Say Yes to You

How many times in a day do you say yes to others and not to yourself? 

At times in our life, we struggle with the fact that we focus too much about others happiness, putting others needs and concerns before ours. 

It is the beginning of losing our sense of worth and authenticity and undervaluing ourselves. It’s exhausting and we can’t live that way forever. 

When we start saying yes to ourselves and putting ourselves first it’s not selfishness, It's actually the opposite. Saying Yes to You is actually a healthy act of self-respect. 

Today am sharing some examples and real life experiences in context to our today’s episode of Liberate Your People Pleaser, and I’m gonna also dig deeper and answer some very important questions:

- How crucial is saying yes to you and why?
- How to change from people pleasing and ignoring yourself to saying yes to you?

And I’m also so excited to share my new group coaching program with you guys today and we will discuss that more in depth as well.

For quick access to the new group coaching program I’m hosting you can get all the deets and register here:

• Say Yes to You for Teens

• Say Yes to Your for Women

Listen to today’s episode HERE

If you like Today’s Episode, please don’t hesitate to post a 5-Stars review if you’re listening to the Podcast on Apple iTunes or Spotify and leave us a review telling us how our podcast helped you in a specific aspect of your life. It makes me so happy to see listeners' feedback because it motivates me to create content that is impactful for you and other listeners.

Love Yourself Into Life

I had a client recently who shared a self-destructive habit with me that she was ready to let go of. She had worked on it before with other trained professionals, without much affect. She wanted to see if I could help her.

We all have self-destructive habits. We may shop too much, drink too much, hurt ourselves physically, hook-up with abusive men (o women,) deny ourselves what we need and most of us shame ourselves with brutal self-criticism.

Whichever your current form of self-abuse is, I encourage you to work with it as I coached my client to. But, know before you start, this is a tad radical.

I want you to love yourself into life.

I hear you. There’s a cynical voice in your head right now that is saying, “that won’t work!.”

You think you need discipline or “fixing.”

Let’s face it, we often feel like we’re “broken” or “not good enough.” The obvious answer is to whip ourselves into shape!

I bet you’ve tried that. My clients try it.

It doesn’t work.

It isn’t sustainable.

We can’t discipline or beat ourselves into our next break-through.

Your next break-through, the one that changes you forever, will come from love.

A deep sense of how lovable and worthy you are. Period. No matter what.

Not loving yourself because you successfully complete certain tasks, or hit your ideal weight or stop a destructive behavior.

Loving yourself because you are. You are. You are a unique spark of the Divine.

 Created to spread your special magic into the world.

My client got her big break-through.

Are you ready for yours?

Email me and let me know what you’re ready to break-through in your life. We can get to work on loving you back to life this week!

This is the one question you need to know!

Do you sometimes ask yourself questions that don't exactly help? Questions like, "Why did I do that?" "What's wrong with me?" 

There are so many questions we ask ourselves that are disempowering, make us feel like shit and can send us into a downward spiral. 

Let's stop. 

I've got a lovely, empowering question for you to use as a replacement. 

"Is this loving to me?" 

Simple. Powerful. Gentle. 

It's incredibly helpful. Very practical. It's a question that always has your best interest at heart.

Here's how I've used it: with my to-do list. I look at my list and ask, "Are each of these things loving to me?" If the answer is yes, I do them. If it's no, then I remove them or put it off for another time. I trust that things that genuinely need to be done will get in the "it's loving to me" column in time. 

Here's the other way I use it, when I'm having a bad day. Yep, life coaches have them too, and I'm saying negative, unkind things to myself, like, "you're not doing enough!" "You aren't smart enough to figure out Facebook ads!" I stop and ask myself, "Is that loving to me?" Wow. That stops me dead in my tracks. I stop and let myself feel love for myself. Then I go back to whatever it is I'm doing, with a loving attitude. 

It's such an empowering question. Try it! Tell me how you like it! 

Live Lavishly Light Episode #26

I have two secrets I want to share with you today for dealing with difficult times.

Live Lavishly Light Episode #15

Can you take a compliment or look at your hard work paying off and say, "I deserved that," with confidence?

Let's break down these walls around this practice of self-love.

Live Lavishly Light Episode #10

Live Lavishly through self-love

It's that time of year! There's so much out there for couples and romance right now with Valentine's Day being a few days away. 

Today it's about the pros and cons of being single and how to love ourselves regardless of the state of our romantic lives. Married, or single, we all need to love and care for ourselves first! 

Not pretty enough for those damn holiday photos

It's day six of 12 Days of Enough and I definitely have something to say about this one!

Do you have an aversion to holiday photos? If you have the thought that you aren’t pretty enough, you probably avoid photos all year long, not just at the holidays!

Let’s consider this. Not pretty enough. Who decides what defines ‘pretty?’

Take some time and think about this.

Be a bit of a private investigator of your thought. Where did it come from? Did someone tell you that you aren’t pretty? If so, who was it? Was it a person you love? Or maybe no one said it to you, but you’ve learned to compare yourself to others.

Compare and despair

We always lose when we compare ourselves to others. Even Cindy Crawford does. I've read so many stories of famous women who have built their reputations and fortunes on how they look, yet, when asked, they will criticize their looks or their bodies. There is always someone skinnier or prettier or something. 

Allow yourself to be liberated

If you've ever thought that you aren't pretty enough, I want you to think about why you think that. Dig deep and get all of those thoughts and write them on paper.

The act of writing thoughts and ideas on paper is magical. Sometimes I have a thought that seems very ‘true’ and very important. As I write it down in my journal, I realize how ridiculous the thought is. Nothing happened other than the act of writing it down.

Back to our exercise, you’ve written down everything you can think of that would cause this thought, I’m not pretty enough for holiday photos (or anything else you come up with.)

Alright, now you’ve got your hit list of thoughts. It's time for the liberation. 

Here's the fun part: let’s put them in the mirror.

I know. You may avoid mirrors, but this time, all is well.

This is a magic mirror that will serve you and liberate you to freedom! Take your thoughts and write the opposite.

It looks like this: I am pretty enough for holiday photos. I am pretty. And other opposite statements. While you may be tempted to laugh at these statements, hang on and do this with me.

Stop for a moment and get still. Interrupt the habitual pattern of your thoughts that charge in and tell you the old story about not being pretty enough. You know them well. Let them drop away for a moment.

Let the opposite thought resonate

I am pretty. How is that true? I want you to think of three legitimate reasons why that’s true. I know you have them. 1) A lover, spouse or friend who told you that you’re pretty. 2) A time when you looked in the mirror and had even a speck of a moment where you thought you looked pretty. 3) You realize that being pretty, beauty, is more than our individual features. It’s something that shines from the inside out and you are truly pretty. Beautiful even.

Now, before the well-rehearsed rebuttals start up, stay with these reasons that your opposite thought is true. Let them take root. They seem small because they haven’t had as much time in your mind. Repeat them. Let them settle in. Let them become the new normal. There’s no better gift to give yourself than the gift of experiencing even a few moments of knowing your self-critical thoughts are not true.

Here's what I know for sure this holiday season: you are pretty enough! 

Please feel free give the gift of being enough to your friends by sharing this with them! They can click here to get the series delivered directly to them. 

Ever feel not lovable enough?

It's day two of our 12 Days of Enough and I know there are people out there who don't feel lovable enough. 

Maybe you're single. Maybe your relationship is suffering. Maybe you feel alone this holiday season. You may be telling yourself you aren't lovable enough for the relationship or life you want.

Here's my lifestyle advice:

I know a thing or two about this. I’ve been divorced twice and I've been single for most of the last 17 years. During that time I had one ‘significant’ relationship that lasted three years. I can, and have, gone deep into the rabbit hole of not being lovable enough.

When I’m in that hole, I can give you tons of evidence to support that thought. It’s a thought that leads to a terrible feeling of emptiness and unworthiness. Not very festive!

Let’s slay this one. For starters, there’s no such thing as not being lovable enough.

You are lovable because you were born!

I have to say, I didn't truly learn this until my grandchildren were born.

For those of you who haven’t experienced it, let me tell you, it is the purest love there is. This little person is connected to you, bone of your bones, flesh of your flesh, so to speak. Yet, you aren’t responsible for them, so you don’t feel the weight of that. All there is, is pure love.

And it’s not because they have such adorable personalities. Think about it. A newborn has no personality at all. They sleep, eat, cry and poop. That’s it. And you love them, just because they showed up and sleep, eat, cry and poop. It’s not their personalities or the things they do for you. They are lovable because…they are.

That’s the way it is with you

In truth, you are lovable, just because you are you. That’s it. Wrap yourself in some unconditional love.

Many of us were not blessed with being surrounded by unconditional love, but here’s the really cool thing; we can give it to ourselves. It totally works. I’ve done it. Love yourself because you can. Because you’re love-able. Because you were born.

Be in a relationship with yourself. Date yourself. Woo yourself. Give yourself Christmas or Hanukkah gifts. Seriously. Wrap them. Light the candles. Decorate the tree. Do it all for the love of you, because you are totally love-able enough! 

Please feel free give the gift of being enough to your friends by sharing this with them! They can click here to get the series delivered directly to them. 

Do I Have to Love Myself Before I Can Love Others?

Do I have to love myself before I can love others? I mean, really, isn't that a little selfish?

I think it's imperative that we love ourselves first. You don't have agree with me.

We'll explore the concept in the Live Lavishly Manifesto 4 video, "I know that I must love myself first in order to love others."

(If you don't have your Live Lavishly Manifesto, pick that up here.)

xoxo

Brenda