Learning to love yourself is a transformative journey that can significantly impact every aspect of your life. Sara emphasizes that self-love is not just about feeling good; it's about respecting and believing in yourself, which in turn allows you to make empowered decisions and pursue your true desires.

She explores the importance of taking responsibility for your own self-care and how external validation should not dictate your self-worth. Throughout the episode, listeners are encouraged to confront their inner critic with compassion and to challenge negative self-talk that has been ingrained over the years. By setting boundaries and redefining personal values, you can cultivate a healthier relationship with yourself and open the door to greater happiness and fulfillment.

Delving into the intricate layers of self-love, Sara guides listeners through a reflective journey that emphasises the necessity of loving oneself as a precursor to achieving personal happiness and fulfillment.

The episode begins with Sara’s personal anecdotes, illustrating how self-love has been a transformative force in her life. She articulates that self-love is not just a nice idea; it is a vital practice that empowers individuals to make significant changes and decisions in their lives.

By advocating for a compassionate relationship with oneself, Sara encourages her listeners to recognize their worth and to prioritise their own needs, paving the way for deeper connections with others and achieving successful change

Central to the discussion is the concept of responsibility—taking charge of one’s own self-care and self-love. Sara urges listeners to assess their thought patterns, particularly the pervasive influence of the inner critic, which often undermines self-esteem and confidence.

She provides insightful strategies for overcoming self-doubt, such as reframing negative self-talk and setting personal boundaries. The importance of surrounding oneself with supportive relationships is also emphasised, as toxic connections can hinder personal growth and self-acceptance.

By shedding these negative influences, individuals can create space for healthier interactions and a more positive self-image....super empowering for achieving change!

As the episode progresses, Sara presents practical exercises designed to foster self-awareness and self-acceptance. Listeners are encouraged to engage in self-reflection, to explore their values, and to identify the stories they tell themselves about their worth.

She champions the idea of treating oneself with the same love and kindness that one would extend to loved ones, reinforcing the notion that self-love is an act of rebellion against societal pressures and expectations. The episode culminates in a powerful reminder that the journey of self-love is ongoing and deeply personal. By embracing their authentic selves and committing to this journey, listeners are empowered to rise and thrive in every aspect of their lives.

Episodes referred to:

Episode 4 - Deciding what's important

Episode 23 - 6 ways you might be making your life more difficult

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The fabulous Lucille ball.

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.

You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.

Well, I couldn't agree more.

And this episode is all about self love.

What it is, and how mastering it can help you change anything in your life.

Let's get started.

Are you finding that after decades of pouring yourself into everyone and everything else around you, you can now put yourself first, only to realize that you've lost sight of who you are and what you want and you can't even remember what it was like to be able to focus just on you.

If life has evolved and changed and you feel it's time to step into a new identity and redefine your everyday purpose so that you can make the most of this new freedom and the opportunity it brings, then you're in the right place.

Now is not the time to be settling for less, drifting aimlessly and waiting for someone to need you.

Now is your time to start over and rise into your next exciting chapter.

If this sounds good, hit subscribe and let's make shift happen.

I'm Sarah, your coach, mentor and host.

I see you.

I've been you.

I've got you.

Welcome to start over and rise.

Hey, gorgeous, how are you doing?

I hope you've had a good week.

It's Sarah here, your host of startover and rise and self love.

Massive, massive subject.

But I want to bring you this because from my own personal experience, from when I'm working with coaching and mentor clients and just, you know, having dived into this subject in a massive way, learning to love myself has been an intrinsic part of me changing my life.

To me, it was developing love for myself that enabled me to make some really big life changing decisions in times of great uncertainty.

So it's super, super important.

Loving yourself is respecting yourself, believing in yourself, loving who you are, enjoying your own company.

It's about caring for yourself as much as you do for those that you love.

It's about being proud of yourself, wanting to be the very best version of yourself, to feel at peace with yourself, to be happy, and to feel good about who you are and how you behave.

Most of the time, nobody's perfect, right?

But when you love yourself, you're able to see yourself in the more positive light, a more forgiving way, you can empower yourself like no other, and you can really get some things done because you're able to make good decisions, you feel happier, you're in a better place, and you just grow more confident.

I think one of the most important things about learning to love yourself is that you don't.

I emphasize this.

You don't rely on affirmations and validations from external sources.

Other people, figures of authority, they're always lovely to have, of course, but your self worth, your self esteem and your self confidence, your self belief is not reliant on them because it comes from within you.

It is so, so powerful.

With this, you're able to be more resilient, you're able to move forward when, you know, when difficult things happen or hard situations come up, difficult circumstances, you can handle rejection in a completely different way.

You've got.

You've got the ability to have different conversations.

You've got the ability to have different.

You can have difficult conversations.

They might not necessarily be easier, but you will take action to do it.

You will uphold your boundaries, you will shed toxic relationships, and you let go of thoughts, behaviors and beliefs that are just no longer serving you.

Because you know that by doing that, you are doing the best for you and your well being.

So I really want to emphasise that it's important to know that you can't give your best at anything or of yourself if you don't first command the best for yourself or love yourself in a way that you would love someone else.

Self love facilitates going for what you want.

It disables.

Oh, it really does.

It disables playing small.

We stop worrying about what others think, especially those who don't actually warrant an opinion.

You know, those that we sometimes don't even know.

Why do we take those on board?

Well, when we love ourselves, we don't, because we know what is best for us and we know our motives.

We know the good behind what we're trying to do and the reasons that we're doing it.

So with good, carefully thought through, calmly made decisions, we end up taking confident action, even in the face of uncertainty.

And nothing is more.

Nothing is more powerful than that.

Now, I know all of that can sound pretty simple, but by no means am I saying that it's easy.

If you've been putting yourself down, playing small people, pleasing this kind of stuff over the years, you're going to find that this is probably very habitual, that it's fully embedded into your personal identity.

It's a part of who you are.

You know, if you're constantly apologizing for, you know, just being present, if you're feeling guilty about things, if you're holding great shame or fearful of being vulnerable in order to express what you want, what your needs are, your desires, it really can stick with you, but like all old habits, they can be broken and you can catch yourself when you fall.

But you've just got to know that you can do it.

So here are a few starting points to check in with and see where you are with all of this.

So if you've been listening to this podcast, the first thing I'm going to say is going to be absolutely no surprise to you.

It's about taking responsibility for your own self love, for your own self care, and all that comes with that.

Knowing that you are 100% responsible for how you feel or see yourself.

It doesn't matter what's happened in the past, you can't change that.

What matters is where you are now and what you need to be doing to enjoy that place of in the now and where you want to be going next.

Your circumstances, that crap that you're going through right now, whether it's big part of your life or a small part of life.

If your self esteem is low as a result, if your confidence is on the floor, know that you can stop right now and change how you see and view yourself.

Those circumstances don't determine how your life is going to be, nor do they define who you are and what's been said about you, or how you may have been manipulated in the past.

You can actually let it stay there in the past now.

A little bit of self reflection and knowledge can make all of the difference.

Often things we don't like about ourselves stem from something that was we were told or that happened in our childhood.

Maybe you were told things like, nobody likes a show off.

If you were dancing in the lounge to top of the box or it's not all about you.

Think about how you're making others feel.

Anything like that sticks with you when you're a child because you feel you've done something wrong.

You feel like you've behaved in a way that your parents or a grown up or society has told you how you must not be.

And you take that on board.

Perhaps you were bullied or laughed at.

I don't know, for the colour of your hair or a facial feature, or your physical size, or, you know, the way you dance or anything.

If it caused you pain, made you feel shame in some way, or guilty in some way, or you felt embarrassment, or, you know, you displeased your main carer, your parent, you will also dislike that part of you because it wasn't serving your needs, it didn't keep you favored, it didn't do you any good.

So you start to suppress those things, you start to not like those parts of you.

But sometimes we repeat these to ourselves over and over and over, simply through habit.

So I'll give you an example here.

This is one fairly recently that I had an, ah, moment over.

I've never seen myself as a creative person.

And when I really thought about it, why, where does this come from?

And I was told at school I was rubbish in art.

You see, there you go, I've just said it again.

I was rubbish in art because I was told in my art classes that I wasn't very creative and my work was a bit rubbish.

Now, rightly or wrongly, it doesn't matter.

That's a whole other subject, isn't it?

But I've actually carried that through with me since junior school for decades.

And despite the fact that, that, well, you're listening to my podcast, so I have a podcast.

I have been a.

I'm going to say I was a good pro photographer.

I'm not bad at writing, I have an incredible imagination.

And sometimes, sometimes I can be quick witted or I can make a joke out of something.

I'm very strategic and I'm a really good problem solver.

So what in all of that is not creative?

I'm clearly a creative person.

It's all about definition.

But as a child I was told when it came to art and what I defined art to be back then that I wasn't very creative.

And I carried that through for decades.

When you take responsibility for your own self love and all that comes with that, it is super empowering.

So I want you to get excited, my friend.

I want you to understand that you, you get to choose, you take responsibility for it, which means you get to choose.

So I want to implore you, you know, start believing in yourself.

Start simply by compile a list of your strengths or of times, you know, remind yourself of times when you did believe in yourself, when something worked out really well.

How can you bring that self belief that you have into other areas of your life?

Now, I still struggle with some of this, but one of the areas I have massive self belief in is me as a mum.

I don't crumble with things.

I feel I make decisions really well and take all the right things into account.

Now, some else can tell me I'm a terrible mum, but I'll be honest, I wouldn't take it on board because that's not what I believe about myself.

So take a good look at yourself in the mirror and what do you see?

Because sometimes things that we are told that we've just taken for granted.

We've just taken as, that's how it is.

We keep and we haven't questioned it.

Maybe we haven't looked at it from a different perspective.

But when you take that responsibility I'm giving you, you're giving yourself full permission to do that.

So an example.

I, like many, many women, have a caesarean scar and I have stretch marks.

Now, there have been times when I've looked at them and I've thought, they're really unsightly, they're ugly.

It's not very nice, but where did that actually come from?

Probably society, because it's not all smooth and, you know, it is what it is.

But for me, I don't hold that.

I don't hold any value in that because for me it represents the fact that I've had two amazing children and my body was able to, I was very, very fortunate.

I'm very grateful for it.

My body was able to grow and I was able to give birth, one by a cesarean one, the normal way, to two children.

So I know which one I prefer to, which way I prefer to see what I see on my body there.

So what stories are you telling yourself simply through habit?

What can you start telling yourself that are new stories that are going to serve you in a better way?

So think about the things that will help you live more abundantly in all areas of your life.

Just make a little list.

Just start making a little list of things that you notice.

Start to become aware of maybe where you're not allowing yourself to take on that full responsibility for how you love yourself simply based on what someone else has told you.

It's a really, really good exercise.

You will have plenty of aha.

Moments if you try and, you know, evoke awareness around this.

So I want to move on to the inner critic.

I want to talk about your inner critic and self talk.

And I want to ask you this.

Have you heard yourself lately?

Would you speak to someone you love in the same way?

It's incredible, right?

I think the harshest words I have ever heard about myself to myself have come from within my own head.

I mean, how insane is that?

But not anymore, my friend.

And I don't want it for you either.

So this isn't always easy, especially if you're having a difficult time right now.

If we start to equate bad things happening to us, that we deserve this kind of treatment and this is a really destructive spiral to start to go down.

But what if this was such a big change for me such a big change.

What if you learned to love your inner critic?

What I hear you say, but this is absolutely true.

When you take that responsibility to start loving yourself, that includes your inner critic.

Your inner critic is a part of you.

And I, I started to look at it in a slightly different way.

Let me put it into context so I don't feel like I'm attacking you, because I'm not.

But my inner critic.

I suddenly realized when I asked myself some questions like, who is this voice?

Can I name this voice that is being like this to me?

And where has it come from?

For example, I've got one that tells me you'll never write a book.

Why would anyone want to read a book by you?

Right?

When I actually went into, well, why, where does this come from?

And is it actually true?

I can name a few incidences and it.

But it's not true.

Well, actually, I don't know that, do I?

Because I haven't written a book.

But I won't know unless I do.

I am perfectly capable of writing a book.

It's just me in my head telling myself that.

Now, in actual fact, it doesn't actually matter where that comes from because when I looked at the evidence, I've had articles published in magazines and newspapers.

So, no, I haven't technically written a book yet, but I am more than capable of doing it.

I've just got to apply myself, believe in myself and give it a go.

And then I'll know, won't I?

Then I'll know.

So being calm and rational and showing myself some self love and respect, it's way more likely to happen now.

Now, isn't that a much better way of speaking to myself?

Now here's the thing.

We naturally stay away from things that are harmful or mean or unkind towards us.

So what is your inner critic actually doing?

It's trying to protect you.

It's part of you that's trying to protect you from whatever it is that you feel is unsafe or you've told yourself is not for you for whatever reason or is dangerous or there's a high risk relating to it.

Now, that realization changed a lot for me.

And when you start to think of it in that way, you can start to speak back.

You can start to speak back to this inner critic with, let's face it, this unhelpful self talk.

And by doing that, you can disempower this pretty quickly when you think about it from this perspective.

So say you hear something nasty, like you're not good enough, you can quite quickly say, okay, thanks for the heads up, mean girl.

I call mine mean girl, and I call her mean girl.

But actually, I show a lot of compassion to her because I know she's trying to help me.

She's just going about it in the wrong way.

What is she scared of?

What is she trying to keep me away from and put some compassion into it.

Show that part of you love.

It's a real game changer, and you will be able to turn around that self, talk into something actually useful.

And the same applies when you are being the critic voice.

Let's just think about when you're being judgy, for example, or you find yourself triggered by someone or something that has happened.

Seriously, start seeing these things as clues.

Go, detective.

Start asking searching questions to find out what's really going on here.

What are you being judgy about?

Why is it bothering you so much?

Why is whatever's happening or the person that's said something?

Why is it bothering you so much?

Really question it.

Is it because you were torn down for doing something similar?

Are you seeing something in them that you don't like about yourself or that you've been taught not to like about yourself?

Or maybe it's this.

Are you actually subconsciously really wanting to be a little bit more like that person that you're judging?

Perhaps you do want that, but because you were told that you couldn't be like that, you're being judgy.

Why can they do it and you can't?

Is it because they are playing big in some way and you aren't?

Now I'm going to use this.

You know, it's like reality tv stars, because I hear, I hear this from different people.

You see it on social media, you know, on your Facebook feed, and someone is really knocking someone.

Who do they think they are?

They got no talent, and yet here they are and this program, and they've made all of this money, blah, blah, blah.

And to me, it's like, yeah, what is it you don't actually like about that person?

Is it because there's no way you would do that.

Now, it doesn't mean that you want to go on that particular reality show, for example, but it just means that you're recognizing that they're doing something that they really wanted to do and they're succeeding at it because they're on it.

They've done it.

So is it actually playing on you?

Are you being judgy on it because you're not allowing yourself to play big in your own way?

It's fascinating stuff.

It really is.

I'm often told that my self awareness is really high and it's because of this stuff.

Looking at the triggers and the inner critic questioning it rather than just accepting it.

I love to challenge my clients in this way.

It's powerful, powerful stuff.

So I encourage you to do the same.

You really get to know yourself, to turn things around and you can really turn it into something that you can love about yourself rather than dislike about yourself.

When you challenge with compassion, you're in a critic.

Next time they pop up or some negative self talk, you're not good enough.

Start to question, well, why do I think that?

Why do I think I'm not good enough?

Was I told I wasn't good enough?

Where did it come from?

Speak to yourself with compassion and love.

Speak to yourself the same way you would speak to your children, or the same way you would speak to a loved one or a family member or a friend or somebody you admire.

Why would you put yourself lower than that great big list of other people?

Surely you need to be at the top of that list because if you want to give your best and be your best version, start to see it as the thing that gives you the clues that is going to free you, that is going to allow you to love yourself more.

I love it.

It's been massive for me.

Can you tell?

I hope that's clicked something for you.

It often does with clients like, yeah, we need to challenge how we look at things.

Anyway, I move on.

So my next section here is getting to know yourself.

Now I have a question for you.

Do you actually know who you are?

The reason this is so important is because when you think of the concept of loving yourself, self love, how can you love someone you don't know?

You can't, can you?

You just can't.

Where do you start with getting to know yourself and why that?

I think most of us say, oh, God, I know myself.

I know myself better than anyone else.

No one knows me better than I know myself.

But do you really?

Have you actually caught up with who you are lately?

If you're like me, for example, and you've gone through a lot of change, if you're in your mid life, you've got change going on with your parents or older relatives, you've got change going on with your children, you've got change going on with yourself.

There's a lot going on.

And sometimes, like how we carry these old stories around with us.

Are we actually living with a misaligned identity?

Are we actually who we think we are or have been?

What is real?

Do you really know who you are right now?

This is a fun way of looking at it, and this is a way you'll be able to put two and two together.

How I got to this, but after my divorce, some time after my divorce, actually, when I started on some dates, right.

So what do you do when you first go out on a date?

You start from the beginning with someone.

You might have had a little bit of chat, you know, online beforehand, or maybe you've met them a few times in person.

And it's all very kind of surface level, isn't it?

And then when you go on a date, you sort of start at the beginning.

You spend time with them, you chat, you ask questions, you listen to them, you see them in different environments or among different people.

You go to different places, you learn more about them.

You invest quite a bit of time.

I don't just mean on the first date, right?

But, like, as you get through that, you learn their stories of how do they actually get to be on this date with you, right.

And as time goes on, so you get more and more dates, you start to learn about how they react to things happening, how they react to circumstances, how they see, what angle they see things from, what are their outlooks on life, what are their values, what's important to them, what triggers them.

And, oh, my favorite, my favorite is how they treat other people, right?

So you basically get this.

You start to build this picture.

And what I found was there were things that I was learning about myself as I was learning about someone else.

I was also learning stuff about me, right?

A more updated version of me because I wasn't someone's wife anymore.

You know, I'm dating this person as who I am now, and I'm a very different person to who I was last time I was dating before marriage.

It's a strange thing.

I hope I've kind of, like, made that clear.

I think I probably just confused a few people.

But my point is, like, start there.

Date yourself.

My gorgeous one, you know, who you are is evident in your mind, your body and your demeanour, your spirit.

It's not about what car you drive or where you live or how much money or assets you have or, you know, the fact that you're divorced or that you've, you know, just become a widow.

You know, none of that is.

It doesn't have to define you.

It's something that's impacted you and affected you in a very big way.

So you've got to learn to love this new version of yourself, and you can't do that until you get to know that new version of yourself.

So have fun doing it.

And you can start this.

This is one of my favorite exercises is write your life story.

Right.

I like to do it in.

Sorry, just hit the microphone, then got a bit excited.

But write your life story and do it in five year increments.

You know, like, what were you like as a child?

What were the defining moments in your.

Or change, you know, things that changed you or had an impact on you as a child.

Go through your teenage years, your early twenties, late twenties, and so on and so on, and focus on the good stuff and the big things that happened that you might class as.

I don't really want to go there, but go there because they would have changed you in some way, in some good way.

So go back, look at the threads, the good lessons that came from the bad spot, the patterns.

Look at your strengths.

What have you survived?

How have you thrived in other things?

You know, you can.

You can look at a series of events and go, man, I am good at this.

Or that is something that I always walk away from there.

Loads of stuff.

Loads of stuff.

And you can really get to know through the story of your life who you are now and who you want to be next.

To know you is to love you.

I love that phrase.

I.

It's very fitting right now.

So think about things like, what do you like, what you don't like, what do you like to do?

All of those things.

If you were dating someone, if you were on a date and you were getting to know them, so that you can see, is this someone who deserves my love?

Is this someone that I want to spend time with, that I'm going to enjoy?

And all of those things just do it to you, date you.

It's the same.

You can test this in your everyday life by getting to know yourself and then test yourself by being you, by loving you, by standing by you, by respecting you.

All of those things.

I promise, if something then doesn't go right and you're in this place where you really do know who you are and you love that person, then when something doesn't go right, it won't be because you weren't good enough that stops.

It'll be because it just wasn't a good match or it wasn't meant to be, or it was bad timing, or, you know, it fell apart.

Not because you deserved the wrong things.

You know, you don't deserve the good things it's just a mismatch.

That's all it is.

And so you move on, head held high, knowing that there's more out there because you can trust and believe in yourself.

So love yourself, uphold your standards, know what is right for you and see what happens next.

Which brings me onto values and what is important.

What is important to you?

You probably, as you're going through this, right?

And if you do any of those exercises, you'll start to see this shape up.

And it might be that sometimes, you know, we have to recognize that these things take time and that over time, as we've gone through change, sometimes the things that we have valued that have had a really high priority may have changed.

Now, you know, maybe some of those things that were super important to you and you highly valued at that time, things have changed.

So working out what these things are now is crucial.

Write a list of everything that you value.

How much of it are you actually living by?

And you know, there's lots of things.

There's loads of lists.

You can google it.

I nearly did a list.

I thought, no, just google it, it's quicker.

Write lists of values, okay?

And you'll find loads and loads of different words like integrity and honesty and all of these sort of things.

So working out what your values are and what's really important to you sometimes can take time and you have to work with them and try some of them out.

Some of them might feel a bit alien to you to start with.

I often have this with clients when they've had massive change.

Redefining what is important to them after they've changed can be drastically different.

So write a list of the things that you value.

Think about the qualities that you like in yourself.

And if you want some extra help on this, go back to episode four, which was published on the 4 January called deciding what's important to you.

And that episode, which is 24 minutes, will really help you dive into this area.

I'll make sure that that episode is in the show notes so you can get to it quickly.

So what comes with this is something that I didn't have for years, that I have plenty of now, and I'm really, really beginning to nail them.

It's so exciting.

I'm talking boundaries, right?

Boundaries come in as your way of protecting yourself from others, but also protecting what is important to you and protecting you from yourself.

They are so important.

So once you understand what it is that is important to you and what you value in life, in relationships, in your health, in wealth, in whatever it is, that you want massive abundance in.

It's then important to look at the boundaries that you can put around these things to protect them.

And it's upholding these boundaries that is the ultimate in self love, honestly.

It really is.

So I'll give you one.

For example, one of my highest values is family first, and it has been for many years.

How that actually looks in terms of how I live my life, obviously has changed as my children have grown up.

Right?

So if you think about it, what their needs are.

And putting toddlers needs first is very different to putting, you know, the needs of your older teenager.

When you're thinking about self love, you need to think about what it is that you want to be as a parent.

So not just adding value to their lives, of course, but also really enriching your own life and putting that structure around everything in the form of boundaries to make sure that you are living in alignment with that value of family first.

Okay, so family first.

So you might say, yes, this is my value.

However, you may find that actually what your actions are doing is you are constantly working late.

Maybe you don't see your kids or, you know, for very long.

It might be that when you do see them, you're tired.

So maybe you're a bit grumpy and they're not getting the best of you.

So this is where your boundaries come in, right?

We eat together five nights a week, and Saturdays are always about a family day, if that's appropriate.

It could be.

As they get older, these are going to change.

But you can see that connection.

Where is the value?

Where is the boundary to protect and ensure that that value, that thing that is important to you, actually happens?

Another one.

See, this time and time again, I've done it a million times, but each time you do it, you get better at it, I swear.

But I say, my health is so important to me.

You know, you commit to training in the gym three times a week or running or whatever it is that you're going to commit to.

Then guess what?

Something happens.

You end up getting super stressed out.

What is one of the first things that goes, you skip the gym.

I'm not in the mood for it.

So then you go home.

You think, I haven't got time because of whatever's just happened.

I haven't got time to make myself, you know, a proper dinner.

So I'm just going to grab a packet of crisps and a sausage roll out of the fridge, and that's going to do.

No, no, no.

Now you can see how that is all falling apart.

If you're saying that your health and looking after your health is really, really important to you, then you're not upholding your values if you let all of that slide so easily.

And that is definitely not demonstrating self love.

So the boundaries come into place.

You hold yourself accountable.

You make sure that even if you don't feel like it, go to the gym, honour what you have said.

You will do.

It's life changing stuff.

And this, this is self love now.

Breaking.

Breaking your.

And this is where it's so important to look at what we're actually doing.

Because I have told myself in the past that me sitting down in the evening going, do you know what?

I'm going to have a couple of drinks tonight.

I'm going to have my vodka and Diet Coke.

Because I deserve this.

I'm too tired to go to the gym.

I work too hard.

So I'm going to sit here and I'm going to have this vodka instead.

No, that's not self care.

I've told myself in the past.

That's because I deserve that.

No, what I deserve is to be true to myself and go, I need to de stress by going to the gym.

That's way more self loving than having a vodka and Diet Coke.

Yep.

It's simple.

When we really get real about it, those are the things.

So saying no to an invitation to go out, that is self love.

When you are tired and you just need to go home and get a good night's sleep, that is self love.

Saying no to someone when you've got enough on your plate at the moment and you can't start taking on their particular problems as well because you just don't have the capacity for it.

So you say no, that is self love.

Dropping a friendship because it's just too toxic, it's not doing any good.

That is self love.

I think you get the point there.

So look at what you say is important.

You know, look at what is important to you, look at what you value and then really ask yourself, check in with yourself, what are you doing that is actually in alignment with those values?

That's actually in alignment with what is important in your life.

What are you.

What are you doing to support that?

Because that will tell you what is really going on and how much you are respecting yourself, honouring yourself and all of those beautiful things.

Really look out for the signs that you are not doing the best for yourself.

If you start saying to yourself, it won't matter if I don't do that thing today.

It doesn't matter anyway.

I'm never going to reach my goal.

That kind of talk.

That is not demonstrating self love.

It's so obvious, isn't it?

But we need reminding of these things because we are human and it is hard work embedding these new habits.

But you will get there, and at first it is weird to, and then it becomes normal.

Now, I'm just going to add this bit in because this tends to be when we're talking about self care is if you're listening to this podcast, you are highly likely to be a person who knows that you should be doing this anyway.

But you already know the basics of looking after yourself as a human being, to be hydrated, to be getting plenty of sleep, to find ways to calm your nervous system, to exercise, to eat well, you know this stuff.

So if you're not doing those things, I want you to ask yourself, why not?

What is stopping you?

Because again, there is a clue there about how you see yourself, how you value yourself and what you feel you are worth.

It is a great place to start over with those basics.

So I want you to, I'm not letting this episode go out without mentioning those things because they are absolutely crucial.

Our body physically needs those things.

Our mind, our brain cannot process things if we don't get enough sleep.

So of those things, I want you to think, if you're not doing this, why aren't you?

Because there's massive, massive clues there.

And then I want to add in these self care and self love is also about finding ways to make your life easier.

Things like, is your house clean and tidy?

Are you getting into decluttering?

Are you getting used to saying, no, we know about the upholding of the boundaries, but are there things that you need to let go of that just aren't working anymore?

If you loved yourself, you know, if someone you love is going through something and you're saying to them, you've got to let this go, how does that apply to you as well?

Treat yourself with the same amount of love.

What are your thoughts?

What are the people in your life doing?

What are your actions?

How are you behaving?

All of those things?

Start to learn to have difficult conversations.

It's all part of self love.

Because on the other side of those difficult conversations is a better place for you to be.

What new habits, what new routines or systems can you introduce into your life to make your life easier, to demonstrate to yourself that you are good enough, you are worthy of this level of self love.

If you've got dreams and aspirations and goals and things that you want to be achieving, things that are going to make you feel completely fulfilled while you are on this planet, then self love is about setting yourself up for success in every part of your life.

What do you need more of and what do you need less of?

What do you need to let go of and what do you need to introduce?

It's amazing, these questions.

When you shower them in compassion and love, they are so, so important that you ask your it's so important you ask yourself these questions.

So how can you show yourself more love?

More of the things that we've been talking about today?

Are you living in alignment or are you causing yourself stress?

If you heard the last episode, it's talking about things we do that makes our life difficult.

So if you haven't listened to that one, go back to the previous episode and listen to that as well because it's really connected with today and those beautiful things.

Boundaries the ultimate I've gone from having none to saying this is my best way to love myself, is to put those boundaries and great habits and routines and things that support you and make your life easier so that you can, you know, just enjoy being happier, healthier, wealthier and experiencing better relationships.

So self love, it's a huge area and I've only scratched the surface with this episode, but I hope I've given you plenty to dive into today.

This is one of those things that start over and rise is all about because you can start over with this stuff at any time.

You may hit a bump in the road in your life and this is a great place to come back to.

So take take a look at what you've taken away from this particular episode.

Thank you for joining me.

I am so pleased.

If you got this far, do feel free to contact me on social media and let me know what your takeaway was.

Maybe you had a few.

In the meantime, have a great week.

That's all I have for you today.

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There you'll find resources and courses and ways that you can work with me should you be ready to do so.

And finally, remember, in order to start over and rise to win, you must first start over and rise within.

It's cheesy, but I love it.

Thanks so much for joining me.

I'll see you soon.

Take care.

Bye.