Episode 149: Concrete Tools To Help You With Self Love

We are finishing up the Self-love series with an episode about concrete tools to use in your practice of self love. At the end of this episode is a meditation to support you in your journey.

This is episode 149 of the Regulated and Restored podcast, and I’m your host, Danita Bremmer. On this podcast, I talk about trauma, emotions, and nervous system regulation. Today we are going to finish our series on self love with lots of practices. So just as a recap, just in case you haven’t listened to the last two episodes, we are doing a short little series on self love.

The first episode, episode 147, I talked about why loving yourself can be complicated, especially for those of us who have some trauma in our past. In the second episode of the series, the last episode I did, episode 148, I talked about why we even want To love ourselves and not too long before I decided to click record here, I was checking my Facebook, um, notifications and I noticed someone said something about self love and how you don’t always need to love yourself.

So I did want to. I thought it was a good point. I wanted to reiterate it, that loving yourself is not the end all be all, and you can work on loving other people if that feels more aligned and more accessible to you. You can work on loving other people and that work will help you love yourself more. Uh, sometimes people in the self development world, we tend to take these concepts and Make them very black and white and even use them against ourselves oftentimes.

Right? So if it’s like, Oh, I’m not able to love myself, I’m not doing it right. Do not do that. Like it’s okay if you don’t love yourself. I’m just offering this series for those of you who want to work on loving yourself, who believe that it would help improve the quality of your life. That is who these particular episodes are for.

So I wanted to round out our series by having an episode that was really full of kind of concrete practices, tips, tools that you can use before I get there. I just want to say that I have a few more things to mention. Hopefully this will be quick. The first thing I want to say is that. The longer I do this work and I work with people in a coaching capacity, the more I come to realize that feeling is the heart of the work.

And we often focus on action. It’s not wrong to focus on action. It’s kind of our cultural modus operands, right? But I want to encourage you to feel first and do second. So when we talk about love, we often want to focus on the action part of love, but love can be a feeling as well. And It’s much easier to follow through on the action part of love when we’re actually embodying the feeling part of love.

So focus on feeling first and doing second. And I know that’s pretty abstract. So we’re going to get more concrete than this. The second thing I wanted to mention, that’s also a little bit abstract is that love can be a decision. If you bring it into your conscious awareness, you have the opportunity to choose it.

It’s not like this airy fairy thing that just happens or doesn’t happen. It’s something that we choose and we work on, which Also makes me think of love is a skill, and I know it feels like it shouldn’t be a skill. It feels like we should all be able to intuitively know how to love ourselves and others, and to some extent we do.

I think babies are born. Knowing how to love themselves and love the people around them. It’s just that life gets in the way, right? Conditioning from other people and culture and all the things starts to send us the messages that we shouldn’t love ourselves for some reason. So this is really about returning and remembering what is already inherently inside of us.

But I do think that Choosing it is very helpful. Seeing it as a decision is helpful. Marriage is a great example of this. When we find somebody that we want to marry and want to quote unquote, spend the rest of our lives with, we think it just happens to us. We just fall in love, right? And this is part of our culture of conditioning.

These statements like fall in love, like, oops, here I go. I just can’t help it. I love you, but. Many, many people will say that marriage is a choice to love. Your spouse every day, right? Especially if you find marriage to be difficult or parenting for that matter. I always love my kids, but I don’t always like them.

And in that way, like loving my children is a choice. Like I could just say I’m done. I don’t, I don’t want you in my life anymore. Plenty of mothers do that. We just never see love as a choice in that way. And I do think it’s helpful to see it as a choice. Okay. I’m going to mention one other thing. This might sound crazy to you, but it has been helpful for me to have a relationship with myself.

There is, uh, this theory called ring theory. It’s usually applied in a situation where someone is really grieving or they’re hurt. They’re going through some intense emotions. And the, the gist of ring theory is that the person gets to dump out, outward, and anybody Well, I I’m not doing this justice. So if you think of the person who is going through something really difficult, they’re the center of, they’re the very center ring.

And then there are rings outward from them. People who are very close to them would be the next most inner ring. And then the next ring would be somebody that’s Maybe not quite so close, but still involved, right? So we might think of this if, if I was the person in the center ring and I’m going through something difficult, my children and my husband are the next ring out from me.

And then the ring out from, from my husband and my children are like my extended family, right? So, um, aunts and uncles and cousins and things like that. Maybe a ring out from that are my neighbors. Or my ward family, my congregation at church, right? So we have these different rings of people of community and the further out from the person who is going through the hard thing, the less involved they are in that hard thing.

So, for example, when I get on Facebook and I see somebody has posted like a, um, a fundraiser for somebody who lost their kid in a random house explosion. And this, I don’t know this family at all. I am way far out in those rings, right? But the point I wanted to make about the rings is that. My support system as the inner person in the ring, all of the rings are my support system, right?

But if my so let’s say I got a diagnosis a health diagnosis. I have cancer Maybe my husband that’s gonna affect my husband and my children, right? Now it doesn’t affect them to the same extent it affects me, but it does affect them and they also need The idea in ring theory is that if you are in, if you’re talking to somebody who is in a more inner ring, then you comfort them and you don’t talk to them about how you are struggling with this thing.

If you’re talking to somebody who is in a more outer ring, then you can dump on them and you can ask them for support. So, for example, my husband and my kids, if I’m the one going through the thing, they, their job is to comfort me, but they could go to. extended family or neighbors or church congregation for their support because those people are in a more outer ring.

So as I was thinking about this, I thought, you know, I think it applies to ourselves. We have different parts of ourselves and. And this is like, if you’ve ever heard of parts work, um, kind of becoming a big thing. Now we even speak like, there’s a part of me that wants this. And there is a part of me that doesn’t want this.

So the part of you that is struggling is the innermost ring and the other parts of you are in outer rings. So. It’s helpful to think about these parts of you as if they’re like different versions of you. Like, can you imagine sitting at a table with five versions of yourself? The part of you that’s really worried about your kids, the part of you that’s scared.

To feel pain, whatever it might be, right? And you can take time to identify the part of you that’s really struggling. Maybe the part of you that can’t love yourself. And is there another part of you that can comfort that part of you that’s really struggling? And one of the main things, one of the most useful parts about thinking of it this way is that you can’t judge and love at the same time.

So if the, if there are different parts of you that are judging other parts of you, it’s going to be really hard to love yourself. It might just be an interesting, um, journaling or doodling exercise to identify the parts of you and what’s happening with each of those parts and which one is the most inner part that’s struggling, that’s having the emotion and which of the parts are more on outer rings or further outer rings, right?

And Just, I’m just trying to apply this idea of these rings of support to ourselves. And can one part of you be a ring of support to another part of you? That’s, that’s the idea here. Um. Okay. So let’s get into the part where I, the part of the episode, not the parts of you, the part of the episode where I talk about some more concrete tips and tools and practices.

So the first one I would say is to take care of yourself. And I know like self care has gotten a bad rap in recent years, like bubble baths and spa days or whatever. But we all want to be taken care of. We all want to be held and loved and Like our needs met by someone else, like, because it takes effort and energy to meet those needs.

So sometimes if we’re like, Oh, if I got to do it, I don’t want to do it because it takes too much energy. Right. I think there’s an important element to this. I think that self care is honoring your desires, meeting your own needs in whichever way you can. And sometimes we can’t fully do that for ourselves, but it is important to check in with yourself and ask yourself, I like to do this by putting a hand on my chest, hand over my heart and just connect in and feel for a second, feel my feet on the floor, feel.

You know, my back against a chair, whatever it is, just kind of ground in and then ask myself, what do I need right now? I noticed myself earlier today, I went outside on a walk. It’s like 80 degrees outside. It’s beautiful here in the Denver area last week of September, and it was kind of hot and I was like, Oh, I am thirsty and I’m hungry.

And I kind of just need to sit down and just like rest and not think about anything. And so I, I didn’t do this, like hand on my heart, check in, what do I need? But I just naturally told myself I need some water and I need. some food and I need to put my feet up. Right. And I think that comes from practicing this over and over again, that it is starting to become natural to me.

And it doesn’t have to be complicated. Just like my example, do you need to use the bathroom? How often do we hold our pee? And it’s like, when we finally check in with ourselves, it’s like, Oh, I really need to go pee. Are we thirsty? Some of these most basic needs, it’s not complicated and taking care of yourself in this way goes such a long way.

Maybe some of your desires or your quote unquote needs are a little bit bigger than these things. For example, maybe you’re like, I want to travel the world, but I don’t have money to travel the world right now. Can you go to the library and check out a book? Can you find a local hike? Maybe you’re like, I want a spa day.

I want to get away from my family and just have some quiet time and take care of myself, but I don’t have time for that. Can you take five minutes and just sit in silence? Maybe your desire is to get a job or to quit a job. I always think of my husband. He comes home often on Friday afternoons and he says, I quit and I’m going back on Monday.

So like for the weekend, he quits his job, right? Just kind of in his head. So my point is, can we do a starter step or a small version of the thing that we desire in a way of kind of meeting ourself in our needs as much as we can? It doesn’t have to be fully blown go all out if we don’t have the resources to do that.

But it is important that you recognize what your needs and your desires are, and you tell yourself like, Oh, I’m working on it. Or how about this while we wait for that other thing? The next thing I want to mention is that love is a practice. I kind of alluded to this earlier. It feels like it’s something that should come naturally.

And for many people, it does. But if it doesn’t for you, or if trauma or life circumstances have gotten in the way and have conditioned you to believe that you can’t love yourself, consider love as a practice. And consider, how would someone who loves me, what would they be thinking about me? How would they be acting toward me?

What would they say to me? And then practice thinking and acting and saying those things. If, fill in the blank, then I would love myself. And what would that be like? Spend some time imagining what it would even be like to love yourself. You don’t have to do the loving of yourself in this moment. But you could think about what it might be like at the end of this episode.

I am going to do a short meditation for you that has been very powerful for many, many people that I know. It’s just a simple. Mantra meditation, where you repeat to yourself, I love and accept you and your name. So for me, it would sound like, I love and accept you Danita. I love and accept you Danita. And you do this for three minutes or five minutes every day.

I promise you, your life will change. Promise. Absolutely. A hundred percent. The kick is that most people won’t actually do this. And I understand this from experience. Most people won’t actually do a five minute mantra meditation. For 30 days in a row or for three days in a row, most people are so distracted that they won’t put something like this simple practice as a priority in their lives.

The next practice I want to mention, and this is especially for those of us who might have some body image issues. So kind of be really, um, Graceful with this and, and gentle and kind of check in with yourself to see what is too much. And you know, don’t do it if it feels too much, but I recommend that you do some mirror time, standing in the mirror and looking yourself in the eye and saying, I love you.

You’re doing a good job today. You are amazing. Like whatever it would be, how would someone who loves me or. How would someone who loves me think about me or say to me or do, and just what would that person say and practice saying that to yourself in the mirror, if you really want to take this to the next level, stand in front of a full length mirror naked and do this.

Can you accept yourself and love yourself exactly the way you are? It’s a practice. Can you, every time you brush your teeth, can you look at yourself for five seconds in the eye and say, I see you? Maybe saying I love you is too much. Maybe saying you’re doing a great job is too much. Can you just say, I see you?

Or. You are me. You would be surprised how powerful something so simple is. And the last thing I want to encourage you to do as a practice, as a concrete, actual action that we can take is to improve your media feed. And notice that I didn’t say social media feed. Media is anything that is coming into your mind or into your body.

Really, particularly, I want you to pay attention to the things you read and the things you watch. If you are on social media, for example, and you notice that certain accounts or certain people make it difficult or challenging for you to love yourself, then I want to encourage you to unfollow Um, unfriend, whatever it is away from that account, including my account.

If you follow me on social media, if you, if this podcast does not support you in loving yourself, then please stop listening because that is not my intention. Any accounts that you follow that you notice, so it’s going to take a little bit of noticing here of slowing down. Like how does, when I interact or see information from this account, how does that feel to me?

And if it doesn’t feel good and supportive, then unfollow or mute or do whatever you need to do, at least temporarily. If you are working on body image issues, only follow people that are your size or shape. Or a size or shape that makes you feel good about yourself. Try it. It will change your life.

There’s data to suggest what we look at conditions us. And so if you are only looking at things that feel uplifting and good and loving, that will help rewire your brain. It’s something that requires some attention, but it’s fairly simple and you can also apply this to the movies you watch, the TV shows you watch, whether you watch news, you know, music, radio, whatever.

If it doesn’t support you in loving yourself or if it makes loving yourself challenging, then remove it from your life if you can. All right, those are the practices that I have. Feel first, do second. Choose love as a decision, as a choice, support yourself, support your inner parts. Um, avoid judging yourself as much as you can.

I know that’s a difficult thing. Take care of yourself and meet your own needs. Love as a practice. Practice loving yourself. When you notice you’re not loving yourself, then stop and love yourself. Like say it in a more loving way. Um, mirror time, stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself in the eye and say something at least neutral or, or better neutral or loving, and then improve your media feed.

That is what I have for you today. But I do have an announcement, which is presence is open. It’s so exciting. I think I will open presence again at the end of the year. So if the timing is not right for you, that’s perfectly fine. But if you want support and help in loving yourself or feeling your emotions, regulating your nervous system, any of the things that we talk about here on this podcast, I want to invite you to come check out presence.

When you join Presence, if you, if you’re unsure about doing a group coaching situation, I understand that. I do also do one on ones, so schedule a free call if you’re interested in one on one. I always have, well, I typically have one on ones open and I do have, I have five one on one spots between now and the end of the year.

So if you’re interested in that, reach out to me. Um, but if you like the group and I’ll tell you the reason why I like the group is because when you hear other people and what they’re struggling with, it validates your own struggles and it creates some community. It’s, it’s really, really good to be doing this work in a group setting because it totally reduces the shame.

But if you’re also interested in private coaching. When you join presence you get a major discount on private coaching calls. So it’s a little perk Um, you also get discounts on any new offers Anything new that I do I usually discount it for my current clients And I just want to say that the longer I do this the more I believe that Feelings and the feeling work is the heart of all this stuff I’m going to gain peace and connection in our lives.

And I firmly firmly believe that presence and practicing presence brings us more peace and connection. So if those are some feelings that you want to feel more of in your life, I recommend joining presence. And then. A couple more things about presence feels like we should be able to do that on our own, right?

I should be able to be present on my own, but especially if you have a history of trauma, you shouldn’t be able to do it on your own because the trauma has taught you that your feelings are dangerous and that you shouldn’t be with your feelings. You need to separate yourself from those feelings. And so it really makes a lot of.

sense that you would need some support to bridge that gap to come back to connecting with yourself and feeling your emotions on a deep level. And that’s like one of the really messed up things about trauma is that the very thing that we think we shouldn’t need is the very thing that helps us heal. Um, I priced presence.

It’s a year long membership and it’s 22, 22 a year, 2,222 a year. And I priced it that way because there are lots of memberships, like mindset coaching memberships that are around the like 50 to a hundred dollars a month. This is 222 a month, or if you pay for the full year in full, it’s 2222, which is a little bit of a discount.

And I priced it that way intentionally because I really believe that doing this feeling work and nervous system regulation is more valuable than mindset. And I speak from experience. And there was a time when I was like, I don’t want to admit this. I feel like I should have known this. So I feel like it’s still reasonable enough, accessible enough for most people.

Um, but it is priced a little bit higher so that I get people in that group who really want to show up and do the work. So, but that being said. I am holding a workshop today. If you’re listening to this first thing in the morning, then, um, you might not miss it. I’ll probably do more of these workshops, so don’t worry, but if you can come to my presence for practitioners workshop, I’m going to be giving out a coupon code, um, for presence.

So if you come to that workshop or you watch it, the replay within 24 hours, I’ll give you a coupon code, um, just to give you a little, you know, a little perk for showing up. And if you’re not a practitioner, if you’re just a regular old person, ignore the practitioner part. Cause I, as I was putting this together, I thought, you know, I put this workshop together originally.

For, um, another organization that trains coaches. And so in my head, I was kind of couching it for practitioners, for coaches. Um, but 95 percent of the stuff that I mentioned will apply to everyone. These are all things in this workshop that we’re going to be doing that will apply to you. Um, and then you’ll also get to have a little sense of how I am.

I mean, you get a sense of that on this podcast, but you’ll get to see me on video. This will be on zoom and it will be on zoom meetings. So you can keep your video off if you want. I encourage you to put your video on. Um, yeah, I think it’ll be really great even if you just come from, for the workshop and you don’t sign up for anything, you don’t sign up for presents.

That’s fine too. Um, but if you.

Okay. That’s enough for now. And so are you. If this podcast has been helpful for you, would you please take a minute to leave a rating or a review or share it with a friend? Remember that I’m a life coach, not a doctor or a psychologist. Any suggestions or advice mentioned in this podcast should not be a substitute for medical or mental health care.

Until next time, go be yourself and follow the spirit. And stay tuned for the I Love and Accept You meditation.

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Meditation

Welcome to the I Love and Accept You mantra meditation. This meditation is meant to support you in developing a practice of self love. In this meditation, we repeat the mantra. I love and accept you, followed by your name. Let’s begin. Begin in a comfortable position, with a straight back, either lying down or sitting.

Take a deep breath in through the nose. Exhale. Inhale.

And out through the nose,

and another breath in through the nose,

and out through the nose.

Notice your body. Notice what is here right now. Let go of any tension, any stress, any concerns. We are here for just a few minutes.

Settle in.

I will begin with the mantra. You can either say it out loud or to yourself, with me or immediately after me. I love and accept you.

I love and accept you.

I love and accept you. I love

I love and accept you.

Take a moment and just notice your body. Release any tension that might have crept in. Continue

to breathe nice and steady at your own pace.