Wil Fisher 0:00
Are we really Beloved, we are gathered here today for some juicy conversations about all things spiritually queer and clearly spiritual. I'm Sylvia will gather rainbow, spiritual life coach retreat hosts with the most, and drag queens, and I'll be chatting with the most amazing folks are simply sharing some wisdom on my own. If you like what I'm serving, please remember to subscribe so we can keep hanging out. Alright, let's get super wound together in this spiritually queer a cosmic container.
Blast off.
I love myself so much. I love my heart. I love my body. I love my mind, I love my creativity. I love my expression of self. I love this core energy that is me this unique vibration that gets to be in this world at this time. I love myself so much. And I'm so grateful to get to be me. And I am not going to spend this whole podcast gushing about my love for myself. But I am in this podcast going to talk about self love. So in this podcast, I'm going to talk about what does that even mean? I'm going to talk about self love versus self care. We're going to talk about unconditional self love, versus conditional self love. I'm also going to talk about what becomes possible when we have more self love in our lives, and the ways we can actively work towards cultivating more of it. Alright, beloved, I'm excited to go on this self love journey with you all. So let's begin shall we. I'll start by sharing the inspiration of that self love gush. I like the thought of gushing about my self love. So I was sitting here this morning, I knew I wanted to create a podcast about self love today. But I was sitting doing my morning rituals. And it was raining outside. And I had just finished singing with my Shruti box. And I was doing some morning pages just free flow writing. And as I was writing, I was just realizing how grateful I was an M for this life that I'm living right now in this moment, there are things that I don't have that I've been working towards, and they are no longer causing me any kind of upset. I'm deeply anchored in this peace and contentment and fulfillment for what I have, as I still am holding this desire for what I want to create and what I want to call in. But in this moment of realizing that I've anchored in this peace and joy in the present moment, I was also able to connect with this deep appreciation for myself. And this love for myself for the work that I've done to get to that point of peace and presence, and also the realization of who I am. And in connecting with the truth of who I am. It feels nearly impossible to not love the truth of who I am. And when I really connect to it, that's when the gushing happens. It doesn't hurt that I was also just in this blissful state, you know, wrapped in a warm poncho, sipping on this gorgeous cacao mix I'd created and really nurturing myself and these, these beautiful acts of self care that helped me remember how much I love myself. And it helped me connect with that. That capacity to experience the love that I feel for myself. And so when I think about what self love is, I think about one's capacity to be with the truth of who they are, and to connect with their heart and appreciate and love themselves in this ever expanding way. And it's like the more that we do love ourselves and appreciate ourselves, the more the truth of who we are is going to be revealed. And the more that the truth of who we are gets revealed, the easier it is to love ourselves because that truth is so beautiful and miraculous. Funnily are synchronistically the lesson of the day for me today I am a practicer of the Course in Miracles and so I Look at a lesson each day. And today I'm on lesson 993, which is light and joy and peace abide in me. The other piece to that is your sinless sinlessness, is guaranteed by God. And this reminder that what we truly are, is this divine light and joy and peace, that that is our truth that is the core of our essence. And yes, we're not always going to be present to that. And sometimes, and I'd say this is especially true for queer folks who society has taught, they are living in sin. And even if we have gotten to a point of not believing that consciously, there are some times still these unconscious thoughts around sin. So these thoughts that we are sinful, the stories that we are not good. These are the things that keep us from realizing the truth of our light, and joy and peace, which is inherent in all of us, which is part of our divine design by God. God created us that way, we don't have to do anything to be that that just is who we are. And when we are able to remember that and connect to that truth, self love comes really easily. And I want to acknowledge that it can be challenging, cultivating self love and being present to our self love. And so now I want to spend some time speaking about some of the nuances of the path to self love. And I'll start by talking about self care versus self love. And what I've found is that a lot of people mistake those things. And they think that if they are committed to acts of self care, then they must be anchored in self love. And it's not always true. And sometimes what that looks like is people who are over indulging in these acts of self care, essentially, like spoiling themselves, and not actually allowing these things to connect their hearts to that deep appreciation for self. I think a good comparison or analogy might be a mother who's really disconnected from their heart, and and also disconnected from their kid. And so they just want their kid to feel loved because they feel like that's what mothers should do. And so they're buying them these extravagant things and taking them to places and feeding them candy. And the kid might be enjoying themselves and appreciative of their mom, but is that kid actually receiving the love that they need. And so when we think about self care and self love, it's not to say to let go have those acts of self care, but to really be mindful and intentional about those acts and how we receive them. And so they can be really effective. I was mentioning earlier this morning that, you know, I was wrapped in this warm poncho, I was listening to the rain outside, I had this beautiful guitar music playing in the background, as I sipped my cacao, this mix that I've made with, I don't know, like 10 ingredients, you know, that I put love into as well. And I was able to get present to all those pieces, and allow those acts of service that created that experience, to be received in a way that I knew it was coming from this place of self love. And in knowing that it was coming from this true self love, I was able to feel the nourishment and the nurturing of my heart as a result of those acts. So it's not to say to let go of these self care acts, but also not to be fooled into thinking that if I go get my nails done, and go spend a bunch of money on myself, that these are all proof that I have self love or they are going to create self love. It's true that they can support us in feeling loved these acts of self care. but it can also be kind of a band aid. And so we just want to be really intentional about these acts of self care, and how they are interfacing with our cultivation of self love.
So, the other piece to this is the difference or distinction between self love and unconditional self love. So one of the things that I came into realization of recently was that my self love was conditional. I started to recognize that because although I felt like I was really loving myself, and in this high that comes from, from love, I was also noticing that when things weren't going my way, in terms of what I was creating or accomplishing, or the success that I was aiming towards, that the high would go away, and that I would find these self critical thoughts and voices coming back into my head. And I was really challenged to love myself when I wasn't accomplishing at the level that I wanted to accomplish. And so that's when I started to realize that the self love that I was cultivating was conditional self love. And I was able to see that ultimately, conditional self love isn't true self love, it is a strategy to keep us working towards these goals towards these frames of success that we desire. And the realization was, what if I could still be highly motivated, passionate even about the desires that I have, and the commitment that I have to working towards them. Without this game of you have to do that, and create those things and accomplish those things. Otherwise, you don't get love. Right, again, going back to the mother and child example, it would be a mother who's putting so much pressure on their kid to get good grades, and really rewarding them with love, only when they bring home the a plus. And when they don't, you know, being cold. And so the realization of I don't have to be that way I can be super loving and supportive and nurturing, even when I'm not hitting the marks that I want. And I will still be motivated to keep working and keep trying. And so that has been a change for me a shift in my vibration, where when I'm not hitting the marks that I want, I'm still really loving myself and really nurturing myself and really keeping the critical voice, the saboteur, all those parts of me that get in the way of my self love and me experiencing myself love, I'm able to keep them at bay. And the way I do this is by bringing more awareness to my everyday life and bringing more awareness to the thoughts and emotions that I'm experiencing. And when I noticed that those thoughts are not being very loving, not being very nurturing, not being very supportive, I start to question it, I start to get curious about where these thoughts are coming from, what parts of me are having these thoughts and making these stories and making these meanings and making these assumptions? And what do those parts need? What are they trying to get at? Because ultimately, I know that even those self sabotaging thoughts, they are just misdirected. They are trying to help me they're trying to serve me. They're trying to keep me safe and protected, and helped me survive, but they're misdirected. And so when I'm able to actually have some compassion for those parts of myself, I'm able to get closer to the truth of where they're coming from, and help get them more aligned with what I actually do need in order to be safe, protected, and nurtured and nourished. And the other thing that I do to help myself cultivate more self love, is I work with the love languages, right? So many people have applied this idea of the love languages to their romantic partners, and I invite folks to apply them to themselves. So for those not familiar the love languages are a model for the ways that we At most like to give and receive love the ways that we resonate with giving and receiving love the most. And so those different possibilities those languages, as they're expressed in this model are the following words of affirmation, acts of service, gift giving, quality time, and physical touch. And most people who have worked with the love languages have worked with them in the context of relationship with others. So in order to help you reframe this to self love cultivation, I'm going to express each of these and talk about what that could look like. So in terms of words of affirmation, that goes back to what I was just sharing around these moments of awareness, when we notice that we are not speaking kindly to ourselves, when we are using that critical voice and making meaning of things that are not helpful and creating stories that are not helpful. And sometimes just being really mean to ourselves, in our voice, that inner critic noticing when we're doing that, taking the time to clear those things, right, seeing where they're coming from, and processing in order to release them, which, you know, can be a challenging process, it's definitely a process that I serve, serve my clients and support them in. And there are other resources to help you move through those. But to release those, and in place of them to choose words that are affirming words that are kind and loving and nurturing, to remind yourself, how much you appreciate yourself and how incredible you are an amazing you are and to, to help anchor those truths by speaking those words, either out loud, or in your head or written down. But to really use the power of words to help you cultivate that self love. The next is acts of service. And I was mentioning how earlier today I made this cacao concoction with all these ingredients. And when I was doing it, I was feeling this appreciation for myself that I was creating it and putting the time and energy into it because I knew I would get to enjoy it. Right. And so it could also look like making the bed in the morning, your bed in the morning, right. And the idea is to not make your bed feeling resentful that you have to do this chore, but to do it, knowing that you are doing this for yourself, knowing that in you committing to this act of service, you are giving yourself the experience of having a beautifully made bed all day. And that night when you go to your bed, it's all made for you. And so really seeing how these acts of service are commitments, they are expressions of your commitment to loving yourself, gift giving would look like choosing to buy that sweater that makes you feel really cozy or choosing to buy yourself that delicious, healthy meal. And again, it's the energy behind these things that is really important. So it's not about spoiling yourself and, and using the gift giving as a band aid. But it's actually being super mindful that I am choosing to spend this money or to acquire this thing in order to express this commitment to myself love. The next is quality time. And so what this looks like is spending time with ourselves. You know, for so many of us, a lot of our time is spent serving others or being with others. And we don't take the time to be with ourselves and give ourselves the spaciousness to notice what we're experiencing notice what thoughts and emotions were present to notice our energy and to create that spaciousness, to be with ourselves can be really nourishing to our hearts and be a beautiful act of self love. And so I invite you to create some time for that. That last one is physical touch. So this one's obvious when you're thinking about a relationship, you know, hugging or making out. But when you're thinking about yourself, this could look like hugging yourself. This could look like massaging yourself or self pleasuring yourself. And again, doing it from this intention of loving yourself loving your body, loving the physical presence that you are on this planet at this time. So those are the Love Languages as applied to self love capping off this section of the podcast talking about the ways we can cultivate self love, I just want to circle back to the things I was speaking about at the very start of this episode, where I was sharing about coming back to the truth of who we are. And I think that is ultimately the most powerful access to our self love. Because when we are present to our actual truth, it's almost impossible not to have this overflowing, ever expanding experience of love for ourselves. And of course, it's a journey to get there to get to the truth of who we are. It's a journey that I am certainly still on. But I just want to bring that back as the ultimate and perhaps most powerful way to access our self love. And I think all these other hacks or these other strategies can help us get there. And again, when we are able to connect with the truth of who we are, and express that truth, more and more self love, just naturally unfolds and expands within our experience. And when that happens, when we're able to connect with more self love, able to cultivate more self love, able to anchor more self love, then we naturally do express ourselves in our truth and share our gifts in the world. And we do show up in this higher vibration, which attracts high vibration things and people into our lives, which makes it just easier and easier to love our lives and love ourselves. And so, so much beauty and so many blessings. And so many miracles can come when we truly love to love ourselves unconditionally, and show ourselves this love in all these amazing, beautiful, pleasurable, joyful ways. And we get to experience the life that we desire when we are anchored in self love. And so regardless of where you're out on that journey, because it is a journey, it is a spectrum, right, we are probably every day, somewhere on this spectrum of really, truly loving ourselves or still being in this state of upset and not fully embracing who we are, we are always somewhere on that spectrum. And I invite you to be gentle and graceful and compassionate about where you are. And know that you can keep moving towards more self love, keep cultivating more self love. And it's certainly something that I love supporting my clients with. So if you ever do want support in that journey, I love doing that in my virtual containers, working with people on Zoom. And doing that in my personal retreats where people come and spend a couple of days with me, or doing that in my group retreat. So if that's of interest, if you need support in your journey towards self love, please do reach out. I'm always here for you and here for that journey. But I hope this episode helped inspire you to put some more time and energy and awareness to your journey towards self love. Because I know that so many miracles await you as you cultivate that beautiful self love that is your birthright. So many blessings to you my beloved's Thank you for listening and have a beautiful day.
Oh my goddess Beloved's What a joy it was to be with you today. Let's hang out again soon. Okay. And if you can think of a friend who would benefit from hearing this, please share it with them. Sending so much love and light to you today and every day. Until next time, peace