Relating to Self

Relating to self. A podcast that helps you create a better relationship with yourself.

Hey, I'm Joachim, welcome. Do you realize that there is only one relationship that you will always be in? The relationship with yourself. Improving that relationship changes everything. On this podcast, I share my thoughts and I invite real people to have vulnerable conversations about how they relate to themselves and what we can learn from that. Jessica, welcome to the Relating to Self podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Simple question to begin. Who are you?

Well, that's a loaded and fun question, because we could answer in what I do, we could answer in the roles that I play, and we can answer in what I believe that I truly am, which is this divine presence that is fully human and fully divine here, living this human experience. And in this role, I get to be a mother, I get to be a friend, and I get to be a sole purpose coach. I get to empower women to come back to who they are and to remember the divine essence that lives within them. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. On this show, we're going to talk about how you relate to yourself. And my first question traditionally is, when you hear these words, relating to self, what does that mean to you?

Or what comes up? To me, it is this beautiful relationship that exists within us that no one can see, but that affects everything that we see. It is not just the way that we treat ourselves, but the relationship and how we relate to each part of us. I believe that we're multi-dimensional beings. I believe that there are many different parts of us. And when I say that all, I give an example of like, okay, well, there's this event that I want to go to, there's a part of me that says, yes, I want to go in a part that says no, I believe that we have many parts of us. And it's how we relate to those parts, and how we relate to the self that is us, like that unconditionally loving, curious, compassionate, divine self that is us. Yes, the framework of parts comes up quite frequently in this podcast, either through, you know, IFS, internal family systems, or just more organically, I think a lot of people just organically refer to parts of themselves, including me, because I've never done IFS.

So I like that as a, as a beginning point, right? I'm really curious about I'm really curious about unconditional love. It's a term, you know, so many people use it, it gets thrown around a lot.

What do you think it is? Or how does it manifest? Or what does it look like? How do you recognize it? For me, it's knowing that I'm loved without judgment, without shame, without having to do anything for it. It's knowing that I'm worthy of it, just by being it.

And I'll say I didn't always know this. I grew up Catholic. So, you know, it's very much shame, guilt, and worthiness. You're always trying to prove you're worthy of this love. And everything happens in a form of judgment by a quote, unquote, unconditionally loving God, by a conditionally loving sector, if you will. And so I had to relearn what love is, because I only knew what conditional love was. I didn't understand unconditional love until I started this journey back to myself. And once I came inside of myself, I reached this place that it makes me want to tear up just because it's such, it's so beautiful. And it's really even hard to explain in words, but it's this place that exists inside of me, where there is no judgment, there is no rule, there is no, um, there's nothing but love. And it's kind of like a light, if you will. And it just shines out from the center of my being.

And it goes in all directions. And, and in that moment, I don't really, there's no real words, and no real feelings, like I can't even put a word of a feeling to it. It's so hard to explain. But it's just, if I were to say it would just feel like empowering, like just magnificent and wide and vast and free.

Yeah, I hear you. The word that comes up for me when I hear this is compassion. It's like this relentless accepting of what is for me. And I'm curious, because you mentioned that, you know, you didn't always feel that way. And you had to come back to yourself and go on that journey. So I would love to know what that journey was like for you.

Like, did it happen spontaneously? Because that sometimes is the case, you know, you know, by just events that appear in people's lives? Or was it something that you consciously decided to do?

And what was it like? Yeah, so I'm going to take us back a little bit just because it's relevant in how I'll end the story. So when I was born, I was a miracle baby. So I came into this world and they my mother tried to feed me, and it just came up. So they tried to give me a bottle and it just came up. And when I was three hours old, they did an x-ray. And my esophagus wasn't attached to my stomach, it was attached to my chest area. So at five hours old, I was air vac to another hospital because the hospital I was at could not perform the surgery that I needed. And at six hours old, I received emergency surgery and I had an esophageal atresium. So they took my esophagus and reattached it to my stomach. I feel like I came into this world connected in the right way, if you will, where my esophagus was my voice, what I connected my throat was connected to my heart space.

And then I came into this world and they disconnected it from my heart space and took it down to my stomach. And that's how I needed to be in this world. And so I grew up doing what I thought I should do, being who I thought I should be. What that looked like for me is when I was little, we didn't have a lot of money. And so my uncle was an electrical engineer and he seemed to have like that he could take care of himself. And I was good in math and science. And I was like, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be an electrical engineer when I grow up. And that's what I did. I strived and worked as hard as I could to get good grades, played sports, did all of the things that got me the accolades, the accomplishments that gave me the praise that came with what I thought love was. And then I got into a relationship.

And since I was Catholic and we slept together before we were married, I was like, oh, we got to get married. And I loved him and we're still together. But it was not a love that I truly desired. It was a love that I learned of what love was, which was this give and take, this control, this power, this domineering. And we struggled.

We struggled a lot. And I talk a lot about it in my book. And I grew up in a family in which there was alcohol. And so I promised myself I wouldn't drink. So I became a workaholic. And it's an addiction that is, I think, one of the only addictions that's praised. Thank you so much for staying up and finishing that presentation, Jessica.

Thank you so much. I get another gold star, if you will. And so that addiction was my kryptonite. I used it to not feel. I used it to numb out. I used it any time that an argument came up. I used it all the time. I used work all the time. I used it any time I could to not be present in the moment, to keep me from what I didn't want, which was to face that I wasn't truly living in alignment with who I am. That I had been spending my whole life doing what I thought I should do. And all it did was disconnect me from who I am, from myself.

And so we had our first child, and it was difficult. We had our second child, and it was difficult. But this is what I learned. I learned that marriage was difficult, and that things are going to be hard, and that you just push through, and you just figure it out. Because I was taught that marriage really isn't based on the amount of love, but on the longevity of it. And so I just pushed through. And I was pregnant with my third child, and I was informed that at the major ultrasound that my unborn child had cysts on its brain and kidney issues. And those are soft markers for trisomy 18, so that this baby may not live. And I was 17 weeks pregnant, so 18 weeks pregnant. I was far along into this pregnancy. And I sat with it.

And I didn't cry for like 5 to 10 years, just because I was taught crying is weak, and that I needed to be strong, and all of those things. And I sat in the bathtub that night, and I allowed a tear to roll down each cheek. And something inside of me was like, we have to do this.

Like, we have to go forward. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if I'm going to hold a baby that doesn't live. I don't know if I'm not even going to give birth to this child. Or I don't know if it's going to be a miracle. I don't know. But I'm going to do this, because I know this is what I need. And it was in that moment that something shifted inside of me. And I started a different relationship. I started to wonder about myself. And I started to wonder, like, I'm carrying this child.

But like, what does this mean? Why is this coming up? Like, I was questioning the purpose of life. Like, how could I be given a child to hold that may not even live?

And I had already gone through a miscarriage. So it's like, what am I meant to learn? Like, why is this happening? And it was within a couple of weeks that my brother-in-law recommended the book The Power of Now. It was within a couple of months that I was introduced to The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani. These books started falling into my lap. That made me question how I was living, and the culture in which I was living in. And that was the journey back to me, back to my heart. So it took this tragedy at birth that disconnected me, and then this tragedy in birth again that reconnected me, because on Cinco de Mayo 2018, I gave birth to a miracle. And not one thing was wrong. Not one thing.

And we have the images from the ultrasound that show the cysts, that show the kidney issues. So it's just like, you know, a miracle. And that started my journey. Thank you so much for sharing. What a beautiful, powerful message to come to this journey of self-rediscovery, I would say, through such a difficult path, right? I think about that often, about how when we are faced with difficulties, whatever they are, we have the power to learn from them and transmute them into something amazing, potentially. So it sounds like that's what you decided to do. And I'm really curious about one thing, if you don't mind. You mentioned your marriage in the beginning was something that was not really desired. It was not really a marriage from love, and that you're still together. So I'm really curious how you have navigated that change from, you know, a place of control and power to coming into love.

I assume now you have a loving marriage. So that sounds like an interesting and difficult journey that is, of course, I assume, related to how you started thinking about yourself and your relationship with yourself. So I'd love to hear more about that, if you want to share. Absolutely. It's so funny, because I get asked a question a lot, like, how did you get him to change? And I always say, I didn't. I changed. And I had to do deep healing work. I had to go far within myself. Like, I've spent hundreds, thousands of hours on a healing table, doing all sorts of healing modalities, so that I can understand who I am, each time releasing a layer of who I thought I was, or parts that protected me, so that I could really be who I am, and journaling and doing my own work and writing and all of these things. And what I discovered is that I married my mom and dad in one person.

And the good traits, and also the traits that weren't so wonderful, right? So he drank just like my mom, yelled just like my dad. And so it was, and I always, because what I learned, and I'm getting emotional about it now, but what I learned is that if I could just act a certain way, maybe she won't drink. Or if I could just stay out of the way, or say the right things, then maybe he won't yell. So all I was doing was living in this cycle of trying, of this little girl inside of me, trying to finally get the fulfillment and validation that she so craved from external resources, only to find that that will never happen, ever. And once I discovered that I'm the only one that can give that to myself, my whole life changed. Like the clouds parted and the light came down, and this aha moment of, oh wait, it's nothing out there that can give me what I need.

It's only in here. And so I had to discover, what is it that I want? Well, I want them to love me. I want them to choose me. And once I discovered that it was that choosing of me, then I said, well, how am I choosing myself?

And I wasn't. I wasn't choosing me at all. I was letting cycles play out. And the fact of those passive aggressive comments, the arguments, the financials, you know, like I was making multiple six figures. It wasn't that we didn't have the money. It was that I was playing out the same cycles from childhood. It doesn't matter. I'll tell you right now. It doesn't matter how much money you have. If you haven't done the work, you're still going to feel like you're living in survival mode. And so having those, like having those same arguments that I said I would never have, the same things.

So once I went inside and I met that part of me, and I'll say parts, the parts of me that needed what they needed, I started to shift. I didn't need his validation. I didn't need him to choose me because I was choosing me. And once I started choosing me, then I had to make big choices. And so I made little choices at first, waking up early, five minutes early before everybody else. Now I wake up an hour and a half before everybody else by then to choose me every day. But it started small. And then on October 31st, 2021, I was putting all three kids to bed by myself again, while he was at the neighbor's drinking, he didn't even tell me he was going over there. And I was so sad.

I wasn't resentful really anymore. I wasn't really angry at that time when I was laying down, I was angry earlier in the night. But at that time, as I laid there, I wasn't either. I was sad, because I was letting it happen.

Because I was allowing it to happen. And there was a voice inside of me that said, you deserve better. So the next morning, he went to work. And I packed up all my stuff.

And I packed up the kids stuff. And I left. And that was the best thing that I could have ever done. And he hasn't drank since. And so that's, and that's hard. And we ended up getting back together. And we did some healing together. And I won't say that the marriage is perfect. I won't say that at all. But I'll say that we're both aware of what we want and what we need, and how we want or how we can and how we cannot meet each other's needs. And I think that there's beauty in that.

Because he can't meet all my needs, and I can't meet all of his. And that's okay. You know, I was taught that there's supposed to be this fairy tale ending. And that's not necessarily the case, the fairy tale is finding it inside of you. Like that's the happy ending. Yeah, I hear you so much. I mean, I, I agree with all of it. It's beautiful that you have been able to realize that within the same relationship, though.

I've never heard that before. Like for most people, including myself, it's mostly like, yes, our first partner is a copy of our parents or primary caretaker in whichever way that plays out, or is the opposite of it in some ways. But then for most people I know, and for me, that led to a painful breakup. You know, when when you start understanding that, oh, I see what's happening here. It's a pattern. I am choosing someone who treats me in the same ways that I'm used to. And that's not necessarily positive or what I want.

And then that leads to a breakup. And then only many years later, maybe, in my case, I started healing myself. But yeah, I've never before heard the story told from the perspective of like, hey, I'm still in the same relationship. And now we have come to the point where we understand what it means to take responsibility. And we get away from the story that we can indeed fulfill all of each other's needs, because that's just a stupid story to begin with. But yeah, I mean, somehow it's persistent, right? It's so hard to get rid of it. And I recognize and I wonder if that's true for you as well. I know all these things, and I have experienced all these things. And I still recognize the part of myself that longs for that story. Or that kind of tells me in a small voice, but maybe the story could be true, you know?

And then when I see that part, I'm like, yeah, I hear you. It's not true. It's just the story, right? And it's okay. But I'm curious if you still sometimes also have that like, part acting up and going like, Oh, I wish the story was actually true. Yeah. And here's what I'll say too. There's no telling or saying that we'll stay together forever. Right? And that's, and that's not the point. And I want to make sure that that's clear to not just to myself, but to everyone is that success of a relationship isn't determined by the longevity.

And we get to learn from each other, and the lessons that we bring into this life. And sometimes we're meant to stay together, and sometimes we're not. And so I just want to make sure that that's clear.

Don't try to make it work. If it doesn't work.

Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much for that clarification. I think this is really important, right? This is not about like, so, because we can change, stay with whomever you are now, even if it's bad, because it's up to you to make it, you know, from the inside, you're gonna change it for the better.

Obviously, that's not the message. And I'm so happy that you say that again. So yeah, thank you. I agree. Yes. And to answer your question, absolutely.

That love, that divine love, that fulfillment. Yes, 100%. What I found is that I've created a team of people to give me that love. And as I think about how it was portrayed, it's that one person has to give me all of these things that I need. But for me, my husband is very good at fulfilling my physical needs. And I have other friends who are very good at fulfilling my emotional needs. I have my spiritual group who's very good at meeting my spiritual needs. I have a yoga studio that I go to that's good at fulfilling my need to feel connected and in my body. And so for me, it's more like this team.

And I also have a spirit guide team. So I liken it to that as well, right? There's always a team, whether here in the physical or non-physical, that's supporting us. And we've put it on one person. And what a burden to carry. And how difficult that is, not just for our significant other, but for ourselves. I mean, think about how hard that is for ourselves to think like, oh my gosh, I have to be all that they need me to be. And I need to perform in a way that makes them happy and in which I can give them everything that they could possibly need. And if I don't, then I'm failing. That is such a heavy burden to carry. And I don't want to carry that.

And I mean, I don't think anybody really does. And so it's really shifting that dynamic of, well, what does my team look like? How can I be supported emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, financially, right? Maybe we have a job that does the financial piece. We have a community that does a spiritual piece. We have a partner that does the physical piece or actually working out mental. Maybe we have a therapist or a healer or a counselor or a good friend. And emotionally, maybe we have our journal, or we also have other people that can support us as well. And so I think of it as a team. What is the team that can support me? And what's the team that can support you?

Because if we put all of this into one person, what a burden we're handing to them. Yeah, I still struggle with that. I love this idea of a team. And I think in the past two, three years, I've begun building that. I think I still struggle with it when it comes to my relationship to myself, right? I think very often, I still believe that I have to be able to give myself everything I need. And sometimes I fail at that. And luckily, I've been able to build a beautiful practice of compassion, where sometimes I am not able to meet my own needs. And I can relax into that now. I'm like, you know what, that's okay, too. Let's just slouch for a couple of hours, or maybe even for a whole day.

And I just don't know what I need. Or maybe I can't give it to myself for whatever reason. I'm too sad, I'm too tired, whatever it is. And the act of making that okay, kind of also relieves the tension from that, I feel. And so I'm curious if in your own practice of self love, or you're relating to self or whatever you want to call it. How do you see that team there? I only laugh because now we're going to get into the multi dimensionality of what it means to be me. So I have this beautiful self that is me this soul, and I also have many parts of me and, and I don't equate one is greater than the other. I believe that the parts of me are just as valuable as the self, the soul, whatever, whatever, who's listening wants to call it for me, I call it self and soul interchangeably. But these parts of me is kind of like my own little community inside of me. I have a part of me that is almost like the self.

If I'm not paying close enough attention, it could pretend to be the self and I can, I can follow it. I'm like, Oh, wait, no, no, no, you're not the self.

But she's so kind. She's so compassionate. She's so loving. She really wants good for people. And I have this part of me. And so inside of me, there are many different aspects of me that I can go to. And as I do that, I can say, well, what is this part of me need? And the self doesn't need to necessarily give that to me. There could be another part of me inside of me that can say, hey, I know what, what if we go outside?

And what if we just play with our kids right now? Or another part of me that says, hey, well, what if we just lay in the grass and look up at the clouds? Right? And so inside of me is this family. And it's this team that exists inside of me. And so when there is this, when I'm relying on myself, it's, it's also kind of like a team. There's not just one that exists within me, although everything is one, if you will, it is all love. But there's this multidimensionality of what this love is, and how this love shows up for me. And knowing that in each place, that I can discover what I need right here within me. I love that so much, Jessica, the thing is that I totally understand what you're talking about, right?

Because I have all these parts. And the differences between our approaches is that I used to call these parts kind of like my kindergarten. So I see them as an unruly bunch who usually need guidance, or he need to be seen who need my support, who need my love, in order to feel safe. But what I like about your approach is that it's a mutually beneficial relationship, right? So it's, it's not only the higher self or whatever you want to call it, holding space for the parts is also these parts taking on subtasks to kind of like, hey, I can provide that for you.

Or you know, I can do this right now. That's beautiful.

I love that. Yeah, I'm going to reframe this for myself. And I'm going to stop calling them my kindergarten. And I have to figure out something else to call them now.

But that's beautiful. Thank you.

Yes, I love that. And what I'll add to that is, they were, if you were burdened, they were, quote unquote, kindergarten parts, because they were frozen at an age in which they were hurt. But once I gave them freedom for that, from that, they were no longer in that. They were able to express their creativity, their vulnerability, who they are, the art, the, the, you know, the vibration of what they truly are. And so they grew as soon as the healing happened, back into who they really are, which allowed me to be who I really am.

I'll just add that. Love it.

We're nearing the end of this conversation, sadly, because I'm enjoying this. I would love to ask you one more question, because you said earlier that you have spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours on healing tables. And so from that perspective, what would you say has been the most impactful kind of process or therapy or healing modality or anything that you have been through and that you could recommend to people who are looking to improve their relationship with themselves? It's funny, because I've done probably over 30 or 40 different healing modalities, maybe more. And the best one is to write the story of my life.

That was the best. I cried. That was the most cathartic experience of my life was to just get on my computer and write. And it was as though most of the time when I wrote, I would look back and I would say, Who wrote that?

Who wrote that? And tears would just fall down my face. And many times I just had to push my chair back and just cry. And this was after the 10 years, I broke that back in 2018.

I'm not crying. So I've been crying a lot since then, right? And, and just allow myself to process. But it was that self that of me holding the space for all the parts of me to let it go. It was writing the story of my life. It was the most transformational. Just to be clear, what you mean is writing the actual story of your life as it happened, right? Because I can also imagine like a visioning exercise, writing the story of my life from the perspective of what do I want my life to be like, but this is the actual factual kind of like history of Jessica, right? Wow. That's incredible, isn't it? That, you know, you've spent so much time and energy and resources on doing all these kinds of healing modalities.

And then the one thing that you name as most impactful is as simple as just writing your own story that I've never heard about this, but I guess not many people do this, right? Because many people meditate, many people journal, many people do all kinds of somatic practice practices, it's all good. But writing the story of your life is quite a commitment. So I'm curious how you how you decided to do that in the first place? How do you how did you make that commitment? Like, you know, I'm going to sit down and just write the story of my life. I have to laugh just because I wasn't good in reading or writing. You know, I was really focused on math and science. So when they said that, and I couldn't even read until I was in third grade, okay, so if you're out there, and you're like, I can't really read or write, you can do it.

When I had this inkling of I want to write a story, I saw Glennon Doyle. And she said, this was in a different form. But she said, people who are not alcoholics don't wonder if they're an alcoholic. And so I was like, people who wonder if they're a writer or people who aren't writers, they don't wonder if they're a writer.

So I thought, Oh, my gosh, I'm a writer. Right? I, of course, like, I can write. And then I don't know if you know, Sonia Chilquette.

But I did a session with her back in 2020. And she said to me, you have a lot of knowledge and wisdom to share. How are you going to share this? And I said, Well, I've been thinking about writing. And she said, you get this book out. And it doesn't matter how you do it. But you have to do it.

And I said, Okay. And she said, because she's written 26 books. And she said, four more. And she said, write every day at the same time. And I made the commitment. And I woke up in the morning and I meditated, I got the kids ready for school.

I got them off to school. I came back every single morning. I wrote from 730 to eight.

That was it. From 730 to eight. Maybe sometimes I went a little bit longer because it was flowing out.

And I didn't want to stop it. Maybe a few times I started at 745. I didn't get down on myself. Right? Every single day I wrote. And I ended up being I wrote way too many words, by the way.

I wrote 100,000 words, and we had to cut it down to 60,000 words. And, but I just committed to writing.

And I showed up for myself every day. And I chose myself. I chose me every day. Beautiful. Amazing. I don't know if this will actually motivate some of the people who listen to this podcast to write a book about their own life.

But who knows? Right? We never know. I kind of hope it does. But let's see. But and I'm also thinking like, but it won't be me. Because, you know, I've been through this process of like trying to figure out how do I share what I know? How do I share my value with the world? All right. And I thought about writing in the past, but writing is difficult. And writing brings up a lot of like barriers for me.

So I actually chose the podcast as a forum to kind of like put something out there that feels juicy. And easy and nourishing. So I'm still very much resisting the idea of writing. But who knows, at some point, it might happen.

I have two things to say. Number one, what came is yes, this is how you're meant to share your message through this. And the second thing is, I've written two books, well, technically three, but two books. The first one I wrote, it's shelved.

No one will ever see it. Ever. Okay, so just because you write it doesn't mean anybody has to see it. It's so funny when you said that nobody will ever see it. The first thing, the first impulse is like, I'm really curious about that book now. Wonderful. Jessica, thank you so much for this conversation.

This was lovely. Thank you.

Where can people find you, your work, your book? You know, where can they interact with you?

Yes, my website is lovepersonalgrowth.com. www.lovepersonalgrowth.com. And on social media, it's at love personal growth. So just search for me, you could find me, I have a beautiful healing archetype quiz, since I have so much experience in healing that you could take and yeah, just enjoy it. Wonderful. I will post the links in the show notes, and then people can find you there. Beautiful. Thank you so much for having me.

Have a lovely day, Jessica. You too, thank you. www.relatingtoself.com. I will then send you meditations, rituals, practices, and more of these beautiful conversations. Thanks.