For most of my life I have struggled with being too selfless.  Interestingly, the people that have irritated me the most in my life have been selfish.  Although it is very important that we give to others, the most important person we need to give to is ourselves.  Having said that, giving to ourselves becomes much more complicated when we have been emotionally abandoned or neglected by our family. How can we give to ourselves when the most important people that brought us into this world did not give us what we deserved.

The caller here, Katherine wants to establish a feeling of community and family outside of her own.  She doesn't feel truly appreciated by them so she wants to establish this feeling elsewhere.  Although she has experienced  a lot of turmoil with her family growing up, she believes the past is in the past now.  This has led to tremendous feelings of invalidation and keeps her from truly moving on because our feelings make up who we are and they must be validated in order to validate ourselves. Listen to this powerful podcast coached by me and Kay so you can also dig deep and see what it takes to truly put yourself first despite one's family wounds.

If you missed the previous episode (episode 7: The Danger of Not Trusting Yourself), please listen to episode 7 first. As episode 8 is a continuation of episode 7. In episode 7 we focused on Deborah’s relationship with her husband where she felt constantly marginalized, and made to feel less than. What kept her from leaving the relationship or really standing up for herself was the fear of instability that she would feel if she left his financial security. And this was doubly tormenting for her since she saw as teen her single mother struggle day in and day out to support a family all on her own since her father struggled with infidelity and being there for the family during that time.  What ultimately gave her a sense of peace was giving her inner child that stability she desperately craved in her adult life.

Me and Kay coached Deborah and her mother Cookie in Cookie’s home. Cookie was separated from her husband for a long time but in recent years, Cookie chose to go back living with her husband, Deborah’s father.  And you will soon see, what suddenly came up in the session was Deborah’s desire to say certain things to her father that she had never talked him about.

Since the recording took place in Cookie’s home, Deborah’s father was in his room the whole time we were recording. So we took this wonderful opportunity for them to have this long awaited conversation. This is an extremely rare conversation that all families across the world need to have. Family trouble is something we normally brush under the rug because it’s too painful to deal with. And I’m telling you this moment between a father and his daughter was priceless to witness.  Without sharing any further details, start listening to this episode!

When we don't trust ourselves we may get stuck in a pattern of unhealthy behavior that mask our lack of trust in ourselves.   The caller Deborah tolerates a lot of verbal abuse from her husband in large part because of the fear that she cannot stand on her own two feet.  This lack of trust in herself stems from her tumultuous childhood.  Her father struggled with infidelity and her single mother struggled immensely to make ends meet from raising a family all on her own.  Ultimately we will see a powerful display of how she allows her inner child to feel trusted by her. 

We have a unique opportunity here as Michael Hsu and Kay Yamaguchi have the luxury of going to the caller’s home and coaching Deborah and her mother Cookie together.  There is a lot we can learn from Deborah and her mother Cookie as they participate together in honest and courageous discussions.  The very discussions that we all try to avoid within our families. 

The degree of lack of love within ourselves is to the same degree that we'll experience a lack of love in our relationships.  We can feel lost and confused as to why life is keeping something we deeply desire and feel we deserve. Often people end up feeling like there's something wrong with them because they're still single. Only the vulnerability of personal responsibility can help us see clearly how we are (unconsciously) contributing to our inner experience of lack. This naturally results in closing the gap between us and what we already have access to that we didn't see before.

For the most part we all think we do love ourselves but when we look really closely our actions may say otherwise.  It doesn’t help that society praises sacrifice, care and devotion to others but very little praise is given to loving and caring for yourself which is often misperceived as selfish.  Our lives have become so fast-paced and busy that our core needs become lost in all of our responsibility towards others.

This podcast Michael Hsu and Kay Yamaguchi have the luxury of coaching a group of co-workers to see what it means to truly love and care for themselves.  What I love about group healing is that there is a synergistic effect of people being vulnerable and supporting each other.  For one, you know that we are not alone.  Our fear of being alone, shames us so we can’t heal ourselves because we are afraid of telling others about our struggles.  Secondly, by hearing others speak you learn from one another.  As you listen to this podcast you will learn with this group of co-workers on what it means to love yourself.

How is it that the mere mention of something like global warming can cause rifts between family members? It's hard enough to be graceful colliding with the beliefs of perfect strangers. How do we navigate that discord with loved ones without disconnecting? For those aspiring to unconditional love, forgiveness, tolerance, we often disconnect from ourselves in our reactiveness and end up feeling as infuriated with ourselves as we are with them. Here, we look at welcoming ourselves to the human race: who hasn’t felt the friction of conflicting belief systems? When we begin with being gentle with ourselves in our reactiveness, we can then gently dismantle the reactions.

Patti, the caller, brings to the session her anger with family members who have beliefs that don't match hers, compounded by her anger toward herself for being unaccepting and unloving. She longs to bring her best self forward (the one who can meet anyone on the planet from a space of generosity and goodwill) and connect with them from a place of love. Jaya helps her to explore her thinking using the inquiry system called The Work of Byron Katie.

When we take on big challenges and enter into unknown territory our fears of failure and our sense of danger are at their peak.  That’s understandable, but not always the most helpful.  In this coaching session we learn how to be with the fear, stop fighting it, transform it, stop identifying with it, let it go and then allow the authentic truth of our power and beauty return to us and move through us.  We learn how to stand in our fearful circumstances in our authentic joy and power and peace.

Do you feel hopeless and feel like you will be single forever? Before we project what’s wrong onto the dating world, we have got to see what we are and are not doing to prevent ourselves from attracting our life partner.  What are the blocks that are keeping you from meeting your life partner?   Let’s take a look at today’s caller, Jodi, and see what we can learn from this coaching session on how to find true love and what may be blocking us.

What happens when we mask our childhood wounds? We think everything is in the past, but the truth is if it is left unresolved it will continue to control your life.  Here you will see the caller Vince explore his current feelings and his past experiences and see the missing link between the two. However, knowing the connection is not enough. You must do the work in order to heal. It’s important to come face to face with the pain you’ve been hiding for so long.