The Emmerance's Podcast

Struggling with Self-Love? Here are 6 Tips to Embrace Self-Love

• Emmerance Victoria Odia Ndala • Season 3 • Episode 67

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Have you ever considered self-love as the backbone of your existence, not just an indulgent treat? Join me on a heartwarming journey into the world of genuine self-appreciation as we dismantle the myths that paint self-love as a selfish act. In our latest episode, we wade through the often misunderstood waters of self-love, revealing it as a crucial element for instructing others on how we deserve to be treated. With an open heart, I express my deepest thanks for this space where we can connect over life-changing topics, offering refuge for those who battle self-criticism amidst the harsh landscape of social media.

This conversation is a personal invitation to craft your own definition of self-love, one that resonates with your unique life experiences and challenges past toxic interpretations. We explore the diverse ways self-love manifests—whether through rest, play, or setting sacred boundaries—and how these acts are powerful signals to the world about your self-worth. Inspired by 1 Corinthians 13, I guide you in constructing a love blueprint while nudging you to identify where neglecting self-love might be holding you back. Whether it's affecting your productivity or health, embracing self-love can protect against exploitation and undue stress.

To wrap up, we acknowledge that self-love isn't just a fleeting trend but a fundamental practice rooted in our very being since the dawn of time. From the unnoticed acts of self-preservation like managing finances to more conspicuous ones like maintaining fitness, every choice is an affirmation of self-love. Sharing my personal book recommendations and words of encouragement, I hope to inspire you to remain steadfast in the daily act of loving yourself. This episode is your guide, a source of comfort, and a reminder that putting your well-being first is the ultimate act of kindness to yourself.

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1 Corinthians 13:
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

These books offer valuable insights and practical techniques for cultivating self-love and compassion:
1. "The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embr

Freebie promotion: Grab the free Ebook The Beauty of Self-Love: How to Find Love In Your Singleness. http://emmerance.com/free-ebook

Get notified: The Emmerance's Podcast Newsletter!

About Emmerance:

Emmerance Victoria Odia Ndala is a Self-Empowerment Coach, personal development blogger and Transformational speaker. She has been helping people with their self-love and personal development journey by being their coach or accountability partner.

If you have any questions, contact Emmerance @TheEmmerance or email Victoria@Emmerance.com.

Instagram: @TheEmmerance

Website: Emmerance.com

Music Credits: @sakionthebeat

Emmerance:

For me, self-love is understanding that you're a human being and you make mistakes, you have imperfection and you have things that you're good at, but you're not always going to be perfect. You're going to lie, you're going to stumble, you're going to fail. This is the Emmerance's podcast, where we empower you to choose yourself, because there's no other human being that's more important in this world than you. This might sound selfish, but it's not. If you believe that choosing yourself is selfish, then I want you to know that self first isn't selfish, and I will tell you why. Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of the Emmerance's podcast. I'm your Emmerance Victoria Odia Ndala, and today I am grateful for another podcast episode. I am grateful because the Lord is allowing me to come on here and talk to you and if you're new to this podcast episode, I want to say welcome.

Emmerance:

If you haven't followed, please follow and share with someone who is struggling with self-love, because this podcast episode is going to be about self-love. I'm going to give you some tips and tricks later in this podcast episode. The reason why I want to talk about self-love today is because I've seen a lot of self-hate on social media, and one social media comment gave me this idea to come on here and give you these tips. And this person I don't know who it is, but their comment went like okay, so when you do all these self-love work, then what? What do you mean then? What? If you think like that, that means you did not understand. The thing is, you have to understand that self-love has been around for decades. Okay, it is definitely the core thing of human beings like, we need self-love. And because it has been around for decades, you have to understand that self-love is just a term that we have given it. It is something that you have to do. You have to love yourself. There's no choice in that.

Emmerance:

You know, one thing that helped me with my self-love journey is realizing that I am the only person like I came to on this earth alone. Of course, my mom brought me here with all of her powers Okay, because my mom has many kids, you know, bless her heart. But she brought me on earth, right, I'm here, she, she gave birth to me and I'm going to die alone, all right, I have this one body, I have one heart, I have this. You know everything that I do the eyes, the ears and everything that I have was given to me, all right. So I have to learn to love it. I have to learn to love my body, to love me myself inside out, because if I don't do it, I cannot depend on someone else to do it. I cannot depend on someone else to love me the way I should be loved. I am the person that should teach other people how to love me. I should teach people how to respect me. I should teach people how to be around me and respect me and set boundaries and all that.

Emmerance:

And that all comes with self-love. If you do not understand it, understand this, self-love does not end. Okay. So if you are out here thinking that you're just going to do some self-love, some self-care, some this and that, and then it's going to go away, no people think that self-care is self-love. But self-care is actually part of self-love. It's an act that you actually do because you love yourself. All right, it's like a result, it's like a consequence of loving yourself. Because you love yourself, you're going to do self-care. Okay, so get that.

Emmerance:

So when I say self-first isn't selfish, it means that you are being putting yourself first in everything, everything that you do in your life, regardless if you have kids, if you have older parents, people that depend on you, it doesn't matter. You have to pour into yourself first. If you're Christian, the Bible talks about it. The Bible says that you have to love other people the way you love yourself. So if you don't know how to love yourself, how are you going to love other people you know like anyways? So if you're struggling with self-love I'm going to keep this straightforward Just know that one it's a journey, all right.

Emmerance:

Self-love is a journey and I cannot define what self-love is for you. The first thing that you have to do if you are struggling with self-love, you actually have to define it for yourself. What does self-love look like for yourself? And maybe you haven't seen that when we came on earth, you came on earth here and you grew up with parents or with an adult that thought you what self-love looks like, and maybe that was a toxic thing. Maybe the person was being beaten up or bullied in some kind of way in their relationship, or they were always stressed, always working, and they were just all over the place. That is not self-love. You have to define what self-love is, and for me, self-love is me taking care of myself, me knowing my limit when I need to rest, when I need to play, when I have energy for something and when I don't have energy for something, self-love is when I set boundaries. We talked about boundaries last episode.

Emmerance:

So if you did not listen to that podcast episode, go ahead and listen to it, because I said a lot of things and I still have the book here. Go read it. All right. So take a moment to define what self-love is for you. You have to be clear. You can even give yourself some examples of what self-love looks like.

Emmerance:

So you really have to define what a self-love looks like in my life. How can I really put this into practice in my life? How can I love myself even more? Right, and if you need some help and you are a Christian, go read 1 Corinthians 13. I'm going to put the Bible verse down on the description, if I remember, but that Bible verse described what love is. If you don't know what love is, that's what love is If you don't want to. So, basically, what I'm trying to say is go read that. Go read that love part, even if you're not Christian, and then define what self-love is. Okay, based on that, because it's going to help you If you don't know where to start? Start there? Another thing is write down the definition that also resonates with you, something that you see and it's comfortable when you hear it. It's comfortable with you, right? So when you're reading the Bible verse 1 Corinthians 13, make sure that it resonates with you, because some of the things that's there you're probably not going to be okay with, but that's fine.

Emmerance:

But ultimately, for me, self-love is understanding that you're a human being and you make mistakes, you have imperfection and you have things that you're good at. But you're not always going to be perfect. You're going to lie, you're going to stumble, you're going to fail and, regardless of everything that you do, you need to love yourself throughout, throughout, no exception. There's no, I don't love you today because you did this. No, you look at yourself in the mirror and you say that I love you because you did your best. Today. I love you because you worked hard. I love you because, regardless of what everyone said about you, I still loved you. Even you can look at yourself in the mirror, even look at yourself naked in the mirror.

Emmerance:

Be intimate with yourself in the mirror and kind of describe what self-love looks like and what it means, and sometimes maybe you should hug yourself while you're doing that, because hugging yourself also will bring that intimacy that you know, feeling that you can. Maybe I did not pour myself enough self-love, or maybe my, my class is so empty that I need to start right now, right now. So, yeah, you start and you give yourself that hug Now. Another thing that I want you to do, which is tip number two. Tip number two is definitely another reflection, so you have to reflect on the area of your life where lack of self-love is holding you back.

Emmerance:

The second point means that there are places in our heart, in our lives, that lack self-love. And if we can just look at it and be like, you know what, what if I had changed the way I talked to myself or the way I acted around this area, because that does not look like I love myself, the? What would happen if I actually treated this as like a self-love lesson, and how would that impact my life? You know, sit down, reflect on it and then think about how that could be pure self-love and how that pure self-love could have helped you move forward into the things that you want to accomplish. Right, maybe there's a lack of productivity, maybe there's a lack of health, you know, and when you are procrastinating or eating McDonald's all the time, you have to understand that when you change that and you change it into like a loving way of you know, treating yourself in a loving way and being like, okay, maybe I ate too much McDonald's, maybe I should, you know, cook, or maybe I should order something healthier, and then maybe I should also go and work out and kind of look at how that could have changed your life. You know, maybe your health issues might have stopped or might have reduced, you know, become more healthier, because you treated yourself with care, with love.

Emmerance:

That's what tips number two is about is about looking about where you are not harnessing the power of self love, because self love is so powerful. One thing that I know, because I love myself, I'm not letting people play with me, and what I mean by that is take advantage of me. All right, I said boundaries, so the power of self love comes with a lot of beautiful things. Self love comes with many, many blessings. It can. It can change your life for the better. Actually, it can change your life to become the way it should be, and life should be easy, life should be, you know, less hard because we already have all these.

Emmerance:

You know work, school, all of this stress, external stress coming. You shouldn't be the person giving yourself some stress, right? So if you're not setting boundaries, if you're not putting yourself first in areas that you should be, then that's an issue. You should work on that and that's the power of self love is really bringing you into a point where you're healthier, your finances are straight, your spiritual health is good, your emotional and mental health is nice. You know, those are the five health that I just named, and when you love yourself, you take care of those five health.

Emmerance:

Now, tip number three is really about reminding yourself about what you've already done. So tip number two is youth, looking at the places that you haven't practiced self love. And then now, tip number three, I want you to remind yourself that you are already loving yourself, because there are things that you take care of because you love yourself. Now I want you to reflect on those things. I want you to give yourself some points, pat yourself in the back because you said, okay, you know what.

Emmerance:

I went to the gym for five, five times, five times a week last week. You know that's. That's a good thing. You know I'm already harnessing the power of self love. I love myself, so I'm doing a lot of things that is for my own benefits, right? I'm putting myself first in this area. I rested. I did a self care Sunday. I took bubble bath, you know, I just relaxed and I didn't do anything.

Emmerance:

I procrastinated. Maybe procrastinating can also be a good thing, because if you've been doing a lot and now you don't have energy and you told yourself you know what, let me just put a pause on this. Let me take care of it. Let me just watch a show, for for you know the day. Take the day off, that's good. You call it in sick because you had mental health issues, that is good, you know. So remind yourself that you are capable of loving yourself. Remind yourself that you are capable of putting yourself first, of looking into the needs that you have and you actually take actions into it. So that's tip number three. Now tip number four embrace and perfection. Listen, we are in this world, like I said in the beginning. We are human beings were made of flaws. We are going to fail because without failure you are never going to succeed, because you need to learn, and the past is there for you to learn, okay, and the future is there for you to plan. That's my definition.

Emmerance:

Practicing self love also means you practice self compassion. A lot of people want everything done right away. People are so hard on themselves because they cannot get something right. But understand that that's part of the process, that's part of you growing, that's part of your growth. If you are looking into dating someone and you're unable to, you've been doing the work and stuff. Give yourself some compassion. Give yourself some grace, maybe take a break, but understand that self-love comes with self-compassion. You cannot love yourself and not forgive yourself. You cannot love yourself and not being able to take it easy because you have the opportunity to. You are your own boss, you are your own leader. Your body definitely goes with your mind. If your mind says something let's say, I want to move, I want to go eat, I want to do this you have to understand that it comes with it. So practicing self-compassion comes with understanding that you are not perfect. All right, you have to treat yourself with kindness and understanding.

Emmerance:

Whenever you see yourself telling yourself that you're not going to amount to anything or being so critical to with yourself, that is not good. You have to pause and remind yourself that it is okay, I am just a human being and I'm just learning. Okay, we're taking this one step at a time and I can do this. I can I'm not lazy, I'm not this, I'm not that. Remove every negative stuff that you're telling yourself. Of course, it's never going to stop, believe me, I am my own big critic, all right. But I also pause and tell myself, hey, we did, we tried, but this is what we're going to do now. All right, that's what it's called self-compassion. You know, have that heart of forgiveness, have that heart of understanding and kindness, because, listen, if you are hard on yourself all the time, I don't understand how you're not like in the hospital or something like that, because you are stressing yourself, you know. So, be kind, all right, that's number four.

Emmerance:

So number five if you are having a hard time being, you know, compassionate with yourself and stuff like that, you have to understand that self-compassion. You have to treat yourself as if you're treating a kid. You have to treat yourself as if you're treating another person. I grew up with seeing a lot of people not treating their siblings the same way as they treat strangers. A lot of people can relate Like you can ask something from a sibling, they will say no, but if a stranger said it, they will say yes. Now, if you are that type of person that will treat your sibling differently than a stranger, you have to understand that you're probably treating yourself the same way. So what that means if you are struggling with self-love, you have to understand that. You have to foster self-compassion. You have to treat yourself as if you're treating someone else.

Emmerance:

If someone else comes to you with an issue, you don't yell at them. It's the same thing as yourself. If you are unable to do something, don't yell at yourself. Don't be so mean to a point where you're just going to fall into depression because you're unable to figure things out. And you are not going to be able to figure it out because you're so hard on yourself. You need to offer, you need to enter your need. You need to put yourself first. You need to understand that when you're faced with failure, when you're faced with challenges, you have to understand that this is something that's okay to go through. It's okay to be frustrated, it's okay to be Sad because you didn't accomplish one thing, but understand it's not the end of the world. You have to treat yourself as if a kid came to you and be like, oh, I felt my test. What are you gonna tell your kid, you know? Are you gonna say, hey, you are not gonna amount to anything? No, you're gonna say, it's fine, try again next time. Maybe Study more. Do the same thing for yourself.

Emmerance:

You know, if you're going on a date and you've been on dates and dates, and dates and dates, and you are not in a Relationship like for a whole year, you've been on dates and you're not in a relationship, tell yourself that it's okay. If you have, it's nothing that has to do with you, there's nothing wrong with you. But what I can say when it comes to dating is understanding that there are things that can be fixed, but you're not going to Give yourself hell Because you're unable to find a partner. It's probably you're in the wrong city or it probably you're, you know, dressed too casually when you go out. You're not giving your best, you know. But don't be hard on yourself. Don't start hating yourself, because people will see it. When you're going out there on dates, people can tell if you actually take care of yourself or not.

Emmerance:

The last thing is take action Steps. All right, so I told you a lot about self-love. You know the six tips on Fostering your self-love journey and enjoying self-love. One thing that I want you to understand that Self-love is one step at a time. You have to take baby steps, baby steps.

Emmerance:

It's not today that I learned how to love myself. It started since 2018, when I told myself enough is enough. I am not gonna put myself in other situations like this. But it did not just. I did not just become this person today. I did not just find the boyfriend that I have today Like right away. No, I had to go through another breakup, another hard breakup, to. Actually, I was so frustrated that day too, because I'm like, I'm working on myself, I'm doing all of these things. Why, god, why and I remember I was crying. This is probably gonna be another podcast episode.

Emmerance:

But I Also understood that you have to start small, like. You cannot just Be like okay, I love myself now. Okay, what now? What? That's just you telling yourself that you don't because you did not do the work. So it starts small. Okay, you have to start small by incorporating things like self-care, things like self-compassion. You know, take a bubble bath today, maybe, work out once a week and then go twice a week. You know that that type of things you know. Take it one step at a time. Don't give yourself a hard time, also because you haven't done it. You're not someone that works out five times a week, so why are you gonna push yourself to work out five times a week? Start small, maybe once a week, and then twice a week, and then go up, up up, until you get comfortable and that's becomes, that's becoming a habit, even self-care Sunday. If you miss one self-care Sunday, that would like I can't do this. This is too much. No, try again. All right, do something, maybe.

Emmerance:

Practice mindfulness, be mindful, and being mindful is super hard. Okay, being in the present moment is super hard, and I'm telling you this because it took me years for me to be like okay, let me focus on my breathing, focus on my breathing. And now I'm just like okay, I forgot that I was focusing on my breathing because something came up and then now I'm just frustrated. Go back to your breathing, take you one step at a time. Don't get frustrated because you forgot to be mindful. Just take you one step at a time, all right, just take you one step at a time, all right. So those are the six tips that I had for you today and before I let you go.

Emmerance:

I just wanted to say and remind you that self love is a journey. Self love, do not stop. It has been there since we were created. Okay, today we are just putting a term to it and giving you all these tips, but it's been there for a long time.

Emmerance:

A lot of people do things out of benefit for themselves and that's because they love themselves. A lot of people do not point it out, do not say that it's self love. A lot of people go to the gym. A lot of people take care of the money. A lot of people take care of their family. A lot of people take care of their body, groom themselves well, smells well, do that and all that.

Emmerance:

Do things that they want to do because they love themselves and they don't think about it, because that's how they grew up and that's how they learned from their parents, who love themselves too. So it is something that came down, but for people like us that didn't learn from others, we have to learn from ourselves. We have to learn through books, which I'm going to give you some at the end in the description. I'm going to give you some books that have helped me, but all I want to tell you is do not give up on yourself. Do not give up on self love. Love yourself every day. You listening to this podcast episode also proves that you love yourself because you want to get better. All right. So always, always, teach yourself that it is okay to be selfish. All right, remember that. All right, before I let you go, I just wanted to tell you that I love you and I'm rooting for you. If you need assistance, hit me up on Instagram, at the Amarons, even on TikTok. But remember self first isn't selfish. Bye, bye.