What About Self-Care and Self-Love?
If you haven’t be taking care of yourself, all the sex geeky skills in the world aren’t going to help. What can you do? With Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com, Yoni Alkan from http://www.ElementsofSexuality.com, Liz Powell from http://www.SexPositivePsych.com and Caroline Carrington from http://www.JewelInTheLotusCoaching.com, with special guest, sexy librarian!
@DrYoniAlkan
@sexpospsych
@JewelotusTantra
Cathy: What about self-care and self-love? I’m Cathy Vartuli from from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com
Liz: I’m Doctor Liz from http://www.SexPositivePsych.com
Caroline: I’m Caroline Carrington from http://www.JewelInTheLotusCoaching.com
Yoni: And I’m Yoni Alkan from http://www.ElementsofSexuality.com
Cathy: And no matter what we talk about and all the skills you can have, if you don’t have self-love and self-care, it’s really hard to implement those things I know like, I know a lot of techniques to approach people sexually and talk to them but if I’m feeling really low. If I haven’t been taking care of myself or I’m not loving myself very much, it’s going to come across really awkward or I’m just not going to have the resources to be present with somebody.
Liz: I think, one of my friends said to me, I think this has been a big message for me the last several months, we accept the love we think we deserve. Right, if you feel like you don’t deserve anything better than someone who treats you poorly. You’re never going to step forward and demand something better if you don’t feel like you demand, like you deserve someone who treats you really well, who honors your autonomy, who values you, you’re not going to find that person, you’re going to settle for someone who you think you don’t, you aren’t good enough for them and they’re so much better than you even when they’re not treating you a way that works for you.
Yoni: I think it’s really important to know what you want from yourself and from others and find your find your place and find what what’s good for you and what’s not and in order to do that you got to try.
Cathy: It’s awkward at first, it’s like you haven’t done it, trying to lift weights when you haven’t lifted weights before, it’s like oh this is so hard, it would take me forever but a little bit of practice over and over, oh wow I’m beating myself up again let me stop, let me appreciate something about myself, it feels so awkward and the next time, it’s a little easier and a little you actually build neuro pathways in your brain.
Caroline: Right. There’s a practice that I’ve actually started in the last few weeks as supposed to go through the day and like thinking about everything that happened I actually take a couple minutes before bed and just literally give muself a little pep talk about all the awesome things that I achieved that day and sometimes it is Oh, I slept 8 hours which is huge. Right? Or I ate pretty healthy or I got outside and did some exercise today or I completed that thing that’s been on my to-do-list for the last 6 months. Whatever it is but really being affirming to myself and kind of being my own cheerleader right before bed.
Cathy: I like that one and I have to sometimes do small things coz I’m like oh I did not win the Nobel Peace Prize today dammit! Obviously I fail. No, okay, I was kind to someone and I got that thing done that’s been on my list and it only took me five minutes but it’s been there for a year, thank God I got it done like the smaller things that we sometimes forget to appreciate.
Caroline: I think that word kindness is key. Being kind ourselves and taking ourselves off that perfection
Liz: Well yeah.
Yoni: One of the things that dancing taught me in my life is the concept of patience and it’s all process because these things take time. You can be super talented in dance specifically. You can be super talented and learn everything really quickly, there are things that will not click until you log so and so many dance floor hours. You have to dance and dance and dance and dance until you get it so it’s that’s where I learned that lesson of I’m in a process, this is where I am right now, I have a long way to go but I’m happy where I am right now and knowing that it will only get better, I need experience, it is really important.
Liz: And I fell into this pattern a lot of like expecting myself to be better than anyone else like I would never have the same expectation of someone else that I have on myself. Because clearly I should be able to establish a highly successful business in less than a year after moving to a new city all the way across the country with no contact. That’s God, what’s with me? Perfectly reasonable. Right? And so I think that a lot of times when you’re noticing that you’re not measuring up it’s time to check those standards like where did you get those standards like where did you get those standards from? Are they even realistic? Could anyone meet that standard?
Cathy: Would you ask your best friend to do the same thing?
Liz: Right! If your best friend came to you and said I feel like such a failure because XYZ would you look at them like why? Right?
Cathy: Yeah, and then I think you know you you’re talking about the awkwardness. I’ve learned to try to reframe it because I was brought up with the perfection model. I think we all were where if we’re really good tell them to people, it would be super easy and we just like get it instantly and yeah, there are things that happens that but most things when we’re outside our comfort zones, we’re growing were going to be awkward so used to be I felt like I was a failure if I felt awkward, but now I try to remind myself, wow I have courage, I’m doing something that’s new to me, that’s actually a really good thing so this awkwardness even though it feels uncomfortable is actually really positive sign that I’m making a difference
Caroline: And the reality is even when you’re super talented and you’re living out your dream and you’re in total passion and you were made for this, I was watching documentaries on Beyonce recently, they took six years as Destiny’s Child even to get a record deal. Six years! And then they lost it twice, she spent her whole lifetime working her ass off and she one of the best in the business!
Liz: She’s phenomenal!
Caroline: She’s phenomenal, naturally talented.
Cathy: But we look at Facebook we don’t see the struggles we see all the wings
Caroline: Right, we miss the struggles! Exactly.
Liz: We see we see everyone else’s polished, perfected Photoshopped lives and compare them to what we know our reality you know what I..
Cathy: Comparing our insides to everyone else’s outsides.
Liz: Yeah. Comparing your inside life to someone else’s outside life and that’s not realistic. Right? Even Beyonce isn’t Beyonce. Even Kim Kardashian isn’t Kim Kardashian. Right?
Cathy: And I think one other thing that you can do is find the thing you hate most about yourself and look at it more deeply. For a long time I was convinced because I was heavier people, a big woman, that no one could ever love me and I’ve been told that many many times and just kind of reconnecting to my body and going wow, it’s pretty amazing it has more fat cells than cosmos as I should have. And I still get to love the fact that my body enjoy pleasure and hug friends and you know there’s all these things when I started connecting with that, the thing that you hate the most maybe the biggest source of change that you can make when you start looking for things you can appreciate about you and again you can start really small.
Yoni: Yeah.
Cathy: So, we hope this helps.
Liz: Yeah.
Cathy: We’d love to know what you think, what are you struggling with around self-care and self-love? Leave comments below.
Caroline: Maybe you’ll inspire us with your comments.
Liz: I’m always looking for nice [Inaudible 00:06:42]
