Try Self-Love Becky Barber, Kristen Dicker

The theme this month is "Gifts," and honoring what we want and what is best for us. This falls in line with having good boundaries instead of weak ones and choosing ourselves.
For Becky, honoring herself means that when she knows that she should be doing something she tries to follow through on it whether or not others are going to like her choice or not. She is a person who is kind, loving, and supportive of others and to herself.
So instead of trying to put everyone else first and make everyone else happy, which is an impossibility, she tries to do the things that will give her peace and help her become the person that she wants to be. Each day adding to the person she wants to be.
We can choose to honor ourselves in a self-loving versus a self-seeking way. Sometimes when people try to take advantage of those of us who choose ourselves, they will use manipulation or attack us in some way by telling us that when we choose ourselves, we are being selfish, which can create a feeling of guilt for someone who is a people pleaser.
But the truth is that when you act in your own best interest and are doing what is healthy and for you, you're not harming anybody. You're not out to hurt someone when you do this. This still might hurt people who really count on you to meet their own agendas. Your intention is to be peaceful and to be healthy, not to hurt anyone.
In the past, Kristen was a big people pleaser and would feel so guilty about choosing herself that she simply could not do it. And this created resentment toward those whose agenda she always felt she had to follow.
Creating boundaries creates self-worth and self-confidence. When you feel this way, you are not out to hurt anyone. Building up our own self-worth is the key. We can lovingly support other people, but it's really not our job to be carrying anyone else on our own backs.
When you truly love yourself, you can truly offer love to others. Obligatory love tinged with resentment is not real love. self-trust is also a good way to honor yourself. How I want to respond and who I am is the same in all situations instead of morphing into what I think the other person wants to hear.
Honoring your own best interests is also really important as well. As Dr. Phil says, "We teach people how to treat us." You need to tell people what you need and don't assume that they know already. They can't read your mind. It's on us to communicate our needs and we suffer when we expect people to meet our needs and expectations if they can't or don't know what they are.
You may inadvertently inflict pain onto someone else in the short term. You will have less conflict this way. But in the long run, you will suffer more because you will just be bottling up all the anger and resentment and then explode.
When we are in a situation that is not good for us, we always want to believe that it can return to when it was wonderful. It becomes important to recognize that when something is no longer good for you or healthy or working for you and that it is, in fact, bad for you.
We aren't suggesting that you just go out and end your relationship or quit your job if that's not right for you to do. But just pay attention to what is working for you and what isn't.
Just make sure that you communicate what you need and see how it goes and decide form there. Choose you.
Pain can be a great catalyst for growth and if it hurts someone when you stop choosing them and their agenda, it's a great opportunity for them to step up and start doing what was theirs to do all along.
You need to eventually take responsibility for what you have allowed from others. In the long run, if people start doing what they were supposed to be doing for themselves all along--taking care of what is already theirs to take care of--and us staying in our own lane.
If you come up against a brick wall with someone or some situation and it hurts every...

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Becky gives a short Christmas message that will help you find peace amid the hustle and bustle. Remembering the reason for the season will help you on your path to greater self-love.

Today, Kristen and Becky discuss our personal narratives or the stories that we tell ourselves that run our lives. We can step out of the story, AND that takes some work. On the other side of the story is the unknown, which can make it difficult or daunting to even want to go there.
Author Debbie Ford used to be on Oprah often and she wrote many books about the shadow and our story, one of which is called: "The Secret of the Shadow: The Power of Owning Your Whole Story." There is a quote from this book and it says: "The deeper truth is that I have a story, but I am not my story."
Our story begins with our beliefs and our conditioning as children. In order to survive we create a story because as children, our inner critic takes over and reminds us every time we fail or mess up in some way. Then, we start to see the "proof" of our story in all our life experiences. We grow up living out the story more and more.
When you have thoughts that create your behaviors and your patterns, it creates an identity or the story you are living in. You CAN shift out of the story and start walking down a different pathway.
It's important to be able to step back and ask ourselves what the beliefs and stories are and also ask how they are really serving us. You really need to be aware of the story first and foremost.
You have been living in the story of your family for generations even before you are born, is when you are born, you already are inundated with the messages about who you have to be in the family what role you have to play, so this role and story you are in is already mapped out for you. You are already stuck in the story right off the bat. And this is the only identity you know, so it's just safer to stay in the story you are comfortable in. For instance, it keeps you safe believing that you have to measure up by doing x,y, or z to earn love. A lot of it can be about "I am not worthy unless I am doing this..."
The story keeps growing as we continue to "prove" to ourselves that we are not good enough in some way. The world just continues to reflect back to you the story you believe in.
This is how you start to notice your thoughts: by noticing your life experience being reflected back at you.
The story might be a horrible one, but it has kept you alive since you were little. And now, if you want to change it, you certainly can.
Once you realize that you have a choice, that is when you are able to make the change. Self-awareness is huge, and sifting through your beliefs and your needs that were not met as a child helps you start to be able to move onto a new neuropathway and to have the choice to do so.
This might all sound hard and negative but the cool part about it is that it is very empowering to be able to change your life in this way. You can feel so disempowered when you are in situations where you continue to get abused, lied to, or losing jobs.
These stories are lies. They are not the truth about who we are. Our brains try to protect us and keep us alive by telling us to stay small and to not get hurt. It can keep us in hiding. Once you become aware of the beliefs, they can loosen and be replaced by healthier beliefs.
It's about creating the life that you want. People often want to be loved but when they have to opportunity to be loved by themselves or others, it can actually be very frightening. And this can keep someone stuck because people often believe that they aren't worthy enough to be loved. This can keep you in self-sabotage mode.
When you decide to change your family's story, you are living in your power. Then your children have a chance not to do the dysfunctional things that you and your family have done for generations. This is, quite literally, how we change the world. If we all change ourselves--our beliefs, our patterns, and our stories and we start having new experiences that prove to us that we are living a better life, that...

November's theme is communication. November is Communication Month worldwide, so we want to discuss Nonviolent Communication (NVC).
First of all, Becky and Kristen are excited about Thanksgiving with family around.
About NVC: there are so many resources online for NVC and around the world to learn how to increase your nonviolent communication skills.
This is a fascinating concept that is also a life-long pursuit. Marshall Rosenberg is the creator of Nonviolent Communication. NVC is a way of communicating that leads us to give from the heart.
Words in and of themselves can be "violent" and can wound others. So, this a great way to express yourself more clearly, to be heard, and then to be able to her the other person is saying.
One of the purposes of NVC is to be able to hear our own needs and those of others. There is no way you can hear another person if you can't hear yourself first.
This is because if we take something personally and think they are criticizing us, it will make us react emotionally and feel defensive so we are not hearing what the other one is truly saying.
There are four components of NVC:
Observation
Feelings
Needs
Request
In the Observation stage, it's important not to evaluate or judge or making assumptions about others and yourself. Have compassion for yourself first.
In the Feelings stage, stop denying responsibility for your feelings. "You made me mad!" "She made me crazy!" Instead, say, "I feel..." and to further it: "I feel...because..." Express your vulnerability to resolve conflicts.
When you explain how you feel, use a feeling word instead of making it into a thought.
In the Needs Stage, we need to acknowledge our needs behind our feelings. Judgments and criticisms are just expressions of our own needs and values.
When you are criticizing someone, you alienate yourself from the actual need that is behind that criticism. You are simply projecting your needs and pain from the unmet needs onto the other person.
You have four options when someone criticizes you:
You can take it personally and blame yourself just as they have done.You can blame someone else.Shine the light of consciousness on our own feelings and needs.Shine the light of consciousness on the other person's feelings and needs as they are currently expressed.
This means that when someone is upset, you have to be very secure in your feelings and needs to be able to put it all aside in order to make them feel validated and heard so they can calm down so you can connect with them.
In the Request stage, we want to make sure it's very clear so the other person understands and also that it is not a demand.
Just ask for what you need, and all they can say is no. People want to meet our needs, but often they don't know how because we are not specific enough.
This was a little overview of NVC. We really hope you enjoyed this episode!
Credit: Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD

The theme for October is still “Explore” so Kristen and Becky explore what it means to have a relationship with yourself.  
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” -Lucille Ball
When you have the embodiment of loving yourself, you can accomplish all your goals and dreams without being held back.
Psychologist Steven Hayes asks his clients “How tall were you when you stopped loving yourself?” “How tall were you when somebody said ‘you aren’t good enough,’ ‘you’re doing it wrong,’ ‘you’re a failure in some way?'”
Before that impactful time, you did love yourself because we are always born loving ourselves. Then we hear it from the inner critic from there on out or other people remind us that we don’t measure up in some way.
People don’t realize that others are only projecting their own pain and inner critic’s voice onto them so it keeps the negative beliefs alive.
As a kid, you can’t even grasp that and no one is telling you that.
Children always think they are in control of people and at some point we may have been told that it’s not ok to cry over little or big things, not ok to mess up, to be overweight, to be messy. We create a block to knowing or feeling our deeper selves.
We think that loving and connecting with ourselves will make us conceited or a narcissist or somebody who doesn’t care about other people.
Loving yourself makes you care about other people even better.
We often spend more time trying to get love and acceptance from other people than we doing knowing and loving ourselves.
Many women have been conditioned that if we don’t do for everyone else, we are bad and selfish.
We get angry and sad and feel guilty, resentful and low on energy when we over-give and never get our needs met. And if we’re sitting around waiting for permission to do something for ourselves, it’s not going to happen, especially when you have been giving and serving them all the time. You will have to make it happen for yourself. This can be scary for many women.
Always do for yourself first in order to be able to give to anyone else. Your cup needs to be filled FIRST.
Take time to do good things for yourself like exercising, making a healthy meal, meditating or praying can help you feel more filled up.
You don’t know yourself when all you are doing is giving to everyone else. You feel lost.
Drinking enough water and eating healthy is just a nice foundation for self-love because then you have given yourself the basics.
Playing is also important.
Spending time with yourself is really important in order to build a relationship with yourself. Are you ignoring yourself all day long? Do you always have distractions going on?
We distract because we really don’t want to fee what is going on inside ourselves. There might be a lot of stuff from a long time ago stuffed inside. This can feel terrifying, sad, confusing, there might be anger, shame and fear as well.
Understand what you like and what your needs and values are. You can meet people who share the same values as you do and that can help a lot in terms of loving and trusting yourself and liking your own company. Start with your values.
Write a list of what you like and don’t like. And this can include people you don’t like. You can choose to limit who you spend time with.
If they are draining you, you may want to move more away from them. These are ways to feed your soul instead of being depleted all the time.
Creating a relationship with yourself does require you to take baby steps at first. Ask yourself, “What makes me lovable?” Then, be aware of what you are thinking about and any objections that arise.
Doing healthy, loving actions also shows yourself that you are important. Create the habits to support these better beliefs.
Accepting...

The Fall is such a wonderful time and traveling in the Fall is also so fun too, so we decided that the theme should be "explore."
In this episode Becky and Kristen discuss ways to get inside our own minds and hearts and discover what is holding us back.
Becky and Kristen give updates since last month about what that have been doing to create better eating habits and balance in their lives as was mentioned on previous episodes.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by new changes you are trying to incorporate into your life, just take a step back and try to break things up into smaller pieces. Baby steps are important.
Make sure that you really want to do and desire to do the thing you are blocked from doing. So, question it. Ask then what that will do for you. How will you know when you have accomplished this goal or desire? What do you have to let go of in order to have your desired goal?
Your WHY is so important to figure out. The questions can be quite profound in helping you find that why and for transforming yourself and your habits and motivations.
Due to not really knowing yourself or not having done the inner work, you sometimes don't really know why you are holding yourself back. Maybe it was family conditioning. We aren't always aware of what is going on. It's really hard to go against everything you were taught as a child. A coach can help you by reflecting you back to you.
Self-awareness is always first and foremost in terms of transformation and change.
Becky struggles a little bit with writing her book and the limiting beliefs she has: fear of failure, inadequacy, not good enough.
Compare yourself with only yourself or you will feel like you won't be good enough or measure up.
Leaving your comfort zone is also a way we keep ourselves from moving forward.
People lack confidence and don't put themselves out there because they don't believe in themselves.
We are grateful for one another and our listeners. Until next time!