Summary:

We discuss the complicated concept of self-love, the kind that feels uncomfortable and requires unlearning a lifetime of self-criticism.  We discuss how our experience conditions our self-love to be "backwards," believing we only deserve kindness when we are productive, strong, or accommodating. We explore why our self-talk often sounds like a critical, disappointed parent, noting that self-love is a skill and practice that is neither natural nor intuitive. We conclude that genuine self-love is not about constant confidence, but about treating ourselves like someone we are responsible for, including allowing rest, grace, and forgiveness for past survival actions. Ultimately, we affirm that self-love is retroactive care and a relationship we build with ourselves, one we are worthy of, even when we are not whole or healed.

Key Quotes:

• "Self- love is so complicated for girls who had to grow up emotionally alone because you don't have a model to copy".
• "Self- love is treating yourself like someone you're responsible for taking care of".
• "You don't have to be whole to be worthy of love, especially when it's your own".

Episode Breakdown

[0:00] Introduction: We open the episode with the note: "take care of your mind like it's your home". We discuss self-love not as the cute, aesthetic version, but as the hard work of unlearning a lifetime of being hard on ourselves.

[0:30] We talk about how growing up without a guiding woman (mom, sister, grandma) means we learned discipline and independence, but missed learning emotional care. We note that nobody taught us how to be gentle with ourselves or that it is okay to have needs, boundaries, or softness.

[1:15] We discuss how this lack of guidance makes our self-love "weird" and "a little backwards". We explore the belief that we only deserve love when we are productive, strong, or accommodating. We talk about realizing this pattern upon seeing how other girls allow themselves to make mistakes without collapsing into shame.

[2:00] We discuss why self-love is complicated when we grew up emotionally alone, lacking a model to copy. We reflect on how our self-talk often ends up sounding like a disappointed, critical parent ("Why are you like this?") rather than asking "What do you need right now?".

[2:45] We emphasize that loving yourself is not natural or intuitive. We confirm it is a skill and practice that must be learned slowly and inconsistently. We discuss that learning this skill requires confronting the ugly parts (insecure, needy, angry) that we learned to hide because nobody knew how to handle them.

[3:30] We clarify that self-love is not about feeling good or confident 24/7. We define it as treating ourselves like someone we are responsible for taking care of. This includes letting ourselves rest, giving ourselves grace on bad days, and forgiving things we did while we were just trying to survive.

[4:30] We discuss the helpful practice of thinking about our younger selves—the little girl who deserved softness and grace. We recognize that she is not the reason we struggle, and we can now give her what she needed. We define self-love as "retroactive care" and repairing, giving ourselves what we needed back then.

[5:15] We conclude that we do not have to be whole, healed, or perfect to love ourselves. We stress that self-love is not a destination, but a relationship and a bond with ourselves. We affirm that we are allowed to take time to build this relationship, and we are worthy of love even with our broken pieces.