641. Powerful Ways to Practice Self-Love

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Being it till you see it isn’t about pretending you’re confident or pushing yourself harder than you can sustain. In this final episode of the self-love series, Lesley shares practical tools that make self-love doable instead of overwhelming. From simple breath practices and journaling prompts to boundaries, forgiveness, and celebrating everyday wins, this episode is all about choosing one small way to show up for yourself.

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In this episode you will learn about:

  • Why self-love is not about faking it or overdoing it.
  • How breath and music create an easy self-love practice.
  • Journaling, mindfulness, and gratitude as tools to shift self-talk.
  • Using boundaries and forgiveness as acts of self-respect.
  • Celebrating wins and honoring your body to reinforce self-love.


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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

Being it till you see it is not about faking it, and it's also not about overdoing it. It truly is knowing who you want to be and loving yourself enough to do the things that get you there. 


Lesley Logan 0:13  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 


Lesley Logan 0:55  

All right. Welcome back Be It babe. How are you? Okay. So we are finishing our self love series for now. I mean, maybe we'll add on to it. And also, it's really crazy. Is in between recording one and two, I interviewed two amazing women who will come out at different times, but they were, they were validating how important the series is and just the words that they were giving. And so I know that the Be It pod is always giving tips on loving yourself and and, you know, getting to know yourself. But I'm hoping that this episode gives you some tools, some simple ones. I have some that you guys sent in. So thank you so much. And then just some things that to think about, right? And then we'll also do a burnout series. And they, they, they go hand in hand, and they go hand in hand with the habits series, right? So all this to say that being it till you see it is not about faking it, and it's also not about overdoing it. It truly is knowing who you want to be and loving yourself enough to do the things that get you there. And you're not going to like everything, right? It's going to it's not going to be easy if it's easy you'd already be there and then you have something else to want. So this is the tools episode. So if you didn't listen to the first one, please go back to the first one, because I think what the first one, what we talked about, was, what is self-love like? Why do we struggle with it? Why do we need it? And then what does that look like, right? So now we're in the tools, tools for loving yourself. So in preparation for this series, one of the one of the things that I actually read that I thought the whole series would be about, and it's just part of it. There's actually a book. It's called Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It.


Lesley Logan 2:30  

And the first half is a bunch of tools, and the second half is a journey of him falling back in love with himself. And that part is actually a really quick read, and it's beautiful, and it's like short snippets, and the vulnerability is really amazing, and the tools are really cool. So one of the tools in the book that I particularly liked and have used, are you ready? You will play a song that you like that makes you feel good. Okay? If you don't know that, here's a simple one. Go into whatever music app you use, hit instrumental music so that it has no words, okay? And then just hit play on one. Then you're gonna close your eyes and listen and for the length of the song, every time you inhale, you say, I love myself. And every time you exhale, you let something go. Inhale, I love myself. Exhale, let something go, right? Just let enough. You just let the air go inside, If your mind wanders, you just go, am I inhaling or exhaling? I'm inhaling. I love myself. I love me. I love what I do for me. I love who I am, right? That I really like because there's a lot of tools out there, and I might even say some that I'm like, okay, I think this could work for somebody, but it might not work for me, and that's fine, right? That's there's gonna be tools that don't work for me. Maybe that doesn't, but I actually really love that. Really love that one. Here's a couple others that I think are fabulous and might work for you, don't work for my ADHD frame, but I that one I love, that one is easy to do. I can do it while I'm driving, you know. So, all right, some other tools, so tools to foster self-love include mindfulness and meditation and journaling to process thoughts and practicing self-compassion by training yourself with kindness and other helpful practices or setting boundaries and practicing gratitude and celebrating accomplishments. We already talked about what self-love looks like, and self love looked like, having self-compassion and kindness and having boundaries. And so, of course, the tools include doing those things. But if they're hard for you, how do you do them? And also, like, I'm a big fan of, like, what am I supposed to journal? What am I doing anyways? And so, of course, you're you know, journals are there to help process your thoughts and emotions and protect your experiences and gain a better understanding of yourself. But like, what do you journal? So some of the past be a guest have mentioned a few different things of journaling. And so one guest, David Corbin, he said, just grab a piece of paper. Write a question at the top of it, close your eyes and meditate on that question. And with your eyes closed, write down stuff. Because there's also like, something about like, your brain will remember what you wrote down and what's important will be there. But sometimes just getting off the page, we've also had people who talk about, like, the morning pages, just like getting up and writing things down on a page. And not even worrying what it is. In our Tarot episode, we talked about, you know, like, you can draw a card and then have reflections questions for that card that day. So there are a million different ways, if you also just are, like, I need something better. Look just literally Google journal prompts for self-love. Okay, you'll get something. And then you can journal that you can't do it wrong. Now, I don't particularly like journaling on a computer, so I will say that might be something you might want to do in an actual journal. And I know you might have a reader handwriting I can't read mine, but I do think it's really helpful. I notice when I journal regularly, I get to the bottom of like, Oh, I'm in fear right now, you know, it's sometimes hard to self-reflect without being able to write down the things that are on there. 


Lesley Logan 5:45  

Mindfulness and meditation. So I actually this, UCLA has a Mindfulness Institute, and they actually have classes on mindfulness and like, you can mindfully suck on a frozen grape, right? Like, mindfulness is that you can mindfully walk like you can go outside and just like I'm gonna take one step in front of the other. So mindfulness is really about being present. Meditation is like sitting down and like clearing your head as best you can and focus on your breath. And something I love about meditation experts is that you can, if you if your mind wanders, just go, okay, and now I'm back right? So there's a ton of different meditation practices out there. If you've read the book Breathe, there's some really great breath work meditations in there. And so I highly recommend, if you don't have a meditation or mindfulness practice, what I would suggest you do is, like, actually, kind of go on a journey of trying out ones that you would like. This is part of the self-compassion. This is part of the boundaries. This is part of the self-care. The self-love is like, love yourself enough to go, Okay, do I like sitting still for five minutes? Oh, do I prefer walking around the block without my phone, right? Do I prefer walking with one footstep in front of the other? Do I like a guided meditation? Do I need to hear someone's voice? Do I like a breathwork meditation? What kind of breath work meditation? Do I like box breathing? Or do I like, you know, Wim, Hof style, things like that. But if that is like, Oh, that'd be a great tool for me to practice my self-love. Then use the habits series to help you figure out a time to do that, and then try out different types of meditation till you find one that works for you. And then I love that self-compassion is going to come next, because you can't have the compassion for yourself if you don't find that meditation practice on day one, right? So it's all self-compassion is basically just like treating yourself the way you treat others. And you know, here's the thing, if we are having people who are like you're you're treating wonderfully, and they're treating like crap, it's because you're treating you like crap and you're like you're getting friendships that are like that, because that feels comfortable to you. So really have some self-compassion talk to have the same kindness and love for yourself as you do with other people. And the same thing when someone else has a mistake or makes it struggling with something like with something like notice how you treat them, and how do you treat yourself, and and you can't do all these things at once, my love, so pick one of these to work on at a time. 


Lesley Logan 7:50  

Positive affirmations. So some people like this, we had Nikole Mitchell, she had a lot of affirmations on Post-Its around her house, and she would take them down when people came over because she didn't want people to know what was going on. But I love having, like, have positive affirmation. There's apps out there that throughout the day will, like, even send you a positive affirmation. Like, have that if that's what you need, especially if you're not so good at noticing the things you are doing wonderfully in this you know, I noticed a lot of people have a hard time sending me wins, right? 


Lesley Logan 8:18  

A gratitude practice. So this one is interesting. Some people in the coaching world love a gratitude practice. Some people hate it. There's like, The Five Minute Journal that's really good about this. The tulip book I was listening to, like,Buy Yourself the Fucking Tulips. Talks about writing about 10 things she likes every day. Some people think that, like, this is stupid. Your gratitude practice doesn't work. Eventually you, like, just keep repeating things. I would say at that point, then you'd move on to a new practice. But if you don't have a gratitude practice, here's a thing about gratitude. My therapist told me, your gratitude and judgment can't live in the same space, right? So if you are struggling to have self-compassion, then I think a gratitude practice is a great way to get that as a tool under your tool belt of self-love. If you're judging yourself, I want you to write down three things. Say three things, I'm grateful for this I'm grateful, like, I'm grateful that I washed my hair today. Like, I think it could be really good. This one's gonna be harder, but I do think it's important. Forgiveness, giving yourself permission to forgive you of past mistakes. So that might include, like, having a moment of grief, or some time you might come up with this in journaling, but like a lot of times, people keep things in their life, or do things in their life that they know are harmful to them longer than they want, and it's hard to let those things go. So sometimes they keep them around because, you know, it's easier to do that, but it's bad, and then we don't, because if we get rid of it, then we have to face this. Oh, my God, I I can't believe I let myself have that in my life for so long, and that's where forgiveness comes in. Self-love is forgiving yourself, right? Maybe your general practice is like, what do I need to forgive myself about? Right? So that you can use these tools together. And then limit self-criticism, and this is where I would encourage you to get a friend involved, and when you are being self-deprecating, which Gay Hendricks, who's episode 400 would say, in his book, The Big Leap, that self-deprecation is actually just part of you pulling like a bit as an upper limit problem, right? But if you are judging yourself or being hard on yourself and it's around people, then I need you to have someone in your life who's gonna go, okay, that's not helpful. We did this in Cambodia, like anytime someone apologize, I told this in another episode, not helpful, right? Not helpful until you can get to the point where you're going not helpful to yourself, right? It can take a village to get unravel the habits we have, right? So behavioral lifestyle tools that would be setting boundaries, you might have to actually just start saying no to everything until you can and then say yes later, because, like most, for the most part, you can say no to a lot of things and then change your mind. And so maybe it's that you have to come up with something in your notes, it's something that I had to do for a long time. Was like, in my notes, I had, like, three different ways to say no, that I could just copy and paste. Oh, it's amazing. I need to check my calendar. Oh, I think we have something going on that night. Let me, for right now it's a no, but I'll check, and if I can change I'll get back to you. Oh, my God, thank you for thinking of me, I feel so honored. I need to take a moment to take a look at my calendar and see if I can do that. Right? Though, all of those were easy for me to pretty much plug and play into almost any invitation anywhere. And then I could get like, the urgency and need for me to be responsive to people. I could solve that. But then it gave me it bought me some time to, Do I really want to go to that thing? Do I want to spend time with those people? Right? No, is a complete sentence, by the way, and so, but it can feel hard, especially if you're not used to it. And the other thing is, like, when you are setting boundaries, you might have to tell people hey, like we had Shari Teigman on the on the podcast coming up, and it's possible it already came out, might come out after this. But this, but I really encourage you to listen to that episode if you haven't, if it's been already out, and if you haven't, then listen to it maybe a couple of times. But she gives some great tips about how to tell people. You know, Hey, before, I was okay with this, and I'm not now, and so it is okay to have been okay with something before and not now, and it might mean addressing that with people who it's not now for, but it's not an attack on them, and it's not that they're an asshole. It's just that you no longer are able to be available in that way, right? And then the thing is, when we set boundaries, we just have to enforce them, and it's not easy. But again, write down different ways. Like, okay, if you know someone's going to break a boundary or asked to do something at a different time that you didn't want them to do, have a pre written thing out. Ask the AI to help you. Hey, my friend wants to change this thing. I don't want to be up at that time. Like, how can I write this thing? It will write it for you. Copy and paste it right until you can figure out how to say, no. You know, oftentimes people don't care. We overthink things. Oh my gosh. I watched this, like, really funny reel where, like, was based on, like, horoscope signs. And like, this one guy was, like, these three signs, and the person was like, you know, I thought you were gonna come over. And then he's like, I you thought I was gonna come over? Like, he's reacting to it as a like, Aquarian, Scorpio, whatever another person is, like, three other things, and it's just like, come on over. Like, it was just really, I wish I'm not doing a great job explaining it, but like most people, we're reading it with this negative, oh my God. I'm gonna let them down when I send this, and they're going, they're, you know, it's like, Oh, no big deal, right? Not a big deal. It's okay, yeah, and it's possible that in setting boundaries, you do lose some relationships in that way. And I would just say, like it probably wasn't the most healthy relationship for you in the first place, because if loving yourself means they can't be in your life, then then it's possible it's just a relationship out to expire, right? Or, if you really want the relationship to stay, you will definitely want to listen to Barb Betts episode about how to create a relationship in a way that works with them, right, that also works with you, which is like, what else can you relate on if this thing that you have a boundary on is no longer relatable? Yeah? 


Lesley Logan 13:56  

Self-care routines. You know, a big fan of the self-care routine, but you need to have self-care routines. And self-care routines do need to be a daily, weekly thing. Self-care is not a reward. Self-care is a need. It's a need. All right? This one, of course, I love. This tool is amazing. Celebrate achievements. You guys need to email me your achievements in the beitpod.com/questions and achievements can be I got out of bed today. Achievements can be I finally signed up for that class I've been wanting to go to. Achievements can be, like, I tried a new hobby. They can be I told a friend, no. There's so many things. They can also be big, like I got a promotion. There are so many different types of achievements, but you have to celebrate them. It's part of self-love. If you're never celebrating the things you did do, it's going to start to feel like everything you do all these things for all these people, and there's like, what's the point? Well, the point is like celebrating the moments in between the things that like, oh, wow, look what I did, right? You got to celebrate that. 


Lesley Logan 14:52  

Spending time alone. Oh, my God, this is not a problem for me. I love this. But self love is also like taking time to get to know yourself and be alone with yourself. Often, and if you have a hard time with that, I highly recommend like figuring out what's going on. You don't have to be an introvert. You can still get energy from people, but being able to be alone with yourself is a sign you've got a lot of self-love. You love being with you. 


Lesley Logan 15:15  

Surround yourself with positivity. So this is it's possible, like I went through a time in 2020 where, like, people were just, oh, we all did, right? And people were just being really negative, and the calls were just often really negative. And I just said, like, you know, right now I'm available to be a friend on these topics, but not that one. And that pissed some people off, and I haven't talked to them, and I'm sad about that, like that, I don't take that lightly at all. But also, I needed a different way of a friendship at that time, and that is okay, and I'm allowed to need that, and they are allowed to have needed a friend who needed to bitch with them, and that's okay, right? But loving yourself is truly making sure that you are around people who not just support you but uplift you and like you feel good after you leave, right? If you're around people that it just feels like after you leave, you feel like the energy sucked out. It's time to have some self-love and put some boundaries in place. Yeah? And then clear your space. So this is not an action item for any of you who use clearing your space as a reason why you do not take care of yourself. But if you're like Lesley, I do all these things and I still don't feel like I have it, maybe there is too much clutter and it's affecting your brain, being able to see all the possibilities that you're doing and have love for yourself. There's also some suggestions for self-love that having some goal oriented tools, so like making sure you're setting realistic goals as a part of your self-love. I see a lot of people that we coach set some unrealistic goals, then not hit those goals and then judge themself. So it might be time to have some realistic goals. And that doesn't mean you lower your standards, or you lower your ability to dream, but maybe it's just about making like smaller stepping stones of a major goal so that you can work towards actually accomplishing that, and then you have to celebrate that you did it, right? Part of self-love is just also knowing what your strengths are. I'm very clear on what my strengths are and are not, and loving myself means saying no to things that are I know I'm going to do a terrible job. I'm going to feel bad about how you did it. Yes, that means I have to hire people, and I have to ask for help, and I have to ask for support, but I can lean so much into my strengths, and I have more energy after the afterwards because of it. So we've had several guests on this, on the Be It Pod who who do strength testing. And I really, highly, highly recommend checking out the couple guests we've had on that and just going through and getting help on identify what your strengths are, right, and then embracing creativity. So you know that could be hobbies, that could be just an outlet you do. It could just be like, maybe you go take an artist class, maybe go take a stone carving class. Like, find something. But finding some way to be creative is often a really great way to not just practice compassion and kindness, but also to get to know yourself. You know, can be kind of meditative, and we have to be mindful in a creative space. 


Lesley Logan 18:03  

So the other things I will just say is we have a couple more categories that I want to explore, emotional, mental self-love, and that is going to include the boundaries and the self-compassion and the forgiving yourself and then challenging negative talk and spending time reflecting. And this one is we haven't talked about this yet, not comparing. You know, they say comparison is the thief of joy. Comparison is okay if it means that you're able to see what you want and you don't want in your life, but then you have to be curious, right? So I love that the emotional self and mental self love tools are very similar to all the other types of tools we've had, because sometimes we can have self-love in some areas and not in other areas. And so hopefully that helps you. You know, self-love is also taking care of the physical body that you have, and that is going to be the movement rituals you have and the movement practices you have, and but also self-love is honoring your body. Now, I just was talking with this girl that I used to teach, and she was asking questions, and I was like, you know, I'm so grateful that people have discovered these studies that show that as women, if we honor our cycles and we move within them, we can be stronger, faster, better, right? And so listening to your body is self-love. So sometimes I hear people are hard on themselves for not going and going for a run or not going and lifting as hard that week because they needed to do more yoga, that's listening to your body you are practicing self-love. Don't be so hard on yourself, right? So do you see how like we tend to do something as self-love, and then we tend to be harsh to ourselves, which negates the self-love that we did. So honoring your body, and then I would celebrate that as an achievement. And then something else you can think about is, and that's this really cool thing that I discovered, if you were truly struggling with, like, how do I love myself? You know, there's the idea of, like, how do you like to give love? Do you like to give loves and word of affirmations? Do you like to give love in the form of physical gifts? Do you like to give love in the form of touch or quality time or acts of service, you know, like the five love languages, and I know those are debunked a bit in a bit, but also, like they're applicable, right? Instead of thinking about like partnering up with people, think of like, how do you like to give love and then give yourself that in return? So if you love to tell people things about that fall into words of affirmation, then it's time for you to do words of affirmation towards you. If you love to give people physical gifts, then give yourself some physical gifts. If you love touch, then go get yourself a massage, right? Like if you love quality time, spend some quality time with yourself. If you love to do things for people, do things for you. So try that out in your effort to make self-love part of your daily life. So I think it's just there's some really great things to that. If you listen to me on that and you're like, I need some more ideas. Definitely reach out to Be It Pod. I can help you with that. I've got some I got some extra tools under here, but I just wanted I don't want to overwhelm you with tools. I feel like that is, is the thing that these the listeners that I tend to attract, like, give me everything. I'm going to try 17 things at once. I just want you to try, like, one thing at a time, because I want self-love to be a thing that you can be it till you see, right? 


Lesley Logan 21:04  

But I will put this in the show notes. There are a bunch of mantras. I have 58 mantras here for self-love, and I'm going to make sure my team has it for the show notes. And here's a few of them that just stood out to me as I read through. I deserve love just as I am. I'm a beacon of self-love. I choose to see the beauty within me. Every cell in my body is infused with love. I'm worthy of sel- care and self-love. I believe in myself fully. I deserve to be happy. And that's that's hopefully what this does, because, like, look, I love doing all the interviews, but I also think that information without integration is constipation. That's what I had a coach say to me once, so all the tools in the world, all the tips and advice don't work if you don't first love you, right? They just become more things. Oh, I promised you guys. I promised you guys some tools from you guys. So these are real people who have real tools for self-love, okay? Pilates, education and gratitude towards myself, not just the universe, for the good things I made happen. Brook Siler, Pilates, Self-love tools, equal, baths, learning new skills. She's doing tennis, not escaping stress with alcohol. Beautiful. And then Pilates Physio Essay, that's Sonia. Tools, booking in sessions that are not allowed to be moved, whether it's on my own workout or paid, it's in. Heidi Malone said, I schedule at least one evening a week to relax after work I read or I watch a comfort show. These are beautiful, beautiful. So do you see how those reflect all the different tools that were suggested? The time with the self, the movement, the creativity, right, the gratitude practice, celebrating achievements, self-care movement, you are so loved by so many people. And my hope from these two episodes is that you truly find love for yourself. And if you haven't already, send in other ideas and wins. Send in the wins, but also send in your other tools, and we'll put them in another show. Thank you so much. Until next time, Be It Till You See It. 


Lesley Logan 23:28  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.


Brad Crowell 24:10  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.


Lesley Logan 24:15  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.


Brad Crowell 24:20  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.


Lesley Logan 24:27  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.


Brad Crowell 24:30  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.



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