Marni welcomes Matt Hogan, entrepreneur, coach, and wanderer (only a few among many of his other titles), to the Life Check Yourself Studio, and they explore what it means to let go of the guilt and the shame that’s been holding you back from achieving balance in your energy and your life. The duo ponders the steps it takes to unlock the next phases in life. In a world that is constantly obsessing over productivity, and checklists, it seems human beings have forgotten how to reconnect with their authentic selves. Matt and Marni discuss what it takes to fall back in love with yourself and unleash your desires. And it starts with taking responsibility for your experiences, your past and whatever it is that’s keeping you stuck. By learning to acknowledge and forgive yourself, the whole world opens up, and what once seemed impossible becomes very much possible. 

 

Takeaways from this episode:

 - Dating is a buffet culture

 - Let your energy flow

 - How to release your guilt

 - Stop dragging your energy down

 - How to restore balance in yourself

 - Forgiveness is empowerment 

 

Navigating Through Dating with Transparency [02:04]

Dating can be tough; especially that we’re all coming in with our own baggage. Add to that, that there are already so many options out there, and it becomes stunting sometimes. And that makes it even scarier to open up about certain things when you’re never really quite sure if the person in front of you will accept them. 

However, when we start accepting these things ourselves, the people we attract don’t end up judging us for them. We all carry guilt or shame for certain actions in our past or certain traumas, but it’s important to remember that we’re human. In doing so, we allow ourselves the grace to fail, and subsequently forgive ourselves for those shortcomings. 

Matt, who at some point in his life had attempted suicide, speaks of the guilt that came with that, and the shame that he held around it. He explains that it was a really difficult story for him to share, partly because it came with a fear of being rejected. But essentially, these feelings stemmed from the grief that he was still carrying within himself about it; it was grief that he had never processed. 

You still hold a little bit of guilt or judgment for yourself, and you haven’t let yourself off the hook yet as a human being. 

Whatever it is that has triggered that guilt in us, if we haven’t dealt with it and processed it then we take it with us into the new relationship we’re getting into. It’s almost like we’re stuck and we’re carrying that energy with us into the next phase. Whereas when that energy can flow; when it can move, we can finally begin to let it go. And once we’ve stopped holding back, and we’ve processed it, and released it, we attract the right people who won’t hold us accountable for our past.  

It actually makes your relationship open up because you’ve opened up. 

 

Falling in Love with Yourself is Your Responsibility [07:40]

Start by taking responsibility. It’s about being responsible for your feelings; your actions; and your experiences. Realize that you’re not responsible for other people’s actions, or for how the world reacts. Release that need of trying to control what’s out of your hands. 

At the end of the day, it’s about restoring balance within yourself. Having all the enablements of the past – be it relationships or experiences – take a hold of your energy drags you down. 

So, to support yourself in all the parts that make you, you, stop and recognize what's happening within you. If you find difficulty getting out of bed, or you feel like you keep running and running without ever getting anywhere, then that’s the first thing you need to draw your awareness to. That’s where you start from. 

Nature is always trying to balance itself out, and we are a part of nature. 

If you look at the planet around us, it’s trying to balance the system so that it functions. Our bodies, because we are nature, do the same thing. We always want to rebalance, whether that’s on a mental, physical, emotional or spiritual level. And they all work together. 

Being able to take responsibility by pressing pause, and saying to yourself, ‘this is where I’m at’, ‘this is how I feel’ is how you start to fall back in love with yourself. And once that’s done, you can attract what you desire most. 

It takes a lot of courage to have that awareness and really listen to the whisper. 

 

Claim Your Desires [17:16]

Women, in today’s culture (and historically), are almost not expected to want and to desire. But desires are healthy; they are beautiful. 

It’s healthy and beautiful for women to desire. Let your desires fly and find peace and balance within yourself as you open up to your desires. 

It’s not about shutting down the desires that you haven’t claimed yet but rather about finding out what is that feeling that you’re chasing after, what is that feeling that you want in your life, and actually inviting that into your daily life. If you can trace back the feeling that you want, then you can look at the space between who you are now and who you are becoming. And once you get clear on the feeling associated with who you’re becoming, you can get clear on the balance you need. It’s then a matter of deciding what that looks like for you and taking responsibility. 

Ultimately, it’s about how do you decorate the inside house that is you?

And that could be through stability, or security, or safety or balance. It depends on you. But search for it internally, not externally. 

 

Make a Connection:

 - Matt Hogan’s Website

 - Matt Hogan’s Free Guided Workbook

 - 3 Secrets Men Wish You Knew *Free Download*

 - Are You Making These Unconscious Mistakes With Men? *Free Training*

 - Ready To Take Control Of Your Dating Life?  Book A Call With Us