Journey to Well

3 Tools to Master Self-Love | Solo Pod

• Hannah • Season 1 • Episode 41

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February seems the ideal setting to embark on this journey of "mastering self love"! Together, we'll unpack self-love, not as a finish line but as an ongoing process, using insights from personal experiences and wisdom from thought leaders like Brene Brown. We'll uncover how self-love influences our relationships, our work, and our overall fulfillment, and how overcoming fear and shame is key to fostering empowerment and true alignment!

Ever wondered how understanding your energy type could transform your life? Human design offers a fascinating framework to embrace all aspects of ourselves, even the challenging ones like guilt and grief. As a manifesting generator, I've discovered that knowing my energy type has clarified my life and career choices, allowing me to embrace my need for variety and change. Listen along as we journey through the human design system, exploring how identifying your type—be it generator, manifesting generator, manifester, projector, or reflector—can be a permission slip to move authentically and confidently in the world.

Imagine unlocking the wisdom of your body to guide your path to self-mastery. By aligning with the phases of the menstrual cycle and tapping into somatic awareness, we harness unique strengths at each stage for personal growth. Our bodies communicate through sensations, offering insights into our emotional well-being. Let’s explore how practices like breathwork, meditation, and dance can strengthen this connection, helping us navigate life with clarity and confidence. Whether you're curious about human design, cycle alignment, or somatic practices, there's an invitation here for you to deepen your journey of self-love and acceptance. I'm excited to connect with you further on Instagram and support your journey to a more aligned version of yourself.

Let's connect on social media! You can find me @ _journeytowell
Be sure to reach out and say hello 🤍

Book your Intro to Human Design Chart Reading here!
Ready to dive deep? Explore our signature 1:1 coaching experiences ALIGN or EMBODY here!

Craving guidance, expansion or growth? Let's connect.
https://journeytowell.net
Book your 1:1 virtual Soma+IQ™ Breathwork session or Human Design chart reading, learn more about my coaching packages & find Seacoast NH in person events - all on my website ⬆️

be well, my friend
xx Hannah

Speaker 1:

Hello, oh my goodness, welcome to snowpocalypse. I am recording this podcast on such a weird weather day. I woke up and I saw the sunrise, I saw the blue skies and now it's 11 am and the snow is coming down like a blizzard. But perfect day to podcast, so let's do this. Hello, and welcome back to my podcast Journey to Well, my name's Hannah and today I wanted to talk about today's a solo pod, so you're stuck with me. But today I want to talk about self-love.

Speaker 1:

Love, mastering self-love is the title of this podcast episode, and we're going to get into how. That's truly just clickbait to get you to listen to this episode, but I promise it's going to be juicy. So let's buckle up, let's strap in. It is the beginning of February when I'm recording this, and so I figured what better month to talk about love than February, with Valentine's Day? If you've been following me for a while, if you've been on this journey, you know that every single Valentine's Day, I say very, very similar things, and they include focusing on yourself, celebrating the love that you have for yourself, versus getting stuck in the story. If perhaps you're single, getting stuck in the story of this sucks and I'm all alone on Valentine's Day, or if you are in a partnership, a relationship, and you're unhappy. There's been plenty of Valentine's Days where I have felt completely alone in a relationship, and please know that my heart goes out to you and I am sitting right there with you. Or maybe you find yourself in a happy relationship, in a sustainable and productive and comfortable and safe relationship, but you'd still like to learn about mastering self-love and mastering love wherever you find yourself, coming, settling in today, please know that there is a spot for you at this table, there is space for you here, and I hope that this idea, these invitations, speak to you. So I'm really going to go over three main ways, the three ways to master self-love, but I'm going to start with spoiler alert there is no mastering self-love.

Speaker 1:

Mastering something sounds so big to me that I can't, possibly. I can't possibly imagine that anyone could say this is how you master self-love, Because love and self-love, self-respect, self-compassion, empowerment it's a journey. Do we ever really get to the destination of? Oh, I'm a master at this. I've been doing so much work inner work, outer work, all the works for years now. I would say like deep in it for at least three to four years at this point, and I would still not consider myself a master. I cannot come to you and tell you I love myself 100% of the time and I'm completely happy with myself 100% of the time, and everything is dandy, sunflowers and roses 100% of the time. Now, dandy, sunflowers and roses 100% of the time. Now we can evolve on this journey. This is a journey. This is not a destination, and so I can confidently and honestly come to you and say that I have more respect, more compassion, more love, more grace for myself today than I've had in my entire life, especially the respect and the confidence I have, more confidence and more stability in my relationship with myself than I have in my whole life. So this is coming from a place of speaking of the journey, so let's dive into it. I don't want to make this a super long episode.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about the three ways that we can master self-love, and let's first talk about why this is important. I would argue and a lot of scientists, a lot of researchers, a lot of people would argue that you cannot have a healthy relationship, you cannot have the most successful version of your business, you cannot have the most aligned version of yourself, you cannot have the most safe and secure foundation of a family without the strongest foundation of loving yourself. There's all of these quotes, right? One of the quotes that you might see on Instagram is you can only meet someone to the depth of which you've met yourself. That's what makes a really good coach, a really good guide someone that has really gone through the shit and faced their trauma, their shadows, their guilt, their shame, their happiness, their joy, their joy it's all of the range of emotions.

Speaker 1:

You can't love someone more than you love yourself. You cannot love someone deeper than you love, than what you have already loved yourself. And there's so much that we could go in behind here. Very simply, we can't. We can't truly. What is that quote from Hitch? You don't know where you're going until you've you know where you've been. We can't truly go somewhere that we have not. We can't go somewhere with someone, with a client, with a relationship, with a partner, with a friend. We can't go somewhere with someone that we haven't already gone ourselves. So one of the things that I remind myself when I'm going through the shit, when I'm going through the darkness, is that this is actually going to allow me to be able to meet my clients on an even deeper level, on an even more intimate level, because I've gone here and held myself and helped myself and supported myself and showed up for myself in this dark time, myself in this dark time. So that is one of the reasons that we are talking about this.

Speaker 1:

The other reason we're talking about this is what I originally mentioned is if you want to uplevel your business, if you want to deepen your relationships, if you want to find more success, feel more aligned, feel more empowered, we must go on this self-love journey. That's where it all starts, all of our actions. Brene Brown is one of my favorite people to follow and learn from, because she talks a lot about shame and one of her arguments is that all of our actions are rooted in shame or fear of being ashamed, fear of failure, fear of being seen right. We don't want to feel shame and guilt, and one of the ways that it's not that we need to eliminate shame, that we need to run away from shame, it's actually learning how to be with that part of us, and that's really what self-love is is. I think, when we start this self-love journey, we go on the whole idea of hmm, let me take this nice bath and let me go get my nails done Self-love I used to on my on my YouTube channel I think that they're still there. I think I have this folder, this playlist. That's like self-care Sunday, right, and like I'm talking about, like skincare and hair care and like getting your nails done, whatever it is, and that's where that's, that's, that's cool. That's a great place to start. That's that's where we can start sometimes. But it goes a lot deeper than that and if you're on that deeper level of, okay, now I'm ready to really get into it, I'm done the the nails and the baths, and not that you're done them. You still do them, but I want to get a little bit deeper. This is how we get deeper.

Speaker 1:

The first place that we can look to begin this journey of self love and self love truly is self acceptance, is self-acceptance. It's accepting all parts of ourselves, not developing the pieces of ourselves that we love, that we're proud of, and then shaming the rest and running away from the rest. It's embracing, it's welcoming with a warm hug. Embracing is welcoming with a warm hug. Shame, fear, guilt, grief, grief is a huge one, not. How can I process through this grief and trauma so then I can come out the other side. How can I welcome this grief and trauma and this shame? The first place we're going to start we're going to use our tools, because I'm a pretty left-brained person left arrow in human design. I am a pretty structured and I like building tools in our toolbox. So we're going to use our tools and the first tool we're going to explore is human design, specifically learning our human design energy type.

Speaker 1:

And if you are new to human design, if you haven't learned about human design, first of all make sure that you follow me on Instagram. I post a lot about human design. I also have podcasts on the intro to human design energy types. You could check out my YouTube channel. You could also just simply Google the human design energy types. Find out your energy type.

Speaker 1:

There's five main energy types in human design. You can be a generator, a manifesting generator, a manifester, a projector or a reflector, and your energy type in human design is how you move through this world, how your energy moves through this world and how does this relate to self-love? It aligns with our self-acceptance. It's learning our unique blueprint, how we uniquely and authentically move through this world Very similar to astrology. So just how like you have a sun sign. In astrology. You have an energy type and this is based off of the time, the location and your birth date the time, the location and your birth date. So this is based in a lot of Eastern philosophies. It also is based on quantum physics. It's your unique blueprint. It's how you were created to move through this world. Your energy was created to move through this world. Why this helps with developing your self-love journey, developing you along this self-love journey, is because it gives you a permission slip to be seen, to be witnessed.

Speaker 1:

When I first learned about human design, one of my biggest aha moments was learning that I am a manifesting generator and manifesting generators are created to do to spin a lot of plates, to do multiple things at once and it's not necessarily opening up this conversation of like multitasking or anything like that, but manifesting generators tend to move pretty quickly and they tend to balance a lot on their plate and they tend to like variety. And so when I was before I learned about human design, I went to school for speech language pathology. I got my master's in speech-language pathology but the entire time that I was in school, the whole six years, I worked at least two different jobs while going to school full-time, while balancing a relationship, while having this group of friends and having living my normal college experience. And I worked two jobs at once the entire year. So even when I came home for Christmas break and summer break, I would work at the grocery store that I worked at in high school, or I would work with my stepdad who had his own business, or I worked at a daycare and I babysat the entire time as well. So I guess three jobs technically year long.

Speaker 1:

And I graduated with with my master's degree in speech language pathology and I got my first full time job, like dream job. I got a job at a hospital and I was able to work outpatient pediatrics and inpatient acute care and ICU care and I thought, wow, this is like this, is it? This is what I spent the last six years doing, this is what you're supposed to do, right? Quote unquote Get you know a good, sustainable full-time position. And I was one, two, three, four months in and I was like okay, and I just could not shake this feeling that this could not be what the rest of my life looked like. I could not be someone that worked corporate nine to five, monday through Friday. I didn't feel I would use the word now. I didn't feel aligned, it was not in alignment and fast forward a couple years.

Speaker 1:

When I learn about human design, all of this clarity comes to me. I finally understand that's just not how my energy is created to move through the world. I like to switch things up. There's a reason that I have three main tools that I teach with my clients, that I walk through in my group coaching container. I love to learn and teach about human design, cycle alignment and somatic breath work, and even within my business there are so many different facets to my business. I have my podcast. I have my YouTube channel. I have my one-on-one clients. I have my podcast. I have my YouTube channel. I have my one-on-one clients. I have my group mentorship container. I have my in-person events of my new moon grounding circle and my somatic breath work.

Speaker 1:

To some listening to this, that might be completely overwhelming. It might be. You might be thinking like she is crazy. She has so much going on. She has too much going on. This is not sustainable.

Speaker 1:

My imitation, my argument, my thought would be you're probably any of the other energy types you might be, and specifically you might be a projector or a reflector, because your energy is created to move very differently through this world than mine. If you're a projector, one of the invitations to explore is leaning into your rest. Same with manifestors. Manifestors have more rest periods that tend to be more like. You might have a period of high performance, kind of like that ovulation or that summer energy. You might have that period of the sprint, but then you're going to have this period of deep rest. Projectors are going to have daily periods of rest, or that's your invitation is. Could you be more productive? Could it be more sustainable for you to take 20-minute breaks throughout your day than to go your nine to five straight out? These are invitations. I'm not going to go into every single energy type Maybe this is a YouTube series idea but these are invitations to explore.

Speaker 1:

Start with your energy type. Learn how you were created to walk through this world, because what my life experience was is in that whole example that I gave. That I gave as I'm moving through my late teens, early 20s, mid 20s. I remember my mom would always say you do so much, hannah, you have so much on your plate all the time. You need to slow down, you need a rest, and my mom is a projector. It was a lot for her to watch me, to see me. And my mom is a projector. It was a lot for her to watch me to see me. That's not how her energy is created to move through the world. And so for me, what ended up happening was then I questioned myself like am I doing too much? Is this too much? Do I need to slow down? I didn't feel like I was doing it right. But the answer here is that she has her own energy type. I have my own energy type, and there was a lot of moments in my life where I did shame myself and question myself and doubt my choices or what I was doing, because I felt like other people thought that I was doing it wrong, because the people that I was surrounded with, they have different energy than I have, and there's nothing wrong with either of these people.

Speaker 1:

That's the acceptance piece. When we understand, when we have this illumination, then we're able to understand ourselves a little bit better, and with understanding comes acceptance, comes welcoming all of these different parts of yourself, of myself. So that's invitation number one to mastering self-love. Look at your human design, energy type. Invitation number two one of the biggest pieces that really changed the game for me in my self-acceptance journey is learning my cycle, specifically my menstrual cycle. But if you've again, if you followed me, you know that I really talk in tandem with the moon phases. So if you haven't heard this analogy that I use, this illustration that I use, this might be really helpful for you to begin learning cycles is we have four main phases of our menstrual cycle.

Speaker 1:

Whether you're someone that actually menstruates or not, you still are going through this cycle because you're a female, because you're a woman. So we have our menstrual phase, which is our bleed. We have our follicular phase, which is after our bleed. We have our ovulation phase, which is kind of like our peak of energy hormones, and then we have our luteal phase, which leads us then back into our menstrual phase. So we have four main phases of our menstrual cycle. We have four main phases of the moon, four main phases of our menstrual cycle. We have four main phases of the moon. So, if we want to add one level deeper with our menstrual phase, our menstrual phase aligns with the new moon energy. Our follicular phase aligns with the waxing moon energy. It's growing bigger in the sky. The illumination of the moon is growing bigger. Then we have our ovulation phase, which aligns with the full moon, and then, finally, we have our luteal phase, which aligns with the waning moon. One last layer on top of that is we can align these phases with seasons as well is we can align these phases with seasons as well. So we have our menstrual phase new moon equals our winter season, the energy of winter. We have our follicular phase spring, which equals oh, follicular phase. Waxing moon, which equals spring energy. Then we have our ovulation phase full moon equals summer energy. And we have our luteal phase waning moon equals fall energy.

Speaker 1:

And why how this has made such a big difference again in my life? I can only give examples of my life, because I'm the one that when this was around probably you know, around my luteal and menstrual, right before my menstrual phase, but I would judge myself so much like oh, I can't lift as much in the gym, I just feel really tired, my muscles feel weak, I just want to sleep. I don't feel like going out with friends, I don't feel like socializing. I don't feel like going out with friends. I don't feel like socializing, I don't feel like being productive, and so I'd lay on the couch to allow myself to rest, but instead of actually resting, I would just be shaming and judging and hating myself for not being able to be productive, for not being able to do the work, follow up with clients, create the content, whatever it is, and then, of course, I mean we know, if you've walked through this before, you know that a lot of that shame and judgment and hatred, self-hatred, spirals us into just avoiding it altogether. And so then, even when our energy comes back up, we tend to not want to do those things anyway.

Speaker 1:

So when I learned the power of cycles, when I learned how to align with the energy, how to tap into really is what it is tap into the energy of where I was at that moment in time we can learn the energy of our menstrual phase. And actually what we do working together, what I do working with my clients, is learn how to harness and optimize each season that we're walking through. So instead of shaming and guilting myself for having a little bit lower energy, I learned the superpowers of the luteal phase is being able to tie up loose ends. It's almost like that preparation phase. We organically have this energy of tying up loose ends, returning the final emails, cooking, prepping the food for our menstrual phase. Final emails cooking, prepping the food for our menstrual phase.

Speaker 1:

Really being able to slow down, because a lot of times when we actually slow down, we can see, we're able to zoom out, we can see the bigger picture of things and then the reflection phase of the menstrual cycle, of the menstrual phase, being able to reflect on where I am. Take that pause to stop, zoom out. Where am I on the right path? Is the path that I am currently on the path that leads me to where I want to be, or do I need to adjust my phase? There are superpowers of each phase of our cycle that we walk through every single month as a woman and when we learn to optimize those. That propels us so much on our self-acceptance of our self-love journey.

Speaker 1:

So that's number two is to dive into your cycle. There are so many books that I could recommend to actually learn, like these, the different pieces of our cycle. That's also really what we dive deep into. In Sync, which is my group mentorship container, we have online training modules. That breaks down in depth every cycle the luteal phase, the menstrual phase, the ovulation phase, the follicular phase. It also breaks down. It goes a little bit further to break down how we can align the foods that we eat in each phase, how we can align the movement that Number three, final phase, is get into your body, our soma.

Speaker 1:

Soma means our body or our living wholeness. We spend so much time living in our minds, living in our heads, trying to think our way through our emotions, our feelings, our problems. We spend so much time thinking if I could just learn this, if I could just learn the steps to self-love, if I could just learn the blueprint to optimization, if I could just learn the healthiest way to eat or lose weight or the right way to go about achieving clients and attracting my dream client, then I'll be successful. But here's the secret that nobody wants you to know because it cuts them out. Your body knows you hold the out. Your body knows you hold the answers. Your body keeps the score. Your body holds the wisdom your body knows.

Speaker 1:

And to someone hearing this, that's at the very beginning of their somatic journey, this might not even make sense. This might be way too woo-woo for you. It might be really overwhelming. It might lead you to feeling very lost and confused. Take a breath. There's no. The good thing about somatic work truly is. There's no right or wrong way to tap into your body. There are invitations.

Speaker 1:

We could tap into our body using breath work, using pendulum tools. We could tap into our body using embodiment exercises or working with a somatic coach or therapist, and these are all really great tools. I use them. This is what this is. Another aspect that I use with my coaching clients is introducing and exploring different somatic tools to see what might resonate the most with you. But you don't need a somatic coach. You don't need anyone. Pull up on YouTube somatic breathwork session. I actually have a daily breathwork exercise. Through the link in my bio on Instagram, I want to say possibly it's linked in the show notes below. If not, I'll make sure to link it in the show notes of this episode below.

Speaker 1:

We can tap into our body using meditation techniques Maybe not so much the guided visualization meditations, but like a grounding exercise or a grounding meditation or a yoga nidra is a really great way we can tap into our body. There are a lot of ways that we can tap into our body. Dance is a great way to tap into your body. Anytime that we're able to slow down and simply be in the present moment. You are tapping into your body. Anytime that you're connecting to this present moment, you're tapping into your body, even just right now, as you're listening, whether you're driving or you're doing the dishes or you're sitting, wherever you are, arrive in this moment. Feel your feet, notice where your feet are landing in this space in this time. Maybe you're laying down, so they're kind of landing. Your heels are touching the bed or the couch, but your toes are up in the air. Maybe you're driving. Can you feel the gas pedal and the brake pedal? Maybe you're standing in the kitchen or you're going for a walk. Can you feel your feet on the floor, the entirety of your feet? Where are your toes versus your heel? Where is the arch of your foot versus the top of your foot? These are really beginner ways, introductions of how we can tap into our body, introductions of how we can tap into our body. Learning how to tap into our body is a really powerful tool for our self-love journey, because when we're able to strengthen the communication of our body, the communication to our body, then we're able to listen to our body and our body truly does tell us what's in alignment, what's in misalignment, what's right for us, what's not right now for us, what's right for us, what's not right now for us. But we've spent so much time being conditioned. This isn't necessarily your fault. It's just how we live in this society. We've spent so much time in this society being conditioned of listening outside of us.

Speaker 1:

If you're sick, what's the first thing someone says? Go to the doctor or take medicine. What's the word? Cover up our symptoms, put a band-aid over our symptoms. When we're sick, it's our body speaking to us. Our body doesn't speak in words. Our body doesn't know how to speak in words, so it speaks through sensations. So when you're sick, what's the sensation? Your nose gets stuffy, your throat hurts, your body aches, you might get a fever, you might change temperatures warm or cold. When you feel unsafe, your body doesn't tell you. I feel unsafe right now. You get symptoms, you get sensations of anxiety, you might get a heart racing, you might get a little bit dizzy, you might feel this knot in your stomach. When your body feels safe and when it feels happy, you're going to get the sensation of a warm heart, of peace, of contentment. Maybe you feel a sensation of warmth radiating throughout your body.

Speaker 1:

Our body doesn't speak in words, it speaks in sensations and when we're able to learn the communication of our body. When we're able to learn, oh, this pit in the bottom of my stomach or this tightness in my chest, that's my body saying this is misaligned. When I feel this energy drain from me, that's my body saying I'm in misalignment. This isn't for me right now. When I feel this rising of energy, when I feel this warmth or this fire in my belly, when I feel this lightness, I feel physically lighter that's my body saying this is in alignment, this is working.

Speaker 1:

That's learning the communication of our body and that is propelling us on our journey of empowerment, our journey of self-love and acceptance, because we are moving from this place of trying to numb and dissociate from our bodily sensations to trusting them, to honoring them, to wanting to notice, wanting to feel these sensations. Because then we're not spending so much time in our heads, we can overthink so much. I don't know about you, but I am a chronic overthinker. I can spend a lot of time in my mind and I can convince myself and justify and talk myself into oh no, this is actually in alignment, this is actually. Maybe it's not in alignment, but you can actually do this. This is okay, where it's clearly out of alignment and my body is clearly telling myself that we can think our way into so many things. What if we started feeling our way through this world and we can only begin to feel our way through this world by slowing down Our body, also our body. Communication, that learning of communication, developing that connection, is going to be slow Because, think about it, however old you are I'm 30, I've spent easily the past 26 years of my life conditioning myself and learning to listen to my thoughts versus my body. So it's going to be a slow process and you can start.

Speaker 1:

Your invitation is to start just simply noticing the sensations of your body. That's it. You walk into a restaurant. Notice any sensations that have changed from when you're driving to the restaurant to when you're in the restaurant, when you meet a new person. Notice any sensations that come up, without labeling them good or bad, just notice. I always get a little bit of like my heart speeds up. My heart rate speeds up when I am about to start a podcast interview, not so much when I'm by myself. This feels very cozy and I like this. I love podcast interviews too, but I always get my heart speeds up a little bit. I get a little bit nervous. It's just noticing. It's not good or bad, it's simply noticing.

Speaker 1:

So those are your three invitations to begin to well, not to begin to continue on this journey of self-love, self-acceptance, self-mastery, if we want to put it that way Learn your human design energy type, explore your cycle phases and begin to tap into your Soma. And let me know how this is going for you, let me know what comes up. Let me know I came up listening to this podcast and feel free to keep me updated of what continues to come up New things, old things, repetitive things that come up on this journey for you. My DMs are always open. I hang out the most on Instagram, so please reach out to me on Instagram at underscore journey to well, feel free to send some comments, some thoughts, feel free to share your thoughts of this podcast by rating the podcast and reviewing the podcast and, as always, know that you are more than welcome to book a connection. Call If you want to continue and you want to do a deeper dive into all of this, into cycle alignment, human design, somatic breath work, if you want to begin this up-level journey of taking that next step into the more aligned version of you, the deeper, more intimate version of you.

Speaker 1:

If you're ready to optimize your business to achieve your version of peak performance, you can always book a connection call where we simply connect. I don't try to convince you to work with me. We connect and see if we are in alignment. You can always book a connection call. The link is linked below. It's also always in my bio on Instagram. I would love, love, love to connect with you. It's been so nice hanging out and spending time with you on this snowy day. This is really funny. If you're listening to this in like the middle of summer and it's 80 degrees out, you're like it is not a snowy day for me, oh man. But the energy that this podcast is bringing is a snowy day, because that's when we're recording it. I will see you soon, my friend. I love you. Be well.