Self Love

In this episode, Glenn discusses the importance of loving yourself as the first step to meaningful change, fulfillment, and the ability to help others. We also discuss self care, self esteem, and how to set boundaries to make sure you are taking care of yourself.

Transcript

Welcome to Life Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hey everybody,

Welcome to the podcast.

Today we are talking about self-love and I have no idea what I'm going to say.

Nice.

Yeah.

Very nice.

I don't know.

This is the third thing that we've recorded today and I just noticed looking at myself in the top little thing where I can see myself at the top of the screen.

Yeah.

I mean you can see me in its entirety.

For those of you who are watching this on Patreon,

My head is perfectly framed in the window behind me.

Oh yeah.

Do you notice that?

Yeah.

It's like the perfect size.

Wow.

Anyway.

That's amazing and wonderful.

Yeah.

So anyway,

Self-love.

Yeah.

I can't believe we haven't covered this as a topic by itself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is a biggie.

Yeah.

And I know we've touched on it in a lot of ways and God only knows how we're going to touch on it today.

So why don't you tell me about like why is self-love so important?

I mean I know that you say a lot that all work is self-work and we also like I think one of the first things that we did,

One of the first episodes we did was how to care for yourself to better care for others.

Yeah.

You know,

That kind of stuff.

So tell me why practicing self-love is so important.

Well basically because we have to,

Everything starts from the inside and works its way out.

The way we look at life is backwards and that's why it doesn't work.

As a general rule,

Most people look at life like if the things on the outside of them,

If my kid does the right thing,

If my spouse would stop nagging at me,

If my job paid better,

If my boss was friendlier,

If my car didn't break down,

If all these things on the outside of me were exactly the way that I want it,

Then I would be happy.

It's these things preventing me from being happy and I'll be happy when and when I achieve this,

I'll be happy.

And happiness is always outside of us and the way,

That never works.

It's backwards.

It just doesn't work.

I mean I don't know how else to say it.

So what we have to do is we have to start understanding that everything starts from the inside out.

Our outside world is a reflection of our inside world.

So if we fix ourselves on the inside,

Then things on the outside start reflecting that.

Every time I get frustrated with my son,

When I try to fix him and get him to do the things that I want him to do,

It goes horribly wrong.

It gets worse every time.

But whenever I stop my focus from being on him and turn it inside and focus on working on myself,

Now all of a sudden,

Somehow like magic,

My interactions with him get better.

He connects with me better.

He starts listening to me better.

He starts talking to me because I'm not all caught up in trying to control him.

And then all of a sudden,

Things start working themselves out.

And it's like that in every area.

So we have to really understand that our life has to function from the inside out.

And if it has to function from the inside out,

We need to.

.

.

I mean it's really a core piece.

I mean if you don't love yourself,

How do you expect anything to go well?

I mean you're you.

You can't walk around with a dislike or a hate towards yourself and expect to experience happiness,

Joy,

Peace,

Love,

Anything like that on the external world.

I mean so we have to start with ourselves.

We actually have to start understanding what we are,

Who we are,

Start behaving in ways that induce self-love.

And I think that that is.

.

.

It's one of these things that we're in the middle of a learning curve on.

Because I can say what I just said and people go like,

Okay,

Glenn.

Yeah,

All right.

I'll bite.

It makes a little sense,

You know.

Un poquito.

So it makes a little bit of sense.

But what does that look like?

How do I implement that?

I mean what am I supposed to do?

And that's I think a big part of self-love.

How do you love yourself?

And a big part of it is behaving in ways that raises self-love.

It's very closely related to what I talk about when I talk about self-esteem.

If you want self-esteem,

Do esteemable things.

You know,

Be kind to yourself.

If you want self-love,

Do loving things for yourself.

Behave in ways that you find that you enjoy.

Like one thing I did as an exercise many years ago is I want to increase my self-love.

So what I did is I made a list of qualities of things that I respected in people.

Like I was like,

You know,

If I see somebody that has integrity,

I respect that.

You know,

I like seeing that in somebody else.

And anything positive is a version of love.

So respect is a version of love.

Like is a version of love.

It's just different words.

So I made a list of all the things that I like seeing in other people.

And I'm like,

Wow,

If I met somebody with these 10 personality traits,

These 10 ways of being,

And they live that on a consistent basis,

I'd really have a lot of respect for that person.

I would really like that person.

And then what I started doing was when situations in my life would come up and I didn't know how to handle them,

I'd break out that list and I'd be like,

What would this imaginary person do?

What would this person that acts out of integrity and honesty and self-respect,

What would that person do in this situation?

Well,

Somebody that respected themselves and loved themselves and really was honest,

They would do this and be like,

Okay,

Then I'll do that.

And then that's what I would do.

And then over a period of time,

I noticed my self-love growing because I actually liked the person,

The ways of behavior that I was living in.

And I think that that's one of the biggest understandings.

Somebody asked me many years ago,

One of my first clients were talking about this and they said,

Well,

Why do you love yourself?

You seem to love yourself.

Why do you love yourself,

Glenn?

And I was like,

That's a good question.

And so I thought about it for a moment and I said,

Well,

One of the things that I love about myself is that I'm honest.

So,

You know,

Like 15 years ago,

I decided I was going to not tell any lies,

No white lies,

Nothing.

So I started living like that.

And I felt that this was a good example because you can understand that self-love is an ongoing thing.

It's not a momentary thing because that's what our brain usually likes to do.

Oh,

I'll do this and then I'll love myself.

It's like,

No,

It's,

You know,

That's another external thing and it's momentary and it's fleeting.

So it's,

You know,

Loving yourself is just generally liking the type of behaviors that you do on a regular basis.

And so with the honesty thing,

I was like,

I don't love myself because all of a sudden there's this situation that happens.

And I think for a minute,

Boy,

It'd be really easy to tell a white lie here.

And get myself out of this situation.

And then I would choose not to and then tell the truth and be honest.

And then as soon as that situation's over,

I go,

Way to go,

Glenn.

You're awesome.

That was phenomenal.

Way to go.

Like that's not how it works.

It's not what I do.

You know,

It's just that when I think of myself,

I go,

Well,

I'm the type of person that as a general rule does not lie.

I like that.

I like walking around being a person with that quality.

I like being a person that generally just tells the truth even when it's difficult.

I respect that in myself.

I like being a person,

I like walking around being a person that has that general quality as they walk through life.

So,

It's more of an ongoing thing.

You look like you either you have something to say or the wheels are turning and you're thinking.

Which one is it?

I just think that it's really funny that 10 minutes ago you said you had no idea what you were going to say on this topic.

Well,

Of course.

That's why I don't let that stop me.

It always goes somewhere.

Yeah.

Is self-love a big issue that you see in your clients?

Self-love is a big issue I see with everyone.

Yeah,

Everyone.

I just think it's one of the biggest things we all need to work on as a society.

I mean,

Like in a way,

Yes with my clients.

And the only reason I say that is because my clients are very loving people.

Otherwise,

They wouldn't be working on themselves.

Some people are like,

Oh my God,

It must be so hard being a life coach dealing with all these problems all the time.

And I'm like,

Yeah,

You don't get it.

It's really not that hard.

The people that I have come to me are the ones that are ready to work on themselves.

They're loving,

Caring people who want to better themselves and live a happier,

More loving life.

Why would that be difficult?

So,

I mean,

Is it an issue with them?

Well,

Sure.

Because if they're just rolling around in self-love all the time,

Then they might not be hiring me.

But I don't think that they have any particular more of a problem than the rest of society.

As a matter of fact,

I think that they're closer to the solution than most of society.

Because they are very loving,

Caring people and they are willing to work on themselves.

And that's really all it takes.

So,

Take that.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Well,

I'm going to – all right.

I don't have a pipe.

I'll put it in my water bottle and drink it.

Put that in your water and drink it.

Yeah.

All right.

So,

If somebody was having like a big issue with self-love,

You know,

Like they don't – they're really being hard on themselves.

They're really not exhibiting any signs of self-love,

Right?

Somebody comes to you and other than the fact that they've chosen that this is a good time to work on themselves,

Which I know is a huge step.

So,

Ignore that if you can.

Everything other than that is no – nothing for themselves.

Yeah.

What's the first thing that you say?

Like what's the first step into self-love?

Cut it out.

Stop beating yourself up.

And that really – one of the biggest things is judgment.

We're so judgmental.

We're so judgmental about life.

We're so judgmental about others.

We're so judgmental about ourselves.

And one bleeds into another.

It's interesting when people like – because like I said,

My clients are very big-hearted,

Loving people.

So,

It's very interesting that when you have somebody that's kind of based in love and being a good person is so important to them,

When they start really taking a step back and seeing how judgmental they're being.

And sometimes they pull it back with other people as much as they can.

So,

It's not quite so obvious.

But when you start showing them how they're being judgmental to themselves and how self-deprecating they are and how they've been holding themselves down and holding themselves back,

That's really where you have to start.

You have to see.

You got to let yourself up underneath your thumb,

From underneath your thumb to even start.

You have to be more loving to yourself.

As a general rule,

People will bat away 25 compliments.

And one insult will sink deep into their heart.

And we have to reverse that.

We have to be able to start batting away the insults and understanding that those are coming.

Whoever said it,

That's their problem.

It's not ours.

And we have to start loving ourselves and patting ourselves on the back.

I mean,

That was a big thing when I was waking up and getting sober.

It was like I didn't realize how hard I was on myself.

And I had to actually practice going,

Hey,

Glenn,

Way to go,

Glenn.

Good job,

Glenn.

You handled that really well.

And it felt weird at first because I was taught not to do that.

You weren't supposed to pat on yourself on the back because then you'd be an egotistical jackass.

And that's what people are so scared of.

And that's what our ego does to keep us stuck is it generalizes things.

And it's like,

Well,

No,

If you love yourself,

Then you think you're better than other people.

And it's not that at all.

Loving ourselves does not mean that we think we're better than anybody else at all.

It's two completely different energies.

Loving yourself is just loving yourself,

Period.

It's just loving another.

That's like saying if anybody's ever been in love with somebody else,

That they think that that person they're in love with is better than everybody else on the planet.

I mean,

Literally not better for you.

You can be in love with somebody and go,

Oh my God,

This is the best person on the planet for me.

But if you're sitting there with the person that you love and going,

This person is the best person on the planet.

Nobody else has good qualities.

Then you're delusional.

There's lots of people with good qualities in this world.

So,

I mean,

It's the same thing.

If you love yourself,

It doesn't mean you have to demonize everybody else.

It doesn't mean that you have to put down others.

That's ego.

Loving yourself actually enhances your ability to love others because you don't feel so threatened by other people.

You have a more open and loving heart and you can embrace more people.

So it actually enhances the love you have for other people.

All right.

How do you like them apples?

Good.

I don't know.

So when you threw out the topics for today,

I chose this one as one of the ones that I thought that we should cover.

Because A,

I couldn't believe that we hadn't talked about it before,

Like as an episode unto itself.

And B,

Because I think that it's something that I could personally learn some stuff about.

So since you are my life coach,

This is not my life coaching session,

But I think that this might be helpful for others sometimes to do this.

Do you think as someone,

As actually a client of yours who you know me well,

Better than the people that are listening to this do,

Do you think,

So you know my shortcomings when it comes to this,

What do you think,

Use some of the specifics,

You can use some of the specifics of me.

I'm giving you the permission to do that.

Like what are some of the things that you think that I could do better in the self-love realm?

Caring for yourself.

You know,

This is that care for yourself so you can better care for others.

You know,

Prioritizing our time.

You know,

A lot of times we think about,

You know,

It's this good person trap.

Because we have big hearts,

You know,

Like I was saying,

All my clients have big hearts.

So the trap that people fall into is doing good for other people to try to feel good about themselves.

And so because when you do good for other people,

There's a positive response from the universe because we're supposed to do good for other people.

But the problem is,

Is we get addicted to that.

And it's like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound inside of our heart.

It never heals it.

It never fixes it.

It's just you have to do,

Do,

Do,

And then you do more and do more.

So it's always about putting others first.

We have to really start taking care of ourselves and loving ourselves and giving from the overflow.

You know,

That's what we're supposed to be doing.

But we have responsibility for our own lives.

So,

You know,

The system is set up very simple.

You do good for others,

You get a positive response.

So that's just how it's set up.

It's our responsibility to learn how to work the system.

How to,

You know,

So our responsibility is not to distract ourselves from the fact that we're lacking in self-love and just put more bandaids on everybody else.

It's to do the inner work and really take care of ourselves and notice how strong we feel and how good we feel and how good it feels to give from the overflow.

And that we can continue to do that without,

Like,

If we're not giving from the overflow,

Then what we're doing is we're taking,

You know,

5% of our energy and we're giving it to somebody else.

Now we're 5% down.

And we can't keep that up forever because we run out of energy,

You know.

So what we need to do is if we fill ourselves up to 100% and then it's overflowing and we just give from that overflow,

We can give endlessly.

So I think that that's the biggest part is just really working on ourselves and giving from the overflow.

So to do that,

We need to,

You know,

Stop doing so much for other people,

Turn it on ourselves,

And then the healthier we get,

The more we can give to other people,

You know.

So how do you do that?

Because I think that that's something that a lot of people that are listeners and clients and stuff,

Like,

I think that,

You know,

Much like you said,

Your clients all have big hearts.

I think that the people that are probably listening to this,

You know,

If you're going out of your way,

Like,

Let's start here,

If you're going out of your way to listen to a life coaching podcast on self-love.

And you haven't turned it off yet?

And you're 22 minutes in.

You have a big heart.

You are like,

Stop for a second and just give yourself a round of applause.

Like,

Good job.

This has already been an exercise in self-love.

Right.

It's an act of self-love.

So I think that all of the people that are listening still at this point,

And all of the clients that you have,

And everything,

You know,

Like that that we've said,

I think that the majority of them probably have this issue,

This issue of doing things,

Of doing too much for others,

Because probably the majority of them have a big heart.

Right.

And it is addicting,

Like you said,

To do for others instead of doing for yourself first.

So how do you stop that?

How do you,

I know that we're going to do an episode in the future on setting boundaries.

How do you,

So what,

Like,

Just a cliff notes version,

How do you go about starting that?

Well,

You have to learn to be honest with yourself and stop overextending yourself and learn to say no.

You know,

Just because somebody asks doesn't mean you're supposed to do it.

And it,

You know,

It's,

A lot of it is that sacred pause.

Just stop saying yes for a minute.

Just stop saying yes.

You know,

And just,

When do you need to know by?

Can I get back to you tomorrow?

And then put some actual thought into it.

You know,

Look at your schedule and go,

Am I overextending myself if I do this?

You know,

And start saying no.

You know,

I think the other thing that we can do is start scheduling things for yourself too.

Oh,

That's a really good idea.

Yeah,

Because there's two ways to come at it.

You've got to start saying no to some things,

You know,

That are overextending you.

And to do that,

You need to learn to be honest with yourself and slow down and all that stuff.

But that can be a little bit hard,

You know.

So another way to come at this,

Or you could come at both directions at the same time,

Is literally like block out times that are you time.

You know,

Take 30 minutes a day if you can.

If you can't,

Take five minutes a day or 10 minutes a day,

Whatever,

And just have that as you time.

I mean,

You have to be able to do that.

And if you're too busy,

Then you're lying to yourself.

So if you're too busy to take five minutes alone for yourself,

Then you need to take at least 10.

Because you're obviously so wrapped up in your life that you need more.

And that's actually something that I think that,

And I'm going to go further than the take five to 10 minutes for yourself.

I think that a lot of people,

And I say this because I'm one of them,

It's not even the ask and then the agreeing to all the time.

You know what I mean?

I think that when you're really addicted to helping other people or extending yourself instead of self love,

I think that a lot of times you offer it.

It's not people asking you and you say yes to too many things,

Which is a big part and that's true.

But a lot of it is you offer it.

So if you take the time to say even more so than taking 10 minutes or whatever,

If you put on your calendar,

Hey,

This is Tuesday nights,

I need to do this for an hour.

This is my thing.

This is something that I enjoy.

And you block that stuff out for yourself,

Then you're going to prevent yourself from offering yourself for other things.

Yes.

If you start taking this seriously,

Because generally what happens is you go,

Okay,

Tuesday nights,

I'm going to take an hour for myself.

And then all of a sudden something comes up and you go,

Well,

I mean,

I don't need to take it Tuesday.

I mean,

I certainly could help this person and take it Wednesday.

So then you go help that person.

You never reschedule it to Wednesday and it just doesn't happen.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Yeah,

I know.

Exactly.

So what it is,

Which really led into a nice little piece,

Is make a commitment to yourself and respect yourself enough to keep that commitment.

When I'm teaching people this,

I say like when I first started personal training,

I used to have to get my own clients.

So I would sit down with them and I talked to them about why they should hire me.

And one of the things I used to say is you're more likely to keep an appointment with me than you are with yourself.

A hundred percent true.

Right.

And most people live like that,

Which is sad.

Like they will literally drag their ass through a mud puddle to get to an appointment with somebody that they literally don't even know or met once.

But yet to keep a commitment to themselves,

They blow themselves off all the time.

And we just don't look at it like we're doing that.

We don't slow down enough to look at.

We treat ourselves like crap.

We lie to ourselves constantly.

We disrespect ourselves constantly.

And then we wonder why we don't love ourselves.

It's because we disrespect ourselves and we lie to ourselves constantly.

I'm going to do this for myself and then we don't do it.

That's a lie.

That's disrespectful.

So we treat ourselves with dishonesty and disrespect and then we wonder why we don't love ourselves.

And then also when you treat yourself like that,

You're allowing others to treat you like that.

Oh,

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You told the story a few episodes ago about your son.

There was a weird time period,

Which is very unusual for your relationship with your son.

But there was a weird time period that you shared the story of him being a little.

.

.

He was being disrespectful.

Disrespectful,

Yeah.

And I was shocked.

I was like,

This isn't like him.

This isn't like us.

Why is he disrespecting me?

And I looked and I realized that it was because I was disrespecting myself.

I was working too much.

I wasn't taking care of myself.

I was stressed out.

And I was disrespecting myself and he was just mirroring that back to me.

So the people around us do that.

And we got to understand that there's going to be pushback with people that have been in our lives for many years.

They are living their lives from their perspective.

They are the director and the main actor in their own play.

And we are just secondary actors.

And that's not being mean.

That's just reality.

I'm the same way and so are you and so is everybody else.

We can only live our lives from our perspective.

It's the only one we have.

So it's not a matter of being selfish.

It's just the reality of the situation.

So everybody subconsciously has a role in our lives.

And they just,

We get used to it.

It's all unconscious.

We just get used to it.

So the way we treat other people,

It's just,

Oh,

That's just,

Ben does everything for everybody.

That's just who Ben is.

Just does.

And there's not,

People don't slow down enough to go,

Okay,

Wait a minute.

What's the score here?

Like Ben's done 350,

000 things for me.

What have I done for him?

Like everybody's so wrapped up in their lives that they don't slow down enough to look at that.

So,

And we did an episode on givers and takers.

The giver has to set the limits,

Not the taker.

So we all have to set our own limits of what we can give.

We're not supposed to be handing that responsibility to everybody else.

Because they don't know what our balances are.

They don't know that.

.

.

Like when somebody comes and asks me for things,

They don't know what my schedule is.

They don't know if I had four clients that day.

They don't know if I have to get my accounting done.

They don't know that I had to take the dog to the vet yesterday.

They don't know.

So it's not their responsibility to figure out what's reasonable for me to do and what's reasonable for me to not do.

That's my responsibility.

So I can't hand that off to other people.

I really have to.

.

.

My life is my responsibility.

And I have to respect myself enough to say,

No,

I'm wearing myself thin.

This isn't healthy for me.

And when I.

.

.

Like what I was saying a few minutes ago,

If I set something on my calendar,

I have to stand by that.

I mean,

I understand there's an emergency.

If your neighbor comes over carrying their leg and say,

Hey,

I need a ride to the hospital.

Okay,

Well,

Maybe you could reschedule yourself time.

I mean,

Take them to the hospital.

But actually reschedule it.

Like literally reschedule it.

That's generally what I do.

I've done that with personal training clients.

I've done that with life coaching clients.

My clients don't cancel.

There is no canceling.

You don't cancel your session.

You reschedule your session.

And that's the same mentality that we need to have with ourselves.

If you're having self-care time and some emergency comes up,

And I mean emergency,

Not spilt milk in the kitchen.

You can clean that up an hour later.

It'll still be spilt milk.

Yeah,

It's not going to go rotten in an hour.

So like.

.

.

But I mean,

You have to draw the line somewhere and just really take care of yourself.

And if you have to reschedule it,

Actually reschedule it.

But it's really about respecting yourself enough to keep that promise to yourself.

Definitely.

Well,

This has been an awesome talk.

And if you want to watch the video version of this podcast,

Check us out on patreon.

Com slash glennambros.

That's the best way to support the show.

And if you like the show,

Leave a comment,

Subscribe on iTunes or Google or wherever you listen to the show.

And if you want life coaching or to find all of the many,

Many,

Many things that Glenn does,

Check out Glenn.

Vlogs,

Other podcasts,

All kinds of stuff.

Summits.

Summits,

Yep.

Check out glennambros.

Com and all of that information is there.

Yeah.

So that's going to do it.

And make yourself a priority.

Stop bringing in that self-love.

Do loving acts for yourself.

And actually,

That's one more thing I want to touch on before we go.

It's like if you're.

.

.

If you meditate,

If you take time for yourself,

If you buy yourself flowers on the way home from work,

If you sit down and read a book,

Whatever you like to do,

If you get a massage,

Whatever you like to do,

Go on vacation,

Anything.

Take a moment at the beginning and at the end and just go,

Let yourself know I'm doing this because I love myself.

This is an act of self-love.

My meditation is an act of self-love.

Reading a book is an act of self-love.

Just take a moment to let that settle in and then your little just things that you might already be doing actually turn into self-love acts.

But you have to actually let yourself know that.

If we're like,

Oh,

I'm doing this.

Now I'm going to do that.

Now I'm going to do that.

We just go from one thing to another too quickly.

Slow down for a minute.

Recognize that it's an act of self-love and then you'll actually feel the rewards from it.

So that's it.

I'm going to close on that.

Thanks for listening,

Everybody,

And we will talk to you soon.

.

Reviews

This talk is so informative, very helpful and much needed🙏🙏🙏

Right on man! I needed to sit back and put everything I do for someone else on one side of the scale and everything I do just for myself on the other. It’s seriously lopsided. I like your advice of scheduling in time for yourself and never canceling.

Thanks i found it uplifting and supportive. 🙂❤

All good points. Thank you gentlemen. Love and blessings 💙 x

Outstanding as always. Love how Ben often seems dumbstruck by Glen's revelations. Or maybe he dozes off? Either way, I find your conversations thought provoking, enlightening, and your banter fun and entertaining.

Wow so much good stuff here. I’m at the bottom of a deep hole mentally at the moment after being hit with nasty depression and anxiety in November last year and not wanting to live anymore... I hated my self so much then and thought I deserved nothing but now I’m being treated with medication and things are definitely improving but I’m having to rebuild my self esteem and worth from scratch. I’m starting to like my self a little but my mind still attacks me with hurtful memories of me on self destruct and rehearing all the hurtful things said and judged over me over the years and yes those same things I direct at my self because that’s what people who love me the most think of me. I’m not worth love. I will listen to this again if I can and take definite notes I also love the list of nice things you like in people like honesty I will write up notes from it and try it. This is a long slog up a staircase but I’m not the bottom step.

Great talk as usual! Thank you!

Thank you for your insight!

Another conversation full of gems. Bravo!