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SEASON 7 | SELF LOVE & VALENTINE'S DAY · SECOND CLOCK™

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What's your true nature? Your essence?
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What makes you tick? This journey to find out is what
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I refer to as your second clock. It's a chance to discover,
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experience, challenge, and reconnect with what you value
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most. Through clarity, love,
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acceptance and reflection, you'll find your answers.
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And what happens when you do? Well, You'll find you.
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Join me, Click follow, like and subscribe and let's see where
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this leads. This past weekend was
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Valentine's Day and for a lot of people that day carry some
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weight leading up to it. During and after.
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There's a lot of hope, a lot of what if thinking and for some
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let down. And let's not forget the people
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that aren't in a relationship and are confronted with this
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day. When I was little, my dad, he
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used to always show up for me on Valentine's Day.
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He would give me and my mom the same thing, flowers and
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chocolate. But then I got married and my
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husband, he didn't care for Hallmark holidays so we didn't
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do much. I don't remember getting flowers
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or chocolate, maybe a dinner here or there, till eventually I
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stopped caring about Valentine's Day too.
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Maybe that's for the best, because now that I'm single, I'm
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reminded of Valentine's Day. I'm also reminded of something
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else, a type of love that I don't think we talked about
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enough, especially on Valentine's Day.
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And that is the art of loving yourself.
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Sounds a little hokey, even cheesy, but that's where I'm at.
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Basking in the cheese for so long I didn't really consider
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what mattered to me. I kind of just went along for
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the ride, doing whatever people do, getting to whatever next
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milestone there is to get to, and forgetting about myself
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along the way. Forgetting to check in and ask
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myself, am I still doing this or staying in this for the right
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reasons? Is this serving me?
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Do I even like the way I feel in this situation or in this
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relationship? And when I speak to people, a
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lot of people forget where they fit in, or they fit in.
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In relationships that is. It makes me think of a friend.
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She'd been in a relationship for not that long.
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It was a few months and she saw the relationship was slowly
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dissolving in front of her, but she just tightened her grip.
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She wanted so badly for it to last, last till Valentine's Day.
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Because like so many, she thought maybe on Valentine's
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Day, everything's going to change.
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He's going to wake up and live up to his potential.
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He's going to be the guy she wanted.
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But in those few weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, something
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shifted inside of her. She started seeing the
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relationship for what it was. Not something worth holding on
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to, even if it meant that she wasn't going to find out what
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she was going to get on Valentine's Day.
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So she did something. Something different for her.
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She let go. She walked from that
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relationship. She didn't wait for it to
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implode or explode. She just realized this isn't
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what I'm looking for and no matter how much I'm trying, it
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doesn't matter. And maybe I won't get that
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Valentine's Day trip that I was hoping for, or the jewelry or
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the nice dinner. Maybe I was never going to get
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it. Maybe I'm holding on for no
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reason. When she let go, she got
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something in return, a better gift.
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She walked because of self respect.
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She had lost that along the way in that relationship.
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She had lost her value in herself, AKA herself worth.
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But what she got from walking was more valuable.
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It was a step towards herself and self love.
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When I think about these things and relationships where you just
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want so badly for somebody to show up for you in ways that
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they haven't or no longer do, it reminds me of a poem.
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When I was 17, a friend of mine shared a poem with me.
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I don't know, maybe she shared it because she liked it, or
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maybe she saw something lacking in me.
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I'll never know. But nonetheless, at the time I
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read the poem, it didn't resonate with me at all.
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I didn't want to embody this idea that it was up to me to
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take care of myself, that I had to look out for myself, that I
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couldn't wait to be saved. I couldn't wait for somebody to
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bring me flowers. I think I always had this idea
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that somebody was going to want to love me and cherish me and
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take care of me and that I was going to be able to exhale a big
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exhale and let them just do everything for me, know me and
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my needs better than I know my own.
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So when it was time for me to design my yearbook page, by then
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I was 18 and I guess my 18 year old self must have known where I
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was heading because I included that poem in my yearbook.
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I think it was the only thing I included other than my name.
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I don't think I had photos. I can't recall.
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The poem is called After a While by Veronica A Schoffstall.
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After a while, you learn the subtle difference between
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holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love
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doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security.
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And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and
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presents aren't promises. And you begin to accept your
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defeats with your head up and your eyes open with the grace of
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a woman, not the grief of a child.
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And you learn to build all of your roads on today because
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tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans and futures
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have a way of falling down in mid flight.
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After a while you learn even sunshine burns if you get too
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much. So you plant your own garden and
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you decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone
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to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really
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can endure, that you really are strong and you really do have
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worth. And you learn.
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And you learn with every goodbye you learn.
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For me, it took over 20 years to learn that lesson and to embody
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all that was written. But I got here after enough time
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had passed and my friend had accepted her breakup.
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We were inching closer and closer to Valentine's Day.
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And she asked, do you think I'm going to get anything for
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Valentine's Day? Do you think he's going to send
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me flowers, call me, write me? I told her no, but I reminded
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her of what she did gain, and that was taking one step closer
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to loving herself. That only comes with walking
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away from something that isn't right for you, even when you so
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badly want it to be right. If you're curious, he did text.
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He basically said all the great things about her and then
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reiterated that they weren't right for each other.
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I'm not really sure what purpose that tech served and who it
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served more, but I guess it was nice that she got to receive it.
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On Valentine's Day. I mentioned that my journey to
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self love took a long time, and that's completely true.
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I don't know why it took so long for me to kind of see things for
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what they were, allow acceptance in to situations where maybe I
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didn't want to accept the truth. But the interesting thing is my
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journey to self love didn't start with me recognizing people
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and accepting things as they were.
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Instead it started a few years back with gifts I got myself
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when I had my own company with my friend I worked so much.
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I talked about that in the episode called Burnout, and
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after working so hard, I felt like I didn't have enough to
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show for it. Specific stuff, stuff that I
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deemed important. Whether or not it is didn't
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matter because I finally recognized that it didn't matter
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what other people valued. It mattered what I valued.
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So when I took on the second job, a second full time job that
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is, I decided I was going to dedicate part of my second
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salary to buying some of this stuff that I thought I should
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have and recoup some of the losses, Perceived losses that
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is. At the time, it was just a
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fantasy. It was an idea of what could I
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do with the money. But then it became a reality
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when I was on vacation in Florida.
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I'd just gotten out of the swimming pool.
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My hair looked all unkempt, I was wearing very casual clothes,
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and I asked to be dropped to the mall.
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I wasn't familiar with this mall, but I thought I had time
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to kill, so why not do a little shopping?
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I got dropped in the section, that's the luxury part of the
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mall, and I was looking at Cartier and I thought, yeah, why
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not? I'll go in.
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Maybe check out some earrings from the Love Collection.
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They were little studs, probably the most affordable things
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there. They didn't have them.
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Then I thought about the bracelet, also part of the same
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collection. The woman looked me up and down.
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I guess I was having a real Pretty Woman moment at that
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time. I'd like to say people don't
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judge, but who am I kidding? We all judge even if we don't
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want to admit it. I asked her if I could see the
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love bracelet. She checked my size and she had
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it. She put it on me and the way to
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put it on someone is you have to actually screw it on somebody.
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It's like a commitment to love bracelet.
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I looked at it and I said yeah, this feels right.
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I said I'll take it. I chose not to remove it,
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instead I wanted to keep it exactly where it was.
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She asked me who was getting it for me and I said me.
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Then she said what's the occasion and I said it's
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Tuesday. I hadn't planned on buying this
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so there really was no reason other than the fact that it was
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for me and today is as good as any day.
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She smiled and I left. This one single purchase marked
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my ME era, an era that I think everyone needs to indulge in
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just a little or maybe a lot. A time to figure out what's
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important to you and then seek it out.
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When I returned back to Los Angeles, the bracelet was kind
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of scratching me, so I took it into the Cartier in Beverly
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Hills, and that's when I found out that I could get the inside
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of my bracelet engraved. I didn't know what the options
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were, so I wanted to explore them all.
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So I looked at the fonts. I figured out how many
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characters I could have, and then I just needed to figure out
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what it should say. So I sat there and I thought and
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I thought about myself, love, and what this bracelet meant to
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me. And then I had the word.
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I told the woman, let's do a heart, then this word.
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All in lowercase script followed by another heart to bookend it.
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She said, can I ask you about the word?
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Why'd you choose it? And I said, oh, because my love
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for myself is that so before I share the word that I engraved
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on my bracelet, let me first tell you my wish for you.
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My wish is that you pay attention to yourself and what
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you care about and that you care for yourself even when caring
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for others. That you check in with yourself
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and you ask yourself when you're in a relationship that doesn't
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feel right, should I still be in this?
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Or you ask yourself why it is that it's so hard to let go and
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you remember that it's just small steps towards yourself
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that'll bring you self love and yourself love.
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Well, I hope it's like mine. The word I engraved was
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limitless. Thanks for listening.
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These episodes are unscripted. They're my free flowing thoughts
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as I reflect back on past conversations, experiences, what
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I've learned, would like to do better and what's next.
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Join me on Thursdays for new episodes and catch up on past
13:45
episodes. Click follow, Like and subscribe
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and let's see where this.