1. What is that self-love thing?

Did you ever wonder what self-love really is? Not only conceptionally but also on an embodied level. We're all familiar with the logical concept of self-love, and we all agree that loving yourself is essential, but how can you put this into practice if there are so many things you don't love about yourself? Dive into this episode and find out what self-love really is (all fluff stripped away). And learn how you can apply it to your relationship with yourself. 

Transcript

Nadja Hagen [00:00:14]:
Are you ready to go from am I good enough To, is this good for me? Welcome to the Self Love Sessions podcast. I'm your hostess, Natje Hagen, And I'm the self love coach for ambitious women recovering from people pleasing and starting to love the heck out of themselves. The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. It sets the tone for all other relationships in your life And your overall quality of life, it's worth cultivating. In the self love sessions podcast, I share nuggets of wisdom on setting healthy boundaries, prioritizing your needs without shame and guilt, And building relationships that enrich your whole dang life, starting with the one you have with yourself. Let's dive into today's episode. Welcome to the 1st episode of the Self Love Sessions podcast. I'm so excited to start This journey with you.

Nadja Hagen [00:01:21]:
If you don't know me yet, I'm Natia Hagen, and I'm the self love coach for ambitious women recovering from people pleasing. I am a recovering people pleaser myself, so I know how frustrating it is to take care of everyone except myself. And I know very well that this comes with a price tag that isn't cheap. In our 1st episode, I want to talk about What is this self love thing? And there is a good reason that I named the episode exactly the way I did. It's a couple of years ago, and I still remember it very clearly. I have talked with my mother about a challenging situation in my life. And during our conversation, she was telling me, you have to love yourself. And I nodded.

Nadja Hagen [00:02:09]:
Yeah. Sure. Of course. I know this. Everybody knows this. I have to love myself. You have to love yourself. We all need to love ourselves and mentally act up the concept of self love.

Nadja Hagen [00:02:23]:
I know that we need to love ourselves. I know that this is essential. And mentally, I got this concept. I knew that it was important to love myself. I knew that self love means to love oneself like you love other people. But emotionally and on an embodiment level, I didn't have a single clue what that meant. What is self love? I knew how it felt when I fell in love with somebody else, when I went through this butterfly and honeymoon phase, and The world was turning upside down because I was so much in love, but I also knew that this wasn't the love that was meant by self love. So I embarked on a journey to find out what is this self love thing, what does it actually mean to love oneself, And why is this so important? And for me, it started with a question, how can I love myself when I hate myself so much? How can I love myself when I look in the mirror, and I think I'm not beautiful enough? How can I love myself when I think everybody else is better than I am? How can I love myself when I think I'm not skinny enough? How can I love myself when there are so many things That I need to change about myself to be perfect, and perfect meant good enough? What I know now is that nobody is perfect.

Nadja Hagen [00:03:58]:
It's so easy to fall into the trap Of the need to be perfect, because perfect is something that is sold to us every single day. And this intensified with the use of social media. The perfect family, always happy, always in harmony and peace. The perfect woman always in a good mood, always with a light smile on her face, and, of course, nobody rolls. Or when you go to the contrary, the perfect role model for body positivity, a woman who is so confident Even though she has a bigger size. It's not about a small or a big size. This is about creating an image of perfection, and nobody is perfect. Even a supermodel doesn't look like a supermodel without makeup, hairstyling, and Photoshop.

Nadja Hagen [00:04:56]:
Don't forget Photoshop. Perfect is an illusion. It's like a carrot we try to catch, but we will never be able to hold in our hands. And striving for perfectionism is the surest way to stay in a constant loop of unhappiness, Unfulfillment and never ever enough. Because we will run-in this hamster wheel forever, because There is no perfect. So what we are run after, we can't find because it doesn't exist. And that led me to realizing that self love starts with acceptance. Acceptance means that the 1st step in loving myself is accepting myself as I am.

Nadja Hagen [00:05:50]:
That doesn't mean that I don't want to change anything about myself anymore, that I don't want to learn and to grow and to become a better human being, That I don't want to learn to be a more patient mother or a better friend or improve my skill set, That means that I give up the idea of being perfect and welcome the idea that nobody is perfect, That we all are human. Being imperfect is the purest form of being human and experience our human experience in its full range. And the next Thing I learned is that I can accept that I don't have the weight that I want to have right now, And at the same moment, strive to lose weight, to stay within weight loss example, because I think that is one of the examples That you can easily relate to. I go with a weight loss example here because I think that a lot of women can relate to being on a diet. Some are on a diet to lose weight, some are on a diet to look younger, healthier, others Are on a restrictive diet because of food intolerances or something similar. But I think the majority of humans can relate to The concept of being on a diet. I don't want to point this out particularly because it's a woman thing or something like this, this is not what I mean by this by any means. It's just one of the first things that came to my mind because I think that a lot of People can relate, and I want to try to find examples that are relatable so that the concepts I teach in this podcast are easy to understand, and then apply to your own life because that's what we are here for.

Nadja Hagen [00:07:45]:
So acceptance means that I'm aware that I have more weight than is either good for my health, Or more weight than I feel comfortable with, and accepting that I'm, at the same moment, that I'm still a good human being, and that I'm still beautiful in my own ways. I can accept my body as it is and be grateful for my body at the same time. I can have the goal to lose weight, to feel more comfortable in my body, or to improve my health. And at the same time, I can be grateful For everything that my body does for me, and also for the beauty I have. Because it doesn't mean that I'm not beautiful enough just Because I have more weight than I want to. These are 2 very different things. And all too often, Our harsh inner critic jumps right in here and starts humiliating us in a way we would never do it with a close friend. Our inner critic can be so harsh and so mean.

Nadja Hagen [00:08:53]:
We would never treat a close friend of us in this way, Or even close to this. Acceptance means that I know where I am right now. And at the same time, I can have the desire to be somewhere else. It's like having a map in your hands. You need to know where you are located on this map right here, right now. Because otherwise, the best map won't help you to get where you want to go. When you hold your map in your hand and you clearly know where you're standing right now, then you can have the desire to move to somewhere else. And none of this has any judgment to it.

Nadja Hagen [00:09:38]:
The place you are at right now is as good as the place you want to go. And having the desire to move forward, to change things, to have goals, to better ourselves or improve ourselves or change ourselves, that doesn't mean that we are not good enough as we are. To strive for more, to have the desire for more or something else, this is part of our human experience. And as long as there's life force moving through us, we will have the desire To change something, to have something else, to move forward, to move around. But that doesn't mean, by no means, that it's not good where we are right now, Or that we need to start harshly and critically to ourselves just because we are where we are. And the next thing that comes to play here is that accepting where we are. If we combine this with gratitude, when I pick up my weight loss example, when I want to lose weight, and at the same time, I'm So grateful that my body is healthy, that my body is carrying throughout my day, throughout my whole life, that my body is Making it possible for me to have this human experience here on earth right now, then I have immense gratitude for my body. And at the same time, I want to improve my diet because I want to eat healthier.

Nadja Hagen [00:11:16]:
I want to feel more whiter. I want to make sure that I stay healthy when I grow older. And that's a beautiful reason to change. There is nothing judgmental, nothing bad about this at all. These are all good and pure intentions. And the moment you move into this energy, the moment you are able to see things as they are, to accept And to be grateful, while accepting that you have desires to move and change at the same time, There is peace moving in. And the moment we are peaceful, the moment we feel peace, That's the moment we center within ourselves, and that's where our power lies. If I'm constantly talking mean to myself, telling myself, oh, you will never lose weight, you will never be able to stick to your diet.

Nadja Hagen [00:12:16]:
I mean, seriously, how are my chances of continuously and successfully improving my diet? For me, it was a failure always when I have this approach. But the moment I allow myself to learn and to grow and to not be perfect, You know, every little healthy choice is a better choice than an unhealthy choice. And the moment I act out of this energy, Things start to change quickly, and I see results much quicker, much easier. And The journey is so much more fun than punishing myself for moving along. How do you feel about this? Can you relate? Understanding that self love starts with acceptance, and also with the acceptance That we have the desire to move and change, and that all this is human, is good, is natural, is healthy, is exactly As it is supposed to be, that in itself was a game changer. Approaching myself with this Attitude changed so much. I could finally look myself in the mirror and acknowledge that I'm not the most beautiful woman on earth And that I'm still beautiful. And I could also acknowledge that there will always be people who say, oh, look at her.

Nadja Hagen [00:13:42]:
She's ugly. And there will always be people who say, look at her. She's so beautiful. And none of this does measure my value or my beauty In any way, understanding the approach of acceptance and desire Liberated me from my constant inner critic, from the need to be perfect, and allowed me to be a human being That is constantly growing, learning, evolving, failing, because that is part of learning and evolution. And failing at something I mean, what is failing anyway? If you fail at something, It means that you just didn't get it right the 1st time or the 2nd time. And I think it's only failure If you stop trying afterwards and say, okay, I failed at this one. If not, it's just a normal part of learning, A normal part of human evolution and growth, which is beautiful. And this approach changed another thing for me.

Nadja Hagen [00:14:53]:
When I was judging myself so harshly before, it always came with, oh, it just doesn't matter what you do. It will never be enough. So don't even try to lose weight. Don't even try to improve your eating habits because you will fail anyway. Just doesn't matter, no matter what you do. This is discouraging. How can you even try to succeed when you think and feel like that? But the moment we give room to allow for growth, to allow for us to try out different things, different approaches, And to trust our inner wisdom that one approach might work better for us than the other without one approach being right and the other being wrong. We are so unique as humans.

Nadja Hagen [00:15:40]:
We are so different that there is no one fits all approach in most things. That changed so much for me, and it made so much room for being who I truly am, Allowing the room for growth and evolution, accepting the duality of, Okay. I don't like where I am right now, but it's okay. It's good to be here. I have a lot of things to be grateful for where I am right now, and at the same time, I want to go somewhere else. I have a desire to move. And it allowed me to travel on my own journey. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and gained some Thank you for listening to today's episode.

Nadja Hagen [00:16:37]:
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