Self-Love Isn't Selfish - LIVE Talk & Practice 5/20/22

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my weekly Friday live event here on Insight Timer.

My name is Femke Bakker,

One of the meditation teachers here on Insight Timer.

And I was so eager and I was so looking forward to my talk today.

So what do I do every Friday at this time,

Which is 3.

30 pm Eastern Standard Time and it is 9.

30 Central European Time,

Which is my time because I am in the Netherlands.

I am Dutch,

Which explains my accent.

So I am here every week at this time to discuss with you a specific topic.

And all those topics always revolve around self gentleness,

Self empowerment,

Self love,

Self care.

And why?

Well,

If you look at my profile at Insight Timer,

Then you can see that almost everything that I teach there,

Or basically everything I teach there,

Comes at the core to you being as kind and gentle to yourself.

So I am teaching meditation in a way that you can find the meditation technique that really fits you,

So that meditation becomes easy for you.

I am not from the school that will tell you this is the way you have to meditate.

No,

I am from the school that tells you find a way that fits you,

That suits you,

That you enjoy it,

That you like it,

And then you'll find your way into meditation.

I'm teaching self kindness and self gentleness as a prerequisite for any interaction you might have with others,

Whether it's your family,

Your work,

Your society,

Or maybe even the world at large.

So I'm teaching also to cultivate tolerance,

Cultivating political tolerance even,

And that is because I'm also a behavioural scientist.

I work at the university as a professor in political psychology,

And I teach there leadership,

Political psychology,

And I'm doing also research.

Currently I'm in the process to study the impact of meditation on political behaviour.

So no wonder that a lot of my courses are dealing with those topics as well.

But in the core,

As a researcher,

And also as a meditation teacher,

I think it's my mission that I really want to convey to you that you,

All,

Every being is unique,

And that there is so much diversity among us,

And that this diversity is something that we can embrace.

Not if we were all exactly the same,

How boring that would be,

Just one argument against not liking diversity.

But more importantly,

I am teaching how you can gently self empower yourself so that the interactions with others will be more smooth.

Okay,

So that is in general what I teach.

So every week I hold this live,

And I come with a different topic.

And every topic is about you,

And you in your world.

And the topic of today is why self love isn't selfish.

So why self love isn't selfish.

Well it isn't.

And I think at a certain level you might feel that is true.

But I also guess that at a certain level you feel that loving yourself might be selfish.

So I am really curious to hear from you in the comments,

Why would self love be selfish to you?

Even if it is just a specific part of self love,

Let me know what it is and we can take it from there.

Dora says time spent on myself is time I cannot give to my cause.

And that makes me feel very guilty.

Nice to see you again,

I need your pep talk as burned out.

By Dora,

Yeah,

So if you feel,

If you notice that you are burned out,

Then yeah,

It is good to take a moment to take care of yourself.

And I think you are really in the right spot here today,

Because what you are saying that you have an important cause.

I know,

You know,

For everyone who doesn't know it,

I know Dora,

She has been in my workshops,

And she is doing really tremendous work because she is saving foxes.

But of course,

Because she is one of the few specialists that can really help everyone all over the world is reaching out to her whenever they find a fox in need.

And I can imagine,

As you can,

That if this is your purpose,

If this is where your heart lies,

It is really hard to sometimes,

You know,

Close the door from your work and just say,

I need to take care of myself today.

But isn't that what we are all struggling with?

Because of course,

We can all see that self-love cannot be selfish always.

But at one that comes,

You know,

At this point where our responsibilities,

Our self-chosen responsibilities and obligations are having a friction with those things that,

Or those people or those beings that are counting on us,

It starts to feel selfish,

It starts to feel guilty,

As Dora says.

So about this,

We're going to speak.

So what is self-love?

I think the word self-love is a difficult one,

Because we have already a lot of ideas about what that is.

So when I say self-love isn't selfish,

It's not so weird that that is the title,

Because it's very often equated with that.

Another part of what self-love might be is that when we see people that are really happy with themselves,

Really proud of what they do,

They're maybe even bragging.

And in general,

A lot of people don't like that so much,

Especially in the Netherlands where I live,

And I think maybe it's also a European thing.

People generally don't like that so much.

We have a saying which says,

Please do normal and you will act crazy enough.

And we have another saying,

Which is,

Don't put your head outside of the mowing field,

The field where everything gets cut off.

It's really funny,

Because so the first study I did was in theatre school,

So I started to be an actor.

And in my second year,

We got a teacher from New York,

Joel Rooks,

Really great teacher,

And there we were learning a really spontaneous improvisation.

So you had to respond immediately.

You could not overthink something,

You had to be as authentic as possible.

And at a certain point,

He said,

It's really weird,

But when I compare this with my students in America,

There is something.

I cannot put a finger on it,

But there is something.

And only a few weeks later,

He learned that we had that saying,

Act normal and you will be acting crazy enough.

And he said,

Yes,

That is exactly it.

This is a cultural thing that is ingrained in Dutch society that we all try to be normal,

Although normal doesn't exist.

And he said,

And that is what I see that is holding you back.

And I mind you,

This was not a population like,

You know,

The average population of Dutch citizens.

No,

These were young theatre school students,

People who were signing up and selected to be on stage,

To be in the spotlight,

To be noticed,

To act not so normal.

And even we had that.

It really opened my eyes to how I was myself looking at that.

I was never really feeling normal as a person due to all kinds of circumstances,

But also felt weird to step out of that.

It was something that I really had to learn.

And I think being in theatre school really helped me with that.

Also helped me to understand who I am and well,

A lot of other things.

So but this is something that I think we should all be aware of.

We generally don't like it in general when someone is full of themselves.

Well you could also think how wonderful it is that this person has so much confidence,

Is feeling so good about themselves.

And let them brag about that.

Maybe I can learn something from this to try to find the same confidence.

Okay,

That's another small part of self-love.

But I think the most difficult part is,

And that is also what I was reading here,

Is having responsibilities,

Having obligations,

Having expectations from others,

People we are in a relationship with,

People who are family,

People at work,

People that are depending on us or beings that are depending on us,

Like Jora just said.

And we really want to take these responsibilities but at a certain moment we are depleted.

Because if you are someone who is a little bit a perfectionist or a previous perfectionist,

Like I used to,

Like I like to call it because I'm a previous perfectionist,

I've learned not to be a perfectionist anymore but there is always a little voice inside that tries it.

And I really have to actively engage with this voice and find out what is the root of that and to calm it,

That it is okay.

So we can get into situations where we know or feel that the other one is expecting us to do something for them.

And I'm keeping it very general because we can all think of the situation in our own life that we have this.

It can be a parent you are looking out for,

Children you are looking out for,

Other family members or maybe your employer or your employees at work,

Co-workers,

People in the community,

Whatever it is.

And there comes that moment that they are asking something from you and you really would rather say no.

Not just because you don't feel like it,

Although that is a good reason but I will get to that,

But because we are just tired or we just think that we did enough or just feel that we are giving and giving and nothing is coming back to us.

And that's not always necessary,

You know,

When we have small kids or maybe not even such small kids,

You know,

Parents generally are giving a lot unconditionally and this is also our role and our task.

But there are also situations when sometimes you have to create a boundary.

But this is really difficult if you are empathic,

If you are a high achiever,

If you are a perfectionist whether it was a previous one or still you are a perfectionist.

These are really hard things.

When you feel that you need to take care of you first and you don't allow yourself because you find yourself selfish.

So it's the only reason to give in to your self-care,

Self-love,

The moment where you start to feel so burn out that you cannot differently because you feel that otherwise you cannot do anything for the other.

No I argue that it's way before that point that you should start taking care of yourself.

That's why I have,

I'm trying at the moment to introduce a new concept and this concept is called self-gentleness.

Like I said the word self-love has a lot of connotations and I think it feels like an easier task to be gentle to yourself than to love yourself.

Because with loving yourself there comes so many other feelings like do I deserve it,

There are things that you don't like about yourself,

You know,

It's like opening a can of worms to use that word sometimes towards yourself.

But being gentle to yourself,

This is something that everyone,

Even the people that don't yet like themselves so much,

They can relate to because everyone deserves sometimes some gentleness and if you can be gentle to others then you can be gentle to yourself.

So this is what I offer.

Use the word self-gentle.

Can I be self-gentle to myself?

Can I be from time to time gentle to myself?

So that's one part and if you don't like the word self-gentleness you could also use self-care,

Self-compassion,

Self-kindness or maybe another concept that you would like to use.

If there is someone in your life that actively rebels against you taking care of you when you need it and is saying well I think you're really selfish that you are now taking care of yourself while you know that I am in need of this and this and that and you know that I expect your help and you are now really selfish because you don't want to call me,

You don't want to help me,

You don't want to do this for me,

You don't want to do that for me.

And if anyone in your life is like that,

Maybe not as explicitly as that but we know those people they can also do it in a really implicit way to appeal to your feeling of guilt,

You know,

It can be really in a more covered way than I'm now expressing.

Actually they are the ones that are selfish because they are saying you have to take care of me first.

You cannot think of you,

You have to think of me.

So my question is who is selfish now?

So whenever you get in that situation where you feel that someone explicitly or implicitly is pushing that button of selfishness because you cannot take care of you,

You have to take care of them in whatever way,

Then remember this,

They are the ones that are selfish,

Not you.

Okay,

I see,

I think,

You understand this and you can work with this.

How come that we cannot do it with the most difficult cases,

Those people that we see that are really in need of help,

That we don't just feel but we also know that they need us.

For instance children that are small,

For instance parents who are elderly and really need your help,

People at work who cannot progress without you supervising or giving assignments,

Yes,

So these are valid situations but it's still valid for you to take care of you first.

So this is the reasoning behind it and you might have heard my analogy before but I'm just going to give it again to you.

When you're in an airplane and you're about to fly,

The cabin personnel will explain you the safety procedure and they will tell you that in case of an emergency the oxygen masks will drop and they tell you that you have to put the oxygen mask on first before you help anyone else,

Even your own children who might not be able to put it on themselves,

You have to do it first.

It's simple,

Without oxygen you cannot help anyone,

You have to get the oxygen to be able to help others and this is a situation where you can really relate to that and you can understand that no oxygen,

I will drop down and I cannot help but the same goes with you not having energy,

You not having power,

You being burned out,

You being so exhausted,

You really needing some time to relax,

You know,

Even in the lesser extreme cases,

You're just coming home from work and you need a moment to replenish yourself,

You need a moment of silence just for you.

Also those moments are really really valid.

So what we have to do there is three things.

First of all it's good to spend some time to think of what our values are in life.

What are important things for us to keep close to us.

So if for instance you would put gentleness in general,

It's not just gentleness to yourself but also to others as a value that is really important to you,

You always have to make sure that this value also is there for you.

So yes it is gentle to help someone in need,

Someone that needs you but it is also gentle for yourself to want to take care of yourself as well.

So we very often have a problem to really listening to what is going on in ourselves,

What is our body telling us.

Last Wednesday I had a special live,

It was called Sprinkle Your Body with Kindness,

It will be soon also in the app on Insight timer so you can listen to it and I told you there that we are so harsh to our bodies.

We are tired but we pushed through,

Our feet are killing us but we don't sit,

We just continue to do things.

We are falling asleep almost but we still have to do things so we do that instead of going to bed early.

Our bodies are working for us,

We are really making sure that we can live,

That we can nourish,

That we can breathe,

That our heart is beating but in our head we have really critical thoughts very often about our body or about elements of our body.

So it is really hard for us to tune into those bodies and to feel what they are telling us.

So this is one of the things that you could do,

To tune in and really start listening to what your body is telling you but also tuning into your mind to become more aware of what kind of thoughts that you have.

Sometimes we are having such self-critical thoughts and we don't even notice it consciously how we are bad-mouthing ourselves because we did something wrong or we are not doing something especially when it comes to expectations that others have of us which very often become our own expectations about ourselves and we can be really critical if we feel that we are not living up to those,

Especially when we are perfectionists or empaths because we feel so good what others want.

So tuning in to understand what is going on within you,

In your body,

In your head,

In your heart,

So many emotions that we feel and we so often suppress them whether it is great joy or deep sadness.

We try to keep it at bay,

To just be aware of it and then push it because whoa letting us go like that can be really hard.

So all these things are really important to tune in and to connect with those.

And for this we just from time to time need to relax,

Need to take some time,

Need to calm down,

Need some time to go within and self-reflect.

And the beautiful thing is that the more often you do this the easier it becomes.

So if you would like to start practicing that when you look in my guided audio tracks which are for free here on Insight Timer then there is one that is called Start Your Morning Being Really Lovely to Yourself.

So what that practice is,

Is that while still lying down you are going to greet yourself,

You're going to greet yourself as if you are greeting the most lovely person in the world.

Say good morning darling,

How are you?

And then you're going to listen to your own answer because you're just waking up,

You know you're still relaxed,

You are still open and it's really way easier to listen than to what it is,

What is going on.

So the answer might be yeah I'm good,

I'm looking forward today to the sun that is shining or it might be oh I didn't have a good night's sleep,

I want to take it easy today or whatever message there is and it is good to hear that.

And then when you look at the comments in the reviews under this guided track you see sometimes people saying yeah lovely practice but yeah maybe only in the weekends because I have to get up,

I have to get to work,

I have to wake the kids up and I'm always saying yes of course we always have our obligations,

We have our responsibilities but tuning into yourself and being aware what is going on,

That is good and if you cannot honour that need right now then just make a mental note and promise yourself that you will get back to that.

So if you wake up with a feeling oh I'm so tired I need to sleep more but you cannot because you have a meeting or you have kids that have to go to school so you cannot go to sleep of course not but you can promise yourself to take an afternoon nap or if that's not possible to go to bed early that day or if that is not possible maybe to arrange for someone else to take the kids out of bed on Saturday so that you can sleep in or whatever things you can do to help yourself on that.

So the core of that practice is to tune into yourself and acknowledge what is going on and then try to meet those needs whether it is right now or later on.

So that is how the practice,

The guided track is about five minutes,

Continues also that you tune in and that I encourage you to do whatever you feel there but of course if you cannot do it in a moment it could be later.

So that is a really great practice.

If you would start to do that every morning and just keep doing that for a month,

About thirty days you're changing your habits,

You're changing something and the most important change is not just that you do this in the morning,

That you're tuning in but you're practicing that tuning in.

You will notice after a certain time that you will automatically start to tune in more easily at other moments during the day and you will start to notice that your body starts to speak louder what it needs.

Your mind,

Your heart,

Everything starts to speak louder and you will know what to do because you start to honour those needs.

So that's a really great practice that I would recommend everyone who feels that they would like to apply a little bit more self-love and start small.

It's a small practice,

It's five minutes a day in the morning and it can really bring an enormous change in your life and it helps you to be self-gentle in not a selfish way because it also helps you to still meet your obligations but also start to take care of you.

And when this happens you start to shift your perspective and you will start to see other opportunities during the day,

Other opportunities at your work,

Other opportunities in the middle of your obligations to still take care of you but also know how to take care of others.

Lastly I want to tell you something more about others because,

And I'm speaking really from my own experience as someone who has felt since I was a little kid very responsible for others and I had a lot of responsibilities also for taking care of other people and it was really hard for me to be not strong,

To feel vulnerable,

To not be there for others and I often forgot about myself.

When I started to learn this,

To be more self-gentle,

To understand better what my values were so I could understand what my boundaries were,

The boundaries of my capacities where I felt my limitations that I should not cross that because I had to take care of myself,

I also found a gentle way to tell this to others,

A gentle way to communicate why I needed to take care of me and that already made a big shift in everything and the most beautiful gift was that with certain people in my life who are really counting on me by communicating in a gentle way that I had to take care of me and they had to be on their own for a little bit I would return to them.

For them that also opened the perspective of realizing that I wasn't the only source and in some cases they even found that they could be their own source,

That they could give to themselves but normally they were relying on me to give and this was such an eye-opener to me because I also started to believe that others couldn't be without me and I think that was a pretty,

That was a big thought because with that you might recognize you take so much responsibility on yourself but you don't always have to take that responsibility and sometimes you help others by trying to let them be a little bit with their own problem and finding their own way because that also shifts their perspective and I know that doesn't count for everyone,

Not everyone has that self-reflection,

Sometimes people are really really helpless and cannot differently but in many cases there are other options,

Other opportunities but if you never give people the chance to find them,

To just struggle a little bit or maybe a lot and then find a way,

You will both never know it and you keep that codependency that you actually want to unhook because it's that codependency that is killing you,

That is making you so tired and trying to shift your perspective,

Taking care of yourself,

Having that oxygen first,

It's so much better to give because you know almost everyone here on Insight timer,

Those are people that are lovers,

They want to be there for others,

They're empathic,

They want to do good,

They want to help,

They want to care,

They want to teach and that's really good but if you come from a full cup then you can actually give and that can be so rewarding.

So I think I covered everything that I wanted to say,

I see that there are a lot of comments,

I cannot go over all of them,

I'll just skim through it if yes my mouse works with me to see if there's something special that I can address,

I see also a lot of people are speaking together with you,

Let's see,

I so love how you guys are supporting each other,

Sending love to each other,

That's really really beautiful,

I see there's a lot of love going on there so that's really great,

You know what,

Let's just get into a meditation and then I will get back here and see if there's anyone that wants to share something or has any questions because I see I'm already more than half an hour in.

Meditation I want to do today is loving kindness meditation,

You might know it already,

I love this one,

It's the one that as a researcher I study and it's a really powerful one because after about eight hours of loving kindness meditation,

So let's say 15 minutes a day for four months,

We know from research that it's significantly altered people,

People become more pro-social,

People reduce implicit biases that they have,

You can become more tolerant,

That's one of the courses I made on Insight Timer about this and this is also actually when I'm studying in the university,

But also on your level,

When you are someone who finds it really hard to think of yourself first,

This is a really great meditation because the core is you sending love,

Sending kindness,

Sending good wishes to yourself and then you slowly start to expand,

But when you notice that it's really hard to send it to others,

You're going back to yourself because you are the core of this,

So the whole idea behind this meditation is you start with you,

Fill your own heart,

Fill your own needs,

So you can be replenished and then send it out and the moment you notice you cannot send it out anymore,

You go back to you and I so love that and so when I was in my meditation teacher training this was one of the meditations that I had to learn,

I didn't know it yet when I started this training and I had to learn it and I had to,

With every meditation technique I learned,

I had to really dive into it and meditate a lot with it so I could really explore it besides teaching it,

You first have to really explore it for yourself as a meditator and I felt so remarkable,

I felt such an impact so quickly from this meditation technique,

Way quicker than with others and that is what triggered my interest and I started to research it,

So enough speaking,

Let's meditate together.

So make sure that you're sitting comfortable,

You can also lie down if you like that,

I don't care as long as you make it comfortable for yourself and if you're sitting up then it's good that you sit up,

It's comfortable during meditation but you can lean against the back of your chair if that feels good,

You don't have to strain yourself to make sure that you sit up and just take a moment to feel how you are sitting.

Tuning into the body guys,

Feeling your bum on the chair,

Feeling your feet on the ground,

Can you feel how your hands are resting in your lap,

Feeling the back against the back of the chair and can you feel that by just bringing your attention to those parts of your body,

Just tuning in,

Very gentle,

Very easy,

That something,

An awareness in you changes,

That immediately some kind of a relief sprinkles through you.

Do you feel any tension somewhere in your body?

If you do then try if you can shift it a little bit and relax it more.

So I very often feel tension in my shoulders and then what I do then is just I pull them up and I drop them and just the pulling up and dropping it,

It feels so good.

Now let's gently close our eyes and just sit with yourself for a moment.

Even when you are stressed or you have a lot going on or your head is racing with all kind of thoughts,

You know,

You can wait till your head stops from itself but it will not so quickly so why not just sit and bring your awareness to you being in your magnificent body.

So we are starting now with the loving kindness meditation where we are going to use four wishes to ourselves and then to others.

I would like to start with you but because it's hard to send that loving kindness,

Those intentions to yourself just like that,

I would like you to imagine first that someone that loves you very much is right in front of you.

And it can be someone that is still around,

It can be someone that is not around anymore,

Just someone that when you think of them you smile and you just know how much they love you.

When you have chosen someone and don't overthink it,

The one that pops up first is the one that you are going to use and imagine that they are standing right there in front of you.

And use your fantasy to imagine in a way that you are used to use your fantasy so if you cannot see it then just know it,

Feel their presence or say their name to yourself.

You get a feeling of their presence right in front of you.

And while they are there,

Hear them tell you this.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

So let's repeat those sentences and mentally or out loud repeat them with me and imagine that this person that loves you so much is telling you this.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

And while you are receiving those nurturing intentions,

Let's give them back to them.

So now you are addressing them and you are saying,

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

Alright,

Now imagine that this person is coming to stand on your right side,

Shoulder to shoulder,

Supporting you,

Loving you,

Nourishing you.

It feels good to have them there.

Now imagine that you are looking in a mirror while you feel their support,

While you feel their love next to you.

I mean you look at a mirror,

You see yourself.

And again,

If imagining in images is hard,

Then just get a feeling,

Say your own name,

Just know yourself to be there.

Or imagine that you're looking at a photo,

Also really great.

And now you're going to give yourself these good and loving intentions.

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I live my life with ease.

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I live my life with ease.

Can you feel those intentions flowing to yourself?

Maybe it feels a little bit hard to receive and that it's okay.

Just know that by saying those intentions to yourself,

It is working.

Now I would like you to think of someone in your life that you feel neutral about.

It could be your neighbour that you see when you walk the dog.

It could be a person where you buy your coffee every morning.

It could be the receptionist at your work.

You don't necessarily have to know their name.

They don't arise many feelings.

But you do recognise that every being on this earth just wants to have a happy,

Healthy,

Safe,

Easy life.

So get a feeling of their presence.

Imagine them standing in front of you at a distance that feels good.

And let's wish them the same wishes that you just sent to yourself.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

Alright.

Now I would like you to think of someone that you know personally that is having a hard time right now.

Someone from whom you feel they need your kindness.

Now get a feeling of their presence or imagine them standing in front of you.

Say their name.

Whatever works for you to fantasise that they are right there in front of you.

And let's send them the same wishes.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

And while you are sending these nurturing intentions and also realise that by you knowing that they can have a happy,

Healthy,

Safe,

Easy life when they find their way that you are supporting them to find a solution rather than focusing with them on the problem.

Can you feel that I'm going to repeat that?

Know that by knowing for them that they can live a happy,

Healthy,

Safe,

Easy life,

You support them to find a solution rather than focusing with them on the problem.

And this way you can keep replenishing yourself with these feelings of love and kindness towards yourself and towards them and you're supporting them in a way that is so much bigger than suffering with them.

And if you feel that when you're sending these wishes and you are suffering and you are having thoughts that they will never be happy,

Healthy,

Safe or having an easy life,

Then you start to suffer and just return to yourself and you're sending yourself love.

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I have an easy life.

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I live my life with ease.

Just picture another person who's having a hard time and you can use your support.

And let's practice this again.

Don't pick the most difficult person.

Just pick one that you can work with without arousing too much feelings of guilt.

Just imagine them in front of you,

Get a feeling of their presence or say their name and let's send them you knowing what they can find.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be safe.

May you live your life with ease.

And I would love for you to be aware of how they are receiving your words,

That their face lights up with a smile.

Really receiving your wishes.

And even though they don't feel happy,

They are not healthy.

They don't feel safe and their life is not so easy.

You knowing it for them,

You wishing it for them,

It's like a lighthouse in the distance.

It's like a beacon to hold on to.

Having such uplifting persons in your life,

It's beautiful.

But you can only be an uplifter if you replenish yourself first,

If you take care of yourself first.

Can you feel that?

Can you feel that energy of love and compassion and kindness and gentleness flowing towards yourself,

Flowing towards yourself and then radiating from your heart?

Now let's use that as an image together to actually feel that.

So bring your attention to your heart in the middle of your chest.

You can put your hands on it if you like.

And just imagine that there is a light there in your heart.

And you're going to wish yourself again these wishes.

And while you're doing this,

You see this light growing,

Growing outside you.

So with every word you send to yourself,

You see the light expanding until you're in a bubble of light.

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I live my life with ease.

See the light expanding and again,

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I be safe.

May I live my life with ease.

And while this light is growing,

Let's just use this to wish every being on this earth,

Not just the human beings but also all beings,

All animals,

All little creatures.

All beings above us,

All beings below us,

All beings in front of us,

All beings behind us,

All beings on this beautiful earth,

Including the animals,

The plants and even the viruses and the bacteria,

Every element of life.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be healthy.

May all beings be safe.

May all beings live their lives with ease.

Can you feel your light ever expanding and compassing the whole planet and every being there?

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be healthy.

May all beings be safe.

May all beings live their life with ease.

And now just sit and feel how powerful these intentions in your heart are,

How powerful these intentions radiate out to the world.

And can you feel that by sending that love to yourself,

By putting self-love as your priority,

Putting self-gentleness as your priority,

You do give yourself that you then can spread way better than when you had to pull it out of your toes from tiredness.

And how lovely it is to just sit and feel this,

Feel this connection,

Feel this connection with everyone meditating with us right now.

So loving,

So caring,

So connected.

We are all together in this.

Even if you don't always know that we are all together in this.

And how beautiful that is.

I could cry from happiness,

Guys.

It's like all your hearts are connected with mine and all there is right now is just love.

All right lovelies.

Oh that was good.

Keep your eyes closed still.

Let's like bring our attention back to our heart first.

And just know that the expansion is always there.

You're not losing it.

It's not getting away from you because your heart is the core of this.

Your ever beating heart and as long as your heart beats,

It's generating love.

So move a little bit.

You can stretch your spine.

Move on your buttocks on the chair.

Wiggle your fingers and toes.

And then in your own time,

Just slowly as you like it,

You can open your eyes and if you're lying down and you're really sleepy and you can't afford to go to sleep,

Then by all means go to sleep.

But if you're energized and you just want to go out and spread your light,

Then take your time to open your eyes.

And I will be waiting here for you.

I hope this was a good meditation for you guys and I hope that you could experience even though maybe a little bit what my words meant.

You know,

In my talks I always give a lot of information and I show you my perspective.

My perspective is not per se your truth.

It's my truth.

And I like to share it and I hear that a lot of people benefit from me sharing my perspective.

But what is more important to me is that you experience for yourself what I mean so that you can translate my words,

My insights to your own personal needs,

Your own personality,

Your own belief system.

And I want you to know that you can do this.

You can do this by yourself.

So I'm a teacher but what I teach is self empowerment,

Gentle self empowerment,

You know,

Not harsh,

Not hard goal setting,

No.

Gentle soft skills.

So you can be gentle to yourself.

You can empower yourself and you can do this.

So you don't need me to get there.

I'm just pointing to you where you can go.

And I love to teach you this but I want to teach you so that afterwards or maybe after some time,

You know,

One takes more time than another,

You can do it by yourself.

That is why I'm here.

And that's Mel says I remember a few months ago I only had capacity to send love to myself in meditations.

Now I can see I feel better as I send it to everyone.

It was lovely.

That's really great Mel.

So that's progress,

Right?

That's what you're feeling.

Well done.

Really happy to read that.

If you want to dig in a little bit more into self gentleness,

There is a life that I held on self gentleness not so long ago and it was released yesterday.

The recording of that life,

Just just audio.

It's in my guided audio tracks.

Takes almost an hour just but you can listen to it.

I start with a brief meditation but for the rest it's a talk.

So you can even listen to it in the car,

Just not the meditation,

But the rest you could or on your commute.

Well,

For me,

Self gentleness was one of the most important things that I could start to teach myself.

And,

You know,

It's a lifelong work in progress also for me.

I'm way more self gentle than I once was.

But I know that until the day I transition,

I will have to practice this.

The layers gets,

You know,

Peeled off more and more and I get deeper and deeper and better at it.

And I'm teaching about it.

If self gentleness resonates with you,

But you don't want to take this course,

Then listen to the life and just keep following me because self gentleness stands at everything that I teach in this workshop.

It's all focused to really help you to get into action,

To actually start to radically accepting yourself as the most important person to consistently deserve your own gentleness.

Hey,

Yeah,

That's my definition of self gentleness.

You radically accepting yourself as the most important person to consistently accept your own gentleness.

And that is what I'm going to teach in that workshop.

So Wednesday,

Coming Wednesday,

I have again a special life.

It's called Healing Hearts Heal Hearts.

I still love the title.

Healing Hearts Heal Hearts.

Well,

I think the title speaks for itself.

Looking forward to that.

I would love for you to support my work.

Listen to my guided tracks and review it.

Share it with others.

If you have a premium subscription to insight time and listen to my courses,

Let me know what you think if you feel drawn to my workshops.

Do so.

You can also check out the mentoring.

I've just adapted my mentoring offering.

I lowered the prices and I also changed the topics a little bit.

I'm really curious.

You know,

Whoever feels to work one on one with me.

That's also a possibility.

And by all means,

Come to my lives.

I love you having you here and speaking with you about all these things.

So Dora said it was very deep and beautiful.

You made me cry too with happiness,

Sending love and light to all beings.

What a wonderful world when we feel the love.

Absolutely Dora.

And can you feel also that when you are burned out and you connect to that feeling of love,

Which you can do just in,

You know,

Now we took one hour,

But if you would just do the meditation,

It's less than half an hour.

If you connect to that and how replenishing it is,

That now you do feel some energy and maybe it's the energy to go to sleep and to take good care of you.

But that's really great way to,

To feel again,

That connection and to,

To feel better.

So April says that practice makes me feel so much more connected to myself and ours.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

It's,

It's a great practice and we're all connected.

Says Mel,

You can feel it.

Yeah.

That's what I felt and what I feel and what I know.

That's why I love loving guidance meditation.

It's such a powerful practice.

And the power of it is also because it has a really clear focus.

It really helps you to focus on those feelings and to cultivate them.

And when you put your attention to that,

They can grow and they can be there.

So I can imagine if you do this every day,

10,

15 minutes.

I have a more brief loving kindness meditation in my profile.

It's called connect to love and compassion.

You know,

You could do this for some time and just feel what this is doing for you.

And I saw someone ask what was the morning practice?

It is called wake up with a loving morning practice.

Yes.

Wake up with a loving morning practice.

That is in my profile.

So Luanne says,

I love everything you do.

Thank you.

Thank you so much,

Luanne.

I love you.

And I so love your presence in my lives,

In my workshops,

In my Instagram.

Really I'm so happy to connect with you,

Luanne.

And you're such a cheerful person.

Sending so much love.

Thank you for being here.

Lovelies,

It's more than an hour.

I'm going to close off.

I wish you all a beautiful weekend,

A weekend full of self love,

Self gentleness with connection,

Replenishment that you may be happy,

That you may be healthy,

That you may be safe and that you are having such an easy weekend and not just a weekend,

But everything that comes after your weekend just as well.

I hope to see you Wednesday in my special life.

And if not then,

Then on Friday,

My Q&A.

So you can hear everything about my workshop is really going to be great workshop.

I'm so excited to share everything that I'm preparing,

So much looking forward to it.

So all right,

Sending you so much love.

Have a great weekend and hope to see you soon.

Bye bye,

Everyone.