Hello and welcome to inspiration Creek. I’m Stephanie Lema. If you’re new to the show, thank you so much for joining today, and if you’ve listened in before, I’m so grateful that you’re back. This is episode number two, inspired by love. 

Love is at the foundation of everything that we do, and if it’s not Well, it certainly should be. You might be wondering, okay, so what are we talking about here? Romantic love, friendship, love, love between parent and child, love for a pet, love for art, food, creativity, building something. I mean, the list can really go on and on in terms of things that we can love. Love is complex, and it’s a feeling, a set of emotions, behavior, a virtue of vice. It’s a powerful motivator. Have you ever thought about how you love yourself and how that can impact your well being? So we’re talking about self love today. 

Self love is simply appreciating yourself and having a high regard for your own well being and happiness. It’s like taking on your own needs first and not sacrificing your well being for others. So you’re not settling for for less than you deserve, and you’re just really focusing on positive and powerful ways that you can practice self love. I mean, doesn’t that sound great? Like to be able to do that? You might be saying, Yeah, right. Steph, so I barely have time to think, let alone practice self love, whatever that may be. 

And I totally get it like I’m running around too. We’re all running around kind of ragged, working, home, family, kids, animals, all those things that feed into our daily life, and it’s really that never ending to do list, right? So that could be annoying, and that can be really difficult, and can make it feel like you can’t squeeze in anything for yourself. So I get like that too, where I’m tired of pushing things around that I really want to do, or, you know, there’s other obligations that I have to or feel I have to put ahead of myself. 

So this topic is really important, because since how we treat ourselves and our self talk really comes from the inside, and it has a lasting impact, what we see on social is all exterior life is not what happens on social. I mean, to tell you, right, all the people that share these things, that they display, that they have it all, they’re all bad, or all those things are probably the least happy on the inside. I mean, truly happy, like where there’s not all this drama going on and things happening. 

The whole you is not your social media presence. The whole them is not their social media presence. It’s all on stage and exterior, you know, the car, the house, the clothes, the booze, the food, the likes, all that stuff. The real deal is what’s going on on the inside, inspirations on the inside. Joy’s on the inside. 

Your confidence comes from the inside. Self love is on the inside. So what you do next really comes from the inside. It’s all an inside job. Everything. It all starts with how you treat yourself and how you love yourself. Let’s break this down into three parts, starting with how self love impacts your mental health. 

According to VCU health, there is a large body of psychological research that shows self compassion and self love do have a strong impact on our mental health and our emotional state, both in terms of decreasing anxiety, depression, anger and loneliness, and also increasing support and encouragement for ourselves. Self Love boosts esteem and resilience. It lowers your worry, it improves relationships, it encourages positive habits like looking after yourself, setting boundaries and staying present. All these things can boost your mental health and well being so. 

Self Love, positive self talk can impact your physical health too, by reducing those stress levels, promoting healthy behaviors like exercise and good nutrition, it can boost the immune system and generally leading to a more relaxed state, which can help prevent those physical ailments associated with chronic stress. So who doesn’t want to be more relaxed? I know I do, and it all starts from within, in how we really treat ourselves, and we know self love can impact your mental health and well being, but can it inspire so that leads me to our second part of this, this chat, is that self love can inspire. It absolutely can. It fosters that strong sense of the self worth. It creases your confidence and motivation. It makes you just more excited about things because you’re feeling good from the inside. 

So it helps you have the confidence to pursue your goals and passions with greater motivation and determination, believing in yourself and having self efficacy, which means that is your belief in yourself and belief in your own abilities and can. Capabilities, it can really be a powerful source of inspiration to take action and to go for it. 

You know, whatever it may be that you want to accomplish, a study by Dartmouth College identified a network of neuro pathways in the brain responsible for self love and self esteem, which I think is, like, really exciting and kind of cool, just of how your brain works and supports you in self love and self esteem. So when this pathway is highly active, individuals experience strong feelings of self love and self acceptance. The research had shown that the more self love we express and feel, the more likely we are to feel motivated and reward ourselves for our achievements. So self love is really the key to accomplishing goals. Like, how inspirational is that? So if you talk to yourself a little bit better, you practice some self ways of self love, which we’re gonna get to in a second here, then those things can help you actually achieve the goals that you want to achieve. 

All sounds great in theory, right? Okay, I just need to do these extra things, and then I will just be motivated and ready to go. Let’s talk about how you can boost your self love practice with a few easy steps. Everything is a practice. If you look at what you’re trying to accomplish as a practice and break it down into small steps, things that you practice every day, then the goals that you’re trying to achieve, or the small changes that you’re trying to make don’t seem so unrealistic and unreachable. 

So those small steps that you take will become big wins over time. It’s the small, consistent efforts that you make every day that turn into the long term gains. If you’ve ever heard that, that saying of you got to do the reps. And I wish I knew who said that first, so I could source the quotes so you know who said it. But you gotta do the reps. It’s those things that you do every day. Sometimes it’s not pretty and you don’t wanna do it, but the small reps that you do each day can create those long term gains, whether it’s building your muscle or building your muscles in your mind, all of those things can build up over time. So some ways that you can practice self love is first positive self talk. 

So when those negative words come in or thoughts into your mind, a quick three step method to turn those around are first, as you kind of go down that rabbit hole of Oh, Steph, I messed that up, or that didn’t go right, or I’m not doing something well, identify it. So you know, when you’re starting to talk to yourself negatively and you kind of fall down that rabbit hole, identify it, challenge it. 

Is that really true? And it probably is not, and then change it and change it with something positive. In terms of that presentation didn’t go well, okay. Well, what are the things that did go well with it, because I’ll tell you, when we go down those holes of negative self talk, there are definitely positive things in there that we did right and we did well, and it’s that time, that moment is when you can challenge it and then change it and change how you’re thinking. And those small wins with the positive self talk will become big gains over time. It will build that positive self talk muscle over time. 

Another way that you can practice self love is by setting time aside for yourself. Schedule it. We sit and scroll for 15 minutes on and more on our phones and search things and have our face buried. Take that time that you’re doing that and just schedule it, own it, make it happen, even if it’s for those 15 minutes, because shifting your perspective and your energy and your mindset just for a few minutes that will help bring you joy. It will help with your positive self love, and it will be something that grows as well. 

So instead of just taking 15 minutes, maybe next time you take 30 minutes, start off small, and then build off, build off of it from there. And you could even set that time on the calendar. We have all kinds of things on our calendar. Set that 15 minutes for yourself, and that is a perfect way to start practicing some self love. Another way to practice self love is through setting boundaries, which I know can be so hard to do, but if you start to

recognize to know when to say, No thanks, and then do it. It’s called setting boundaries, you know, just the little things of in your calendar. What are those things that you see and you just know you don’t want to do it just gives you the ick feeling inside. If that’s something that you can not do, then don’t do it. Boundaries are not negative. They’re probably the most positive thing that you can do is setting boundaries, because it can open up what you’re setting boundaries on and not doing. 

It’ll open up your energy and your time for the things that you want to do in your life, the things that can bring you more joy if you have a date on the calendar or some event or some time with a friend, or something that you know is coming, that it’s not an obligation that you have to do. It’s not like it’s I know we have work on our calendar and certain things that we do have to do, but if there’s things on your calendar that you don’t really have to do and you’re just doing it. Because you feel obligated and it does give you the ick feeling, then simply don’t do it. Just try it once and see how you feel. 

And then from there, because that’s practicing self love, it’ll probably open you up to starting to do it more, and to really taking control of your calendar and your time, because it is your time. Instead of doing the things that bring you down, waste your time and deplete your energy, you start freeing up the time to do things that give you joy, build you confidence, get you excited, have you, you know, make you motivated, those things that will will come naturally as you start to make the shift in your in your calendar and your time by setting those boundaries the last self love practice that I wanted to share is something that we’ve all heard of before, but it’s a little bit different. Write a gratitude list. 

And what’s different about this is, instead of writing about all the things on the outside that you’re grateful for, you can write a self gratitude list. What are you grateful for from the inside, the things that you’ve accomplished, or the things that you recognize, or small wins that you’ve made. 

The Self gratitude list is another way that you could practice self love and really acknowledge and recognize all the great things you’re doing, all the great things you are, how enough you are, and just it’s a way to write it out on a piece of paper and then read it back to yourself, and really practice that moment of being grateful for you. So it makes me so excited to start practicing I think that with my gratitude list, it’s not just that gratitude list, it’s that self gratitude. So I’m grateful that I found the courage to start a podcast, and that’s bringing me such joy, to be creative, to share things with you, and it’s just exciting and inspiring to me. 

Those are just a few ideas, and there’s many ways to show self love through self care, taking care of yourself first. It’s really the best gift that you can give yourself, and it’s not selfish either. It’s one of those things that you could just try little steps to start the practice, and just give one of those a try, and then see how you feel, and remember to celebrate the wins. Even the small ones can make such a big difference. 

So as we start to wrap up the self love talk, self love, as we kind of took from the beginning of the podcast, how it can positively impact your mental and physical health and your well being, and it’s scientifically backed research that we step through today. So self love is so important, and it really can inspire you so you can feel motivated to accomplish your goals. Remember you can reward yourself with those wins, treat yourself well, and then it will inspire you to continue on that path. 

So it’s really your turn in terms of practicing self love. So the few ways that we talked about was, you know, setting that time aside for yourself, practicing the positive self talk, setting those boundaries, writing a self gratitude list. And remember, it’s a self gratitude list you know about yourself, all the great things that you’re doing, being, saying, feeling, all of those things will help with self love and help support your self love. And we can’t end this podcast without a quote.

Our inspired by love quote is from Ruby Core, who is a number one New York Times best seller, poet, artist and performer, and the quote is how you love yourself teaches others how to love you. And that is so true. Start with a place of love and love yourself first, and you set the example for how others will love and treat you. 

All right, that’s a wrap on this episode. Inspired by love, whatever you do or wherever you go, remember, you can change how you view your world when you start with the foundation of love, self, love that is thank you for listening today. I hope you feel inspired until next time. This is Steph, wishing you an inspired life. You

Hi again. One last thing, this podcast is shared and presented publicly solely for entertainment and educational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended to be used as a substitute for advice from a professional coach, physician, therapist, psychotherapist, medical professional, or any other qualified professional. See you in the next episode.