Heal Thrive Prosper
If survival mode made you forget who you are, I’m here to help you remember. I’m Andreea Tanase - I hit rock bottom, rebuilt my life from the inside out, and now I help cycle breakers unlearn harmful patterns, reclaim their worth, and create love and life that feel like freedom, not survival.
This isn’t about quick fixes, toxic positivity, or bypassing pain. Here, we go beneath the surface to unravel cycles with nervous system–safe strategies and raw, truth-telling conversations.
We'll dive into:
1. Unlearning Who You Were Taught to Be
You don’t have to keep performing the roles you were raised to play - the “strong one,” the caretaker, the overachiever. Together we’ll peel back the scripts family, culture, and society handed you... so you can stop living for others and finally belong to yourself. This is truth over comfort: choosing wholeness over the roles that once kept you safe.
2. Rebuilding Self-Worth & Self-Trust
Your worth isn’t earned - it’s remembered. Here we’ll release the guilt, stop the second-guessing, and rebuild a self-trust that feels unshakable. Boundaries and honest communication become acts of integrity, not performance. Healing doesn’t mean bypassing pain - it means moving through it in ways that honor your nervous system and empower you to stand firmly in who you are.
3. Aligned Love & Relationships
Aligned love isn’t about fixing someone or shrinking yourself to be chosen. It’s about building the kind of relationship where you feel safe, respected, and fully seen. We’ll talk about spotting red and green flags sooner, walking away when something isn’t right, and choosing love that feels liberating and real. This is radical self-worth in action - love that feels like freedom, not survival.
✨ New episodes every Thursday. Hit follow now, and let’s heal, thrive, and prosper - together!
Heal Thrive Prosper
23. How to Build Self-Love (From Scratch)
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In this episode, I talk about what self-love actually looked like - or didn’t look like - growing up for me, and how I had to teach myself how to love myself from scratch (and how you can, too!)
We'll talk about:
- How other people’s opinions become your inner voice
- Why self-love starts with separating your voice from everyone else’s
- How to audit your self-talk without gaslighting yourself
- And why self-love isn’t a feeling - it’s a pattern of choices
This isn’t about bubble baths or pretending you adore yourself overnight. It’s about questioning what you were taught… and deciding to relate to yourself differently.
If you’ve been functioning, achieving, showing up - but still feel like something’s missing internally - we’re going there.
As always, thanks for being here.
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Welcome to Heal Thrive Prosper. I'm Andrea Tanase. And if survival mode made you forget who you are, I'm here to help you remember. After hitting rock bottom and rebuilding my life from the inside out, I now guide people like you, the cycle breakers, the strong ones, the overachievers, to unlearn harmful patterns, reclaim your worth, and build a love and life that feel like freedom, not survival. So grab your favorite snack and let's heal, thrive, and prosper together. Welcome back. Today we're going to talk about self-love. And no, I'm not talking about the type of self-love where you say affirmations in the mirror and then you turn around, and the rest of the day you are talking down to yourself, thinking negative thoughts constantly, and just acting as if you are not someone that you love. I'm talking about actual, real self-love. So if you want to hear how I developed self-love in my life and how I think you can too, stick around. We're gonna start with a little story about where most of us get our idea of what self-love is from, which is in a childhood. And if loving yourself feels fake, forced, or cringe, or just a topic that you don't really think about a lot, it's probably because it was not talked about when you were growing up, and no one ever showed you how you should be loving yourself or why. And if you veer on the side of really not liking or even hating yourself, it's something that you learned. My story, and some of you have already heard it, is that as an immigrant being raised by immigrant parents, I had an interesting relationship with love because they did not verbalize that they loved me, it was always through actions. And they thought that that sufficed and that was necessary. So not only was it not said all of my childhood, but there were no conversations about why. It was just sort of implied. And I grew up thinking also that I was too loud, too much, too out there, too opinionated. And so those are the things that I was told that I started internalizing and really started believing. And so, of course, I didn't grow up loving myself, I didn't even know what that meant. And if you resonate with that, stay with me because self-love isn't something that you magically start feeling, it's something that you have to intentionally build if it's not there. So in adulthood, if you didn't have that foundation in your childhood, self-rejection starts showing up. So, how did I deal with not having that foundation? Well, I leaned into external validation, overachieving, having to get degrees to prove I'm smart, I'm worthy. And I had no real internal sense of identity. When you don't know who you are, you try to perform who you think you should be. And honestly, most of the time, you're just trying to impress other people and compensating for that lack of self-love. And here's the part that I don't hear a lot of people say self-love doesn't actually start with liking yourself, it starts with questioning who taught you not to, because most of what you call self-hate or just not having self-love isn't yours to carry. So the first thing I realized that needed to be done when I realized I was definitely lacking self-love in the way I was acting in my adult life, is needing to separate my own voice from everyone else's. So when we lack critical thinking skills growing up, when we're children and still learning how to think and what to think, you inherit a lot of things. And you inherit those internalized narratives about your body, your personality, your worth. And so let's pause for a second and ask ourselves a very important question. If no one had ever commented on your body, on your accomplishments, on what you can do for them, how would you see yourself? Self-love often begins with unlearning. And so sit with that question for a second and start to undo those beliefs that about yourself that aren't yours. And we've already talked about it, but the second thing that I really realized that needed to be done was auditing how I talked to myself. Your self-talk is just habit, and habits can be changed. So we've talked about this again, like I said, but notice your tone with yourself. Notice how you talk to yourself, notice the thoughts you think about yourself. Are you harsh? Are you dismissive? Are you demanding? You don't build self-love by lying to yourself. You build it by becoming fair and treating yourself in a fair way. And a lot of times we are so unfair to ourselves. So without being fluffy and just posting a quote and telling you to love yourself today, like I said, and tell yourself an affirmation in the mirror. I want you to sit down and think about your unique strengths. Think about what you're good at. Think about your wins. Think about your unique story. There are things that you've done, things that you've overcome, and things that you're still doing every day that you should be giving credit to yourself for. And so add more of that into your life. Add more of pausing, reflecting, and being grateful for yourself and the things that you do well. The more you bring that in, the more the negative self-talk of telling yourself you're not good enough, right? You're not pretty enough, you're not smart enough, you're not handsome enough, the more good we think about ourselves and the more we track those things that we should be proud of, the more we can silence that critic. And I have a whole episode about that, right? Silencing your inner critic. And I mentioned this, but really how to bring it home and how to really solidify your self-love over time acting like someone who respects themselves and loves themselves. Often that is the missing piece. Self-love really becomes real through our behavior. Love is more than a feeling, right? Even with other people, it's a pattern of choices, and that goes for our self-love as well. So things like investing in support, knowing, hey, I'm gonna go to therapy, I'm gonna go to an AA meeting. I need it. I'm going to invest in a coach. I'm going to invest in a gym membership. Even eating and resting and moving in ways that honor your body, really reflecting on your relationships and not chasing people who don't choose you and don't respect you. Those are the type of decisions and behaviors that really signal to yourself that you do love yourself. So if you don't feel it right now, take a second and tell yourself this that hey, I may not feel it, but once I start acting like it, there's gonna be a point where there's enough proof where I can actually look in the mirror and tell myself, like, wow, I have been consistently treating myself well for months now. I'm seeing it pay off in so many, so many ways. Like I actually do love myself. It's not gonna happen tomorrow, but it definitely is possible. Every time you choose yourself, your brain collects evidence that you matter to yourself. You weren't born hating yourself, you were conditioned to. And you can condition yourself to love yourself as well. And the most radical thing I've ever done, and the most powerful thing I've ever done, wasn't those degrees I got, right? Wasn't the money I'm making. It was deciding how I was going to relate to myself differently. And if you're ready to relate to yourself differently, this is where that starts. I have a ton of free resources for you, my weekly newsletter, reflection tools, and you can always book a free clarity call with me. And for the next few weeks, as I prepare for an upcoming workshop at the very beginning of March, that I'm really excited about. I'm doing something I rarely do. One person who attends the workshop or books a clarity call from now until then will receive 50% off of my coaching program. I only do this once or twice a year. So if you've been sitting on the edge of change, this might be your moment. Make sure you're in the newsletter. Make sure we're connected on Instagram at Heal Thrive Prosper. This is where I'll share all the details. And today, before you move on to the next thing, do one small thing that shows yourself that you matter, not performatively, quietly for you. I'll see you next time.