Join Gabby and Maddie as the teach us about self-care, self-love and the differences between the two. They share tips to help promote your own self-love. Talk about affirmations, why you should love yourself and RuPaul, so you know your in for a good listen.
Join Gabby and Maddie as the teach us about self-care, self-love and the differences between the two. They share tips to help promote your own self-love. Talk about affirmations, why you should love yourself and RuPaul, so you know your in for a good listen.
Hey folks, welcome back to the Get with the Grove Podcast.
Maddie:I'm Maddie.
Gabby:And I'm Gabby. And for this week's episode, we're going to be talking about self love and self care. We have an earlier episode about the importance of self care. So feel free to check that out as well if you're interested in learning more and hearing personal stories from former Youth Ambassadors,
Maddie:So when was the last time you made an appointment with yourself, or marked out a section in your diary to do something that you wanted to do rather than something that you are required to do? Many of us leave such on the go lives that we push our own needs and desires to one side for the benefit of everyone else. This can be okay for a while, but sooner or later, cracks will appear and left untended, those cracks can become deep cavities that seep into your physical and mental health, eating away at your happiness and potential. So Gabby, what is self love and self care?
Gabby:So self care is anything that we do to take care of our mental, emotional and physical well being. It requires checking in with yourself and asking yourself how you're doing physically, mentally, and emotionally. And self love means loving yourself unconditionally, cultivating gratitude and acceptance towards yourself.
Maddie:Awesome.
Gabby:What's the difference between self love and self-care.
Maddie:So self love and self care tend to get confused as the same thing, but they're actually different. Self love centers around thoughts and feelings that we have about ourself, whereas self care focuses on our actions. And self care is self love in action. So, Gabby, why is self love important?
Gabby:So self love is important for many reasons. Mainly being because being kind to ourselves, lowers anxiety, lowers stress, it helps build self esteem and resilience. And it also helps build our relationship with others. If we feel good about ourselves, we feel confident with ourselves. This can often translate into our relationships will feel more confident communicating with others.
Maddie:Yeah. And how do you practice self love
Gabby:So there's many ways that you can practice self love, these are just a couple of them. So you could keep a journal, writing down how you're feeling throughout the day, keeping note of your emotions, also giving yourself compliments. Speaking to yourself as you would to a friend so saying kind things, celebrating small wins, which could be anything it could be getting out of bed in the morning, brushing your teeth, the little things, also limiting your time on social media. In today's day and age, it's really easy to compare ourselves to others.
Maddie:Absolutely.
Gabby:So limiting that time that we spend on social media and focusing on being more present with ourselves and with people around us can be very beneficial for practicing self love. And also finding support if you find that you are struggling to love yourself and take care of yourself seeking that support. reaching out for help when you need it. Moving on. Why is self care important Maddie?
Maddie:Well, as you mentioned, self care is also important for many reasons. So self care helps to manage both your physical and your mental well being. And self care looks different for everyone and everyone practices. So self care in different ways. And it's not always doing a face mask and having a bubble bath. Sometimes it's showing up for yourself in small ways. Like when you're having a hard day and you need to reach out to someone for some support.
Gabby:How can you practice self-care?
Maddie:So you can practice self care by doing something kind for yourself. And this could look like cooking a meal or going for a walk, and setting self care goals. Some example of self care goals can include taking care of your physical and mental health. So planning to go to the gym once a week or starting late, as you mentioned before a journal, recognizing your emotional and spiritual needs. So if you feel like you need to set aside a time either in the morning or at night, to have a meditative practice, that's also a really good way to practice self care. achieving balance in different areas of your life. And then also practice gratitude, thank your body for everything that it does for you. Our bodies are so incredible, and they do so many things for us. So it's really beneficial to kind of sit back and thank your body for everything that it does every day to keep you functioning and prioritize your needs. So feel okay to set boundaries and surround yourself with goods. supportive people. Self Care sometimes looks like making hard choices to put yourself first and that is AOkay,
Gabby:so now we're just gonna kind of go through some self love affirmations. So an affirmation is kind of like something that you repeat to yourself.
Maddie:Yeah, you can do it in the mirror in the morning or at night. It's an affirmation, self love. Affirmation is for yourself. So you don't have to do it in front of anyone. It's okay to be just by yourself for self love affirmations.
Gabby:Yeah, so starting off a self love affirmation example is, I love myself just as I am today.
Maddie:Another one is, I appreciate in all the ways that I am unique.
Gabby:Another one is I choose to be kind to myself.
Maddie:It is natural to love myself,
Gabby:I love every part of myself.
Maddie:And you can be creative with these affirmations you can make up your own or find some online that you feel that others recommend. And I feel like putting out affirmations into the universe kind of comes back back to you later on.
Gabby:Kind of like manifesting.
Maddie:Yeah.
Gabby:So we have a little bit of an interactive activity. We have a question. So feel free to kind of ponder and think about an answer to this question yourself. But the question is, what do we love about ourselves at this moment?
Maddie:Gabby, what do you love about yourself at this moment?
Gabby:That's kind of like a tough question. Because I feel like it's like not something that you like, think about on like, a regular basis. I think something I love about myself right now, is the fact that I show up for myself every day, in so many different ways. So like, going to the gym, coming to work, spending time with my friends. Especially on those like harder days when I just want to like, isolate and like be by myself, like still showing up for myself in those little ways, like cleaning my room or taking a shower. I'm very appreciative of my drive to just keep going.
Maddie:Oh, so nice.
Gabby:Yeah, what about you, Maddie, what do you love about yourself at this moment,
Maddie:Um, I love there's so many things. I definitely love my body, physical and mental body. It's been tough recently, like, I'm kind of struggling with a couple of small injuries at the moment. And for some new listeners, I'm an athlete, I played rugby at the University of Guelph. So I'm a part of a team and I have to attend practices and workouts with my team on a regular basis. And I've kind of been struggling with an knee injury for a while. And for a while, it was kind of getting me down because I couldn't lift as heavy as I was before. And it's been bothering me every single day. So instead of kind of moping about it, I've taken everything I can to appreciate what I have. And I've set goals for how to get better. So I've made appointments with physio, I've been having treatment every single night. I've been going to my lifts and just adapting my workouts. Because even though I have this little minor injury, my body is capable of so many things. And I do really appreciate the work that I put into leaving or leading a healthy lifestyle. So yeah, I think
Gabby:that's awesome.
Maddie:Yeah.
Gabby:And I think part of that is just like practicing patience.
Maddie:Yeah.
Gabby:Especially like if you're if you're, like recovering from an injury, like kind of just taking things day by day and like telling yourself like, you know, you're doing everything you can to get better. It's not something that's going to happen overnight. So taking those little steps to get better is really important and kind of just not rushing the process.
Maddie:Yeah, absolutely. I also want to mention that self care starts with acknowledging the way that we speak to ourselves and learning to silence our inner critic. So a lot of people think that if you love yourself, you can be cocky, or I don't know, if if you love yourself, you're too full of yourself. And that's not the case. Self love is so important and it translates to so many different areas of life. If you love yourself that comes across in other relationships and in other aspects of your life. So don't don't listen to your inner saboteur when it tells you that you're not good. enough or that you know, you, you're not pretty enough, you don't have the best body like we are, we have to be our biggest fans.
Gabby:And I think it's like a constant practice as well. Like, I think the journey to like loving yourself never really ends. Like you're constantly like discovering new things about yourself new things to love about yourself. And I think it's kind of hard when it comes to like relationships and people are like, Well, if you don't love yourself, how are you? How are you going to love someone else?
Maddie:Thank you, RuPaul.
Gabby:Um, that quote can be a little bit difficult because then it kind of gives people the impression that if you're not like, 100% in love with yourself, then like, you're not deserving of love from other people, which is like so untrue. Like I said, like, it's a constant process for everyone. And I don't think you're ever gonna, like, be there like 100% Because you're going to constantly be like, finding new things to love about yourself. So don't let any of that like hold you back from like, having like positive relationships with others. If you don't have like a super positive relationship with yourself, you can still work on that and be there and show up for other people in a bunch of different ways. So
Maddie:yeah, I think that's very important to mention again, that it is a process. It takes some folks years to get to a point of acceptance, and that is okay. I mean, practicing every day is it will pay off in the end and it really does have a big impact on your mental and physical self.
Gabby:Thank you everyone for tuning into this week's episode.
Maddie:Be kind to your mind, and we'll see you next time.
Gabby:Bye bye.