The Art Of Self-Respect

In this episode, we discuss how to respect ourselves. It is so easy to take action in our lives, because we feel afraid, hurt, or disconnected. How can we identify behaviors that ultimately come from fear and lack? How can we give ourselves what we need, so that we can become our highest potential?

Transcript

This program was produced by and first broadcast on Radio Hawke's Bay,

Your community access media station.

Thanks to New Zealand On Air for making this type of programming possible.

Well hello everyone and welcome to a new episode of It's A Funny Thing with Celine.

I am Celine and I am so happy that you're here.

So if this is the first time that you're tuning into the show I want to extend a really warm welcome to you.

We gather here and we talk about whatever is important to us.

So if you have a question you're welcome to send it to me and we can talk about it.

We talk about the things that are important to us.

You know we talk about relationships,

We talk about the relationship that we have with ourselves,

The relationships that we have with others and the relationships that we have with the world,

The environment around us.

So there's quite a bit to dig into.

The episodes are 25 minutes long so really easy and we talk about real life experiences and in each episode I give you tips and tricks and exercises that you can implement to make your life easier and more loving and more fun.

So really we sit down together to think about who we are and who we want to be and who we no longer want to be.

So this is not about me telling you what to do and telling you how to live your life.

I give you questions and prompts that hopefully will help us help you to think about why you are stuck.

You know if something is going on in your life and you don't like it there is always a reason for it.

There is always a reason why this is happening and it's not necessarily that God is punishing you or you know it's all your parents fault but there is always a deeper reason and you know this society,

This world that we live in currently,

This western culture that we have at the moment is pushing us you know pushing us to you know it's inviting you to push yourself and to go harder,

To go faster,

To wake up earlier,

To do more,

To be more effective,

More organized and it's teaching us to push and we know that life is about a balance of pushing and pulling or rather allowing and releasing.

So it's a give and take right but life is about a balance between give and take and I think we have forgotten that.

We want to take,

We want to take and we want to take some more,

We want to see what the world is able to give us and we want to see the magic of the world but we often forget that well what are we contributing to the world,

What are we contributing to the world and it's not about you know donating millions to charity,

It's not about waking up at 4am in the morning,

It's about doing what's right for you and so this was actually a really good introduction,

Thank you,

I'm thanking myself,

This was a good introduction to today's topic which is self-respect and this is the topic that I think is really important for 2024.

I don't know about you but I feel that my health,

I mean my health really declined in 2023 and I had lots of health issues and when I dived into those health issues they were all related to work and the stress that I experienced at work and so for this year my focus is,

Sorry did you hear the bells,

It's Lily having a shake and looking at why I'm talking,

She's sleeping on the bed,

It's a rainy day today and she's wondering why I'm making this noise and she doesn't like it so I apologize.

So this year really it's about slowing down and finding that respect for yourself.

I think that it is a lesson that we learned during the pandemic when so many of us were stuck at home for weeks and weeks and weeks on end and I know that we had it easy in New Zealand so you know people in Europe and in the US and in other places you know have had it much harder than us but we knew we had that experience of staying at home and there was just nothing for us to do,

There was no distraction and so many of us just found time to learn how to bake and be in the garden and spend time with family and I felt that that was the number one lesson beyond the horrors of the pandemic you know that was the number one lesson,

Empowering lesson for us all as as you know a human race,

It was to just slow down and remember what is important to us and I remember somebody saying on the radio that they'd forgotten you know they they didn't want to live to work anymore they wanted to work to live and I thought that was a really good a really good way to say it but now it seems that we have forgotten again but you know the universe has a funny way of bringing us back to what is truly important and and so this year is about self-respect it really is it's about slowing down and it's about going much deeper than just doing the bubble bath and you know the glass of wine at the end of the day it's about becoming aware of all the ways in which we are disrespecting ourselves and so for this episode I really want to take you through a series of real life examples and some will be from my life and some will be from the life of other people that I know and hopefully these examples will trigger your awareness and help you to see oh actually yes I do this oh I do something similar or that makes me think about something that I'm doing and you can take those examples and think about them and and see what you can do to improve your own experience in life.

Let me have a sip of coffee and before we dive into the deep aspect of our conversation just you know take the time to perhaps stop multitasking you know we're so so focused on being efficient and multitasking and perhaps you can take this time just 20 minutes to do nothing else but listen to this and perhaps you'd like to take notes you can make yourself a good cup of tea you can have a snack you know bring your cats and bring your favorite blankie put a you know if you're sitting cross-legged you can put a pillow under each knee to make it super comfy perhaps you'd like to just pause this and wait until you can do this at a time when you know you're not going to be interrupted so I really invite you to you know I don't know go brush your teeth brush your hair and change your outfits I don't know whatever rocks your boat but whatever makes you feel that yeah this is a valuable time and you are valuing this time and you're also valuing yourself okay so I'll just give you a moment to do that and I'll have a sip of coffee myself and the first example that I have for us is actually coffee um so at the end of last year around the new year period so it was just a couple of weeks ago three weeks ago um at at at the end of 2023 I got really sick and um I had a little bit of ice cream I'm going to tell you the full story it was very very embarrassing I had a bit of ice cream which I shouldn't have it it doesn't agree with me but you know we were having a big day in town running errands with my husband and um and I had a bit of ice cream because I was over it and we still had an hour of driving just to get back home and um and in the evening I started to feel really sick and so for two days over the you know the last year of 2023 in the first year of 2024 I was so sick I couldn't you know I couldn't get up I couldn't sleep I couldn't drink I couldn't eat and I felt that my body was releasing so so so so so much stuff and it's amazing how much stress the body can hold on to no matter how self-aware you are and so that was my body's way of saying enough we're going to stop you know eating snacks and doing the things that we do between that Christmas and New Year period and we're just going to release stuff now and you're just going to get through it because this is what you've done to your body this year and so I couldn't drink any coffee because it was upsetting my stomach so much and um during this big time of transition I thought I realized that you know I had been relying on coffee to get me through the day and um obviously you know when you drink too much coffee it has an effect on your adrenals but you're basically telling your body that it's okay to keep going and that you don't want to rest and so your body keeps on going and keeps on pumping on its reserve like the um reserve of energy that it has and so it eventually just runs on empty and you're just relying on other sources of energy so people will rely on soft drinks or those energy drinks or coffee or will rely on stress as well so if you have a really stressful job your body will rely on stress because it is an energy unfortunately it will just um you know take energy away from other you know parts of your body um so that you can just focus on surviving in this moment but if you keep doing this for too long a period of time then it'll just have huge effects on your body and your health and um so I was thinking about how I had been relying on coffee just to get me through the day um I have quite a stressful job at the moment and it's really focused on targets and meeting new targets and you know my my boss will call me at 9 p.

M at night and there is no there is no boundary really even though um I work as a contractor so technically I should be able to work when I feel like it and you know this time of transition really invited me at looking at my relationship with coffee of course but there was a deeper reason which was my work and you know what I was doing for money at that at that time and why I was doing this or why I thought it was necessary so often you know we will have you know several several areas in our life um that are in balance so for example for me it's you know my marriage is in balance my health is normally in balance and my home is in balance my relationships are in balance my relationship to myself is is normally in balance but my work and money is usually out of balance and that's the area really that I need to focus on and I need to work on and I've been working on and it's just that one area in my life where it's just not quite flowing and so there is you know the relationship with coffee there is my work which is not really suited to my personality and what I want from life but there is a deeper um set of belief systems there you know um where I think that you know I can't enjoy the work that I do work has to be stressful and certainly I have seen this where you know all my jobs since I graduated have been horrible jobs so very stressful jobs where I don't have any time off or my manager doesn't like me or I don't make enough money or no no no no no or I don't really get time off work because people call me even when I'm off the roster whatever so it's it's all of these things um there is a deeper reason right so the relationship with coffee is always a good way to start because I know it'll it'll it'll apply to a lot of us and relationship to food in general is a big thing and a big thing to have a look at so when you think about you know what you're doing or like for example if you don't have the time to cook to cook at night and you're too tired from the day and so you rely on takeaways or you rely on chips or just you know filling up with whatever's in the cupboard when that's easy but not necessarily nutritious and so it depletes your reserve of energy as well which you know just takes you down this spiral of lack of energy and not being able to work um excuse me being sick um you know not enjoying your job you know feeling resentful towards your boss feeling resentful towards your work and the lack of you know perhaps you don't feel that the pay is you know um matching the amount of effort you're putting into the work etc etc so look at look at food look at what you're putting into your body this will tell you a lot about um the ways in which you're disrespecting yourself so that was number one you know so i was disrespecting and i have been disrespecting myself by um knowing not doing the work that i meant to quite simply okay number one let's think about a number two i had a lot of examples when i thought about recording this i think number two can be um sleep so for me it has been not sleeping when i know i need to sleep and so so many of us now are struggling with chronic fatigue you know whether you have been diagnosed with this or not we all feel that we have not enough energy and while this goes hand in hand with the coffee thing right we rely on other sources of energy rather than breath and nutritious food and you know laughter and lovely relationships and sleep and meditation you know those are all sources of energy that we tend to forget you know we think that energy just comes from sleep but it comes from so much more than that you know do you take the time to do nothing and to connect with yourself during the day do you take the time to truly ask your body what it wants to eat what it needs to eat so not just you know the pack of you know the the bar of chocolate but also you know from the chocolate what does your body really need what it might need you know that i don't know i don't know the iron or whatever so instead of stuffing yourself with sugar which is a form of energy as well what does your body really need it might need comfort and soothing it might need comfort and soothing because that's what you get from chocolate and it's a really easy way to get it but it's not self-sustainable as we know if you've been listening to the podcast for a long time if you've been in my word for a while you'll know that i was a really big fan of chocolate and that's eating chocolate i was eating a whole block of chocolate every night and that was my way of self-soothing and obviously it had a huge impact on my health later on and it took me years to fix that so don't do what i did and learn how to respect yourself now before you get down this path of what self-destruction really number three for a huge number of us i think is going to be relevant so number three is you know doing too much and spending too many time too much time doing chores around the house so there was a long time last year where you know my husband was studying full-time and i was working part-time and you know managing you know paying for all of our bills and all of our expenses so i was responsible for all of our um all of the money in the household because my husband was studying full-time and i was responsible for doing all the chores around the house so i was basically doing two jobs at the time and i was you know i'm doing all of my hobbies and all the things that i like to do like yoga and pottery and horse riding and so on and um i was you know i had the time to do this you know i was making enough money and i was i had the time to do the chores and sometimes i felt happy to do it but most of the time i didn't i wasn't happy to do this and i felt resentful and i felt that my body my husband was taking advantage of me and i felt that you know he was sexist and all of those arguments that we hear and see on social media right that you know our partners are taking advantage of us and they're not respecting us and they're you know basically self-entitled so self-entitled brats and basically you know we are housewives from the 1950s and we're not in relationships that make us thrive and so i remember having this huge argument with my husband this one night and i was already tired from a whole day of working and doing chores and um and he said you know we were both so frustrated with with each other and ourselves and at this one point he says but Celine you're not respecting your time i am respecting my time i know these jobs will get done when the time is right but you are not respecting your time and so you're running exhausted you're not taking the time to rest you're not doing the things that are important to you and so you just you know keep on putting them on the back burner and that's week after week after week after week you're not respecting yourself and the first reaction i had was to say was to swear at him because i thought yeah right you know it's just you know you're just putting this on me and it's always my fault but really what's happening is that you're not respecting me and you should be putting in you know throwing in your weight or how do you say this in English but you should doing your part here in the household because you're not a child and i'm not your mother but then i thought i thought about it and i realized actually he's right i can blame this on my husband as much as i want but what's really happening is that i'm not respecting myself i'm not respecting my time i'm not respecting my energy and so things might look really tidy in the house but you know my husband keeps messing a mess keeps doing a mess keeps making a mess sorry and i keep having to pick up after him and i'm wasting this time and i'm wasting the energy that i have and so i have to work less because i'm more exhausted and i have less time and energy and desire and creativity to do my my little hobbies the things that i really want to do that are important to me and i am wasting time and it was a huge wake-up call where i really had to take responsibility for what i had been doing and so by choosing to take responsibility and by choosing to see that yes i had been putting myself on the back burner i had been um disrespecting myself by doing things that i did not really want to do well i was wasting time you know i only have you know perhaps another 60 or 70 years on this earth how am i going to spend them how am i going to spend them am i going to do the washing and do the vacuuming and do the mopping and do the dishes and tidy up the house every day and have you seen this um this movement or this trend recently in women who are going back to being housewives who let their partner make all the money and they focus on taking care of their partner and spending time with their partner and they don't have any money of their own so they're completely dependent on men on their partner and you know they they focus on being pretty and you know having dinner ready on the table by the time their partner comes home from work that is insane it's ridiculous you know what's going on in our psyche as as women ultimately it comes to it comes down to a lack of respect or self-respect you know perhaps it is an inability to think that you can you know make your own money and you know have interests of your own that you're important enough to do what you feel like doing in the world you know we're so very good at lying to ourselves and pretending that everything is all right pretending that we have it under control pretending that we are living a life that's not too disappointing or too sad or too miserable that we you know gratitude can be a way that we have of disguising what's really going on in our lives and yes to appreciating the sunshine and yes to appreciating the relationship that we have and yes to appreciating the money that we have but i feel that sometimes this gratitude that we have is just a lack of awareness for what is truly going on so i'd like you now to there has been quite a few examples now so i'd like you to have to think about this and think about the ways in which you are disrespecting yourself is it around the time that you wake up is it around you know how you choose to fill your time how you choose to spend your days you know how you communicate with yourself how you communicate with others how are you disrespecting yourself in the way that you communicate with yourself you know do you spend your time denying your needs or do you spend your time putting yourself down you know how many of those nearly invisible nearly silent thoughts of self-hatred do you have towards yourself every day and this is an interesting path and you know that i believe in self-love i believe that this is the most powerful force for change in our lives and self-respect is a huge part of that and it's a part that we don't often talk about but it is huge you know how are you disrespecting yourself how are you letting others disrespect you how are you disrespecting yourself in your work in your health in your health in your nutrition the food that you eat and how you treat your body and the thoughts that you have the feelings that you have how are you disrespecting yourself so you might like to take the time to sit down and you know take pen to paper and think about the different aspects of your life and think about what you need to do to change this or you might just like to go through the rest of your day and just keep this conversation in the back of your mind and you know when you have a negative thoughts towards yourself you will think oh wait this is what selena was talking about this is self-disrespect this is health self-hatred in some ways at some points at some level so my invitation to you for this year is to be extremely kind to yourself is to go the extra mile in taking care for yourself taking care of yourself is to go the extra mile in caring for others in a way that nourishes you and focusing less on what you can take from the world and focusing more on how you can be in this world and how you can give in this world so that's my invitation to you for today i hope that you really enjoyed this this episode i hope that you enjoyed the conversation sorry and that it gave you a lot to think about let me know if you have a question for me i'll be more than happy to answer it and i'm sending you so much love and so much love and peace and wisdom and confidence and abundance and i'll speak to you next time thank you this program was produced by and first broadcast on radio hawks bay your community access media station thanks to new zealand on air for making this type of programming possible