Dating Yourself as a Radical Act: How Self-Trust, Boundaries, and Queer Joy Redefine Love and Belonging with Christina Rose

In this soul-nourishing episode of The Visibility Standard ( formerly All Our Parts), I’m joined by Christina Rose—empowerment coach and LGBTQIA advocate—for a deep, affirming conversation about the glow-up that is dating yourself.

We explore what it actually means to build a relationship with yourself rooted in trust, pleasure, and choice—not punishment or isolation. From solo rituals that deepen confidence to redefining boundaries as acts of love, this episode reframes self-devotion as something expansive, relational, and deeply political—especially for queer folks building chosen family and prioritizing joy.

In this episode, we explore:

• How solo routines strengthen self-trust and confidence
• Turning everyday luxury into grounding rituals (yes, bougie coffee counts)
• Why boundaries are an expression of self-love—not rejection
• Building chosen family and prioritizing queer joy
• Why your relationship with yourself is the foundation for every other connection

Whether you’re single, healing, or simply craving a self-love refresh, this episode is a reminder that you are allowed to be your own safe place—and your own main character. Dating yourself isn’t selfish.It’s how you learn what you deserve. And devotion to yourself is a love story worth committing to.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello everybody, welcome back to All Our Parts. I am so excited for my guest today. We've been talking a lot about relationships with others, whether that is friendship, whether that's romantic, and we don't talk a lot about dating yourself. And so I'm so excited to have Christina Rose. She's an empowerment coach in the Midwest who is going to give us all the tea on dating yourself. Christina, thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Thank you for having me today. I'm very excited. So

SPEAKER_00 0:35

tell us about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Sure. So obviously I am a life coach who focuses on empowerment and authenticity, specifically in the LGBTQIA community, but not exclusively. I like to be inclusive to everyone, but I really started the foundation, which is self-love. which is what we're talking about today. But everything always boils down to with my clients. And when I am talking to everybody is this like lack of self-love and insecurity. So that is what I do with my clients is I break down all of these goals that we're setting. And we really start with the basics, which is loving yourself, which is actually a lot harder than people think it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

yeah it almost sounds sometimes to think that we have a relationship with ourself like we date ourselves we are nurturing this relationship of like self-worth self-love self-acceptance and it's something that you have to actually like work at a

SPEAKER_01 1:54

lot like every single day which is a choice like you have to make this choice as though you would talk to a partner and wake up and say I love you to your partner or make them breakfast it's literally the same thing when it comes to yourself so for instance for me when I wake up and I like make myself a bougie coffee I spent the money this year and got myself like a really nice coffee maker that has like a frother on the side and I make myself really good coffee in the morning and I take the time to make myself breakfast and like just for me I will slow down instead of having a pop tart because I feel like I need to be busy I'm like no I'm gonna take the time and I'm gonna make myself breakfast and I'm gonna make myself what I really want because I deserve to start my day in a specific way which takes time and all of us think that we need to be rushing around all the time because we are literally prone to be productive We need to be productive. And so we forget to then take care of ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah. A lot of us are like programmed to wake up, check our emails, check our phone, go out. Then immediately come back in, grab something really quick, sit down and get right to work. And that is so bad for the nervous system, honestly. Like I always tell people, like when you wake up with such a sense of urgency, you really, you just take something away from yourself. You take away that opportunity to just wake up, to get into a clear head space and really just be able to be like present. Because I think when you're waking up with that sense of urgency, you have a million things rushing through your mind and then you maybe tackle like half of them

SPEAKER_01 3:54

or you forget like literally you wake up and if you are in that productive state where you're trying to accomplish your to-do list immediately when you wake up you literally forget so much about oh my gosh I forgot to do this I forgot to do this which then only frazzles you more and so waking up with intention and like the slow I always call it the slow morning. That is like my favorite thing to do when I started really coming into my own love for myself was I love slow mornings, which is I wake up an hour earlier and spend complete solo time with myself. So that is like reading, writing. I will do something that brings myself back to me so that I can start my day and not feel so rushed and so pressured to perform and also it gives me time to figure out like how I'm feeling in my body do I feel good today do I feel bad today like how am I actually feeling I don't know yet because I didn't take the time to check in with myself and so checking in with myself every morning is so important and which can be done so many different ways but that's literally like how you would ask someone else how how is your morning going

SPEAKER_02 5:21

it's

SPEAKER_01 5:22

just basically like asking yourself that how is your morning going and then you can like bounce the stuff back to yourself and then implement it because if your day is going well then you need to shift

SPEAKER_00 5:37

yeah true how did you learn how to date yourself or where how did you learn the concept

SPEAKER_01 5:45

so I actually this is like a newer thing for me and when I say newer within the last three-ish years. I grew up extremely insecure, extremely just constantly wanting to change, not knowing who I was, feeling very lost. I was one of those people who scoffed at people who read books in bars. I was like, who does that? Isn't a bar for like communication and like meeting people? That's so strange. And then in 2021, I got divorced and I lived on my own for the first time in my entire life. And I was like, wow, I'm like really alone. Like I'm waking up and it is only me in this house. And I had to figure out how to be comfortable with myself, which was so uncomfortable. I would just, there was a lot of fetal position crying, but I needed that. Like I was then learning how to pour love into myself. which started this whole process of loving myself, which also turned into dating myself, which is a concept that I think people put out there, but no one really knows what to do. And you don't have to know what to do. It's just being comfortable within your own skin. And you can have a date with yourself that is taking yourself out, or it depends on what you want to do. But the first part of dating yourself is the desire to get comfortable with yourself and to want to learn about yourself within acceptance of your shadow self acceptance of all yourselves like finding acceptance within the pieces that make you so going back to how you enter relationships that shadow piece where you're like where do I get stuck what parts of me are not showing up because I have this like hindrance in my space that was actually really hard for me because I obviously I never want to like I just want to be like I'm so great nothing's wrong with me and I'm amazing but every time I would like really dive into my shadows pieces I'm like that fits that fits and I gotta sit with that for a minute because that's too real so I have a shadow tarot deck that like is always spot on and I'm like how dare you see me so clearly okay

SPEAKER_00 8:24

yeah sometimes we like to keep the shadow in the shadow but I definitely in the shadow can I

SPEAKER_01 8:33

put you back in the garage

SPEAKER_00 8:36

but I definitely would have been the person that you were scoffing at the bar reading the book because maybe it's because I'm an only child maybe because I thrived in solitude really early on but I always, I loved going out by myself. I would go to the movies by myself and people would be like, this is weird. Why are you going by yourself? And I remember I'd hit a new level when I went and got hibachi alone and I like sat at the group table. And the people that were sitting with me were like, you just came here by yourself. I was like, yeah, I wanted hibachi. So I came and I wanted the show. It's

SPEAKER_01 9:20

I love that, though. like the process of starting to date yourself is a whole experience. So I actually read, I'm trying to read, it's called by yourself, the fucking lilies by Tara Schuster. And she goes into talking about how you basically date yourself and this idea of what that looks like. She has a lot of like rituals that she does. Like she, every morning she wakes up and the night before she will clean her bathroom with like like lavender. So she wakes up in the morning and her bathroom smells really refreshing and really good. And that's something that's super important to her. So I implement some of those things, but the actual dating myself piece does come with romanticizing your life. So just like the little things like the lavender in the bathroom, when you walk in the door, it's smelling like a fresh apple farm. Cause I just want to walk into my house and it smelled delicious. Like I've just walked into a crate and barrel. Oh, this is my house. I get to live here. You're like putting in those things where you're just like, oh, look at that lamp. That's my lamp. I bought it. It's mine. It's just those like little things that like make your life feel like, oh, this is mine. I get to have this.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Yeah. And it sounds like you really Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

more like at home pieces until I started like branching out and actually taking myself out which began uncomfortably because it is uncomfortable at first you're like also the point of going out by yourself is you don't really want people to talk to you like you want that space to yourself so instead of sitting at a bar I would sit at a table so that I had space to myself where I was not approachable please don't sit down and talk to me which actually the first time I did come go out I brought a book and I was eating and the server would not stop talking to me and I was like this is like completely not the point of me but also I will say like just being open to those experiences I was like I'm just gonna be open to this she's super nice we're having like a great combo and it was actually like it shifted I flexed and it was a very good experience like it wasn't what I initially thought it was going to be but I flexed I let go of some of that control which is like one of the number one things to ensure that you are fulfilled by what you're doing is letting go of these like rules of what you're like you like your night's gonna look like what your day is gonna look like just flexing and going with the flow and being comfortable enough and feeling like you have that capacity to do yeah because I never used to flex I was so rigid. I was like, you are ruining my night. Why are you here?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Also, they might be ruining your night and you get to ask like, why are you

SPEAKER_01 13:39

here? 100%. She was not, she also like really, so we actually talked about the fact that I was eating alone and she was like, wow, I could never do that. And I was like, yes, you can. You can actually do it because I'm doing it. So it's definitely a growth space. Like every time you decide, like I date myself or go on a date, like an actual date, at least twice a month, that is like a special date otherwise it's like when I go to Target I buy myself a coffee which is an embarrassing amount go to Target too much but that is my treat when I go to Target is a coffee and I'm like you've been here five times this week that's too many coffees

SPEAKER_00 14:36

but I love that you bring up the the nice date because oftentimes dates and something a bit more intimate. And so I know when we were talking yesterday about the idea of dating ourselves, pleasing ourselves as well, and being able to know our bodies. And as you had brought that up, I was thinking about a conversation that I had with friends a couple of years ago, and they were people who had partners and they were like, it's not important for me to know how to masturbate and please myself.

UNKNOWN 15:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Which is

SPEAKER_01 15:12

very interesting. is how you tell your partner how you want to receive pleasure because there's sometimes like you can receive pleasure from a partner and it feels really great but also when you are alone and it also feels very great sometimes it feels very different and it just there's two different feelings that come from solo pleasure and like when you're with a partner but not knowing your body it's all about loving yourself and accepting yourself also it comes with overcoming so much sex shame if that was an experience that you had as for me I experienced a lot of sex shame as a teenager and as I got older into my 20s I explored a little bit more and that was such a healing experience for me to be like this is okay and I get to decide what I want and then be able to tell my partner so what I want, what I need, what feels good, what doesn't feel good. There's a lot of different things that we're not aware of until we're aware of it. And I think that with the bigger dates, I told you about this, but I had a whole, I was so excited to watch Queen Charlotte. And so I made myself like a Bridgerton style cake. I went out and went to Bath and Body Works, got myself a Queen Charlotte candle and I bought myself flowers and I got myself all ready for this date by myself and literally like I went above and beyond just for myself I literally made myself like a four-tiered cake just for me just for you I made myself like a fancy dinner and it was like it felt so good to just like pour into myself

SPEAKER_00 17:30

yeah and you're right in that it it feels very different when we're able to give to ourselves versus when someone else is giving And when we know ourselves, whether we're able to please ourselves, whether we are able to know our interests, our hobbies, when we are very clear on that, we are then able to communicate out to others what we are looking for from them, from a relationship from them. They both work together. And if we're unclear about it and how we give it to ourselves, we're not going to be able to communicate it out to other people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

No. And I think even just knowing what you like and dislike within the taking yourself out and loving yourself, it also gives you a space to know what your boundaries are on what you want to include your partner in and what you don't. Because we don't have to include our partners in everything. As much as society thinks that we do, there are just things we don't want our partners to do with us. Going to the movies by yourself. Sometimes you just don't want your partner to come with you. And that's 100% a And the same with solo, like masturbation. Sometimes we just want to do that alone, which is totally fine. And we get to say those things because when you are comfortable with who you are and you have found that self-love, you get to create those boundaries and be like, you know what? I want a solo session. And I just went out to this store and I bought myself a new toy and I would like to try it out on my own first. before you bring it into the bedroom with your partner. And I think that's healthy.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

So how can people like communicate that though? Because to your point, it's like when you get into a relationship, you all are coupled, everything that you do, your partner does with you. And I also like function from the notion that that is just, there are some things that are just for me and there are some things that are just for you and that's okay. I love that you have your individuality and autonomy. How can people start broaching that conversation with their significant others?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Yeah, and I'm going to be honest, it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable. If you've been in a relationship, if you've experienced any sort of trauma in past relationships or relationships where you weren't able to speak your mind or just a bad relationship, whatever that means to you, where you could not communicate openly or felt fear in being able to be honest and open. It can be very uncomfortable. It can cause a lot of anxiety, but you're doing a disservice if you don't, because you're not giving that other person the opportunity to communicate back. So I have found that being very open and saying, this is my preference. And if they are not comfortable and they come back and say, I want to do that with you, you have to set that boundary and say, I hear you also let's compromise I really like this and this is super important to me because it is something that fills my cup I can't pour into you from an empty cup so our relationship is going to be affected if I don't get this time vice versa what are things that you need that you don't necessarily want me to come to or do with you like you just I think it comes with just super open communication. And if that communication is a hard thing to do, you just test the waters. Start with small communication and just practice. The point of open communication is trusting your partner. It comes down to trusting that your partner is going to hear and receive. And if they don't, that's another conversation. But if they're not receiving Yeah. learning your body, learning your mind, learning who you are, grounding within yourself. And there is an aspect of this I wanted to touch on too, is a lot of people say you can't enter a relationship until you fully healed and completely love yourself first. And I don't agree with that. Okay. Because you can love yourself. Like I do think there's a sense of love and like a level of But you can't actually implement anything if you're not a partnership. Like if that's your goal is to be in a partnership, how are you to re-narrate? How are you to have corrective experiences? How are you to have instances where potentially you had a negative experience and you can't actually rework through that with another person if there's not another person there? So I do think that in some cases, like taking the time to prioritize yourself and heal is super important. Then I do think that on the other hand, it is really important to, to experience that with someone else.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Does it have to be a romantic partner?

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Not at all. No, I think even in friendships, we, you literally, so I view friendships and relationships very similarly because I put as much energy into my friendships as I would a relationship as far as communication. I want to ensure that when I hang out with my friends that I am intentional. My phone is off. I am spending that time with them as it would be like a date. And so I think that with any of that, the corrective experiences also come from, I'm going to talk to my friends when I'm uncomfortable. I'm going to allow them to experience my discomfort. Like, Recently, I had a friend who was going through something and I took it as it was me. Had nothing to do with me at all. But I needed that open communication to be like, I'm experiencing this negative vibe. Did I do something? And all that was needed was that conversation because then it opened up space for them to actually tell me what was going on.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yeah. Yeah. So there can be corrective experiences and varying forms of relationships.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

And I think there should be. 100%. But we have to be open to do that, which comes from the prioritization of our own needs and our own balance. Because if we don't know and we're not implementing boundaries and we're giving more than we're getting back, we're never going to feel completely full because we're going to be giving and giving and then not realizing when we're emptying and then we're like oh my gosh I don't have anything to give I'm going to go crawl in my bed and put the covers over my head because I don't have anything left

SPEAKER_00 25:26

it's so amazing I always say that relationships can hurt you they can heal you they can break you but they can also repair you and it's so amazing how relationships can do honestly so much that being alone can't and as much as we like to think we can heal on our own we can there's so much that we can solve in the silo there is so much that we learn when we are engaging in relationships that are allowing us to grow that is allowing us to stretch a new muscle that is allowing us to expand our way of thinking how we think about that romantic relationship or how we think about that friendship it allows us to also better understand and what we need and value as people, as a person. It helps us better understand, okay, what does it look like for this relationship to be reciprocal?

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Yeah, and also like this morning, actually, I was thinking in this realm of like relationships, familial relationships, and a lot of people have had negative experiences Or we are looking for, what's that word? Family, like blanking on this word. Do you know what I'm talking about? They're like, yeah. I'm like, I can't think of it. Chosen family. So a lot of us find chosen family, but we create these expectations in our brains that like what it looks like, which is usually because of entertainment. So we watch TV and we have this ideal, like it's beautiful and magical. And we're like, oh my God, I want that so bad. And then we put so much pressure on what this chosen family looks like that we're looking past the relationship and we're not actually seeing what's in front of us because I even do this I just want like all the love and I want to have these big friendship feasts and we're all just showing up every Friday night and having a sangria party and I'm like that is a fever dream like that can't happen all the time like You are literally doing a plot to a show in your brain. That's not realistic. And if it is realistic for you, and that is your life, I love that for you. But like, we also have to be very aware of what we do have. And also opening up to the possibilities of what it could be. Because when you need this chosen family aspect, I think especially being in the L LGBTQ community. And I don't have family where I live. I need chosen family. I need support. I need it. And so finding that, not putting expectations on it and being like, maybe we could do Friday nights in Korea, but it's okay if we don't. Just being open to what is and also seeing the people in your life as different aspects and not putting that pressure on it. Does that make sense? Yeah. you look on social media they heavily have these like really bougie friend hangs like I was just looking at one the other day that was like two people getting their kindles ready that was in like this little popcorn bowl and they each had a blanket on each side and it was like this friend hang and I was like I don't have that what's wrong with me nothing's wrong with me that's just it's not how it is all the time

SPEAKER_00 29:54

yeah

SPEAKER_01 29:55

But I do have a friend who I'm going to watch a movie with and we're going to crochet together next week. That is a beautiful thing because I don't know how to crochet and I really hope he has the patience for me to learn how to crochet.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yeah, that all makes sense. And I also think though, it's okay to expect things out of our relationships, having ideas out of what we want our relationships to look like, what we, it is hard for me to not have an expectation of a relationship, whether you know this or not. It's very hard for me to not know. And I'm like laughing in my head as you talk about this, because I literally sent a text, like a group text out to like my core group of friends that I'm hosting a Halloween party. And I was like, if you do not show up, I do need a doctor's note on why you didn't show up because I am planning this a month in advance. And so I'm expecting full participation. And I even sent a separate text to one of my close friends and was like, I'm giving you two months to mentally prepare. I'm expecting you to show up. And so obviously, people have things happen, things come up. I've got a friend who's deep in football season. And so she is gone away. But Oddly enough, having an expectation is what has allowed a lot of my relationships to flourish because it gives me something to work towards. And even thinking about the really big parties. I love to throw one every quarter. I do a winter one. I do one for me for my birthday. And then I do a summer one. And I think I just love the idea of getting everyone together. I said it can't be all the time, but I love the idea of curing like a moment like an opportunity and so I think being open to that like flex that growth space of our friendships and our relationships and setting like a standard like setting like setting like the expectation of what the space can look like and what it can grow into

SPEAKER_01 32:05

and I think that is also very dependent on who you're allowing into your life so if you are allowing people who flake out a lot like that doesn't feel good and then you have mistrust in whether or not they're going to show up so creating a space where you know your friends are going to come and you can say things like you better bring a doctor's note because you have this spoken unspoken relationship with these people that you already know that it's going to be something that's important to them because it's important to you having these people in our lives that come in and you're like constantly worried if they're going to show up, if they're going to give you the, what you need and the vice versa of the withdraw and receive that like deposit and withdraw that whole reciprocity. Yes. If you don't know that's going to happen, if you are worried about that situation all all the time with that person, they might not be that person for you. And that's the same place of creating boundaries. Creating boundaries with friends that they don't have to be perfect all the time. Obviously, we can't all be perfect all the time. But knowing that they're going to show up. And that's really where you learn those things is when you get back to yourself. And if you have any doubts or any uncomfortability that is your intuition telling you maybe this isn't the friendship for you or maybe it's just a different kind of friendship like maybe this is one of those friendships where you go get coffee every once in a month and it feels good but that's it or you have relationships where you go on four hour dinners and talk about like extremely vast things about the universe there's so many different forms of relationships that you can have and there's more intimate relationships But knowing yourself first, that creates the doorways of where you want to put your energy.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Yeah. Does the person who like gets the coffee slot need to feel as reliable or as reciprocal as the like person that you would spend like all day with? I

SPEAKER_01 34:42

love that you said the coffee slot. Here's your ticket. You are my coffee slot friend. That's just how you described it. You are the coffee friend. only my response is no because typically the coffee spot friend this is the label now typically the coffee spot friend is not the one that's coming to your parties and then maybe they are I don't know everyone's life but I do know that usually the person that you meet for coffee like once a month a couple of months you're that's the catch-up friend like typically when you don't see each other that often you basically spend the time catching up until the next time you see each other and then you catch up again but where in that is the connection so

SPEAKER_00 35:48

is the coffee slot worth it

SPEAKER_01 35:51

I guess that's up to you to determine but I guess if it's if that if it feels fulfilling to those out in the world then keep doing it if it's someone that you still enjoy and you in that space so let's say coffee person you spend two hours having coffee together but you spend that time laughing and you spend that time really enjoying the food you're eating because that is my number one love language is food if you say it's not a love language it's I don't believe you. If you are getting fulfilled by it, it is worth it. But are you going to go to that person when you're having a meltdown and you just need someone to support you? Probably not. Because maybe they're only available to be the friend that is the every couple of months person. For now. Does that mean it could evolve? 100%. We just need to be open to that. But also if it doesn't feel good to be like, hey, you want to hang out on Friday and have dinner? And they're like, no, I can't. And they're like, but I can do coffee in two months. I will tentatively put it on my calendar. I think it really depends. Would it feel fulfilling to you? That's the point. Do you keep a coffee slot person in your life? Realistically, a lot of people wouldn't. Would I? No, I wouldn't. I really value deep connections. And so that doesn't feel deep to me to just connect in a way where we're just catching up. Because to me, it's always a superficial conversation where I'm like, okay, I guess I'll see you in three months. And that just doesn't feel fulfilling for me. But for some people it does. And that feels okay. And there is no wrong way to have relationships we just all need to know what we need

SPEAKER_00 38:04

yeah like we'll pick this conversation up season three this conversation was amazing Christina thank you so much final question what is one piece of advice you would give to someone who is learning how to date themselves

SPEAKER_01 38:25

be slow go slow Like, really go slow and just really don't go all extravagant at first. Just do the simple things each day. Like, whatever that is, but ensure that it's extremely fulfilling to you. And just spend that time and every day layer it up a little bit. But really treat yourself. When you hear that, treat yourself. I know it's, like, overused, but do it. Do it. Actually do it. If you want a croissant or you want ice cream for breakfast, do it. Just treat yourself. We're here for a short amount of time. If you want chocolate ice cream for breakfast and that feels good to you, go get yourself ice cream.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Where are we for a short amount of time? On Earth?

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Goodbye. Thank you all so much for tuning in to the show.