Unlock the essence of true self-care and learn the art of dedicating yourself to personal growth. This episode promises to transform the way you approach self-love, moving beyond the superficial and into the realm of actionable, committed self-betterment. We reveal the layers beneath our conditioned responses to discover the loving beings we truly are. By enacting the same level of dedication to ourselves that we would in a cherished relationship, we break down the myths surrounding self-absorption and explore the empowering truth of healthy self-focus. Christina's insights help us understand how nurturing our well-being is the key to a fulfilled life, rather than a self-centered pursuit.
Diving into the realm of ego depletion, we discuss why some of us zap our energy in the quest for validation while others maintain their vitality effortlessly. Christina enlightens us on the alignment of actions with personal values, stressing the boundless power of authenticity in preserving our energy. The conversation then transitions to the undeniable might of self-dedication—advocating for a consistent and holistic approach to self-care that goes beyond the occasional pamper session, into the territory of life-long commitment. Christina urges us to reassess our priorities, with a reminder that being 'selfish' in the healthiest sense is the cornerstone of avoiding burnout and fostering success across all facets of life.
Unlock the essence of true self-care and learn the art of dedicating yourself to personal growth. This episode promises to transform the way you approach self-love, moving beyond the superficial and into the realm of actionable, committed self-betterment. We reveal the layers beneath our conditioned responses to discover the loving beings we truly are. By enacting the same level of dedication to ourselves that we would in a cherished relationship, we break down the myths surrounding self-absorption and explore the empowering truth of healthy self-focus. Christina's insights help us understand how nurturing our well-being is the key to a fulfilled life, rather than a self-centered pursuit.
Diving into the realm of ego depletion, we discuss why some of us zap our energy in the quest for validation while others maintain their vitality effortlessly. Christina enlightens us on the alignment of actions with personal values, stressing the boundless power of authenticity in preserving our energy. The conversation then transitions to the undeniable might of self-dedication—advocating for a consistent and holistic approach to self-care that goes beyond the occasional pamper session, into the territory of life-long commitment. Christina urges us to reassess our priorities, with a reminder that being 'selfish' in the healthiest sense is the cornerstone of avoiding burnout and fostering success across all facets of life.
Welcome back to another episode, guys. I'm really excited for today's episode. I'm your host, christina Modifari, and today's episode is all about self-love and dedication and how to dedicate to yourself, to your journey, and how to truly get the results you want and not just be someone who is, I guess, purely just going through the motions and not truly getting the results that they want. And I find that a lot of the time, people view self-love in a really one-dimensional lens, when it's like it's not, it's not this thing that you just look at with your eyes. Self-love comes in a multi-dimensional way. Yeah, and if we don't see self-love in a multi-dimensional light, then that is when self-love can be very misunderstood and it can only take you so far. And so this is what I mean. I want to first begin by saying that self-love if you want to get real, real technical, we are naturally self-loving, we are naturally love. Okay, I know you've probably heard that all the time, but I actually mean that and I think you already know that, like if you remove all the conditioning, if you remove all the shitty experiences, you remove all the limiting beliefs, like if you remove, it's like a journey of decluttering your mind and your energy. Self-love comes to this point where you're actually removing a lot of shit, right, but that's only one aspect, and having the spiritual aspect to something is simply not enough, or the energetic aspect. You also need to have some practicality, and so I'd say that the practical side of being of self-love is your ability to be dedicated to yourself. I want you to think of it like this Obviously, self-love is unconditional, and so is love in general. When you love another person, it's unconditional love, right, if they don't need to do anything for them to earn love. However, at the exact same time, if you're, let's say, married or something, or you're in a relationship, you have to dedicate yourself to that person, to that relationship, and it's not just enough to just simply feel the feelings of love towards someone. There needs to be a practical, behavioral element to that other person, right, and so self-love is no different to that, meaning that you can't just feel this self-love for yourself, because that feels a little bit too, I guess, intangible, because we are ourselves, right, but unless we clone ourselves, it's really really hard to create that connection within ourselves, true, and so, again, that's why the missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to self-love is the practical piece of that puzzle.
Speaker 1:
And in this case, to me, it's all about being dedicated to yourself. I have been thinking for years, like I'm talking about years and years and years, like if I had to choose, if I had to come up with one sentence, one message, to sort of share what I'm really trying to say. Like, what is that? And, guys, I've been trying to gain clarity on that for a very long time, if I haven't said it enough, and it was only recently that I realized what that message is. And it was so hard for me to articulate, because it's so simple, because when you transcend something, when something becomes second nature to you, you don't notice that you're doing it. Well, if you do notice that you're doing it, it's very hard to notice that you're doing it right. So, when it comes to being sharing that message with you, my message to you is this it's like Anything is possible if you're able to dedicate yourself to yourself. You need to be dedicated to yourself and you're capable of this. This is how I know you're capable of this. You're dedicated to your boyfriend, to your girlfriend. You were dedicated to your ex. You're dedicated to your job. You're dedicated already, and that's amazing.
Speaker 1:
But why are you not dedicated to yourself in the exact same way? Can't you be the biggest form of dedication you ever experience and express? Because you are the center of your world. Despite popular belief, the world does revolve around you, and I don't mean it in the way that it sounds your world, your life, your reality, your life experience. No one on this planet will ever experience it. You are the center of your world, and I don't mean that in a narcissistic way. I mean it in a healthy way, meaning that you are the center of your world. And if you're not dedicated to the headquarters or the center of your world, then it doesn't matter how much you dedicate yourself to any other person or area of your life, be that your career, be that your education, be that your partners or your friendships they will always be, I guess, really flaky, because you're missing the most important element of self-love, and it's that, yes, having the energetics is amazing, having the embodiment is amazing, but you also need the practicality and the behavioral aspects. And, once again, what I'm really trying to really make clear in this episode with you is that what that looks like is to be dedicated to yourself because you are the center of your world and again, not in an unhealthy way. You see, get this. Did you know that?
Speaker 1:
Actual self-absorbed people right, like I'm talking, people who are self-absorbed, people who have narcissistic tendencies just really wait for this, it's gonna blow your mind but people who are self-absorbed are actually the ones who give themselves the least amount of attention. Like, I'm gonna say that again, self-absorbed people give themselves the least amount of attention. The reason why they become self-absorbed in the first place is because they don't have enough attention on themselves. So then when they're around other people right, they will feel entitled to other people's attention onto them and they are feeling this urge to make everything about themselves because they're trying to compensate for how little they give themselves that attention when they're alone. And then, when they are alone, they confuse being self-conscious and going down a downward spiral and ruminating over the mistakes they made. They confuse that with giving themselves attention. But it's not. You're not giving yourself attention if you're sitting there replaying every single thing that you've done wrong and you needing attention from other people. Is not you once again giving yourself attention?
Speaker 1:
You see people only again struggling with this self-love element when they don't give themselves enough attention and they're not dedicated to themselves in sustaining that attention. And I can tell straight away and I'm talking like I can tell within seconds how someone's relationship is to themselves. If that person seems like they can't really, like really pay attention to what I'm saying, if I notice that they make every conversation turn into a thing about them, every single thing, if I notice that they just want to talk about themselves, like straight away, I'm like this person, like I have compassion for them, but I also have compassion for myself in that moment. But I'm like this person is not dedicated to themselves. This person does not actually give themselves attention. This person doesn't actually know how to truly love themselves, because if they can't give me attention, because they're around me, they are needing my attention. They are needing everything to be about them. They are showing these narcissistic tendencies, they are being self-absorbed. It's because their brain is trying to compensate for that, and so being dedicated to yourself is not selfish in the wrong way. You see, it's selfish in the right way, and if you're not selfish the right way, you will inevitably be selfish in the wrong way.
Speaker 1:
I've been saying this for years You've got to be selfish in the right way. You have to put yourself first. You have to be able to be dedicated to yourself. It's not enough to just be spiritual and just love yourself and that's it. You have to be practical about that as well, and the practical level of self-love, in my opinion, is to dedicate yourself to yourself the same way you would to your career, to your education, to your academic dreams, to your goals and to your relationships. There's no difference besides one thing, and it's that your dedication to yourself should be the biggest dedication in your life.
Speaker 1:
Yes, I know that's a really big statement, I know that's potentially controversial, because it's like oh, but you know what if I have children, or what if I'm married? And blah, blah, blah, and it's like yeah, that's when you need to dedicate to yourself even more. Like, how on earth are you able to have the capacity to truly be the optimized version of yourself and care for other people, care for your children the way that you want to, if you're not satisfied with you, if you're not dedicated to you? Yeah, like, you are the center. Again, you are the center of your world, I'm the center of my world, and if you can't give yourself that, it's going to come out in other areas, and that's when and obviously this is not to shame anyone. This is purely to raise awareness.
Speaker 1:
But this is why it's really easy and it's really common for parents to accidentally project their shit on their children because they are not being selfish in the right way. They're sort of sacrificing their needs too much and they're putting onto their children but they're not really giving anything. Now there's this sense of entitlement, now there's this resentment, when that can be easily adjusted, when you just turn that attention back onto yourself. First, give yourself that dedication, dedicate to your practices, dedicating to your own therapy, dedicating to your own self exploration, to your hobbies, to your health, whatever else so that now, when you're dedicating yourself to the other areas of your life like your family, like your children, like your partner, like your career then it's coming from overflow. It's coming like you don't need to be a person who needs to fill up their cup. You just ask someone who always has a full cup. It's just your default setting. It's not this thing that you have to force and you have to constantly replenish. I don't think that that's sustainable, to constantly replenish yourself every single day. You're not a freaking petrol tank. You're not a car. You don't have to wait for your fuel tank to go empty and then put in petrol and then repeat. That doesn't make sense to me. You're not a car, you're a person.
Speaker 1:
There's like in psychology, there's research that kind of talks about this in the studies. Again, please take this as a grain of salt because it's very hard to measure this. But there's this thing called ego depletion. Don't take it literally, it's a horrible word to describe this. But pretty much the concept of ego depletion is that the researchers found that people who struggled, who felt burnt out or felt like they needed to fill up their cup, so to speak, and their life and their energy sort of worked like a petrol tank of a car, meaning it empties out. Then you need to fill it up.
Speaker 1:
Each thing that you do is very transactional. You put out energy, you are drained of energy, sort of vibes. They found that some people could go about their day and they would have a depletion, they would feel drained. So then at the end of the day or whatever else, they feel this desire to replenish themselves, to fill up their cup, so to speak. But then they had people who actually didn't go through that. That within reason, obviously they would go through their day and, if anything, the energy levels actually remained quite stable, obviously with the exception of a human needing sleep and rest and everything. But all in all, it wasn't a transactional thing. These people weren't acting like a petrol tank, where you drive, you burn fuel and then you need to fill up again. It was more like to humor this analogy further. It's almost like these people would be driving and, as they're driving, the petrol tank would just fill up itself whenever it needed to, and then occasionally, the car just needed to break. There were people like that. What the difference was between people who actually were acting like the petrol tank, where they constantly needed to replenish themselves transactionally in their life, versus the people who didn't, is that the people who felt depleted transactionally, you could say are the people who were doing things in their lives that they didn't want to do. It's that simple. The people who didn't feel depleted through, I guess, expressing energy and utilizing effort were the ones who were doing things that they did want to do.
Speaker 1:
Obviously, that's a whole topic in itself that I won't get too deep into today, but obviously practice your discernment. That is within reason. I'm not saying to shy away from your responsibilities. I'm not talking about that. I'm also talking about the bulk of your life. Is it authentically what you want or is it what you believe you have to do? Is it what someone else thought that is best for you? You know, because the people who are doing things, they truly are going against their authenticity, going against their true desires, their true values. I think values would be the most important factor. Here is what I'm referring to. When you're going against your own values, then that's going to deplete you, because not every single bit of behavior and action that is taken is equal to each other. You know. That's why some activities can make you feel really energetic and some activities can make you feel very drained. It's the same concept.
Speaker 1:
This is why you need to dedicate yourself to yourself, because if you dedicate yourself to yourself, you're truly dedicated to whatever it is you know. For you, for example, for that, that could look like being dedicated to recovering from a nervous system issue. Maybe that's your recovering from chronic anxiety. Maybe that's your recovering from PTSD. Maybe that's your recovering from being overweight. Maybe you're trying to be healthy, like whatever that looks like for you, it doesn't even matter. It's just about in general, regardless of what it is you are trying to achieve or whoever you're trying to become, that it is just a constant, it's just a thing, it's just a normal thing, your basic set point to just be someone who's dedicated to themselves, because this is only the only difference between people who are quote unquote happy and people who aren't. That's all it is. It's dedication.
Speaker 1:
And earlier in this episode, I was sharing with you what I'm really going on about all the time. You know, of course, I'm always talking about things that are related to healing and manifestation and becoming your most optimal self. Like, yes, and that's very important stuff and I care about that so much. But it was really hard for me to pinpoint why I was saying all of that. Like, what am I really just trying to say? And I guess what I'm really trying to say is that, hi, these are the tools that I'm sharing with you. Here's what to expect. But, hi, also, if you don't have dedication to yourself, these tools aren't going to help you. Like, those tools mean shit. Like seriously, that mean nothing.
Speaker 1:
And I've spent so long going like, why is it that I've been able to get results in my life that other people actually find impossible? I couldn't pinpoint what that was. Remember how I also said that, like when you become something, when it becomes second nature to you, you don't recognize that you're doing it because it's just so natural, right? And I realize what it was, and it's that I'm dedicated as fuck, like I'm so dedicated to myself, even when I'm not dedicated to myself I am. What I mean by that is that when I have moments where I want to give up, like I go through the motions of feeling what I need to feel and learning from that situation and you know, whatever it may be, but then I go back to dedicating myself and even if I screw up, I dedicate, I'm still. I'm still going, you know, like I'm. I didn't realize that I guess my super power is being so fucking dedicated to myself. It's not even funny, you know, and I realize that. You know I'm not special. No one is, or everyone is, depending on how you look at it.
Speaker 1:
But there is a way that we can start creating real change in our lives and changing statistics. Yeah, and all that is is for for us to actually prioritize dedicating ourselves to ourselves, to understand that self love, you know, in terms of literally the energy of love, is amazing. Understanding that it's all about letting go of what you're not, so that you go, you return back to your natural state because we are love. We're born love, right. We're conditioned not to. We're conditioned to be conditional, right. But that that's not enough. You need to also be practical about it. And the practical way to love yourself is to be dedicated to yourself. Because if you can be dedicated to yourself the way you would have your children, your partner, your career or your education, then all those areas of your life your career, your partner, your education, whatever else, your relationships, they flourish easily, they flourish effortlessly Because, remember, you are the center of your world.
Speaker 1:
So, just to wrap up today's episode yeah, like I know that this is hard, and I'm not saying this in a way where it's like, hey, you should feel ashamed of yourself, like this is not the energy and I'm sure you can feel that from me. It's more so me reminding you of something that I think you already know, that you probably just needed to hear, because I know I'm like that too sometimes, where I know something in theory, but I just need to hear, I need to be sold on it, almost right, I need to be sold on my intuition, and what that is today is one of the most important messages because it's so subtle. It's such a subtle message but when truly embodied and applied, it can have the most drastic positive effects of your life. And that is you need to dedicate yourself. You get to dedicate yourself to yourself, to yourself, and that doesn't always look like what you think it looks like. Maybe dedicating to yourself is actually you dedicating to therapy. Maybe you dedicating to yourself is actually dedicating yourself to a program that you bought, but it's all, at the end of the day, it's dedication. And dedication isn't just doing it once. It's becoming someone who will always do it, who will always commit to yourself.
Speaker 1:
When something goes wrong, then you don't go oh, I need to stop doing this. It's more so you go. I just need to adjust something. Because if you can commit and dedicate to yourself the way you do with your husband, your wife, your children, your job, your career, your families, literally everything becomes easier for you, anything you can think of and you're doing yourself and your friends and family and your career and your children and whatever else are in the service.
Speaker 1:
When you don't dedicate to yourself mostly or first and foremost, if you just dedicate yourself to them and you're quote, unquote, selfish in the wrong way and you know what I mean by that by now then you will inevitably be resentful of other people. And it's not your fault, it's not because you're a bad person, it's not because there's something inherently wrong with you. It's that you're missing half the piece of the most important puzzle of anything in life, be that success in your goals, success in your recovery, success in your fitness goals. If you are not dedicated to yourself, if you're not selfish in the right way, yeah, don't be afraid of that. Don't be afraid of putting yourself first, and not in the corny way.
Speaker 1:
And just remember once again that the only difference between people who are constantly burned out, who need to fill up their cup 24 seven and constantly go through life as if it's an energetic transaction, like you're not a petrol tank in a car yeah, the people who are consistently, throughout their day, doing tasks and exerting energy and things that are out of alignment to their true values and, for a simple way to put it, doing things that they truly don't want to be doing, and that does not count. That does not count not taking responsibility for your life. That I'm talking about within reason, because you can be responsible for the things in your life, such as your career, your business, your partner, your children. You can be responsible for those things. But true responsibility happens when you first are completely surrendered to the dedication you have towards yourself in all areas of life. You know, in every season that's going to look different. In some seasons that's to your success, that sometimes that's to your recovery and your mental health, sometimes that's to your therapy, whatever it may be. But when you can become someone who truly dedicates themselves to themselves, no matter what, right Like no excuses, then everything around you becomes easier.
Speaker 1:
Life stops being this transaction. It starts to look a lot more like the way the digital world looks like, meaning that when you download a new file on the internet, you're creating a new file. That when you take, when you create, when you get the file, you're not taking away from it. It doesn't need to be replenished. One more was created. When you can start living and playing in that arena Because energy can work like that and it can also work transactionally.
Speaker 1:
You get to choose how your energy is being exerted. And that, if you can learn to truly leverage what you have, the power you have within you, and just simply dedicate yourself Like I'm literally telling you to enjoy yourself. I'm telling you to not just enjoy yourself in the reckless way I know. I'm telling you to enjoy yourself responsibly and the way that what that really looks like and what that truly means is for you to be dedicated to yourself, unapologetically, right To your recovery, to your healing, because what is more responsible right Than you putting your health, your success no, not success, but more so your health and your well-being and your evolution first, like if you are at your most optimal self, if you feel so satisfied and you can complete yourself, you become a better friend, you become a better mother, you become a better father, husband, wife, become a better boss, leader, worker, manager, right.
Speaker 1:
So really, really hear this, and I think this is one of those episodes where you need to listen to more than once, and I really recommend that you do. Please share this with someone who really needs to hear it. Okay, maybe you might have a friend or a family member that you love and care about who also really struggles to put themselves first, like this episode might be what they need, and I really want to grow this community so I can share these amazing, most valuable messages that this show and company stand for, and I can't do this myself. I really need your help and I'd really really appreciate if you can send this, share it. If you share this on your stories, don't forget to tag me on Instagram at Christina Modafari, or the podcast's Instagram, which is at Hot Genius Society. Anyway, thank you so much for joining me today. I love you so much. I appreciate you for being here and until next time, bye.