00:00 

Hey there. This is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 72, "Unconditional Self-Love." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Well, hey there and welcome to the podcast today. I hope you all are having a great day. I am having a great time. For me, I'm a few weeks out on the podcast, but this is my fall break from school and it's the first year we've ever gotten a full week. So I am totally thrilled to have a whole week, and then we actually get another Monday off as well because it's end of the quarter. So we get an extra day as teachers to do stuff, but all my stuff was done before I left so I just get that extra day, which I'm loving this time that I'm able to focus a little bit more here on my business this week. And I've been able to get a whole bunch of just, you know, those little piddly things that kind of hang out. I ended up Monday probably doing about three or four hours worth of just little things that have to get done and it feels good to get those off my plate. It's amazing how quickly they can build up, right? 

01:15 

So here we go. We are on number eight of our list of things that we need to have for better mental health and that is unconditional self-love. So let's start by talking about the word "unconditional." Alright, that means "without conditions," obviously, without rules or regulations, without demands or shoulds, without thoughts of who deserves what, without conditions, right, freely given no pretenses, no expectations. And this is the first place where so many of us struggle because so many of us have conditions on the love we give to other people. We don't want to feel love for our children until after they've picked up their trail of crap from the front door to their bedroom. We don't want to love our spouse until he offers, of his own free will and choice, mind you, to do the dishes while we go and read a book. We don't want to love our neighbor until their dog stops pooping on our lawn. We don't want to love our mother until she stops being manipulative and telling me how dirty my house is. Because until each of these people in our life straightens up and does what they need to be doing, we aren't feeling love for them. We're feeling anger. We're feeling resentment. We're feeling frustration. Maybe even annoyance and irritation and impatience. And when my heart is feeling all of these things, it's for sure not feeling love, right? I am not allowing myself to feel love until they straighten up and do what I want them to do. 

02:55 

Ouch! Does that hurt a little bit? And the thing is, I am the one that is hurting when I choose to put conditions on my love for others. I'm the one that's feeling the anger or the resentment, the frustration, the annoyance, the irritation. I'm the one who is not feeling the amazing feeling of love. So "unconditional" means that there are no conditions. In relations to other people it means I still feel love for them, even when they don't do what I ask them to do. Unconditional. Whatever happens, I choose to love. And that's our first roadblock. 

03:37 

So let's talk about the second part of this equation, and that is self-love. The more clients I work with, the more I am 100% convinced that so many of our problems would never even exist if we all had more self-love and eliminated self-loathing from our lives. So many of my clients are so wrapped up in their own self-loathing that they can't even conceive of what it means to have self-love. 

04:05 

So let's get down to the basics here for a minute, shall we? So let's start off with just this question, "what is love?" One definition that I read that I love says that it is "an intense feeling of deep affection." So let's start right there, shall we? If love is a feeling and feelings are created by our thoughts, then we can only feel this deep affection when we choose thoughts that will create it. Can we always choose loving thoughts? For sure. It doesn't matter the circumstance, circumstance can be super hard and difficult. We can still choose loving thoughts. 

04:41 

Let me give you an example, okay? Let's look at that little tiny baby you just brought home from the hospital. You feel so much love for them, right? And why is that? But they haven't done anything to deserve our love. In fact, if you're the biological mother who actually births this child, they have done nothing but wreak havoc in your life for the last nine months, right? Your body's all changed, you've had heartburn, you've had incontinence, the last time you slept really well through the night was, well, I don't know, can you even remember? Maybe sometime at the beginning of the second trimester, right? And then the birthing process was not very pleasant either. You might be coming home with a stomach full of stitches or an episiotomy full of stitches that are making your life miserable. And then that sweet little thing is waking you up every two to three hours because she's hungry or poopy or you're still not getting a good night's sleep, right? And yet, you still love them like crazy. A huge part of why we can love these babies so much is because we don't have any conditions on our love. Look at the love you feel for them compared to what you feel for other people. 

06:05 

It's so unconditional. We don't say, "when you're sleeping through the night, then I'll love you." We don't expect them to rock themselves to sleep, or to clean up their own blowout, or to not throw up all over us, because the only expectation we have of them is to eat and sleep and poop. Really? And with those expectations, which are just totally what they're going to do, regardless, we are head over heels in love with them. Right? It's because we don't have expectations that we are able to love so deeply. Right? We know they're a lot of work. We know that they're hard, and yet we still just love them. 

06:50 

So keep this in mind as we continue this conversation about unconditional love and self-love, because it's a huge piece. This piece of the reason we can feel so much love is because we don't have expectations. Alright? So our feelings of love are created entirely by our thoughts. That's clear in the example with the baby, but it tends to get more complicated when we start dealing with other people. But again, the only reason it gets complicated is because we start adding expectations of how other people should behave and what they should do. What if we just choose to feel love for people? Because we just really love that feeling of love. That's not to say we can't make requests of other people. We can for sure. But when we tie our feelings toward them and their behavior, and whether or not they comply with our request, then our love is no longer unconditional. Do you see how that works? 

07:56 

So unconditional love for someone does not mean that we don't make requests. it just means that we completely accept their ability and their right to make their own choice and do or not do what we request, and we don't make that mean anything in our head. When we put the baby to bed and make a small request, as every good parent has done, that they will sleep for eight hours and then they wake up after three, they haven't honored our request, but we still love them anyway, right? We still choose to love them. Such a huge part of emotional adulting is allowing other people to make their own choice and then being responsible for my own feelings in regard to that, right? Whether they make the choice I want or not, or whether I make a request and they comply or not, that has nothing to do with what I feel for them. That is this unconditional part, right? Okay, so we may have to have another chat about unconditional love, but you can go back and listen to podcast number 10 if you like this concept and you want to review this a little bit more. 

09:11 

So let's move on to the self-love piece, okay? So I know we got started and then we took a little detour. Okay, but now we're back to the self-love piece. Our definition of "love" was "an intense feeling of deep affection." So self-love would be having an intense feeling of deep affection for ourselves. Now, I know for some of us, that sounds like a pipe dream, right? And especially because so many of us have this self-loathing voice going on and it has been on replay and replay and replay for, I don't know, 50, 60 years, however old you are. 

09:53 

So if you're someone who struggles with self-love, where do you even start? Okay, if you've been with me long enough, you know that the thought model, do you know it well enough to know the answer to that question? Where do we start? If our feeling is self-loathing, what creates that feeling? Okay, if you've been with me, you know it's our thoughts, right? Our thoughts create every feeling we engage with. So it's imperative that we start identifying the thoughts that are creating the feeling of self-loathing. And maybe loathing is a bit strong for you. Maybe you don't feel like you self-loathe, or maybe it's just a lot strong. But let's stick with it because the same concepts apply, whether it's loathing or whether it's just annoyance or dislike, right? So wherever you are on that spectrum of not liking yourself to loathing yourself, this same concept's going to apply. But I'm gonna stick with self-loathing just because I want to. 

10:56 

So here's the pattern. Step one: Awareness. Always, right? We cannot fix any behavior if we don't even realize it is happening. So starting to become aware of our self-loathing is the first thing we have to do. Okay, so let's explore this a bit more and see what we create in our lives when we feel self-loathing. Okay, so if I feel this hatred toward myself, how does that cause me to act? Remember our feelings create our actions. Okay, what behaviors do I engage in because I feel that way? So maybe I start buffering with food or with other substances, right? Or social media or something like that. Maybe I sleep too much or I start cutting or engaging on other self-harm actions, alright? That's definitely a possibility. Maybe I clean my house obsessively or I seek validation from other people around me. I could talk to myself in a very degrading way. Really, there are so many behaviors, okay? So I want you to think about yourself. If this self-love piece is a difficult piece for you, want you to start identifying what do I act like when I feel self-loathing? What do I do? What are my behaviors? And once you've identified the behaviors, then you need to take a look at the results that are being created in our lives by engaging in those behaviors. 

12:24 

So for example, if I eat non-sensically when I feel self-loathing, to try and buffer that feeling out, right? The result will be that I'm not as healthy as I'd like to be, either in weight or with other health issues like, I don't know, diabetes or irritable bowel syndrome or something like that. We have these kinds of other health issues that can occur. So another result will be a huge hit to my mental health and I can start to cycle into depression or anxiety, right? My mental health because I can start thinking and talking to myself even more, right, in negative ways. The other piece here then when we're working on this thought model is now we need to start working up from the feeling, right? 

13:15 

So we need to start connecting our feeling with the thought that we originally had that created the feeling of self-loathing. So again, so many thoughts we could have. Here's just an example, "I'm just not good enough. I'm so stupid. I should know better than that. How could I be so dumb? I'm not smart enough to figure this out. Gosh, no wonder nobody loves me. It would just be so much easier for everyone if I wasn't around anymore." This process of discovering your thoughts can be really painful. Really figuring out the thoughts we think that we're unaware of will be shocking sometimes, but that's not just okay, it's amazing because we can't change something unless we're aware of it. And this is the awareness that we've got, this is the very first step that always has to happen. We have to really be brutally honest with ourselves and be aware of the thoughts that we're thinking that are creating those feelings of self-loathing. 

14:22 

When we realize that these thoughts are creating everything else in our lives we start to see just how powerful our thoughts really are. They are shockingly powerful. They create everything in our lives and once we've discovered what our thoughts and our feelings and our actions and our results are we can start to make decisions of whether that is what we want to create in our lives or not. If we're coming from a place of self-loathing, I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and I'm gonna say that no, we are not creating what we want. All of the drama and the anger and the unkind words and the health issues, this is not where mental health is going to be found and nourished. Our ability to be resilient and to move forward and to have a sense of wellbeing, in essence, our mental health, all begins with how and what we choose to think. 

15:25 

And if we want good mental health, it is absolutely vital that we learn to have healthy self-talk. If we don't love ourselves, we have to go to the cause of the feeling, which is the thought. And once we discover the thought, then we can begin to work on changing out that thought for something that will take us more where we wanna go. So do you remember the path in the forest we've talked about before? That's what's going on here in our brains. Your old thoughts are a well-worn beaten down path, and your primitive brain just wants to keep going there over and over and over because it's so easy, and it doesn't take any effort. But to create a new thought, one like, I don't have it yet, but I'm smart enough to figure it out, that requires practice and practice, and then it requires a little bit more practice. We don't generally change our thoughts overnight, but with consistent effort, changing out a thought whenever we notice we have one that we don't want, our brain will start creating a new neural pathway, a new path in the forest that will become easier and easier to walk over time. 

16:39 

Hard at first, right, because the weeds are high, there's branches and logs and rocks and everything else, but the more we walk it, the more trodden down it becomes, and it becomes easier, just like those thoughts. The more we think that thought, the thought is going to come easier and easier. And the feeling that comes from the thought "I don't have it yet but I'm smart enough to figure it out," is going to to be a much more positive feeling than self-loathing. We might even feel some confidence in ourselves or some appreciation for our grit and our resilience and then the actions and the results that come from that are going to be very different. So developing self-love is a process of learning to think loving thoughts toward ourselves consistently always without fail and again this comes with practice every day every hour every minute check your thoughts monitor your thoughts start hearing what your thoughts are saying and then the next piece of this is putting this unconditional and this self-love together. 

17:52 

So now we combine the unconditional peace with the self-love peace, truly loving ourselves without conditions. Okay, is that even possible? I'm gonna say yes, yes, and yes!! And this, this is the most amazing place that we want to be. This is where we can embrace the Atonement of Jesus Christ. This is where we realize that He never created us to be perfect here. He put us here in this imperfect world, surrounded by other imperfect people, in an imperfect body, and without the ability to navigate this world perfectly. We don't have all the information yet. When we can learn to embrace this experience called human life and rejoice in the fact that we get to be here doing things and learning these things, we can start to love ourselves unconditionally. We begin to see that it really is all about failure. It's all about embracing the process of finding joy in the journey. 

19:08 

Is our journey perfect? No, but it's not supposed to be. We're imperfect in an imperfect world surrounded by imperfect people. Our journey will not be perfect. Just as unconditional love for other people gives them the space to make their own decisions, and we just love them even when they don't live up to our expectations, unconditional self-love does the same. It recognizes that we will not always live up to our own expectations. It knows that we will make mistakes often against our better judgment. It understands that we are trying but just aren't always at the level yet that we want to be. Unconditional love embraces our humanity. It sees our imperfections as amazing insight into ourselves and into our potential for growth. It recognizes that our mistakes are coming from a place of righteous desire, but also limited knowledge and experience. 

20:17 

Unconditional love for ourselves engages with our journey in this life in such a way that we recognize when we make mistakes, but we also embrace those mistakes as part of the growth process. Unconditional self-love is compassionate and recognizes that we are trying, and some days we have the capacity to try harder than others. Unconditional self-love creates a safe space for us to try and try again, and even again if necessary, knowing that we're capable of learning and loving and growing if we don't stop. Unconditional love actually sounds a lot like charity, the pure love of Christ, the ability to love ourselves as Christ loves us. The ability to see ourselves as Christ sees us. When we can love ourselves in this way, we are mentally healthy. We are creating a space where we can enjoy life with all of its ups and downs. We have a sense of well being when things don't turn out how we've originally planned. We have healthier relationships because we can't love others more than we love ourselves. We are resilient. We're able to bounce back from difficult failures because we have full faith in our ability to keep moving forward. I can love myself even after I've yelled at my children or my spouse. I can love myself even when I spent the last few days eating everythingI know I shouldn't. I can love myself even when my house is messy and we ate fast food for dinner, and I forgot to pick up my daughter from work. And I can love myself even though I'm divorced. I can love myself during times that I struggle to connect with God, during times I make decisions that I know aren't in my best interest, and when I thoughtlessly say something unkind to someone. 

22:30 

Because unconditional self-love doesn't care if we're perfect, it just cares that we are, that we are breathing, that we are living. It embraces the worth that God sees in us and lives in gratitude for it. It gives us space to do the best we know how, even though we may not know very much. Because the best we know how is all that God expects of us. Unconditional love for ourselves will solve so many problems in our lives. It will connect us to a level of mental health that will allow us to be resilient and have grit and move forward with faith in our future. 100% believe that. 

23:27 

If self-love is a struggle for you, oh my friends, let's talk. Let's talk and let's start figuring out what thoughts are creating this this lack of self-love. Because boy, if anybody should love you, it should be you. You are your best advocate. You are the one who needs to love you more than anybody else, and when you can get to that place you can start to create and do anything that you want. I 100% believe that. Gosh, isn't growing up amazing? Love this space. I'm glad you're joining me on this journey of movement and progression. Alright, if you've been thinking about a life coach, get on my website tanyahale.com and get go to the "contact me" page. Send me an email and let's get together and let's talk. I do a free coaching session to get you started. I just did one last night with someone. We were on the phone for about an hour. We had an amazing discussion and I think some things that really help this person to discover some things that they need to understand in order to move forward and I love that. I love being able to share that with you. Okay, so do that. 

24:51 

Thank you for being here on this podcast with me. If you are enjoying it, please leave me a review on iTunes. Subscribe if you haven't and, my friends, share this with people. There's so much people that you love need to hear this. They need to know how to love themselves more. They really do. Breaks my heart that so many people struggle with this when it's such a beautiful and amazing part of life to be in. Alright, okay, that is it for today. That was number eight, if you can believe it, of our list of things that we need to have to be mentally healthy. We could probably make a list of about 500 things. We're just gonna cover 10. We've got two more to go on this list and I've loved every single one of them. I know that for me I've had a lot of really personal ahas and and like, "oh my gosh," as I've been preparing content. And I appreciate you sharing this journey with me and helping me to clean up my own life and my own thoughts as I work through this as well. So that will do it. Have a really, really terrific day. Give yourself some love today, will you? Give yourself a gift of some love. It will make all the difference. Alright, I'll talk to you next time, bye. 

26:15 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.