Hi dear sub-leaves,
I hope that you're having an incredible day.
Welcome back to another episode of Lovely Monday Motivation where I go live on Instagram for 5-10 minutes every Monday to share one self love tip and answer one self love question.
This week's self love tip,
Hello butterfly caterpillar world and hi Colby,
This week's self love tip is to be your own hero.
Love yourself so much that you're willing to step up to the plate and provide for yourself.
The truth is that nobody is coming to save you.
And even if they do for what can be a little while,
It's not sustainable.
Have you ever been in or heard of a relationship where when they're with the person they feel great but then once it's over they feel completely lost?
This is what happens when we don't ground ourselves in our inner knowing.
First,
When you know yourself,
Provide for yourself,
Are emotionally independent and detached from outcomes,
Dating and life in general becomes much more free flowing.
I was raised with my dear father,
Dr.
Boo,
Always teaching me how to never rely on a man or in other words to be an independent woman.
The truth be told,
When I was younger I didn't want to put in the work.
I wanted someone who could come save me for basically my entire life.
Then when I was 18,
My dream came true.
I had a boyfriend who figuratively picked me up on his white horse.
He was exactly what I wanted for so long.
He provided everything for me,
Housing,
Food and a relationship at bare minimum.
At the time I thought I was in love and I believed this all the way until the day that he told me that he wanted me to move out.
So my self love tip for this week is to save yourself.
Don't wait for someone to save you because no one truly will or can.
It has to come from within.
You have to want to take care of yourself and be there for yourself.
So my self love question this week actually comes from my mom.
I was really curious to see what she might need help with.
So she asked,
How can we learn to forgive ourselves?
And I'm so happy that she asked this question and brought it to my attention again because until we release the hold that regret and shame has on us,
We will continue to have a barrier between ourselves and our self love.
First,
Let's define what forgiveness means to me.
I describe forgiveness as acknowledging the pain and releasing the power that it has over us.
That doesn't mean forgetting what happened to us or what we may have done,
But rather simply allowing the pain or event to be there and being able to feel at peace with ourselves.
When we are referring to forgiveness,
There are three aspects that are important to focus on and listen carefully to this.
Forgiving pain that we have caused to ourselves,
Forgiving ourselves for hurting other people and forgiving other people for hurting us.
We can be our own worst critics.
Well,
Honestly,
We are our own worst critics.
And that's just one example of some of the ways that we can cause pain to ourselves.
Forgiving ourselves for hurting other people.
I mean,
This is something that we all do.
We can even do it without doing it on purpose.
But regardless,
We still hurt that person and we can feel really shameful about it or have a lot of regret about it.
And it would be really wise to try to let that go.
And forgiving other people for hurting us.
A lot of times we can be in situations where we didn't want this thing to happen to us at all or we had no part of it or maybe we did have a part of it.
But it can be really challenging to let any of these go.
So in a scenario where a person may have been severely traumatized,
This person may hold on to a great deal of resentment towards the perpetrator and also towards themselves,
Especially in cases where they may have been manipulated into believing what they did or that their part in the situation was wrong.
Let me say this.
All abuse is bad.
All of it.
Even in cases where we may have had a part in it,
It doesn't mean that we deserve to be abused.
It's important to pinpoint and understand where we may have actually been in the wrong and also when it has nothing to do with us.
If we are in the wrong,
Then it is our responsibility to make up for it.
But again,
It still doesn't mean that you deserve to be abused.
And if we are not in the wrong,
Then first of all,
You don't deserve to be abused.
And please don't blame yourself for anything that's happened to you because it's not your fault.
Forgiveness is a process that requires intentional effort and practice.
As Liz Newcomer mentioned in our episode,
How to Heal from Sexual Trauma,
As the years passed,
She was able to heal more and more over time.
Forgiveness is a practice that extends into practically every area of our lives.
We will at some point likely be in a situation that requires us to practice forgiveness with our friends,
Family,
Coworkers,
Spouse,
Or even ourselves.
While all of these are very different,
They also follow the same framework of acknowledging and letting go in order to forgive.
When it comes to healing,
There are five phases.
The first one is grief and denial.
The second one is anger.
Third is bargaining.
Fourth is depression.
And fifth is acceptance.
When it comes to healing from literally anything in our lives,
The soonest we can reach a place of acceptance,
The sooner that we can move forward.
That's really important,
So I'm going to say it again.
The sooner that we can accept,
The sooner that we can heal.
So,
I enjoy telling my own personal experiences because I feel as though it allows me to explain what I'm saying in a way that is more understandable and also offers inspiration.
As many of you know,
Who have been.
.
.
Well,
As many as the people who have been listening to my podcast,
Most of you probably know that I have been sexually abused when I was at a young age,
And it was not a singular event,
And the experience dictated the way that I made decisions for almost my whole life.
Throughout my teen years with more and more traumatic experiences adding onto the haystack,
Eventually I couldn't hold onto the load anymore.
This led to a spiritual awakening,
Which I surrendered my life to God.
After so many years of suffering,
I couldn't take it anymore.
I know that I'm saying this very nonchalantly,
But in the moment,
It was very real to me.
This was the lowest point of my life when I was crying and surrendering to God.
Imagine that.
I believe that sometimes challenges are too great for us to handle alone,
And the best course of action may be to surrender ourselves to God.
We are only human.
When we lean onto a force that's bigger than us,
It has potential to bring us so much peace.
At least that's what it does for me.
There is a common theme that I see in personal development as a whole,
And that is always acknowledging and letting go or releasing of some sort.
With each chapter of our lives,
We let go of the last.
With each new relationship,
We are hopefully embracing the newness and releasing the past.
Even think about a river.
Where the water is flowing strongly,
The water is much more clean.
Where the water that a big tree has fallen in it,
It becomes stagnant,
And the water is much more dirty,
As it can be infested with bugs and bacteria that can make us sick.
All and any stagnant energy has the potential to make us sick.
I'll say that again.
Stagnant energy has the potential to make us sick.
That's why it's so important to release.
I really love this example that my friend Linda Malerstein gives about the boiling pot.
She says our emotions are like a boiling pot.
And sometimes when it's boiling over,
That's when we have these outbursts,
Or we can see other people have outbursts and things like that.
And so our job as an individual working on a personal development is to make sure that we don't get to that boiling point where we top off,
But we take out little bits at a time to keep ourselves healthy and strong and balanced.
As for what happened to me and what helped me forgive that awful man who took advantage of me,
A few of the biggest things that helped me were to look forward to the future instead of the past,
Having the knowing that whatever we put out,
We also receive,
Giving my pain and challenges to God,
And focusing on my own personal development.
All of these are kind of broad.
They have a lot more that I could go in depth to.
It's a little challenging to get to everything in a five to 10 minute video every Monday,
But I really just want you to know that you can move forward,
That forgiveness is possible.
It's possible for you and peace is possible for you.
So even today,
Even when I think about what happened all those years ago,
It still hurts.
I think that forgiving him fully will most likely be a lifetime journey.
I can tell you though,
That I do not let the pain rule my life or decisions anymore.
And I have full faith that you can reach this place as well.
A few affirmations that I will leave you with are,
I completely love,
Accept and forgive myself and others.
I allow myself the freedom to feel my pain.
I am willing and able to release the past to move forward.
So I really hope that one of these resonates with you.
And I really highly suggest that you practice saying at least one to yourself at any time that you can remember to do so.
Yes,
Colby,
Only use the past to build you up.
And thank you.
I love,
Be kind to you.
You were so amazing.
So if this was helpful for you,
Please share this episode with a friend,
Family member on social media,
Or with someone who you feel like could benefit from this information.
If you'd like to have more help with your self love journey and forgiveness,
I can help you.
You can learn more and book an appointment with me at kalenbu.
Com or tap the link in my bio.
Enjoy the rest of your night or day,
Whatever time it is where you are.
Thank you so much for being a part of my community.
I am so grateful for you.
And please,
If you have any self love question that you want me to answer,
Just DM me,
Email me,
Call me.
My contact is in my profile.
It's under my pins,
My highlights.
You can find my contact information there or my website or DM me,
Whatever is best for you.
I love you so much.
Thank you again for tuning in.
