[00:00:00] Nikki La Croce: Hey, gang, this week's episode of Can I Just Say is another episode with my partner in business and life, Nicole. And we talk a lot about the importance of cultivating a sense of self love, the magic that happens when you witness other people on their journeys of transformation and healing, and why it's so important to offer support when you have the opportunity to share your experiences with others.

[00:00:24] Nikki La Croce: So if that sounds like something that will resonate with you, let's dive in.

[00:00:33] Nikki La Croce: I think one of the things that is so great about watching people grow is when you have an investment in somebody because you just like them as a person. And it actually really makes me think about when I was in points in my career where somebody mentored me and really you could tell they were investing in you because they care about you.

[00:00:52] Nikki La Croce: Right. In a corporate environment, I feel like there's a little bit of politics at play and That can kind of ebb and flow in terms of mentorship with people, but it also actually really inspired me to be a mentor to other people in a way that was less political and, and intended to help somebody rise up a ladder and more like, I just get this incredible fulfillment of watching you shine and succeed and experience this growth.

[00:01:23] Nikki La Croce: And I hadn't really considered how similar that is to the feeling that I get when we watch friends go through this transformative type of growth.

[00:01:34] Nicole Skutelnik: It is such a rush, such a rush for me. I, I feel it's like, it's like what I can only imagine drugs feel like only better because there's no come down. There's no any of that.

[00:01:46] Nicole Skutelnik: I just, I keep being on a high until I just gradually end up normal again.

[00:01:50] Nikki La Croce: Yeah. Well, I think calling it a rush is such a great way to describe it because there is, there's this flood of dopamine. I feel like, It's the best high that you can get. It's watching something unfold at such a rapid pace, too. Not necessarily in terms of, oh, they've heard something and it clicks immediately and boom, the growth happens.

[00:02:12] Nikki La Croce: But it's sort of that transitional moment where, whether it's over the course of an evening or you've talked a few times or whatever it might be. And the seed has been planted and you're sort of starting to see the sprouts come up from the ground. And then the moment that the flower blossoms, you're just like, ah, it's so beautiful.

[00:02:36] Nikki La Croce: What a miraculous thing to watch happen in front of you. For me, a big part of that rush. It comes from the knowing of what it feels like when I've felt a really intense transformation happen for myself, and it's now this vicarious sensation of, oh my gosh, you know what it's like now. I'm so happy for you.

[00:02:55] Nikki La Croce: Mm-Hmm, .

[00:02:56] Nicole Skutelnik: It's like, I felt this before. I want you to feel it too. What can I say that might help you get there? Because, you know, people can get there on their own gradually or with the help of therapy and with other friends and stuff. I want to be that friend. Yes. That is having the conversation with you that sparks something that makes you go, Oh, I want to I never thought about it like that before.

[00:03:16] Nicole Skutelnik: You're

[00:03:17] Nikki La Croce: inciting an aha moment. It's beautiful. But it's not with the intention of doing that fully, right? Like the way that we're talking about it is, we're not planning to go in and being like, this is the growth that's going to happen this evening. Now, I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that sometimes we think about conversations we'd love to have with people and see, you know, what comes of that.

[00:03:38] Nikki La Croce: But the organic nature. is something that you can't predict because you really don't know how somebody's going to respond anyway when you bring up a topic. So part of the magic that happens is in that flow of, okay, we've said this and it sparked something in you and now the wheels are turning and we all get to experience this together.

[00:04:00] Nikki La Croce: The light bulb going off, the sensation that somebody gets Maybe I feel differently about this now, or maybe I could feel differently about it if I'm not totally there yet. There is now a catalyst that has been jump started and we're gonna see what happens next.

[00:04:16] Nicole Skutelnik: We're just going to see you evolve as we sit there and eat our popcorn and then say the odd thing that may like spark the next thing and we're like, evolve.

[00:04:25] Nicole Skutelnik: Yes, keep evolving. Yes. I love it. I love it so much. And so we're at an event, a birthday last night, where one of our new friends, good friend, Who has become a very good friend very fast, was there, and we of course got into a very deep conversation very fast because that is our favorite thing to do, and it probably annoys everybody around us, but we can't help ourselves, and she brought to us a situation with a romantic interest of hers that she wanted to talk through, and we are so here for that.

[00:04:55] Nicole Skutelnik: It is not about wanting the drama. We want to help you work through it so that

[00:05:00] Nikki La Croce: you can see your worth. And also, if I can interject for a second, it's like you said, it's not for the drama. It's actually what I want is to help you avoid the drama. Totally. I want you to sidestep the drama or acknowledge that the drama was there and release it because you don't need it.

[00:05:16] Nikki La Croce: I don't, nothing good comes from feeling drama in a relationship. Totally. I lived in a state of it's not fun. And You can see somebody sort of have the wheels spinning and acknowledge that I don't really like what's happening here. I don't want to be the person that I used to be that feeds into that and also relates to that because of what I'm going through.

[00:05:38] Nikki La Croce: I want to be the person who acknowledges that that's not healthy. What you're feeling is an indication that you know that it's not healthy. The problem that I think a lot of people face or maybe challenge is that you don't know what healthy looks like. So you know that it doesn't feel right, but you also don't know what does feel right.

[00:05:58] Nicole Skutelnik: A lot of us, because we have a lot of insecurity as we're growing and learning in relationships come from a place of either an anxious attachment or an avoidant attachment. We don't inherently usually have a healthy attachment. going in and dating. That would be amazing if people could learn that early on and approach all relationships in a healthy way.

[00:06:17] Nicole Skutelnik: Yeah. But it's just not where we're at at this point. What a dream

[00:06:20] Nikki La Croce: though, right? Maybe that's

[00:06:21] Nicole Skutelnik: something we're gonna help people with. I hope that would be amazing.

[00:06:24] Nikki La Croce: Given our individual experiences with our personal growth and how we've spoken about the way we grew through the relationships that we had, for better and for worse in terms of what those relationships were.

[00:06:37] Nikki La Croce: The monumental shift in the way that we view ourselves and the way that we understand where we misstepped or, uh, compromised who we were, self abandon, self abandonment is a big thing that we do because we just want that person to want us. It's just. One of the most incredibly healing things to be able to witness somebody else going through something and say, there is better for you.

[00:07:07] Nikki La Croce: And I say that from a place of knowing, not sort of speculating that it's possible. It's really hard to receive feedback. When people are like, Yeah, it'll get better, don't worry. What does that look like though? What does better look like and how do I even understand what it means to me?

[00:07:24] Nicole Skutelnik: Well, I want to bring up something that she said.

[00:07:27] Nicole Skutelnik: She made a point of saying, I fear the day that this guy that she had been seeing who she's no longer interested in, but is holding on to emotionally out of insecurity. shows up to a friend event where they have friends in common with a girl and she doesn't have anyone and she thought that that would be gut wrenching, that would be embarrassing, whatever the feeling was.

[00:07:53] Nicole Skutelnik: I understand having been in her shoes in the past why it would feel that way if you feel insecure and you're so, so almost desperate for that love that you're looking for. Because you are insecure on the inside, you haven't done the work to know that being alone is better than being with the wrong person, yet you don't, you may know that on an intellectual level, but like you can't feel that on the inside because you so desperately want to feel the love and you're so afraid that you're not going to get it.

[00:08:22] Nikki La Croce: Yeah, and you're being ruled by the insecurity. So this is the benefit of talking to other people who are insecure. feeding into the drama but are offering an objective perspective because it was very easy for you to offer advice in that moment and feel like You have this person saying, this is what I'm concerned about.

[00:08:44] Nikki La Croce: Also, I don't like that I feel this way about it. The fact that you don't like that you feel this way about it means that you probably are open to receiving some feedback and likely want to change. Maybe it doesn't feel like it's time yet or that you're comfortable making that change immediately, but you have to get the wheels turning at some point.

[00:09:03] Nikki La Croce: And once those wheels start turning, they can move pretty fast.

[00:09:06] Nicole Skutelnik: Because you'll start to, when these situations come up again, you're going to start to see that, oh, I could handle this differently. Yeah. Oh, it's the best. Before it sinks in, before that drama in yourself starts to, the panic starts to set in, you're going to be like, whoa, hold on a second.

[00:09:22] Nicole Skutelnik: This is happening again. I choose different, you know, and that's not going to mean that you're never going to feel it again, but it might be just a little less next time. The big

[00:09:31] Nikki La Croce: piece of the puzzle that we were talking about with her also is that the more you value and love yourself, the less weight you're going to put in to those situations or feelings of insecurity that you have, because it really isn't about your feelings towards them.

[00:09:48] Nikki La Croce: It's about your feelings towards yourself. that make how they feel about you seem more relevant than they actually are. Because I said to her, I was like, this person's becoming increasingly irrelevant to you. The more you love yourself, the less that matters. It's just that we're so prone to seeking that validation from somebody else because we might not even understand that we don't love ourselves.

[00:10:11] Nikki La Croce: But I also do think to some extent we maybe do know that we don't love ourselves, but then we also don't know what it looks like. to decide you're going to. And that was something that she said, right? She's like, but what does that mean? What does it mean to love yourself? And how do you, how do I do

[00:10:26] Nicole Skutelnik: that?

[00:10:26] Nicole Skutelnik: Tell me the steps to get there. Right? Like I'm very much, what's the formula? Yeah. I like a formula because it's something you can follow and then it takes away all the brain work really. It doesn't work like that when it comes to self love. Wouldn't you love it though? I would love it. I would love all of the inner work to have a formula.

[00:10:46] Nicole Skutelnik: Step one. That would take all the fun out of it actually because at the end of the day, once you start having these epiphanies and implementing the things that you're learning, whether through therapy or through your journaling or whatever it is you're doing that is creating this evolution for yourself, once you start implementing that into your life, you expand, you evolve, you start seeing.

[00:11:06] Nicole Skutelnik: You're past in a way that's like, oh, I've moved past that. I've evolved from that. I can maybe even mourn that part of my life now, but I've moved on and it is the most growing,

[00:11:18] Nikki La Croce: empowering feeling. Empowering is the right way to say it, for sure. And something that you described too is it's the, it's the, Acknowledging of the circumstance with an objectivity that you can't have when you're in the thick of it, and not just in the thick of the relationship, but in the thick of the emotions that are holding you back, that are keeping you stuck, that are making you feel insecure.

[00:11:38] Nikki La Croce: Because the other thing that she said was, I recognize that I'm in this pattern, I'm in this loop, and I need something to help me veer into a different place. That identification of the fact that you are in the loop. is such a major step. And I don't want to discount the self awareness piece of it, because self awareness is step one in getting to self love.

[00:12:01] Nikki La Croce: Because if you don't first understand that you don't like these things about yourself, that you don't feel good in these situations, then you're never going to do anything to change it. So you've got to know that it's happening and acknowledge that it's not what you want anymore.

[00:12:15] Nicole Skutelnik: And I think when you're on the process of trying to figure out, okay, well, how do I love myself?

[00:12:19] Nicole Skutelnik: You have to Consider, okay, yes, normally we'll go, these are the things I don't like about myself. How the heck am I ever going to get to a place of self love when I'm just going, all these things I want to change about myself, or I see these people doing this, but I can't get there because Maybe I'm in the thick of emotions on things.

[00:12:37] Nicole Skutelnik: Start by considering what you do love about yourself. Because when we come from a place of positivity, we're going to invite more positivity into our lives. It is vibrational. That's my spirituality. That is manifestation 101. You have to think about what it feels like

[00:12:55] Nikki La Croce: to actually love yourself.

[00:12:56] Nicole Skutelnik: Yes. And then let's take something that you don't like about yourself now.

[00:13:00] Nicole Skutelnik: Let's start with one at a time because it's too overwhelming if you're going to try and change everything about yourself all at once. Let's take that one thing and then let's sit with it. visualize yourself handling yourself differently in those same situations that you're in. Give me an example. Okay, you said something that was embarrassing, and you wish that you wouldn't say embarrassing things in a social setting, okay?

[00:13:24] Nicole Skutelnik: You tend to do that, you blurt out things. I wish I didn't do that. I wish I could just sit there comfortably and not say anything. So sit and meditate. And reimagine this situation or any situation that has ever been where you've done something uncomfortable and change the narrative. Reimagine it and watch yourself in the moment do it differently.

[00:13:48] Nicole Skutelnik: And then do it again, and then do it again, and maybe try different things that you do do instead of the things that you don't want to do, right?

[00:13:54] Nikki La Croce: What if somebody says, I don't understand how to meditate, or I don't want to meditate, what would you suggest to them?

[00:14:06] Nicole Skutelnik: First, I may ask, why? You don't want to meditate.

[00:14:10] Nicole Skutelnik: Is it because you don't understand what it means to meditate? I would say, if you don't know what it means, Google what it means. Basically, it means sitting quietly. You can either meditate in silence or use a guided meditation. If you're just getting started, I say, use a guided meditation.

[00:14:26] Nikki La Croce: I agree with that.

[00:14:27] Nikki La Croce: I really struggled to silence my brain and I think it puts a lot of pressure on you to eliminate your thought rather than reconsider. Totally.

[00:14:38] Nicole Skutelnik: So go to YouTube. There's a million guided meditations on there. We're going to have some on our account. If we don't already, at the time we're posting this, we will have some guided meditations as well.

[00:14:47] Nicole Skutelnik: Just pick one that's five minutes, eight minutes, whatever, and just sit and listen to what they're saying and try it. And if they're getting you to visualize, just try to visualize those things. The one thing you don't want to do with meditation is shame yourself when your mind drifts. It happens to all of us, even people who are really good at meditating, your mind is going to drift.

[00:15:06] Nicole Skutelnik: The main purpose of meditation is that when it drifts, you just pull it back, pull it back. Even if it happens like every five seconds, just keep pulling it back. Mine does. When I try to sit in silent meditation, I can't do 10 seconds straight without my mind going somewhere else. It's crazy. Our friend that we were just talking about said she was doing eight minutes of silent meditation.

[00:15:26] Nicole Skutelnik: My mind was absolutely blown. I could never, like, up until now, I have never come anywhere near eight minutes of silent meditation.

[00:15:34] Nikki La Croce: I think the most quiet my mind has ever been is when I was falling from an airplane skydiving because there was nothing else to think about. Clearing your mind for a significant amount of time is challenging for everyone.

[00:15:53] Nikki La Croce: You have to be in very, a very specific state to be able to really navigate that with, um, With ease, I rarely do silent meditation because my brain will just keep flying about. I will say though, if there's a question that you kind of want to ask yourself, maybe doing something that isn't purely silence, but using frequencies, I do find helpful because I have ADHD.

[00:16:25] Nikki La Croce: So I sort of need another noise to be happening, to focus my brain on whatever it is that I do want to do. So let's say I want to navigate the anxiety that I'm having about a certain social situation. I would probably turn on some sort of background music that doesn't have lyrics, get myself into sort of that state of calm and maybe focus on a specific question that I could ask myself.

[00:16:50] Nikki La Croce: I don't have a thought in my brain about what that question might be at this exact moment. So apologies for that, but. I think that it is just about being intentional about where you're going with it and not just attempting to be a blank slate and expecting answers to come to you.

[00:17:04] Nicole Skutelnik: No, I think that's, that's really good.

[00:17:06] Nicole Skutelnik: There's lots of ways to do meditation that is not silent and not guided with music. There's, like you say, the frequencies, there's all different frequencies, and this is a little next level, but you can look into them based on the chakra that they associate with. Each chakra will work on a different part of your body, which is a different emotional release that you can have if you're, if you're trying to, um, what's the phrase?

[00:17:31] Nicole Skutelnik: Cleanse, cleanse that chakra. Yeah. Release and cleanse that chakra. So, um, but that's level two. Pick a frequency. If it bothers you, if that frequency that you're listening to just irks you, it probably means that needs cleansing at the chakra that it is. So sit with that. You

[00:17:50] Nikki La Croce: might just not like the sound.

[00:17:52] Nikki La Croce: It

[00:17:52] Nicole Skutelnik: can be, but think about sound bowls. Right? Sometimes you just need to get through that first bit of discomfort before it settles in. There's this one meditation and I'll link it below that someone does where they do the entire chakra, like one, two, up to seven with sound balls. So they start with the root chakra and they work their way up.

[00:18:11] Nicole Skutelnik: And without fail, every single time there's one more than the others that just. And it's not always the same one. It just gets under my skin and I'm like, okay, that is the chakra that needs the cleansing. Whatever's going on, whatever's associated with that chakra is the part that, you know, I need to work through.

[00:18:27] Nicole Skutelnik: The most recent time was the solar plexus, which was about inner power. I was feeling a little stunted. I was feeling unconfident about what I was trying to do, what we're trying to do, trying to get on camera. And it was holding me back. And then I put that on. And since then, I feel like it's, it's just unlocked it.

[00:18:45] Nicole Skutelnik: I only listened to it once. It'll come back, probably, and I'll have to do it again. But it just, it's, it's, I don't know how it works, but I don't need to know because all I know is that it works.

[00:18:56] Nikki La Croce: At the very least, if it's a placebo effect, it's still, it's something within your, um, within your psyche.

[00:19:03] Nikki La Croce: Totally. That is allowing you to clear it. I want to bring this back to sort of the nature of the conversation because I feel like we just veered off into something much, much different, um, which it's, I think it's important to acknowledge that these are things that we care about talking about, but I also want to bring it back to the desired focus around helping other people through their growth process.

[00:19:22] Nikki La Croce: So we were talking about ways that you can navigate a self love journey and how you get to a place of greater acceptance of yourself. And the reason we got into the meditation piece of it was sit with the part of yourself that feels uncomfortable right now. You don't always have to do that with meditation.

[00:19:40] Nikki La Croce: Like you said, you can do that with journaling. Something that I value doing is, um, shadow work, but I'm not, I'm not great at journaling in the sense that I can write, but I feel very distracted by the words and the nuance and the semantics of what I'm writing. So sometimes if I need to work through something, I will just hit record on a voice memo or my camera and just start talking, ask myself the questions that are listed as prompts and go there by myself.

[00:20:05] Nikki La Croce: I think a lot of times we seek not just the external validation from people to help fill that, uh, lack of self love, but also we're kind of trying to get answers from people. And it's, there is absolutely a benefit to tapping into your support system and doing that. There's also so much that needs to be done within yourself by yourself.

[00:20:27] Nikki La Croce: So it's learning how to find that balance. And one of the things that our friend said was, I'm talking a lot to my friends about these things. And I can feel like that's not enough still. So what that says to me is there is part of you that is craving something more, something deeper for you within you that nobody else is going to provide to you.

[00:20:47] Nikki La Croce: And that's where it comes down to what's holding me back from loving myself. And she had made a comment that, um, I think in the specific scenario that you described, it was sort of like, well, what does that say about me if they don't want to be with me? Well, you don't want to be with them either. So first of all, don't be with them.

[00:21:08] Nikki La Croce: Right. But what that says to me, because of this point of transformation that she's at this, this crossroads really, right? It's you, you have now the acknowledgement that self awareness is there. I am insecure. I don't like how this is making me feel, because we're insecure, part of what ends up happening is you are now shaming yourself for the insecurity that you have, even though you have acknowledged that you do not want this situation that doesn't fit you to be in your life anymore.

[00:21:37] Nikki La Croce: You're shaming yourself going, why did I allow this to happen in the first place? This says something significant about me as a person, and I don't like it. The reality of the situation is that you can reframe that. You can, this is easier said than done. And I've done a lot of work to release shame. So I'm speaking from a place of my own self discovery is that you can look at that and say, I'm so mad at myself, disappointed in myself, embarrassed by the fact that I stayed for so long.

[00:22:04] Nikki La Croce: This is a couple of weeks for her. I'm speaking to my own experience being a decade with somebody I should have left sooner. Shame on me for accepting it, putting up with it, et cetera. You can also look at that as. Good for me, I'm proud of myself for realizing what I don't want, what I won't accept, what I do want, what I will do for myself to actually receive the things that I want in my life.

[00:22:29] Nikki La Croce: Open space for the good things that I want to come in, because if you hold yourself in in contempt over what you should have done differently, what you could have done differently, why you didn't do it differently sooner. You're going to stay in that vibration that keeps you low, feeling worthless. And what you need to do is amp yourself up and decide that you are the better version of yourself.

[00:22:50] Nikki La Croce: And maybe you're not as evolved as you will be yet, but this is the jumping off point and you're ready and raring to go.

[00:22:56] Nicole Skutelnik: Oh yeah. It takes incremental steps that will suddenly add up to a lot before you even know it's happening. Yeah. You'll all of a sudden see your growth because you will handle yourself in a situation much differently than you would have previously without having to think about it first.

[00:23:13] Nicole Skutelnik: I was someone who liked to, and this is off topic of romantic, but with friends, anytime we fought, I wanted to abandon. So I would walk out of the room, storm out, not talk to them. That was my immature inclination every single time. Avoidance. Fight happens, and the only reason I would walk out is because I need to protect my energy if it's negative energy, but I will not avoid the conversation with them if they want to have a conversation.

[00:23:44] Nicole Skutelnik: I will absolutely talk it out if everyone's going to be mature. I'm not going to yell at them. I'm going to say something like, I don't feel like this is very productive right now, or I'm kind of upset right now, and I need what we call a hognoggle, which is I need to take a series five and come back when I'm not so emotional.

[00:24:02] Nikki La Croce: Because I think one of the things that I will talk a lot about, because this is something I find very valuable and useful for people, including myself, If you can tell that you are dysregulated, your body feels physically uncomfortable with the situation, you are not in a good place to talk about it. Not if it's super heightened, you might still come back to the conversation and be like, I'm a little on edge, we've had it, where we've been like, I think we're ready to talk about it, and it's like, we're clearly not, we're not, you know, so it does take a little bit of getting to know yourself.

[00:24:33] Nikki La Croce: and what that physically feels like for you when you're in enough of a regulated state to come back to it and attempt to resolve the issue.

[00:24:42] Nicole Skutelnik: I think what tells me the most that I'm dysregulated, yes, the body, all of that, we can all understand that, but my mind will tell me to do something very immature.

[00:24:52] Nicole Skutelnik: It will say, say this snappy thing or storm out of the room. Or be passive aggressive. Or be passive aggressive, which is my favorite, right? is my go to. Well, which is mine is just be aggressive, aggressive. Yeah, yours is be aggressive and mine's be passive aggressive. Um, so your response is aggressive minus passive aggressive to your regress or aggressive, right?

[00:25:14] Nicole Skutelnik: None of that is useful and the maturity comes when you can hear that voice and ignore it.

[00:25:18] Nikki La Croce: Mm hmm. Or the words have already come out of your mouth in my case because I'm a little bit too impulsive with it and being like, as I've been just saying these things that I wish I hadn't said to you, follow it.

[00:25:30] Nikki La Croce: The following sentence is me acknowledging that I realized that wasn't okay, but I'm not in a place where I can handle myself maturely right now. So this is what's happening and I'll have to apologize later. Exactly.

[00:25:40] Nicole Skutelnik: Your conflict style, and we're moving into conflict styles here all of a sudden, your conflict style is to.

[00:25:48] Nicole Skutelnik: Emote anger outwardly, minus to implode. So for me, implode and avoid. For me, it was easier to take the beat without reaction to allow myself to have that split second before I, I do say anything versus yours, which is harder to do because yours is more quick. The toothpaste is out of the tube. Exactly. But you notice you do it right after, and then you could acknowledge that, and then you can say, I need the hog noggle, or I need, you know, just a second.

[00:26:22] Nikki La Croce: The visual, the visual that I have of the toothpaste coming out of the tube is like, oh no, it's happened. Then I'm like trying to shove it back in. I'm like, wait a second. I'm so sorry about that. You can still use it.

[00:26:32] Nicole Skutelnik: Exactly. For me, I can, take a beat silently, which may look a little numb on the face for a second, but my mind is going, don't say that irrational thing.

[00:26:41] Nicole Skutelnik: Instead, what could you do differently? And obviously this is not happening in real time. It's sort of a quick response, but then I go, okay, I just need a sec or hognoggle. That is our word. We say hognoggle. We

[00:26:53] Nikki La Croce: highly recommend a hognoggle. If you don't have one, um, you can use that word. Highly approved.

[00:26:58] Nicole Skutelnik: The reason being is because it means nothing

[00:27:01] Nikki La Croce: and it is funny.

[00:27:02] Nikki La Croce: You can't take somebody seriously when they say hognoggle. Like, what is that? What are you even saying to me? So you can be in a very elevated space and she'd be like, Hognoggle! It's a safe word

[00:27:12] Nicole Skutelnik: and it's a funny word, so it brings just that little bit of levity. Back to the situation and then you're kind of like I'm not gonna laugh because we're not in that place But I'm like it just lightened me ever

[00:27:20] Nikki La Croce: so slightly Totally, it was probably one of the best things that we've established in terms of managing stress in our relationship I believe that you're not gonna attract your perfect partner if you don't love yourself You're also not gonna attract the right people overall friends or partner I know where you're going because of the nature of the conversation we were having but I really want to emphasize that that goes for any Relationships that you have in your life

[00:27:43] Nicole Skutelnik: Totally, so I would advise people, if they're not even sure, they have never even considered whether they love themselves, to sort of look at the people in their life, look at if they're in a romantic relationship, how's that going?

[00:27:54] Nicole Skutelnik: If they're, you know, what are your friends like? How do you feel? Do you feel evolved? Do you feel connected to them in a, in a deep

[00:28:01] Nikki La Croce: way? You feel drained after you see them? It really is all of this, everything that we're saying regard to self love and just overall how we are in our relationships is really tuning into your feelings, not intellectualizing them, which we are all prone to do.

[00:28:20] Nikki La Croce: And I think a lot of us really believe that we know how we feel. Sure, you know what you feel. Do you know why you feel it? Are you doing anything to resolve the way you feel about that? And when it comes to self love, I know for me, there was this function of, it didn't even occur to me that I didn't love myself because I never asked myself that question.

[00:28:41] Nikki La Croce: And I never asked myself what it would mean to love myself. to actually have a sense of self love.

[00:28:45] Nicole Skutelnik: So maybe let's talk about what it looks like when someone does love themselves. Okay. How do they conduct themselves in life? What is a person who is full of self love, and this doesn't mean conceited. And it also doesn't mean

[00:28:56] Nikki La Croce: toxically positive.

[00:28:57] Nikki La Croce: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I love myself and I can also admit that sometimes I am not a big fan of myself either, or the actions that I take.

[00:29:06] Nicole Skutelnik: We absolutely have emotions, we have ebbs and flows of where we are vibrationally, that is normal, and it should be that way. If you are one vibration all the time, I don't know, that looks pretty inauthentic to me.

[00:29:21] Nicole Skutelnik: That's

[00:29:21] Nikki La Croce: exactly the phrase I

[00:29:22] Nicole Skutelnik: was going to use, yeah. It's just not

[00:29:24] Nikki La Croce: human. It's not within the sort of the scope of reality. Life hands us challenges. Some people are better at dealing with that than others.

[00:29:38] Nikki La Croce: I think it's abnormal to be in a state of ultimate positivity and not have lows. And that's not to be like, Oh, you stay in the low. Ideally you can recover quickly, but being human is dipping in and out of those emotions. So even when you have a strong sense of self love. I have days where I can acknowledge that I really don't like myself in that moment.

[00:30:05] Nicole Skutelnik: In that moment.

[00:30:07] Nikki La Croce: And also, which is why it's so important what you were saying about, well, then what is the thing that you do love about yourself? So learning to counter those feelings of self loathing with facts about your self love.

[00:30:18] Nicole Skutelnik: Right. If you're at a place where you can say that you love yourself, but I don't like myself in this moment, What you should love about yourself is that you can acknowledge that in this moment, I don't like myself, unlike most people who don't think about that at all.

[00:30:31] Nicole Skutelnik: Yeah. They're not even thinking about how they could handle themselves differently.

[00:30:34] Nikki La Croce: You know, you're drowning in this self loathing.

[00:30:36] Nicole Skutelnik: Right.

[00:30:38] Nikki La Croce: That's not productive at all. And I think the, this, the self love aspect of it is the hope lifts you up to further on the analogy of drowning in the self loathing is like, it is your flotation device.

[00:30:51] Nikki La Croce: It might not give you everything you need to get to the next destination in this exact moment, but does it lift you up just enough that you can get your head out of the water? Having self love?

[00:31:01] Nicole Skutelnik: is probably the most essential thing to be fully functional in all aspects of your life because there are going to be moments in our life when we feel lonely, moments in our life where we have grief, where we go through losses, whether it's grief related losses or a job or just a relationship, but as long as we always love ourselves, that is kind of like the fast track to recovery, to bouncing back because we can sit comfortably on our own.

[00:31:33] Nicole Skutelnik: We can do things on our own. It's not to say we don't need people in our life. We absolutely do. That is essential to our health and longevity. Scientific fact. Science. Science. But if we can love ourself, there's going to be those times when we are alone and we won't have to feel alone because we have ourself.

[00:31:52] Nicole Skutelnik: We are so connected to who we are and we feel confident in ourselves to bounce back.

[00:31:57] Nikki La Croce: Yeah.

[00:31:58] Nicole Skutelnik: We can know that in those low moments, you can tell yourself

[00:32:02] Nikki La Croce: this too shall pass. It's funny that you said that too, because I think the other day I even said to you that a really transformative moment for me was having a family friend of mine say that in a really difficult part of my life.

[00:32:18] Nikki La Croce: And I want to emphasize that it was not said in a flippant way where people are kind of like, this too shall pass, kind of get over it. It was no, allow that mantra, that concept to be the hope that you hold on to knowing that things have felt bad before. This might be the worst thing you've ever felt, but the bad things pass also provided that you don't make it your mission to stay stuck in it unwittingly, because people will say that they don't want that, but on some level you're choosing it.

[00:32:50] Nikki La Croce: Uh, because you might be repeating the same patterns that are keeping you there.

[00:32:54] Nicole Skutelnik: And those patterns could be over talking about it, which you never allow. yourself to move past that. You, you take every opportunity to keep bringing it up, but you're not working through it on the back end or never talking about it, pushing it down, avoiding it entirely.

[00:33:10] Nicole Skutelnik: So it is always sitting there doing harm on the inside that you can't even see on the

[00:33:15] Nikki La Croce: outside. Yeah. Because we do hold onto these things in our body and It comes back in terms of how we feel about ourselves. To me, the ultimate indicator of self love is actually being in a state of peace, which also requires us not only to acknowledge the good things about us, but to have gratitude for the things in our life.

[00:33:43] Nikki La Croce: Understand that you can be grateful for the way you responded to something differently. You can be grateful for the support that somebody offered you when you needed it. The fact that that you have the resources, whether those are people or tools that you use in some way to help you grow. Expressing gratitude for the wins is also, in my experience, a really significant component in terms of that personal growth surrounding self love is, as you said at the beginning, recognizing What you already have and when it comes to respecting yourself and loving yourself that is very much What do I bring to the table?

[00:34:25] Nikki La Croce: Which is something that you've talked a lot about you shared with me how important that was for you on your journey and When you speak to that, you're extremely passionate about it because you felt it work. And so what we're saying here is not intended to be guidance that is, yeah, I've heard that everywhere else before.

[00:34:46] Nikki La Croce: It's like, no, no, we're saying these things to you because we actually understand what it feels like when that works.

[00:34:52] Nicole Skutelnik: In case you haven't listened to the Can I Just Say podcast episode where she and I talked together, I'm going to reiterate that story. When, right before she and I met. I was out there dating but feeling kind of sorry for myself.

[00:35:07] Nicole Skutelnik: I was kind of self loathing. I would compare myself constantly to my friends who were much more successful in relationships. I would think that they are, they're more worthy of love than I am because I wasn't either willing to put the time, effort, or I just, into the relationship, or I just didn't feel like I could show up as vivacious and, and myself as they could.

[00:35:32] Nicole Skutelnik: And I would watch shows where I could see the exact love that I wanted, and I could feel it in my body so deeply, like I had felt it before. Like I knew what it felt like, but I hadn't in this life. I had not felt that before. But I knew I wanted it. And so one day I finally said, I'm going to sit down and instead of writing all the things that I don't like about myself, that I wish I was more like my friends.

[00:36:00] Nicole Skutelnik: And you had done that. I had done that while crying for hours. Instead I was like, okay, here's something I haven't tried. Super simple. I'm just going to write down some things. that I do like about myself. Did anything prompt that? I don't remember. So it was, it just, it occurred to you. Yep, I remember the impact.

[00:36:19] Nicole Skutelnik: Maybe it was a challenge someone put out or maybe it just occurred to me. I remember the, the exercise and then the result. So I just looked at a list of adjectives and I was like, yeah, I'm creative. Yeah, I can be outgoing. Maybe not all the time, but I can be outgoing. And so I wrote, there was probably 20 things that I was able to write down.

[00:36:41] Nicole Skutelnik: And I looked at that and I thought, Oh, I actually like myself a little. Wow. There are things I like about myself. Yes. I great. And then I posted it on my Instagram story. With a challenge to other people to do it. Same activity, because I felt really good after that. No one responded, it was really awkward.

[00:37:01] Nicole Skutelnik: That's okay though, because one week later, she showed up in my life. It was like the universe said, You will never get your perfect partner until you do this one thing. And that one thing is figure out what you do like about yourself and focus on that. Instead of feeling so sorry for yourself and talking about all the things that you don't like about yourself that you wish you could be different, even though that's not who you are.

[00:37:22] Nicole Skutelnik: And

[00:37:22] Nikki La Croce: also all of the things that other people have that you don't have, because you're coming at it from a place of, I want this, I can't have this because if I could have it, I would have it. Not true. Exactly. The fact that other people have it is actually an indication that it's possible and that you can too.

[00:37:43] Nikki La Croce: The question becomes, what is it that I need to do differently so I can believe that it's possible for me?

[00:37:51] Nicole Skutelnik: That's right. And I also want to emphasize the importance of timing. Because if I had done that exercise a month earlier, she would not have been ready for me. She wouldn't have been at the place where we would have met.

[00:38:05] Nicole Skutelnik: So that timing was essential. I could have looked at myself prior to that and thought, how come it's never happening for me? How come everybody else is getting their perfect partners and I'm still alone? But if I had acknowledged at the time that the person that I was meant to be with was not ready for me yet, And that takes the onus off me.

[00:38:24] Nicole Skutelnik: It's not just about me putting myself in the mindset to be ready for my perfect partner, but you needed to be in both the mindset and the physical reality of what was going on in your life had to be

[00:38:35] Nikki La Croce: set

[00:38:36] Nicole Skutelnik: as well.

[00:38:36] Nikki La Croce: Correct me if I'm wrong with time and to bring what you're saying is there's also the fact that you need to sort of have the patience to let things unfold the way that they're supposed to.

[00:38:45] Nikki La Croce: So demanding that it happens because you've done the work also isn't productive because I think a lot of people are like, well, I've done the work. I've done this. I've done that. Why can't I have the life that I want to have? It's not a hundred percent about the things that you're doing. There's other areas of life that are unfolding for other people.

[00:39:07] Nikki La Croce: That will put them in your path at the right time, or where you'll have this moment where you might just think randomly, Oh, I'll go do this thing, or I'll, you know, go to this place and you happen to intersect at that right time. And so there's not as much pressure if you can acknowledge that it's not solely about whether you've done the work.

[00:39:27] Nikki La Croce: It's also the other pieces of the puzzle coming together.

[00:39:30] Nicole Skutelnik: Yeah. It's not all about you. That's a good thing for us all to remember in all situations. It's not all about you. The best thing that you can do to attract your perfect partner or your best friends, the people that you want in your life, is to know what you want, feel the feelings of what it would be like to have that in your body, convince your brain in a meditation or just a moment.

[00:39:59] Nicole Skutelnik: What would that feel like? And physically feel it. Have gratitude for what you already have and who you already are. That's and then ask for it. Release it and do not put a time limit on it because you are not the only one involved in making that connection. The other person has to be just as ready for you.

[00:40:18] Nicole Skutelnik: Trust that it will come and stop putting pressure on yourself. Just keep doing the work that will make you the best version of yourself so that when that person does show up, you are absolutely the most ready you could ever be. So if you're trying to find friendships, deep friendships, people that you can be vulnerable with and have deep conversations where we can talk like this and get into it and discuss what's going on and what you're working through together.

[00:40:41] Nicole Skutelnik: Check out our website. It's called Full Spectrum Friends and it's a membership community where we do exactly that. It's this. We do deep dives like this. We learn together about different personal and spiritual growth topics. So if you're still on a learning journey, great. Cause we love watching the evolution and learning alongside you.

[00:41:01] Nikki La Croce: Yeah. I'm participating in that because the most growth that I've ever really felt has come from the people in my life who have opened up and shared their stories and have offered the level of vulnerability. I needed to witness to allow me to be vulnerable as well.

[00:41:18] Nicole Skutelnik: That's it. That's what I got. That's what we got.

[00:41:21] Nicole Skutelnik: Head over to FullSpectrumFriends. com and click join the waitlist.