[EP25] How Self Love Transforms Relationships With Celine Harleaux

Transcript

Jachym 0:03  

All right, welcome back to the awakened wife Podcast. I am Jachym Jerie from yourexceptionalrelationship.com. And today I have Celine with me, which is a self love expert. And please introduce yourself more appropriately to people.

Celine  0:20  

Hello, everybody. Hello everyone and everybody I wanted to say two words at the same time, it happens to me a lot. Celine, I run a beautiful business called my dawning light. And really, the reason why I started my business is that I realized that so many of us don’t have a very good relationship with ourselves. And we spend a lot of time in our minds kind of just thinking about, Oh, you know what we did wrong. And you know that that’s better. No dad joke that you told at a party that didn’t go well, then we just spent so much time kind of criticizing and judging ourselves for not being enough in one way or another in many ways, actually. And so I decided that I was going to try and look for ways for us to have an easier relationship with ourselves with, you know, simple, practical exercises that actually work. And so yeah, that’s what I’m all about self love. Here. I am.

Jachym 1:12  

Fantastic, great. Let’s, let’s dive into that. Because you have you say, okay, a better relationship with yourself, how have you found that that impacts your romantic relationships?

Celine  1:24  

Oh, my God, well, actually, my marriage was the guinea pig, to my self love experiment. So when I first met my husband, Richard, I was deeply unhappy. And I was deeply struggling with who I was, and I had a lot of acne on my face. And as you can imagine, it was really difficult for me to wake up in the morning and see that new pimples had popped up every single day, and it just wouldn’t stop. And so I was down into, I was just stuck into this cycle of self disgust and self hatred and self criticism all the time. And there I was, you know, with all of my self hatred. And I had met this wonderful man that was quite a bit older than me. And who said, Celine, you’re beautiful, silly, and I love you silly. And I want to spend more time with you silly. And I want to, you know, take this relationship deeper. And here I was setting boundary, putting up walls, putting up walls, not letting myself fall in love with him, and so on. And so eventually, he kind of persisted. I don’t know why he did it, I think most people would have just given up after a while, but he persisted. And, you know, he came to Europe to spend a few, a couple of years with me. So we were we met in Australia, sorry. And my visa ran out. And I had to go back to Europe. I’m, I’m French, originally. And he actually came over to Europe, from Australia to spend time with me to be with me. And, and I realized that, you know, I had put up so many walls around myself to protect myself to I don’t know, I was just the happiest person you could ever you could ever meet. And, and I had to let go of all of that all of that resistance in order to be able to have a relationship, a healthy relationship with my partner. And so that’s how self love started, right? So I’m a completely different person now than who I used to be when I first met my husband. And that’s, that’s self love, right? Because, you know, we have this constant dialogue in our minds. And we’re constantly talking to ourselves about what we do and the quality of what we do and how much more we should do when, you know, if you’re into self development at all, you’ll know that you know, you want to implement this, you want to have apple cider vinegar in the morning, you want to do yoga every day, you want to go to that retreat, you want to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you want to eat healthier, you want to spend more quality time with your partner, and all of these things, right? And so we’re constantly in this space of telling ourselves that we’re not doing enough that what we’re doing is not enough. And so self love is a practice of realizing that right now you’re okay, and you are doing your best. And no matter what’s going on for you. And no matter how challenging it is, you’re still deserve to have your own back. Does that make sense?

Jachym  3:51  

That makes sense. So can you kind of give the contrast between when you didn’t have the kind of self love that you have now? And the self that you do have now and how specifically that has impacted your relationship? Like what’s changed from? We draw a picture from a and a picture about be? What kind of what kind of like, happened there?

Celine 4:17  

Okay, that’s a difficult question for me, but I’ll do my best to answer that. I tend to not have many memories of the past, in the present, as you say, but um, my memories from the past are actually really vague. So but I’ll do my best. So, from what I can remember, seven years ago, I was in my mind a lot. I was spending a lot of time in front of the mirror, you know, looking at all of my people. So that was a practical example. I was, I didn’t know how to have friends. I didn’t know how to engage with people. I was stressed a lot. I was eating a lot of sugar. And I was exhausted all the time. So the sugar was helping me to find that extra energy but obviously it was impacting on my body in which in turn, you know, just, you know, gave me a lot of acne and what else I have, I just felt self conscious, a lot of the time, I couldn’t be in groups of more than two or three people. And I had to spend a lot of time on my own to try and recuperate that energy that I had to spend with others I was studying at the time. And I felt on the whole that life was absolutely exhausting all the time. And I was spending a lot of time blaming others for how I felt. So for example, you know, if somebody didn’t say, said something that wasn’t very nice to me, I would kind of agonize over that thing, you know, over and over and over again, and I had these moments at night where I would just kind of remember something that had happened 510 15 years ago, you know, perhaps, you know, something, somebody criticized me, or somebody said something that it didn’t appreciate. And it just, you know, would wake me up, and I was, you know, wake up, you know, cringing and think about, oh, my goodness, I’m not enough. And no matter what I do, I will never belong, I will never be accepted. And I will never be able to love myself because I consider the the feedback from others is negative. Right?

Jachym  6:00  

Right. So so just one second. So yeah, you have that? And how did your then boyfriend react to that? Like, did you have conflict? Because of that? Did you like blame him? Because of that? Or how did that play out?

Celine  6:15  

Um, I was I was, I was having tantrums a lot. Actually, I was, you know, creating arguments a lot. And, and I mean, the whole thing all what’s what Richard really wanted was to spend time with me, right, and we had a limited amount of time together before had to go back to Europe. And, and I just kept making up excuses. And for not spending time with me. And I didn’t want to talk about certain things. Like, obviously, my acne was everywhere, it was the best thing that you could see when you first met me. And he wanted to ask me some questions about my skin. So you know, like, what’s going on with your skin? Or what’s going on with your health? And I would just shut down. And, and then that was it. I just didn’t want to engage with Richard on the more on a deeper, more intimate level, right. And you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable, if you want to be in a relationship that’s going to last right.

Jachym 7:00  

Hold on one second. So do you know how it impacted him? Has he ever told you the about about that?

Celine  7:09  

Um, from the conversations that we’ve had around around this topic, I think he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand why I was pushing him away. Because when we first met, we both knew that this this was it, this was a relationship that we were both going to focus all of our efforts on, like we, the one, you know, both of us recognize that pretty quickly. And so we were sort of obsessed with each other. But then there was, you know, me and my mental health not being you know, what it should have been. And so he was hurt, but at the same time, he was I but but you’re, you’re the one for me, so you’re not making any sense whatsoever. And, and I think that he had spent a lot of a lot of time. So quite a few years of waiting for me. And he had been quite, he had been single for quite a while before meeting me. And so he was hurt. But he was also incredibly persistent and stubborn.

Jachym 8:06  

Okay, and so fast forward to where you are now, right, in the relationship, how has that changed now? Are they still what you call tantrums? And those kind of arguments or has that lesson like, what’s happening there now?

Celine 8:22  

Yeah, I think that now our relationship is like, we’re really good team. Right. And, and I and, and I think that this is due to me deciding that my mental health was not good. And I had to change things. And I had to take responsibility for how I felt. And one thing that came up a lot when at the beginning of our relationship is that I was always acting up and I was always taking up the role of the victim rights, you know, you’re doing this, you never do this, you don’t respect me, you know, if you’re asking me to do dishes, you’re sexist. And all of these things. No, blaming it on him all the time and all the time. And, you know, Richard is a bit you know, as quite quite a bit older than me, he’s eight or nine years older than me, and he’s, you know, he’s been in you know, long term relationships before and he kind of looks like, I know, myself, like, you know, this is this is all on you. Right? And it’s difficult to hear, right? Because when you’re in a relationship, it’s kind of, you know, who’s doing what, like, how can you put blame on somebody for something that’s occurring in their relationship with difficulty that’s occurring in the relationship? And and I think that’s what’s has really changed for me is that I started to take responsibility for how I felt and I set out to be a lot more honest about how I feel and why I feel that way. So the other day, you know, we both came home from work, and we were incredibly exhausted and we had to still drop off the car at the the car place for her to get her Ward or fitness or whatever. And it was just like, you know, we had half an hour together and it was such a crap half an hour because we were so tired, right? You know, ultimately would have said, awesome, Richard, I don’t want to spend any time with you. Just please go away. I want to be on my own for a little while, and I You know, would have been annoyed by every little thing that he did. And now Silene would say, Well, you know, it is what it is. I’m really tired right now, can we just spend some time in silence? So can we just, you know, enjoy being tired together? If that makes sense. So, yeah, yeah.

Jachym  10:15  

Wow. Okay. So, there were there was a moment that I think just to clarify, um, you’re saying, oh, wow, how can you place all the blame on one person? Was that statement referring to Richard saying that that’s on you? Or is it referring to what’s going on? inside of you, and you blaming him?

Celine10:37  

kind of difficult, right? Because, you know, Richard and I, we’re always reacting from the other person, right? So I’m reacting from Richards, behaviors and patterns. And I know the sounds that he makes when he eats or something, or how much he sleeps, when he has a cup of tea, you know, we’re always reacting from what the other person is doing. Right? So I think in that sense, it’s quite difficult to see. Okay, so this is on cillian, or this is on Richard. And I think that’s, I’ve, especially in the beginning, I waited for Richard to change, I waited for him to change that I would finally feel better, and allow myself to be more vulnerable or happy in the relationship. And then I realized that, you know, Richard, is who he is. And he’s probably aware of all the things that he would like to change, and probably, it’s really difficult for him. And it’s not on to me, it’s not my responsibility to change him, it’s not my responsibility to kind of, you know, you know, just to remind him that this is not working, and he has to change this, or he has to change that. So this is really miserable. Right? So, in that way, I think that’s one there is an issue. It’s up to me to see the role that I play in the conflict, the difficulty, right, and the challenge, and just see what I can change. And most of its most of the time, you know, we just, I don’t know, like, it’s kind of difficult to come up with an example, let me think that there’s nothing coming to my mind. But what I wanted to say is that, yeah, you have to take responsibility for who you are, and how you’re feeling and you know, what your thoughts are the way they are, and just have that opportunity or that vulnerability to be open about what’s going on for you, you know, often we just kind of just shut down and just try to pretend that everything is okay. But when you say, okay, Richard, I’m feeling like this. And this is not working for me. And I don’t really understand how to change this just yet, but I’m working on it, then suddenly, you have a platform for change, right? And you’re working together, rather than trying to do all the work herself on her own silently.

Jachym  12:31  

That makes sense. So So how has that that ownership that responsibility? impacted? Richard? No, like when instead of you like being like, oh, he has to change and you’re waiting for him to change, you taking responsibility and not waiting for him to change to be open and vulnerable, like, how’s that actually impacted him? Have you noticed a change in him in him as well.

Celine  12:58  

I don’t know if this has impacted him, like Richard is really good at noticing when I’m putting stuff on him. That’s not his to take. And he’s good at setting boundaries in that way. And kind of just, you know, calling me out on this. So, but I’ve noticed that we have a lot less arguments, because I know, I know what my stuff is, right? And I know how to recognize it. And he knows how to recognize it as well, you know, one of my things is that I just do a lot of things, and then I get exhausted, and then I don’t want to spend any time with him. And then I get really annoyed and I need to sleep a lot. And I just don’t want to hear any noise in the house. You know, that’s one of my things. Right? And so when that happens, we’re both aware. Okay, so he has done too much again. And she just needs a quiet space for half an hour, and then she’ll be fine again, you know, so I think, yeah, I think he’s happier because I’m happy to be honest.

Jachym  13:47  

Right, right, right. So the step that a lot of women can struggle with is like, Okay, well, he needs to be different so that I can be vulnerable. But you didn’t wait for him to be different to become vulnerable? How did you do that? How did you allow yourself to become vulnerable, despite him being the same?

Celine  14:10  

I think that’s the main reason is that I’ve had a lot of boyfriends in the past who were broken. And I chose them because they were broken, or, you know, mentally unhealthy, however you want to say it, and I chose them because of that, because I wanted to fix them. Right. And, you know, I’m somebody who can easily see what people’s hurts and traumas and dramas are. And I can see that there’s an easy solution to that, right. But in my marriage, it’s not my job to fix Richard, no. You know, this is my job. My job is to help people to fix their stuff when they want to fix their stuff. Or Richard might not see that his stuff is stuff he might just see as to you know, this is this is me, this is how I do things, and he might not be ready for it as well. And so I just don’t want to be the kind of wife who nags all the time, you know, at the partner ride like I wanted to do this and I want Should you do that, and I just don’t want to see that, because I saw that in my mother. And I saw how that impacted their, you know, her relationship with my dad. And I don’t that kind of woman. So just yesterday, actually, we were driving home. And Richard was driving at 70 Ks instead of 50 Ks on, like a really windy countryside road. And I was like, Richard used to try myself, I’m not gonna say anything, I’ve already told him this a million times on the same road, he knows this, he doesn’t want to go out 50 Ks, whatever. And this is his problem, if it’s going to be stopped by the police help me like I told you. But I have to shut up. It’s not my job. Right?

Jachym  15:37  

Right. Right. But I mean, before when when you are in this kind of mindset of It’s his fault, and he has to change, you most likely are not going to feel safe to be vulnerable, right? So how do you then introduce vulnerability into the equation? When you’re still in that kind of mindset, like, what did you have to do to actually be able to do that?

Celine 16:02  

Well, from my perspective, if I see that Richard has to change, and I don’t like the things that he’s not changing, and I resent him for not doing the work that he’s supposed to do, then I asked myself, Well, you know, is there something that’s going on inside of your ceiling? Like, where are you not allowing yourself to change your way you feeling that you’re not changing enough? Or where are you feeling that you’re not doing enough in a work where you’re not feeling unworthy Silene? And when I answer that question is always going to be so I’m always going to find an answer that’s going to say, Celine, I know, I’m talking to myself here, but you know, I feel unsafe, or I feel that I have to change this because you know, me behaving like this is not helping our relationship grow and deepen into what it can be. Or there’s always going to be, I can always relate that issue to myself. And when I fixed that within myself, then no, I’m no longer triggered by whatever I was triggered by previously, if that makes sense. And I think that’s one of the big things for me was that I was always struggling to be better, do better, do more, you know, go further, you know, I have a business I always want to do more in the business is always, you know, an endless list of tasks that I can do, right? And same when it comes to self development. I’m not perfect. There’s many ways in which I still struggle to accept myself, right. And so if I say, okay, Richard, this is what you need to change. I have to relate this back to me Silene? How do you need to accept yourself first? How can you, you know, apply unconditional self acceptance to you now? And when I can do this, when I have the answer to that question, then I realized this was what it was all about. It was never about Richard, for me, it was always about me, criticizing or judging myself for not being enough.

Jachym 17:52  

That might be a bit of a leap for some songs to listeners be like, Wait, hold on a second. Now. I see my partner doing this. And now you say, it’s me that I have to I’m not accepting of myself. Can you elaborate on that a how your how that’s actually true that this this switch from blame the other person to seeing it actually something not accepting within yourself?

Celine 18:17  

Okay, so let’s break it down. So let’s have let’s take an example. Let’s say that I resent Richard, for being an nice person. So I’m a morning person, he’s a nice person. So I have a lot of virgin energy in the morning. And as the day goes, I have less and less energy. He’s the opposite. You know, when he wakes, morning, he’s really grumpy. But he gets more and more energy at night. And so he goes to bed really late. I go to bed really early. So we have endless arguments around that. So my previous behavior was Richard, you not respecting me and you’re making a lot of noise, and you’re watching movies, and you’re, you know, banging plates in the kitchen? No, you know, you’re doing all of this. And you’re not respecting the fact that this is my quiet time. This is where I need to recharge my batteries. Because I have to wake up, I’ll fuck tomorrow, right? And so we had this argument for years. And previous cilium would have said, you know, Richard, you’re not respecting me, and I need you to change this, I need you to be more quiet and blah, blah, blah, blah. And to a certain extent, he could have been more respectful of, you know, what I experienced? Right? And and I think he did see suddenly has made a lot of changes, especially in the past few months. But then, well, what is the issue here? Who’s creating the problem, right? And itself, there’s no problem. It’s just, you know, there’s just something that can be changed, but I’m making it into a huge deal, because I feel that I’m not respected. I feel like Richard doesn’t value my needs, right? Even though you know, I’m really quiet in the morning when he needs to sleep in and so on. And so the problem here for me in my perspective, and there’s many ways that we can have a look at this, right. The problem I think, for me is that I feel disrespected. I feel that I don’t matter. I feel that Richard doesn’t care about my knees. I feel that he’s taking advantage of me. Oh my god, I’m in a relationship. For the narcissistic men, and so one writes in, so it’s on and on it goes, right. But I can just tell myself to shut up, you know, shut down. That’s no well, repeated record record is there’s no expression, but I can just shut down that could kind of just, you know, circuit of thoughts and systems and unworthiness, and he’s not respecting me. And so when I can say, actually, that’s not true. Richard, you know, respects me, and he respects my needs. And I know this, because I’ve seen many examples in the past, he’s not perfect, the relationship is never going to be perfect. But I have evidence of respecting me and my needs, right. And so when I can just allow myself to realize that I’m still respected, that I’m not going to create a tension more drama, or an argument or huge challenge that is going to be really difficult for us to solve, right. So for me, the answer is, I am respected, I am worthy. It’s okay, we’re going to find a solution together. But can you see, you’re still going to have that conversation about how you can make it work in the evening together? Right. But I have changed how I feel about the situation. I’m no longer coming from a perspective of it’s all Richards faults, you know,

Jachym  21:06  

that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, in that very specific example, is there is was there also a component of I’m not accepting myself, like, okay, so he’s making the noise and being disrespectful, whatever. Was there also a thought of, of, where am I being disrespectful to myself? Or where am I being insensitive, or something like that, or that didn’t apply in this this specific scenario?

Celine 21:30  

A little bit, I think, in the beginning, I kind of thought that, you know, I’m 28, like, I should be able to, you know, go to bed at 11:30pm at night and still, you know, have lots of energy in the morning. So, I felt resentful that I had, that if I went to bed later than 10:30pm at night, then I would, I would have a headache in the morning, basically. Right. And so that was, you know, that was really the core of my issue that I wouldn’t feel well in the morning. And so in the beginning, I would try and spend that time or more time in the evening with rich, and I would just try and stay up for a little while longer. And then the morning obviously didn’t work. And I felt resentful. And so I felt resentful towards my body, that it wasn’t working the way I wanted it to work. And so that was also part of the issue. But in the end, I had to accept that, you know, I’m a morning person, and I can’t, you know, keep going all day long, you know, from you know, 5am in the morning until midnight is not something that I can physically do, right. And so there’s nothing wrong with me, this is just the way that my body works. And so in that way, it was definitely a lack of self acceptance. For sure.

Jachym 22:33  

Right. Okay. So I’m just gonna break it down a little bit for listeners, feel free to jump in and correct me. But what I’ve heard, what you’re doing is you have a certain external event, right? That’s happening. And on that external event, there’s a bunch of interpretations that are coming in, about what it means about you and about your partner. And you’re saying you basically you’re disjointed, those two, right? You’re saying, Okay, stop, let’s look at this, okay, yes, he’s doing this behavior. But this all of this stuff is a stories and elaborate story, which is creating a case for him being nasty, right. But actually, I have an opposite story, which actually shows that he’s also very nice and considerate, and respectful and all this kind of stuff. And you’re basically making a choice of Okay, I am going to, I see that this other story is actually better, and probably more true in the big picture. Right? So that’s what I can afford, just for people who are listening who are like, Well, okay, yeah, I want to apply this in my own life. This is this is the this is the rough skeleton of what of what Sabine has kind of laid out in my, my view. Was that

Celine  23:46  

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for breaking that down for us. I think that, you know, we choose to, to listen to one story more than another. So in the examples that I’ve mentioned already, you know, I used to be the victim, you know, I used to just, like, go crazy on the victim mentality, right? It was always somebody else’s fault. Somebody was taking advantage of me overcoming my boundaries, like that’s, that was huge for me, right. And instead, it was true to a certain extent, but I was kind of like running with that story right all the time. And it was down to me to realize that that story was setting me in so many ways, and I got so much from it. And I had to, you know, from being the victim, I was able to avoid taking responsibility for myself and so on. And so it’s down to us to realize our weaknesses in our weak, the weak areas in our minds and to see that we’re choosing to pay attention to one story, in my case, the story of the victim, and we’re choosing to deny the validity or even the existence of other stories. Richard is service back to me, I am in a, in a relationship with a wonderful man. You know, all of these other stories gets kind of just pushed aside that the victim story can just be like, Oh, I’m a victim. I’m a victim. I’m a victim, right? But so it’s down to us around That’s okay. You’re maybe you’re a victim, maybe that’s true. But let’s just put that to the side for a moment, let’s just put it as a, maybe it’s true. But let’s have a look at all of the different possibilities of looking at that story. You know, there’s just so many ways for you to have a look at one single challenge, right? So, and if you have a look at all of the different angles that you can have, you can view this challenge from, I don’t know, anyway, but then you will be able to find a solution much more easily. Because, you know, if I had come to Richard and said, Richard, it’s all your fault you never respected me did that didn’t work. I didn’t find a solution. So I had to find you know, another way to solve the issue. You know, you do this and you never respect me, and oh, my God, you’re so sexist. And you just take advantage of me. And like, you’re really appreciate that I’m really quiet in the morning, but you never do the same for me. Like, how do you think is going to react? He’s going to shut down, he’s going to, you know, come with a few things that he can say to me about how he’s feeling and how the things that I have to change. But if I say, Richard, I feel like this right now, this is difficult. I don’t know. I don’t have a solution for this right now. But can we work on this together? Of course, he’s going to say yes, because he is in a committed relationship with me. Right? You know, you’re still approaching the problem, but in a very different way.

Jachym 26:12  

Right, right. What has helped you to see through the illusion of the story, because a lot of people are mistaking the story for reality. Right? They think the way I see it is how it is, and when you are fused with that way of thinking and seeing it this way. And you know, there’s all kinds of justification like, Well, yeah, well, for silliness is true. But I have all the evidence. And this is the power of the story. Obviously, you have a story. So you’re finding all the supporting facts, and all the other facts are blanked out, basically. So it really looks real. How, how have you been able to start this jointing that being like, Wait a second, actually, these are interpretations and these other stores in this that are more empowering and more useful and are just as true? How have you gone about that?

Celine 27:01  

It’s a difficult lesson to learn I I remember the first time I experienced this, so I was I was I’ll give you that I’ll give you the story. I was doing a theta healing workshop, it was a three week workshop called intuitive anatomy. And every day we used to, we would work on a different system of the body. So the lungs, the heart, you know, the immune system, and so on. And so one day, we were working on the digestive system, which is where a lot of the traumas and a lot of abuse is stored, right. And we know that, you know, if you feel that you’re being taken advantage of your race, you feel it in your tummy. And so we had to dig on all of the stuff that was held on the digestive in the digestive system, right along with all of their limiting beliefs, all of the sadness, the traumas, and so on. And so I was receiving a session for so I was the client and somebody else was the practitioner. So I was missing the session. And I had this memory come up to my mind of somebody taking advantage of me sexually as a child. And I’m like, This never happened to me, like, I’m not that sort of person. And I’m just going to push it away. And it the memory would come back again and again. And again. And I would feel absolutely awful. Like oh my god, that person has taken taken advantage of me as a child, right? This is just impossible. I’m just not that sort of person. This never happened. And as the workshop went on, I realized this is a memory that I had repressed, repressed sorry, because it was something that was just way too painful for me to handle, but it had come up now. And I couldn’t ignore it any longer. So I had to deal with it. Right. And I think, you know, this is perhaps quite a dramatic example. But you know, when something comes up, and you just keep on ignoring it, it just becomes bigger, and bigger, and bigger and bigger. And we’re so good at pretending that everything’s okay. And there’s no work for us to do. And we can just keep on ignoring things and everything’s going to go away magically, it doesn’t, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And the bigger it gets, the more difficult it is to handle. Right. And, you know, this is why people you know, drop into addiction, right, you can see a lot of, you know, alcoholics that just are so no struggle so much to deal with their emotions, and they’re just led that problem become bigger. And I’m just generalizing here and may not be true for everybody, but this is what I have observed. And and so what’s the solution here? Well, you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, Oh my God, this sucks. You know, this part of me absolutely sucks. And you know, when I talk about self love, you know, lots of people are like, Oh, yeah, you know, taking a bath with bubbles and candles and a glass of wine and this sense of self love, you know, this is taking care of yourself and going to stuff on retreat and whatever, you know, that’s not self love. To me, that’s just part of living your life. You know, it’s just taking care of your body, right? For me, self love really is having the ability to realize that parts of you suck in other parts of your personality that stick you know My tendency to be a victim absolutely stinks. Like it’s just it’s a part of me though, and I have to accept it right. And so self love is really having that ability to look at yourself in the mirror to say, oh my god cillian, you know, you have so much acne on your face, and you let it become so bad, because you’re addicted to chocolates, because you don’t feel loved, right. And you have just led that point become huge and huge and huge. And now you have this huge issue on your hands, because you weren’t able to realize that you don’t feel loved. And the only way for you to feel loved is to eat chocolate. And so we just kind of, I think it’s about like, there’s no magic answer here. I think, you know, we we spend so much time avoiding this issue of thinking that, you know, we’re safer that way. But when you finally do acknowledge the issue, then the freedom comes, then the healing comes, right. And one question that has always helped me when I’m at that stage, and it still happens to me very often actually, is, you know, how is it serving me to hold on to eating chocolate? How is it serving me to behave like the victim? How is it serving me to do this or do that? And when I get that, and Sam, so for example, for the acne, was setting me to have acne, because if I have acne, I don’t have to interact with people because people are scary. Obviously, it was a much bigger issue at the time. But you know, this is kind of the core of it.

Celine  31:19  

You know, it’s serving me to blame Richard for not for being too loud. Because I was in my body for wanting to go to bed too early, even though I’m still young. Right? So how is it serving you to hold on to this issue? How is it serving you to experience this issue? And once we get the end set? Well, oh, my goodness, it’s going to be so juicy, because then you realize, ah, I’ve been getting this out of being like that out of having this issue. So how else can I fulfill my need of being loved, respected, accepted, and so on? differently, right. So it’s kind of fun exploration, fundamental journaling prompts that you can that you can explore. And, you know, if you don’t believe me, that’s okay. That’s fine. Just Just treat it as an as if you know, because, yeah, like I said, if you’re not a problem, it’s just going to get bigger. So let’s just deal with it. Now. That’s my philosophy in life anyway.

Jachym  32:07  

So what I heard in what you shared Is that the question How is this serving me is, is, is almost digging a little bit under the surface of the story, right? Because the story is just perpetuating itself when it let’s say, you’re the victim, it’s not pleasant, you don’t like it, and everyone’s against you. And you kind of blind to the upside of the story of having that story. And so asking the question can suddenly be like, Oh, wait, that, you know, my husband, being an asset to me is certain mean a certain way? They’ve certainly status, certain upside I’m having from from this, and he starts this assemble the store, because if there’s an upside, then some because the story was, it’s all down, like it’s all bad, right? And so you start to see Oh, wait, there’s actually also this in the story and you start to see it, it kind of it almost breaks the hypnotic trance off the story, because there’s a different angle to it. That’s what I’ve heard in what you share, which I think is very powerful.

Celine  33:09  

I think one thing that, that you guys can do, if you’re still new to this sort of stuff is to kind of just take the problem, and just kind of say, Okay, so what’s going on now? who’s involved? When did it starts? And, and you don’t allow yourself to get into the Oh, it’s his fault, blah, blah, blah, you don’t allow yourself to say this, you just answer the questions. You know, what, when, where? How, right. And then, like you said, you start digging beneath the surface, right? Because the situation as it is, it’s just the situation, right? And you’re making it into a huge deal. So why are you making it into a huge deal? Okay, so why do I feel this way? Okay, when else have I felt this way? Perhaps I have felt disrespected as a child, perhaps know, my first boyfriend treated me like this. And I have learned since that, from that experience that, you know, men never respect women, for example, this is something that lots of women have, actually, that we will never be able to buy men, right? It’s just a belief system, you guys, it’s not necessarily the reality. And so it’s just about, okay, so why is that important to me? How is it serving me to feel like this, what’s the worst about feeling this respectful, disrespected, sorry, and just that’s just dive beneath the surface into See, ah, the core of it is that I will never let anybody love me or I feel completely alone in this universe, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right. And that’s really very much the practice of theta healing, which I shared about earlier. It’s just this practice of just digging into those belief systems and oh my god, it’s so juicy. Right?

Jachym 34:31  

Right. Right. So So how do you bring them the aspect of self love to it? So you have uncovered some of it and I mean, some of the reaction be like, Oh, my God, I have a victim mentality, like seriously, how you know, and then you can go to self blame, which basically locks the problem. How do you introduce self love into parts that you actually want to reject that you don’t like?

Celine 34:57  

Hmm, I’m gonna go There’s so much to say on that topic. So self love is many things right to self love versus the ability to accept yourself for all that you are no matter how thinking you are right now. It’s the ability to see all parts of you, or the beautiful parts of you and the sticky parts of you as well. It’s the ability to acknowledge, we know when you’re doing something that’s stinky. I don’t know why I’m using that word a lot today. But it’s, it’s, it’s the ability to do the work that you have to do. You know, it’s the ability to realize, okay, Celine, I’m behaving like the victims right now. And I need to change this, right? So it’s having that courage to face those issues. And what can happen as you just as just as usual, as you were just talking about is that once you go down that path, you’re like, Oh, my God, I have to change this. And I have to change that. And oh, my God, this part of me stinks. And I have to change this. And I had that limiting belief. And I’ve had that traumatic memory. And oh, my god, there’s so much more work to do. And self love, I think, is the ability to really be able to sit with yourself, and to see, oh, my God, you know, this is all that I am right now. And there’s something glorious about that, about having that ability to see all that you are. And to see that, well, the sticky parts of you are thinking because, you know, this comes from your experiences, the experiences that you’ve had, right, and this is the belief systems that your mind has construed in order to protect you. So they’re stinkier, they’re holding you back in many ways. But at the same time, they’re incredibly beautiful, and complex, and just magnificent, right? And you can release them no problem. But can you just sit with yourself and to see, this is all that I am right now. So for me, self love mostly is at the moment, the ability to be with who I am right now, you know, the other day, I was at a meeting, and there were just so many people and I had to speak in front of everybody. And I felt so self conscious, because because I don’t really like to speak in public, you know, I will be fine. If I do a workshop or record a podcast that no, maybe 1000s millions of people are going to listen to you, right. But if I’m going to have to speak up in a meeting in front of 70 people, I don’t know, I’m going to feel very self conscious. And so can I just be with myself when I’m like this right? Oh, can I reject that? Will I reject that part of me instead? So did I answer your question? I think I went on a tangent again,

Jachym 37:13  

you did, you said something really important. And that is the part that you may dislike has served a certain purpose. And seeing that I think changes everything because it’s like, oh, this part is bad. I hate a go away, don’t like it. And suddenly like okay, well wait a sec, back part came about in a certain way through life experiences, and has served serves a certain function, now it’s hindering me because I’ve grown, and I don’t need it anymore. But there was a certain usefulness in that part. And that takes away the self hate that can come when people see you know, something nasty, nasty parts that they have. So I found that that was quite a vital piece around self love. And the other one is, you know, be with it. But that’s often quite difficult with poor people. And at the beginning,

Celine 38:12  

practice, I acknowledge that. I think, you know, one thing that I want to share with you guys is that, you know, often us women, we expect our partners to make us feel loved and respected and accepted and, and cherished, right. We want her to cherish us. And often, you know, we we expect and demand our partners to help us to feel this way are going to tell us that we are beautiful, and they were sexy, and that you know, were added or whatever. Because we are not allowing ourselves to, to. So we want our partners to feel respect towards us. But we can’t feel respect towards ourselves, right? So we have this gap within ourselves. And I can’t respect myself, I can’t love myself, I can’t accept myself. Okay, this is it’s still difficult for me to feel self respect, self acceptance, self love, whatever. Selena’s talking about whatever. So I’m just going to ask my partner to do this for me. And it’s not something that’s sustainable rights. Because, again, let’s go back to going to bed early at night example. Right? I’m expecting Richard to make me feel respected, right. But if I can see if I can generate that feeling within myself already, then I don’t have the problem anymore. Right. So I think that so many of us need to realize that our partners are not here to fix us. And they’re not here to do the things that we can’t do. I think that really, it’s about law. I don’t know, it’s it’s half true half lie here. But you know, where, you know, you and your partner are a beautiful team and you’re working together to live a beautiful life, right? That’s the basics of it, right? But if you’re demanding your partner, to make you feel a certain way to do certain things for you, then that’s where the team the dynamics of the team get disrupted, right, because you’re demanding something, right? Because blah, blah, blah. You can’t do this for yourself. So That’s what self love is as well, you know, realize that you know, there, I don’t know, it gets within yourself. And there are ways that you’re expecting your partner to behave so that you can feel safer and more vulnerable, whatever, right? But it’s not down to your partner to do this for you, right? Because it’s just not something that your partner will be able to fulfill, you know, on a long term basis. So, self love my friends.