Being "Bold Enough" to Love starts with loving yourself first. But what does it take to do so?

Linda Beard, the host of 'Bold Enough" will motivate you to do a mental checklist to determine if you love yourself first. If you discover you do not, then she will guide you where you need to start to move towards that best life of freedom, peace, and joy. 

Copyright 2024 Linda Beard

Linda: Welcome, welcome. It's Linda Beard, your host and author of the upcoming book Bold Enough. Welcome, welcome. Thank you for allowing allowing me to come back into your world for another week. We have been on this bold enough journey for sure. We have talked about the fundamentals of what it takes to be bold enough. And those fundamentals just for those audiences that are just joining me for the very first time, the fundamentals of being bold enough is not just saying and making that decision, I want to be bold enough, but doing the hard work. And that hard work is being able to grieve from those losses and experiences that you've had that had an adverse effect on you as well as forgiving, forgiving others and yourself. And in that forgiving process, there's reconciliation and then the product of, uh, forgiving. And also going through that grieving process starts the healing. And so on my journey, I have done the healing. And through that healing, as I mentioned multiple times, and so have guests on the show, there's such a freedom that comes with that. And that freedom started me on a trajectory of loving. Being bold enough to love. And being bold enough to love takes on many different components. But in my book I share about bold enough to first love myself, and then bold enough to love my family, to love friends, and then ultimately bold enough to love again, to be in that romantic relationship, but with the right person. So as I think about my journey and as I am writing in my journal that ultimately became the book Bold Enough, I started thinking about loving myself first as I was going through the healing process. And now on the other side is why was it hard to love myself? Or, uh, why didn't I love myself? And the common theme, one common theme that came up is I people pleased. So let me tell you a little bit about my beginnings and my family that I grew up in, because that really was the beginning of how I saw love, how I observed love, how love was shared with me, and how I gave love in response. So I grew up in a family with eleven other siblings. So very big family, one mom, one dad, totally all their kids. And I am at the bottom of these siblings. And I want to add that I also, um, have four other sisters and I believe there's probably about 16 or 17 years between us. So in essence, my oldest brother and second to the oldest and third could be my father's, and my oldest sister could actually be my mother. So that's the age span. So I want you to just get, um, a visual around that. Now, did all twelve of us grow up in the house at the same time? Not really. The older ones were moving out and on their way. And then the younger, I'll say five started coming. But nevertheless, my parents were pretty busy. But my mom was, um, a stay at home mom for the most part. Um, and I say that she stayed at home. She's taking care of us. A super natural woman, in my opinion, with everything that she had to do and to deal with so many different personalities. And then in the evening, for extra money, she would go out and clean offices. And my dad was a contractor. Uh, he had his own business building houses. But at the same time, in order to support us, we needed to have medical benefits, right? And so he worked, um, at the Veterans Administration Hospital as a nurse's aide, um, and lived on very little sleep, um, in order to provide for us. So when I begin to share my story of how I observed love, the love that I observed or had as I was growing up was not a emotional, touchy feely kind of love where my parents would say to us, I love you, or when we walked in the door or arose in the morning that we had these big hugs. That wasn't the love that I received. The love that I received was that we're working hard and we're demonstrating hard work to provide a roof over your heads and to provide your necessary means, food and clothing. And my, uh, parents did do their best to show how good work ethic was necessary, um, and integrity by what they did. But again, it wasn't a I love you, lots of hugs and lots of smiles. It was really about taking care of business and making sure that everybody was taken care of. So that was the love that I experienced. I didn't experience affirmation I don't recall, maybe somewhere, um, someone said, good job, or I'm proud of you, but I don't actually remember those words being said. And again, it wasn't an UN loving environment per se. I didn't know any different, but it just was. And so between, you know, not the physical touches, not saying I love you, not, um, affirmation that I can recall, at least on a consistent basis. And then there was, uh, sibling rivalry. Um, I didn't have sibling rivalry with all of my siblings, but there was a pretty persistent civil rivalry with sibling rivalry with one of my sisters. And that did take its toll on me, and it wasn't dealt with. Now, perhaps there were some mental health issues going there. In fact, I know that there were. But when I was coming up, love was just shown differently. And it was very clear that whatever happens behind these doors, stays behind these doors. But one thing I did notice is that my mother was so good at understanding each of us. Can you imagine having twelve children and understanding us? So, even though that she did not show outwardly affection, she did treat each one of us a little bit different. Not that there were favorites, but just based on who we were as our individual characters and I should say characteristics. So that was pretty phenomenal. I didn't really know the impact of that until I got older. But I did have a couple of siblings that really, really gave her a run for her money. In other words, they were determined, one in particular, to just not do as he was told. But nevertheless, all of us along the way probably gave her some disappointments. But one thing that was clear for me is I did not ever want to see my mom cry because of something that I did that resulted in her crying. So I began to people, please. That's where my people pleasing started, was just to make it easier for my mom. And that's something I realized today, started my journey of, uh, people pleasing and not having that affirmation and the touch of love that I really began to lose myself. So as I was going through the healing process, I thought about those experiences that occurred in my younger years just within the household and the interaction between my parents and myself. And I realized that I lost me there and I had to find myself again. And then when I look at the friendships that I had, the friendships were more surface friendships. You're going through junior high, you're going through high school together, and you're doing sports or whatever you do as friends. But there was only one friend that I can really call a, uh, true friend at that time. M. But I didn't realize it at the time. She was one that showed unconditional love to me. But I didn't really know what unconditional love was either because it just appeared that you're friends with people because you have something in common or you need something from, uh, each other. And so there was no depth as I looked back, except for this one friend. And I remember a few days before graduation, this friend wrote me a letter. And she did not actually hand it to me and say, read this letter. She just said, I have something for you. And when I read the letter, she poured out her soul to me about how much that she loved me, how much that she appreciated me. And I took that letter as if she wanted a romantic relationship with me. It made me so uncomfortable that I avoided her the last few days of graduation. And I know that she was hurt a friend that we went to high school together, uh, junior high and high school together. And then we come to that monumental moment of graduation and I was standoffished and I pushed her away. Still today I wish I could find that friend. I don't know exactly where she is. Um, she has not showed up at a class reunion. But I know that she's married and has a family. And I'm happy for her. But I hope one day that our path will cross. And not only would I apologize, but I will tell her that I did not know what true friendship love was at that time. So we don't always understand our upbringing effects at, uh, what level it affects how we make decisions and how we cope in life. And then the third part of love that I will discuss is those romantic relationships that we get involved in. And when I look at my experiences in romantic relationships, particularly if I look at high school years and right out of high school, I didn't experience well, let me take that back. I had one relationship out of three that I really felt that I opened myself to love. And none of those relationships worked out. And the result of all three of those relationships was that the individual that I was romantically involved with, all of them ended up what I call cheating and had other girlfriends. And I thought that I was the only one. And the one particular person out of those three relationships broke my heart. It wasn't my first romantic relationship. He was my second. But I considered him my first love. And I became so overwhelmed and so depressed and not being able to function over that. And I remember my mother saying to me, get up, get moving, and move on. And that second relationship, I was, um, going through my college years, was getting ready to graduate. And once I did, she said, this place is not for you. You need to leave. And so you may recall in the podcast where I just, uh, was sharing with you what Bold Enough is about. And even through the grieving and the healing processes I've talked about, when something wasn't going my way, I learned to run. And so my mother handled herself in a manner I mean, can you imagine with twelve children, if she grieved over everything that went wrong? Where would she be? Maybe she would be healthier, I don't know. But that's asking for a lot of twelve times hard work, right? But nevertheless, she was a strong woman and she just took the hard knocks and moved on. And so I do believe that the way that she handled disappointment and loss, I picked it up and I created my boxes with layers on them. I learned to run away from situations and just replace them. So when I speak of getting through the healing process and having to decipher all of everything that happened to me, uh, earlier, at an earlier age, it was a lot. But it also helped me to understand and to learn who am I, what is it that I want? And when I began to get down to the core of who I was, then it was time for me to love myself. Wow. Uh, it's a lot, but we have to love ourselves first. So what is it going to take for you to love yourself. What did it take for me? Well, I had to spend time alone to get to know myself. What is it that I truly like to do? What is it that I don't like to do? What were some of the pitfalls of people pleasing that I fell into? And I will talk about it in my book that there's four entrapments that are there that tend to ride right along the side of people pleasing. So for me, what I was doing in my people pleasing is I was ignoring what I wanted and I was doing what other people wanted. So once I began to spend time with myself and what I enjoy doing, I began to do those things. And the beautiful part of it is I'm older now. I've been through that 29 year marriage that I walked away from. So there was the freedom of healing and the freedom of now being alone to discover me and to be able to determine where am I going next in my personal life, my career and how am I interacting with my family. And my friends are my friends, my friends. So I'm going through all of this examination to make sure that I stay my authentic self who I've discovered. And now I'm out there actually doing what I want to do. And so I had to come up with some very good habits replacing old habits of people pleasing and replace them with what are going to be my core boundaries to protect this new me. So one of them is that if I do not want to do something if someone's asking me to do something or expect something of me if I do not want to do it or it's an expectation that's unrealistic, I don't do it. In some cases, I will not even compromise because it starts taking away from the core of who I am. It's not in the best interest for me. And if I do it, I'm not loving myself first. I just don't do it. But I'm, um, able to speak. Why? Why is it that I'm saying no? I'm saying no to the other person, but I'm saying yes to me, to me first. By no means am um I saying that when I say love yourself first that I'm saying to you to be selfish. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that people pleasing can cause you to lose the core who you are. And you cannot fix someone else. You can't be their answer to the gap or the void in their life of, uh, what they're missing. You have a responsibility to take care of you and set those boundaries. So I wouldn't do and I still don't do anything that I don't want to do. So there are times I don't compromise at all. And then there are times where I do compromise. For instance, I may make a decision to go to an event or an outing with a friend. But it's really not something I want to do, but that person wants to do. It's not going to be losing who I am if I go ahead and join that person at that outing or that event. But because I know it's something that I really don't care for. I may compromise by deciding to drive myself, so then I can come and go and I'm actually extending myself to someone else, but I'm also staying to that core of not getting back in the trap of people pleasing. So you may think that that's, um, minor, but it's actually a pretty big deal because it's the little things that add up and add up and add up that you start losing yourself. So it's really important that you put boundaries you put boundaries in place. Because if not and for me, I don't want to go back to running away. I don't want to go back to layers and layers of baggage that I had to get rid of. I want to remain healed and keep a short account of any losses that come my way in everyday life. That's just so important. So think about that for a moment. Do you love yourself? So I took time with myself. I enjoyed my own company. I went and did things that I wanted to do. I traveled. I am so comfortable taking my own self out on a date. I can go out, have dinner out and have a great time. I can be home and have a great time. I'm doing what I want to do. That's me. There are times where I just want to pamper myself. And pampering is showing self love. Don't forget about pampering yourself. What gives you that additional peace? What gives you that additional calmness? What distresses you? For me, my friends that are in my close circle know that probably three or four, maybe even five times a week, I end my day before I go to bed with a bubble bath, candles, a, uh, nice aroma, smells, music, the whole nine yards. Because I have that time to just reflect over the day unwind. And it also gives me that time of meditation to reflect and say, is there anything that happened to me today that I need to forgive? I need to grieve over that loss and heal from it. Or part of that healing is talking it out. Is there something that happened to me today that I need to go back to that person and talk it out? Maybe it left a question mark in my mind that made me feel not real positive about the situation. So pamper yourself. Take care of yourself. Physically. Being bold enough is really it's like being in war sometimes. And I say that because there's so many things that happen around us every day that we literally have to be so strong to willed. And I call that fighting for yourself to protect who you are because there's points of views that will try to sway your points of views. People want you to do something you don't want to do. You may overtax yourself and then you're not pampering yourself. So what I'm saying is love yourself first. You cannot even extend yourself out to others without loving and taking care of yourself first. And remember, in the process I also learned to walk away. So walk away from anything that's toxic in your life. That could be people, that could be things that you are doing. It could be what you watch on TV or the music that you hear, that you listen to on a regular basis. Get the toxicity out, get it out. Keep yourself in a state where you feel good about you, where you're in a peaceful, calm and as less stress as possible state. That's our responsibility. When we're learning to love ourselves, then love who m we are. That's not being vain at all. But be proud of who you are. Know your worth, know your value and expect respect. Expect respect. That's important. So that first whole phase was hanging out with me and loving me and I love me. I did not realize before that people pleasing and extending myself to others, avoiding how I felt was not loving myself. But it was. Today I can listen to the positive voices in my head of affirmation and I dispel negative things that come into my mind that says I can't because I can. So when you're on this journey of loving yourself, it's a conversation you're having. And yes, sometimes you're talking out loud and answering questions that your mental state is asking you. But it's well, well worth it. Mhm.