Working Towards Our Purpose

Hello and welcome to episode 59 of Working

towards our purpose. Thank you for being here. In today's

episode we are going to talk about finding self love,

self compassion. But before we get into that we are going to start the

episode with our normal check in. So we're going to

take a moment and you check in with yourself. I'll check in with myself and

see where we're feeling, where we're at. Um,

for me today, feeling mostly good, a little

frazzled, not frazzled. Um, I don't even know what that word means.

Little frantic because my audio isn't working for a second. So

it took me a little bit longer than normal to, to set up everything

but kind of letting that pass and easing into

the episode. Yeah. And then also just

uncomfortable and resistance because this episode

topic is something that makes me uncomfortable

which is, which is why we're doing it. So yeah, talking about

self love today, self compassion, it was

a topic and a theme that had come up in

my week last week and I kind of was able to

process what I was thinking and what was coming up for me during,

during a therapy session that I had last week. So yeah,

wanted to talk about that today and then some. We'll get into some steps that

you can use to add more self love to your, your

daily lives. So, so yeah, why, what,

what is self love? I guess if you don't know what it is, let's define

it. For me I think it means

because it's one of those things that I think you like somebody says

and you're like, oh yeah, okay. It's almost like a buzzword

but to feel it's a little bit different. So for me, I guess if I

were to try to describe what does self love or compassion mean

to me, it's being nice to myself, being kind to myself,

especially in my head. Like

making sure that I'm talking nicely to myself in my head

is one step. But then there's also

just so many automatic responses that I have that could be negative towards

myself that I have just ingrained in my head. So it's also like

taking a moment and slowing down and pausing and giving myself

space. I think that's the biggest thing is giving myself space is

compassionate and loving towards myself because I

am somebody that needs a little bit of time to

process things to see how I'm feeling. I think that's why we kind of do

these check ins at the beginning. Um, to, to ground myself.

Um, but yeah, that, that's kind of what it means to me. Compassion's another word

for it. I know. Maybe self love sounds

too, too much. Maybe self compassion resonates more with you,

um, being kind and compassionate to yourself. Uh, but yeah, I

think that this is an important thing when we

want to think about making changes

and reaching new goals. I

think having self love and compassion is a crucial ingredient, if you

will. So, yeah,

last week I noticed that I was being hyper

critical of myself. And

I was being critical not only certain

things that had happened, but I was also kind of finding myself

distracted last week and finding. Falling into the

YouTube rabbit holes and the doom scrolling,

you know, I'm sure we're all familiar with. So I was

being really critical of myself for doing that and not being focused on what it

is that I wanted to do. I felt like I wasn't being productive. I

felt like I wanted to get more things done. And I kept like talking

to myself in a way that was like, well, see, if you didn't just spend

45 minutes on your phone, you could have had had this article

written, you could have made a podcast, you could have done whatever, you could have

done more. And I easily

can turn like my day from bad or from good to

bad by repeatedly talking negative to myself.

And this kind of came up in one of last week's episodes, the Dharma

principle of nonviolence and not being violent towards yourself. And

this is kind of like the extension of that, I think, and

trying to like, think about how we can actually do that.

So. So yeah, I was noticing all these things and had a therapy

session. And I went into the therapy session,

like, angry, and I didn't really realize I was kind of angry, but I

was like, angry. And what I was angry at was

like the, the way that I kept treating myself because,

because one day last week I realized like, my day was pretty

productive. I only made it bad for me because of the way that I was

talking to myself. So I sort of had this idea

in my head. We talked about it in the podcast last week. I was thinking

about it and yeah, I just like, was

mad that I kept treating myself this way. Mad that I keep beating myself up.

And I was asking myself, like, why do I keep doing this? Like,

I'm sick and tired of it. I don't want to be constantly

berating myself for the way that I am. I would like to

exist more in peace and.

And yeah, you know, I think there's a difference between

being like, critical and having like,

moral values and stuff. And the difference

between that and just berating yourself for like,

normal things. Or like not being productive enough or, you know, things

that don't really matter. Like, um. So yeah, I went

into therapy and we like talked about it and I don't really

know. My therapist asked some questions to me about

like, why she thought I was feeling that way. I can't really remember

what she said to make me think of this, but basically she got me to

think that like distracting yourself and doom scrolling and being on

YouTube, whatever it is that you use to distract yourself is

basically trying to deal with something that's uncomfortable.

And I think that that's certainly

easy to do. Like you're going through something that's uncomfortable, what's the first

thing you do? You take your phone out, you look at your phone, you start

scrolling through it. You are distracting yourself from the way that

you're feeling because you don't want to feel uncomfortable. And

so with that context it makes me think like, okay, well I'm

scrolling through something to distract myself to make myself feel good, to get a

dopamine hit because I'm doing something that's uncomfortable.

Perhaps I'm, you know, doing something that's hard or doing something that's new.

So my like immediate knee jerk reaction to cope

with that is to just scroll and to just do something. And when I was

able to sort of look at myself in the third person perspective of

seeing somebody who's uncomfortable and then using a coping

mechanism to deal with the uncomfortableness,

you know, seeing that like in third person, not me, and then

seeing me like yell at myself for doing that. So

if you're following me, I basically had a moment where I was seeing myself

be angry at myself for the coping mechanism instead

of like having compassion that I'm

uncomfortable because I'm doing something that's hard. And

it, in that moment it clicked for me and I was like,

yeah, you shouldn't be upset with that person. You should have compassion for

that person because they're doing something that's difficult. And it made me feel bad for

myself and okay, maybe not feel bad,

but have sympathy for myself. And not in

a demeaning way, but kind of opening my eyes

and being like, okay, berating yourself is never going to help.

Berating yourself is never going to be helpful here. And

it made me, I don't know, just have a new perspective on

like what doom scrolling is and what, like you're

scapegoating the real problem. You're having

this distraction because you're uncomfortable and it could be with what, you know, who

knows, whatever you're going through especially social situations. I think

we can all resonate with that. You go somewhere, maybe you're in a networking

event or meeting new people, you're uncomfortable. So what do you do? You take your

phone out and you start scrolling through it and instead of,

you know, there's another situation. If I was in a networking group and, you know,

I did that and then I went home and I was on my phone all

night, I'd be mad at myself. I'd be like, why were you on your phone

all night? You shouldn't have done that. You should have just been, like, talking to

people. But can you blame someone

for being uncomfortable and like, trying to not be uncomfortable? Like, it's human nature to

not be. To. To not want to be uncomfortable, to want

to be comfortable. So. So, yeah, looking at it in this

way, I think I can remove the anger part of it

and have some more compassion and understanding. So it kind of just brought me to

this idea of self love.

It's something that always makes me uncomfortable. You know, in. In the rest of the

session we were talking about it and I just noticed how I was,

like, getting fidgety. I didn't want to talk about it. Um,

I sort of get, like, annoyed. And

yeah, I don't know why. It's just. It's difficult to. To think about, like,

self love. Even. Even that term is just like, I don't

know what it feels like for you, but for me it feels

like too much. Like a little, too much. Like self compassion sounds a little bit

better than self love, but I think it's just because it's,

you know, it's like, ingrained in our culture. You know, especially

my experience as a male growing up. I think that that's the

opposite of, like, the vision that

previous family members

and ancestors and stuff had for me as a male, I think,

and not that, like, other genders don't deal with the same thing,

but I think there's definitely societal constructs of like, being tough. You have to be

tough. You can't. You. You can't be weak. Self love

almost feels like it's weak, even though it's not.

To me now, it's actually stronger to have self love

for yourself. So, yeah, kind of rambling on about this,

but hopefully you get the idea. And hopefully I was able

to articulate that experience in a way that made sense because it was pretty

impactful for me. And that brings us into

the next sort of section of this podcast is to like, well, what

do we do about that? Like, how do We. How do we have more self

love for ourselves? So I have five steps to

add self love to your life. And,

and yeah, we'll start with number one, obviously. And

the first one is to realize that like

negative talk and being mean and

hurtful to yourself is a learned behavior.

Like, you didn't come out the womb. Being angry at yourself or being

mad at yourself, it's a byproduct

of maybe how you were treated or how you were made to feel

at some point. Growing up, you know, doesn't really matter where it came from,

whether it was school or your parents or a family member or

sister, whatever. It's.

It's a learned behavior to be like, angry at

yourself or the opposite of self love.

So I think for me

that sometimes it's helpful to realize that, like, there's

nothing inherently wrong with me. It

was a thing that I picked up

along the way growing up and didn't realize was a negative trait.

But now I, I can recognize that and I can want to

change it. And I think, like, going into that therapy session last week, I was

like, angry in a good way of like, you know what? I don't want to

put up with this anymore. I can't keep doing this to myself because I know

that it's hurting me and I just, yeah, I

can't take it anymore. I have to make a change. And it's going to take

practice, it's going to take time, it's going to take consistent

effort to change an ingrained habit, but

it is possible. And yeah, so, so step

one is just to realize that, like, hey, it's, it's a learned behavior. There's nothing

inherently wrong with you, and you can change this behavior if you want to.

So, so just kind of acknowledging that. And then the

second one is sort of really simple. But I,

I don't know where I got this from, but I've. I've noticed that, like,

if I'm like, struggling to articulate or like I'm trying to

be vulnerable, I'll like, put my hand on my chest and

it's almost like sort of

like a physical signal of like, you being there for yourself.

At least that's how it feels for me. So just like, putting my

hand on my chest makes me just resting it, like around right on

the top of your chest just makes me feel

supported, I guess by myself, I'm supporting myself.

So I don't know. That one's kind of silly, but

it definitely works for me. I mean, sometimes even in these

podcast episodes where I Feel like I'm kind of, like

struggling with what I'm saying. I'll put my hand on my chest and then I'll

calm down a little bit, and then I'll like, okay, I got my back, and

then be able to move forward. So that one's really helpful sometimes for me,

um, step number three would be to meditate.

And I know meditation is sort of a loaded term

for some people, and I.

I don't think that I have a full grasp on, like, you know, what

meditation is. There's. There's so many different forms of meditation. Um,

but the way that I meditate is I have an app on my phone called

Insight Timer, and it's basically you can do, like, guided

meditations where people will talk to you and, like, tell you to breathe and all

that stuff. But what I like to do is to just go to the timer

section of this, and it's basically just a timer. You set for 10

minutes, five minutes, whatever you want. And it

starts with a bell, and then you can put, like, a different background noise to

it. So it's sort of just like a humming, like,

I don't even know how to describe it. Noise. Like a. I

don't know, just some sort of, like, relaxing, calming noise that

is playing throughout the duration of the eight minutes. And then after the eight

minutes, there's another bell that lets you know that the time's up. And for

me, it's helpful to just, like, sit there, because you

can't, you know, I sit there, I close my eyes, I start the timer, I

just breathe and try to just, like, see my

thoughts pass. I try to, like, you know, let go of negative

ones, to think a little bit about positive ones, but also let them go.

And usually, like, ideas will come in. I'll

come, I'll calm down. I always meditate before

a podcast to try to focus myself.

And I've noticed that

while I'm meditating, I always sort of,

like, come back to myself and can kind of see through

anything. That's not true. So anytime I'm, like, beating myself

up, if I sit down and meditate for 10 minutes, I can be like, okay,

I see what you're doing here now, and almost makes me

realize that I am, you know, in a pattern of

being negative to myself, whereas if I didn't meditate, I wouldn't have

noticed that. So meditation can be

helpful for me to, I guess, be self aware

and to see what's going on during a

busy day. And, you know, if some of you aren't comfortable

with meditating or you don't have any, I do encourage you

to try it. But another thing that you can do, I think

that's helped me is just walking out in nature without phone,

without any, like, distraction or anything. I find that,

like, just going for a walk and, like, actually looking at nature, like,

undistracted, can also kind of do the same thing.

Anytime, like, I go for a hike for my, like, by myself,

I've always noticed coming back being kinder to myself.

So that. Yeah, I don't know. That's just another thing that I've noticed that

has helped. So. Yeah. So the

fourth thing that you can do that I think

we should always try to do is to surround ourselves with people who love

us and care about us and treat us in a way

that is kind. Because

sometimes you don't realize that you're beating

yourself up or being negative to yourself. I think I went

years and years and years without even realizing that I was the one

that was berating myself. And I still struggle with it, like,

a lot, obviously. Well,

I'm not gonna say that some days I have better days than others,

but just being, like. Just knowing what's

happening sometimes is difficult. So by having people around you

who care about you and love you, they can sort of point

it out sometimes. And I think it just. It brings back this one memory that

I had of a friend I was having coffee with.

And I didn't. We didn't, like, know each other

that well, but I definitely felt like, a

connection when we first met. And I was like, wow. I really, like, looked up

to this person and

appreciated the way that he spoke. And so anyways, we had coffee,

and I was discussing something. I was, like, talking about something I was

working on or. Yeah, I guess just talking about

something I was working on. And it kind of went on for, like, I don't

know, five or 10 minutes. And then at the end of it,

he kind of just looked at me and he was like, man, you're really hard

on yourself. And it kind of took me by surprise because I

was like, oh, yeah,

I guess I am. And I didn't even

think of it. I was just kind of, like, telling him about this thing I

was working on. And his first reaction wasn't about the thing I was talking about,

but was shocking. Almost like he was

surprised. He was like, man, why are you so hard on yourself? And

that really stuck with me. Like, I remember that

vividly, and I sometimes go back to that. And to think,

like. Like, I almost put Put his reaction. I try to remember

his reaction when I realize I'm being hard on myself because it

reminds me to, like, be easier to,

to try to be kinder to myself. And,

and yeah, maybe that could be sort of a visual

representation for you too. Um, but,

but yeah, surrounding people, surrounding yourself with people

who treat you like, with kindness like that I think is

very helpful. And yeah, I don't know. We,

we sometimes, I don't want to go too much into like, the people you surround

yourself with, but sometimes we make excuses for people treating us

poorly and people treating us not in a way that we want

to be treated, maybe because we've known them for a long period of

time or because they're family or because, you

know, somebody else's friends with them. But I think it's okay

to try to surround yourself with people who

more align with your values. So that's all

I'll say on that right now. But, but yeah, surround yourself with people who love

you. It'll make it easier for you to love yourself. And,

and the last one, number five, is to celebrate your

wins. And this one sounds kind of odd maybe,

but it was something I started doing. Somebody told

me that one time. I, like, heard it somewhere. Somebody told me to

celebrate my wins because I don't have a good

history of celebrating accomplishments. And I think

part of that is it's the same sort of habit as self

love. Whereas if you take a moment to yourself and you're like,

wow, I'm proud of myself for doing this thing, let's take a minute to celebrate

it. Let's, you know what? However you celebrate something,

that's like acknowledging yourself for doing a good job and

like, appreciating it. And I think that that's very in line

with, like, loving yourself because I've noticed that,

like, I didn't take the time to celebrate things.

Sometimes I still don't, but I started like writing on a whiteboard

like wins, like, like things that, like, I wanted to

celebrate. And I've noticed that, like, it helped me sort of

give myself more credit for things. And I think

that's just like a version of loving yourself, like, giving yourself

credit, like, being a little bit proud of yourself. It's like practicing self

love for yourself. So that one's been

helpful for me too. And yeah,

so that's all I have for steps towards self love today.

Um, if you're watching this on YouTube, leave a comment. Tell me what you do

to, to practice self love. Um, if you,

you can also, if you would like to go on my website,

workingtowardsapurpose.com we have a feedback form. Email me

and tell me what you do for self love and maybe I could share on

the podcast. I'd love to get some more participation.

I. Oh, I also did want to say that I got some.

The past two weeks I've gotten some like really nice feedback

and I did want to acknowledge that. And you know,

I've kind of been asking for feedback specifically in the, you know,

form of a form or an email or something.

But I've gotten some nice feedback from friends, old friends,

people that I don't know on YouTube comments and stuff. And it's been,

it's been really nice. So I appreciate that and, and I just want to acknowledge

that and to send that out there.

And yeah, I think that's all I have for you this week.

Workingtowardsourpurpose.com, you can also find

Working Towards Our Purpose merch. And then you can also follow me on Substack too.

I just wanted to say real quick, if you want like a written version

of this podcast, for every podcast that I put out there, I also do

a blog on, on Substack that's basically a written form,

written format of this podcast. So yeah, go follow me on

Substack if you wish and I will see you on another episode real

soon. Thanks for being here.