Hi everyone.
This is Jack and Clayton.
And this video is one secret to loving yourself.
Now I'm kind of excited to open this up with you.
Because you know quick back story, when I came to Boulder, Colorado seven years ago,
this you know love yourself, just love yourself, if only you could love yourself, self-love,
it got kind of bandied around all the time.
And I was like, “[it] doesn't really resonate with me.
It doesn't land with me.
Give me something more concrete you're talking about.
And I'm excited that we get to share the secret because this is the secret that really helped
me love myself more.
So, we're not saying this is the definitive gospel on self-love or love.
This is like one way of accessing this that might be relevant to you and it's pretty different
I think than what most other people talk about.
So, why do you think this is important?
Just to set the context.
You know we talk a lot about relationships and dating, and finding partners on this channel
but how does this relate would you say to being able to set yourself up to create a
high-quality relationship with a top-notch partner?
Yes.
Well I'll tell you from my coaching of women, what are the things that I commonly hear is
you know, you kind of just want to be loved like I'm a great person.
I just kind of want someone to love with me and stay with me.
And so there's this kind of shift that can happen in your awareness where the thing that
you've always looked for externally, right?
Like a guy to love you, you start to notice that if you can't do that for yourself at
least somewhat you're always stuck trying to find it in the external and it will never
be fully fulfilling to you.
So, it's like, “Why should a guy fully love and stay with you if you're not able ask you
to do that for yourself?
So, self-love is this kind of act of actually filling your own cup up and not just expecting
it to be filled up externally.
And not leaving you just, can you see there's a kind of dependency or even sort of like
codependency there, right?
Like if I only ever feel love, if you love me then I'm always kind of reaching, right?
It's kind of like cookies in the jar.
Like I need to get that hit.
And you're taking rather than actually being something in the relation.
Yes.
Got it.
And I can imagine also that if you are not familiar with what love feels like with inside
your system, you may miss when someone else is actually giving it to you.
Totally.
Or when they are giving it to you, you're suspicious of it because it seems very unfamiliar.
And so, what that breeds is perhaps, you start unnecessarily testing somebody or just not
trusting them.
Putting up walls.
Playing games.
So, then maybe we can just crack this open a little bit.
So, this is the way that we are encouraging you to think about self-love is can you be
with yourself?
Can you attend to yourself?
Can you hang out with yourself?
And you know can you like the company?
You keep that's the kind of the famous quote or from the poem, The Invitation, but what
that she's not so much about whether you you even like yourself or not it's like can you
actually be with yourself yeah right here yeah can you be present with Rui self can
you track your experience yeah can you slow down with yourself enough to notice well what
am I thinking what am I feeling like what's going on in my body yeah because if there's
no presence or attention on that mm-hm there's no intimacy with yourself right there's no
real self-witnessing happening it's like you're actually missing your own life.
You're out there trying to seek love doing your career, building your life but it's like
there's this whole story happening and you're not even paying attention.
You don't know how you feel about yourself or things.
I had an experience the other day working with a coach, my coach in particular, who
was helping me see that.
We were talking about different goals, and achieving certain things, and in looking out
in the future around partnership around, perhaps, accomplishment in business.
And what I noticed is that whenever I'm in the future, whenever I'm off in the future
somewhere whether it's a month or two thinking that somehow that version of me is going to
be better than where I'm at right now: number one, I'm not actually present and if I'm not
actually present I'm not actually loving myself where I'm at right here.
What's happening is I'm almost outsourcing the self-love or saying, “I will give myself
permission to love where I'm at once I've got this thing.”
Right.
It's conditional.
Right.
And then it becomes where I'm no longer in acceptance of what's happening right now.
I'm in resistance of the present.
I'm often the future thinking about what could be or I'm back in the past thinking about
the decisions I made that maybe led me into a place where I'm not feeling good about myself.
And what happens is I'm not being with the present moment I'm not actually practicing
self-love to the here and now.
So, to your point of what does it mean to be with yourself?
What does it mean to actually witness what is around you?
Might be being able to feel with all of your five senses the experience that you're having
right now.
So, as a tangible actual practice of self-love every day, it might mean taking a walk out
in the park.
It might mean journaling.
It might mean hanging out with friends and rather than continually thinking about the
things that you have to do in the future and all the stuff that you've got on your to-do
list.
You're actually there in the present moment with them.
And I've never made this connection before but that is one way to bring more love into
your life into my life and to therefore, also up level my confidence.
My deserving-ness.
My worthiness.
My ability to, perhaps, even discern when a high-quality person is in front of me that
I want to connect with; rather than frenetically looking into the future for some future state
to saw how I'm feeling right now.
Totally.
It's like they're there and then this is the here and now.
I want to use that just a simple metaphor like if you had a dog hmm one of the ways
that I might notice if you love the dog is are you paying attention to the dog?
So, if you never gave the dog any attention, we would probably imagine, “Clayton doesn't
really love the dog or he's not a very loving owner.”
If it was really extreme, we'd say, “Oh.
This is neglect.”
If we're honest most of us don't give ourselves that much attention like high quality attention.
I'm not talking about sitting, and worrying, and going over, and playing things in your
mind, and analyzing.
I'm talking about high quality attention just like you would give to your dog where you
would look at it, maybe talk to it, stroke it and give it some love, rub its belly, take
it for a walk.
Like how much are you attending to yourself?
Will you actually get in a good conversation with yourself?
Maybe you journal, and you access your deeper desires.
Where you notice this some areas of your life where you're not in integrity with what you
want, or you're compromising, or you're breaking a boundary, or you suffer from a lack of clarity
that's what loving yourself, attending to yourself, as Clayton uses the word “presence,”
being present to yourself.
That's what it allows that there is actually a high quality of attention from you to you
and you're not only looking for some guy to give that to you.
And then when you do come into contact with a guy, now it's not a deficit need.
It's not like, “Oh my God.
I've been so thirsty.
I haven't drunk for the whole year.
Thank goodness someone's giving me attention.
You can actually be cool with like, “Great.
I love having attention.”
I think we all love having attention but there's attention coming from me to me as well as
from him to me and it feels very different.
Practicing being present is setting you up.
It's like going to the gym and learning how to love not only yourself but someone else
so that when you are in a relationship with them like Jack saying you're coming from a
place of wholeness.
That's it.
Right.
So, you don't you're not leaning in in an unhealthy way right you know you're not depending
on him for something that you can't give yourself right and now the relationship becomes a place
where you can bring an offering I can fully bring yourself fully right your presence to
the relationship and it invites him to do the same invites her to do the same and I
think the relationship becomes a beautiful container for that to take place totally for
people to bring the presence and I really don't see a notice between loving someone
in a relationship and being present with them you almost saying at some level presence and
love a kind of the same thing kind of the same feeling really fully present you're kind
of in loving attention yes if you really attend to something you kind of love it right which
is very different than attaching right because oftentimes love and attachment are mixed up
right it's like oh I'm longing for this and it's like oh well that might actually be attachment
than actually loving.
Where loving is actually just being with whatever is without trying to change it fix it control
it save it yes yeah so I just want to add one thing quickly which is if you're following
us up until now you may be wondering like why wouldn't I do that right it sounds kind
of good okay spend time myself most of us will notice when we go to attend to ourselves
in this way there are some obstacles that are going to come up right like maybe you
get really anxious you know maybe you get very bored right or distracted or jumpy or
flighty you know or maybe you get really tired so most of us will have some kind of defense
against attending to ourselves.
So just to kind of offer that, if you start practicing this it may be a little difficult
at first.
And that's the thing to be with.
That's the thing to be with.
Exactly.
Right.
So, the way through it's like the way through boredom is through boredom.
It’s like, “Oh.
I'm bored, let me go and distract myself.”
[It’s] essentially like, “Ha.
Let me notice that when I go to attend to myself, I find myself kind of boring because
maybe I'm not used to accessing the different contours of what is actually going on inside
me.”
So, it's like you don't have much definition.
It's like looking at a picture where you're like, “Oh.
There's no detail in this picture.”
Well, the more you hang out with yourself, the more you might start to notice like, “Oh.
I can really tell when I'm in a shame response or actually I’m super angry right now and
I can presence that.
You know so I'm sort of imagining like someone painting and gradually it's like coming to
life.
The more you attend to yourself, the more you love yourself in this way, the more definition
in your picture.
The more nuance, and contour, and subtlety, and fragility and vulnerability, you'll be
able to discern in yourself.
I love that.
And I can just see how being able to have that perception of self allows you then to
even appreciate your partner that much more when you're in front of them because you've
got practice seeing those things within you.
And now you can see and appreciate and give life to those things in them.
Totally.
And reveal them as well, right.
Like if you’ve got this beautiful depth in you that you have no way of accessing then
it's hard for me outside to see that, right?
The more you get in touch with your own experience, the more you can reveal that.
And actually, you know intimacy with yourself is creating intimacy with another person.
Beautiful.
Well, so listen if this has been intriguing, and you're liking what you're hearing, and
you're wanting to continue on this path with Jack and I we want to invite you to a webinar.
It’s called the Three Keys to Being Relationship Ready – The Three Keys to Attract In A High
Quality Man.
And really it's some of the best content…
I think it is.
I don't say that actually in a biased way I know that from the thousands of women that
given us feedback on this webinar.
It's a great webinar – 60 to 90 minutes.
There's a link below this video.
You can click that link and you can find a time that works for you in your time zone.
And I defy you to come to the webinar and not have it changed something in your life
so join us.
Thank you for watching.
We'll see you there.
See you there.