Holla B.L.A.C.K.
Building community through conversations and motivation. We can all be Brave Leaders Accountable to Communicating Knowledge. When we know better there's no excuse but to do better. How do I grow if I don't have the knowledge of things necessary in communicating better, striving towards success, taking action, reading, listening, and Developing to become better for my community and future. Please give this podcast a rating and review and let us know what you think and help others in their journey to grow consistently. About Ronnel: Ronnel Blackmon is the owner of Morethanme and Host/Creator of the Holla Black Podcast; He is a public speaker, trainer, and aspires to motivate others to do their absolute best in achieving the goals that they have personally and professionally. As a part of More Than Me, he has created a podcast “Holla Black”. This is a podcast for those wishing to influence and encourage others through action and mindset development. He Believes that we can all be Brave Leaders that are Accountable to Communicating Knowledge, and develop each day by becoming better than the previous. Our goal is to build community through conversations and get the necessary information to our listeners that will help them become better each day. We have a passion to build Brave Leaders that are Accountable to Communicating Knowledge no matter your background or past circumstances. Moving forward is what we are doing and it starts with one step at a time.
Holla B.L.A.C.K.
Embracing Self-Love: The Key to Healthy Relationships
What if prioritizing your own well-being holds the key to transforming not only your life but also the relationships you cherish? Join me, Ronnel Blackmon, on a journey where the art of self-love becomes the cornerstone of building healthy, meaningful connections. Together, we'll explore how embracing self-love isn't just an act of self-care but a powerful method to draw the right kind of love into your life, inspired by both personal stories and spiritual insights like Romans 5:8.
Understanding self-worth and setting healthy boundaries are vital skills that empower us to protect our emotional health and confidently affirm our needs. By recognizing that our intrinsic value doesn't hinge on external validation, we can set personal standards for how we want to be treated. We'll discuss the misconceptions around self-care, rebranding it from selfish to essential, and highlight joyful activities that nurture our body, mind, and soul. This episode will inspire you to create a life blueprint that champions wellness and personal growth.
Before stepping into a relationship, healing oneself from within is paramount to avoid the pitfalls of toxic bonds. We'll talk about using tools like journaling, therapy, and self-reflection to cultivate inner happiness and develop self-confidence. Effective communication of our personal needs and choosing partners from a place of abundance rather than necessity are fundamental steps towards creating relationships based on mutual respect and shared happiness. As your host, I invite you to engage with our community, share your thoughts, and continue this journey with us on the Holla Black podcast.
Ronnel Blackmon - Your Favorite Host and Emcee
IG: @ronnelblackmon
FB: @RonnelBlackmon
WEB: www.ronnelblackmon.com
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I want to welcome you back to another great opportunity that we get to spend together. Now we get to have some fun and right here you have just entered into the Holla Black podcast studio. I'm your favorite host and MC Ronnell Blackman, and we here believe that we are all brave leaders that are accountable to communicating knowledge, one conversation at a time. We hope to continue to build community through these conversations and have very intentional conversations that will allow for us to be better today than we were yesterday. Again, as I said, I'm your favorite host and MC Ronnell Blackman, and I'm super excited to have this opportunity to you know, just share, to discuss, to think about this special week that we have, valentine's week, the week that we get to show either someone else love or guess what Even ourselves some love. Now, the title of this podcast is going to be yes, yes, yes. The title is going to be how much do you love you? That's what I believe. Like how much do you love you? Like how much do you love you?
Speaker 1:I'm thinking to myself and, you know, truly thinking about all the experiences that I've had throughout the years, whether it's being in a relationship or, you know, working on some different goals that I've had set for myself and just figuring out exactly like, hey, what brings me true life, what brings me true love, what allows for me to be the very best that I can be? And ultimately, it comes through me recognizing that I have to love myself enough to be able to love someone else. We've talked about different things in the past, and I think about the scripture in Romans 5.8 that talks about God demonstrating his own love for us in the fact that, while we were still sinners, christ died for us, right? He gave up his only begotten son for us, for our lives, so that we could have everlasting life. I think about you know the fact that, hey, self-love, by definition, it's the instinct by which one's actions are truly directed to the promotion of your own welfare or well-being. Right, especially in excess excessiveness, regard for one's own advantage. Think about this. Right Me, helping you helps me. It's my advantage for me to love myself so that I can be better and love you more. For me to love myself so that I can be better and love you more.
Speaker 1:Once again, how much do you love you? That's the question that I'm asking right here in this podcast episode, because I truly believe that having an opportunity to love yourself first is the essential. Get the mic right there, I got too excited. Loving yourself first is essential for building healthy, fulfilling relationships, and here I would love to discuss just some key principles to self-love and how they can allow for us to contribute those key principles into better relationships. So I'm going to go ahead right here and dive in, but first hold on, hold on. I want to get it over here. Right here.
Speaker 1:Got a little motivational quote for you when you love yourself first, the right love finds you. Think about that. When you love you first, the right love finds you, you start attracting love, you start bringing love towards you, you start encompassing yourself in a loving space. That's what we want it to be about. Right, we want to have fulfilling, loving relationships. And guess what? It starts off with self-love. Self-love number one.
Speaker 1:The first principle is going to be we're going to talk about it right here know your worth. Oh, do you know how valuable you are? Do you know how precious you are? Do you understand that your value, it truly isn't determined by external validation? Right, like others may talk about how, how, like, uh, how there's no other, how you're priceless or how things matter, but that, that, ah, no, that outside noise, that doesn't matter. They can't tell you external things, can't tell you how valuable you are. You need to set personal standards for how you want to be treated, but then also who you want to treat you, in that order, in that way. Think about it like this your worth is not up for negotiation. You got to love yourself first, and guess what? Again, the right people will follow. And, ladies and gentlemen, you got to teach people how to treat you by the way that you treat yourself. How do you treat yourself? Do you take yourself out for, you know, dinners? Do you take yourself out on walks? Do you take yourself shopping? Right? However you treat you, you're teaching others how to treat yourself.
Speaker 1:Number two setting healthy boundaries. Now, when I talk about setting healthy boundaries, I'm not talking about walls, no, no, no. I'm talking about filters, filters for respect. Setting healthy boundaries allows for us to protect our emotional well-being. You hear it, you know it. You know that your well-being is very, very important. And guess what? You gotta protect those things that are, and have, high importance. So you have to learn to say no and simply say it without any guilt. Yeah, you gotta be unashamed. You gotta be unashamed with just saying those two letters N-O, no, like that is a statement in itself.
Speaker 1:There is no other additional explanation. According to, if somebody asked me hey, can you come and help me move? No, what more should I say? But you know, if you're asking me, then most of the time I might say yes, unless I'm crazy busy, which normally I am crazy busy but that's neither here nor there. We are here to understand and recognize how those healthy boundaries that you set can allow for you to respect yourself enough to walk away from toxic situations. I know I'm speaking to some folks out here that are listening to this, that are thinking about some of the different toxic situations you may have been in the past. I know I have. Whether it be business, whether it be personal, there's been some toxic situations that have caused me to feel uncomfortable, to feel discouraged about myself, to feel lackluster, to not even want to achieve certain goals that I may even have set. So setting those healthy boundaries allows me to filter that respect that I have for me.
Speaker 1:And guess what? When you say no to others, you're actually saying yes to yourself. You want to hear yourself say yes to you, you want to speak to you. I know, as a child, I always wanted to, you know, be affirmed in. You know, even actually, in some of my relationships with my wife and some of the discussions and conversations, right, I want to hear her say yes. But, honestly, if I'm going to be 100 with you, like I have to be okay with others saying no and me saying yes to me, right, like I have to be comfortable, even when I say no to things that I am recognizing that I'm saying yes to me, I'm saying yes to my rest, I'm saying yes to my health, I'm saying yes to my fitness, my wealth, my future generations that I'm also affecting through, again, setting healthy, healthy, healthy boundaries, and that's something that each and every single one of us not only can do, but we need to do. We have to do Stay away from all of those toxic situations that you might come up against.
Speaker 1:And then, number three, yeah, I'm going down the whole list Prioritize self-care and wellness. You have to this is a number one must. You got to nourish your body, your mind, your soul, and you got to even think about these things as healthy habits. When I'm talking about creating a habit, I'm talking, as you know, to do the same things or do similar things each and every single day, creating that purpose, creating that format, that formula, that blueprint not only of who you are, but also who you want to be. So you want to nurture your body, you want to nourish your mind, you want to nourish your soul Again, engaging in activities that continuously bring you joy and fulfillment.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think about it like this right, I had a great opportunity just the other day to go ride down a silver comet right down here in the city of Atlanta well, west Atlanta with one of my buddies, and man, what an enjoying moment that was. I mean, freeing to be outside, inhaling confidence you know, I got you Chef Confidence, exhaling doubt, just really taking in that fresh air and having some fun with my bro as we are rolling on two wheels down the trail and just having some fun right, enjoying this activity and recognizing that, wow, at the end of it, two hours is what we did, 25 miles that at the end of it we burned almost 1,500 calories, right, wow, okay, yeah, that's health and fitness. That made me feel a lot better when I then went to celebrate, watching the Super Bowl, watching the Eagles versus Kansas City, and just really enjoy themselves. Or should I say I enjoyed myself during that time and I didn't feel guilty about any decisions, any food choices or anything. Because, guess what? I got to work in early, so again, engaging in activities that ultimately bring you joy and fulfillment.
Speaker 1:You got to prioritize self-care and wellness. I mean, you got to think of it almost like self-care. It isn't selfish. You got to think of it like it's survival, survival of the fittest. So guess what? Self-care? Because, yes, as I just said, I want to say it ain't finished. I'm going to use the word ain't, I know that's not correct English. And you know I'm choosing to just really enjoy this podcast episode, because the love, the self-love conversation is one that I'm truly passionate in and I and I love myself. That's why, if you're looking on YouTube, you see me in my pink polo, because, yes, I am enjoying myself.
Speaker 1:So you can't pour from an empty cup. I've heard that many times. I'm pretty sure those of you that are 30 and older okay, maybe 20 and older have heard that statement as well. You can't pour from an empty cup, so make sure that you feel yours first, right. You can't pour from an empty cup, so make sure you feel yours first. That's what we're talking about right here when we talk about prioritizing self-care and wellness, when we talk about nourishing your body, your mind, your soul, healthy habits, engaging in them daily, each and every single opportunity that you can. You come first, fill your cup first, all right. So that's number three. Number four develop emotional independence. This is brain power right here. This is brain power right here.
Speaker 1:Emotional independence I don't I don't like, really agree with the idea that your heart is down here. I believe your heart is in your mind, right, I think about. Your heart is in the decisions that you make. You feel you, you, you may have a gut feeling, but ultimately that some sparks that are going on in your mind, whether it's your frontal, your left, your right, whichever it might be. Okay, it's in your brain. And guess what? A relationship should enhance your life. It shouldn't complete it, it should enhance it. It should make you better. You should become a better individual because you're in a relationship, not be, oh, now I am complete because I found that perfect someone. No, you're complete just as you are, but if you could be better? That's what a relationship can bring, okay. So develop that emotional independence, okay, learn to self-soothe and manage emotions without relying on others.
Speaker 1:I think about the fact that a relationship should complement you, not complete you. Loving yourself enough to be happy alone before seeking happiness with someone else is key. That's a true key to finding and having a good, healthy, great relationship actually a key to marriage. Like, you shouldn't get married if you don't first love you. You should love you enough to be able to love somebody else, recognizing what their love, what their presence, what their mindset, what their activities, how they look, how they feel, how they respond to things, how it affects you. You should already have those filters up, not walls, filters up that allows for you to have the right individuals in the conversations and discussing and sharing and pouring into your life. Right Again, enhancing you, not completing you.
Speaker 1:Number five we're going to talk about practicing self-compassion. Are you, do you give yourself a break? Right? Like, are you kind to you? I know a lot of people that are kind to others and not kind to themselves.
Speaker 1:Think about the fact that when you make mistakes, you need to make sure that you are okay, or should I say being kind to yourself and not being demonstrative, not tearing yourself down? What I can't do, what I won't do, what I will never do. Get that stinking thinking out of here. You want to be kind to yourself, even when you make mistakes, and let yourself know. Speak to yourself. You might sound crazy, but speak to yourself and say you know what. That was a mistake. That was something I don't want to ever do again. But guess what? I can do something better. I can learn from this mistake.
Speaker 1:I love it when I talk to my son or a sporting event and he talks about hey, dad, I didn't really reach the level or the goal of winning the game, but there was a lot of lessons that I learned from it and honestly, as a parent, that's all you can ask. Right? So again, right, treat yourself with that same understanding that you offer a friend. I mean, think about this the fact that you're allowed to be a masterpiece and a work in progress at the same time. Like, you are beautiful just as you are, but you also are work in progress at the same time. Wow, I have an opportunity to develop. I have an opportunity to learn something. Apply that thing, share it to others and then continue to learn some more. Right, I'm complete just as I am, but actually, at the same time, I can't be satisfied with it. I can get better.
Speaker 1:Because if I'm here, there's there, right, so speak to yourself in a way that you speak to someone that you love. Right, you care for you, affirm, you, tell them, you touch, you show, you give them those one-on-one opportunities. You need to do that with yourself as well, right, it may just be you watching a show, it may be you taking yourself out to the movies, it may be you going to breakfast, lunch or dinner. Whatever the case may be, you need to make sure that when you speak to you, you're speaking to you in the same way that you would speak to someone you love. Because, guess what? Loving yourself first is the most important thing, especially when we talk about relationships.
Speaker 1:I think about the fact that even on a workspace, right, even in the like, relationships work. Let's just, let's say what it is. It is what it is. Relationships will work because, yes, you are affirming somebody, you are doing something for the greater good of the both of you, right? So you should always be looking to you know, enhance that thing and make it better, the same exact way that you would a job, when you're at your desk, when you're looking at you know spreadsheets, when you're looking at emails, you want to always give your best. Exact same thing within relationships and again exact same thing should be done to yourself. So that's number five.
Speaker 1:Number six embracing your authenticity. Oh, are you being authentic? I'm right here, hey, I'm being as authentic as I can with you, as I can, within, yes, understanding, but, no, we're being authentic. Are you being authentic and are you embracing that? Right? Are you loving and accepting yourself just as you are? I know I'm goofy, I know I'm silly, I know I can be too serious, I know I can be too intentional sometimes. I know I can be too much right, too big, too exciting for some folks. But guess what I love me, exactly who I am, how I am, and guess what? I truly believe that you should also be doing the same thing, because the right people will be drawn to your true self. I mean, I think about all of my friends, like they accept me, they know me exactly how I am, who I am and they love me. For those that might not, hey, that's OK too. You know, you have to be very comfortable with a love it or leave it type of mentality. Right, you got to. You got to think about the fact that you know you want people to be drawn to your true self and not to a version of what you think that they want. Right, like. So you know, I like that term fake it till you make it. But at the same time, I don't want to fake it to the point where I'm losing my true self of who I am, what I want and where I want to be right.
Speaker 1:Number seven let's keep it moving, heal, before you enter a relationship. I know a lot of broken people that get with other broken people and they end up broken up. Yeah, exactly, right, like. They end up out of a relationship, scarred, in toxic situation. That's really what a toxic relationship looks like. It is two folks that are broken right that enter that relationship. They both are broken entering in and then they maybe fulfill a need in you know one area or another, but ultimately, because they're missing so much right they're, they're unavailable to helping and healing and loving and adding to others. So we got to make sure that we address those past wounds, those past insecurities that may impact future results and relationships. I think about some things like journaling, therapy, self-reflection. Those are some powerful tools that can help us to heal, right? We want to make sure that we're doing those things especially. We need to be healing before we enter those new relationships.
Speaker 1:Number eight cultivating happiness within. Yeah, let's talk about that real quick. True happiness it comes from not outside, but in, right, not from another person, but in. You got to find your own joy, in your own company, in your hobbies and passions. Like it's interesting that this is coming about, because I'm thinking about the fact that most of the time, I can't stand to be alone. I can't stand to be, you know, watching an event or, you know, by myself going out or doing anything. But guess what I actually feel like, felt like man this past weekend. I was like man. I'm getting a little bit mature out here. I'm getting a little wise because I'm truly enjoying this self-time right, thinking about the fact that I'm finding joy in my own hobbies and passion. Don't get me wrong, I love hanging out with other people, but, man, hanging out by yourself with yourself and enjoying Now, yes, I was still texting folks, I was still, you know, talking to people on the phone, but like being in the presence of my own, being in full control of my environment gosh, you got to find that.
Speaker 1:You got to get that place, that space for you to be able to do that. So, guess what? Cultivating happiness within that is another key principle. That is true to self-love, especially if we're talking about helping and loving others. Okay, number nine communicate your needs clearly. Are you being clear with what you need? I feel like these are like 10 podcast episodes in one right here.
Speaker 1:Are you communicating your needs clearly? I know it can be, honestly, it can be tough, right, and I truly wish that in relationships, especially different marriages, you can have that conversation like you would your best friend, like you would your buddy, right, but you got to be careful, because you want to know that you are caring for another's feelings, but you also need to make sure that you are communicating your absolute needs and you're doing it clearly. Okay, expressing what you want. It may even start off as a conversation of hey, I really, I really don't know how to say this, I really don't know how to get into this, but I want to share something that's true to me, right, like that I need out of this relationship and, trust me, if that person cares for you, if that person loves you, if that person truly wants to be not only with you but also help you become better. What are they going to do? Yeah, they're going to be there for you, right? Like they're going to hear you. They're going to listen. They're not going to run away. Now, a feeling or two may be hurt by it, it's normal, that's okay. But at least you've told them, at least you didn't hide anything that would stop them from being the best that they could be for you. Right? You allowing them to go through that filter by letting them know what those filters were, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Right, think about the fact that confidence in yourself makes it easier to communicate with others. When I'm confident, guess what? Nobody could tell me anything. I mean, you could tell me something. But at the same time, it's like, hey, I know exactly what I know and I know that you can add value in this space or you can't, right, and building confidence and having confidence in me and who I am and what I want, it makes it so much easier for me to communicate with others because there's no guesswork, there's no. What? If there's no, I don't know, I'm not sure, assumptions making a you know what out of you and me. There's none of that. We're building confidence not only in ourselves, by loving ourselves, but we're also allowing for us to communicate confidently with our significant others, with our friends, with our families. That communication with confidence, that's key. That's key right there, especially when we're talking about a healthy relationship.
Speaker 1:And lastly, I'm gonna end it right here we're gonna try to keep it quick, keep it short, I know, keep it quick, keep it short. Whichever, choose love from abundance, not from need. What do you mean, roneo? I mean that, like when you love yourself first, you attract partners who will compliment you, not complete you. Right, healthy relationships there's built on mutual respect and shared happiness, not desperation. Like when you desperate, you look desperate, you sound desperate, you act desperate. Let's let's not be desperate, let's not be thirsty, like, think about the fact that you know, in everyday relationships, we have an opportunity to become better, to achieve more, and with working together, being true to who we are, we're allowing ourselves to be loved and also to show love to others.
Speaker 1:Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap for this podcast episode I hope you all enjoyed. If you have any comments, any concerns, any thoughts, please feel free to go ahead and share, like, subscribe, comment and, oh yes, subscribe YouTube channel. Hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode Again. If you like it, please share and please let me know how we here at the Holla Black podcast can be more of a blessing to you in your lives. Once again, it's your boy favorite host and emcee, ronnell Blackman. Holla Black.