What Is Self-Love?

“You’re not gonna tell me who I am. I’m gonna tell you who I am.” – Nicki Minaj

Not a drop of your self-worth has to depend on how much or how little anyone else values/judges/likes/respects you.

Sometimes, we expect too much from those incapable of respecting us since they don’t even respect themselves!

Self-love is from within. Anchored in our own worth, we can process heavy situations, while maintaining focus.

Oh no, a fool is not going to make my appraisal of myself lower due to their treatment of me and they will not redirect my chosen path. Their problem with me is a problem within them, it isn't mine to fix. Living my life in my own way isn't harming anyone, they can choose to look the other way if they dislike it for any reason. 

We cannot control the filters they look through, we can show up with as much integrity as possible and it is freeing to not live to appease the impossible/unwinnable.

When we love ourselves, we don't need them to like us. They're only as relevant as we make them. Their liking us is not a pre-requisite to anything in our lives.

Some of them will try to make you think that you have to please them in order to achieve your goals in life, but trust me, there is always a source that the Universe will put on your path organically and it will just feel mutually uplifting without any fear-obligation-guilt (strings)... It will be a source of light and genuine energy that will not require you to dim down your flame or exchange your dignity or or compromise your worth/value or values!

You are not the opinion of someone who does not know you, care about you, or value you.

Speaking up is risky, exploding later is riskier (ask me how I know). Why were we taught to not cause problems/be troublemakers when speaking our truth is a normal part of any functional relationship in any area of life, that’s not making trouble, it’s having our needs met.

Structuring your life around your chronic condition or any need that makes your survival easier isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity, it’s an oxygen mask!

Know the difference between genuine energy or fakers/takers/users.

Promote/demote accordingly. You are not the opinion of opportunists and time-wasters who came to take-take-take and discard you as soon as you go off-script for the role they believe they can run up in your life and assign you (it's not well-meaning when it's intense control).

The people who have the audacity to treat you some type of way that is divergent from the norm of logical and genuine people have no right to make you think you deserved it because you have flaws, that is twisted and disgusting. Self-love will repel those types in the future (you know, those who find ways to punish normal lines and boundaries under-handedly).

Live with a healthy sense of urgency as it took seeing people die to understand that I am worth way more than not being rewarded for hard work during budgeted hours by guaranteed/reliable/on-time personal time and tolerating any form of frat house clownery. Lesson learned! Finally! 

We only need the right people. 

Feeling good about yourself does not depend on being free of any flaws, flaws make you who you are, it makes you unique, feeling good about yourself is not dependent on the opinions or the treatment from others, feeling good is our birthright.

Being abundant with confidence and self-love (or anything else, really) does not take it away from someone else, in fact, it inspires the right people.

Another thing I learned recently is joyfully rejecting hustle culture, the mindless race to nowhere which low-key makes us chase nonsense rather than magnetizing to us what is right for us by simply being in alignment.

Self-sacrifice is not noble or humble, it’s a one-way ticket to diseases/medical problems. Hustle culture needs to end. How do you even evaluate if you’re in alignment with your vision without any time to think or schedule peace/control over your time?

People who care about you are not going to think that you're making trouble by talking about something that you care about. Some of us were taught to keep quiet, that only made me explode later.

Self-love first. Self-care takes non-negotiable carved out/consecutive un-bothered time, something hustle culture puts down subtly but I don't care for that soul-sucking lifestyle anymore. Even if something is your only commitment, your time off the clock will continue to belong to you and only you. I switch off notifications even from the business that I myself created on my time off, I don’t care about hustle culture anymore.

I have had to cleanse my life of anyone who reminded me of hustle culture, just like an alcoholic has to ditch their party friends... it was hard, but my health is my first priority.

It’s not actually true that we reach more people if we are everywhere all the time, it’s really about reaching the right people that will resonate with us. I have no interest in doing more anyway. It has never been appealing to me. Hustle culture is out, I expect balance.

Scarcity mindset has brainwashed us into thinking that saying “no” to “opportunities” is “missing out”.... It’s actually about limiting our “yes” to alignment with our vision which is within us and cannot be dictated to us by anyone else, nor does it have to make sense to them.

The importance of health conditions is the same importance as picking up your kids on time, there is absolutely no difference.

I spent far too long betraying my health conditions and other things that are critical to my survival for certain areas of life that should have stayed in their lane (not encroach what doesn’t belong to it in the first place) and were never my responsibility to suffer for - ever, I no longer betray myself. No more. Never again.

The measure of love and dedication is the intensity within the hours, I do love my business, but I don’t really work on it on the weekends anymore and I’m happy to see that. The more you “self-care” and “live your life”, the better you are at your craft. Self-preservation.

I learned the hard way that if I don’t have space for reflection and rest, I won’t get anywhere (maybe an early grave) so I plan on streamlining the business a little bit further in the coming  months... It keeps me creative, but it could be more optimized.

Intensity and innovation within set/clear business hours with focus on health moves the needle faster than the inefficient delusion of more hours being better.

What I have been forced by life to understand is that no one/nothing worthy of us will require us to hustle ourselves to worthiness or over-function, the limits and constraints around bandwidth force focus. This is not a cap on “potential” and massive impact, it’s a cap on direction, it’s good.

If anyone wants to take the basic human need of conscious/consecutive time for rest, spiritual alignment, and basic GUARANTEED/reliable detachment/time off from the work (whatever fits my definition of relaxing which can include non-work related sports training recreationally and by myslef without interruptions) as a lack of dedication and work ethic, they can head for the door because I don't have time for any remnants of hustle culture in any area of my life. 

Biggest issue with hustle culture is that we have to hustle our way to worthiness, even if it means neglecting our health, our pets, and even our kids in some extreme cases. Integrity with existing commitments trumps overcommitment.

No sustainable business does everything, they do 1-2 things perfectly because our energy is the most important part of this. I completely reject conventional nonsense: follow your passion (skills trump passion), do it all (NO), appeal to every audience (NO), work 24/7 (HECK NO).

I am also super lazy as I separate my work from non-work time : I expect each lane of my life to FIT in its allocated budget. I will no longer suffer due to external factors like a lack of buffers/listening/planning/organizing. That’s a huge shift for me and I am loving it!

I know that I don't have a lot of control over distractions, so I simply eliminate them, I do not take on extra to begin with. Constraints are a way to manage time. 

The insanity of doing “all the things” is what makes people fail, although it is cutesy/inspirational/conventional wisdom... focusing ALL marketing/energy on ONE strategy/business area and placing parameters on energy is far more potent/focused.

Strategies like only checking email every so often eliminates interruptions, for instance.

You owe showing up for the work or your business on work time, in exchange, you're owed UNEQUIVOCAL respect for self-care time and this does not need to be understood in order to be respected. The work should stay in its lane.

You get nowhere without health. If anyone feels entitled to your personal time and to any extent (any minute of it), they’re the ones with the problem. Why should hours that do not belong to them be infringed on? Their resourcing issues aren’t above your health, ever.  No one should make you directly or indirectly responsible for their issues if it costs you basic priorities like health and if they value your wellness... Dumping responsibilities on others is an over-reach. 

Health trumps "potential" ROI... A moderate pace is better than risking burnout which is a total shut down of all operations for a large amount of time.

Should you ever choose to allow your personal time that should be guaranteed and obstruction-free to be infringed on by work that can’t stay in its lane, make sure there’s a mandatory minimum of $ to make it worth using your personal time. This is respect for your time, not lazy.

Nothing MEANT for us or HEALTHY for us would warrant the self-sacrifice of our survival needs (sleep, rest, relaxation). 

Taking care of yourself first is actually taking care of your craft, work and business, your oxygen mask is the most important thing - it precedes ability to sustain both short and long term basic brain / body function. Refreshed/rested minds work better. Make better decisions.

The wrong people will view these things as an entitlement for you to forgo for their convenience, the right people will encourage wellness. 

Depletion mode for people who did not do the bare minimum is ridiculous because it almost convinces you that you are the reason for their inability to reciprocate and that is not the true. They are simply not willing or capable and it’s not your problem.

Health is a barometer that asks: is this right for me or wrong for me? How is my wellness? How is my personal time affected? Is their disorganization costing me more time? At some point, you shouldn’t have to explain the impact of disorganization, if it’s not obvious enough... Run.

I've never spent so much time defending/explaining the basics of certain things in a certain situation until I realized, respect doesn't require understanding. If someone tells you that something is taking up a lot of their time because someone else isn't doing their part, they don't respect your time, they're not your people. Move on.

We can have compassion for mis-aligned people and situations, without staying around harmful mentalities to the point of sinking/derailing/burning ourselves in the process. Compassion at a healthy distance does work too. Reasoning with the unreasonable doesn't make sense. 

Expecting your time/cup/energy refilled in exchange for anything that resembles work/business is basic, this is how we avoid depletion or doing low-ranking priorities at the expense of the business we’re actually in. I would rather appear “difficult” than live in depletion mode. I am not making a reference to charitable endeavours or personal relationships here, I am talking about a business-related context, of course I expect replenishment for my efforts, how dare anyone expect others to not receive an equal energetic exchange. 

Compassion does not mean continuing to put yourself in situations that are not good for you, you can have compassion from a distance, maintain it for yourself first. You don’t have to prove your compassion. Self-preservation over endangering any aspect of your wellness. 

Healing trauma makes you repel, rather than attract, exploitative users. Your self-love will push them out of your aura.

I don't have time for the mentality that resting and mental health first is unprpductive, the consequences of being out of the business for way longer than the length of regular breaks are immense. 

When we feel good about who we are, we are in bliss, bliss will transform what shows up for us, but we must raise our standards and feel worthy of the best first! 

Sacrificing health got me nowhere. It should not even be a requirement for a place worth being at/going to. In fact, the right things will embrace/respect/work around the limits of your availability/focus/bandwidth. That’s the test of what is suitable. Put yourself first.

Mental health, critical, thinking skills, focus, and health require clearly dedicated time, every single day, which means that you cannot be doing something at the expense of that time, which means that having strict hours is for the benefit of all areas of life. Have intensity within the hours whether it's a job or a business, but your time belongs to you. If anyone does not respect the limits of your availability, then they actually just don't deserve any of it.

Interventions are popular for drugs and alcohol, but we seem to reward hustle culture, when I had monitors attached to my heart when trying new medication, I realized that hustle culture can kill people. We need to get back to understanding the importance of rest.

As the needle entered my blood vessel to take my blood and test for any issues caused by medication, I was awaken to the realization that we can have a lot we want in life without self-sacrifice, but it’s about choosing our focus and creating constraints to preserve health.

You have to know what you want in the first place in order to articulate it and identify if that’s not what you’re getting. I think that’s what was missing from my life before, I had a vague sense of dissatisfaction with no real definition of what’s missing.

I don’t allow interruptions, social media, emails or messages during my gym time and that wasn’t the case before that nervous breakdown from hell... now it’s like: there are guardrails around that health time and there’s nothing that’s going to get in the way.

I separate my business and my life and I love it -and that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about my business, it means that I care enough so that I can keep myself healthy and in it long-term. Self-sacrifice is not part of anything healthy. My oxygen mask matters way more.

We do not “hustle” our way to self-worth, we respect our health/lives in the process and we reduce/eliminate chaos. I enforce disconnecting from my own business as well, I expect my time off to be unbroken/consecutive to be well rested. The divorce from hustle culture is final.

When you belong with you and you fit in with you, self-sacrifice is never part of the equation for fitting in with people that are right for you because they will love the authentic version of you and you’ll be safe for them to be themselves with too! Makes life way easier.

Managing health conditions actually requires time carved out and so there is a hard stop at one to two business priorities at a time, I did not have a hard stop for many things that I was taking on in my life until now, because I didn’t know consciously the data that I know now.

There’s really no point in going into that many directions if it’s going to paralyze our brain function. We get more done when we focus on a few things and do them excellently. This applies to even people without ADHD.

Health conditions means we’re already operating on far less energy and sleep, which means that whatever the self-care amount we need is: doesn’t matter how it looks to anyone else.

That said, you will not need to fight for/defend the most basic reward for hard work aka your guaranteed time off (off-limits/unpaid) to yourself when you’re around logical/ rational/ realistic/ humane people. 

Focus doesn’t caused missed “opportunities”, it narrows down what we should work on vs. what to ignore. Not everything even qualifies as an “opportunity” when your methods have narrowed constraints as does your vision.

✨Time and energy constraints are not limitations, they are guard-rails so you have actual mental presence to do whatever needs to be done.✨

The belief that you have to be everywhere, and do everything to make more money or reach more people is actually false, the quality of the reach/accuracy matters way more.

Zero tolerance for dysfunction, self-betrayal, putting anything ahead of your own health is a sign of healing. Healing destroys weak ties. Healing strengthens strong and genuine ties. I am so here for it! I do not maintain poisonous bridges. 

Nowhere normal would you need a health condition for your personal time not to be encroached in the first place, when evenings are stolen... your personal obligations don't disappear (ever) and neither does conscious time for health/rest/personal life.

It's not about viewing anything differently, survival/oxygen needs are a health requirement, positive thinking about whatever is in the way of that basic need isn't changing that it's in the way.

Resilience doesn't make us robots.

Many of us are taught that being the bigger person or avoiding being difficult means not having expectations of our own, needs, opinions, or speaking up/confronting it when something is wrong. No healthy partnership requires self-betrayal, self-sacrifice, or self-silencing.

Say no to anything that isn’t your vision. 

You’re not someone else’s narrative, perception, or view of you. Healthy/boundaried people will view you as a unique/separate individual with your own voice, needs, priorities, vision in life... your uniqueness won’t be a threat to them as they’re also secure in who they are.

It is not your perception of what may be encroaching on your time for health that is the problem, it is the thing doing the encroaching that is the problem. Things should either stay in their lane.

The threat to the longevity of any craft/business is not lack of ideas/creativity: it is overwork/lack of rest. Hustle culture doesn’t dictate my definition of success / whether I am giving back enough, I do plenty already. I will not mortgage my rest for the illusion of growth.

The more you care about your craft, the stronger you guard your time to fully disconnect, daily and weekly for consecutive periods of time, this is how we prevent the need for more urgent escapes later. Passion does not forgo burnout and hustle culture is a joke.

Health is not an appropriate sacrifice for any level of reward, it typically does not give more rewards than it gives detrimental circumstances, and I can’t think of anything more important than my health: I expect any venture to fit around it. My daily nap is everything. 

You’re not the one who should pay for anyone else’s lack of resources/issues, you have your own life/issues to handle, you'll be the one left with a health mess to clean up and your risk of burnout is not worth being activated by issues they need to handle for themselves and not use you as a crutch towards. It doesn't matter what your strict sleep schedule/diet/fitness looks like to anyone else (you're around the wrong people if this even requires explanations though).

The health-related time budget is inflexible/rigid/fixed and it will continue to be unyielding especially for situations that did not warrant my heart. If it costs you that gym time/me-time, that meal prep, that time with loved ones, self-care is a reason to say no.

The maintenance of a health condition is quite literally labor-intensive, and the fact that I was not maintaining it at all and squandering my personal time disgusts me to this day. Never let anyone make you believe that you're ungrateful for expecting fair dealings and having basic boundaries!

We somehow believe any toxicity towards us is because of something we did or because it’s a choice on their part... I am learning that some are incapable of anything else and that is completely fine, get out of their line of sight and self-preserve. Be at peace with their incapability. Let go with love.

Do not let anyone run your time, health, schedule, and feelings... that’s your jurisdiction and choosing your life’s priorities for yourself is the most basic level of dignity and self-determination.

I’ll take “lazy” before overloading myself with deals based on speculative ROI that I can live without and confidently “miss out” on as if I was going to die from a “missed opportunity”... I create my own based on *my* timelines. I am proud of my unyielding health constraints.

Bandwidth limits are to be set and respected, not explained or understood. Self-compassion.