off our digestion with insights from Katie, who bravely shares her path to self-acceptance and the strength she's found in setting boundaries. Her story challenges us to rethink body image. We re-look at the lens of the body positivity movement and embrace the power of failure as a catalyst for personal evolution.
We also navigate societal conditioning that glorifies perfection. With Karen's refreshing perspective on aging, we weigh the importance of becoming our own cheerleaders and staying grounded in reality. Karen's wisdom helps us shift the narrative from the relentless pursuit of youth to an empowering acceptance of our aging bodies. Her wisdom reminds us to reflect deeply, embrace change, and pursue passions that enrich our lives, highlighting how acknowledging and pursuing our desires is transformative.
We also unravel how self-love fuels our deepest desires by fostering a sense of worthiness and empowerment. This isn't about striving for perfection; it's about authentically expressing ourselves and making choices that align with our true desires. We illustrate how setting boundaries and prioritizing personal needs, even amidst discomfort, form the foundation for a fulfilling life.
Another guest we digested was Madison, a nude portrait artist, whose soft and heartfelt communication deeply resonated with us, leading to more self-acceptance. Madison guided listeners through a body-positive activity and shared how, even though her mother lovingly guided her towards loving her body, she still struggled with body image—highlighting that support doesn't always resolve inner challenges.
Join us as we revisit self love and digest some of what we have covered. We'll sit with discomfort and learn to cherish it, as it part of the path towards the life and growth we seek.
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If you'd like to learn more about 1:1 or group coaching with Brenda or Catherine message them and book a Sales Call to learn more.
Email:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
goddessbrenda24@gmail.com
catherine@catherinenavarro.com
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@desireasmedicinepodcast
@Brenda_Fredericks
@CoachCatherineN
Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire.
Speaker 2:Inviting you into our world. 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. I'm a middle school teacher turned coach and guide of the feminine.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:Even after decades of inner work, 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: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. Welcome back, welcome back. Here we are on another episode of Desire as Medicine podcast. I am here with my lovely co-host, brenda. Hi Brenda, hello Catherine, hello listeners and friends, we are very happy to be back. Oh, happy to be back. It's been quite a few episodes. It has Brenda and I feeling into what is the arc. Right now. I would love to bring you back with us all the way back before episode 33.
Speaker 1:We had some guests on. We were still in the first half of well, we were beyond the halfway marker of our first year podcasting. But we had landed at this gorgeous location post the conversation with Dr Steph, where Dr Steph had said she really wanted to just take time to be with herself, and we thought, wow, how often do we give ourselves something like that? Not really often at all. And then a whole self-love series was born from that spark. It really sparked Brenda and I to go down somewhat of a rabbit hole and have guests on. We've had so many gorgeous guests and we're really feeling the desire to digest somewhat here. Brenda and I, we're like, wow, I'm going to speak for myself here and then I'll ask Brenda to jump on. I've learned so much from this series. It has been extremely inspiring.
Speaker 1:In the beginning, brenda was really spearheading this like, oh, I can really feel this. This is self-love. This is so exciting. Let's talk about belly wisdom. Yes, let's bring in the speakers. And she's so hyped. And, as a true Capricorn, I wasn't as enthused in the beginning, but when I was able to really reflect back on everything that we've touched on with all of our amazing guests, the gorgeous conversations that have sprung from this, I really feel so nourished, so fed. I have such a deeper understanding of what self-love is and I have to say I am really really grateful, grateful to the podcast, grateful to Brenda, grateful to the gorgeous conversations that have helped get us here, and I'm definitely feeling the need to digest and pause and just reflect back on all that we've learned. I also feel so much gratitude for everything that has landed for me. What's coming up for you, brenda?
Speaker 2:Best rabbit hole ever. It really is, because, you know, when we landed on the spot of self-love, when Dr Steph said that you know she wants time with herself I think she was planning a trip to Italy by herself and she wants a deeper relationship with herself the bells and whistles went off and it really led us down a path of really getting how self-love fuels desire and how loving ourselves and backing ourselves and having the courage to trust ourselves actually feeds us and nourishes us and leads to a better life, leads us to a more like a vibrant I was going to say exciting, exciting, vibrant, fulfilling life, and that's what we're here for. That's what we're here for on this planet. And we also started talking about this because you hear the word self-love all the time. It's everywhere, it's in magazines, it's on Instagram. Self-love, love yourself. How do you love yourself? Do this, do that? 10 steps to self-love. But what does it actually mean?
Speaker 2:And I think that we went on this really honest inquiry of what does this mean and we had on the best guests, I have to say, and you and I chewed on some really great pieces about self-love and it wants to be talked about.
Speaker 2:No-transcript. We just continue to put our attention on this and I think it's important for us to talk about and keep talking about it, and I I really thought that it's valuable for us to digest all of our guests and with each other and the main things that you and I learned, cause we listeners. I just want to say that Catherine and I talk about this behind the scenes all the time. We're always talking about gratitude for this series, and so we're kind of pulling back the curtain today and sharing with you what are some of our personal takeaways from all of these episodes to digest it. So if you've been following along with us and listening to all or some of the self-love episodes I think you're going to really love today, and if this is the first episode you're ever listening to or you miss them all, well, you're in for a treat, because we're going to kind of break down the digestibles today. So should we dive?
Speaker 1:in? I think we should. We can totally dive in. Where would you like to start?
Speaker 2:Well, we talked about going in order of the self-love episodes I've been telling people. I just want to say also, I want to out myself and say I fell in love with our podcast when we started doing self-love. Like I loved talking about desire, I loved our project. I have grown so much through this podcast in ways that have surprised me and thrilled me, which we talk about, I think, on episode 52, like our digestion of season one. So I fell in love with our podcast. When we started doing self-love I was like, oh my God, this is the most important thing ever and very personal to me as well, because I've not always accepted myself where I am.
Speaker 1:So let's dive in so 33.
Speaker 2:accepted myself where I am, so let's dive in so 33, 33, baby.
Speaker 1:How do we love ourselves? Why is it important? So for me, the, the, even the being with like the honest inquiry for myself of what does loving ourselves mean? It was because earlier in my life, in my 20s and 30s potentially not potentially I definitely heard this often this reflection back to me that people would say, oh, you just need to love yourself more, and I didn't have a real conceptual understanding of what that meant. Later on, in my 40s, I started to say, oh, okay, well, self-love is clearly actionable, like I do things and they're loving right. But in this episode where we just sat with like, how do we love ourselves? We definitely touched on that, that that phrase is thrown around and that it can be challenging, right.
Speaker 1:Like how do we because normally we're looking at are we showing the world how we love ourselves? Like we throw phrases like oh, I deserve the massage, I deserve the vacation. Is like, oh, I deserve the massage, I deserve the vacation. There's a lot of external qualities or external flag posts that we're looking for. Does this person take care of themselves? Does this person right? And those are the actions that we project outwards to show people or show ourselves hey, I'm taking care of myself. But for me, I would say at that point, you and I, we were just touching on the beginning and we were like all right, if this is actionable, then what does this really look like? Let's bring some people on that can show us how they do it. Like. How does it look like in somebody's actual life? Do you remember that?
Speaker 2:I do. I remember that that was really important and I love all the guests that we have we had on. I can't wait to break it down and talk about what we learned from each one, and I want to say also this piece about episode 33, how do we love ourselves? Our little intro episode. We've talked about perfection and how perfection is the opposite of self-love, right and reorienting to learning from our mistakes and learning to accept ourselves as we are, as opposed to success and failure, good and bad, fat or thin. You know, just reorienting our entire mindset to learning and growth as opposed to perfection, because perfection is a hungry ghost, it can never be attained, ever and it's torture Perfection is torture and it's it's torture.
Speaker 1:Perfection is torture. That's such a great reminder, really, about perfection. It is a hungry ghost. It is torturous. It doesn't matter how many times we try to air quotes be perfect or what is it perfect? Practice makes perfect. Right that that it's just not attainable. What's more likely going to happen is that we will fail and that we will make mistakes. And that's the honest way of living. Maybe that's not the right phrase. It's not that. It's the honest way of living. If we are honest with ourselves, there will be failure, right. There will be markers that we can't meet, that we can't attain, just because life is life.
Speaker 2:It's not perfection idea that everything is supposed to be smooth and perfect, maybe from a sitcom or a movie or something. But the very nature of us incarnating on this earth is for us to learn lessons. And if you believe that, I believe that for myself, grow my soul and learn as I go along, and we each have our own individualized lessons that we're learning in this lifetime. So of course we're going to make a mistake. You know so many people don't want their, their children to make mistakes or fall or fail or get hurt, and it is hard to watch.
Speaker 2:But I don't know about anybody else or you, but the biggest lessons that I've learned in my life that have actually helped me moving forward have been have come from the biggest mistakes that I've made, and I've learned so much compassion for myself through hard choices that I made in the past. So let's just take this idea of perfection and, like, literally pivot away from it and shift into growth and learning. It's such a softer way to be, like when you said before, like you keep going into perfection, keep going, keep going. I almost get this feeling of like, tightness, Like it just keeps getting tighter and tighter and tighter and your heart gets tighter, it gets harder and harder, where learning you just actually can get softer, like there's a softness to it that I can feel it's so much more forgiving because there's somewhere to go. If you're learning, there's somewhere to go and then you can take that learning and put it into your next situation. As opposed to perfection, it's like a closed door is how it feels to me.
Speaker 1:It's definitely a closed door, but I also think that one of the reasons why we lean to perfection is to avoid pain. It's this illusion, right, that if we're perfect, if everything goes perfectly well, then there's no disappointment in self or other and that life would be smoother. And it's interesting because it's possible that life would be smoother and there would be less pain, but I would also argue that potentially there's also less joy because of that thing that you're talking about. There's so much constriction in wanting to be perfect right, in wanting to be so controlled in order for things to go perfectly right. We're just handling, we become such puppet masters that it's really tough to be present while also controlling all the different pieces and parts.
Speaker 1:So we started with this episode. How do we love ourselves really, looking at what does that look like? And I guess we're talking about can we be more in the flow, loving ourselves perfectly and perfect right, just understanding that failure is part of it? And then we had one of our well, our first guest, katie right, who spoke about body image, and I think one of the things that I really felt when I was listening with Katie was her ability to stay with herself and continue to move forward, regardless of the things that stopped her right, regardless of the mind chatter that would come up for her. And she spoke about that on the episode and I felt like, oh, that's really inspiring, because often what has us not complete a task right? It's our mind telling us we're not good enough, or we don't really know how to do that to perfection, or we don't know how, and then we are immobile, like not moving. Do you remember Katie's for you?
Speaker 2:I loved having Katie on as a guest. She was amazing. I want to just tell everyone go listen to Katie if you haven't listened to her. I want to just tell everyone go listen to Katie If you haven't listened to her. It's such a great episode and I just loved Katie and how she talked about boundaries, like how having boundaries is loving to yourself, because not everyone is entitled to your energy, not everyone is entitled to your time, but people might want it People you know, people entitled to your time, but people might want it. People you know, people you don't know and you are allowed to have boundaries. You are encouraged to have boundaries and that is a very self-loving act. It's also loving to the person that you're with, even who you're in relationship with, to have boundaries of what you're available for. It's just being honest, because when we don't have boundaries, god, we get resentful, we get so resentful and that's not loving. It's not loving to the people that we're with and it's certainly not loving to ourselves to override ourselves, override what we are really wanting over here. It's just not honest and it's not loving. And I've done this a million times before and Katie just broke it down really beautifully. The other thing about Katie. This is a really personal one.
Speaker 2:She made this comment at the end which ooh, this really, which, ooh, this really impacted me. She said that the body positivity movement kind of messed her up. She said it gave her an excuse to be lazy and gain weight. And when she said that, something woke up in me and I was so moved by that I really sat with that for a long time and I've personally been in this journey of healing myself from food deprivation, like I don't think I ever had an eating disorder, but maybe there it probably was disordered eating. I would just deprive myself of all these things and I had the perfection piece. I wanted my body to be perfect, I wanted it to be thin. I wore all the Spanx and all the shaping devices on my body and I was so uncomfortable and over the past few years I've really been working on just giving myself the food that I want. I never would even eat French fries, I would never really eat ice cream, I would never really eat like pizza, and I just spent a lot of time because I deemed those foods bad and it was really depriving myself of what I really wanted. So I spent a few years healing that and giving myself what I wanted. And there was one summer I think it was the summer of 2021. I just ate hot dogs all summer. I would grill hot dogs every day because I never gave myself permission to eat them. Anyway, I gained weight. I gained weight from this journey. I gained weight from this journey and I didn't like it.
Speaker 2:And I am so grateful for Katie's comment because I could see the place where I got to, where I gained weight in order to heal this piece of food deprivation and I was having trouble really loving my bigger body.
Speaker 2:And I had to get to this point where I could accept my body as it was and know that it was bigger because I was healing something and also that I could also love my body and want to lose weight. I could also love my body the way she is and want to get more muscle or have more exercise. And that really changed me internally, because I want to be healthy and I don't know that having this extra weight on me is really the healthiest that I could be, or weight on me is really the healthiest that I could be, but trying to get into shape from a place of the desire to be healthy and strong, as opposed to perfection and having a flat belly and looking a certain way so that I could feel a certain way. That's the piece that I had to heal and I've been sitting with that really ever since. It really really touched me. What's coming up for you around that?
Speaker 1:You just said something that was so good. I thought two things. One, this phrase that you used when you said look a certain way, so I could feel a certain way. It's really interesting, right? It's like having your body look like something, whether thin, curvy, whatever it is that you deem like the ideal. To then look in the mirror and then feel something based on what you've seen, versus feeling a particular way because you're healthy and strong, Like they both create a feeling in the body, but one of them starts in the mind. Well, I guess they both start in the mind, because that's where the thoughts come, like thoughts before feelings. But it's just an interesting thing the way you said it really had it sort of I'm thinking of a megaphone, it like megaphoned in my mind. And the other piece that I could really feel in this conversation was yes, I agree, Katie spoke about boundaries, but you reminded me in this conversation it probably landed even deeper when you said how loving it is to speak our boundaries, because people get to really hear how we want to be loved and they get to show up in that way and be in a be and with that, participate in a healthy, honest back and forth, versus being with a lie right, when we don't tell someone that we have a boundary, we don't back ourselves and back our boundary.
Speaker 1:We are technically lying by omission right, Because we're not saying it out loud and it is tough to have and be in relationship with other when we're being dishonest. That's what comes up for me. I think we're ready to move on to Madison and yeah, that was something you want to start.
Speaker 2:It was something I loved having Madison on. I'm just going to tell you. I'm going to say that for every episode I loved having Madison on, it was so great. Madison paints portraits of women in the nude and I share my story of being painted by Madison that you have to go back and listen to because I'm not going to retell the whole story, but it's really worth listening to. And Madison, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:One thing that really stands out from that episode was, first of all, her softness. Madison was so soft in that episode and I remember, because I do the editing, I remember editing that episode and she had a lot of pauses in her language, in the cadence of how she spoke, and as the editor I played with taking out pauses and it just didn't land. I kept all of the pauses in that episode. Something healed for me in that, because the way she spoke was so soft and so feminine and she was speaking from her heart. And that is going back to perfection, not this perfection way of perfect, way of speaking. It's speaking true, like she was giving this beautiful transmission, and that really touched me. And that really touched me, you know, because sometimes I've judged my own voice and how I speak, and do I you? You talk faster than I talk. So you know, I've looked at that and I've just had I got a deeper acceptance for myself.
Speaker 2:In the pauses and the, the stopping to think while we're talking is not the way our society teaches us to be a speaker, but it's one way of speaking when you're transmitting something, and so that really touched me and that wasn't even part of the episode, that was just my behind the scenes. But what I loved about what Madison was saying is she took us through that beautiful activity. Do you remember that? She took us through this gorgeous activity in the bath where she went through each body part and talked about what she loved about it. We actually did a toolbox on that. How about you with Madison?
Speaker 1:That was really beautiful. I enjoyed that part immensely as well. I also really did enjoy her transmission. There was something very special about her cadence and her delivery that had the episode feel very grounded. She felt very grounded. It felt just really special, Like we were in some kind of time warp of some kind. That was enjoyable as an interviewer for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one more thing I want to say about Madison's. This really struck me because if you go back and listen, she talked about her mother and how her mother was such a champion of her and really showed her by her own example and kind of hyping her up was, I think, the word Madison used to love herself and love her body and accept herself and how absolutely gorgeous that is that she had her mother do that and that she still struggled with body image along the way. And it just stood out to me that even if you have, like so many people, I think most people probably don't have their mother hyping them up about their body and accepting your body, maybe more these days than maybe how we grew up. But even that's not a guarantee. Like you're just going to have human experience and I thought that was a really important piece for us to hear.
Speaker 1:It really was. The truth of the matter is that there is probably tons more conditioning pointing towards perfection than there is pointing towards acceptance. I think it's really healthy to be conscious that it's happening. Right, that you're aware. Oh, I think she talked about when she started to become aware of these things. She was in school or something and other girls were talking about X, y or Z.
Speaker 1:And so, likewise for us, right being, I say us, you and I, and listeners that as we walk through the world, we understand we will become bombarded with conditioning that says something different, that in some way, shape or form, how we're currently inhabiting our bodies is potentially not the right way in their perception. Right, it's unacceptable to them in some way. And be the person, be the cheerleader for ourselves, while also you know, I'm not saying live in delusion as well be in your reality and accepting of what your reality is. And if there's something you'd like to change, as Katie says, like, yeah, potentially fit and strong or cardiovascular strong, whatever that is for us that we continue to lean towards gaining more of what we want for ourselves. That's what comes to mind for me Karen, karen, I loved Karen. I loved having her on, predominantly because she was like don't buy getting old. I was like that's so funny. Because she was like don't buy getting old, I was like that's so funny. It's like we are buying it hook, line and sinker for sure.
Speaker 1:And I say we as a society, because youth is so pedestalized and revered. And so who wants to be the opposite of pedestalized and revered? No one, really. But it is a natural thing. That's going to occur. It will happen. If we have the um, what is the word? The gift of aging, then we will face it and again there will be a different type and style of conditioning. It won't necessarily be so much around body weight, body image. It will be more around aging and an aging body right and how society feels about that. And can we also be conscious of that in our minds? Like we are walking in a society that doesn't necessarily necessarily applaud aging. How about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought Karen was brilliant when she talked about don't buy old. That was just so good. And I remember in that episode you do that thing that you're just so good at, catherine, which is we'll be going into the episode and then you'll go back and you'll say wait a minute, I want to go back, I want to go deeper into this thing, and you asked her to go deeper into. Well, what does this mean? Don't buy old. So you have to go back and listen to the episode. If you're listening, it's really worth it. It was so good. And I want to read some of my favorite quotes from Karen that are on our Instagram.
Speaker 2:Aging is a spiritual experience, because I don't want a belly, but I have one. So how do I look in the mirror? And love her? Damn, that's good. She says the body changes. Looking in the mirror is one of the things that you really have to deal with. I just love that. It's like what you were saying before If you have the gift of aging, then you do have to deal with your body changing. It's just how it goes. This one was so good. Suddenly, my belly was saying no, I am not going in anymore, I'm your womb. I am the womb your children were birthed from. I am a womb. Honor me that way. That was so good.
Speaker 2:And that came up in our episode with Elaine about holding in your belly. God, I'm so tired of holding in my belly. So tired of holding in my belly. I feel like I've held my belly in for so many years and I still catch myself doing it sometimes. And that's okay because it's a journey.
Speaker 2:Oh, here's the quote about not buying old. There's a huge cultural belief system that we've been fed about getting older. I choose not to follow that belief system. I am not buying old. And then she also said self-reflection is a very exciting road to wisdom and I think that is the gift of getting older and we talk about that. We talked about that in a bunch of episodes that you and I have done about getting older that you do trade in maybe a thin or fit body where it's easier to have those things for the wisdom and the life experience. That is really a gift.
Speaker 2:And here's one more Okay, go ahead. No, go ahead. I'm on a roll of these quotes. They're so good. Whatever the passion is that's calling you, do it, just do it, because that's what gives you vitality. Your purpose in life is to shine your light and have fun, enjoy life. So what will help you enjoy life more? What do you want to learn? What do you want to practice? What is your life guiding you toward? And I love this quote that she said, because, instead of wallowing in getting old or your body changing, or this or that, there's so many options to choose from. She's just saying follow your passions. It's never too late to follow your desire. And there was just so much wisdom in that.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing all of the quotes. I mean you can just feel we've recapped four episodes and it's taken about half an hour, so they're really meaty and juicy and at this point that's right before we record the self-love fuels desire episode. And that, for me, was pivotal because I started to really feel all right, we have this podcast, it is the desire as medicine podcast. We are talking about how desire is like life force. It's moving through your body, it's having you, it's taking your attention, it's putting you in a position to lean towards something specific. But how often are we feeling a desire for something and we do nothing to go for it? And it was like an aha moment after speaking with you when we originally just introduced the topic Katie Madison, karen and I said wait, it is really hard. You're at zero. There's like no gasoline to lean into that desire if there's no self-love. And I mean I've had more clarity fall in since then.
Speaker 1:So I would even go further and say so self-love is what it's, that self-compassion, it's understanding that we don't have to be perfect and that we won't be. And it's actually not an ideal to strive for. A better ideal is to live your life right To have experiences, while also having boundaries in place and not crossing your own boundaries and stating your boundaries and being fully expressed and saying what you mean and meaning what you say. And all of these pieces and parts, all of these actions, are what have us be and feel that we love ourselves, and that is actually the fuel that will have us lean in towards our desire. It is sort of like a cycle. It reminds me of the desire cycle. What comes up for you? Do you remember that? I do remember that.
Speaker 2:I remember you said that and I don't know if you read that somewhere or I think that you just made it up or it came from inside of you. Yes, she's shaking her head. Yes, people, self-love fuels desire.
Speaker 2:Catherine Navarro. Thank you very much, because that is everything. That quote was everything, and I feel like that was a real turning point for us where we realized and you coined it so perfectly oh, in order to go after your desires, you have to love yourself, you have to be willing to back yourself, you have to feel that you're worth it, you have to think that you're worth the extra time and effort or the discomfort that it takes or the discomfort that other people might feel. But you love yourself enough in your action of being willing to stand in all of that and say this is what I want, this is what I'm going for. When it's much easier to maybe just stay the same, there's nothing wrong with staying the same, right. But there's something inside of us that wants to grow and have more. Inside of us that wants to grow and have more, and it takes an enormous amount of backing yourself and loving yourself to stay open to your desires.
Speaker 1:For me, this is a tricky slope. Tricky, slippery slope, because I think every time I learned about self-love from other people right Other teachers, et cetera it was delivered a lot like how you're saying it, which is you have to love yourself right In order to back yourself. You have to feel like you're worth it. And I remember a time when it was really hard for me to back myself. And then the thought is oh, I must not love myself If I can't back myself. I must not love myself If I cannot back myself. I must not love myself If I don't have the energy for X, y or Z. It must mean air quotes. I'm not worth it, I'm not worthy, I don't love myself enough. And I don't know if those thoughts are helpful. Versus when we talk about discomfort I think you said that that's episode 39.
Speaker 1:Taking these actions to back ourselves, taking the actions that will then be looked at as signs of self-love, are uncomfortable and in the beginning, if they are not ingrained, if it's something that's new we're not going to want to, it's not going to be desirable. It's going to feel like waking up at five in the morning to go for a run. It's not like oh yay, I want to do this, setting the boundary with someone that you really care about and you don't want to lose the friendship or the relationship. It's not going to be comfortable Telling yourself I'm going to be up at 7 am because I'm going to go for a two-mile walk before I start at my office. It's not going to be comfortable, but the action, taking the action, being willing to be uncomfortable and take the action that's what's the loving piece, I think.
Speaker 1:In my brain I've always thought oh, the love comes first and that love is what moves you, sort of. I mean, we even had an episode where we talked about loving ourselves like as if we were a newborn baby. Right, newborn baby is crying and you go and you find a way for the baby not to cry. You want to feed the child and give it nourishment. But how often do we? Are we hungry or have to go to the bathroom? And we neither go to the bathroom nor get up to go get something to eat. And these are the simple ways that we show love for ourselves, to ourselves, but they are actions. It's not just romantic love that you feel in your heart space. It's bigger than that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's beautiful. I love how you said that it's not just romantic love that you feel in your heart space. It's bigger than that. I think that's a really big piece and I think that's the piece that we've brought in here is in talking to all of these guests and chewing on ourselves, what does it look like? What does it look like to love yourself, to take care of yourself, to love yourself, to take care of yourself? And it's just a huge array of actions that you could take from Madison in the bath just actually looking at her body parts and saying what she loves about them, to like what Katie said having boundaries and they're all valuable things and like the more it's a practice.
Speaker 2:It's like you have to also be willing to be uncomfortable, like you said, and stick with yourself because you're right. It's not going to feel comfortable to have a boundary with a friend when you've never had them before. It's not going to be comfortable to say, hey, I only have 15 minutes to talk on the phone when you're used to sitting there and letting someone chew your ear off for an hour and a half. It's not going to be comfortable, but it's. The self-love comes in, the willingness to sit with yourself inside of the discomfort and sit with the discomfort anyway, because it's like growing pains. In a way, it's like I'm going to sit with this discomfort now because if I do this a bunch of times, I'm going to grow my sea legs and my life will be more of what I want it to be.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of the saying like suffering to suffer versus suffering to end all suffering. Like it's uncomfortable, and it's. It's uncomfortable and it's worth it. It's so worth it to be uncomfortable to have more of what you want in your life, or else you're just a victim to I don't have what I want in my life, Nothing's going my way. Well, what are you going to do about it?
Speaker 1:What are you going to do about it. That's so good. It reminds me of the phrase do you think you're lucky? Then you are. Do you think you're not lucky? Then you're not. It's sort of who do you want to be? How do you want to see yourself? How do you want to position yourself as someone that has or someone that doesn't have? And that's sort of based on our perception, not necessarily on the facts, because whether there is enough or isn't enough, that's our decision. That's on us, right, how we choose to use our resources. This is so good. There's just so much richness here to digest. Thinking about all these different conversations and everything that these generous guests brought to the podcast, feeling the clunk in my body around self-love has, uh, I feel, changed, forever changed, I feel, from the guests that we've had on. That's how it feels to me.
Speaker 2:It's really beautiful, catherine. I feel the same way. That's how it feels to me. It's really beautiful, catherine. I feel the same way, and when we talk about desire being medicine on this podcast, that when you have a desire, it's actually the exact elixir just for you to grow yourself into the person you want to be, to grow yourself into the person you want to be, this desire that we had to follow the those bells and whistles in our bodies and and have a self-love series and really chew on this and talk about it. Uh, I just feel like I grew so much from that and I'm really grateful. And we've received a lot of reflection as well, a lot of reflection from people. So we have so many more episodes to talk about. We really do. We really do. So.
Speaker 2:We said we started this episode out saying we're going to digest all the episodes, but I'm going to just do this in real time and say that this actually feels like a two part series. So because it's almost like there's so much that and you can only digest so much at a time, and Catherine and I, we are committed to being with what's true and I feel like a clunk, like we're almost completing this episode, but there's so much more to talk about. Episode, but there's so much more to talk about. So we're going to close this out and do a part two. We're going to finish up all the self-love episodes in the same way that we did continue to chew on them. So thank you for joining us. We're so grateful and we appreciate you being here for the episodes and for the digestion. Digestion is everything. Really helps you integrate it into your body. Any final words, catherine, for this part one.
Speaker 1:I want to say there might it might be three parts. That's how it feels. That would be my, my addition, if anything. I'm really feeling into the gravity of the conversations that we've had and I feel even grateful to us to be willing to digest what we've learned you know, and show it, because this is basically where we are, and you said two parts and I'm thinking it's potential that it's two, it's potential that it's three and I'm open to honoring whatever is true.
Speaker 2:So thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for saying that, Brenda. I'm complete.
Speaker 2:I am complete too. Thank you for joining us and until next time. Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast.
Speaker 1: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.
