🖤 Practical self love guide: Part 2

What if self-love isn't just a feeling but an action-driven journey? Join me, Christina Modaffari, as I unfold this intriguing concept in our latest episode of the Hot Genius Guide to Manifesting. We draw parallels between self-love and loving others, underscoring the necessity of honest self-assessment over mere self-flattery. Discover how actively expressing love towards oneself can lead to a deeper sense of fulfillment and acceptance, much like how genuine relationships thrive on truth and transparency.

Stuck in limiting social circles? Let’s break free together by choosing interaction over ego. We explore the exciting potential of engaging with diverse individuals and forming a "soul tribe" that celebrates shared values and differences alike. This episode also challenges the common belief that being an empath naturally leads to feeling drained in social settings. Instead, we delve into the idea that unresolved trauma often drives this hyper-awareness. By understanding and healing these aspects, we can cultivate authentic connections and feel safe in social environments.

Want to set boundaries without guilt? We shine a light on the significance of nervous system regulation in nurturing self-love and overcoming the tendency to people-please. Explore how maintaining a learner's mindset, rather than claiming expertise, can foster continuous growth. This episode invites listeners to share their insights and experiences, contributing to a vibrant community dialogue within the Hot Genius Society. Together, let's embark on a journey towards abundant living, where authenticity and truth guide our relationships with ourselves and others.

Chapters

• 0:00 Practical Self-Love Guide Part 2
• 7:44 Choosing Interaction Over Ego
• 14:48 Choosing Self-Love and Boundaries
• 21:57 Sharing Abundance and Feedback

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to the Hot Genius Guide to Manifesting. I'm your host, christina Modafari. Today's episode is called Practical Self-Love Guide, part 2. So it's actually been almost a year since I recorded Part 1, but better late than never, okay. So let's get straight into today's episode, and if you haven't already listened to Part 1, I highly recommend that you do, either after this one or you can go to that first. Either way, the order in which you listen to this series does not affect the outcome on how you can apply everything that we're going to be discussing today.

Speaker 1: 0:36

So I'm going to share with you the practical ways of loving yourself right, and I say practical because it's sort of like this I want you to imagine, right when you're in a relationship with someone. Okay, and how I want you to see it as like self-love and the love we feel towards a person. The principles are the exact same, and the only reason why it doesn't seem that way is because, well, we can't exactly clone ourselves, you know, so our brain kind of forgets that we're also a person. So let me explain what I mean. So, when you're in a relationship with someone, if you can imagine that they love you, imagine they feel in their heart that they love you. There's, they accept you for all. That you are Okay. But remember, you can't feel their feelings. You don't know what's on their mind. You don't know what's on their mind. You don't know how they think of you or feel towards you, right? So my question to you is if they feel what they feel, they love you. However, they don't ever show that they love you. They never tell you that they love you. They don't, you know, I guess, take action or create physical expressions of what they feel on the inside. My question to you is is that do you feel loved? Probably not, right?

Speaker 1: 1:52

So, and I'm going to use this as a real life example, so if you can imagine you're in a relationship with someone and they, again, they love you, it could even. It doesn't have to be romantic. You can also relate this to a parent. It could even. It doesn't have to be romantic. You can also relate this to a parent. Right and so. But let's say that what makes you feel loved is when someone tells you, because you love words of affirmation, and when they tell you, when they acknowledge you, when they, you know, compliment you, or they have your back, or maybe yours is like to being hugged, all the things. So let's say that you're someone who you feel loved.

Speaker 1: 2:23

When someone shows that physical affection and they say things like I love you and I'm so proud of you, or like I've been thinking about you and I just wanted to, you know, do this for you, so you know I'm thinking of you, or whatever. Now imagine that your partner or a parent doesn't actually show it. Imagine they never said I love you. Imagine they'd never hugged you. Actually show it. Imagine they never said I love you, imagine they'd never hugged you.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Does that there's a love in their heart that they feel towards you? Does it do anything for you? No, because to feel love, to love yourself, to love another, to receive love from another, it's not enough to feel love, and so this is where most people lack, and this is why most people don't feel loved. It's not because they're not loved. We can argue that a lot of people in our lives probably love us, but are they? Do they actually make us feel loved? Because that's again, a completely different thing, and so the reason why I'm bringing that up is because that is no different to how we treat ourselves. So you might love yourself, but if you're someone who's ever questioned whether or not you love yourself. It's not because you don't love yourself, it's because, just like that example of a parent or a partner who doesn't actually make you feel loved, they don't take any action to show that what's inside of their heart. Then the same thing is happening with you, and so some of the things that we went over in Practical Self-Love Guide Part 1 was I was talking about self-honesty instead of self-flattery to the ego.

Speaker 1: 3:48

You know, because when you're honest with yourself, that actually makes you feel loved, right? Because imagine, in the context of, say, your partner or your best friend or your parent, you know, imagine that you were lying to yourself about something because it was just too difficult for you to admit something, and then your loved one turns around and said, hey, hey, like I've got to be honest with you, because I care about you, I want to have your back, but like I think that you might be lying to yourself, I think that you don't actually want to take that job. But I could be wrong. But I just wanted to create a space for us to talk about it. You know, because I'm here for you and I'm here to just be a space, and if that's, if I'm completely offbeat, then that's okay. Like I just kind of wanted to share my concern in case, because I know sometimes that you, you sort of um, want to convince yourself of something, um, and yeah, I just wanted to pull you up on that right, like in that moment I get, assuming that you're a healthy person, you would feel loved by that because that's, your partner cares more about telling you the truth than they care about you approving of them, because by them telling you the truth, they're putting themselves at risk of you hating them, of you disapproving of them, of you projecting onto them. They love you so fucking much that they're willing to do that for you, yeah, and so there's no difference between that versus you doing that to yourself. So do you? So that's one of the things we were talking about in the first one. It's I was going over the power of self-honesty instead of just enabling your ego, instead of just trying to praise your ego and be all fluffy with yourself. You know a really powerful way, because we're talking about 15 and that episode discusses five ways to practically love yourself, and one of those five in that episode yet was the power that comes with telling yourself the truth, no matter how painful, no matter how ugly, but telling yourself the truth, that is your power. So I'm just giving you an example there.

Speaker 1: 5:42

But in today's episode, now that you understand the foundations, we're going to go over the next five ways on a practical level and how you can make yourself feel loved. So today we'll be going over choosing to be sociable, over being judgmental. We're going to talk about and what that means. We're going to talk about being interactive as opposed to being proud and snobby. Then we're going to talk about being interactive as opposed to being proud and snobby. And then we're going to talk about nervous system regulation, over projecting your feelings and blaming everyone else for your problems. And then we're going to talk about how to actually choose to remain the student instead of trying to try too hard to be the expert and master of something. And then, lastly, we'll talk over about, you know, saying no over needing to be liked.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Okay, so let's get straight into it. So the first one, then I'm one I'm going to. How am I going to go about this? Should I say it's a sixth one? Yes, so, this is a sixth one.

Speaker 1: 6:42

So the sixth way of loving yourself on a practical level is choose to be sociable over being judgmental. So what does this actually mean? What does this look like on a practical level? Well, when you are around someone who isn't your, let's say, usual person, assuming that they're causing you no harm, assuming they're not putting you down or bullying you. So, obviously, practice your discernment, choose to be sociable and desire to connect and desire to actually open yourself up to different perspectives, because that means that, a, you get to be sociable, you get to connect with people, but, b, that also means, then, that you are showing yourself love, because you are allowing yourself to be challenged, because there's a fine line between being around people who are like you, because it's nice to be around your tribe, versus you being around people who keep you small, who enable you. Okay, that is a very fine line.

Speaker 1: 7:44

So, a lot of the time, you'll find that people would go in the negative version of this, or the unhealthy, disempowering version of this, where they stick to their peeps right and they stick to their usual kind of person who usually has this, you know, a usual type of attitude, usually usual type of personality, and it's not that it's wrong. Sometimes it's great, but, like, a lot of the time I find that people are staying around the same kinds of people because they, their ego, just thinks that anyone who's not like them and their group of friends is beneath them. There's like this judgment, this snobbiness. You could say right, and it's all from the ego. Ego, because someone who actually is powerful actually doesn't see other people as inferior to them. They see everyone as equal. However, they also have the ability to know the difference between all right, as souls we're equal, but in skill we're not, and that's perfect. I have something to learn from everyone, including a fucking garbage collector, that when you have that level of maturity, then you are a very powerful, self-loving and abundant person.

Speaker 1: 8:54

And so, like I said, number six choose being sociable and connect with others, right Over being judgmental and snobby and keeping yourself small, keeping yourself unchallenged and keeping yourself enabled. You know, again, this does not mean that you shouldn't have your tribe, because having a soul tribe is very important. But your soul tribe doesn't necessarily mean everyone's the exact same. It just means you have the same core values and those core values, usually, if it's a soul tribe sort of vibe, is personal growth, personal growth being healthy, and that's the main pillar that you should really look out for, but then your soul tribe, you'll find, if it's authentic, that in terms of the other things, you'll find that you have so much to learn from one another. Okay, so that's a really good way to look at it.

Speaker 1: 9:44

So number seven is choose to be interactive over being proud and egotistical. So what this means is that when you are in a, again, a social situation, this sort of ties in a little bit with the sixth one, the one before this, but instead of sort of like trying too hard to be mysterious which sometimes it's good to be a bit mysterious but I mean, instead of trying too hard to act like you know, know again, you're superior to everyone, just because people are different choose to be interactive, choose to be that perfect balance of like I'm gonna, you know, stick to my boundaries, I'm gonna stay true to myself, while also allowing yourself the space to create some interaction with other people and going out of your comfort zone socially, because, like I said again, it ties into the one before this. It's really important to allow yourself to learn how to feel safe around people, and the truth is, if you're someone who only feels safe when you're alone, then you have some work to do, and I'm speaking from that, you know, not just from a textbook perspective, but also from an experience perspective. Because if you do resonate with what I just said, where you only feel safe when you are alone, um, as in emotionally safe, then, and like you feel overwhelmed by people or crowds and you're always drained by other people's energies, then you know, I used to go through this as well, and a lot of people say, oh, but I'm an empath, I'm sensitive to energy, and it's like no, um, stop using that as a cop-out, because you actually have trauma. And the truth is, it doesn't matter what spiritual gifts you have Um, you you're, you have the capability and potential to feel safe around people, right, if you only, again, feel safe and not drained when you're alone, you've got some work to do.

Speaker 1: 11:27

And so how I did this is that, again, I chose to be interactive over being proud. I chose to be to learn how to feel safe around other people and take responsibility for my shit. Because the truth is is that the trauma that I experienced from when I was younger is what made me feel so terrified of being around people, and the real reason why other people drain my energy is because I let them drain my energy. And I was draining my energy, you know, and what I mean by this is that I was because, again, because of my upbringing, my brain learned to, when I was around people, to be really obsessed with, like making sure that everyone liked me and to make sure that if someone was upset, I put all my focus and attention on the person who seemed a bit off and I would like try to make sure that I could control their perception over me, that I would try to make them happy, put them in a good mood, because, to the brain, when you go through trauma of, like, an unsafe home environment or whatever else, or unpredictable caregivers, the trauma response expresses itself to what people think is being an empath, which it's not.

Speaker 1: 12:26

It's just, you're just so attuned to your environment that any minor micro shift in someone's emotions or facial expressions will set an alarm in your body of danger. And then your brain has learned to just, you know, hyper focus on them and then try to fix them, try to rescue them, try to solve their problems or try to make sure they like you. Now, that is what's draining your energy, not literally being around people, because if you stop doing that, what it would look like if you weren't acting out of trauma. Then you would just be chill. You will still obviously maybe observe that someone is not feeling the best, but you don't sit there going. I need to fix them. You are awakened to that trauma program and you heal through it by awakening from it. And so when you can understand that it is safe for someone around you to feel what they want to feel and it's not your job to fix them, and understand that you're not that child anymore, like you're not in danger anymore, you don't have an unstable caregiver anymore, right, and what happens is that, well, you stop feeling so exhausted. People now will stop draining you, but people were never draining you. You were draining you and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Like it's about having that perfect balance of like self-compassion as well as like being disciplined with yourself. Yeah, again, self-love. This is being practical with yourself. Yeah, Again, self-love. This is being practical with yourself. It's being honest with yourself. It's about taking responsibility for yourself and stop blaming the world for, like you know how you feel, Because, at the end of the day, you're capable and you're worthy of being someone who can actually feel energized around people, and this doesn't matter whether you, no matter of your upbringing, no matter if you're introverted, no matter of your upbringing, no matter if you're introverted, no matter if you're extroverted right, which, by the way, 80% of people are actually ambiverted, which means you're both Okay, you're a balance of both, and essentially you're extroverted around certain people and then you're introverted about other people, like that's most people, like you know what I mean. So, um, so yeah, choose to interact over being proud, and being proud in this case is like pretending that projecting all of your own trauma onto how other people drain your life and actually take responsibility for the fact that you're draining your own life. You're in charge of your boundaries, you're in charge of healing, you're in charge of growing in, so on and so forth, and I promise that when you can be this powerful, like you will feel more loved within yourself and then you'll start to be someone who no longer questions whether they love themselves.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Number eight is again ties into the other one, but it's nervous system regulation over projecting your shit onto other people. So you'll find that people who don't feel loved and don't love themselves, or they think they don't love themselves, is that they like to project all their problems on everyone else, right or they think they don't love themselves, is that they like to project all their problems on everyone else, right? So instead of like regulating their nervous system and taking care of their body, taking care of this human vessel which the human vessel, your body, it's 100% governed by the state of your nervous system instead of taking care of yourself, people would rather just, you know, blame everything on everyone else. And of course, they don't feel like they love themselves, because blaming other people for your problems makes you feel very weak and powerless and it makes you believe that you're incompetent of feeling good. So, of course, you don't feel loved, you know. So that's why, being someone who chooses to be responsible for their body and their nervous system and regulating it and if we don't know how to do it, there's an abundance of free resources. It's either free or you could even hire someone to support you, whatever else. But it is our responsibility to take care of our vessel because, for example, when you regulate your nervous system and you take care of that nervous system, you stop being a people pleaser. Because being a people pleaser, for example, is not a personality trait, it's a trauma response, it's a stress response, it's called fawn. The fawn response comes after freeze and fight and flight, where it's like you're in a state of please and appease, meaning like you sort of have to abandon yourself to please the person because your brain believes that if you are your real self, then you're going to be in danger, that other person is going to hurt you. And if you want to know more about people pleasing, if that's something that's striking a chord in you and you want to heal that, you can listen to the episode called Lessons of a Former People Pleaser on this show. That will be really powerful for you. But yeah, like choose nervous system regulation over just blaming everyone else for your problems Again ties into each other to the other ones we've spoken about.

Speaker 1: 16:50

Number nine is remaining a student over trying to be an expert. So what this means is that this new way of loving yourself is actually having that humility right. The humility that the truth is is that A you're not supposed to know everything. B even if you were like, even if you did want to know everything, you can't, because knowledge is ever evolving and you could live a thousand lifetimes and still not know everything. But even if you could know everything, why would you want to know everything. Not everything is relevant to you, not everything is useful. In fact, most information is just a waste of energy to know and it's actually very unhelpful.

Speaker 1: 17:30

So, when you prioritize being a student over being a master, you live your life with the student mindset, you live your life ready to be evolved, you live your life ready to be expanded, you live your life being humble and because of this, you naturally become the expert. And so that's actually how I became good and, around a lot of areas, why I technically am an expert in many different things, such as nervous system regulations, such as mental health, such as manifestation, such as spiritual awakenings. It's because I stayed the student, I still stay the student and I always will stay the student, and because I don't have an ego around this shit. Um, I'm learning every day, whether I like it or not, because your mindset is that, that impactful towards the quality of your life. So, yeah, really, you love yourself when you can have that confidence in and uh, in constantly allowing yourself to be, to learn, worthy information, aligned information, um, from that student mindset as well. So, having that humility and confidence at the same time, instead of trying to be someone who knows everything, I know everything. Oh, you can't tell me what to do. You can't teach me that, because I already know that. I know everything. You know, we don't.

Speaker 1: 18:42

You don't feel like you love yourself if you're someone who's trying to be someone, who's a know-it-all, and, believe me, if you keep the student mindset, you will accidentally know it all. So there's that, and the last one is, in a way, a practical way to love yourself is say no, choose to say no, instead of choosing to be liked Right, and so what this means is that, um, it was sort of like the example I gave you at the beginning of this episode, yeah, when I was like someone who truly loves you, actually rather tell, rather to tell you the truth, a difficult truth that is in your best interest to know. They rather risk and tell you the truth, a difficult truth that is in your best interest to know. They rather risk and tell you the truth because I love you so much over you. Actually, at the risk sorry, at the risk of you being angry at them and projecting onto them. That's love.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Love is wanting what's best for someone. It's not being selfish and needing them to like you and approve of you. That's not love. Okay, that's. That's manipulation. True love, be that to yourself or be that to another human, is actually about accepting them for what they are, not needing them to change in order to satisfy your ego, while also doing what's best for them. And sometimes what's best for someone, selfishly for you, sucks Right, and so, again, that works for yourself too. That goes for yourself that if you, then if you can say no to things or, um, yeah, saying no to someone and hold your boundaries, you love yourself so much, right, that you, you are willing to say no and be honest with that person, um, and hold your boundaries. You rather that. That's more important to you because you're risking not being liked, and when you risk someone not liking you, there is no greater expression of love and self-love and respect that you could possibly display. To be honest, in terms of the general overview, being so true to yourself again, I'm going to say it one more time, at the risk of someone or people disapproving of you is ultimate self-love and acceptance. Okay, and that's a practical way to go about things.

Speaker 1: 20:44

And so the next time someone says, oh, like, can I, you know, can you do this for me? Can you take care and babysit my kids? You know you don't have anything on, you know you don't have kids and like you sit there and you, and if you chose to love yourself, right, and you turn around and you're like, no, I'm not going to babysit your kids, then that's it. And in your heart you know, because you know what I don't want to do that right now I don't want to babysit their kids. I'm not here for them to save money, like it's not my responsibility, like don't fucking have kids. Then if you can't take care of them or make sure you organize a babysitter, why are they entitled to me? What? Because you don't have kids, all of a sudden, your time is not as valuable as a parent. That's a load of shit, right? So by you saying no, you risk that person close to you not liking you, right.

Speaker 1: 21:28

But that's love, that's self-love, and you teach other people how to treat you. And if you find that other people don't treat you with love and respect 100%, people don't treat you with love and respect 100%. You don't treat yourself with love and respect. But that's okay, that's okay. That's why you're here listening and you're learning, and this show is here for you, for your manifesting journey. But a big part of manifesting your dream life is actually learning how to love yourself properly, and so this is why this has got like a three-part series to it.

Speaker 1: 21:57

So I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If there is someone who you know will benefit from this episode or this show in general, please make sure you share this with them, as maybe it could be the beginning of the rest of their abundant life. So I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Feel free to leave a review. I will not stop you if you did, um, and just be honest in it, cause, like I'm here to get the feedback, this is a conversation. This is a dialogue, um, and you're a part of the hot genius society brand as much as I am. So I hope you have a lovely day, Um, enjoy the end of your celebrations and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.