Radical Self Love (Part 1 of the How To Heal series)

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Today’s episode is the start of the How To Heal series here on the podcast. We’re starting with the foundation of it all - radical self love. A person who experiences self love and demonstrates self compassion has less depression, less anxiety, less stress, and less shame. Isn’t that what we all want?

This is such an important topic that I’ve had a lot of feelings come up as I get ready to share this with you - tenderness, insecurity, and impostor syndrome (just to name a few). 

But the truth is, I’m not trying to solve all of the world’s emotional pain problems. I’m creating this series to share with you my own journey of healing from trauma, uncertainty, and difficult experiences and the things that have been fundamental to me on that journey. 

Over the course of this series, I’ll help you to:

• Become kinder to yourself
• Make friends with your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
• Notice the patterns or strategies that don’t work for you anymore
• Make small changes that influence those patterns

This isn’t about making a huge overhaul of your life. It’s about picking one or two patterns in your life that you want to get curious about and explore…and loving yourself all along the way.

Radical Self Love

Radical self love is the foundation of healing. It is vital. It is a gift that you give to yourself. You are entitled to loving yourself and feeling good about yourself, and I want that for you so much. 

Repeat after me: I unconditionally love and accept all the parts of me, no matter how I think, feel, or act.

Write this statement down, put it somewhere you’ll see it often, and practice saying it to yourself throughout the week. Then, I challenge you to practice self love through connection and compassion (sound familiar?).

Step 1: Recognize the worth of your core self

At your core - your essence, your soul, the divinity that lives within you - you are good. You are worthy of love. You are lovable, and you are good enough exactly as you are.

Think of a newborn baby. Think of how deserving it is of love and care. There are no expectations of the baby. It doesn't have to prove anything. It doesn't owe anybody anything. It's just this love being. 

You have that same pure soul inside of you. There is an essence to you that is pure and loving and good. It is worthy of love. It is worthy of being cared for and treated kindly.

Step 2: Connect to your core self

Unfortunately, we don’t always live in connection to our core self.  We have subconscious thoughts and behaviors. Our environment influences how we think, feel, and act (e.g. parents, teachers, peers, religion, childhood experiences, etc.). 

Sometimes we lose our connection to that core self, and we start using strategies that we think will either help us get better or help protect us. And these strategies aren’t always very loving to ourselves or others.

Our thoughts become ruled by our inner critic. Feelings come up that we don’t know what to do with - like anger, hurt, or resentment. We use strategies to soothe, protect, or punish ourselves. 

You might recognize these as people pleasing, yelling at your kids, overthinking, drinking too much, overworking, buying new things, pushing away love, not accepting help, focusing on your external appearance, complaining a lot, being greedy or selfish.

I don’t want you to see these as horrible things. All of your behaviors make perfect sense. 

They are actually a form of love that you think you need to protect your core self. These thoughts, feelings, and behaviors give you valuable information.

But you don’t need to do those things when you can connect to the pure love that is already within you - that thing you can trust and hold on to and rely on. Healing requires you to grow a relationship between your core self and all those other parts of you.

Step 3: Be compassionate with yourself

Self compassion means that not only do you unconditionally love and accept all the parts of you, you also know that you are not your behavior. 

If self love is the decision to love yourself, no matter what, then self compassion is the tool you use to get there.

Self compassion is a practice in which we learn to be a good friend to ourselves when we need it most. To become an inner ally rather than an inner enemy. To quiet that inner critic, and even make friends with her.

You cannot push away negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You have to explore them with love, curiosity, and compassion, or you’ll end up swapping one not-so-great strategy for another. 

For example, you can say to yourself, “Hey girl, Why are you being so mean? We’re filled with love. You have nothing to prove, but here you are being mean? What’s going on?

Self love is like having a relationship with the divine within yourself. You have divinity within you, and it’s an invitation to fall in love with yourself. 

Tools for Self Love

Check in with your inner child. When you catch yourself in self hatred, or just generally being shitty to yourself, imagine yourself as a child. I envision a little girl who didn’t get what she needed from her mom or her dad or her peers. She’s wounded. This little girl isn’t my core self, but she is part of what happened to me. 

Give a lot of attention to this sweet, beautiful, perfect child inside of you. Ask, “What do you need to hear today? What are you wishing you could get?”

As you do this, your core self - in all of its beauty and wholeness and worth - develops a stronger and stronger voice. The more trust and love you give to your core self, the more room you give her to be. 

The best friend strategy. Channel your best friend, your biggest cheerleader, the ultimate hype woman. What would she say to you right now? Give yourself the pep talk that you wish somebody would give to you. 

You don’t have to wait for somebody else to cheer you on. You can be that hype woman for yourself anytime you need it.

Make a delight list. I often teach my clients to use this tool when they want to feel better about their kids or their partner. But what about making a delight list for YOU? Grab a pen and paper and write down a list of 30 things that you like about yourself. 30 things about yourself that delight you.

Do a lovingkindess meditation. In this simple meditation, you repeat 4 sentences that will help you get in touch with deeper levels of self love.

May I be happy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be healthy.
May I live with ease.

My wish for you this week is that you grow into greater levels of self love and self compassion, that you fall deeper and deeper in love with you - the perfect, lovable, worthy, and good person that you are.

You’ll Learn:

• A mantra to help you practice radical self love
• How insecurity shows up for me and how I return to my core self
• 4 tools to deepen your self love

Resources Mentioned:

• Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg
• Episode 100: How Trauma Informed My Parenting
• Episode 160: A Love Letter from Your Coach