How to Love Yourself to the Core | Jen Oliver | TEDxWindsor

Summary

The speaker explores the profound impact of self-love on personal well-being, challenging the weight-obsessed culture and promoting inner connection. By sharing personal experiences and insights, including the importance of positive emotions for physical health and the transformative power of self-compassion, the talk encourages embracing self-love as a foundation for a healthier and more fulfilling life. The speaker advocates for gratitude, positive self-talk, and mindful breathing to cultivate self-love and counteract societal pressures and negative self-perceptions.

Takeaways

• 🤔 The paradox of information: Despite an abundance of information on diet, exercise, and weight loss, there is an increase in body and life dissatisfaction.
• 💖 The importance of self-love: Cultivating self-love is essential for personal inspiration and overall life satisfaction.
• 🧡 The fundamental human need for connection and love, which is often compromised by societal pressures and self-imposed limitations.
• 👶 Childhood experiences shape our understanding of self-worth and the acceptance of love, as illustrated by the speaker's relationship with her mother.
• 🔄 The cycle of comparison and competition, which often leads to a scarcity mindset and feelings of inadequacy.
• 🌟 The concept of magnanimous love, which encompasses kindness, compassion, and empathy, as a deeper form of unconditional love.
• 🚫 The ineffectiveness of diets and the power of love in promoting health and well-being.
• 🧘‍♀️ The role of positive emotions in aligning the nervous system and facilitating better life choices.
• 🤯 The prevalence of negative thoughts and their impact on our emotional state and health.
• 💔 The speaker's personal journey with pregnancy, postpartum pressures, and the realization of the importance of self-love and pelvic health.
• 📚 The creation of 'The Love FitMama Way,' emphasizing the role of love in motherhood and the pitfalls of superficial obsessions with weight and appearance.
• 🌱 The transformative power of gratitude, self-compassion, and the development of new neural pathways filled with self-love.
• 🍰 The study on chocolate cake consumption and its implications on stress levels and long-term weight management.
• 🌈 The speaker's personal practices for fostering self-love, including positive self-talk, gratitude, and mindful breathing.

Q & A

What is the main message of the speaker in this talk?

The main message is the importance of self-love and how it can inspire and improve one's life, as well as the negative impact of societal pressures and self-criticism on personal well-being.

Why does the speaker mention the paradox between the abundance of information on diet and exercise and the rates of dissatisfaction?

The speaker highlights the paradox to illustrate that despite having more information than ever, people are still experiencing high levels of dissatisfaction, suggesting that the issue is not just about knowledge but also about self-perception and self-love.

What is the fundamental human need that the speaker identifies at the beginning of the talk?

The speaker identifies the fundamental human need as a connection through love and a bond, which is essential for emotional well-being.

Can you explain the speaker's personal experience with her mother and how it relates to self-love?

The speaker shares her experience of complimenting her mother, who would reject the compliments due to her own self-perceived flaws. This experience highlights the struggle with self-love and the impact it can have on others.

What does the speaker mean by 'magnanimous love' and why is it significant?

Magnanimous love is described as deeper than unconditional love, encompassing compassion and kindness. It is significant because it represents a deeper level of self-love and acceptance that can lead to better emotional and physical health.

Why does the speaker argue that diets are ineffective and love is the solution?

The speaker suggests that diets are ineffective because they often lead to negative emotions and stress, which can harm the body. Love, on the other hand, fosters positive emotions that can lead to better life choices and overall well-being.

What is the impact of negative thoughts on our emotional and physical health according to the speaker?

Negative thoughts can lead to increased stress hormones like cortisol, which can negatively affect our health and make it harder to lose weight in the long run. They also contribute to a cycle of self-criticism and dissatisfaction.

How does the speaker's personal experience with pregnancy and postpartum recovery contribute to her understanding of self-love?

The speaker's experience with pregnancy and postpartum recovery, including a severe back injury, forced her to confront her own self-criticism and the importance of self-love. It led her to learn about pelvic health and the importance of inner work over superficial fixes.

What is the significance of the speaker's book 'The Love FitMama Way' in the context of the talk?

The book represents the speaker's journey and learning about the importance of self-love for new mothers. It emphasizes the need to focus on love, connection, and bonding with babies rather than on superficial concerns about weight and appearance.

What are the three practices the speaker recommends for cultivating self-love and positive emotions?

The speaker recommends practicing positive self-talk, expressing gratitude for the day's blessings, and taking time each day to breathe and connect with the heart space to cultivate self-love and positive emotions.

How does the speaker address the issue of societal judgment and its impact on self-worth?

The speaker suggests shifting the focus from weight loss to judgment loss, encouraging individuals to let go of feelings of unworthiness and scarcity, and to trust in their inherent worth and the knowledge that they are deserving of love and acceptance.

Outlines

00:00

💖 The Power of Self-Love and Inner Beauty

The speaker, Tina Huynh, delves into the profound impact of self-love and the importance of embracing one's true worth. She discusses the paradox of increased information on health and the rise in dissatisfaction, and sets a goal to inspire the audience with the transformative power of self-love. Reflecting on her childhood admiration for her mother, she highlights the negative impact of self-criticism and the societal pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards. Tina emphasizes the need to move beyond external validation and to cultivate a deep sense of self-worth. She also touches on the damaging effects of negative thoughts and the benefits of positive emotions on our well-being and decision-making.

05:04

🌱 The Healing Journey of Self-Love and Gratitude

In this paragraph, the speaker shares personal experiences that have shaped her understanding of self-love and gratitude. Born with a heart defect, she reflects on the power of positive emotions and their impact on her health. Tina explains the physiological effects of positive emotions on the heart and arteries, contrasting them with the harmful effects of negative emotions. She also discusses the importance of gratitude, learned from her early encounters with mortality, and how it has influenced her approach to life. The speaker then transitions into the challenges faced by new mothers, including societal pressures and the importance of focusing on love and connection rather than superficial concerns.

10:08

📚 Lessons from Motherhood: Cultivating Inner Strength

The speaker recounts her journey through motherhood and the lessons it taught her about self-love and inner strength. Tina discusses the pressures new mothers face to conform to societal expectations regarding weight and appearance, and her own struggle with these pressures after pregnancy. She shares how an injury led her to a deeper understanding of the importance of 'innercise' and the need for rehabilitation that goes beyond the physical. The speaker also reflects on her past as a trainer and the realization that she may have unknowingly put new mothers at risk. This leads to her writing a book, 'The Love FitMama Way,' which emphasizes the importance of starting with love and slowing down to trust one's intuition.

15:08

🍰 Transforming Perspectives on Food and Self-Worth

In the final paragraph, the speaker challenges the weight-obsessed culture and the negative emotions associated with food, such as guilt and shame. Tina introduces the concept of 'judgment loss' as an alternative to weight loss, advocating for the release of feelings of unworthiness and embracing self-worth. She discusses ingrained patterns and the importance of creating new neural pathways filled with self-love. The speaker also presents a study on the effects of guilt versus celebration when eating chocolate cake, highlighting the physiological impact of these emotions on stress levels and long-term weight management. Tina concludes with practical advice for fostering self-love, including positive self-talk, gratitude, and mindful breathing, and leaves the audience with a powerful quote about loving the body and life one has.

Keywords

💡Self-love

Self-love refers to the appreciation and care one has for oneself. It is a central theme of the video, emphasizing the importance of internal validation and acceptance. The speaker illustrates this through personal experiences and the societal pressures that often undermine it. For example, the speaker recounts how their mother's inability to accept compliments due to self-doubt was a missed opportunity for self-love.

💡Body Dissatisfaction

Body dissatisfaction is the negative perception and unhappiness with one's physical appearance. The video discusses how the abundance of information on diet and exercise has paradoxically led to increased body dissatisfaction. The speaker points out that this dissatisfaction is historically high, indicating a societal issue with self-image.

💡Connection

Connection, in the context of the video, signifies the fundamental human need for social bonds and emotional ties. The speaker reminisces about their deep love for their mother, highlighting the importance of these connections in our lives. Connection is also tied to the concept of self-love, suggesting that loving oneself is a form of connecting with one's own emotions and needs.

💡Magnanimous Love

Magnanimous love is a profound form of love that encompasses not only unconditional love but also compassion and kindness. The speaker describes it as 'deeper than unconditional love,' suggesting a level of love that is all-encompassing and healing. This concept is used to illustrate the depth of self-love that the speaker advocates for.

💡Nervous System

The nervous system is the body's network of nerves and neurons that coordinate body functions and respond to stimuli. The video explains how negative emotions can cause 'nervous system chaos,' while positive emotions help bring it into alignment. This is used to argue for the importance of self-love and positive thinking in maintaining physical and mental health.

💡Thought Patterns

Thought patterns refer to the recurring or habitual ways in which individuals think. The video mentions that a significant portion of our daily thoughts are repeats from the previous day and are often negative. This concept is crucial in understanding how self-talk and mindset can influence our emotions and behaviors.

💡Gratitude

Gratitude is the quality of being thankful or showing appreciation for what one has. The speaker shares personal stories of gratitude, such as being grateful for their life and health, and how it has positively influenced their outlook. Gratitude is presented as a tool for cultivating self-love and a positive mindset.

💡Pelvic Health

Pelvic health relates to the well-being of the muscles and organs in the pelvic region. The speaker discusses the importance of understanding and rehabilitating the pelvic core after childbirth, which is a specific aspect of self-care and self-love, especially for new mothers.

💡Innercise

Innercise, a term coined by the speaker, refers to the internal work of self-improvement and self-healing. It is used to describe the process of rehabilitating from physical injuries and emotional traumas by focusing on internal strength and self-love, rather than external appearances or achievements.

💡Weight-Obsessed Culture

Weight-obsessed culture is a societal phenomenon where weight is overly emphasized as a measure of health, beauty, or worth. The video criticizes this culture for causing unnecessary stress and negative self-perception. The speaker advocates for a shift towards judgment loss, or reducing the emphasis on weight and appearance.

💡Scarcity Mindset

Scarcity mindset is the belief that resources, opportunities, or worth are limited. In the video, the speaker talks about overcoming this mindset, which often leads to feelings of unworthiness and competition. The speaker encourages embracing self-love and abundance, rather than scarcity and lack.

💡Positive Self-Talk

Positive self-talk involves consciously choosing to speak to oneself in an encouraging and supportive manner. The speaker emphasizes the importance of eliminating negative self-criticism and replacing it with positive affirmations as a way to foster self-love and improve mental well-being.

Highlights

The paradox of increased information on diet and exercise leading to higher rates of dissatisfaction.

The importance of self-love and its role in personal inspiration.

The fundamental human need for connection and love.

The negative impact of self-criticism and the importance of accepting compliments.

The concept of magnanimous love and its depth beyond unconditional love.

The ineffectiveness of diets and the power of love in making better life choices.

The impact of negative emotions on the nervous system and the alignment brought by positive emotions.

The significance of the number of thoughts we have daily and their tendency to be negative.

The speaker's personal experience with a heart condition and the power of positive emotions on physical health.

The transformative effect of gratitude on one's life, as experienced by the speaker.

The challenges faced by new mothers in a weight-obsessed culture and the importance of focusing on love and connection.

The realization of the superficiality of external fitness obsessions after an injury.

The concept of 'innercise' and its necessity for true rehabilitation and self-care.

The speaker's journey in writing 'The Love FitMama Way' and the importance of starting with love.

The idea of shifting focus from weight loss to judgment loss and embracing self-worth.

The speaker's personal strategies for promoting self-love and positive thinking.

The final message on loving the body and life you have to achieve the body and life you love.

Transcripts

Translator: Tina Huynh Reviewer: Peter van de Ven

What inspires you?

How inspired are you

by the thoughts you think,

the words you use,

the feelings you feel,

and the core values and beliefs you live by?

It's not so black and white,

and there are many missing pieces of the puzzle.

The more information we have

on diet, exercise and weight loss,

the higher the rates of body dissatisfaction

and life dissatisfaction we have

than ever before in history.

I'm going to leave you with two things by the end of this talk.

One, how greater self-love will inspire your life.

And two, how to cultivate more of it.

One of the first and most basic fundamental needs that we have as humans

is a connection through love, a bond.

I remember, like it was yesterday,

feeling so much love and adoration for my mom,

who in my eyes was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

She was a mix between a super model and Superwoman,

and she could do no wrong.

I used to love watching her get dressed, watching her get ready for going out,

dressing in beautiful outfits.

I would always compliment her.

"Mom, that dress is so beautiful on you! Where are you going? Let's take a picture.

Oh, I love that. That looks so good!"

And in return, I would receive,

"This? Oh God no. I look so fat today. No pictures. Oh God no."

Like a slap in the face.

I felt wrong.

I was wrong while I was extending love that she couldn't accept at that time

because of a block of her own.

When will it be that we stop justifying, people pleasing,

looking outside ourselves for validation about our worth

that we know comes from within?

Maybe if we felt that true depth of worth and love for ourselves,

we wouldn't constantly be comparing to everyone else, looking at others

and feeling that if they succeed, that means I must fail.

If they're good, I must be bad.

This natural scarcity and this feeling of competition with all those around us.

When will it end?

I know it's possible for us to look in the mirror

and see true beauty, see love,

with kindness, compassion, empathy,

and true magnanimous love.

Magnanimous is deeper than unconditional love.

It goes to the depths that include compassion and kindness -

true depth.

Diets don't work.

Love does.

Negative emotions cause nervous system chaos,

while positive emotions bring the nervous system into alignment.

We make better choices for our lives and for our health

when we come from a positive emotional space.

And we feel it right here.

Did you know we have on average 70,000 thoughts in a single day?

And did you know that 98% of those thoughts

are repeats from yesterday.

And that about 80% of them are negative

towards ourselves or somebody else.

How do you think all that negativity is making you feel?

Love.

It's one of those first things we feel,

but while we go through these experiences in life that shut us down a little,

I want to get closer to you so I compliment you,

I'm in awe of you.

And yet little bit by little bit we get closed down, we get shut down.

I feel very fortunate to have had an experience like I did.

Upon being born, I was removed from my parents shortly after,

and they were told that I had a heart defect.

I was not alright,

I had to be taken away to be put in the incubator,

and true fear came over them, as it would any parent.

What I didn't realize at the time and only now looking back at it

was that all the attention -

all the love, healing, the worry,

the positive vibes that were sent to me growing up,

in all my many visits to the hospital,

checking up on me, making sure I was still okay -

unbeknownst to me, this actually strengthened my heart.

Did you know

positive emotions actually strengthen the integrity of our heart, our arteries?

We can literally harden our own arteries of our heart

through negative emotion.

It's quite fascinating.

Gratitude.

We've learned a little bit about this today,

and we know it is that secret ingredient.

I feel very grateful that my mortality was shown to me from a very young age.

You have a problem. Let's make sure you are always okay.

I wasn't sure there was always going to be a next day.

So I lived in gratitude.

And I knew the feeling

when my mom didn't like my compliments or didn't receive them,

that I didn't want to do that to others.

These were two really great lessons in my life.

Interestingly enough though,

it wasn't until the biggest life lesson, of pregnancy and postpartum,

came to teach me something that I had not yet learned.

The true depth of self-love.

Day after day, thousands of babies are being born,

and moms are feeling the pressure.

Feeling the pressure of needing to lose weight,

of looking a certain way,

of doing certain things to make sure they measured up.

But we don't really want to lose weight in that time of our lives.

We don't want to focus on things

that we should be superficially obsessed about.

We want to focus on the love, connection and bonding with our babies.

But I, too, fell prey to our weight-obsessed culture,

and I was worried after I had gained over 50 pounds in my pregnancy,

worrying that,

"What would people think of me if I was a trainer and I was overweight?"

I had all these preconceived notions of things I had to do.

What I needed to do to keep up.

What I made sure that I should do so that I could tell others to do this.

And you know what I did?

I gave myself a really, really, really horrible injury.

I injured my back to the point where I ended up in the hospital twice

in a single week.

My babies were just one and three at the time.

I was not able to lift them.

I was not able to bathe them.

I was not able to care for them

in the way that me, as a young new mom, would have loved to.

This brought up in me more than I ever could have bargained for.

I didn't even realize how much I often justified,

"Well, sure, I'll eat this,

because then I can go work out and I'll work it off."

I had all these weird stories and messages

that I didn't even realize were happening in my head.

Not being able to exercise,

not being able to work up a sweat,

and even having pain just breathing

allowed me to learn the true essence of what was necessary.

It's the innercise, the inside work, that was absolutely necessary

for me to rehabilitate from this experience of having babies.

From the time that I hurt myself,

I learned everything that I could about the core.

I wanted to understand exactly how I could rehab my own back,

and through this, I learned about pelvic health,

I learned about the deep versus the superficial core,

I learned how to rehabilitate it

and breathe in a way that was actually supportive to me.

And this after years of training and teaching mom-and-baby bootcamp

to new moms.

Now knowing -

If I knew then what I knew now,

that was the most contraindicated thing that these moms could have done.

I actually put them in front of danger, as well as myself, without knowing it.

This is the lesson I learned.

I was able to write a book called "The Love FitMama Way,"

knowing that being a fit mama all starts with love.

It's not about all those superficial external things

that you think you need to do, have to do all the time.

It's all about slowing down, trusting your gut.

This is our second brain right here.

And after the trauma so many moms go through, we just shut it down.

We want to be in our heart space feeling love

but instead, we're in our heads

feeling shame, regret, "I shouldn't do that,"

"I didn't go to the gym," "I'm horrible, oh my gosh" -

it never ends.

This does not need to be the way.

And I truly feel that we as a collective can transform the core of motherhood

through education and through inspiration

and through giving them a different alternative.

I specifically wanted to target our weight-obsessed culture.

Weight loss, weight loss, weight loss.

We judge people over and above what is necessary.

What if instead of weight loss, we did judgement loss?

What about letting go of all that scarcity that we have,

that feeling of unworthiness.

That should never up for debate.

You are worthy.

You began that way. You will end that way.

That never needs to change. Trust that.

Trust that knowledge.

We have such ingrained patterns,

neural pathways that we have created,

formulated from all those stories we've told our selves,

all those experiences where we made ourselves the bad guy.

Did you know there is no survival adaptive benefit to being your own worst enemy?

None whatsoever.

We can give it up.

It's going to be uncomfortable,

but it will feel good as you lay down those new neural networks

filled with self-love.

Chocolate cake.

Once a symbol of loving, fun celebration,

now a poster-child for words like guilt,

shame, regret, cheating, bad!

I want to tell you about a study done with chocolate cake.

They had two groups, and they asked them how they felt about eating chocolate cake.

They divided them into two groups after that.

One group was the guilty group.

"I'm guilty, I'm bad, I ate the chocolate cake."

The other group that ate the chocolate cake

did so in celebration and fun.

That was their mindset.

They didn't put the mindset on them.

Those were the two groups that had those mindsets.

What they found when they later tested

was that the guilty group was significantly higher

in the stress hormone cortisol,

which we all know is a sign that you are way stressed out,

if your cortisol is shooting through the roof.

Now not only is the guilty group

feeling negative emotions and feeling more stressed,

but in fact, in the longer term,

those guilty folks had a harder time losing weight

and weighed more in the long run.

Guilt: also not a positively adaptive ...

emotion.

There is no cheating, just choosing.

Choose the foods you eat.

Don't use them,

but choose them consciously.

But not from your head,

where you are thinking, "Oh shoot, is this part of my diet?"

"That person said that's bad." "Oh no, I'm not eating that this week."

Get it out and bring it down,

bring it down into the positive emotions of the heart,

remembering a time when you felt true deep love.

This is where the magic is.

It starts from the heart.

It moves into the core,

where you trust that the beliefs and the values that you live by

are worthy.

All we want is connection.

We want love.

We want to feel loved and connected to people,

not because of how we look,

but because of who we are on the inside.

We want to connect with amazing people, high-vibe people, living it up,

and yet we are down here saying,

"Oh no. No, I'm ugly. I have shame. I have regret. I shouldn't have."

Low vibration.

Those two are not going to connect.

I want to leave you with three things that I do

because I don't recommend things to others that I first and always don't do myself.

The first thing: positive self-talk only.

Under no circumstances do you deserve to be berated

for the fact that you missed the gym

or you ate a piece of cake or you did anything.

You don't deserve it, most especially not from yourself.

Make a pact.

Number two:

Remember those 98% of your thoughts that you repeated from yesterday?

Let's ditch them.

That leaves you over 68,000 thoughts that you could instead say the words:

thank you, thank you for this day, thank you for my friend,

thank you for my heart beating.

You could find 68,000 things in a day

that are for sure going to positively impact your life

and inspire you much more than those negative thoughts.

And third:

take time every single day to breathe.

Breathe into that heart space and feel the love.

Positive emotions will keep your heart strong.

Breathe into your core.

Understand how it works.

Get deeper than the superficial.

There's always more than meets the eye.

And lastly,

I am going to leave you with this quote,

that if you can love the body and life you have,

you will have the body and life you love.

Thank you.

(Applause)