116 ~ Self-Connection Sets The Tone For Every Relationship

Ever feel like your calendar runs your life and your heart gets whatever scraps are left? This week, we dig into what it truly takes to stay connected to yourself while navigating love, work, and the relentless pull of everyday demands. From body-based practices to smart scheduling, we map out how to reclaim attention, set honest boundaries, and make choices you can stand behind.

We start with the core truth: the most important relationship you have is with yourself.  

We share how to stop losing yourself in love, work, and life by building a daily relationship with your body, your attention, and your truth. We offer practical tools to find your yes and no, use your calendar as support, and return faster when you drift.

Highlights:
• Self-connection as your most important relationship
• Tools we share: body scans, breathwork and somatic practices to reconnect
• How to use systems and calendars that protect rest and fun
• Spaciousness versus stillness as different pathways
• Learning your true yes and no through experiments
• Reducing cleanup by pausing before commitments
• Building five-minute daily touch points that stick
• How to recover faster after disconnection and compression

We are available to support you in a one-to-one capacity. Click the links to message us to inquire about working with either one of us. 

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Chapters

• 1:37 The Core Question: Not Losing Yourself
• 3:20 Practices For Staying In Your Body
• 4:52 Hitting Bottom And Finding Self-Honesty
• 7:22 Systems, Calendars, And Catching Drift
• 10:07 Spaciousness Versus Stillness
• 13:31 No One Right Way To Practice
• 16:38 Five Minutes Counts: Reconnect Daily
• 18:00 Learn Your True Yes And No
• 20:12 Slowing Down To Stay Centered
• 23:28 Boundaries, Respect, And Less Cleanup
• 25:28 Invitation To Work One-To-One

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

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

SPEAKER_01: 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. I'm a middle school teacher, turned coach and guide of the feminine.

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

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_01: 0:58

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_00: 1:12

On the Desire is 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. Hello, welcome back, family, friends, loved ones. Brenda and I are happy to be here once again and on the Desire as Medicine podcast. Here we go. Today's topic, drum roll, please, is how to not elose yourself in love, work, or life. In reality, we know that the most important relationship that we will ever have is the one with ourself. It truly, truly, truly is.

SPEAKER_01: 3:22

About how do you do it? How do you reconnect with yourself? How do you not lose yourself?

SPEAKER_00: 3:30

Yeah, I mean, we've done some episodes um recently on doing a body scan, on slowing down, on what actually completing the body scan even is or looks like, helping our listeners like do it with themselves. And it just left me and Brenda thinking about desire is so big, and community is so important, and self-love is important. Like all these things are important, but without your relationship to yourself, where are you? And that tends to be the one that we let go of the fastest because it's so easy to do, like so easy to get lost in discipline or how to show up for other people. But how do we center ourselves? How do we make sure that we're not lost, that we still have time with us? Body scan is a great way. Breath work is a great way. Any sort of somatic practice is a great way to stay with ourselves and in the body. But today, what I really want to point to is how important it is for us to keep our attention on ourselves. You know?

SPEAKER_01: 4:48

Oh, I know. Oh, I know. What caused me to start building a relationship with myself was after years of abandoning myself, just really bottoming out in relationship in life, with overlooking myself so many times that I just became so disconnected to myself. And I would look in the mirror and go, Who am I? What am I doing here? Because you can you can get away with that a few times. You know, we don't always hit it. Sometimes I realize, oh my God, I said yes when I meant no. It happens. We're not talking about perfection here. Sometimes I will overdo it. I'll think I have more energy for something than I really do. That happens. We're not saying that you should be perfect in this. But the more you know yourself, the more you have some containment with how to live your life. And you can feel good in your body and enjoy your family and friends, enjoy your life. Because it's painful to be disconnected to yourself. It's not loving. And I found when I'm disconnected from myself, I'm I'm not being honest with the people that I love. I'm not being honest with myself, I'm not being honest with the people that I love, and that causes conflict. And it's it's not that cute. I've lived all of this and it's painful. And from that pain, I learned to be connected to myself. And once you do, once you have that, you can't lose it.

SPEAKER_00: 6:52

You mean you can't you can't lose what it feels like.

unknown: 6:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:55

I mean, yeah, once you have that, once you have yourself in that way, you've got it. I'm not saying you won't have moments of forgetting or moments of disconnection or periods of disconnection. But once you have that, you have it. It is like riding a bike. It's not like you're never gonna fall off the bike, but you know how to ride that bike. I see you pontificating over there.

SPEAKER_00: 7:23

Because I I feel like we do lose it. I think that life happens. I see it in times of compression a lot, and I have found that the the go-to for me is systems. So like I have a calendar system, and when I look at my calendar, I'm like, hmm, something's happening. Maybe I haven't had fun, or maybe I haven't had an off day, and I want to catch it when I see it because I know it's important. I know that. So, for example, recently I was away, I went to see my family, I was on the West Coast, and then I came back, I got my menses, and then after that, I had a tooth thing. And so I've been it's been three weeks of sort of back-to-back tending to certain things, and I haven't really felt a hundred percent. And then I thought, wait a second, when was my last like when did I really when was the last time I had a really good time? When was the last time I really paid attention to having fun? When was the last time I paid attention to really being off? Well, my life didn't really have that built in because all these things came in and trumped it. I am traveling next week. And I do have some fun things planned for that week, but it's planned, right? Like ahead of time because I know it's something that I need in order to have time with me. Like have time with myself. Like I have to sort of build it in. I can be sort of energizer bunny and get wrapped up in work and work-related things. I don't have to remind myself to work, but I do have to remind myself to slow down and take time and take time off and to make sure that I have fun. For whatever reason, I'm built this way. And I know I have clients that have to take time to remind themselves to slow down, remind themselves to breathe, remind themselves to get resource potentially so they don't lose it with their children. And I think that the more we get to know ourselves, I I'm thinking of a spilunker, the better spilunkers we have. Like I have a friend that I check in with, and I check in with her. One day we'll have her on the podcast because she is probably the most accomplished calendar kind of person that I know, somebody that just really makes time for her desires and goals in a way that's pristine. I've never seen someone have that much mastery over it. But I check in with her so that I make sure that I'm on track. Right. It's sort of so when you say it's really hard to lose it, I'm like, I can lose it. Sometimes I'm going, where did I go? Like, when did I last? Like when was I last with myself, really? I can go, go, go. I have to have practices that I come back to frequently. Yeah, something happens for me. That that's my experience with it. How about you?

SPEAKER_01: 10:48

A hundred percent. And I hear you saying that you lose it sometimes. You you forget, you get far away from yourself a hundred percent. And you also have some systems and awareness to come back. And that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying the same exact thing. But once you have it, then you do know you have a map on how to get back, but you have to find it first. I think that you have to put the work in to know yourself, to get to know yourself. And then it's it's it is like riding a bike. You you might fall off the bike, but you know how to get back on. And so it doesn't have to be devastating, or the damage could be small. I think that that's what it is. And I love what you're talking about with the calendar for yourself and scheduling in time for yourself. And you're so good at that. And I can't wait to have this guest on to hear about this magic calendaring. Uh, for me, I need a lot of spaciousness. And I do use my calendar for that. You know, I am busy. I'm always marking my calendar days, busy, busy, busy. So I can't book anything on those days, and nobody can use my calendar link to book. I remember and I get connected to myself through spaciousness. I love having space to just get curious with what is what it is that I want to do. It might be just walk running around in my house, cleaning in my sweatpants, listening to my favorite music, and then I just want to have a dance break and do some writing. I get so energized doing that and I feel so connected to myself. Or maybe it is hanging out with a friend or going for a walk on the beach. Whatever it is, it's the spaciousness to discover what it is that I want to do. I love that. That's how that's how we stay connected to myself on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00: 12:56

I think you also have a lot of practices, like daily practices that I do. I that's not necessarily my way. And I think that that's what's so important to figure out. Like, how does that work? I could easily write in my journal today and not write in it for another seven days. I don't remember the last time I took a dance break. It's not a go-to for me, but I'm still often. Like I can, if I find myself, uh-oh, something's happening, I will legit pause, lay on the ground, and just take 10 minutes. And I need silence. Like I need no input because I can easily get excited off of things and just I'm on to the next thing. So I need to be able to just pause and just be still with myself. But I also want to remind you, because I think that we have to remember to remember, you do great at this. Like your practice, your daily practice. I mean, we've done so many episodes on this, is just pristine. Like you are masterful in that. You've created something for you that really works, where you connect with yourself. Like you'll be connecting with yourself within the next 24 hours.

SPEAKER_01: 14:10

Oh, it's constant. It's always, I'm always connecting with myself. And what I mostly love about this conversation that I'm hoping that people pick up on is that there is no right way to do it. I love how different we are. I love that we have completely different ways of connecting to ourselves. There is no right way. There is no perfect way. And that's why it's great to try out different things, try out different practices. And some will work and some won't, and some will stick, and some you'll forget about. And that's okay, but it's finding what works for you. I used to have very scheduled morning practices. I did the same thing every morning at the same time for a long time, and that worked at that time. And then I didn't want that anymore. I wanted a lot more flow. I still have a lot of structure to my morning, but I also need the spaciousness. I do have a different version of the same thing almost every day. So the point is, is there's something built into every single day that I am connecting with myself every morning, no matter what, no matter what. I'm not kidding. Because that's how important it is. And it's possible. It doesn't matter what you're doing for work or if you have kids or not. I actually learned this when my daughter was first born 30 years ago. I figured out, oh my God, I cannot wake up at the same time as my baby. I need to get up at the time, it was just 15 minutes earlier. I just need a few minutes by myself to get connected with myself, or let's face it, just go to the bathroom before my baby wakes up. That was like the very beginning of me realizing I need to connect with myself. It's so important just to get a little bit ahead of the curve at that point in my life. And I'm I'm always getting ahead of the curve for my day. It I'm setting my day up for it to be a good one. Amen. I love how we're just listing the struggles.

SPEAKER_00: 16:36

Let's normalize the struggle. Like there will be things without a doubt. I have things, you know, mine is sort of like hindsight. Wait a second. Where did I lose myself? Brenda has something that she's checking in daily. And we want to kind of just normalize this for you. Like the struggle is real. Like our relationships with ourselves, our relationship to ourselves is the most important one we'll ever have. And it's really easy to lose ourselves in the process of life, like just being there with life. It's so easy to do.

SPEAKER_01: 17:14

And it's also so easy to have reasons and excuses for why you can't connect with yourself. Look, I worked full-time as a mother of two children. I was married, I had a house, I've taken care of elderly grandparents while doing all of that. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's possible. So right now my morning practice is probably an hour. But it doesn't have to be an hour. And it doesn't have to be in the morning. It could be wherever. Five minutes matters because you're building a connection with yourself. And our last episode was a body scan that we would love for you to go back and listen if you missed it. How do you connect with yourself and just be with your body and pay attention to what's happening in your body? It's really easy to overlook that, but we don't recommend it. Because you don't want to be an autopilot. You don't want to be reactive. You don't want to be numb. You don't want to be looking outside of yourself for validation or answers. You don't want to be overriding your body's signals. And women do this all the time. And so the way to stop that and start connecting with yourself, you have to start somewhere. So even five minutes of connecting with yourself and asking yourself, what do you need right now? Or even just in your day. One of my favorite exercises to share with clients is learning your yes and no, your true yes and no. This is a very basic way to reconnect with yourself and to get to know yourself and to build trust with yourself, which will a hundred percent ripple into your relationships. So one of the best ways to reconnect with yourself and get to know yourself and build that relationship with yourself is as you're going through your day and life comes at you, and people ask you questions. Do you want to go out for coffee? Would you like dinner? Can I borrow 10 bucks? Can you drive me here? Can you pick me up there? Whatever comes at you in your day, really think about what is your true answer. What is your true yes or no? And just start noticing that. That's one of the easiest ways to start connecting with yourself and building a relationship with yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 20:02

I would argue that the connection to ourself is what helps us answer those things. No, I make them say no to everything in the beginning. Because that builds a yearning. Like, I didn't want to say no to that. Blah blah blah. I wanted to do, and I'm like, yes, that's what I want. I want you to feel like you're jumping out of your skin and you want to do this thing that I have so meanly said, say no to everything. Because we're so used to just saying yes and pleasing people, right? Like ultimately, what I'm really hoping, and I know Brenda seconds me on this. What we're really hoping that listeners are hearing is that this stirs something in you. And like let it remind you that your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship in your life. Like we are constantly in relationship to everything and everyone, but it's really easy to lose our relationship to self. And that's really the baseline for a relationship with everything else.

SPEAKER_01: 21:08

It really is. And I love that. I love saying no to everything. That's such a fun exercise. I I generally do that with as a noticing practice. So I'll have my clients notice what are you saying yes to? What are you saying no to? And then noticing, oh my God, I said yes to this and I did not want to do it and I did it. And then how did I feel when that was happening? And over time, you know, you could change that behavior. So there's no right or wrong. These are just fun practices. But however you do it, we definitely recommend that practice because knowing your true yes or no is everything.

SPEAKER_00: 21:51

It is. It really starts with like being with us, like taking that time however that time looks. Like I I spoke today about how for me a lot of it is stillness. And you spoke about spaciousness, right? Like just being having space to do and go left, right, like however you want to do it. If you want to clean your house, if you want to dance break, like you have the space for that. And for me, it's once I feel like, wait a second, I lost Catherine somewhere that I just stop. For me, it's complete stop, just put everything down so that I can come back to myself. Because somewhere I went too fast for me, right? I have a tendency to go too fast. So somewhere I went too fast and I lost my connection with myself. It's really hard to stay connected while moving fast. It's a lot easier to stay connected while moving slow. It's really easy to meditate, you know, on the mountain in this pristine beauty. It's really hard to stay connected with yourself, check on your breath, do a body scan when you're in the middle of New York City. That is a lot harder because you have so many things pulling for your attention.

SPEAKER_01: 23:04

Absolutely. And that's why we recommend these practices. That's why it's called practice. Because you practice it by yourself in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, somewhere in your day, so that when you get out into the real world, you have some experience. Because when things are moving fast, or you're at a party, you're on a date, whatever you're doing, you're about to have sex, you really want to be connected to yourself so that you can stay with yourself. You can stay within your own boundaries so that it can feel good for you. And you can trust yourself, trust your choices and have good experiences. It's it's respectful to yourself. It's respectful to the people that you're with, and it makes life so much better because you're not cleaning up a mess all the time. And when we override ourselves, it's just a whole different road. You go into shame, you beat yourself up. It's exhausting. It's exhausting to do all of that. It's actually much easier to put the time in to connect with yourself and then live that life. We recommend it.

SPEAKER_00: 24:21

Amen. I highly, highly, highly recommend it. You're so right. I've I I wasn't even thinking about the mess that's created when we're not connected to ourselves, when we don't really know what we want. So we say yes to something, but we really didn't want to say yes. And now we feel resentful or regret, and now the other person feels the disconnection. Like so much comes from like, could I just have paused and just taken some time? Thank you so much, Brenda, for coming on today, as always. And like we get to just have these gorgeous conversations about things that we think are really important. Like there is, I can't say it enough, the most important relationship we'll ever have is the one with ourselves. And I love that our listeners get to hear us sort of banter on this and go back and forth. But if you are listening to this and you're ready to rebuild a relationship to yourself from the inside out, you want to trust yourself again, not lose your center, Brenda and I have space for you. We are ready to support to support you in a one-to-one capacity. Our links are in the show notes. And if you really loved this episode, please share it with someone else that you think would love it too. Like, share, subscribe to our podcast. It is the best way that you can show us love and support. Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_01: 25:52

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

SPEAKER_00: 25:55

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.