Do you unconditionally love and accept yourself? You will gain a deeper appreciation for the importance of this as you listen to Rachel Madorsky share her brilliant insights with host Meredith Bell. You’ll discover the one statement that The Ultimate Coach Steve Hardison made that immediately shifted her thinking about the importance of self-love.

Rachel shares what we can do to let go of the guilt, shame, and feelings of unworthiness that can get in the way of loving ourselves. The questions she encourages us to ask ourselves are pure gold. They can help us shift from negative feelings to a place of gratitude, where we feel the freedom to be generous and loving with others. And if you want to take the next step towards greater self-love after hearing this conversation, pick up a copy of her book, How To Love Yourself: In Less Than a Week & Also for the Rest of Your Life. It’s a beautiful guide for discovering ways to treasure the person you are.

About the Guest: 

Rachel Madorsky is a psychotherapist, executive coach, speaker and best-selling author of the book, How To Love Yourself: In Less Than a Week & Also for the Rest of Your Life. Down to earth and passionate about supporting women, Rachel's work centers around helping powerful women give themselves everything they ever wanted in life - now. Rachel's insights and teachings have been featured in Forbes, Psychology Today, CBS News, NBC, The Learning Channel, and South By South West Interactive.

Website: www.rachelmadorsky.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachelmadorsky/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-madorsky-lcsw-3233374/

Rachels book, How to Love Yourself  https://www.amazon.com/How-Love-Yourself-Less-Than/dp/1958714127/

About the Host:

Meredith Bell is the Co-founder and President of Grow Strong Leaders. Her company publishes software tools and books that help people build strong relationships at work and at home.

Meredith is an expert in leader and team communications, the author of three books, and the host of the Grow Strong Leaders Podcast. She co-authored her latest books, Connect with Your Team: Mastering the Top 10 Communication Skills, and Peer Coaching Made Simple, with her business partner, Dr. Dennis Coates. In them, Meredith and Denny provide how-to guides for improving communication skills and serving as a peer coach to someone else.

Meredith is also The Heart-centered Connector. One of her favorite ways of BEING in the world is to introduce people who can benefit from knowing each other.

https://growstrongleaders.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredithmbell

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TUCP Intro/Outro: Thank you for tuning in. You're listening to The Ultimate Coach Podcast, a companion to the transformative book, The Ultimate Coach, written by Amy Hardison, and Alan D. Thompson. Each conversation is designed to be a powerful wake up call, reminding us of what's possible for you, and your life. So if you're on a journey to expand your state of being, this podcast is for you.

Welcome to another episode of The Ultimate Coach Podcast. I'm one of your hosts for the show, Meredith bell. And I'm so glad you've joined me today, because my guest is Rachel Madorsky. Rachel, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Meredith, for having me. I'm so excited and honored and delighted to be here with you.

You know, I am to Rachel because the topic we're going to be focusing on today, around self love is something that I think every single person struggles with at some time or another because of our tendency to criticize and judge ourselves, sometimes unconsciously. So before we dive into that, I would love for you to share a little bit about your journey in this whole world of being in the ultimate Coach, how did that get started for you?

So several years ago, I don't keep excellent track of time, I think that's on purpose, because it's not that important to me. Now, here's what's important to me. So some time ago, I had the pleasure of being coached by JP Morgan, John Patrick Morgan. And if you know, JP, you know that he has made like an hour long, stunning acknowledgment of his work with Steve Hardison and working with JP was incredibly powerful. And it also matched work that I had been doing for many, many years with a personal growth course called the avatar course, which is very much about creating, and JP is very much about creating. And so working with a GP, it's a lot about creating. And then he, I think it was him, let's say it was him, told a story once about Steve, I mean, many stories, but there was one story in particular that really shifted my life. And the story was this. Someone asked Steve, Steve, why is it how is it that people feel so loved? When they're around you? Why do people feel so loved in your presence? And Steve said, because I love myself that much. And that tilted my world on its access. And I think the biggest thing I got from that story is the recognition and the permission, that not only is it okay, to love yourself, but it's also okay for me to build my whole life and my whole business and my whole being on that one idea. And, and that's what I did. And then eventually, I got to talk to Steve, and then I got to work with Steve. And, yeah, I'll leave it at that. For the moment. I'm curious,

That is a powerful and profound statement that I think many of us would not immediately think of it, you know, we're taught to love others, and be kind and, you know, generous and loving to others. But it really does start with ourselves, doesn't it?

It's so does Meredith

Im curious, that resonated so strongly with you. I'm suspecting because there was something in your own journey, where you may have struggled with like loving yourself. Is that accurate?

Oh, so accurate. I think the two things that I could say about that to give a picture is I had a wild childhood, just a real wild childhood. And there was this one moment I remember I was a little girl and it's so interesting to me. This is the story that occurs, but I remember standing in the hallway of this apartment I was living in with my mother and it was so bad, to be honest. And I had this moment and I remember asking God Why me? And not kind of from a victim consciousness of like, Why me like Poor me? I was, I was actually asking the question like, Why me was genuinely curious. And the answer that came back to me was something like, because I can handle it. And because and then what I told myself is that maybe, if I could handle this, maybe some other little girl wouldn't have to, and is you can whatever wild childhood you can imagine with, you know, drug addiction, and like all the crazy stories you and once you can imagine, I live through those things. And I only share that because for me, when I see people succeeding, and I hear their story, the ones that are the most impactful for me are the ones of people that came from a trajectory that if they had stayed on, it would never look like the success that it doesn't know. And I used to have this dream, my biggest dream was that eventually I could pass for normal and that my life could pass for normal. And then eventually, after that, my biggest dream is that I would have a life that no one would know, like, what I had been through and what I had lived through. And now that I'm here, I want to especially share to people who have really been through it as a reminder that we really can heal anything, and move on from anything and create anything.

And so eventually, I found myself in some personal growth work. And a woman came up to me and she could see I was really suffering. And, and this is so vulnerable for me to say, and so as you listen, listen, not just to the specificity that I share with you, but listen, maybe from whatever your own specific hurts have been. But I had one one of my biggest hurts was that I really felt ugly. I just felt so ugly. And this woman came up to me. And she said, almost like in a whisper. You know, if you would love yourself, all of this would go away and heal. And in that moment, I felt two things. One, like someone had just given me the keys to the castle. And on the other hand, I felt completely incredulous. Because what does that even mean? When someone says love yourself, it's such a big thing to say. And it sounds almost like a massive platitude with like, no tangibility behind it. But that was the first moment when I heard those words. It took me many, many years before I realized that loving yourself is actually not just a way of being but action, you can take things you can do to make that a real experience.

Thank you for sharing that. And, you know, hearing you say this, we've all had those moments in our lives, that we've had perceptions of ourselves, where we've probably question How could anyone love me, much less love myself? I'm curious, because you've written this beautiful book that we're going to talk about, which is called how to love yourself in less than a week, and also for the rest of your life and love that? How would you define? And I'm not looking for, you know, a clinical definition here of loving yourself. But what does that look like? What does it mean, in terms of how someone thinks?

I think the first place to start is this place of permission and understanding, which is that it's not selfish to do so. That it's not selfish to ask the question, and that it's not selfish to pursue the goal of self love. And I say that first, because I think for many of us, it's a barrier at to whatever size and I really speak especially to women, because I think, you know, we're all especially the personal growth, we're all inundated with this indoctrination to love others and give to others and to be generous. And I feel it extra for women. It's like we're it's as if we were designed to be givers. And to me, I think that presupposes that our natural state is selfish, and that it's not generous that we have to work to be generous. And so what I believe about loving yourself, and I promise I'll answer your question is that since we are actually all connected, that every movement we make to Aren't loving ourselves is actually a way more authentic move toward loving others. So in terms of what to do or how to do it, it can be the smallest thing. So for me I share about this in the book when I finally decided, Okay, I'm gonna figure out what this is, I don't even know what love yourself means. But I'm going to find out I'm going to Shang in there until I figure it out. And the first question I asked my ask myself was, okay, well, what's something I can do? To show me that I love me? Like, what would that look like? And the first thing that came to me was start buying flowers by buy flowers. And so I went to the store and bought a flower and put it in a little vase next to my bed. And every morning, I woke up, and I saw this flower, and it would remind me, love yourself, just the smallest thing. And on a bigger scale, and even in business, in work and entrepreneurship, we can begin asking ourselves, what is the most loving thing I can do for myself? If I really loved myself, if it were truly a real thing, what would I be doing.

And so, I loved it, that the one small gesture, that you talked about the just buying a flower for yourself, because, to me, what that represents, is just doing something that reflects our valuing of ourselves. And I think that, that thinking, my own growth here in terms of love of my own self, and I think it's important to distinction, distinguish here, you know, between self love and say, narcissism, you know, we're we're preoccupied with looking good. And, you know, how, how we appear to the outer world, or being totally self absorbed. To me, that's not what we're talking about at all. It's this deep acceptance of who I am. And being grateful for that, instead of judging and criticizing, I think those are the two things that I know I've struggled with over the years, and maybe a lot of our listeners have to criticizing myself in my head, when I've made a mistake, or made a bad decision, or whatever it might be. It's not having the same grace with myself that I would have with anyone else in my life.

Whereas anything you're saying is gold, first of all, yes. And the whole preoccupation with self and narcissism, what I've experienced is that the moment we have real acceptance for ourselves, our attention actually comes off of ourselves and goes out into the world. And it's actually our judgment in our suffering that has our attention, captive on ourself. And the truth is, when we feel happy, or when we feel like there's plenty it is our natural nature to share. You said something else that was so good, and I wish I some new said, so many beautiful things

Were said around the self judgment and self criticism.

Yes, thank you. That's how connected we are.

What so we come up with something that's off the, you know, on the top of my mind, in the context of this conversation.

You know, I learned this, this little tool that was a life changer for me, which is, anytime you notice anything, anytime any of us notice something that a way of being something we're doing or saying that we prefer not to be to consider saying, oh, isn't that interesting? Oh, I'm doing that. And the reason why this is so important is because for those of us who do love to grow and do want to be the most powerful, loving version of ourselves that we can, the truth is, is we can actually grow if there's no love and acceptance there. And the reason is, because the more love and acceptance we are willing to give ourselves the more we're willing to see, you know, we if, if there's too much judgment, we can't actually see what's there to improve because it would hurt too badly. But the more we're willing to go Oh, yeah, I'm so human. Isn't that interesting, though, the lighter we can keep it actually the deeper we can go.

I love that lighter reference that you made because I think one of the things that I've experienced and I'm sure many others have too is this idea of taking ourselves so seriously. And imagining oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that or I said that, and then beating ourselves up over a period of time instead of, oh, well, wasn't that an interesting thing to say, I love that I'm gonna adopt that phrase, because it's neutral. You know, you're not that is a non judgmental word. And so I would encourage folks to use interesting or something else that doesn't come down as, in any way as a judgement, because I think that helps us stay lighter, and, and more playful. You know, there's so much in life that I think we get bogged down with, when if we could step back and look at it in the context of our whole lives. It just makes such a difference.

Is so true. Les is, to me, the essential part of life, I love one of Steve's declarations is I Am That I do not take, I do not sweat the small stuff. And it is all small stuff, including death and dying. I use that often I haven't made it to the death and dying part. But I admire Steve for creating that. And for me, one of the greatest impacts on my life has been the gift of improv comedy. And I would encourage anyone listening, especially if you're a leader, as someone who loves to grow to take improv classes. And the reason is because we learn that being fully present is safe, but it's safe to be present. It's safe to be in our bodies, it's safe to make mistakes, it's safe to relax the facts. And after the improv, often, it's the mistakes that get the most joy and laughter rather than the rigidity of trying to get everything right. One more thing I'd love to say about that is to me, that's what Beginner's Luck is Beginner's Luck is actually the phenomena of your newest something, if you do amazingly well, and they call it beginner's luck. But really, what's happening is you have no judgment and no expectation and no pressure to be perfect. So you just let your natural genius flow. We can, we can be living that way so much more often if he would relax and play.

I love that. So talk about what can we do to take steps in our thinking, in our approach to ourselves that would allow us to adopt that kind of way of being?

Okay, so here's a few things. One is, I love this one again, especially for women to journal the answers to this question, if I were being really bad, what would I do? To be this is really important, because your answers to that question, and of course, men, please feel free to join it. But if I have been really bad, or if I was speaking bad girl, what would I do? This helps us find what we're wanting that we're not even giving ourselves permission to want. And often what happens is, when you look at the list, you stand back and recognize there's nothing really that bad on this list. These are just the things that I haven't been giving myself permission to do. I really believe one of the paths to self love is permission to say yes to yourself, and to trust yourself more deeply than ever before. And so another thing to do is, if I give a talk, or if I do something, my way of evaluating, and I love teaching this to people is there's just a two question evaluation. That's what went well. And what would I like to see more of next time. And that helps me appreciate the wins, collect all the goodness and create something to move forward with. I also don't believe you have to suffer to grow. I think that's an old way of growing, we can we can grow through pleasure. We can grow, we can grow through expanding our capacity to receive how good can I have it, we all have this setpoint from which we feel is safe and comfortable to receive whether it's money, love, goodness. And once we hit that setpoint it starts feeling uncomfortable for it to be too good. And that's just because that's where i Our identity is that's what feels normal to us. And other thing for those of us who work or have businesses is to ask what what is my dream schedule? If I had all the money in the world, what would my schedule look like and then design your business around your schedule? I've done that I remember talking to a fellow coach and saying, My schedule is obscene. That was the word that cute we looked up the word obscene because Like, what does that mean? And the definition was something like, you know, shocking to others. It's okay to live a life that matches who you really are. Whatever that means. I think I'll say one more thing. And then I'll be quiet, which is, you know, there's these stories about Steve and his generosity. And I think we all have so much more generosity into us. And the valve that unleashes it is to flow that generosity to ourselves. First. When we give from the overflow, the quality of what we give is so much better. What I'm able to give now is nothing compared to what I was able to give before I had attention on how to love myself. I hope that I hope there's some specific thing.

Oh, those are all. Excellent. And they're, you know, so worth reflecting on, and looking at, how, how might I apply that in my own life, and I love that you kind of wrapped up there in your list with the generosity, being generous to ourselves, you know, that's almost an oxymoron for some people, I bet. Generous to myself, because of what we've had our minds trained to do, you know, in terms of thinking of others, and putting the needs of others first. And I think that is more common with women, then the messages that get conveyed to females more than males. It's what talk about some of the different ways we could be generous with ourselves.

I love having a boarding program. And I know many of us do. But I think, you know, being generous with ourselves, also means with time. How do you really want to spend your time? How do you really want to start your day. Also, I will also say, I'm also okay, if someone thinks I'm selfish later, there's certain things there's a certain stance I'm willing to take. Because I'm willing to be a stand for myself. And for all the women I get to support or whoever I can be an example for. So it's really also the willingness to let go of the need to be liked to let go of people pleasing to let go of codependency, which is our, you know, monitoring and controlling how someone else feels about what we're doing. It's practicing, remembering that my opinion of me in my life is the only one that really matters. How offer this one meditation I do I love this meditation, I you know, I set the timer for literally three minutes. Leave it at meditation, and I call it and just listening, which is Teresa watts, a brilliant, wonderful coach. Yes. Her phrase is just listen. And I'll set the timer for three minutes. I love to do this outside. And I just practice listening. Just listen to the sounds to the silence, I always receive something. And then after that, sometimes I'll set the timer for another three minutes, and I'll vision what would I love? What would I love to happen today? What would I love in my life? And then sometimes I do this when I'm not sure what to do or when I'm not feeling so great. I'll just be as quiet as I can. That I'll ask myself, what is the most loving thing I can do for myself right in the middle? And there's always an answer. And the practice is the willingness to listen to that answer.

Well, I think the practice is both asking the question, yes. And listening for the answer. Because that question is profound. Rachel and I, it's in your book, and I know some of these other things that you're sharing are are in the book, and I highly recommend people get that we'll talk more about it at the end of our conversation, but this idea of posing a question where we're focused on our own, wants, needs desires. Like what's the most loving thing I can do for myself? Right now, it has such a different focus. So that's one thing but then the listening as you say, and being in a place of receiving so that we can And I liked that you set the timer for just three minutes. Everyone can make three minutes of time. It's not requiring this intensive and expansive time commitment that people would easily say, Oh, I can't do that. But what you're doing is making it accessible to everyone, by the simple, yet profound suggestions. What difference Have you seen this make for yourself and for some of the women that you've worked with?

So much, Meredith, I just received an email yesterday that touched my soul so deeply from a former client, this subject was former client. And this had been years ago. In her email she shared with me that she has done in bacame, all the things she had talked about. And two of the things that stood out to her. One was the question, what would you love? And that she's been asking herself that question since our time together. And to as a result of asking the question, what would she love, you know, she also was able to receive, like, deeply receive any acknowledgement that I was able to give her. And this, this is what's so important, I think, to make a distinction, there is a great ocean of difference between receiving and taking, being needy and taking comes from lack, it comes to the feeling of emptiness, and the gifts we don't receive, we become takers, or we become needy, or we go the other way, we become martyrs and deniers of our own needs. But receiving creates so much fullness for ourselves and each other. My life now I was just messaging with JP I mean, I'm gonna talk about money for a moment. And the reason is because I think money in love absolutely belong in the same conversation, that we have so many beliefs about money. But if we don't love ourselves, I mean, don't make peace with our beliefs about money, we'll let money and, and to me loving yourself also means doing work that you love making money that you love with people that you love. So I said to JP, I feel like, you know, I want to change some things up, I'm ready to like, take an art class, I'm ready to do this, I think I'm going to work less this year, you know, so worst case, scenario, I make, like 700,000 this year and, and he wrote me back and he said, I would like to go and in a DeLorean. And time travel back time travel back two years ago, we spoke and like, give you this message. That's the difference. The thing is, is when you follow what you would love, more money flows to you. More generally, we're able to be more generous. I'll give one example, one more example. I have a really special relationship with my mother. And I say a special tongue in cheek in that, you know, one of my, one of my many great teachers in life has been my mother. And I was the caretaker when I was a little girl even she really suffered. She was depressed, it was really, really difficult. And so I started giving right away. And eventually, I got this idea that it's either need or be needed. Those are the only two choices. You're either needed, or you'd be needy. And I thought to myself, you know, I was maybe in my early 20s at the time. And I said, Well, I'm never going to be needed again. So I'm going to be needy. And I became needy for years until I realized, oh, that's just swinging the pendulum. It's, it's the same, it's the same thing. And so there was always there was always been no matter how much work I had done on myself, how much healing how much teaching whatever it was, there was still this thing inside of me that didn't want to give to my mother. I felt like I had already given it all. And one of the things I feel the most grateful for for my work with Steve. And this whole idea of loving yourselves is that I now have a whole bank account that is totally devoted to money from my mother. And this is huge. I help pay for her living I give her gift like and, and this is not about I'm not trying to make myself sound great in any way. It's not about that at all. What it is, is this profound insight shift from I can never give again to, I have found a way to give, that feels like it's a true honoring of my soul. It isn't coming from any sacrifice, it's actually coming from love and abundance. And that's a miracle to eat.

Well, I can see where it is based on what you grew up with. And the patterns that you lived with all those years, and then become to a place today where it's coming from a place of genuine generosity, no strings attached. Right? No conditions, no expectations, I would guess for anything in return. And how freeing that is.

It is it's so is merited, and but I also want to say I had to find a way to do it. That felt like a yes to me. So before I created this account, I came up, you know, people ties and people have accounts for tithing. And that's how I started, you know, I'll put this money aside, and I can't explain it any better than that. But really, what I want to say is, if you're willing to the when listening to trust, don't even listen to the trustee like play with this as a hypothesis. What does happen, when I start making sure that everything I do, every aspect of my life is a reflection of love of self love. That every area is in alignment with my soul and my desires and my way of living and my way of being, it doesn't have to be anybody else's, but yours. And the more we do that, the more we can also then ask questions like what's the most loving thing I can do for my mom, for my partner, but you can't really know that answer if you aren't willing to know it for yourself.

That's so important. You know, it sounds obvious. But it isn't. And I think it's because of our indoctrination is a strong word that there's a lot of input, we get growing up from society, from family, friends, schools, whatever entities are influencing our thinking, this idea of focusing on what I would want, what would feed my soul is not something we're encouraged to do. That's, that's not the message that, you know, is out there. And I think one of the gifts of this conversation is opening the door for people to give themselves permission to take time to do that. And that it's it's not only okay, it's really a prerequisite, as you've been saying, this is a thread running through here. When you are loving and generous to yourself, and take care of what you really want. It frees you up to then be available to give from the heart to others. This update said

Yes, Meredith you're saying it's so beautifully and I would add this one other piece, which is our greatest contribution in the world is the version of us that's being our most delighted self. It I love the book, The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks I think it's a must read. But just this idea of we have a zone of excellence. It's the stuff we're so good at what it maybe doesn't light us up anymore. And our zone of genius is the is that cross point between what we really love and also what we're really good at if we're always really good at what we really love and the more permission we give ourselves to do what we really love, the greater the contribution, the greater the abundance in all directions.

Absolutely 100% on that as I'm just imagining, people sometimes feeling trapped in a job in a relationship, not feeling that they maybe deserve to be able to pursue what it is is they really want? And that's something I really wanted to touch on with you today. We haven't really said these words. But part of what gets in the way of our loving ourselves is that sense of unworthiness, or undeserving? And I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that. Because it's not accurate. And yet we have these beliefs. So what can we do to help shift our thinking around that, because so many people no matter how much outward success, they experience, they still don't feel worthy of that. So what are some of the things that you might share around that?

The first thing, is there a reminder that it's just a belief, we take our beliefs so seriously. And if we could consider the idea that everything is is just a belief, it's all beat up, everything is made up? And maybe this is partly the comedian in me, but if, what would you like to believe? Like, I'm no longer interested really, in what's true, or what's accurate? I what I'm interested in is, if I believe x, what will the result be? That's really all I care about. I don't care what I believe, as law. I mean, all I want to do is believe things that make my life and the lives around me more beautiful. And so I would have to ask myself, and I'm not saying that I don't have moments of feeling unworthy. I just don't spend time there. Because, to me, that's up to me, it's a waste of time, why do I want to put my attention there? What I try to do is, if I'm having a moment where I feel unworthy, I just quickly try to shift to what I'm grateful for it just move over a few dials on the radio of beliefs to like a different channel. I rather be grateful than feel guilty. That are that used to be my go to, I'd be sitting on the couch with my husband, and like so happy I'd start feeling guilty. Thinking about my mother feeling whatever she was feeling, until I realized my even my mother, her higher self would never want that for me. So what do I want to believe? So let's, I would say practice making up beliefs that create the life you want. And part two, and Steve is obviously a genius at this. This is my version. My version is I call it being willing to be a fool for love. And what I mean by that is I'm believing some pretty outrageous things. I'm practicing believing some pretty outrageous things. What's the harm? There really is no harm except that we're afraid to look like dummies to ourself, but are idiots or like fools. But what life do you want to live? Do you want to live a life where on the outside? You look like you have it all together and not have reasonable thoughts? Or would you like to live it incredible, adventurous life going for the things that you really want? So that's my answer to that. My answer is it's all made up, make up the leafs that make you feel good about life.

And love that answer. I think it's so, so powerful. So here's another element of this self love that I want to talk about. And that is self forgiveness. Because if we get into judging and criticizing, we can't always just let it go. What's the process that you have found to be helpful around forgiving yourself?

There's a few I think for me, what I try to do is i i First look for the innocence first let me make first a confession. I am way more likely to blame others than blame myself. That's just how I am that's how that's how I work. But did I can share it something fun about that. But in terms of self forgiveness, I always looking for the innocence meeting. Whenever we do whatever we say no matter how awful it looks on the outside, there's always a positive intention. There's always some part of us that was trying to be safe, not hurt someone not get in trouble, whatever it is when like whatever it is that we do or look good, you know, whatever it is. And to me those things are incredibly forgivable. I mean, for humans, we mess up all the time. And so to me, it's recognizing my innocence. And then if I really did do something that requires more than just like seeing me this sense, and it floats away Then I do the practice of apologizing. And for some of us, that's easier than others. In my real, I've been with my husband for 20 years. And I can tell you that he has apologized. And I'm being probably 10 times for my one, you know, I mean, she, she's wonderful at that it's taken, it took me years to do it. I'm catching up now because I'm better but used to be. But self forgiveness to be is recognizing the positive intention behind the thing in the sense of letting letting it go, letting the attention go off of ourselves and flow it back on to where we really want it to be.

Yeah, that letting go. Good question just came up for me thinking about when, cuz some of us grew up having this, whatever church we might have been raised in guilt, you know, feeling guilty for doing this wrong in that wrong. So letting go of that guilt? And how long do I want to carry this? You know, how is it serving me to feel this way. So I love this idea of letting go in support of being able to then give more generously, because I'm not preoccupied with this pain, this memory, this feeling that I am conjuring up from the past. But to be able to say that's done can't change it. It's, it's easier to move forward. And I love your idea of positive intent. And looking at innocent, not juxtaposing it with guilt, necessarily, but just the idea that I didn't intend any malice?

Yes, exactly. And there is always an action we can take. So for example, even if we're tidy about something from 15 years ago, if we can find like the quality of what it is that we feel bad about, maybe I put someone down that part is how I can heal that in the present is love myself, forgive myself and intentionally look for like, how many people can I lift up today? Because you know, there's always an action we can take that lifts us and others up, and no one needs to know that we're doing it, but it's an to me, it's another way, but I would just urge no one do it. It's not like repenting or pendant, it's not a punishment, that there's nothing to be punished for. That's another thing we eat over. So I like that we're you know, culturally influenced to think that like punishing and pushing is how to, like be a better person or, or reach the goal. And in my world, there is there is no place for punishing no place for pushing. This, there's that we're afraid that if we just love ourselves, we'll sit around all day and get fat eating ice cream. And it's a totally fair thing to be afraid of. But I really encourage the practice of seeing what actually happens. There's this just to like, bring in money one more time. There's this beautiful passage from the Talmud, which says something like this. Money is like rain. When rain falls on weeds, weeds grow. Wide rain falls on flowers, flowers grow. I love that. To me, it's just the reminder, yes, you're allowed to make a lot of money you are and you don't have to separate that from love. I just keep bringing that in. Because I think it's so important. And I think it's such a taboo conversation. And I really want women to make a lot of money. I mean, I want everyone to make a lot of money, but especially people who care about their beingness who care about doing good in the world. And we're allowed to have both.

What I think you're addressing there as beliefs that we've been thought about the negatives around money, that we again, have to separate belief from reality, or what's true, and becoming more aware of that. Rachel, we're running debt to our time Ms. N together. And I really want you to talk about your wonderful book, how to love yourself, and also talk a little bit about the work that you're doing now. So if the folks listening to this podcast would like to get in touch with you learn more about you what you're doing that we're able to do that. Okay.

So just the last thing I'll say about the book is well, I don't know if you You start with Ellen DeGeneres chose my book for her. I did. That's such a fun story too. And I'll just say really quickly how that happened is I trusted myself, she actually reached out for something else a few months ago. And I said, No, because I could feel it wasn't right for me. And I told my publisher, please tell her I said, Thank you so much. I love Elena always loved Allen, this particular thing isn't right for me, I would love for her to consider my book for something else in the future. And my publisher said to me, okay, well, we'll tell her that. But it's a miracle that this happened that you're never going to get asked for anything else by her, it would be like lightning striking twice. And then poof, this happened. And the reason why you see this is because everything is possible, and there is always a way. And to me, the thing that fuels the way is Love Plus belief. And my book is my love letter to those of us who would love to figure out how to love ourselves and would just like someone to just freakin tell us how just show me how. And this book is a guide for simple, simple things you can do from a light hearted place that actually move us into self love for real, and makes a great gift that hopefully you give it to yourself and others that you love, but you first. And then the work that I do is I I help women give themselves everything they ever wanted in life now. No, we're waiting. I'm an executive coach. I'm a psychotherapist. And if you want to learn more about that, or me, you can go to my website, which is Rachel Medora ski.com. And mostly, I want to leave people with this sense that you absolutely deserve more love, always.

Thank you, Rachel. That's a beautiful sentiment to share. And as a closing of this, what I think was a wonderful conversation, thank you so much for your beautiful spirit, for the journey you have taken that has brought you to today where you not only have this very generous love of yourself, you also are helping so many others discover that within themselves. And so the ripple effect of that is huge, because as we I think a key element that's run through our conversation is this idea. When we truly deeply love and accept ourselves. It frees us to give generously and love generously with others.

Perfectly said right. Thank you so much for having me and spending this time with me. You are a gorgeous soul. I'm so glad to spend time with you.

Well, back at you. Thank you, Rachel.

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