Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi. Welcome. I'm Christian Becker. Welcome to fostering self love. The relationships that we have in our lives are always a reflection of the relationships that we have with ourselves. So you will find that when you foster a stronger sense of self love, you become more intuitive. You make decisions more easily and more confidently. You are more confident. You have higher self esteem. You're actually more loving and compassionate and forgiving. You have improved relationships and even improved health and well being. Because you're making those decisions now because you love yourself. It's one of the best foundational things you can do for yourself. However, in our society, not only are we not taught self love, really, we're actually encouraged not to have it have doubt into fear and to look to products and and all the marketing think about that. That tells us so. You will be more attractive for these things in your life will work out with this outside thing. But really you have everything you need already inside you self love. Now I am a college professor. I have over 20 years of experience. I know from both my experience and from scientific research that traditional reading and lectures and that sort of thing. How's about a 10 to 20% success rate? Experiential learning, however, has a 70 to 80% success rate. And thats why this course and all of my courses always feature experiential learning, where you will have an opportunity to engage with the ideas to experiment with them in your life and to have your own internalization of them and make them part of you and who you are so self love. It is wonderful, very fun and easy course, and let's go ahead and get started.
2. Breaking Barriers: Ultimately, the blocks that we have that are keeping us from loving ourselves truly and deeply and authentically all come from deep within us. And once you understand where they came from and how they got there, it becomes very easy to see how ridiculous they are and how to quickly and easily remove those blocks. So where did these come from? We all have, within ourselves, beliefs about ourselves. How are they formed here? The three biggest places that those beliefs come from one is what others tell us. We tend to take on board and internalize anything that anyone else has told us or taught us . So a typical example might be a parent or an authority figure who tells you something good or bad about yourself, and then you choose to believe that it's true. So look at your core beliefs about yourself. Look at their root there, genesis and then re evaluate them against who you really are and how you really show up in life. Oftentimes we find that the negative beliefs are simply not founded, or that we've evolved and grown in positive ways but still held on to those negative beliefs. Another source of our limiting beliefs are the experiences that we have with others. So we tend to internalize beliefs about ourselves that are actually generated from experiences with other people. And those experiences are more often than not the result of the other person's own limiting beliefs and have no actual reflection upon us. Still, we internalize the negative reflection. So, for example, you might have a painful break up with a partner they might say in do mean things to you. And then you assume you're worthy of this treatment or that it's a reflection of you when really it is not so reflect on any beliefs founded in this way and then reframe them and look at who you really are against these beliefs that you might be holding 1/3 and final place. That we get a lot of our limiting beliefs planted from is what I call cannons and conditioning. So this is institutions, experts, authority figures and canon, such as religion and scientific thought. All of these places are all too happy to provide us with assessments, rules, truth, and we're taught to accept them without question. But then the trends will frequently change, and thus one whole generation of people might believe one thing about themselves, only to have the positioning on that topic or content change later. And then the next generation has whole different belief about it. So in our society we can look a frequently changing attitudes about mental health or personal relationships. And look how these change over the decades. And then whole generations of people will have different feelings about themselves because society is now telling them, Oh, it's OK or no, it's not OK. So in cannons and conditioning, look for areas of your own beliefs that have been created in this way and then just simply question them. So now you're a lot better positioned to remove some of your own barriers to self love. Now you can look at yourself more objectively. You can step beyond the untrue and limiting beliefs that have been lurking deep within your mind, enacting as barriers to your own self love. Go ahead and do the project self assessment at this time and feel free to post it in the project section, and I'll see you in the next video
3. Neural Pathways to Self-love: Let's talk about neuroscience and self love. This is one of my favorite conversations because you can literally wrap your brain around it. You can see something that you can logically relate to and understand, and the framework that it plays in your sense of self love. How it was developed, what options You have to change that in you. And so let's go ahead and start talking about it. When we talked previously about cannons and conditioning and experiences and all of the things in our lives that create a mindset of a barrier to self love, it became really clear where those things came from. And now we want to talk about how those experiences and events and things that we were exposed to just created a practical neural network in our brains that always takes us in this direction that we don't necessarily want to go. And so you have all these neural pathways. They were developed from these experiences from this, you know, the conditioning, the events, the things that you thought about repeatedly and things that you were told and so on, and just tons and tons and tons of neural pathways being developed. So it's dance. The reason the brain is just efficient. Something happens. You have a choice to make. You have a decision about which way to go with something, or how to interpret something that's happened to you or something that someone has said or whatever. You have this huge network of neural pathways that are gonna take you all in this mindset direction off, validating yourself from the outside and seeking acceptance in very few pathways. If I almost any that where you can explore the other options of well, from a self love perspective, how would I feel about this? How would I react? How would I internalize this? So that has not been developed most of the time, or certainly to the level of which we all agree that we'd like to have. And the good news is it's pretty easy when you understand this is how these pathways performed. This is how this network got really, really strong, and this is how our brains work, that they go to this very strong network because there's tons of options. It's the road that you take all the time, so it's really easy and natural to go down. Um and then you can say, Well, great, that's cool. Now I'm gonna build up this side, You know, the self love side. So in my daily practices, this is the experiences that developed these neural pathways in reflecting on them and taking the time to think about these things and maybe journal them out and that sort of thing. All of this is enhancing and strengthening the neural pathways that your brain can then go to two, make decisions or navigate life from a self love perspective. Every day when I wake up before I get out of bed or reach for my cell phone, I hugged myself and I say, I love you, Kristen, and this might seem a little cheesy. And when you start doing it, insert your name. Of course, Um, you might feel a little silly the first couple of days, but then, after a week or a month, it's something you look forward to, and you just and you realize how rich and important it is. Yes, I love you, I love you, Love you, love you and this to developing those neural pathways and really strengthening them and more of them, and in deeper more complex ways. The daily habits are so important and anything that you could do stop and remind yourself when you make those decisions based on self love. Always remind yourself I made that decision because I love myself not for any other reason . And just think about these neural pathways developing and connecting and growing and enhancing that part of your brain that then it just becomes natural and automatic and subconscious for you to go to that neural network in your brain when you have experiences and your thinking about events, or even just thoughts in your mind about stuff. So I hope this helps to make it more clear and give use. Bring work to understand why it is so important to have those experiences. The neural pathways are a beautiful thing. Science is amazing. Understanding the brain and psychology is fun and really insightful and empowering. Part of the self love journey
4. Why it’s your responsibility to love yourself: So why is it your responsibility to foster and practice self love? Because love is not about when that one person shows up and validate you and makes you feel worthy of love and being loved. Love is not about when your family is there to pick you up. Those are all great things. But you always have within you the sense of self love. You were born with it. Everybody knows it as a child. And as Marianne Williamson said so beautifully, When you let your light shine, you give others permission to do the same. So by practicing self love, you teach others and show others and inspire others to do the same, and the whole entire world becomes a better place. The things in your life that you may be struggling with now say health and fitness, and you jump through all these crazy hoops and you're willing to do all these you know, kind of nutty things when really when you foster that sounds sense of self love within yourself, the decisions become intuitive. You make the right decisions for yourself simply because you love yourself. You don't have to play games. You don't have to live with the guilt and the shame, and it's just so much easier. There's just a 1,000,000 reasons why you want to take the responsibility now and foster the sense of self love. Another great example is living, thriving, dreaming, doing that creative spark. When you lack the motivation for that, it's really just the pain of a lack of self love. And when you have the self love, you go out, you do, and maybe you stumble and you've fallen. You pick yourself back up and you say, That's okay, you know, I got this. I'm doing my best. So fostering a sense of self love is your responsibility. As I said in the intro, it's also easy and fun.
5. Forgiveness is the gift you give yourself: So let's talk about forgiveness for a minute. Forgiveness truly is the gift that you give yourself. It's so vital, flourishing that I have a whole entire class on it. But for the purposes of self love, look at it from this perspective. When you take that space in your heart and in your mind and your soul, that's currently being filled with anger and resentment that you're carrying around for someone else and you're finally able to release that. Let that go. You're opening up space creation space in your heart for higher vibrating emotions and experiences like love and joy and happiness. So what you want to do is think of someone who you would would like to forgive or you need to forgive. Think about things that happened in their lives that contributed to them doing whatever it was that they did to you, and in that you can find compassion for them that they suffered and they're pain led them to cause pain for others. Think about the experience and what little nuggets of wisdom and life lesson are held within that experience and be grateful for it in this type of thinking in these types of things will enable you to better let go off the negative emotion and it's incredibly liberating and it is a very vital part of self love.
6. Give yourself a break: one of the very best things that you can do to foster more self love is to simply give yourself a break. You are doing your absolute very best at every moment and every point in your life. If you think about it for a minute, no one wants to be judged or condemned, so why do we do that to ourselves? Think about this. If you were giving someone loving feedback out of concern, say to a loved one, how would you do it and then think about how you can extend that same thought and compassion to yourself. Be gentle with you. It's important to remember in life that mistakes do serve a purpose. We're meant to evolve, and we do that through learning, so mistakes when you look at it this way, or just our opportunities to learn lessons and to gain wisdom and insight in life. So you could be grateful to your mistakes and life lessons. Look for what wisdom is to be gained through them above all else. Be and celebrate yourself. Society conditions us to struggle to fit in. However your unique celebrate and be exactly who you are. Instead of measuring yourself and you're worth against the so called norms of society, be yourself and own it
7. Daily Habits 1: you know when you change your habits and you consciously make an effort to do something consistently for several days. Most research says about 21 days for it to become a habit. Then whatever you have consciously done for that time becomes natural, it becomes a habit for you. So self love can also become a habit when you do the practices, the daily practices that reinforce and enhance that sense of self love. So I have for you to daily practices that you can start to fold into your daily routine. The 1st 1 is I am statements. You might do this in the morning when you wake up or while you're communing toe work or just whenever you have a little quiet time. But repeat to yourself, either out loud or in your mind. I am statements that you know and believe to be true about yourself and additionally, if you reflect on how these show up in your life, actual experiences where you have demonstrated these, it anchors that sense of self love even deeper in your self conscious mind. So, for example, you might reflect and say I am loving. I'm strong, I'm persistent. I am productive. I'm kind. I'm generous, whatever pertains to you and get in the habit of doing that at some point in the day, every single day and remind yourself off all of your beautiful, amazing qualities. Another wonderful and easy way to incorporate self love into your daily practice and make it a habit is to make a promise to yourself. So each morning, you mentally or maybe even write it down on a piece of paper A promise to yourself, A small promise. Maybe you're going to read 15 minutes in your favorite book today because you love yourself . Maybe you're gonna have pancakes for lunch because you love yourself. Maybe you're gonna have a salad for lunch, but it's because you love yourself and whatever promise that you made yourself in the morning keep it. Don't let the emails the distractions, the responsibilities cause you to take that promise to yourself off your daily things that you are going to dio. And in this way, when you have bitch really do that, you actually grow to trust yourself. And it's kind of interesting to see by contrast, how much we really don't trust ourselves because we cut ourselves short so often, so every day I am statements make a promise to yourself in the morning and then keep it and you will find that these two habits will greatly improve your own sense of trust and love for yourself.
8. Daily Habit 2: So let's talk about two more habits. You can work into your daily routine. You do this consciously. And then after several days, ideally about 21 days, it becomes completely natural, completely intuitive and just a part of who you are. And we're gonna talk about two things you can do now One is about your body and about your beauty. And we're all beautiful and special and unique in our own ways. Obviously, we're inundated with marketing that tells us otherwise and makes us question and doubt our own ability, our strength, our physical perfection, our beauty. So the first thing that I would like for you to dio is every day thank a part of your body . You might just look at a part of your body like your shoulders in the mirror and think, Wow, they're actually really soft and curvy. Thank you, shoulders. Or maybe you went on a hike and you say thank you, legs. That was an exhilarating experience. I'm so grateful to have these healthy strong legs to take me out hiking on a Saturday. Maybe you have big, strong biceps and you carry wood into the house and you think, Gosh, That's really wonderful that I can be so strong and I have these strong arms. But the point here is to be appreciative of your body, of how amazing and perfect and beautiful it is and everything that it does for you. The second habit that I would like to suggest is really quite profound, and now we make decisions all day long. So what I want you to start doing is before you make those decisions, whether they're big or small, your deciding whether or not to text someone how to respond to somebody in the office or maybe a big life decision whether or not to take a job, ask yourself, How would I decide this if I were making my decision based on Lee on the fact that I love myself and it's really profound when you really stop and do this day in and day out for a couple of days, you start realizing that you've been making a lot of decisions based on a lot of other things that have nothing to do with loving yourself. And when you start doing it and you start taking ownership and making those decisions based on this little activity pool. It's amazing, and then it becomes natural, and then you feel really good about it. And then you wonder, why did I ever do anything different? So here we have two wonderfully easy ways for you to practice daily habits that will enhance your own sense of self love.
9. Guided Self-love Meditation hb: - yet into a comfortable position, either Lying down, we're sitting up whatever feels most comfortable for you. Take three deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. Now relax your legs at your arms. Relax, let your shoulders open and drop and loosen up. Relax your neck in your head and just release any thoughts and settle in to your beautiful , perfect and relax. So now let's do a visual ization. Take a moment to think of one of your most loving and favorite qualities or traits about yourself. When are you sharing and expressing and embodying love? Now visualize a really time and place and event where this has showed up in your life and you have been able to express this love. Visualized the event in every detail that you can imagine. We'll just take a few minutes to do that. It is your birthright to know, feel and express love fully. You are love. Take three more deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Breathe in love. Feel it. Expand out through all the parts of your body as you relax and breathe out. Breathe in love. I feel that it's breathe in, uh, and feel itics. Now take a moment to visualize yourself in all of your splendor and miraculous potential. Let the visions, feelings and emotions arise naturally and just flow with them softly. Repeat in your mind I am splendor. Miraculous potential. I am splendor and miraculous potential. I am splendor at miraculous potential. - You are healthy, beautiful, kind, loving, wise and true. You create what you focus on. Send your own loving energy out to every cell of your body. I love you and I thank you. I love you. And I thank you. I love you and I thank you. I feel every part of your being warm as it's filling with that Love your own self. Love has the power to heal your mind body. And so speak to your body to your mind, to your actions, to your soul, to your thoughts. I love you and accept you unconditionally. I love you and accept you unconditionally. I love you and accept you unconditionally. The relationships in your life are a reflection of your relationship with yourself, with each breath in and out. Speak to yourself. I love you and accept you unconditionally. Now drift a bit deeper as you settle in even deeper into your everlasting, unconditional self love. Feel the deep sense of self awareness. Self confidence. Feel the deep, warm, loving comfort that you find within yourself. Race any doubt from your mind that you may have had been caring around about yourself? Just let it all flow away. You now know and trust yourself. Go deeper still, as yourself love grows stronger and stronger. Your body, mind and soul are all working beautifully together. Toe always move you in the right direction at any moment. You are right where you should or need to be, and you celebrate, cherish and love yourself. In each moment you have a smile on your face, in warmth in your being. And remember yourself. Love is always with you. It guides. You take deep breath, you feel calm and refreshed. Take a few more deep breaths and when you were ready, open your eyes
Kristen Becker, NLP Practitioner
