Ep 60. Unreasonable Self-Love

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 60: Unreasonable Self-Love.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own wellbeing and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s gonna be fun. Let’s go.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. How are you? First of all, this is November 3rd, 2022. when this episode comes out and one of my clients, one of my amazing, beautiful clients is having her 50th birthday today. So happy happiest birthday to you my darling dear client, you know who you are. I’m thinking about you today.

So, today I am going to talk to you about unreasonable self-love. I love this title and I actually stole it from a new book that just came out that I downloaded. I haven’t listened to yet, but I listened to this podcast, I believe it was Simon Sinek, I think that’s how you say his last name. I listened to a podcast last week I believe it was. And he had the author of this book, Unreasonable Hospitality that just came out this last week, so he was promoting his new book.

And it’s actually about his restaurant. He turned his entire trajectory of his restaurant around by providing unreasonable hospitality to all of his patrons that came in. And now I believe it’s the number one restaurant in the world because of it. So, I can’t wait. I downloaded the book to listen to, I haven’t started it yet, but I can’t wait to listen to it. But I was really drawn to the title, Unreasonable Hospitality. What does unreasonable mean? You know I talk all the time about self-love and how important it is.

Self-love has changed my life, learning to love myself and give myself exactly what I need and understand that my wantings are for me to listen to, to agree with, to meet those wantings where they are. It’s just a message and a red flag to me. This is what I want, listen to it, go figure out a way to get it. This is self-love, it isn’t greedy. Women have been brought up to believe that they are to put themselves last and to put everybody else first, but this isn’t beneficial to us as women.

And celebrating my 60th episode today I want to tell you that unreasonable self-love will heal everything in your life when you learn how to love yourself well. How to meet your own needs, how to practice emotional adulthood which means owning all of your experiences, all of your emotional experiences and never giving your power away. This is unreasonable self-love. You cannot love yourself too much, you can’t. The more you love yourself in kind of an extravagant unreasonable way, you will become the best version of you.

You will offer so much extravagant love and generosity to not only your family and your friends but the entire world. We need you to learn how to love yourself in this kind of way. It might be something that you’ve never even let yourself think about before. And I will always be the one to remind you that self-love is your most important work. Your work will start and end with learning to love yourself well. So that’s what I mean by unreasonable self-love. I love this topic.

I love this word, ‘unreasonable,’ I looked it up. And you know what unreasonable means? It means irrational. It means illogical. It means excessive. It means going beyond what is sensible and realistic, that’s the kind of self-love I’m talking about, unreasonable, illogical, going beyond what is normal, what is sensible, going way above that, being extravagant with yourself. It will heal you. And I teach all of this in my groups, in my coaching groups, that’s what we work on. We work on tools, emotional adulthood is a tool.

We work on boundaries, how to become very honest with yourself, clear with yourself and how to be brave enough to become very honest with your people and clear with your people, holding and maintaining healthy boundaries. These are the practices that will create a lot more self-love in your life, a lot more generous love, a lot more unreasonable happiness. So that’s what I’m talking about.

So, a couple of weeks ago I got sick for the first time in three years. It was about downtime is what I decided because of course, and who goes three years without being sick? I did, so I was just kind of expecting it a little bit. But I got a cold and what I noticed and why I’m talking to you so much about self-love right now is I noticed how kind I was and have been to myself the last two weeks, just healing, just getting over this ridiculous cold that I got. I had no energy.

I haven’t exercised, you guys, I haven’t been to the gym in two weeks which is crazy for me. But I haven’t worried about it at all. I haven’t been anxious about being sick and about not doing my normal life. I actually have been filled with so much peace, so much calm, actually so much rest. I have been resting more than I normally do. My life has felt very steady, very sure. I’ve been extremely patient. I haven’t resisted the cold or the virus, whatever it is. It really didn’t bother me. I drank a ton of water, a ton of hot tea which was so fun.

I took a bigger long nap every day. I ate a lot of comfort food, a lot of things that I don’t normally eat that made me feel so good. I just noticed that how much I’ve changed because any time I got sick in the past I would be so restless with the sickness. I would be kind of mean to myself about it, like, what did I do wrong? And I’m embarrassed that I’m sick. And just had a lot of negative feelings about it. And I would be almost like critical of myself the entire time I was sick. And just kind of rushing it and wanting to be well really quick.

Well, this time because of all this work I’ve done in the last five years, I noticed this unreasonable self-love during these entire two weeks. Maybe I did a little bit intentionally because that’s my practice every single day. But also, a lot of it just came naturally because it’s my practice every single day. So, I sunk into it, I didn’t resist it, I actually enjoyed it. I watched every episode of all four seasons of Yellowstone, getting ready for the new Yellowstone season because I’m obsessed with Yellowstone.

I also watched a new series out on Netflix that I highly recommend called, From Scratch. It was so beautiful. I’m not going to tell you anything about it if you haven’t watched it because I don’t want to ruin it for you but just watch it. And then we can talk about it. So, I loved watching that. I got really into that. I cried a lot. I just was kind of emotional in the best kind of way, I love that. I love a good cry.

And then also, you know what else I watched that I have never watched before? I watched The Kardashians, okay, don’t judge me. But listen, it’s kind of really good. And I’m kind of fascinated with them. Okay, so if you’re like me you might be confused with the Kardashians because I never have ever followed them. I’m not really a reality show girl. But Clancy, my daughter had told me a couple of times, ”Mom, I think you might like their newest show.” But they have a newest show out on Hulu. It’s just called The Kardashians.

I guess they’re old shows called Keeping Up With the Kardashians. But anyway, so I watched The Kardashians. They have two seasons out, or one and a half seasons out. And I’m just like, “I guess I’m going to give this a try.” And I kind of love it, I’m kind of fascinated with all the women, they’re very strong women. There’s some drama and I’m not a big fan of drama. So, I kind of fast forward through some of the drama.

And another thing I’m kind of confused about, how these beautiful, strong, accomplished women just don’t pick, I’m kind of confused about the men they pick. Anyways, that’s a side note. But that doesn’t even matter. I don’t know, I kind of have a crush on them. So, I’m going to keep watching it and fast forwarding through the parts that I’m not really that fascinated with. But some of it, man, they’re good businesswomen. They have really exquisite taste in their clothes, in their homes, the cars they drive. I love all of that. I love that kind of lifestyle, I think it’s super fun and so beautiful.

And so, with that, I got this little idea, well, and I’ve kind of had this idea for a while now that I kind of want to spruce up my house a little bit. And you know I used to be a decorator. So, decorating has always kind of been my jam. But I just really hadn’t done that much here in this house that we’ve lived in at the beach for the last two years, it’s just always been very white and spacious, and with not a whole lot of articles in it, nothing on my tables, or coffee tables, or any of that, on my counters. Everything is very plain.

So, I had this idea of how I wanted to kind of finish it off. So, I ordered some things, I spent some time thinking about it and planning it. And then one of my goals that I’d had this year before the end of the year is I wanted to finish this little half bath that we have upstairs. We have a little guest bath upstairs, and I’d never done anything to it since we moved in and it’s really just not good. So, I made some decisions while I was sick, and I ordered all the things and hired my contactor back to come finish it up in November. So, I’m really excited about that, everything should be here.

It’s the decision making that keeps us stuck, you guys, so I’m really good at decision making. I just decided to order everything that was in stock. So, I wasn’t going to wait on anything. So, a new vanity, new toilet, new mirror, all those things, so a little tiny bathroom. But I love all my choices, and everything’s been coming in and I’m very excited about it.

And I also decorated my living room. And it’s really beautiful. I got some new plants, and I got some new pillows. And I got some new coffee table books, and some things for the coffee table and it looks beautiful. I put it all together and I’m going to add a few more things. I have a couple more things coming in the mail, and I can’t wait. So anyways I practiced unreasonable self-love while I was sick. And I want to give you that as an example because I think it’s an amazing example of how I treated myself.

I didn’t complain one time. I don’t think I did. I can ask Jeff if I said anything out loud but not even in my head. I just enjoyed the last two weeks. I didn’t miss any work, I feel like it came at just the right time. I didn’t go out. I stayed home and I just loved myself, and cared for myself, and nurtured myself. And I just took really, really good care of myself and I loved that I did that. That’s why I’m telling you this today because we can do that all of the time.

This is unreasonable self-love and instead of self-criticism self-complaints, self-sabotage, self-doubting. Sometimes our brain on repeat, if it’s not retrained, if you’re not in the habit of giving yourself all the credit for the awesome woman that you are, the lovely, kind, generous woman that you are.

If all you’re thinking about is what you’re not, and you’re focused on what you’re not, this is going to be a little of a challenge for you. This is going to take some intention every day to retrain your brain to love yourself in a way that feels unreasonable to you, that might even feel greedy to you, or selfish to you. I promise you it’s the opposite of that.

What happens when women who love themselves in this unreasonable generous kind of way, when they are in relationships with their husband, when they’re in relationships with their grown kids and with their grandchildren, when they’re in relationships with their friends, and with their bosses, and with their clients. There is no friction there. All it is, is this generous open spaciousness, everybody gets to be who they are. There isn’t a defensiveness or a judgmental-ness in the relationship. There isn’t a critical nature in the relationship.

When we take things personally, there isn’t any of that. There is just this generous love. The way that I feel about my grandbabies, they cannot do anything wrong. I love them in such a way, and this has been my example of what’s possible for me and all of my relationships but especially with myself. I noticed this about the way that I think about my grandbabies. They literally can’t do anything wrong.

I would never take anything personally. I am never mad at them, or disappointed by them. Everything they do I think is hilarious, and beautiful, and so above average. I think that they’re perfect in every way. And my first grandbaby is four and a half and will be five this next year which is crazy. But she was born right around the time that I really started practicing all of these self-help tools, all of these coaching tools that I teach my clients. And I started just putting them into practice in my life.

And I had the idea when she was born. I was like, oh my gosh, the way that I feel about this little girl, what if I felt that way about myself? How would everything change if I gave myself all these generous, kind, loving, fun thoughts that I have about her, what if I thought about myself that way? What if I thought about my husband that way? What if I thought about my kids, and my friends, and all the people in my life that way? What if I just started practicing those thoughts, practiced them about everyone, what would change for me?

And I’m telling you, my friends, everything has changed for me. I do not struggle in my relationships because of it. And I am the example of what’s possible for you. All of these tools that I teach, emotional adulthood, boundaries, the model especially, that all circumstances are neutral until we with think a thought about them. That our people do not create our feelings. Our thoughts about out people create our feelings. And if we don’t like the way we’re showing up to our relationships, it’s our job, it’s our responsibility to own that.

And if we want a different experience in each one of our relationships we can create a different experience. It’s completely and always up to us. That’s what I have owned. And it’s the result of self-love, the result is self-love. The more love I give myself the more compassion, the more forgiveness, the more truth, the more honest talk. The more I grow in loving who I am the more I grow in all of my relationships and loving who my people are. It has changed everything for me.

I want it to change everything for you too. I want you to know this is possible for you. I will always be the one telling you all the goodness that’s possible for you in your life, especially in the second half of life. So that’s a great example of self-love, of unreasonable self-love.

And also, I want to tell you, don’t forget my contest I’m having for these new Apple AirPods that I’m giving away. They’re brand new ones, and if you follow, rate, and review this show, Reinvented After 40 on my Apple Podcast app, give me five stars and give me some words of why and how specifically this podcast is helping you. It helps other women find the podcast. And that’s what we want. We want to change the world by teaching other women how to love themselves in an unreasonable way, in an extravagant way, in a way that doesn’t seem logical.

And the more we do that, the more love and generosity we will create for the entire world which is what we all want. We want to feel better in our life and then just pass that ripple affect along. So, every week, I told you I was going to pick out a review that has come in. This one that I’m going to read to you today came in October 19. And her name is Cara or Cara – C-A-R-A E-B. She says, “Kym, I am so happy to have found you. I love all the beautiful content you are pulling out into this world. I am so inspired by your mindset and what you’ve achieved.

I am now making extraordinary changes one step at a time, building amazing long term habits in my 40s that are changing my life, my body, my parenting. And possibly returning to a career after being home with my kids for 15 years all while taking good care of myself and refusing to accept burnout. I am learning to let go of thoughts and habits that never served me. The best is truly yet to come. I am so excited for the second half of my life, the one I get to craft for myself, not based on what I thought I was supposed to do, or what others think of me.

Your podcasts are on repeat in my earbuds all day long as I reach new goals with reminders and encouragement from you. Thank you for using your gifts to love others well.” So, isn’t that kind of amazing? I love you, Cara EB, thanks for taking the time to review my show and giving us examples from your own life. I can relate to all of those examples and that just makes me so happy that this podcast is reaching every single woman who needs to hear about the possibilities for her life, for your life, especially in the second half of life.

It’s really incredible the unlimited amount of beautiful, awesome possibilities that lay ahead of us. It’s just this day and then all the days to come. We get to create it all one step at a time, one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time. Anything that we want is at our fingertips, every possibility that we can dream of is available to us and that’s what we have to remember. We just have to get to work, shift our perspective, think new thoughts on purpose and then take massive action to make it all happen.

So, I want you this week to start practicing unreasonable self-love, know and own everything that you’re good at, every beautiful quality about you. Write it all down and just keep writing it down. And start practicing thinking that way and knowing who you are, and all the love that you have to give to the world. It really matters, it makes a difference, and it is the best life ever. So, hope you have an amazing awesome week ahead of you, I know I will no matter what the week brings.

I will create so much magic, so much extravagant self-love, unreasonable self-love and so much beauty in my home and in the world around me. I love you for showing up today, share this podcast with anyone that you know will benefit from it. And I will definitely see you next Thursday.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.