Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 343. How To Practice Self-Love: The Power Of Affirmations & Benefits Of Positive Self-Talk With Dr. Nina Polyné

Transcript

343. How To Practice Self-Love: The Power Of Affirmations & Benefits Of Positive Self-Talk With Dr. Nina Polyné · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We reach our goals, and then we sustain them longer
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: if we give ourselves love, if we give ourselves compassion.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Emily a body here. You are listening to
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  Speaker 2: episode two hundred and forty three of Hurdle, a wellness
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  Speaker 2: focused podcast where I talk to inspirational people about everything
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  Speaker 2: from their highest ties and toughest moments to essential tips
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: on how to live a healthier, happier, more motivated life.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We all go through our fair share of hurdles. My
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: goal through these discussions is to empower you to better
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: navigate yours and move with intention so that you can
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: stride towards your own big potential and of course have
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: some fun along the way. For today's conversation, I am
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: rounding out the content on self love with my dear
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: her friend, doctor Nina Polina. She is a licensed clinical
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: psychologist with over a decade of experience, and we are
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: getting into it today on all things self love. We
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: are talking about the importance of self love. I know
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  Speaker 2: I've been there. Sometimes it can feel a little, let's say,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: difficult to take time for yourself, but I know firsthand,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: as do many of you, that putting your own oxygen
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: mask on first helps you not only show up for yourself,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: but also for your loved ones, your coworkers, your family.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: You get the picture. Doctor Paulina and I are talking
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: about what self love is, why it's important, what self
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  Speaker 2: love habits are. So examples like stop comparing yourself to
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: others and releasing their opinions, moving on from toxic relationships,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. Plus, can affirmations be helpful in
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the adoption of a self love practice and what those
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: might look like if you want to do it right.
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  Speaker 2: And something I want to make sure that we really
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  Speaker 2: hammer in today is that you can have a positive
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  Speaker 2: self love practice but still go through bouts of negative
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  Speaker 2: self talk. Now, when you have a positive self love practice,
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  Speaker 2: that makes the let's call it reverberation from that negative
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  Speaker 2: dialogue a little less severear it enables you to come
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: back into your body and have a little bit more
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: grace on the regular. And we talk all about that
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: goodness today. I actually really appreciated the slew of messages
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I got last week between the conversation that I had
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: with Diego Perez. I'll make sure to link that one
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: in the show notes if you haven't checked it out yet.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I highly encourage and also Valentine's Day a lot of
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: people working through the process of getting good with spending
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: time on their own and doing things out in the
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: world alone. I'm not just talking about working out or commuting.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: I'm talking going out to lunch, going out to dinner,
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  Speaker 2: sitting out at a coffee shop, and reading a book.
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  Speaker 2: These are things that may feel uncomfortable for you right now,
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  Speaker 2: but with a positive self love, practice and diligence, it's
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  Speaker 2: just like strengthening a muscle getting good spending time on
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  Speaker 2: your own. The more that you do it, the more
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: that you get familiar with it, and the more comfortable
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: you will be again. So much of these topics talked
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: about in today's episode, so I'd love your feedback. Feel
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: free always to shoot us a note over email. It's
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: hello at Hurdle dot us and our dms are open
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: over at Hurdle Podcast. Make sure you're following along on
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: a social over at Hurdle Podcast. I'm also over at
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Emily a Body and if you're not yet subscribed to
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the weekly Hurdle newsletter, get in on that. It's absolutely free.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: The link to get that substack in your inbox every
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: single Friday is in the show notes. With that, let's
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: get to it. Let's get to hurdling. Today. I am
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: sitting down with doctor Nina Paulina. She's a licensed clinical
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  Speaker 2: psychologist and consultant. Welcome to hurdle, Nina. How are we doing?
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I'm doing way better than the
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  Speaker 1: last time I saw you. I'm not sick anymore. So
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I'm just happy to be here with you, Emily, So
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: thank you for having me.
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  Speaker 2: I so for context for everyone that's following along here
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: at home. When Nina and I last connected, we were
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: chatting for an article for an outlet that I write for,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Wondermind when I'm not behind the mic, and I was
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: immediately taken to your bubbliness and none of this, like
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  Speaker 2: I wasn't feeling my best, none of that radiated to me.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It was like such an honor
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  Speaker 1: to have the conversation with you, and I knew we
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  Speaker 1: just click. So it was like fun to like talk
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: about a different project and then realize like we could
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: keep working together. So I was just happy to join you.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: We can keep working together. Energy attracts like energy, and
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  Speaker 2: the vibes are high here today. Well, what we're here
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  Speaker 2: today to talk about is self love. And before we
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: segue into that conversation, give us the baseline, give us
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: some intel on what made you want to become a
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  Speaker 2: licensed clinical psychologist and what kind of work are you
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  Speaker 2: in do these days?
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  Speaker 1: Such a great question. Well, the long and the short
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of it is, I always wanted to be a medical
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: physician actually when I started, and I loved thinking about
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  Speaker 1: the mind body connection. So I spent some time doing
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: research in fertility, and when I was working with all
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the physicians there, they were like, Nina, the questions you're
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: asking are more associated with like a psychologist versus a
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  Speaker 1: like a medical physician. But I'm like, how does anxiety
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: influence someone's body or their ability to get pregnant or not?
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  Speaker 1: And so I went back to school. I got my
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: doctorate in clinical psychology, and most of my work was
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: based on the mind body connection, so thinking about how
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: do we as like perfectionists, high performers, high achievers, get
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  Speaker 1: out of the head into the body. And so that
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: became my specialty. So now I work with individuals and
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: couples in that population and it has been amazing because
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I think about all the relationships where like there are
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: two type A personalities and then they get together and
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: try to have a relationship where both people want to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: be in the driver's seat and it does not work.
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  Speaker 1: And so I love working with couples and helping them
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: to ground themselves into their bodies and have a successful relationship.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: So it's really for me. I think I find joy
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  Speaker 1: in helping people find their authenticity to like turn down
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the volume on that like fear of failure and just
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: be yourself, right, like just free yourself from like all
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: of the thoughts, all of the things that really hold
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: us back. So I'm just super passionate about it, and
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  Speaker 1: I love what I do.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: What I'm hearing you say is that you've always been
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: an inquisitive person. Is that right?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, one hundred percent. Love asking questions, love conversations. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm also I would say, you know, everybody's like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: you think about like interviews and stuff, and everybody's like,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, Like I'm just a people person. I'm really
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a people person. Not to get to like on the side,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: but like Barbara Streisand has that song and it's like
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: And I truly believe that I really think that like
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: we need other people. We can't just like robotically work
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: in silos. We have to work together, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes I find strengths in other people and we can
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: work together to be stronger as a group or as
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: a pair. So yeah, I'm inquisitive, and I also just
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: love hanging out with other people.
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  Speaker 2: Did I think that there would be a Barbara streisand
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  Speaker 2: reference four minutes in their podcast? Absolutely not. Am I
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  Speaker 2: happy about it? Absolutely?
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  Speaker 1: You know, Babs come back like, you know, where's she
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: at these days? She comes back all the time.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Anyway, where is she at these days? Also quite interesting
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  Speaker 2: that note that you had about to type a people
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: spending time together? Is that characteristically not something that's very
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  Speaker 2: productive of Not really, it's.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I think about some of the couples I've
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  Speaker 1: seen where it's like you have two lawyers and they
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  Speaker 1: become a couple, they get married, and they're both just
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  Speaker 1: used to like putting people on the witness stand and
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: then they bring that energy into the relationship and it's
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  Speaker 1: like conflict NonStop or like criticism NonStop. So that's just
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  Speaker 1: like one example. Or if you have like two people
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  Speaker 1: that are like you work with a lot of athletes.
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  Speaker 1: So if you have two athletes that are like high performer,
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  Speaker 1: they know what they want, right, and that drive gets
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: them really far in their career. But then when we
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  Speaker 1: get together, yeah, we have that value that's important, that's
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  Speaker 1: a shared value. And at the same time, yeah, we
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  Speaker 1: can't have two people sort of ruling the roost. We
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: both kind of have to back down a little bit
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  Speaker 1: and say like, Okay, where can I drive the car
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and where can you drive the car? And how can
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: we kind of work from like an egalitarian or an
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  Speaker 1: equality space versus like one person's ruling at all times.
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  Speaker 1: So I think that's like something that we have to learn,
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  Speaker 1: especially if we're you still like calling all the shots.
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  Speaker 2: Right. So they're going to be two highly motivated people
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  Speaker 2: that are excelling individually within their own lane, even if
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  Speaker 2: it is within a similar industry, and those two people
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  Speaker 2: will have to have a productive conversation about how to
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  Speaker 2: best manage their personal relationship knowing that the dynamic might
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  Speaker 2: be two very strong, independent people.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like it's really about finding our softness,
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  Speaker 1: finding our vulnerability. And that's why I'm like just so
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  Speaker 1: happy that we're going to talk about self love today,
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  Speaker 1: because I think that's the key is that like, hopefully
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  Speaker 1: in our relationships we feel safe emotionally and physically enough
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  Speaker 1: to like bring down our armor a little bit and say, like, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: I don't have to be like the fighter I am
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  Speaker 1: on the outside world, Like I can be soft here.
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  Speaker 1: I can share how I feel, and those feelings can
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  Speaker 1: be honored, they can be valued, they can be accepted
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: not only by myself but by my partner. So yeah,
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  Speaker 1: couple's work is so interesting. And also like during the pandemic,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: what a cool job to like sign into my virtual
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: sessions and like have interesting things happen. You know, it
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: was like always a new story, always a new situation.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: So it's a really fun career.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: A crazy couple of years for you. Yes, you said
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: that we are going to talk about self love, and
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: I feel as though that with the rise of this
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: general understanding that mental health is something that is not taboo,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: that is something that we should talk about, also came
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: the rise of this conversation of self love. How are
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: we giving back to ourselves so that we can better
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: show up not only for ourselves, but then also for
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: the people that we care about. I would say that
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: that's my loose definition of self love. But how would
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: you define self love? Nina?
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  Speaker 1: I love that definition that you already gave Emily. I
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: would say that, like I just want to address the
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  Speaker 1: elfant in the room that like, when people say the
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: word self love, sometimes we think like, okay, that is
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: so corny, it's so cheesy, like what does that even mean?
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Or you know, you finish a relationship, maybe like we
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: have a breakup and a friend says, you know, this
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: is a great time to like love yourself. It's like
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: sometimes we think about self love and we're like, eh,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know about that, right, or like we think
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: about self love is like the action of saying nice
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: things to yourself in the mirror until you believe it.
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  Speaker 1: But I think this is a great space to reduce
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: that stigma a little bit and just share exactly like
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you said that self love is really a relationship that
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: we have to ourselves. It's about respecting ourselves. It's about
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: trusting ourselves, trusting our intuition, right, like not going to
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: every person to ask for advice. How should I handle this?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: How should I do this? Listening to our own inner compass.
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  Speaker 1: And it's also about self acceptance. It's about, you know,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: accepting that we're not always perfect, We're not always buttoned
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: up in a particular way, that like we have emotions,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: we are imperfect, and that's actually the beauty of each person, right,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Like I want to hear about people's life stories, and
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I want to hear about the triumphs they're resilience. I
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily want to sit across from someone who is
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: like buttoned up and totally perfect all the time, you.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Know, yeah, entirely, And so I appreciate what you said
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: about not always being perfect. No one is always perfect,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: and so a large component of self love is not
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: passing unnecessary judgment in these moments where things aren't going
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: as you'd hoped or as you'd planned one hundred percent.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we just can't judge ourselves. And I always say that,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: like when you there's a particular like type of therapy
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: where it's called shadow work, And so sometimes like what
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: we're criticizing judging about somebody else might be something that
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: we're also judging about ourselves. So some people might say, well,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not that hard on myself, or like I'm actually
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: pretty positive. So sometimes you can kind of see where
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: you're judging yourself by just looking at like how am
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I viewing other people? So that's like a good window
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: into figuring out what you need to love more about yourself.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: For someone who's never done shadow work before, can you
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: elaborate a little bit on how that works?
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  Speaker 1: One hundred percent? Yeah, It's like basically when we grow up,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: we are sometimes criticized, whether it's like a blatant like
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: somebody says something to you, or it could be like
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: someone's rolling their eyes at you when you do something.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: So for I'll give you an example, if you're a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: little kid and you're singing in front of your family
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and nobody's listening, or like everyone's distracted not really paying
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: attention to you, you may start to create this shadow
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: that like you don't want to sing in public, maybe
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: your friends. You as an adult, you're out like at
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: a karaoke bar and you're the last person to volunteer
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to sing a song because and sometimes we don't even
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: realize it, but we might have had that one experience
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: when we were kids that like totally like imparted in
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  Speaker 1: our brain that like we're not good at this, or
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to embarrass myself if I do it. So
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: that's just like one example, but shadow work can be
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: really helpful if you start to journal and explore you know,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: what am I judging about other people? And where does
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: that really come from? Or if you're like, oh, that
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: person just talks a lot. If you're you know, hanging
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: out with a group of friends, well maybe someone told
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: you in the past that you talk too much or
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that you know. And also if we think about like
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the societal piece, maybe if you're a woman and you
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: were taught like to keep quiet and not share, not
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to be that open, so you may in your adult life,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you know, refrain from sharing your opinion or being loud
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: or sharing too much. Right, So it's just sort of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: like a way that you can think of why exactly
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: am I holding back in these areas super helpful.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned that a big piece to the puzzle
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: when it comes to self love is the rem of judgment.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Easier said than done. Right, someone listening to this right now,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: here's not to be so hard on themselves. Where does
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: someone even begin with that?
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Good question? So I think the best way to reduce
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the self judgment is to start with tiny practices of
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: self love. So I typically help people with just starting small,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Like you can start with the morning routine, you can
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: start with the evening routine. Just places where you've kind
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: of structured time to give your self love, which might
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: mean a meditation or a walk outside of nature, or
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: maybe you read a book before bed instead of zoom
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: doom scrolling on the internet, which you know we all
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: do sometimes, but like, how do we circle back to
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: things that really light us up, that fill us up,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: you know, the self judgment. We want to reduce that
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: voice in our head that's negative, that's saying that we're
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: not good enough, or we can't do, we can't be right.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: But that voice, I think there needs to be acceptance
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: around the fact that, like that voice never goes away.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: We're just turning down the volume. And what we're doing
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: instead is we're increasing the volume of self compassion of saying,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: you know, hey, I'm just like everybody else, I'm flawed.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: And if we can increase that voice, that's winning and
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: with the they call it in psychology the negative bias,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: which basically means that like the negative thoughts are just everywhere,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Like we have thousands of negative thoughts every single day.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Let's normalize it. But let's also figure out a way
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to just turn it down a little almost like if
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: you've ever been to It's been probably a while since
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I've been in a department store, but you know how
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: they have like that elevator music that's going on in
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: a department store, kind of like that where it's not
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: like super loud, it's just a voice. It's it's just
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: a song that's happening, and I'm still able to live
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: my life, live it loudly, do what I want to do,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: love myself knowing that that voice is not the loudest.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: The way to less in self judgment is to create
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: practices that foster in self care.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yeah, and that could literally be anything.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So we talked about the morning routines, the evening routines.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: That's just like creating pockets that are you know, filled
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: with joy. I always say, like, try to find activities
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: that light you up. So for you and I, it's
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: having conversations. That's something that we like to do and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: we're now doing we're doing it together. That's something that
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: lights me up. So you want to spend more time
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: doing things that light you up. How do we know
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: what lights us up? Sometimes we're there like, I don't know, right,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: So listen to your body when you're doing different activities.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: What makes you feel good inside and what makes you
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: feel like tense and constricted, Maybe you don't want to
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: do those activities again, So just like really listening to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: your body and kind of grounding into yourself to figure
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: out what lights you up.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: And this is why self relection can be so important
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: on a daily basis. So maybe in the moment life
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: is happening, realizing that maybe you're not as present as
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: you want to be going about your day to day.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: But if you have some sort of journaling practice or
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: a moment every morning where you and a best friend
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: text about the past twenty four hours, you can recap
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: and be like, I did this yesterday and actually, now
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: that I reflect on it, and you're not that far
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: removed from the day that felt really good or that
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: didn't feel so good, and maybe I won't do this
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: the next time, or maybe I'll do that differently come
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: next Wednesday when it happens again.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. I love that, Like, the self reflection
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: piece is huge, and that's the only way we're gonna
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: know what we like and what we don't because, yeah,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the social influence is huge, and sometimes we realize we're
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: just doing things because other people are doing them. So
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: it is so nice to come to a place where
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: you know exactly where you stand and then you stay there, right,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Like that's I think the hard part too, is that,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: like sometimes you're just gonna have to say no to
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: things that don't light you up and don't fill you up,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: and maybe that means disappointing a friend or disappointing a
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: family member if you don't want to go to that event.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: And that is self love, even though it's like the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: toughest thing, but it's like this, it's the belief, it's
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the feelings, it's the reflection, and it's also the action,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Like how can I take action by really prioritizing myself.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll talk about letting go of the guilt and
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: shame that goes hand in hand with prioritizing yourself in
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: just a little bit. But before we get there, we
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: mentioned some practices like journaling, like paying attention to how
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: you feel when you do certain activities so you know
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: whether or not they are in your best interest. But
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: aside from that, what are some other examples of self
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: love habits that someone could incorporate into their regular routine.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: So this is a great question, and I'm going to
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: start with the craziest one first, which is I always
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: recommend for people to start creating a relationship with their
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: selves in the mirror. It sounds weird, like if someone
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: if someone told me to just look in the mirror
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and talk to myself, I'd be like, Okay, what do
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: you like? This is crazy?
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: What do you mean?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I always get that look. But I think it's so
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: important because just like our relationships that we have with
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: other people, self love is a relationship with ourselves. And
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: so you know, self love isn't like I said, the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: cheesy like look in the mirror and say three nice
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: things about yourself. It's like maybe you're in the middle
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: of a meeting and you have another one later and
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you just check in as you're taking a bathroom break,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you look in the mirror and you just say, you
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: know what, I'm really tired today, or like, you know what,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I'm really disappointed that that last meeting didn't go the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: way that.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: It was supposed to go.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Or it could be you know what, I had a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: really awesome game today and I'm just really proud of myself,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: like go you you know, like we have a range
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: of emotions, and it's really important that self love is
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: really a relationship with ourselves that has ups and downs,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: just like every relationship. So I think normalizing that is
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: really important instead of the like self love say all
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: these positive things like sometimes you have a great relationship
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: with yourself and sometimes things can be hard, but it's
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: just about facing it, so that relationship with ourselves in
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the mirror can be really important. It's also about just
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: listening to your body and taking breaks. Self love can
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: just literally be like taking a breath in between checking
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: emails to just say, Okay, do I want to go
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: to the next email, or do I need to take
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: a break? Do I need a snack, or do I
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: need to take a bathroom break. Like I've had so
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: many clients that like literally do not stop to go
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to the bathroom because they're like they're like wound up,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: you know, with energy, and they just don't they don't
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: know how to slow things down. So that self love
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: is like really slowing things down throughout the day. Getting
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: into our bodies is so important not only for like
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: high performance athletes, but like any person, because so much
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of our days now for many people who have like
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the privilege to work from home, we're sitting a lot
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: of the time. So it can be nice to just
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: literally in the middle of the day turn on your
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: favorite song and just jam out and like shake your hands,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: shake your legs, dance, be crazy, and then like sit
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: down again, and that helps us get back into the body.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: So I think self love is, like we were saying
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: earlier before, practices to like you said, journal self reflect
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: think about our emotions, identify how we're feeling. And they're
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: also actions like setting boundaries with our friends, making sure
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: we're speaking up for ourselves if we don't like something
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: at work, speaking up and saying that, and then also
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: just moving our body is such a big part of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: self love.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Self love through line here seems to be honesty. Right
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: when we're not honest with ourselves about how we feel,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: how a situation makes us feel, what it is that
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: we need, then what happens is an inner dialogue is
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: created that's essentially resentful on what's happening around you, whether
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: that resentment is geared towards self or it's geared toward
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: other people.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Mike drop. I have nothing else to say, because I
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: was gonna say a resentment and then you freaking said it. Emily,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it's like flight out of my mind.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Oh man, oh man. You know me and you are
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: just on the same page here. But it's true, right,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Honesty is such a through line, and oftentimes I have
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: found personally that when I am skipping out on things
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: like journaling, when I am making my best effort not
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: to confront a situation or be honest with myself about
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: what's happening, that's when I'm in these dark places, that
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: climate that's going on in my head. It's stormy, it's
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: no bueno. I don't necessarily want to be around people.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: And then, as we said at the top of this,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: with our energies complementing energy attracting like energy, then I
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: in turn start to attract energy that I don't want
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: in my space.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. What you said is so
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: true that like that inner dialogue becomes louder and louder
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and louder. We might even find ourselves like in the shower.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I think we've all probably had this experience of like
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: you're in the shower and then you're replaying back a
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: conversation where maybe you gave something away, whether that's like
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: your pride, your respect, whatever that is, and it's like, oh, well,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I should have said this or I should have said that.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: So it is, like you said, so important to be
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: honest with ourselves and honest with other people. And maybe
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: that other person needs to hear that feedback from us.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe they need to carry some of that away and
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: process that in their own therapy. Right. But like, what's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: my job, you know, is to keep my side of
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the street clean, exactly what you said, right, Like all
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: these self love journaling practices and all the ways that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: we love ourselves, that's our job in any relationship, like
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: you said, a friendship, a work relationship, a romantic relationship,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: and you know, whatever we say to the other person,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: as long as we're saying it with like you know,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: compassion and grace. However they take it, that's for that
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: other person to take into their own work if they're
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: feeling triggered by it.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Taking a break from the show to give some love
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: to friend of the pod sequel, I'm gonna be honest
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: because we are mostly women here that that time of
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• 25:15
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• 25:24
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  Speaker 2: other words, when using Sequel, I experience improved absorption and
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  Speaker 2: fifteen percent off today. Also want to give some love
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: to my friends at Receipts. Receipts is a new platform
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  Speaker 2: to download the app and start having fun immediately. Again,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: that is Receipts the dot x y z code Hurdle
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: to download today. I love the way that you phrased
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: that whenever we give something away and then you reference
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: what can commonly happen as a result of that, which
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: is the replay of that dialogue or that circumstance or
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: that situation for someone that has found themselves and it's me,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: it's you, it's everyone that's listening to this right now,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: in that spiral in the replay mode that they seemingly
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: cannot escape from. What tips do you have to offer
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: them so that they can move forward and get back
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: to that place of seal, compassion and self love.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Such a great question. First of all, my compassion goes
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: out to anyone who is in a space where they're
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: constantly in their thoughts, because that's never a good place
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: to be and it feels awful if you're in that space.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: The first step that we can take is just to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: take a huge breath, to just ground ourselves and just
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: take note of like, Okay, I can either react to
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: this in a way that I might have in the past,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: or I can respond differently here. What do I need?
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: That's the first thing I would ask myself after I
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: take the breath, What do I need right now? And
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: how do I feel about what happened? A lot of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the times why we're spinning in our brain is because
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: we really haven't identified what are the feelings that I
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: am having right now? And once we figure that out,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: maybe it's like I feel fear, maybe I feel anxious,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: or maybe I feel sad or hurt, or maybe I'm
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: feeling grief. Once I can take a breath, and move
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: through that emotion and feel that emotion, allow myself to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: feel it. Then I can figure out what is my
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: next step from there. Maybe the next step is I
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: have to have an important conversation. Maybe the next step
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: is I need to go work out and like get
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the energy out, or maybe I need to go for
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: a walk to ground myself, or maybe I just need
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: to sit in nature. So the answer is it's kind
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: of like silly to say it this way, but like
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the answer is is kind of within us about like
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: what we need, but we can't really listen when we're
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: in the state of like a fight or flight is
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: what you're describing of, Like I'm in my mind, I'm
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: in my thoughts, Like my thoughts won't start stop racing.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: It's really about bringing that energy down to like our heart,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: feeling it through, and then deciding what to do from there.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's such an important takeaway is that when
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: you are in that space of fight or flight, it's
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: very unlikely that you are acting from a place of
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: like deep rooted respond instead of react. Right, you are
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: in the react phase when you are in flight or flight.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I like that you said, like we've all experienced because
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: that is the human condition is to experience stress, to
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: experience anxiety, to experience fear. And so if yeah, if
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: you're listening out there and you're like, oh, I feel
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: like I'm the only one. We all go through this
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and we all have to have a particular practice to
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: ground ourselves, and so we're all in it together.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: And as you articulated so well, breathing is the root
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: of that. Right breath is one of our biggest tools.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: It is readily available to us at any given moment,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: and still so many people stray away from leaning into it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: For someone that doesn't just yet and they're like, wow,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: I guess you're right. It is readily available to me
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: at any given moment. Where do you begin?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I think flowing things down is really important and the awareness,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: like you were saying, some people don't even know it's
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: there because they're so caught up in the busyness of
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the day. And hey, like we all have obligations. Maybe
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: you're a parent, or maybe you have like multiple businesses
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is that's keeping you busy, So it
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: could just be helpful to slow things down. Maybe you
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: put a timer on your phone for like once every hour.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: It dings, and then you just check in with your
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: body to say, like where am I right now? So
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: maybe you need to actually structure it that way. I
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: always tell people, like I was kind of sharing earlier
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: about the emails, that could be helpful because like we
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: all have emails coming through all the time, so it
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: could be nice to just like, if you're checking your
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: emails after each one, take a breath, check in with
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: your body. Do I need to answer the next one?
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Do I need to go like really just doing it
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: kind of like on a granular level versus like making
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: it so overwhelming. So yeah, I think that could be
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: the first step is kind of like a timer, if
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: that could be helpful.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: And meet yourself with where you're at with that, so
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: it's not like all of a sudden you're going to
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: have this in depth breath practice if that's not something
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: that you've already gotten the ball rolling with, right, So
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: starts with an alarm once a day, and then that
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: will become something that you're cognizant of and that you
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: think of. I have a confession. I have to tell
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: you something. Yeah, tell me, Okay, yesterday I was having
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: our particularly frustrating afternoon. If you will, and I scheduled
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: twelve emails that will go out over the course of
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: the next three months that were basically positive affirmations reminding
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: me that I've got this.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, I need to steal that.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I had recently scheduled another email like not to myself,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: for someone else, and I was just sitting there thinking
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: to myself, wouldn't it be great if I could just
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: do this for me, like a little self reminder, And
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I was like, you can, you actually can't do this
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: for yourself. And I did it, and I won't be
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: receiving one for another week, but I was really proud
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: that I was able to use a tool that was
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: readily available at my fingertips. Took me all of about
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: seven minutes to do this for about a dozen emails,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: and now when those come in, it will just be
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: this really beautiful reminder, a self love moment of who
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: the hell I really am.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I love that, and thank you for sharing it, because
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna First of all, I'm just gonna steal that,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: so thank you. The second thing is, I we haven't
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: touched on self celebration yet, which is exactly what you're describing.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about it.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I think it's so important because especially for people, you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: like the population I serve as like a lot of
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: high achievers, hygh performers, and like we're always kind of
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: looking for the next thing. It's like we accomplish something
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: and then it's like Okay, immediately, what's the next goal
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: and how do I get there? Oftentimes what increases our
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: self worth our self confidence is actually looking backward to say, like, Okay,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: look at all that I achieved. Like even in you
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: know resolutions where you know, we just passed January, some
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: people are just like Okay, let me just figure out
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: what my goals are for twenty twenty five. But it's
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: so important to look back to say what did I
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: do in twenty twenty four and like what are all
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: the things that I need to celebrate? Maybe I get
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: myself a cake, or like I take myself out for
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: a nice dinner, but just pausing to share with ourselves,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: like how did we achieve? You know, how do we
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: celebrate ourselves? And that love is so important and like
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: what you're sharing is like, hey, I'm going to have
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: my back no matter what, and like if we don't
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: have our backs, then who will. Hopefully we have a
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: community that will show up for us. But it starts internally.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: So I love that you're doing that.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: It starts internally. I always say that you have to
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: start by being your own biggest hype woman first, and
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: then you can graduate from there. Once you graduate from there,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: once you are celebrating the things that you have to offer,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: then you will be met with people that want to
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: be around that energy, that want to soak that in,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: and that want to celebrate you as well.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And then your group, like you were saying,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: becomes people who HiPE each other up right, Like no
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: one's threatened by each other. We're all celebrating one another,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and it's not met with like that ooh, I don't
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: like that you have that job and I don't or
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you know all that like ooh, that energy of competitive competitive,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the competitive nature that comes up sometimes. So
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I think that's really incredible and very true that like,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: once you get to a point where you're really loving yourself,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: you're hyping yourself up, those types of people gravitate towards you,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: and it's inspiring to be in those kinds of circles.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: And you mentioned self celebration, which I want to double
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: back on really quick, because sometimes what I hear from
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: other women is that there is an unintentional but present
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: level of guilt or shame that comes with celebrating oneself
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: in that maybe you do consider yourself a high achiever,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: or simply you're someone that is very motivated and passionate
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: about the things that excite you. You accomplish something that
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: excites you, it is a big deal, or maybe it's
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: even a small win at that and you think, I
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: can't take the time to celebrate myself or I just
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: need to keep ongoing. For someone that that level of
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: guilt and shame comes up when we talk about self celebration,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: how do we get over that? What do you say
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: to them?
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, good question, I would say, there are so the
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: self compassion I think is really important there because there
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: are so many contributors to the guilt and shame that
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: comes with celebrating ourselves. So we think about like systemic
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: oppression or the way women are treated for a very
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: long time, and the way our mothers are and their mothers'
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: mothers were treated, and so there might be sort of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: like a narrative in our subconscious of like don't outshine
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the rest or be humble, and like there are some
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: kind of like some cultures that actually believe like do
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: not speak up or you know, stay kind of small
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: or be shy or don't speak up. And so there's
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: so much that we have to get over to get
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: to a place where celebration feels comfortable. And so I
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: would just say, maybe it's going to feel uncomfortable at first.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe you don't want to celebrate yourself and you almost
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: just make yourself do it until you start to get
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: more comfortable with it and you start to realize, oh,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: it's not that bad. Actually it feels good at least
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: in the research, they say in terms of self compassion,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: we reach our goals and then we sustain them longer
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: if we give ourselves love, if we give ourselves compassion
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: versus the self critical voice which many of us have,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and will say, that's what got me to where I am.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: It is because I was able to critique everything perfectly
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: fix those things, and then I reach the goal. But
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: really it's about having compassion celebrating yourself, and that's what
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: sustains our goals for much longer. It increases our self worth.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: So if you're just starting out, just like noticing that
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: it's uncomfortable and sitting with it, having compassion for yourself
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: because it comes from a long line of our you
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: know background. Maybe you even explore that with your family
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: or your mom or your dad. You try to figure
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: out where does that come from? Do my parents celebrate
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: themselves or did my grandparents? And we can probably find
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: a through line.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what, this reminds me of the
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: process of getting used to spending time alone. I remember
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: when I started doing activities on my own. So I'm
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: not just talking about living alone in New York. I'm
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: talking about going to the movies on my own, going
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: out to dinner on my own, traveling on my own.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: And what I came to find after sharing some of
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: these experiences was that so many individuals, particularly women, found
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: the idea of doing these things solo, to be not
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: only intimidating, but also from many of them, not of interest.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Right in the act of executing things on your own,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: there is that uncomfortability that you begin with because it's unfamiliar,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: and then you do things that make it a pleasure,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: that bring joy into the fold where joy maybe wasn't
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: previously found for me. That means when I'm going out
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: to dinner alone, I'm not sitting there and doom scrolling anymore.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: I'm there with a book. I'm there with a notebook.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: I'm writing things down. And so when you speak about
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to find small instances of joy as we
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: do celebrate ourselves, I think that that is really important,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: is that it might not feel good all in ones
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: and maybe it's not supposed to, but that's oh okay.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: It's okay. Thank you for normalizing that. And I would
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: say too some of my solo trips, I had one
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: particularly that I can remember where I took myself to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Hawaii to like celebrate myself. And it was, first of all,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: my family was freaking out because I was younger, and
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: they're like, okay, you're gonna just go by yourself?
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Is that okay?
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: And I was like yeah, bye, And I had the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: best time, and it was like, you know, I'm a
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: spiritual person, so it was like just nice to connect
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to myself, to connect to nature and really truly get
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: to know myself on a deeper level. And yeah, it
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: does feel uncomfortable. You're in on that plane and no
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: one's sitting next to you, but you meet people along
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: your journey and it's so much fun. And maybe you
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: don't even meet anyone, but you just have the best
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: time on your own. You don't have to like decide
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: where you're going with someone else. You could do everything
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: that you want to do. So I'm for I'm totally
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: for solo trips. I think they're.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Amazing, amazing. A Hawaii solo trip sounds pretty good right
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: about now. Oh yeah, I appreciate what you said earlier
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: when we were talking about mirror talk, that you weren't
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: necessarily recommending or saying that everyone needs to look themselves
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: in the mirror and say you are awesome, you are fantastic,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: You've got this right. It's really about this opportunity to
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: be honest with yourself. However, I do want to dial
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: in on affirmations because I know that they can be
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: a really beneficial part to someone's self care practice. Why
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: is that? Why are affirmations something that can be a
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: really beneficial tool.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot of neuroscience behind this, particular affirmations
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: that I think could be really helpful for someone. You
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: have to believe that they work, though, That's the thing,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Like I don't want you look at if you're listening,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I don't you looking in the mirror and saying like, oh,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: I'm so amazing if you don't really think that. And
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I think that's the key. You have to like think
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: and believe it just a little bit, and then you
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: keep practicing it. And it's the more you believe it,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: the more you do it, that kind of thing. So, yeah,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: it can be really helpful for many people. And I
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: think the main thing that you want to think about
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: is like being relaxed while you do it. So for
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: some people maybe it's using have you heard of binural beats? Yeah, yeah,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: on Spotify and everything. But it's just a great way
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: to ground the nervous system. So then we're in our bodies,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: right and then we're looking in the mirror, or maybe
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: we're not. We're just like saying it at our desk,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: and that can be really helpful for the nervous system
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and you're saying it over and over, right, But like,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: I just want to use the caveat that. Like, it
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't work for everyone and you kind of have to
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: believe it a little for it to gain some momentum.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: I feel like there's a way to use affirmations that
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: feel true to you. So an affirmation doesn't have to
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: be I am God's gift to the planet or I
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: am the best person alive.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Because it's funny, if I told you that was my affirmation,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: you'd be like, Okay, I'm never seeing you again.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Bye. I'm like, well this just got pretty awkward, right,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: But they can be something like I am capable, I
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: am confident, I can handle whatever curveballs come my way today.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: And those are facts right for many of us, that
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: you are capable and you are confident, and you are
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: someone that can be flexible, right, And so choosing affirmations
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: that resonate with you is an amazing tool to be
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: able to really lean into that practice.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: And you can also think about the times in the past,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: like you said, where you have been really competent at
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: what you're doing and remind yourself of that, like while
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: you're doing the affirmations, like you've done it before, Nina,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and you can do it again. You know that really
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: helps to for us to remind ourselves that, like we've
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: gotten through really hard things.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, now, I want to go back to that concept
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: on positive self talk, because we know that having positive
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: self talk can be a really helpful component to an
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: overall self care practice. Every day isn't going to be
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: a day where you wake up and look in the
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: mirror and feel shiny and exciting and positive. So what
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: happens then, what happens on the days where maybe be
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: that inner dialogue isn't so jazzy, it isn't something that
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: you're so proud of, And how do we get to
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: a place rooted in self love where you can flip
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: that script?
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: H I really, as you were talking, I was thinking
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: about grief. I don't know why it was coming up
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: as you were talking, because sometimes we have really hard
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: days and we don't realize that maybe we're going through
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: like a very difficult transition in our life. Grief is
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: not just when we've lost someone. That's just sort of
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: like what we think of. But it could be like,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: you know, a friendship breakup, or maybe something at work
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: happened and you're transitioning to a new role and it
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: feels scary, and that can be grief of like the
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: roles that you had before, and maybe you're in a
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: place where it feels really uncomfortable. Those are just some examples,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: but moving through the grief is self love and feeling
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the sadness, feeling the anger maybe or feeling like the
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: bargaining part of grief. So it's like going through the
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: stages is really so important. So if you feel like
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: you've had a really tough day, slow it down, take
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: a breath, feel those emotions, and that is self care,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: that is self love. And then what happens is that
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: we're able to move through the emotion almost like a wave.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: The emotions come up and then they come back down again,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: and then we're able to move forward. Maybe that's like
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: going to dinner with friends and having a laugh or
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: whatever that is. But just normalizing what you're sharing is
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: so important that like, we all have bad days, but
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: it's really just about are we stuffing the feeling down
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: and not moving through it or are we really facing it.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: When you have a good friend or a family member
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: or a colleague and you are witnessing that they are
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: in this difficult period of transition, that their inner dialogue
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: isn't so bright and shiny, that they are really struggling
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: with self love, is there a right or a wrong
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: way to support them during that?
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I like that question because when I work with couples,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: sometimes one partner wants to just fix it, like if
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: their partner. If the partner B is having a hard time,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: partner A wants to just like fix it. Okay, what
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: can I do to make you happy? Let's do that
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: and move forward. Or we might start to say, oh,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: but but I love you so much, but you're so
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: good at that, why would you feel sad about that?
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: We think that's helpful. Or we might say, oh, you
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: know what, I've been through a similar situation and I've
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: gotten out Okay. Those are like all ways that sometimes
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: we respond to it thinking that that's helping the person.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: The best thing you can do when someone's having a
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: hard time is to just sit there and to be
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: with that emotion and to say how can I support you?
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Or you know what, that sounds really hard what you're
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: going through. That must be really tough, that situation at work,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: or you know what, the situation with your friend. Wow,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: that sounds really disappointing that that happened. That's what we
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: want to hear when we're in a tough space. We
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: likely don't want to hear the like, oh but you'll
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: be okay, and you've been okay before. Sometimes we just
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: need to sit in the muck of it, you know.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's so helpful. Those two important things you mentioned.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: One validation, validating their experience, saying it's so understandable that
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: you feel this way, and then two that buzzy special question,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: how can I support you? Knowing that they may not
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: have an answer to that question right now, right.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent, you may not even know what you
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: need in that moment, but knowing that someone's there for
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: you and has asked the question, you might feel more
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: comfortable to circle back later and say, you know what
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you asked me that earlier. I wasn't sure, but here's
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: what I need or here's what could be helpful. You know,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: it's just let open ended question and letting someone know
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: that you're there for them.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Something that I've also found to be extremely helpful when
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: I am going through moments of turbulence, when I am
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: really struggling to embrace the aspects and the goodness of
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: self love is what I like to call a joy list. Now,
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: it's not a topic or an idea that is new
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: to society, but essentially what it is is a list
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: of things that I know that are at my disposal
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: at any given moment that bring me joy. Example, I
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: love writing. My new addition to the joy list is
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: I love reading fiction because when I was in that
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: self help whole for three years, I got to this
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: point where I was tired of feeling like something was
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: wrong with me every time I picked up a book
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: that is neither here nor there. I like going to
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: this one specific restaurant in Lower Manhattan, I like going
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: for a walk around the block I like and the
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: list keeps going right. So when I feel like I
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: have my blinders on and I can knot get out
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: of my own way, I revert to the joy list
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: and it reminds me that any of those things can
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: help lighten my mood at any given moment.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: That's wonderful. We all need a joy list, Emily, Like literally,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I think that is so incredible, you know, having a list,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: like you said, when you're in a dark place and
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: you can't you don't understand what could be the best
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: help at the moment, And it sounds like you have
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: like a variety of things to pick from, so at
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: any moment you can kind of pick and choose what fits.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: So I love that we.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Need a joy list. Everybody needs a joy list. Okay,
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: when it comes to self care, we've talked about a
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: lot of different strategies that someone can implement to really
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: adopt a healthy practice. Is there anything that we're missing here?
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Everyone who's listening, listen to your inner compass, listen to
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: your value system, what lights you up, and start there.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: So Emily mentioned the joy list. I think that's so incredible.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Create your own list based on what matters, what lights
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: you up, what makes you feel alive, what makes you
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: feel in your body, and that can be so many things. Right,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: we covered body, we covered like meditation, we talked about dance.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: We talked about a lot of different things today, and
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: maybe none of it sounds good to you, but maybe
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: even if you're at home, just thinking about what lights
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: you up and go there. So we could have this
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: conversation for hours if we wanted to, and I would
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: do it because I love this topic.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: We could we could have this conversation for hours, and
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, we know that engaging
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: in a self care practice is truly clinically proven to
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: reduce and eliminate things like anxiety and depression. So if
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: you give back to yourself, I promise you that good
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: things are ahead of you. You just need to take
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: a small step in the right direction and unlock that potential.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: Boom boom boom doctor Nina Paul and a I'm so
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: happy that we were able to have this chat today.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: For those that aren't following along with you just yet,
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: that want to keep up with you, give us your information.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me on your show. You are
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: so incredible, Emily, and having this conversation with you has
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: been so fruitful. And around Valentine's Day, I think that's
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: so important because we think about it in a traditional
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: sense around romantic relationships, but it really is about loving
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: ourselves and then we have great relationships with ourselves and
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: other people.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: It's so true. I'm over at Emily a Body and
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: at Hurdle Podcast. Another Hurdle Conquered. Catch you guys next time.