Ep. 32. Soft Power series: self love versus self respect

In this episode, I delved into a deeper explanation of soft power and addressed common misconceptions about it. I explored two components of soft power and the crucial difference between them: self-love and self-respect.

Soft Power, to me, is a form of gentle but powerful self-leadership capacity that I focus on deeply in my work. I think it's highly underestimated and/or misunderstood capacity. But when you really learn to powerfully lead yourself, your success becomes a by-product of it. And it ripples throughout all areas of your life because you are the most important person in your life, you are the center of it all. If you can’t lead, love and respect yourself, it will be very hard to have your desired life and successful, thriving business. In this episode, I am provoking and inviting you to really take responsibility and embrace that.

I offer a year-long, premium-quality mastermind immersion centered solely on this capacity. It helps you lead yourself, your life, and your movement boldly yet gently—the soft power way!

This high-end, exclusive program is designed to help you explore your depths and rise to your greater potential. A new group will start in March 2025, and enrollment will open soon. To learn more and join the waiting list, visit:

Transcript

I'm so excited to have you back here and continue conversation and series of episodes regarding self power. What that is, how that shows up, and why do I talk about it? Why do I care about it? I care about it deeply. And I also want to clarify what that is and what that is not. And it goes really deep. This stuff goes really deep. This clarification, like foundation, what soft power really is goes in so many nuances.

But today I want to talk about one specific aspect and possible misconception about it. So it comes with the word soft and soft power may be received the same as like self love. And partly that is very, very true. That what it is actually, but as well as we perceive self love and so many misconceptions, or maybe in my opinion, not full spectrum of it, same goes with the soft power here. So let me elaborate what I mean by that. And specifically. What I want to talk today is the difference between self love and self respect element of it.

Often when it comes to the concept of self love, what immediately comes to our perception and response is pampering yourself, being kind to yourself, you know, getting enough sleep, enough food, taking a bath, getting a massage. Kind of self soothing aspect of it. And it is part of soft power, but it's not all of it and not even the full essence of it, in my opinion.

Because soft power comes from very deep respect of yourself. Very deep respect of your energy, of your divinity, of your essence, of your expression, of yourself, of your humanity, of all of you, of your time, of your body, of your boundaries, etc.

The difference between self love and self respect.

In a nutshell, self love goes to that sweetness part, in the kindness part, into being easy on yourself part. But self respect is not always comfortable. Most of the cases, it's not. And as example, we know that going to the gym and doing the sport or eating healthy or having juice detox, it's not always super comfortable decision, but it's respecting our body decision. And we know it's just honouring the temple we are living in.

Self respect sometimes takes the most uncomfortable situations. Dealing with a conflict, saying no, setting the boundaries, respecting your energy, respecting your time, respecting your work, respecting who has access to you and how they treat you. And very often those situations may show up in very uncomfortable ways where you have to step up for yourself. Where you have to set those boundaries, where you have to say no, where you have to relentlessly and unapologetically stop your energetic leakages. Stop tolerating abuse, mistreatment of you. And it's uncomfortable because you may lose that client, you may lose that friend, you may lose that connection, your may be humiliated, judged, rejected, punished, etc. You may go through emotional turmoil because of that. But if you want to really lead yourself powerfully, if you really want to love yourself unconditionally, you have to learn to respect yourself. Because as Brené Brown says, and I love that, "the most compassionate people are the most boundaried people".

Why would you give your attention, your care, your love, your time, your focus, your gifts to people who don't see, appreciate, understand that. It's not only not self loving, it's also not self respecting thing. Self respect is invitation to fully honour your power. It's not the cheesy love anymore. It's not TLC time. It's a very different aspect of true TLC time. And TLC, if you don't know, stands for Tender Love and Care time. Self respect is truly loving yourself unconditionally. Self respect is not playing a "good girl" or a "good boy" or full on fawning response in order to belong, in order to connect in that false connection, false kind of love. It's about having your own back and loving yourself unconditionally, no matter what. Choosing yourself first, choosing yourself always, kind of love. Often this, let's say superficial kind of self love definition that in society we have as go to, like this treat yourself, have a nice dinner, pamper yourself, you know, these kinds of things.

Self love is often almost the go to recover from abuse and a abandonment of ourselves, disrespect of ourselves we have been doing (consciously or unconsciously). And so, for me, self respect is almost embodiment of your inner protector, of your inner guardian, of no bullshit here, no abuse anywhere here, no the power leakages, no energetic leakages, no boundary leakages here. I honor myself, I take myself seriously, I respect myself, I respect the sacredness of my being unconditionally because only then your essence and your heart can soften. Only then you can walk with an open heart. Only then you can be indestructible and soft... Only then you can stay in your softness and fully in your power.

Because you didn't leak it. Because you honoured it. I think it's only when you fully respect yourself, you can trust yourself. This is where you can feel safe with yourself because you know you will have your own back if that's required, when it's required. 

And it's really not easy. Especially if you were pioneer or rebellious, if you're different, different than society norms, different than collective rules, if you challenge status quo or generational patterns and ways of being. I cannot even start to tell you stories over the years where I went against so many things. I broke all the standards of traditional roles. Sometimes I was only one in the class, in the group who stood up for integrity that I felt was my integrity. And I was called crazy. There were so many times where I decided to speak up my boundaries, my feelings, the way I want to be loved, risking to lose the bond. risking to loose everything. And I lost a lot of bonds. I lost a lot of clients because of that. A lot of friends, a lot of people. Because I decided to respect myself, my integrity. I cried a lot in the corner and I grieved a lot and I still respected myself because I decided not to abandon myself. And that's the difference. You can still love yourself and abandon yourself, but if you respect yourself fully, there's this no bullshit voice of, I will not abandon myself. And that's for me the key difference. 

That's for me what makes all the difference in soft power. Because it feels very different as well. And the funniest thing, ironical thing, and truth all this life, when you start to respect yourself, others start to respect you. Because this way you kind of energetically shift all the abusive frequencies around you. They cannot stand in the face of self respect. They cannot stand and manipulate you when you stand in integrity of your self respect. 

This is where you're soft, feel very calm, very relaxed, grounded and very powerful at the same time. Because you're just very deeply anchored in your truth, in yourself, in your integrity.

Do you know that difference between this kind of softness and the softness of being nice, being people pleaser, be not wanting to upset people, being soft without the respect of yourself? 

There's a world of the difference in energy there. Have you had this feeling or situations where you feel it's so unjust, it's so unfair, you worked so hard, you gave so much for that person or that situation, you feel so unappreciated? Because somewhere you don't respect or appreciated yourself. There was something in that situation, in those situations, where you didn't honour yourself, didn't respect yourself. Yes, you gave a lot of love, you expressed a lot of love, and probably were a very loving person but somewhere on cost of you, on the cost of your self respect. But when you really learn to self respect, there becomes this invisible energetic field around you, the boundaries around you that people almost intuitively feel and they know they cannot cross it. And even if they cross it, you course correct. And that's the part of staying in your softness and also staying in your power.

Self respect is essential. Part of protecting your own power of holding your own power, staying in your own power. And it's very much a lot here about energetics that I'm talking. And I hope it's clear. I hope you get the difference? 

For me, that kind of self love, soothing self love approach is more the feminine energy. And it's very needed. It's very important. This is what fills your cup as well. This is what builds your capacity, increases your capacity to hold and to go where you need to go deeper in yourself. But self respect, it's more that masculine energy, that protector, that guardian, that warrior, that no bullshit, that angry no when you cross my integrity, when something unfair happens. And I think when you balance them both, when you holistically make that dance of self love and self respect, this is where the soft power really shines as well. This is where it gets to blossom in the true beauty that it is. 

And just for a better embodiment of that, think about people that you truly respect. Not only that you love, but you truly respect this person full hearted, have almost sacred respect to that person. And think about how do they behave in regards of self love and self respect? If you are struggling to anchor any of those concepts, self love and self respect, think about how would that other person that you think embodied self love and self respect? Wat do they do and how they behave? What's the difference? List what are the elements that creates you that respect to them? And also on the other hand, think about people that you kind of admire, you have this care for them. but you don't really respect them? Think what's the difference? What do they do? How do they behave differently? Why don't you feel like you respect them?

And that's why I'm saying it's super energetic there. We all respond to that. And very often unconsciously, like this is what we don't grasp. We just respond to energetics about it. Especially if you're very sensitive person, but actually all of us are. 

And that's, for me, the main difference in the soft power movement, in a soft power leadership, it's not being soft person. It's more being soft in your heart, being open in your heart, being into relaxed nervous system instead of protective and agitated nervous system. It's leading in the softness and expansiveness and relaxation in yourself because you feel safe with yourself. And then there is different kind of softness where you don't have a spine, where you don't have your ground, where you don't have your compass and honouring of integrity, of your truth, of yourself. Because yes, you're a very nice person, very sweet, very likeable, very adaptable, but you're not powerful. And you're probably not powerfully leading your life. You are probably not powerfully leading yourself or your movement or your business or your community or your point of view in the world.

Self love is the tool to build your capacity, to fill your cup, to sooth. And self respect is the tool to reclaim, hold, and handle your power. It's a tool in a way to stay in your body, to stay in your truth, and to stay free who you are. 

In our societies where oppression is so normalized and giving your power away is so glorified and also conditioned from the early age to do that, it becomes very difficult to respect ourselves. When you think about everything in our society, breathes and constantly signals us on a daily basis: "You are not worthy, you are not free, and you're not supported". You're not encouraged to respect yourself. Quite the opposite. Often, those people are perceived as crazy, as emotional, as drama queens, and yes, there's a difference how you handle that. That's another story. 

But first, starts with literally respecting yourself. And it goes so deep and goes so many layers. The moment you start to claim your power, the moment you step into powerfully leading yourself, you start to realize how many ways you leak your power and how many ways our society structures forces you to give that power away. And also in business, it's insane. 

Just think about how many ways during the day, if you zoom in, really how many ways do you drop yourself? How many ways, little and big ways, grand and tiny, tiny ways you feel disrespected by others while you walk through the world during the day? If you really focus on those little boundaries first, do due diligence... Not even talking about massive stuff, massive stuff is already million and hundred of little things compounded. 

Self respect is really very essential part of starting to love ourselves unconditionally. A lot of self love, a lot of love is transactional love. It's conditional love. And the shocking truth, uncomfortable truth is if you don't know how to really love and really respect yourself, for sure, somehow, some way, unconsciously, you cannot love and respect others. Think about it. It's not only you leaking your own power, you contributing doing that for others.

And I'm sorry that I'm bringing all those uncomfortable conversations here, but they're important conversations. They matter because I care for you to stay in your softness and stay in your power. Because I believe soft power is our naturalness, our alignment, where we embrace our softness, where we stay with fully open heart.

And we don't compromise the atomic explosion we are. So just as a closing, I just want to ask, How deeply do you love yourself? How strongly do you compromise yourself? What does it take for you to compromise yourself? How easy and how often you get to do that? And what situations, what are your vulnerabilities where you leak your power? What are you afraid there to lose?

And then really honestly ask yourself, do you deeply respect yourself? Respect your energy, respect your essence, respect your desires, respect the way you are. And even more poking question, how much do you respect yourself when it's uncomfortable? When you are challenged, when you are pushed in a corner, when you disregarded, when you rejected, when you misunderstood, when your boundaries are crossed, even in the eyes and potentiality of possible humiliation or backlash? How strong do you stand your ground then? How strong do you respect your truth, your integrity, and how much do you respect yourself then? Because it's easy to stay in your power when circumstances are favourable there, when it's comfortable, it's easy to love yourself, it's easy to respect yourself. But how deeply do you respect yourself when it's hard? In the moments where all those circumstances are against you? When your character, when your capacity and your integrity are truly challenged? How deep do you respect yourself then?