Ep #18: The Truth About Love

I'm Mikki Gardner, and this is the Co-parenting with Confidence Podcast, Episode Number 18: The Truth About Love. [music] Welcome to Co-parenting With Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who wanna move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly wanna be. My name is Mikki Gardner, I'm a certified life and conscious parenting coach with my own personal dose of co-parenting experience. Throughout my co-parenting journey, I have learned to become confident in who I am as a woman and a mother, and I'm here to help you do the same. If you're ready to learn what it takes to become a great co-parent and an amazing example to your children, well, get ready and let's dive into today's episode. [music] Welcome, friend. Well, it's February, and what does that mean? Valentine's Day. For those of us who have kids, maybe you're still making those little valentines for them, with school, maybe you're not a fan of Valentine's Day. I gotta be honest, it's not my favorite of the holidays, I feel like it's a hallmark holiday, and there to potentially make us just buy things. So I want to really use this time to celebrate love for what it truly is. Let's talk about the truth about love, and how we can create more of it, because let's be honest, we all love to feel love. But before we dive into this topic today, I just want to do a shoutout. You guys rating and reviewing this podcast helps so much, and I just really love reading them. And there's one that I wanted to point out, and I love the name, armpit91, thank you so much for this five-star review, she says, "Yes, Mikki has a realistic and thoughtful approach to co-parenting. Thank you, Mikki, for being real with your listeners. I'm inspired by your courage." That means so much to me, and the DMs that I get from you guys and the comments and the questions, I'm just so grateful, so thank you. And I just wanted to celebrate and send a little love out for all of those reviews. So, let's dive into the topic of love. What is love? Well, being loved and loving others is honestly one of the most beautiful parts of life. Right? And why is that? Because we are meant to love. The world, I believe, the universe, the source of the world is energy, and that energy is love, so when we are in connection with that, we're actually in connection with our truth, our truest place, and so that's why it honestly feels so good. It's our natural setpoint. Think back to when you fell in love for the first time, or saw your child's face for the first time, or honestly sat around a table of friends and felt so full in love that you could cry. These experiences make all the difference. And these are the experiences that create the richness, the vibrancy and the joy in our life, this is our purpose, to love ourselves and to love others. These are the moments that are the most precious gifts, but a lot of us feel a lack of love in our life, right? We think that love is something that we have to do or earn or give away in order to receive it, but we've got it all backwards, and so I wanna talk about what I believe love is. And love is a feeling and an action, and therefore, we've talked about this in earlier episodes, where do all of our feelings and actions derive from? Our thoughts. If we have loving thoughts, we feel love. When we feel love, we act lovingly. Simple, right? When we have unloving thoughts, we don't feel love, we feel all the things that are not love, and then we don't act from love. Think about it, when someone says that they love you, do you feel it because of the words that they just said to you, or is it because of the thoughts and the experiences that you have, that when they say that, resonate, and then you feel it? That's where the love comes from. And we can't make others love us anymore than we can make them feel our love. The feeling of love is something that we feel or don't. Love is always a choice. And here's the other thing, love is just for you. You're the one who feels it. You're the one who gets to enjoy the benefits of it. It's not like we can hand it to somebody else and say, "I love you, so therefore now you're gonna carry this around." No, when I look at my son and I tell him, "I love you," and I see that resonate in his face, why is that? Because of all of the thoughts that he's having, all the experiences that we've had before, where he feels that love, he feels that love in him, because of the way he's thinking. Same for me. Same for you. I just wanna get really clear about this, and it might seem like a tedious point, but I think we get really confused about what love is, how we feel it, and how we give it to others, and so I wanna dive into this topic more today, and we're gonna look at it from three different areas. The first is people loving you, and then you loving other people, and then you loving you. So let's start with other people loving you. The fact is, is that you don't need to do anything differently or be different or change anything to be loved more. Here's why, because being loved by another person isn't about you, it's about the person loving you. So your "lovability," and I put that in quotes, has to do with the other person's capacity to love you, not the other way around. Other people's lovability is therefore about your capacity to love them. The only thing that can change how much someone loves you is their ability, their decision, and their capacity to love you. So where does this show up? How can we look at this? Well, we look back at parents. I have many clients that struggle with pasts that are difficult, that they had a lack of love, that they had to earn every piece of love, every hug, if there were, or not being yelled at. All of those things. And they feel... And we do as children, we take that on and believe that it's about us, that we are unlovable. But here is the God's honest truth, you are not unlovable. If your parents didn't give you love it was because they did not have the capacity to do it. It is not about you, it is not about your character, it is not about who you inherently are, it is 100% about their ability to love you. Your lovability is inherent. So when we think about others loving us, it can be really hard because when love goes away, we can turn that into a story about us, maybe we get cheated on or the other spouse wants to leave the marriage and they declare that they no longer love us. Now, is that about something that we've done? Now, I'm not giving us all a scot-free here saying we can do whatever we want and still be loved. No, but what I am saying is that their decision to leave is about their ability to love you. Something has changed for them in their thoughts and therefore their feelings and their actions, and that is not a reflection of you, it is more a reflection of them and their ability to love. So I wanna say this because we can relax a bit, because you are as lovable as you ever will be. Now, we can make bad choices, we can make choices that hurt other people, and yes, their thoughts about us will change... Absolutely, and that's where we go back to when we have loving thoughts, we feel love, and most importantly, we act loving. So this walks us right into talking about loving other people, how we show up and how we're loving, how we're thinking and we're feeling and we're acting lovingly. So loving other people, it's one of the best feelings, it feels so amazing to love others because we get to feel it. Somehow though, we get a little confused and we think that loving others is sometimes for their benefit, and then when they act ways that we don't like, we may choose not to feel that love anymore. We are the one feeling it or not feeling it, and then we think that people have to act a certain way for us to love them. But this just doesn't make sense. The truth is, is that when you choose not to feel love, you are the one impacted. It's hurting you. A lot of us think that when we love someone else, it somehow benefits that person, then we get locked into this idea that we can't love them because of what they've done, or because they don't deserve it. Nothing anyone does or doesn't do can ever deny the feeling in you, and that's amazing because we can choose how we wanna feel about other people regardless of what they say or do. The Buddha said that holding on to anger or unloving thoughts is like picking up a hot coal, intending to throw it at another person, but you're the one burned and you don't end up hurting them, you just hurt yourself. And that's really this idea of love. When we have unloving thoughts, it's us that feels that. And then therefore, yes, other people around us because of the way that we're acting. And I'm not giving people a free pass here saying that if they have bad behavior, making bad choices, are trying to hurt you, that you're supposed to just love them and run into the sunset with puppies and rainbows. No, not at all. What I am saying is that you can choose to love them, and more importantly, love yourself and not agree with their behavior, you can love them and say no, you can love them and leave, why? Because it simply feels better to love, to not carry the hate and the anger and the resentment and the bitterness. And when we come from love, we are coming from a place of strength, of clarity, of presence. The course in Miracles says that when we are working from a place of love, when we are really in a loving place, we become generous out of self-interest. What does that mean? We love people more, we love ourselves more because it feels good. And when it feels good, we act in different ways. When we feel better, we make better choices, we act better, we create better results in our life. So the last thing I wanna talk about is loving you, self-love. Now, I know, I know, I know. All we hear about these days in the media and different things is just love yourself, you don't need anyone else, and that's not what we're talking about today, but all too often, we hear that, but we don't even know what loving ourself looks like, or maybe it just feels impossible because of your divorce, because of the rejection, because of the stresses of motherhood, because of your past, because of the media, because of diet culture, because of all the things, all those things that tell us we're just not good enough, and it can leave us thinking that we're not loved, and then we start to really believe it. And this is the biggest crime. For me, I've struggled so much over my life with not feeling enough, of trying to earn love. I remember someone in my life long ago said to me, "Mikki, you're looking for love in all the wrong places." [chuckle] I mean, I was blessed with a great family, with wonderful loving parents. And I was really lucky in life, hit the lottery on that one, and I am so grateful for it, and yet I still struggled, struggled with not feeling good enough, not being loved, not feeling love. I was always trying to prove my lovability in working harder, in being a good girl, in doing all the things I was supposed to do that I should be doing, looking the part. I was doing all of these things, but I felt more and more and more disconnected. The truth of the matter is, is that like everything else, our feelings of love or not loving ourselves really boils down to how we're thinking about ourselves, that narrative that we're growing up with. The thoughts that you think about yourself create the way you feel about yourself, this drives how you treat yourself and how you show up in your life, and how you treat yourself and show up in your life creates the value that you place on yourself, your worth. Now, what I've come to understand as I've aged, as I've gained experience, as I've made a gazillion mistakes, and as I've started to understand myself on a more spiritual basis, I've really come to understand that love feels so amazing because it is the closest emotion to our true source, that source of the universe that we have been created from, that source is what gives us our freedom and our grace, our ability to love others, because it is our truth. We were all created from that same source, and therefore we are all 100% loved and worthy enough exactly as we are. End of sentence. Strong period, full stop. That's just what I choose to believe. I believe that the truth is, is that you are loved and worthy exactly as you are, and you always will be. You are worthy. You are infinitely lovable, you always have been and you always will be. We get to choose what we believe at all times, and I choose to believe this, because when I believe in my worth and that I'm fully loved exactly as I am, I live into a state of worthiness. This state of worthiness is a gift. We were given it because we were created from source, not because of anything we did, we are not special at all, and the most special all at the same time. This worthiness is for every single one of us, for our children, for our ex, for our families, for our world, all of it. No one is more worthy than another, no one is more lovable than another. Our being loved and worthy is inherent. Now, a lot of people push back on this because they say, "Okay, no, look at all of the horrible people that commit crimes, that hurt other people, they can't be worthy and lovable." But listen, at their core, like every other human, they are. Now, this does not mean that people get a free pass, again, for bad behavior, for making really horrible choices, for hurting others. But we are not in a position to judge or deem their lovability or their worthiness that's done outside of us. We are all the exact same at our core, that's really what I'm talking about, is at our core, who are we? And when we believe that we are lovable, when we believe that we are worthy at our core, we create a state of mind that we live in, and when we choose that we are loved, that we are worthy, as our core belief, it changes the belief in ourself, in what we believe is possible in this world. It frankly takes the pressure off and allows us just to be who we are without having to change and try and manipulate and do all the things all the time. When we grasp and learn how to fully love ourselves, we understand that we don't have to do anything to be loved, we don't have to rely on another fallible human, frankly, to determine our worth. That's already set, it's like that pressure just gets lifted off of us. And when we choose to love ourselves, we show up differently, we have our best interest at heart, we take responsibility for our actions, we care for ourselves deeply. We can feel the negative emotion and still move forward and do what is in our best interest, and then we let others be responsible for them, and we take responsibility for us. When our worth and our lovability is fully inherent in us, when we are believing in this, we're dreaming bigger, we're setting bigger goals, and we actually achieve more of what we want in life because we're not trying to prove things or beating ourselves up in the process, we're allowing... We're stepping into our life fully. Choosing to believe in your worthiness allows you the ability to love others, really, really love them, even when they make mistakes, even when they reject us, even when they don't show up the way that we want. We still get to choose that. And here's the even more beautiful part. When we choose to believe in ourselves, in our lovability and our inherent worthiness, it allows us the ability to fully love ourselves even when we fail, even when we're all alone, even when we don't belong or feel like we don't belong, even when we waste time procrastinating or being sad, even when we feel like a fraud, even when we don't show up the way we want to. And when we can love ourselves through all of that, this is freedom. This is where we wanna be living our lives from, because it's setting down the weapons that we use against ourselves, and it's starting to show up fully for ourselves with grace, with freedom and with love. So if you've listened to this podcast, you know that I always wanna offer you tangible ways to implement the tools that we're talking about, and this week is absolutely no different. So I have two ideas for you. The first one is all about the thoughts that you're thinking about yourself. Why? As I just said, it's the thoughts you think about yourself that creates the way you feel about yourself. The way you feel about yourself drives how you treat yourself and how you show up in the world. Those actions are what create the results in your life. So we have to start right there, the thoughts that we're thinking about ourselves. And sometimes it feels really hard to love ourselves, to forgive ourselves, to see past the story that we've heard or been told for so, so long. So I have some questions that I use with my clients often to help them create more self-love. And if you love journaling, this is gonna be a great exercise for you to do. So I'm gonna tell you the questions, and what I want you to do is write them down, and I want you to answer them each day for five days. Answering these questions for five days in a row is really enlightening because you start to see a shift, so I want you to commit to this if journaling sounds good, and I want you to try this exercise out and then let me know what comes up for you. Here are the questions. Number one, what are some things that make it difficult to love yourself? Number two, when those things happen or are true, what would you need to feel in order to love yourself through them? Number three, what would you need to think in order to feel those feelings? Question four, what would it look like to allow yourself to love yourself through failure? Number five, what are the things you can love about yourself right now? Number six, What is the worst thing anyone has ever said about you? Number seven, what would you need to think in order to feel loved by you, if that thing were true? And number eight, What is the one thing you don't like about yourself that you can commit to loving yourself through this week? These questions really do help you get to the bottom of some of those thoughts that are holding you back from loving yourself fully. So the second option that I wanna give you is a tangible way to create more self-love, because frankly, self-love equals giving yourself, your soul, things that it loves, and this is a very action-based strategy. So here's what we're gonna do. I would like to offer you a challenge, a self-love challenge for the remainder of this month, and I'm gonna call it the self-love challenge, and we'll post on Instagram about it. And I want you to make a list of 20 things that your soul loves. These are things that fill your soul with love, and energy, and peace, and curiosity, and joy. So I'm gonna give you a few examples. I really love walking in nature, just being outside, even if it's only 10 or 15 minutes, it fills my soul. For me, meditation definitely makes this list. I really love a bubble bath at the end of a long day. That's one. Yoga, love being in class. Another one I love, my morning coffee for sure, I'm enjoying it right now. But in the afternoon, sometimes I need a little pick me up. And I make myself a latte and I add a little honey to it, and I make it in a special cup, and then I just spend maybe two or three minutes enjoying it. This is a little thing that I love. So whether it's reading a book or whatever it is for you, I want you to make a list of those 20 things. And then each day, you're gonna pick two and you're gonna do them. You're gonna commit to filling your soul every single day, you're gonna show up for yourself with at least two of these, commit to at least two and do them every single day, even on the days when your kids are with the other parent and you don't feel like crawling out of bed, just get up, just do two of them, and then if you want, you can go back to bed. Even when you make a big mistake and you're feeling really low about yourself, maybe you did that thing that you said you wouldn't do, maybe you yelled when you didn't want to, maybe you just acted a fool. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter, we're still gonna pick two things and we're gonna do them. I mean, here's the thing, we're always wanting others to show us that they love us, to do things that make us feel loved, frankly, to do things that make it easy for us to love them. But loving ourselves is an inside job, and frankly, we teach people how to love us by the way that we love ourselves, and so this exercise, this challenge is really about intentionally deciding, "Even when I don't feel like it, or all evidence is against it," frankly, that's just your thoughts. [chuckle] But any of those things, any of those days you just don't feel lovable, you are deciding and committing to love yourself regardless. Because to fully love others, to really, really love them and to allow ourselves to be loved, it really helps when we have fully accepted ourselves in our lovability and our worthiness. This isn't arrogance, this is humility, accepting that we are from the source, that we are a drop in the big ocean, that we are a masterpiece because we are a piece of the master. When we accept this truth of who we are, that's when we really, really love ourselves, and when we really love ourselves, we show up differently, we show up in love, we love others more, we spread more light, more goodness in the world, we stop trying to prove and gain, and we allow ourselves to be filled with love because that's just our natural setpoint and where we're coming from. And like I said, this is freedom, this is liberation, and this is what I want for each of you. So that's the show for today, and I hope that this episode has offered you a different perspective on love, maybe it's inspired some ideas or some actionable ways that you can create more in your life. And if you're ready to take the self love challenge with me this month, I put the workshop in the show notes for you to download so that you can get started on those 20 things that your soul loves. And one last thing, if you're receiving value from this free podcast, I would be so grateful if you would rate and review the show. Like that review that I read at the beginning, it means the world to me, of course, but it also helps this episode find the women out there who need to hear this message, and so please help me reach them and bring them into this community so that we can help them feel more loved and help them love others more fully. Thank you so much for spending time with me. I'm gonna see you next week, and in the meantime, take really good care of you. Thanks for listening to Co-parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit coparentingwithconfidence.com. I'll see you next week. [music]