Put A Little "Self-Love" In Your Heart

Summary
In this episode of Growth from Grief, Sue Andersen discusses the importance of self-love during the grieving process, especially during the holiday season. She emphasizes the need to accept oneself, practice self-care, and manage stress and anxiety effectively. Through practical techniques and mindfulness, listeners are encouraged to prioritize their emotional well-being and embrace their journey of healing.

Takeaways

• Self-love is about accepting who you are.
• We often take care of others better than ourselves.
• Self-love can manifest in physical care.
• It's important to give yourself permission to say no.
• Practicing good posture can enhance self-love.
• Breathing exercises can help manage anxiety.
• Hugging yourself can be a powerful act of self-love.
• It's okay to leave social situations early if needed.
• Communicate your feelings to close friends or family.
• Prioritize your emotional well-being during the holidays.

Thank you for listening! Visit www.sueandersenyoga.com for Yoga for Grief classes and additional resources.

Transcript

Susan Andersen (00:03.382)

Hello, I'm Sue Andersen, grief guide and yoga teacher dedicated to helping individuals navigate the challenging journey of loss. Welcome to Growth from Grief, where I aim to offer strategies to transition from the depths of grief to the path of healing. Whatever loss you are grappling with, here you'll discover support to ease both the physical and emotional burdens of grief. Together, let's embark on a journey towards strength, peace, and healing. I'm so glad you are here.

Susan Andersen (00:56.494)

Hi and welcome to this episode. I’m your host Sue Andersen and we're continuing with our theme of healing through the holidays. Today I'd like to talk with you about self-love. There's a song that was recorded in the late 60s. I think I just remember it from when I was in high school and I'm sure you've heard it on the radio on like an oldie station, but it's called put a little love in your heart and the overall theme of the song is about reaching out to other people and helping. I'm advocating that for this time for you that you put a little self-love into your heart, turn to yourself. 

So what do I mean by that? Well, as individuals, I believe we're really hard on ourselves. We have all of these thoughts about the way we look, the way we talk. We don't like something about ourselves. We think about the things that we did in the past, we worry, we fret, and we probably take care of other people better than we take care of ourselves. But more than that, self-love is about accepting. It's about accepting who you are all of the parts of you, right? Thinking about wholeness and not turning away from something that you don't like about yourself. It's about not trying to fix something that is not broken. There's nothing wrong with it. This is who you are. All of the parts. All of the pieces.

Susan Andersen (03:35.8)

You know, when you think about talking with a friend, a close friend, and they're troubled and they're maybe telling you that they just don't feel like they are doing a good job or that they're not worthy or, you know, they're not doing enough. They're worried about you know, what's going on or what they said to somebody. You as that friend would be encouraging them. You would be telling them that, no, you're wrong. You are a great person. Look at all these wonderful things that you do. Give yourself a hug. Let me give you a hug. You don't have anything to fix. There's nothing that you need to change. Your hair looks great, your body is fine. There's nothing that you need to change. You need to just feel good about yourself. Give yourself love. And you would tell this to another person. You would give them love. You would encourage them. 

But how many times... Do we just kind of beat ourselves up?

Susan Andersen (05:13.24)

That we are not good enough or we should have done this or we should have done that. So especially when we're talking about grief and loss and we look back and we've got that hindsight, that 20/20, and we start talking about to ourselves all of the things that we should have done that we didn't do. So how could we be a good person? Right? We do this to ourselves sometimes we are our own worst enemy you know. 

Can you kind of allow yourself to be in love with yourself? 

And maybe the first thing that you need to do is just get in touch with your physical body. Sometimes we bring ourselves into a state where we then are just physically unwell. Shoulders are hunched, we're just hunched over because we don't feel worthy. We are allowing ourselves to close up, we're not open.

And so be befriending, befriending your own body, noticing what's happening to you physically. So self-love can take the form of caring for yourself physically. During the holidays, there's a lot going on. You may feel so stressed. You may want to do the holiday just like you did before because that's what other people want. But if you're grieving, you might not be able to do that and you might not want that. So we do need to think of ourselves in these situations, right? It's not all about the other person.

Susan Andersen (07:44.302)

So think about maybe how you can take care of yourself physically. Where's that loving of yourself physically? Maybe it's taking a walk. Maybe it's taking a bath.

That physical movement can sometimes get us, just get us out of our head, stop that negative talk to ourselves, and allow us to focus on the beauty around us. Maybe you sit up straight. Take a moment. And we can do this right now. 

So take a moment, assuming you're not driving. If you're standing, if you're listening to this while you're walking, just pause your walk and stand. If you're listening to this seated, pause, bring your feet down to the floor just bring the shoulders back. So stop what you're doing. Ground yourself, bring your feet down to the floor and bring your shoulders back. Let your chest shine forward. Bring your head so the ears are over your shoulders.

What does that feel like? What does that openness feel like? And now that you're here, take a deep breath. So inhale through the nose and then exhale slowly through the nose or the mouth, nice and slow.

Susan Andersen (09:44.392)

Take another deep breath. Notice how your chest expands and then release it. If you try to do that deep breath with your body hunched forward, and let's just try that. Let's see what that's like. Hunch your body forward, just roll your shoulders forward. You can't take that deep breath, you can't shine your heart, you can't open, you can't bring yourself into that nice clear, open space. Maybe you even lift your head when you're standing in that position.

So find that self-love in just that breath, just taking that postural movement, stopping wherever you are, bringing the ears over the shoulders, shoulders over hips, and just allow a deep breath. Notice how that feels for you.

Susan Andersen (11:01.898)

Another way to love ourselves is to give ourselves permission to say no. This is hard. Saying no is hard. But I learned from a coach that one of the ways to say no that gives you a little bit of space is to answer, let me get back to you on that in 24 hours.

So let's say somebody asks you to contribute something to an event. Maybe it's decided that during the holidays you're going to spend it with another family member, or a friend and they've asked you to contribute something. Maybe it's food, maybe it's money towards the food. And maybe you're not sure how you want to answer that. And of course your reaction might be, sure, sure, I'll do that. And in the back of your head, you're thinking, when am I going to have time to make that casserole? Or how am I going to find the money when I'm already short of cash this week? 

Just take that time. Give your answer of, let me give you that answer tomorrow in 24 hours. I just need to check something. Give yourself permission. And then you're going to be able to say yes or no because you've given yourself that 24 hours to think about it, to notice, to really decide what is going to be the best thing for you.

Susan Andersen (13:06.764)

So that could be number two on the list of how do we love ourselves a little bit better, especially during this holiday season. So one is maybe taking that walk, maybe having that bubble bath, but definitely sitting or standing with a nice posture, feeling the chest open. Second thing is give yourself permission to say no, but do it in a way that gives you time to think about the answer. When asked to do something, just say, let me get back to you tomorrow. Practice that. It's not easy, especially if you're a person that generally wants to help, or you enjoy it, or you enjoyed it prior to your loss. So think about that.

What's the third way that we might be able to show ourselves love, self-love? How about giving ourselves a hug? So a couple of different ideas with this. Now you might think this sounds kind of silly to give yourself a hug, but what if you took your pillow and you put it against your chest and you hugged your pillow to your chest? That might feel really good. You can do it when you're laying down. You can do it when you're standing, when you're seated, whatever, but it might feel really good. Just try it. You might be surprised. Maybe there's a stuffed animal that you can hug, but you want to be hugging yourself. And how about adding to that hug an I love you?  I love you.

Susan Andersen (15:19.724)

You can make a little bit of movement out of this if you'd like. So you could sit in a chair or again, you can stand, can lie in your bed, whatever feels good. But if you do this in a chair, have the feet on the floor, have a nice posture, so be nice and erect. On your inhale, bring your arms out. And then on your exhale, say, love you and give yourself a hug. So you could inhale, bring the arms out and say, I'm worthy. And on the exhale, I love you. That's a really nice action, a really nice movement that we could do for ourselves. That I love you. That nice hug.

Susan Andersen (16:30.2)

During this holiday season, we tend to worry, tend to be anxious, we feel stressed out. Sometimes we are worried about the future. What's it going to be like when we go to that person's house for our holiday meal? Are they going to recognize, are they going to talk about what just happened to me, to us, to our family? Or are they going to be silent and ignore it? That might be something that you're anxious that you're worried about going to this other person's house. What do you do? What do you do when you're feeling this stress, this anxiety, this worry? Well, here's a couple of thoughts.

The first one is to come back to your breath. So if you find yourself on that little treadmill of worry, it's just going around and around and around your head, come back to your breath. Again, nice posture and just take a deep inhale. Count, count to five. Exhale to a count of six. Make the exhale longer. Try that again. Inhale to count to five. Exhale to a count of six. See if that helps at that moment where you feel that worry or that anxiety or that stress just really beginning to take over. See how that helps.

Susan Andersen (18:36.722)

Once you're able to refocus, once you're able to calm your nervous system, feel the body relax, feel the mind relax then you can take a different approach to that issue. So let's say for example, it's, don't know what's going to happen when we go to so and so's house for our holiday meal, give yourself permission to leave early. How about that? Give yourself permission to leave early. In a group that I co-facilitate, one of the other facilitators gave a couple of examples of things that you could do in this situation. One is to park your car the furthest away from the house so it's easy for you to leave. So maybe it's a little bit further walk to that person's house but it's easier for you to leave. You don't have to ask someone else to move their car. You don't have to get into a discussion just give yourself permission. 

Another option is to say to the host, I'm a little nervous today and if I leave early, it's not because of you or what you've offered here. It's because of me. Now if this person is close to you, hopefully they'll understand. Even if they are having also their own issues, you know, maybe it's a family member who's passed away and it's difficult to bring that up during this dinner. They're also feeling something, and you can just tell them, hey, I'm feeling this way. I may leave early. Just know that it's me. Give yourself permission.

Susan Andersen (20:54.926)

So going back to that breath work, allowing your nervous system to relax, your body to come back into balance, and then come up with something concrete that you can do. Put yourself first in these situations. Give yourself that love.

I hope this has helped you in thinking about how to treat yourself during the holidays, how to put yourself first, how to love yourself. Thank you for listening and I hope you will share this podcast with a friend or leave a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts. I'll see you next time.