Self Love Panel: You Attract The Energy You Create. Discover Why Self-Love Is Crucial To Your Happiness And Success, According To Our Expert Panel

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. So, oh my gosh, you guys, the time is here. We are doing it again. We have the do the Thing Dating dare challenge. Real challenge this time. The first one was a beta challenge. We did a 100 people in a beta group for 17 days and we had a panel interview introducing the challenge, which was really exciting. And we uncovered so many amazing things. We got perspectives on so many different people to be able to figure out how to actually get out of your comfort zone and date in the wild and be able to meet people that you can attract that are good for you. And it was such an amazing experience. And then the challenge was after that and we were able to really just get into this amazing flow and had great feedback from the participants and took that. And now we have a five week challenge coming up starting October 3rd, which is coming up soon. And everyone's getting really excited. And I really had to work hard to figure out what would be the one thing that could really move the needle to make sure that this was something that was going to be truly transformational in your life, not only to find someone that you are attracted to, but also to feel good and to be able to attract the right person. And so what ended up coming up was actually being able to write down every day what you love about yourself. And so with that, there's so much in there that I want to unpack. And I wanted to tell you guys, if you're not part of the do the Thing Dating dare challenge or you're not single, you're not looking for love, still listen to this because this is going to be extremely valuable information that we're going to cover. If you it's not just going to be about dating. It's not going to be just about the dating challenge. It's really on the importance of being able to express what you love about yourself and having that be able to vibrate out. So that's what you're starting to attract. So I'm so excited we have the panel back. We have several of the members that were here the last time and we have a new member. So I'm going to go ahead and say hi to them and I'll have them each introduce their amazing selves to you guys. So welcome to the show. Panel for Love. So I'm going to go ahead and have you guys just introduce yourself. Why don't we start with you, Nick, since you're our newbie here. I'm so excited to have you. I just mentioned to you offline that I've been. We got connected through Kate Middleton, who was on the last panel and has been someone that I've relied on for so long. And I got introduced to your podcast and have been like obsessively listening to each episode and just absorbed with everything and so excited and inspired by the things that you're sharing. So I'm just excited to have you on. But anyway, feel free to share who you are and, and why you think you're here.

I feel the excitement just to start and really appreciate it. There's something that is amplifying about this much energy and I love when it's aimed at me, so that feels fantastic. Why do I think I'm here? So who I am, I am a stand for what's possible in life, for individuals and for the world. My project is shifting a bit, so the podcast that you've been listening to, I'm now shifting to a new thing, but they're similar. So that one was the Life Athletics podcast, looking at Life like it was a game or a sport. So what's your game? What are your rules? How do you win? And looking at each individual like we're playing slightly different games and letting that be okay and seeing how our games can maybe vibe and match. And now I'm sort of looking at humanity as a whole as well as the individual. So macro and micro and a project called Next Us. And so that's going to be launching soon. And the idea is that humanity is operating the same way that an individual does when the individual does not have clear goals and is carrying trauma. So how do we go from that space to, well, where are we going? Because we don't have clear goals. So we're going to be talking about that and looking at pathways to get there. So those two ideas are very connected. And I think I'm here because this is what I stand for. I stand for beauty and love and excitement.

So that's amazing. I love it.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And then Genesis, most of you know pretty well because she has done an episode that was very spicy and got a lot of great feedback. But I wanted to go ahead and have you just share a little bit about you just for the panel.

Of course. Hi, everyone. My name is Genesis and I am an erotic blueprints coach. I am passionate about helping people have more pleasure in their lives. And that is everything from sexual pleasure and sensual pleasure all the way down to the little itty bitty things of daily life and finding joy and appreciation in them. So excited to be back with you again, Stacy. Yay.

And Kate, why don't you go next And I just told about you, so. Sure. Yeah.

Hello, everyone. I'm so happy to be back and be in this with you all. I'm Kate and I'm a somatic therapist and most of my work is founded in somatic attachment therapy, which is essentially a foundation for feeling safe and alive in your body and your relationships in the world. So I'm here because I believe that that's also a found to fun, exciting, juicy, pleasurable connections and creativity. And yeah, that's a little bit about me.

Thank you.

And Dr. Nancy also has had several episodes and you guys know her really well, but I'll have you go ahead. Just for the people that are new listening, just share a little bit about you as well.

Yeah. Welcome to this is an amazing challenge. It was so much fun and people really broke through and expanded. Their growth is really, it was really beautiful to see how everybody grabbed a little bit from everybody. My name is Nancy and I'm a retired psychologist now a holistic life Coach with a PhD in Clinical Psychology and tons of training in energy psychology and alternative modalities. Reiki, nlp, emdr, like any acronym you can imagine, I've taken it. I just a maternal student and when I work with my clients, I use a lot of my intuitive gifts. I was fortunate to be raised by two very spiritual parents in a country, Venezuela, that was actually very, very spiritual as well. And so I was able to witness and experience something beyond this life. And now I help people integrate their experiences, either journeys or life experiences. I help them integrate and move through life and create that flow to connect to that spirituality and inner pe.

So can I just say how amazing it is to be able to orchestrate having like all of these amazing people come together for a common goal, and that's to get you guys to say what you love about yourself every day. And I'm Just. So I feel so honored that we're being able to do this right now. So I just wanted to speak to that. So why don't we talk about what this. This core. This core thing is that I'm having them do pretty much during this challenge. So every day. And this is in addition to they're going to have daily dares and they're going to have accountability call. There's a lot of other things integrated in this challenge, but we'll specifically talk about the piece of why it's important for. Or why. Why is it important? And what can they get out of actually writing down every day what you love about yourself? And so because I think there might be some people that might say, oh, that's stupid kind of thing, and there might be others that are all for it, and they're like, I love myself, of course I do. I just want to make sure that everyone kind of like sees the benefits and understands what can actually come from it. And whatever else comes from this topic is what I'm hoping for. So who wants to start so I can dive in?

One of the things that. And I hope this is okay, because for me, the purpose isn't for people to write down what they love about themselves, the beautiful process, but through that process, the purpose is feeling loved, feeling like one is worthy of love and belonging and joy and excitement and all of these. These different elements. And I think that it's essential for us to like. The idea that we can't be loved until we love ourselves, I don't think is true. I think people can love us whether we do or not, but we can't feel it until we do. And so I think that this. This journey that you have people going on is. Is really beautiful for that purpose because I think it aligns a person with. With their own worthiness. I think that's essential.

What's coming to my mind when you're talking about that, it's like some people are just focused on meeting the person, right? But when you meet the person, then you're with the person. And when you're with the person, if you're not in feeling love yourself, then all these things can come up when you're in relationship that can bring out a lot of different sides. And so the more love that you feel for yourself, the more it makes it easier to expand depending on what ends up happening with that partner.

I agree with that. I mean, I've certainly witnessed people who wouldn't allow another person to love them more than they love themselves. And thus they were in these relationships that kind of perpetuated this idea that they were unlovable. It was a deep wound that they had. And once working on self love and really finding that within themselves, they discovered they were worthy of being loved. And they then sought out relationships where they were receiving a deeper level of love than they were previously willing to accept.

Definitely. And Kate, Dr. Nancy, you guys want to chime in on this one? Yeah.

So I actually, I love this practice because I love reflection and use journaling a lot myself and have for a very long time. And I believe that it sparks action. It's like the first step towards aligning your beliefs with your actions behind them and also clarifying what you might be doing that is not in alignment with this belief of self worth or self love that you're working towards. I see this as a necessary starting point so that you can actually check throughout this challenge and beyond that, what you're doing is matching how you want to feel and the beliefs you want to step into. If you're. You're in this practice of writing down something that you love about yourself every day. Oh, I love my zest for life, or I love my playful spirit. Okay, and what are you doing? How are you acting on that and bringing that out into the world?

Definitely.

I want to add a little piece to that, which I agree completely with everybody. The reason why we are going out to date is because we're looking for that love and that connection. We want to share life with another person, but often we tend to look for someone else to make us feel a certain way. We're looking for that validation outside of ourselves. Like many of you said, I think that the first step is when you are writing down that those words of love, what you're going to face is how much are you really loving yourself? And that is that creating that awareness is so important. Because if you're not aware that maybe you're carrying trauma, maybe you're feeling needy, maybe you're empty, if you're not aware of that, then you'll engage in relationships or maybe not at all that are going to sort of play a part in that emptiness and in that wound. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think that relationships are mirrored for us. They're beautiful ways of healing our wounds. But at times we tend to say, oh, that person, it's not good for me. Let me cut out, let me find another one. Instead of like really seeing what is it that I need to learn and heal from each relationship. Another piece that I wanted to add to this is the more the psychological and scientific, you know, biological aspect of writing notes or telling something to yourself is when we grow up. Not everybody had the experience of parents or caretakers that were, wow, good job. Oh, my gosh, you're amazing. That's so good. You can conquer the world. Like, not everybody had those experiences. What we heard was like, you're so stupid. Get out of here. Or not even words, maybe actions of like, oh, you're annoying me. And so we need to sort of rewire those comments because they're still there. When we absorb all that information growing up, we start believing them. We're children and we believe that our parents, our caretakers, are gods. And so we believe that what they're saying is true. And so in order for us to rewire those messages, I think it's important to do not only a mental activity, but also integrate the body by writing, integrating both sides of the hemispheres, integrating the neurotransmitters and all the neural connections, and rewiring all of those messages. So that's my, my piece there.

This is now when I'm going to connect it to even more stuff. Because when you're saying that piece of looking for relationship to validate something that's outside of ourselves, what's coming to my mind with that is like, even that's how I got into sales, which I'm not going to use a psychological session right now, but when I, When I learned I was good at sales, I all of a sudden got all this validation. So that was the way that I was able to then feel better about myself. And that something I worked through, I've been working through still is finding love inside myself. And that's why I probably think this is so important, because it's so easy to go outside of yourself. Oh, I'm going to start a business because I want to feel that love. Or I want to do this athletic thing. I can't think of anything right now but, like some sports thing. Like, I want to get that rah rah kind of thing from everyone else where we have to feel it from inside. And that's, that's really what this practice is. It's. It's learning. Loving yourself is a mindset and it's a. It's a muscle that you practice daily to be able to start to, like Nick said, really feel it. Not just write it, not just say it, but actually start to absorb it. And I was just wanting to see if you guys wanted to speak to that as well.

There's a couple things that I wanted to touch on real quick. There's been so much gold. So Dr. Nancy mentioned that relationships are often mirrors and that they can be a wonderful place for healing. I sometimes think of the mirror concept like a fun house full of mirrors that distort. And so I don't look the same in front of all of these mirrors. Right. People see me differently. Each one can be a mirror reflecting me a certain way. What I think that a practice like this does is it allows me to calibrate to what I think my actual real normal is and to say this is the reflection that I will see as me and to then cut out reflections that don't feel appropriate to me. Right? Not from an ego place, not from anything other than like landed centered meditative practices of. This is what I like about myself, right? So finding mirrors, right. Kate and I have been friends for years because I feel mirrored in a really beautiful way. Right. I like the me that is around. When Kate's around, I feel better about life. I think she's phenomenal. So hopefully she feels the same way around me. I think she does. And as much as I think that relationships are healing, that's not what I want a romantic relationship for. So the more healing that I can do ahead of time, right. I probably won't get everything, but if I can show up as the healthiest version of myself possible, then I think that's also a gift for the people that I meet, for myself, because I get to live from that place and so on. So this kind of work where I'm reflecting on my own specialness and beauty is important on many levels.

I also wanted to kind of touch on this. Looking for love from external sources or looking for validation from external sources. I often see that someone who doesn't have a self, strong self love or strong self worth is kind of like a bucket with holes in it. So no matter how much gets poured in, how much validation gets poured in from the business, or how much love gets poured in from the relationship, if you've got holes in your bucket, you'll never get filled up. And so I view this practice as one where you're patching your holes, you're patching the places where, where the love is escaping and not really filling you up.

I do have to say it's so much easier being single than being in a relationship because a relationship is going to make you face your demons. And so part of patching those holes, I love the analogy and also seeing the mirrors on everybody is Having the courage to face a relationship and face yourself in that relationship and face your wounds and your trauma, we can easily avoid all confrontations. You know, live in the Himalayas and you know, not deal with anybody, that would be lovely. But that doesn't make us grow, that doesn't make us expand as humans and beings, you know, in general.

I feel like some of my demons have been omnipresent. Just they're, they're just there, whether other people are or not. But the whole analogy, the metaphor I think is, is really powerful. And there's a. Another angle. So I totally agree with that. One of the things that a practice of self love does for me is it lets me find the gaps in my armor, the space where maybe I've left a side door open where I can be easily wounded if I don't appreciate myself sort of fully. And I'm speaking around something that happened not too long ago where someone. I was giving access to me, it was just hurting, just hurting. And as I started dropping into my own self worth, I was able to close that door. It was almost like a fortified castle. And there was this side door that was just open that I was feeling wounded in. So the holes go both ways. It's just a drainage of energy, no matter how we look at it. But I think being able to feel self contained and integr like in integrity, structural integrity, I think is, is essential.

Getting a kick out of that because I, for my own personal path, I described that I was an ice princess. I had created this tower, I had built a moat with alligators and I had the drawbridge up and locked and I wasn't letting anybody in. Like what Dr. Nancy was saying, I was like, nope, I am single and I'm not letting anybody in because it's going to hurt me. And through my journey, through my path, I was able to let down that drawbridge. I was able to send the crocodiles on their way. I was able to start removing those pieces of armor that were keeping me far from making connection with other humans and particularly that deep, special relationship. And it has been this process of removing the armor and building the trust and letting people in and being able to have unbelievable depth and connection at a level that I had no idea was even possible for the longest time.

I love that. I think it leans into. Brene Brown talks about how not everyone is worthy of your vulnerability. And so, right, you might have had the, the ice castle up. Right, Drawbridge up. I was brought up feeling like I was somehow bad if I defended myself. That I wasn't allowed to have boundaries and barriers in certain areas. Right. And because I'm so big you can't see on the screen. There's a little on the screen, but I'm 6 foot 6 and I'm a big dude. I was so afraid of being hurtful so I thought I was being noble just letting anyone have access to certain places. So for me, being able to have boundaries actually allowed deeper connections with the people that I chose to let in. For you letting it down. So I think it's really important to. It's not a one size fits all.

Exactly.

Everyone's in a different place. Some people need to put the boundaries up, some people need to take them down. And so I love that all this is coming up.

Nick, I have a question for you.

Sure.

In regards to self love, what's your experience as a man? Because I'm seeing women's. How we have a pattern and I'm wondering if it's different from men.

What? Do you want to explain the pattern?

Yeah.

No, like I wonder how do you see self love? Because when I think of self love from the point of view of a woman and. Or a female, you know, it doesn't have to be male or female, but woman or man in. But from the female aspect, I see it as being vulnerable, loving ourselves, being able to heal our wounds and letting others see us and I don't know, open ourselves up in that way. Is that the same for male energies or would you say?

I think ultimately there's a similarity on both sides. I think everyone wants love and belonging to people want to feel seen and met and appreciated. I think it shows up differently. The conversation around self love tends to be right now spearheaded and led by women and guys I think generally have a I just need to soldier on and endure approach. Right. Happy wife, happy life. Just make sure everyone else is okay and not a lot of credit gets given to that sacrifice. That's just taken as what's expected. I think that more and more men are exploring the idea of self love. But I think that it has been embedded generationally. Women and children first, right. In any dangerous situation, we need to make sure everyone else is okay first by run men's groups and creating a space where guys can be heard. There's no coaching, no advice giving in my groups just because guys are so overdone with being told how to be. And so creating a space where people could just be okay for men was huge. I also want to say that my access to self love and self healing came through this really weird and maybe like bear with me for a moment. Combination of, of concepts. I don't know if you've seen the movie Inside out from Pixar. I love that movie. So I was going through. I've had two bad breakups. This was one of them. And people saw my energy was off and people kept giving me advice that I was dismissing. You really just need to tap into your inner feminine. It's like, thank you. I'm. I just wasn't open to it. Someone said he might really benefit from looking at your relationship with your inner woman and the shift in language there from feminine. Right. Just as in, in your question to me, you were saying, well, feminine can be in different bodies. It feels like a concept. But a woman, I could picture a person, right. Masculine and feminine inside of that person. And so I started picturing my inner woman as part of this team, like in Inside Out. And where was she? She wasn't in the control room. Oh, she'd been locked out. She was mad about it. So I went through this whole process of having to reconnect my inner woman. I have a tattoo over on my arm. And so as I started to realize that she'd been neglected, essentially I was neglecting myself. And I was treating any woman, right, friend or lover, like just a woman with way more respect than I was giving to myself. Right. If I was going to lunch with a friend who was a woman, we would go to a nice place. Doesn't have to be expensive, but nicer. On my own, just give me calories, just fuel. Let's go. Right. A mattress on the floor. It was fine. And it wasn't until I started tending to my inner woman. Right. That I was able to access those things. So I moved into a two story villa in Bali, right. Even here, I'm living in Mexico City. I just bought myself a king size bed and making sure that I'm taken care of. But as a guy, I was meant to soldier on, endure, be fine, don't complain. And it was a very different thing. So I, my, my access to it was doing an end run around a lot of those blocks and directing love at a woman who happened to be part of my own psyche.

I'm trying to imagine the, the listeners who are single women and they want to know the ins and outs of a guy's mind. And this is so, so helpful. I really appreciate it. And I wonder though, what's in your mind when you see single women? I'm just curious about that interaction. How do you do you know when a woman is loving herself or not. Can you pick that up? Is that something recognizable? Like.

Well, I think it is, yeah. I think that it's maybe not obvious to everybody, but I've been at this for a while. The there is something inherent in a person, masculine, feminine, man, woman, whatever, when they have their basic needs met internally. Right? There isn't a. I mean, I wrote a post about myself a couple Valentine's days ago around this tattoo and the experience I just shared. And I said that I was a walking need balm before I started doing this work. And people can mask that however they they want. But if, if you're at all attuned to the person in front of you, not just projecting, you'll see it. Right. And so need and blame people who, who aren't necessarily going in and doing their own work, live in need and blame a lot. It's your fault, right? You might be everybody that I don't have what I want that I'm not experiencing. And so I don't think that all single people are in that space, but person who's maybe not anchored into a self love practice and embodied experience of it, I think has, has that for sure.

So I think one of the fundamental pieces of this practice of writing down what you love about yourself every day over a five week challenge means that you're going to exhaust what you've been told to like about yourself really quickly. Like hopefully within about three to five days you'll have to start to stretch and consider what you actually see to be qualities that you love about yourself. And then you can get out of sort of the resumes or the profiles that you've put together, some idealized image of yourself and you can start to be more authentically you and take pride in that and then be seen in and as that as well. And I think there's so much, especially in the dating world of censoring or sort of hemming in aspects of yourself so as not to be too much. And especially for women, it's pretty common to have the too much wound and to hold back. I see this practice as a way of giving yourself permission to be more yourself in the public eye. And hopefully that goes beyond dating and that that means you'll attract people to you and people who want to be around you for more of who you are. And you don't have to live this hemmed in censored version because that never works anyways. You'll get found out and it's just a matter of time. So hopefully this cuts to the chase a little bit sooner and allows you to have more fun with it. That's a piece that I'd like to bring into this too is that it can be really fun and playful to love yourself and to heal these wounds. Let's say if we're talking about it in that perspective that actually integration and self compassion and awareness and doing the deep work can be a lot of fun. And yes, it's probably going to get very messy and awkward and I think that's actually part of the fun. I get a lot of joy out of awkwardness myself. I would say just as a suggestion going into this to let it be a playful practice. And it's not like this homework you have to slog at every day. But you could just keep an open mind with it and maybe hold it with some lightness of like, oh, what might emerge from this today? What might I find find out about myself and what else can I celebrate about myself?

Yeah.

And the idea of going beyond the surface so much. Right. Like clearing the familiar. Is there certain things that people say about me? I'm tall. Right. Every day someone will talk about that and usually they sound complimentary. When people acknowledge me for something deeper than that, it lands so much more fully. And I really love that. And then the idea of fun. Right. I'm going through something recently that hurt and I realized that my fun was very muted and joy and bringing again self love practices back into my system. I've been playful again and. And so I think that's such a vital part of all this because we're not enjoying it. What's the point? To check off some lists. I'm in a relationship now. I enjoy it, love it.

Yeah. I think that's. That's interesting too with the acknowledging something deeper about yourself because you're also then you're then able to see it in other people too. Some of the dares are compliment a stranger and it's almost they might actually notice something even deeper about the stranger because they're going deeper within themselves. I hadn't considered that this could actually help from that perspective also of being able to notice what's within that person by actually doing this practice with yourself.

When NLP they talk about that how you can only perceive that which is already a part of you. And so like perception is projection, all of these ideas. But I think very much the more we appreciate ourselves, the more energy and generosity we can have. The very least for other people.

I also love thinking about the collection of items that they're going to have. I mean, we all have days where we're just not feeling so great. How awesome will it be to pull out this list? Just read through it. Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm really awesome. And that's going to give you that little boost on a day when you're not feeling so hot.

Does everyone know who Wayne Dyer is?

Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

He says this thing says that there's two meanings to the word appreciation. There's actually three, but let's go with two. And one of them is to see the value in something, whether it's yourself or something external. The. The other definition that he uses is for something to increase in value. So you buy a stock and it appreciates in value. Home appreciates in value, goes up in value. He says that when you appreciate something, you yourself appreciate in value, energetically, vibrationally. And so I often do a practice on my own and encourage other people to go out into the world and appreciate things, big or small, whatever it might be. But I'm really excited at this project because it has, again, layers to the goodness. As we appreciate ourselves, we can appreciate other people. It gives permission to do that. There's a courage and a bravery because a lot of people are terrified to say a nice thing to a stranger, right? To acknowledge even a friend. And how many people like the stories of people saying that their parents never told them they loved them? Did they not love them? Or could they not express it? And I think this is practicing the muscle of appreciation inwardly. And we can go out with it as well.

Something that came to my mind was this little jar that you can make. You can put words in it. It says, so thank thankful for you. And this was a technique that I used to use in groups with my clients, where every day you put something inside, something that you're proud of or you're grateful for about yourself. And then at the end of the year, as a way of celebrating, you open it up and you read them all. And it could also be used for when you're not feeling so high, you're like, let me just remember all the things. So that just came to mind.

I love that.

Yeah, I'm doing that today.

I used to have a file called Nice Things About Nick. Like, if people sent me a nice letter, I was saving them all because, like, before I understood what trauma was, I didn't realize how much of it I had in my system. And so it was so necessary to find some positivity somewhere. And so doing that again for yourself can be hugely Hugely powerful. I started doing audio recordings of things that I started this years ago, but things that I wished someone had said to me the way that I wished I'd been parented and just saying it out loud. And it's been. It's been a beautiful journey.

And something I wanted to speak to also is in the challenge that we just had. We did have a few of these days where I gave them a dare to say what they loved about themselves and then to also look in the mirror and say what they loved, loved about themselves. And it was beautiful. I got the most. The most feedback from those days, I think, than any other dares that we had. And I'm really realizing there were some people that the reason why they liked the challenge, and it was only 17 days, so there wasn't that much time, but they. They really liked how we first focused on the inside and then they were able to focus on the outside, because someone might actually start this challenge and go, I'm actually not even ready to, like, meet my relationship yet. I have more work to do. So that might happen as someone's going through this practice, learning to love themselves again. So I wanted to go through kind of that piece is because a lot of the people that are coming into this are people that were married a long time and they're newly single, and they're kind of re. Establishing their identity. And then people that are. Their kids just moved out of the house and they're kind of getting into this whole new phase of life. It's just different. All different types of people. But that's kind of the.

The.

The phoenix is emerging again and not wanting to live this prescribed life. Right. And so some of them are beat down, they're getting out of it, but then they think they want to date. And so that's where I think this practice will help because they'll see they. The work they need to do still. And then there's other people that are doing great, and then this will only help amplify that. But where I'm going with this is I wanted to almost start with the. The worst case of like, someone that's looking at themselves and they're like, I can't see anything that I love about myself. And I had just interviewed a wilderness therapist. She's a middle school wilderness therapist recently, who had. And I wanted to speak to that first, then we can move forward. Who had said that some of the times with the kids that can't think of anything good in a day, she would be like, well, what doesn't suck about today. And there's something that I really love about that because there are days that you might look at yourself and not know what's good. And just by almost doing it in that way, it kind of opens up the access point a little bit more to get it started. And then the portal opens. So can we kind of just talk through that more? We can start at the. The bottom end because, like, what is this practice going to look like? We're talking about them writing it down and them embodying it. Any thoughts on any of that? I wanted to just kind of get that out there.

Yeah.

I would say as a starting point for someone who's in that for a day or even throughout the whole challenge, I'd say, can you remember a time when you did feel love towards yourself or appreciation or acceptance? And can you bring up that memory and relive it for a moment and just even get like a little taste of it now in your body as a practice to reopen that pathway of experience? So that's one or another. Could be. Can you imagine someone who, when you're around this person, you get some of their energy and you get to soak in that. It's like maybe they're. I have this one mentor in my life and I say she's unconditional love on legs. And when I'm with her, it's just like, oh, I just bathe in it and want to sponge it up. And even just thinking about her and speaking of her now, I feel so warm and full of love. And so you can use different access points to drum up some feeling of love or appreciation. And sometimes that's necessary. Sometimes that's really necessary. Another one that I use is just being around the energy of nature in the outdoors to feel a sense of love or inspiration or connection. So can you imagine, can you put yourself in an environment, either internal or external, that has you feeling some bit of goodness or yumminess or love as a starting place? Then for the piece on if people come up against this and realize, like, oh, maybe I'm not ready to actually meet my person, I would say that this is a challenge for you to define for yourself. And dating can be for the purpose of just putting yourself out there and getting more comfortable, maybe flirting with another or having deeper conversations or sharing more about yourself, and that it doesn't have to be for the end goal of meeting your person within this five week challenge. And so I'd say make this meaningful for you in this moment of your life.

I love that piece of making sure that the game. Is that the appropriate size for you right now, Right? For me, I've only started accessing interest in women again. I didn't realize that it was muted, but suddenly being able to look around and say, oh, she's interesting, is a huge win. I don't need anything more to happen right now. This is, this is feeling really good. And, and so just allowing one, like allowing myself to be where I'm at. And I want to definitely encourage the participants to allow themselves to be where they're at because it's such a damaging thing to say this or bust, like life partner or bust. And when, when just having some delight in another human who might not be your human, your forever person or whatever, but just delighting in the presence of someone else, I think is really, really sweet. And then, yeah, being able to access, I think this touches into it whatever you can currently access to find appreciation with. Sometimes I shrink it down. And I've worked with people who say, well, this pen that you have on your desk, do you like that pen? You bought this pen, do you enjoy using? And it's something that isn't emotionally connected to maybe what we're talking about. But as soon as they can access appreciation for something, remember walking down the street and this person I was talking to could not access appreciation for anything. And I, I sort of interrupted the pattern and said, do you like that tree there? Yeah, it's a nice tree. Great. What do you like about it? I love the color. Do you like the color? And then, yeah, it's, it's a beautiful, like shade of green. And when we just went from, from there and a couple steps in, their system was totally different. And I think it's really important to tune into where our system is and build from there. So I just delve in.

I want to add affirmations, right? People say, oh, I'm going to say a bunch of affirmations. But if these words are not resonating with my truth, they're just going to sound like lies, you know, that I'm going to repeat. And so what the psychologist, the treatment center did was such a, like, amazing thing technique. Because what she did was say, okay, the gap between where you're at to where you wish to be is way too big. So let's shorten it. Let's shorten my simplifying. And perhaps it's not about, I love myself and everything in me. Perhaps it's not that. Perhaps, perhaps it's something a little closer to where you're at something like, I feel okay, you know, I guess. I guess I'm healthy, you know, something to get, like, what you were saying, the tree, just something simpler that feels more like a resonance. Something I remember working at treatment centers was that at times, people were so hopeless, feeling so hopeless, helpless, so beat down that there was no resource inside of them to be able to grab anything. And I remember them just saying, sorry, I can't think of anything to be hopeful about. I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. And so what I would tell them was, let me be your hope. Get on my back, and I'll carry you until you can see the hope. So what that meant was, just trust me in this process, in this journey, and let me tell you, trust me that there is a light. Trust me that there is something better. And I think that at times, people feel like, ah, there's no one out there for me, or, you know, why bother? Or whatever. There's nothing good out there. They. They lose hope on what they can find. And so they need to sort of lean on something, at least in the beginning. And I think this whole challenge is a beautiful way of actually creating that, way of, like, all right, well, I'm kind of not hopeful, but I'm still gonna do this because it's fun, because I'm going to integrate it and embrace it. And maybe I'll start like, okay, okay. I'm seeing the momentum. I'm going to do this. So, yeah.

And I think as you're talking, I'm, like, excited because they're going to share what they're writing if they're comfortable sharing in the group. And I think then that can build upon other people. When you see what someone might say about themselves, you're not going to copy it, but it might open up another access point for you to see something else in you that you hadn't considered before. I didn't think about it from that perspective either.

The access point that Kate brought up earlier, in terms of. Do you remember a time when.

Right.

One of the things that I've done over the last year or so. So, I mean, I mentioned before we started recording, I had a big injury. I broke my skull three years ago. And so I've had to put myself back together and figure out who I am. And I did a big trauma release two months before that injury. And so the combination has been big. Last year, I found myself buying a lot of action figures. I have these large Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman figures in my bathroom. There's a little Catwoman here that my sister bought me that I have in one of my plants. Teeny tiny, but it brings me joy. I used to read comics a lot when I was a kid. I started drawing again and so dropping back into moments of happiness, I sort of. I got rid of a lot of the action figures when I moved into my new place. I kept a few. I don't need them as much anymore, but they were a really beautiful access point to joy and appreciation of myself in different times of my life. And yeah, I think just use whatever you can to get that. That engine going again.

And do you guys see this being something like a practice they do every day in the morning and then in terms of writing it down in the embodiment piece? So my question is, how do you, how do you see this happening in terms of them writing it down and then embodying it? Is there something that you think would be helpful for them to be able to kind of get into this mode each day?

I do think a first thing in the morning practice is a good way to go, even before getting out of bed, before picking up the phone. I think that we're in a very unique space mentally at that point when we're just barely waking up and we could have more access to creativity, to that type of thing and maybe even a practice of placing a hand over the heart or over the belly to just tune in with oneself and say, what do I love about myself? What's really awesome about me? And just kind of allow that grounding moment, that connection with oneself before the day starts happening, before life starts happening. I think that's a great time. But as with everything, if you miss it, just pick it up, do it again when you can. No need to get mad at yourself or chastise yourself for missing your morning. But I do think that that time of day is particularly beautiful.

I agree with all the thinking and feeling around morning practices. And I have some. And yet I struggle sometimes with. With the writing in the mornings. And so I find sometimes at night having a recap of the day. What is it? What did I appreciate about the day? The Moth podcast signs off with saying, have a story worthy weekend. And so writing from a place of my life is story worthy. And just having a moment before I go to sleep has been a practice that I've appreciated in the morning. I'm more just trying to like get my energy flowing and up and sort of vibe that's just for me.

Yeah.

And speaking to ways to absorb or actually embody and Feel these things that you're writing down. It's helpful to acknowledge or recognize what actually gives you access to the felt sense. For some, it's visually reading and rereading and taking it in that way. For others, it's actually more kinesthetic, it's more of a felt sense. And if you're that way inclined, my favorite practice is to actually, as you're reading these sort of self love affirmations is to run your finger over the line on the page and imagine that you're taking it back into your body as you do so and then giving yourself time to pause and absorb and let that feeling move through you. If you're more of an auditory person, you're like to listen and hear things, then say it out loud to yourself. Or Nick mentioned recording, doing some voice recordings. You could record that for yourself and play it back for yourself and just have a little play around with what actually gives you access to the felt sense of the energy behind the words.

Well, you guys, this was fabulous. Thank you so much for each contributing to this episode. And it's even more than I thought it would be. I mean, I already thought it was going to be amazing, but it just like each thing catapulted on the other. And I appreciate the synergy that we had together and I just am really excited to see what comes from this and people being able to create this as a practice they're doing every day, regardless of what's going on in their life.

I'm excited for them. Yeah. Excited for this.

Thank you. And then I'll put for the listeners, I'll put, you're always curious who's on these episodes. So I'll put all the descriptions of where you can learn more about everyone and each of them into the description on the show notes. And then Nick, we have to do a podcast episode soon if that's okay.

Sounds great. Yeah.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

I learn from everybody.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you all.

This is really fun.

Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all of your about it. Just leave us a voice message at dothothing callcast co or email us at hello at dothingpodcast. Com.