Fall In Love With Yourself When You're At Your Worst! #253

It's easy to be in acceptance with yourself when you are at your BEST. But what about the challenging times? Often when we need it the most we fall into self-judgment instead of kindness. Tune into this episode and start falling in love with yourself again! This episode was recorded live on November 7th, 2022.

Transcript

Welcome to the Soul Infused Monday show,

Your show for an inspired and meaningful week.

And today's episode is about self love.

The topic is how to fall in love with yourself when you're at your worst.

Being at your worst can look different for different people.

I don't know what it means to you to be at your worst.

And sometimes it's even hard to love yourself when you are in a good place.

So today,

It's going to be about how to be in acceptance how to be loving and kind and appreciative of yourself even when you are at your worst.

I believe that self love is the foundation to inner peace,

To calmness,

To happiness,

To success.

I also believe that self love is when you connect to your soul to your higher self to the being that is beyond the conditioning,

The programming the patterns,

Because you're not going to fall in love with your patterns with your wrong beliefs with your habits or addictions the things that are not really you.

It's not about falling in love with those pieces or with the personality.

It's about falling in love with who you are beyond all of that.

And especially when you're going through a tough time,

Especially then you need your love and your acceptance your compassion more than ever.

And often when we are at our worst,

We are doing the opposite.

We judge ourselves,

We fight it,

We resist it,

And we are very hard on ourselves.

I wanted to bring up this topic because I always like to use topics that are current and I am very transparent in my own journey.

And self love has been a journey from the very beginning of my starting of my spiritual journey,

My inner work,

My personal development,

Whatever you want to call it,

And me as anyone else also get to revisit and take it a step deeper.

The things that I'm going to share today might resonate with you might not might not I don't have the answers.

I don't have it all together.

I'm going to share with you some of the things that work for me that work for my clients things that I do when I feel I'm getting into a more judgmental space.

And if I want to reconnect to myself and I want to fall in love with myself again.

So take a nice deep breath if you're already live here,

Leave me a comment,

Say hello.

And I'm curious to hear what what is it that you don't like about yourself right now?

So that I have an idea where you act,

And I can tune into that.

To be an acceptance and at peace with yourself deep within requires work.

So depending on where you are on your journey,

You've done maybe a lot of work already.

And you are in a place where you feel I want to have more self compassion.

I want to have more self love,

Because something is something intense is going on in my life.

Or maybe you haven't even gone on the journey of self discovery and self love.

And then you get to start the journey if that's something that you're looking for.

So here's a few things that I want to share with you today.

And to bring context into the self love conversation is there is no other person,

There is no other person in your life that will spend as much time with you than yourself.

There is no other person,

Not your child,

Not your spouse,

Not your family members,

Not your friend,

There's no other person in your life that has been there with you from the beginning,

And is going to be with you until the end,

Only you.

So you are going to spend the most time with yourself than anyone else.

So that person in your life is most important.

And you want to have a really great relationship with that person.

There are many different things that you might judge about yourself,

It could be your behavior,

It could be your physical appearance,

It could be certain patterns,

It could be it could be many things.

The inner critic is strong when we are in a challenging time.

Here are a few tips that I want to give you for today or things that I do when I want to reconnect when I'm at my worst,

I am actually currently on some aspects of my life at my worst,

Physically,

I'm at my worst right now that I've been in a very,

Very,

Very,

Very long time.

And so I notice those thoughts that inner critic thinks that how to deal with discomfort,

Comparison,

Shame,

Shame is a big,

Big,

Big issue when it comes to loving and accepting yourself.

So one of the things that I that I remind myself or that I invite you to do is to tune into more to who am I being versus what am I doing?

Or how am I looking?

Like,

What is my outside appearance?

Who am I being deep inside,

Because of my journey,

And I've done this work for a very long time,

I have a deep love and acceptance and appreciation for who I am.

And I connect to that.

And I remind myself of that when I feel judgmental with myself because of my outer appearance,

Because I gained weight,

Or because my skin is bad,

Or because I'm losing hair,

Whatever it is.

So take a moment to tune in and ask yourself the question,

What is something you love about yourself?

What is and you have at least one answer,

It might first come up with some other things.

But what is something that you love about yourself?

And I'm not talking about something that you're doing or something around your body,

Something that you love about yourself,

A behavior,

A quality,

And to focus on that.

When you focus on what you love about yourself as who you are being,

You detach from the outside signals and you detach from the visual,

You detach from what society might want you to look like or not do you connect with who you are being as a soul deep inside.

So that's one thing that is helping me that I wanted to share with you.

Then also come back to the present moment.

When especially when you're struggling,

When you're going through a tough time,

For whatever reason that might be,

You need more love and compassion.

So come back to that present moment when you're struggling,

Let go of the self judgment and check in with yourself.

How would I treat myself if I would be my best friend?

If my best friend is struggling?

What would I say to her?

What would I do with her?

The point is to take quality time with yourself.

I want to talk about quality time with yourself for a moment.

Going to the gym and exercising is not quality time with yourself.

That's great for your health,

You want to move,

You want to go to the gym,

Keep on doing that.

But that's not spending quality time with you.

That's doing something.

Also,

When you when you go somewhere and you are in nature,

For example,

And you're listening to a podcast or you're listening to music,

That's nice.

That's beautiful.

However,

It's still not pure quality time with yourself,

Because you're still distracted.

Quality time with yourself means you are just with yourself and nothing else.

It could be in nature,

It could be sitting in your garden.

Of course,

You can have a cup of tea or something.

But nothing that is distracting you from yourself.

For me personally,

I like to do that in nature.

Now you find your own ways.

But going for a walk in nature or immersing yourself in nature without listening to anything,

Not even something inspirational,

Not even a spiritual talk,

Nothing that distracts you from yourself.

Go on a walk and connect with yourself.

Listen to yourself.

Communicate with yourself as if you are going on a walk with a best friend.

So quality time,

Even getting a massage is wonderful.

And please do all of these things.

These are self care things.

However,

True quality time that for me it's nature and also in meditation,

Where I connect with deep within I connect up to my soul,

And I go deep through the layers.

And of course,

In the beginning,

It's often uncomfortable because the layers are full of noise or you hit the discomfort,

And we all want to avoid discomfort,

We all want to escape from it.

That's why we do distract ourselves.

So if you want to fall in love with you again,

Or at all,

Dare to face that discomfort,

Sit with it and penetrate the layers so that you connect deeper.

So take a nice deep breath and tune in what resonates with you or not.

Meditation or nature is for me,

It could be something completely different for you.

Another thing that is a good reminder or words that you can use or a little phrase that you can put yourself somewhere,

Focus on connection versus perfection.

When we are in self judgment,

Very often our perfectionist is also very present.

We got to be perfect,

We got to be perfect to be loved.

And whatever perfect means to you.

When we focus on being perfect,

We are disconnected.

So focusing on connection versus perfection gets you to a point where you connect again,

And also in the present moment,

And to put the voice of the perfectionist aside.

Perfectionism,

And I am highly conditioned this way,

I have a very strong perfectionist.

And I worked on it,

And it's nothing what it used to.

But when we are in a challenging time,

Those patterns pop up again,

Your inner critic is there,

Your perfectionist is there,

Your pusher is there,

That's a very uncomfortable,

A comfortable energy to be in.

Focus on connection again.

And let go of perfection.

One thing I also want to share,

Especially for you,

If you struggle with your appearance or your body,

And you have a strong inner critic,

Especially when you're in a place where things are not so great.

Sometimes we just feel great.

And we are in shape and we feel good in our bodies and we feel vibrant and sometimes we feel ugly and old,

Not nice or not beautiful.

In those times,

Here's the thing.

Imagine for a moment,

A life without a mirror,

Just for a moment,

Because the mirror is food for the inner critic many times.

Especially when you have a weak moment or when you are in a moment where you struggle more,

You don't want to give the inner critic too much temptations or food.

What I mean by that,

Example,

For a recovered addict,

It doesn't matter if it's alcohol or cigarettes or whatever,

You don't want to have that stuff at home so that there is a temptation.

So you want to keep your house as clean as possible.

Even if it's not a big issue,

You want to make it easy to you.

So sometimes when you are challenged with your physical appearance,

You want to avoid to look all the time in the mirror.

And instead,

Before you look in the mirror,

For example,

When you get dressed,

Dress before you look and check how you feel.

And when you feel good with what you're wearing and what you in your body,

You don't even have to look in the mirror because how often does it happen that you feel actually pretty good until you look in the mirror?

I mean,

It happens to all of us.

Of course,

That's not the solution.

The solution is that you feel good within yourself no matter what.

However,

We want to support ourselves when we are in our worse.

And if looking in the mirror is a big issue,

Then don't look as much in the mirror.

Just feel good.

Focus on how you feel.

When I lived in the Dominican Republic before I started my journey traveling here,

I didn't even have a full size mirror,

Not on purpose necessarily because of this reason.

But I didn't I just didn't have a full size mirror in my apartment and I never got one.

I only have like a half half size mirror and the bathroom mirror.

I actually enjoyed that because I was getting dressed.

And I only checked a few things and I didn't see myself fully.

But if I felt good,

I just left and I didn't worry so much about it.

Now that I've been traveling,

I often have places where I have a full size mirror.

So you check all the time,

Right?

So it gives food for the inner critic when you are in a little weak spot.

Does that make sense?

I'm curious to hear what you think about that.

A few other things.

And then we wrap this up.

Another thing is gratitude and to focus on something that is working versus what is not working.

That is also beneficial when it is the body that you are challenged with.

Often we focus on the things that we don't like about our body.

And when you do that,

Don't even fight it.

Don't don't judge that you're doing that.

Simply focus on gratitude and on what your body is doing on a daily basis.

Our body is an amazing machine.

I mean,

It keeps you alive.

It breathes your heart is beating.

It is incredible what it does for us every single day.

When was the last time you appreciate it and you said thank you for your body and what it's doing for you?

When was the last time?

Or maybe you have you ever done it?

Take a moment right now.

Take a moment right now.

You can even take your hands,

Put your hands on your heart.

Take a nice deep breath.

If you want you can even close your eyes for a moment.

Take a deep breath.

And take a moment to say thank you.

Thank you for whatever your body is doing for you.

Can you breathe at this moment?

Can you move your hands and fingers?

Are you able to walk?

Things that we take for granted once they're taken away from us,

Or when we are healthy and then something happens or we have an accident or we have a surgery or we are going through a disease,

And it's really challenging.

Often the only thing we want is to be healthy.

And when we're healthy again,

We take things for granted again.

So take moments where you say thank you for everything that's actually working in your body and focus on that.

Give yourself a hug.

Especially when you're struggling,

Especially when you're going through a tough time.

You want to be extra compassionate and extra kind.

And if something that you really,

Really struggle with,

Of course,

You get to do the deeper inner work that hits the layers of I'm not good enough,

Or I'm not lovable.

Of course,

You want to do the deeper work to release what's there underneath.

But even when you are on the journey,

And you do love yourself,

Or you know,

You are worthy,

Sometimes at our worst,

We just,

You know,

We just fall back and we just want to remind ourselves that us being lovable has nothing to do with how we look or what we do.

And the first person that you get to appreciate is yourself.

So focus on the things that you love about yourself.

I even invite you after this show,

To take a pen and a paper and write down the things that you love about yourself.

And I,

For example,

Said that yesterday,

Just to give you an example,

Because some people what you mean,

I love to walk,

I love to explore.

And I love to go paths that I don't know where they lead me to.

So yesterday,

I walked and I found a path.

And at first,

My intention was not even more there.

But I saw this pathway.

And I couldn't resist to walk there,

And to explore and to just go off the beaten path without knowing where it's going to lead me what's around the corner.

And I love that about myself.

I love that adventurous,

Curious,

Going for it.

This is something that I just love about myself.

And it has nothing to do with how I look or what I do.

It's something deep within that I appreciate about myself.

That's just one thing.

So it can be something very random or very small event.

But what is something that you love about yourself?

And especially when you are going through a tough time,

Or you feel like,

Oh,

My God,

I'm at my worst,

Because when we are at our worst,

We want to change things.

Instead of appreciating yourself in the present moment,

You're focused on changing it.

So when I am here again,

Then I'm going to be okay again.

Like for example,

Okay,

When I lose the weight,

I'm going to be happy again,

When I am healthy again,

I'm gonna love myself again,

Or be happy again,

When I have the money,

Then I'm going to be happy again.

No,

In the now.

It's not about escaping,

It's not about fighting,

It's about arriving within yourself at any given moment,

No matter what's going on in your life.

Because this present moment is the only moment we have.

And I know you've heard that many times.

And it's easier said than done.

But your intention and your awareness can get you back to the present moment.

And then you can make a choice and say,

Okay,

I might not be fully in love with myself right now.

But I choose to be kind to myself.

I choose to be gentle with myself.

I choose to have compassion.

If loving yourself is too much,

That's okay.

Be kind.

Repeat yourself with kindness.

Appreciate yourself.

Listen to yourself.

Talk to yourself.

Spend quality time with yourself.

There's so much more to say.

But for now,

I'm going to leave it at this.

Of course,

And I keep saying this over and over and over again,

I invite you to meditate so that you go deep in and you connect to something higher.

Because who you are is beyond all of that stuff.

Who you are is this beautiful being,

Consciousness,

Love and energy.

And that's beyond your body.

It's beyond your thoughts.

It's beyond your patterns.

You want to connect to that on a daily basis so that you can go through the most challenging times with love and acceptance and kindness towards yourself.

Because you are with you all the time.

So you get to be the person that treats you really,

Really well.

What is something that resonates with you?

What are you hearing me say that's landing for you?

Do you have an insight and a ha?

What's your biggest takeaway?

Let me know share it in the comments.

And if you're listening to this in a podcast on audio version,

And you are not able to leave a comment,

Send me a message,

Leave me a review.

I always always love to hear from you.

And I invite you to spend the rest of the day or to start this week with the intention to be kind to yourself,

Especially when it's really hard.

Here's a great takeaway.

Connection versus perfection.

It's so simple and so profound though.

And it's a little reminder that you can put yourself on your phone or a little post it's maybe on the mirror.

Focus on connection versus perfection.

Another one connect with the feeling not the image in the mirror.

Yes.

And I really invite or suggest to connect to the feeling first before you look in the mirror.

Very,

Very powerful.

Thank you for being here today.

I will read all the comments and messages and takeaways.

I appreciate you.

I love you.

Be kind to yourself.

There's no one else like you.

You are unique,

You're beautiful and you're lovable.

And I am looking forward to having you again next time on the Soul Infuse Monday show until then.

Take a deep breath.

Connect with your soul and enjoy this crazy ride on earth as much as you can.

Much love.