52. What is Real Self-Love? [Season 5 VDay Special!]

In this Valentine's Day special episode of Sturdy Girl, host Jess challenges the conventional notion that self-love should be the end goal in building a relationship with oneself. Jess discusses the idea of finding a middle ground, focusing on self-respect, self-trust, and self-compassion as more practical and attainable alternatives. She explains the concept of body image flexibility and the importance of function over appearance, providing actionable tips like reframing self-talk and setting non-negotiable self-care practices. Through this insightful episode, Jess encourages listeners to build a resilient relationship with themselves, emphasizing that self-respect and self-trust are crucial for long-term well-being.

Core Values Episode

First Self-Love Episode

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Transcript

Speaker: [00:00:00] Friends, hello, it's your host Jess and a new season of sturdy girl. I missed you guys. I will be 100 percent honest. I had so many amazing interviews through fall and early winter of last year that I. Needed a longer break. I don't say that like the interviews were great But when you are a one woman show with your partner as support, like don't get me wrong Blake does a ton to help with all the things but I am recording and [00:00:30] researching and editing and promoting and all these pieces and so here we are it is A month and a half later since we ended season four of Sturdy Girl, we are back with a special Valentine's Day episode to talk about self love.

Because happy Valentine's Day, This means two things. An explosion of heart shaped candy, which will be half off tomorrow, and a flood of social media posts telling you to date yourself and fall in love with yourself and [00:01:00] love your body. Meanwhile, we're just over here trying to keep your body from randomly injuring itself daily tasks like, choosing the right pillow to sleep on at night.

Is it just me? I don't know, but the point is, self love is complicated. And while it's cool if you have it, you don't need it to build a strong, confident, and resilient relationship with yourself, right? Which is what we're all about with Sturdy Girl. we've talked about self love before on the episode.

Which, I'll link that episode in the show notes, it's from [00:01:30] season one, and it's titled Do You Have to Love Yourself? but today I really want to challenge the idea that self love has to be the end goal. I want to talk a little bit more about what that middle ground might look like, because there's this giant canyon between self love and where we might be right now in our relationship with ourselves and or our bodies.

for self love based videos. Maybe. It's somewhere neutral. Maybe we're in a neutral place. Maybe we are in a negative place. Maybe it's even so far as to say we're in a place of self [00:02:00] loathing. in that space, in that canyon between self love and where we are right now, there's a lot of room for something better than what we think of as self love.

And that's self respect, self trust. Self compassion. This is what it takes to be a sturdy human. So hear me out. I am not dissing on self love necessarily. Okay, maybe a little. But I'm saying it doesn't have to be the end goal. There are other options. There's the middle ground. let's dive into this a little [00:02:30] bit.

See, first and foremost, the problem with the current self love narrative, or what we seem to see portrayed in the media, is this way of waking up every day staring in the mirror and being like, damn, I love everything about myself. And if you don't feel that way, then you must be doing something wrong.

Self love comes across as this like, face mask, morning mirror affirmations, looking in that mirror and whispering, you are a goddess. You see all these cliches about, you know, you have [00:03:00] to love yourself before you can love anyone else. Okay, I guess I need to be a self love guru before I can go on a date.

Sorry, Blake, like, I gotta reach Nirvana first. The portrayal of it in the media is so much different from the reality. So I'm here to tell you something a little different. You don't need to be obsessed with yourself. You just need to learn to have your own back. The self love and how it's portrayed, it can really backfire.

some level of like putting yourself on a pedestal when self love, like we mentioned, is [00:03:30] respecting, honoring, and accepting yourself. That's really what, if we want to call self love, what real self love would be. Healthy self love would include self criticism, humility, boundaries. Self compassion, so much different from self indulgence, right?

When we talk about self compassion, a little bit on the, the research of this, self compassion is more beneficial for your mental well being than self love. Forcing self love can make people feel worse, because it highlights the gap [00:04:00] between where they actually are and where they quote unquote should be.

that's the half of this, right? Is like so many people talk about affirmations and they're like, well, just look in the mirror and tell yourself you love yourself. Okay. But if I don't actually believe it, my brain's going to call BS. It's just not going to work. You can't just slap an, I love myself sticker and continue on.

So if self love isn't the answer. Let's talk about what actually is. So here is the whole spectrum. This is helping find the middle ground. the idea of body [00:04:30] image flexibility. there are a number of Sturdy Girl episodes in previous seasons about body image flexibility, and I will link those as well in the show notes.

But it's basically the idea of being flexible with yourself, with your body and understanding that. Your relationship with yourself is not static. It shifts over time. Your body is not static. It shifts and changes over time. Injuries happen. Aging happens. Life happens. And that's where this body image [00:05:00] flexibility piece comes in. It's the ability to adapt how you see yourself without spiraling back into that self loathing. You don't have to love your body to respect what it can do and take care of it. You know, this is an example of just thinking about, like I said, injuries happen, aging happens, life happens.

If your relationship with yourself or with your body is based solely on how you look, now, what happens when you're 90? What happens if [00:05:30] you develop a chronic illness? What happens if you get pregnant and your body changes? What If we are loving ourselves now, as is in this moment with the way our body looks, what do we do when it changes?

So this flexibility piece with our relationship with ourself and our relationship with our body says, Hey, shit happens, life changes. Nothing is meant to stay the same. How do we roll with it? How do we learn to ride the waves of fluctuations in body image? You know, and it's looking at [00:06:00] these pieces, like I said, self respect, self trust, self compassion, taking care of yourself because you matter, not because you love every inch of yourself, treating yourself with the same kindness that you would a close friend, knowing you can handle challenges even when you don't feel confident.

Like, all of these pieces are so important in that, if we want to talk about it being like self love or a self love alternative, that middle ground of that canyon between self love and self loathing or, those pieces. We mentioned self compassion in some of Dr. Kristen Neff's [00:06:30] insights on that self compassion piece.

one other thing that I want to mention, and I should have before with the research is self compassion. leads to greater resilience in long term mental well being than just self love. love needs more than just the love piece. And so that's what all these other things are. You know, looking at how that balances out.

So, I feel like I'm rambling. I just, I always love being able to pull pieces of research into this with also just being like shouting from the rooftops that there [00:07:00] are alternatives. So there are six things that I want to talk about in building a relationship with yourself and your body that is not based on self love.

And that first thing reframing self talk. I want to give you a handful of examples of maybe some self talk reframes because as we gain awareness around our relationship with ourselves and we start paying attention to Some of the things we say without realizing it. first and foremost, instead of saying, I love my [00:07:30] body, that's focused on appearance.

Why don't we try, my body allows me to climb the hills on my hikes. Lift the weights that I want to, squat to the ground to pick up my kiddo, and I respect that about myself. Instead of, I'll feel better about myself once I lose weight. How about, I am worthy of feeling good about myself at any size.

Instead my legs are too big. Thanks for watching! My legs carry me through life, through [00:08:00] workouts, through adventures. They are strong and capable. my gosh. I feel this one so much. I was like writing these and I was trying to give a broad spectrum, but honestly this is something I've had to remind myself over time.

So there you go. And then lastly, instead of I hate my stomach, I need to lose this fat. How about my body deserves nourishment and care, no matter how it looks. If you've listened to previous episodes and previous seasons of Sturdy Girl, one of the things I think I've said the most is that no matter how you [00:08:30] feel about your body, it deserves nourishment, respect, and care.

I don't care. I don't care if we are in a day where we are feeling negative about it. It still needs you to take care of it. So there are some just little reframes for self talk. Thing number two and building a relationship with yourself is just going back to that body image flexibility piece.

Another piece of that is focusing on function over appearance. That makes that self acceptance piece easier because you're not solely reliant [00:09:00] on how you look. You don't have to force yourself to be positive in a given situation. It's knowing that things fluctuate. Your feelings about your body, your mood, your body image is like the weather.

It fluctuates so much. if it's sunny one day and it rains the next, are you like cursing at the weather because you can't change it? You know?

And then the third thing with building a relationship with ourself outside of the love everything about ourselves is something called the bare minimum approach to self [00:09:30] respect. So I talk with my athletes all the time about setting bare minimums, about non negotiables. So when we think about Self respect and being respectful of this meat sack that we are in.

Think of, think of self care. I'm trying to think of an example here and I should have taken better notes for what I was getting at when I wrote my outline, but think of it like brushing your teeth, I'm a hygienist as well as a, you endurance and strength coach. You don't have to love your teeth to [00:10:00] take care of them.

The same goes for your physical being, the rest of you. The same goes for the things that take care of you. Movement, hydration, sleep. Setting good boundaries, right? These aren't just self care moments. It's setting a standard for yourself and saying, These are my non negotiables. This is the bare minimum that I'm going to do in a given day.

I could have an entire episode on bare minimums and non negotiables. In fact, we probably will at some point. And I can have a whole list of things here, but start thinking [00:10:30] about what are some bare minimum self respecting things you do for yourself.

If we know, like, let's further this example of brushing your teeth. If you don't brush your teeth, your risk of cavities. Of really stinky breath, of gingivitis, of gum disease, increases exponentially, right? You're letting all these nasty bacteria grow in your mouth. I tell little kids it's like having bug poop on your teeth.

It's gross. When we, if we respect our bodies. We [00:11:00] brush our teeth regularly. We floss our teeth. We do the things to take care of our mouths. And that's, that's how it goes with the rest of our bodies. It's not like, oh my gosh, I love my teeth so much. It's like, oh, these are the things that I do maybe to avoid the negative consequences of not doing the things.

But just saying, do we respect ourselves? Okay, that was a little bit of a tooth nerd ramble. Let's go into the fourth thing. And that is building self trust. one of the things that you see pop up around Valentine's Day is like [00:11:30] the whole, take yourself on a date, learn to be alone with yourself and all of that.

Okay. I agree. Absolutely. But one of the things that I love even more than that is to build trust with yourself. So this feeds into the discussion around the bare minimums and non negotiables. Follow through on the small promises you make, like finishing that workout, drinking the water when you're a dehydrated little gremlin.

do what you say you are going to do. The more that you [00:12:00] prove that you can follow through, the more self trust that you build. This is so, so, so important. These are why we set up these bare minimums is so that you can show yourself. Hey, I set these things because I know I need to take care of myself.

I know that I turn into an absolute gremlin or a dehydrated house plant if I don't drink enough water. So my bare minimum today is to drink a hundred ounces of water. And here's how I'm going to carry that out. Okay, the more days that we do [00:12:30] that thing we're saying we're going to do, not only is it saying, okay, we have self advocacy, we believe that we can do the thing, and then we have the follow through, every day that we do that, we're building self trust.

We're building trust in ourselves to do what we say we're going to do. It's James Clear in his book, Atomic Habits. He talks about this exactly. Every time you carry out a behavior of the person that you want to become. It's another vote for that future version of you.

That, version of you that you want to be, you want to be the non Gremlin [00:13:00] hydrated, glowing human when you look in the mirror because you're taking care of yourself, right? Like that, That plays a huge part in this overarching relationship with self and sure, if we want to call it self love, but that self respect, self trust, self compassion.

So fifth thing is practicing self kindness, not self criticism. You don't need to be tougher on yourself to improve. You need to support yourself through challenges. You need to be self compassionate. Be [00:13:30] curious as to why things maybe didn't go the way you planned them. It's not being critical. It's being curious, be kind to yourself and being kind to yourself.

Isn't letting yourself off the hook. There's a whole set of episodes in season two of the podcast about self kindness. Check those out. It's important. And then lastly, in our list of things. to build our relationship with self is developing a mindfulness habit.

Now, we have had many discussions on this, and I feel like mindfulness has [00:14:00] become a bit of a buzzword recently, but essentially all it is, is saying, how do we tune into our bodies and our minds and our needs and our thoughts More frequently. Notice our thoughts, gain awareness to the thoughts that come up, the feelings that come up.

You don't have to believe every one of them, but part of getting to know ourselves is learning to hear what's coming up and to listen. That's that's it. I could go on a whole nother ramble. I was trying to keep this concise because there was so much I wanted to [00:14:30] cover. all of this to say, if we wrap this all up, you don't have to love yourself to live a fulfilling life.

Self respect, self trust, self compassion, those are going to carry you through even on the hardest days. Okay, this wouldn't be a Sturdy Girl episode without a little homework. So I have something called the small promise challenge, and this is focusing on building self trust. pick one small non negotiable thing for yourself. One promise for yourself [00:15:00] today. Something simple but meaningful. Drinking water before your coffee. Taking a 10 minute walk. Putting your phone away at a certain time before bed.

Setting a bedtime and sticking to it. Taking the dog for a 20 minute walk. What is one simple, non negotiable, something that you would pass off as like, that's not a big deal, but it's something you've been wanting to consistently add in as a habit that just gets left by the wayside. Can you set that, keep that promise to yourself?

And then at the end of the day, can you [00:15:30] notice how it feels? And then if you do follow through with it today and you set it for tomorrow as well and follow through, how does that feel? That reflection piece is really, really important. Cause it's not like, Oh, check the box, move on. We're wanting to reflect back on how are those things feeling?

Because big picture. Who do we wanna become? What kind of habits do we wanna have, and why do we want them? Our self-trust is built through that consistent follow through, even small actions, right? Every vote counts. Every small [00:16:00] action is a vote to reinforce the belief that you can count on yourself. So if you try this, I'd love to hear about it.

DM me on Instagram, write about it, and tag me on Instagram. Drop a message in our show notes, where there is a link to send us messages. With anything that you notice, any fun insights, what activity did you add? Let's start normalizing treating ourselves like people who matter. Okay, so your reminder, your relationship with yourself is the longest and most intimate of any relationship [00:16:30] you'll ever have in your life. Your relationship with yourself does not have to be perfect.

Like any relationship, it is about showing up, putting in the effort and practicing patience. So whether or not you love yourself today, just remember you deserve your own respect.