Learn To Love Yourself More Than Anyone Else

0:00Hi, this is Monique Rhodes. Welcome to the In Your Right Mind podcast. I help people transform their relationship with their minds so they can get unstuck and feel calmer and happier. My programs have been toured in over 70 colleges and universities worldwide and also in Fortune 500 companies. Here on this podcast, I share the tools I used to heal my own life. Plus simple, doable practices and real conversations about what actually changes your inner state so you can raise your happiness baseline from the inside out. Let's get into it. I want to say something that might actually annoy you a little. You've probably been told your whole life that one of the keys to happiness is love. Find the right person, build the right friendships, surround yourself with good people. None of this is wrong but here's the part that nobody tells you. All of that love, every single bit of it, lands differently depending on

1:03the relationship you have with yourself. If that relationship is broken, love from other people just passes through so it doesn't stick. You feel it for a moment and then it's gone and you're back to that quiet emptiness and you wonder why nothing ever feels like it's enough. I've watched this happen to people who have everything. I've got great partners, I've got close friends, I've got four lives and they still feel hollow. So the missing piece isn't more love coming at. It's learning to stop abandoning yourself and that's what I want to talk about with you today. Not self-help slogans, not toxic positivity, just this honest, practical work of building a real relationship with yourself, maybe for the first time. So let's get into it. Here's a question I want you to sit with for a second. How do you talk to yourself when something goes wrong? Not out loud. I'm talking about that voice in your head. That voice that's showing up

2:09the moment you make a mistake or you fall short or you don't live up to something that you've expected of yourself. So for most people that voice is brutal. So it says things that you would never say to someone that you care about. Things you'd actually be horrified if you send them to a friend and yet we accept them as normal. We think that being hard on ourselves is just what responsible self-aware people do, right? But here's what I've come to understand. And this took me a while to really get. That voice in your head isn't keeping you accountable. It's just hurting you. So I want you to know that there's a difference between honest self-reflection and beating yourself up. And most people have been confusing the two fears. So the truth is you can't escape yourself. You are with yourself every single moment of every single day. It doesn't matter how much you try

3:10to escape yourself with social media and all the other things you use to distract yourself. And the quiet and the noise when you're lying awake at 2 a.m. when you're sitting in traffic, wherever you go you're there. So if the relationship that you have with yourself is one of constant criticism and constant judgment and constant not enoughness, that's the water that you're swimming in all day every day. And if you're doing that, which most people are, no wonder things feel heavy. No wonder we've got statistics that are showing that stress, anxiety, and depression are going through the roof. So the shift starts by you recognizing that you deserve the same basic kindness you'd give anyone else. Not because you've earned it. Not because you've got it all figured out. Just because you're here, you're trying and that's enough to start. Self love isn't a destination. It's how you treat yourself on an ordinary Tuesday. It's the small daily decision to stop being your

4:12own worst enemy. You know I remember some years ago I was at a restaurant with a close friend of mine. We're sitting at that restaurant and she made a mistake in something that she said to the waiter. And I remember her saying to the waiter, oh sorry, we're losers. And I looked at her and I said to her, don't you ever talk about me like that. You have no right to talk about me in that way. Because I don't talk about myself in that way. Even if it's an aside, even if it's a joke, I know that sitting under those woods is a truth that she believes about herself. And in my desire to love myself, to respect myself in the way that I am with myself, there is no way I would let anyone talk about me like that. Even in an off the cuff comment in a restaurant. So let me tell you something about the way that your mind works. Your mind has a remarkable ability to adapt to whatever you give it.

5:18So maybe you get the promotion or maybe you feel great for a week and then your brain recalibrates and that becomes the new normal. So you need something more now, something bigger. This is in a character floor. This is how we're wired. So your mind is constantly scanning for the next thing, for the next achievement, for the next hit of, I made it. And the trap, the one that catches almost everyone is believing this. You believe that if you can just get enough of those external things, the restlessness inside you is finally going to stop. But it won't. Not because these things don't matter. They do. A good relationship, meaningful work, real connection. These things genuinely add to your life. But they can't be the foundation of your self-worth. Because they're all impermanent. They shift. They change. They sometimes disappear entirely.

6:28And when your self-worth is sitting on top of something that can move, it will move. So the people that I've seen who are truly at peace aren't the people that have the most. They're the people who have stopped needing the outside world to confirm that they're okay. So they've built something steady inside themselves. Something that doesn't depend on what's happening around them. This isn't indifference. They still feel things. They still want things. But their okayness isn't writing on the outcome. So that steadiness is what we're working toward. And it starts with this simple, radical act of deciding that you're enough right now. Not when you lose the weight. Not when you land the thing. Not when you fix whatever you think is broken about you. Right now, as you are. Okay, so what does this actually look like?

7:33Because I know that love yourself sounds nice, and it means almost nothing without something concrete to hold on to. It means three things. These are the three that I keep coming back to. The first is keeping your word to yourself. So this one sounds simple, but it's actually not. Think about someone in your life who says they'll do something and they never do it. How much do trust them? You probably don't trust them very much. And you've probably built up a low level resentment toward them without maybe even realizing it. We do this to ourselves constantly. We say we're going to start something. We're going to stop something. We're going to change something, and we don't. And every time that happens, we erode our own trust in ourselves just a little bit more. So the way back is not through some massive life overhaul. It's through tiny, kept promises.

8:34You said you'd go to bed early tonight. Do that. You said you'd text that person back. Do that. Small, consistent, because your brain is paying attention to whether you show up for yourself, even when nobody's keeping you accountable, even when nobody's watching. Now the second thing is to learn to actually be with yourself, not distracted, not numbing out, just present with your own experience. Now this is uncomfortable at first for a lot of people. And that discomfort is information. It usually means there's something you've been avoiding. A feeling, a fear, maybe a truth you haven't wanted to look at. But when you start sitting with yourself, even for 10 minutes, even on a walk without your headphones, you start to actually know yourself. You start to figure out what you want, what you don't want, what you've been tolerating that you shouldn't. You can't love someone that you don't know. And that includes

9:38you. And the third thing is letting yourself off the hook for the past. Now I don't mean pretending that things didn't happen. But I mean recognizing that guilt, how long past the point where it's useful, doesn't fix anything. It just keeps you stuck in a moment that's already gone. Learn the lesson. You make it right where you can. And then you have to actually release it. Not because the mistake was fine, but because you are more than that moment and you always have been. Now I want to talk about boundaries for a moment because I think that most people have it backwards. When people hear the word boundary, they think of walls, like coldness, pushing people away. I don't know, having limits that means you're closed off or you're difficult. But a boundary is really just this. Knowing what you need and being honest about it, that's it. It's not a power move,

10:40it's not an ultimatum, it's just honesty. Honesty about what you can give, what you can handle, and what costs you more than it's worth. So here's what I know to be true. When you don't have boundaries, you don't actually give more. You give more for a while and then you burn out. And then the people you were trying to show up for get the worst version of you anyway. The exhausted version, the resentful version. So boundaries protect your relationships as much as they protect you. Now let's talk about the guilt because almost everyone feels guilty the first time they say notice someone that they care about. And I want you to hear this. That guilt isn't a sign that you're doing something wrong. It's just your nervous system. And all it's doing is it's adjusting to a new pattern. So you've been saying yes for so long that saying no feels like a betrayal, even when it isn't. Now that feeling fades, I promise you it fades. And over time you'll notice

11:43something. The people who actually care about you are going to adjust. They're going to respect it. And the ones that don't. The ones who guilt trip you or they push back or they make you feel selfish for protecting your own energy. That response tells you more about them than anyone than anything else ever could. All right. Now this is probably the hardest thing I'm going to say today because most people already know somewhere deep down when a relationship has run its course. So when someone is showing them through their actions that they're not valued, they're not prioritized. Maybe not even really seen. We know we just don't want to know because letting go of someone means grief and grief is hard. So instead we hold on not to the person as they are but to the memory of who they were or the hope of who they might become.

12:43So we keep watering the plant even when it stopped growing a long time ago. So here's something I've sat with a lot. The suffering we feel in these situations isn't really about the other person. It's about our attachment to an idea. The idea of what this relationship was supposed to be. The story that we've been telling ourselves and when you see it that way it shifts something. You can start to separate the actual person who they've shown that they are from the story that you've built around them. And then the question becomes simpler even if it's not easy is holding onto this story about this person costing me more than it's giving me. So your worth doesn't depend on whether this particular person recognizes it. It just doesn't and every day you spend shrinking yourself chasing their approval or making yourself smaller. So they're more comfortable that's a day you're not spending on yourself. So letting go isn't

13:47giving up. It's making room. And what fills that space eventually is you. So I want to talk about that voice again the critical one because here's what I think a lot of people miss about it. That voice genuinely believes it's helping you. It thinks if it keeps you scared enough, critical enough, small enough you're going to stay safe. You won't risk embarrassment. You won't reach for things that you might not get. So it's not malicious. It's just confused about what keeping you safe actually means. Now the problem is that safe and that voice's language means still and a life that's only focused on staying still isn't really a life. It's just a very comfortable avoidance of one. So you don't get rid of that voice by arguing with it. You don't get rid of it by waiting until it stops before you move. You quiet it by moving anyway and letting your actions slowly over time

14:51prove it wrong. So confidence, real confidence, not the performed kind, isn't something you find. It's something you build. One kept promise at a time. One uncomfortable thing done anyway. One moment where you showed up for yourself even when it would have been easier not to. So you're essentially teaching yourself a new story about who you are and the only way to teach it is to live it repeatedly until it becomes the one you actually believe. That takes time. So be patient with yourself. The critic's voice is loud because it's had years of practice and your job is just to keep going until your actions are louder. So here's where I want to land. Everything that I've talked about today, the way you speak to yourself, the promises you keep, the boundaries you hold, the things you let go of, none of it's complicated but none of it's easy either because the real work here is just showing up for yourself consistently, quietly, even when

15:56no one's watching and there's no applause for it. So the world's going to reflect back to you what you believe about yourself, not perfectly, not immediately but over time. The standard you hold internally becomes the standard you accept externally from other people, from opportunities, from life. So the question isn't whether you deserve to be treated well. You do. The question is whether you're going to start treating yourself that way first. So I'm not asking you to have it all figured out. I'm not asking you to wake up tomorrow and feel completely different about yourself. I'm just asking you to pick one thing. One small act of self respect today, not next Monday, not when things calm down. I want you to pick it today. So maybe it's saying no to something that's been draining you or maybe it's 10 minutes of just being with yourself without your phone. Maybe it's catching that

16:59critical voice mid-centred and choosing not to finish that thought. Small, consistent. That's all it takes to start. I'm always teaching you happiness is a habit because here's the thing. You can't give what you don't have. The more that you fill yourself up, the more you actually have to offer the people you love. This isn't selfish. It's the opposite. So loving yourself more isn't about loving others less. It's about finally having something real to give. All right. If this has happened for you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Don't forget, in the description is the happiness quiz. This is the key to getting yourself on a path to being happier. Go to the description, click on the quiz. It just takes a few minutes. You get a personalized report. I hope this has been helpful. As always, be kind. Take care. Go gently in the world.