Full Episode- The Umbrella of Self Love

The podcast hosts discuss their love for the month of February, particularly Valentine's Day and the tradition of exchanging cards and treats in school. They then transition to discussing the concept of self-love and whether it is necessary to love oneself before loving someone else. They explore the idea that self-love is about knowing one's worth and taking care of oneself, but also believe that deep insecurities and secrets can be overcome together in a lasting relationship. They emphasize the importance of having a positive relationship with oneself and being one's own best friend. They conclude that self-love is subjective and can be expressed through actions such as self-care. Welcome to February! February! February 2024! Welcome to the AMA Expressions Podcast where we have soul-led conversations about the wholeness of the mind, body, and spirit through our pillars of acceptance, alignment, authenticity, and love. We are grateful to return here with you to celebrate each other in our path, offering this platform as an extension of our AYA mission, which is to remember who we are at our core essence and live accordingly. Arelis and I will be sharing with you what we have learned and will be continuing learning through our experiences. So let's journey in community hand-in-hand as we receive all that life has to offer. I actually really love this month, one, because Valentine's Day. There was so much hearts everywhere, bro. There was a heart everywhere! People give you free candy, you get like the nostalgia of whenever you were in elementary school and people gave you, like everyone in the classroom, everyone in the classroom gave you all of those, what were they called? They were like little, I don't, like the, I don't know what they're called. Why am I blanking on this now? They're the Valentine's cards with the candy and you write who from and then like you would have to do it for everybody and then like sometimes and then like I remember you would have to put it in everybody's box or something and then I don't know if you've ever tried this where like I always like try to put on like my crush like I like you and then just not put my name but then that'd be stupid because I was like Spongebob and no one else had Spongebob and then I'm over here like Spongebob I like you, you'll never find out and then it's like bitch the one that did Spongebob was Ashley and it's like oh Ashley has a crush on me, ew, and it's just like ugh. Doesn't actually happen but I'm just, I've thought about that scenario. I think it's so funny because I was thinking once you were saying that, that didn't actually happen to me. It was my friend's experience, however, I live accuracy through her. Yeah, I actually remember my favorite one. It was a high school musical Valentine's Day card. Maybe that's never recalled. They were just called Valentine's Day cards. Yeah, but they're not like the hallmark big ones that you like get for someone's birthday. They're like legitimately only available on Valentine's. And then you knew that you were rich if you got the ones that had lollipops or tattoos and everyone was like oh my god, I get a whole art exchange lollipop? Yes, bitch. You're welcome. You're welcome. If you got raped, honestly, by what you gave, it was talking about the people that would bring in cupcakes. Did that ever happen to you? One year someone brought in cupcakes and I was like yo, if I guessed it, I didn't like you before this. However, yeah. Do you want to be my Valentine for real? Well, the thing is that in Puerto Rico, like I experienced the whole Valentine's Day thing, like the cards in Puerto Rico, not over here. So in Puerto Rico, I don't remember anybody ever bringing like cupcakes or anything like that for the classroom. Right, because you know, every single time that you were like, well, because of me in Puerto Rico, I remember that you're not the same age as me. Wait, this bitch is fucking six years older than me. Yeah, you're like, you did start middle school here and that's an elementary school thing. For sure. Right, and you know what's so funny? You were explaining it as if we're not Americans and every fucking person listening to this has been, but like in Puerto Rico, I'm sure that like not every school would do that. Maybe not, but like that was also a thing in Puerto Rico. Like I did it in Puerto Rico, so I don't know. Like I don't think it's that different from, I mean, I went to a private school, but I don't think it's that different from private to public because our aunt was a principal at a public school that had from kindergarten all the way to eighth grade, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, that's why I said that maybe it wasn't a thing in Puerto Rico because of the private schools, but that's true. You did go to private schools. Like I don't know if private schools would be doing, who knows? I guess we'll find out. That's why I love February. And talking about February and that being the month of love. We decided to do self-love. Today's episode, episode time battle. Yeah, which is, you know, you have to love yourself to love someone else. Everyone in their mother says that shit. Everyone says that. You have to love yourself to love someone else, but it's also so true. And so what better topic to talk about in the month of love than self-love? Yes. What are your thoughts on having to love yourself before you love someone else? Do you agree with that? I don't know, man. I'm a rebel. So sometimes I'm like, I don't agree with what everybody says, but sometimes I do agree that those are Gemini in me. I'm like, I see it, but I don't. And the reason why I say this is because you are, to an extent, you have to do love yourself in the sense that you have to know what you're worth. At least enough, right? You can't take some BS. But at the same time, for you to be in that true relationship with another person, you both have to overcome your deepest insecurities and your deepest secrets together to know that it's a lasting relationship. So it's like, even though that you know your worth, you might have to bring in the idea of forgiveness into a relationship with somebody that you want to be committed by. And this is not saying that you have to get rid of your worth, that you have to lessen your standards. It's just saying that maybe something that you would have been like, this is off the table for me if you pull this up, that it's like now it's pulled up and you're like, fuck, like, I really do love this person. And I think that we can work through this type of situation. So I just think that the whole like, you need to love yourself first before you love somebody else. It's true in the extent that you are the only person that you spend all of your life with. And if you can't stand yourself, that's pretty sad. And you need to learn how to love yourself. Like you shouldn't rely on somebody else to tell you who you are as a human being. But I don't think to an extent that you have to completely love yourself first before you can invite somebody else into your life. Because at that point, I can take a whole lifetime. Yeah, I definitely, definitely agree. I feel like love. And I'm hearing this in your explanation. Love is different for different people. Of course, you don't have to love yourself fully. Because what does that even mean? What is love? And so and so breaking that down, like, what is self love will be breaking down what is self and then what is love. And then to acknowledge that the emotion of love might look different for me, and it might look different for you. And that's why when you say like your worth, I feel like that's like an extension of self love, right? Like to know your worth. And then okay, wait, but like, if that's an extension, then what is self love? And then for me, when I was really grounding myself into it, I thought about how, right, love is an emotion, it's a feeling, but emotions and feelings come and go. So then how can I talk about something as self love, and it be objective. And I thought about how your actions are more objective than a feeling or a state, like your actions can always be loving, your actions can always be supportive. And then it made me think about self care. And that's also an extension of self love, self care, whenever like you don't love yourself, when you don't have that feeling of love, when you don't have that, you don't have that emotion, you can take care of yourself. And then how that is an extension of self love. And it all comes down to, for me to talk about self love, we should talk about your relationship with yourself and knowing who you are, and then giving yourself what you need first. I do agree with you, you did mention like you're going to be with yourself for the rest of your life. And that reminds me of my favorite fucking quote, my favorite fucking quote that was on my vision board two years ago. And it is to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance by Oscar Wilde. I love that quote, because it is the foundation of what you fucking savage like, you're literally going to be in your life for the rest of your life, right? And whenever I've gone through a breakup, or the little sad bitch of me is like, Oh, my God, like, he doesn't like me back, or not even he doesn't like me back. But you like kind of betray yourself in a way. So you, you yourself are like, girl, like, I'm always here for you. I always think about that. It's a lifelong romance. It's a lifelong journey. And I think that that is humbling. And also, it allows you to give yourself room. Yeah. You are your best friend. I don't know. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person that's done this or experiences, but I have conversations with myself, and I'm hilarious. And I make myself laugh. Yo, yes! I was talking to my friend about the other day. I was like, I talk to myself all the time. I will be, I will do a to do list, talking to myself, do the to do list, talking to myself, do the rest, talking to myself. It's just so much more fun that way. Yeah, you have a whole narrator, like, I'm narrating my own life, instead of like, waiting for like Morgan Freeman to talk about what I'm doing. I'm just like, and Ashley is washing the dishes, you know, like, it's just, what do I need friends when I got me? I mean, didn't we both, but you know. I think that's also an extension of self-love. Talking to yourself, being your own best friend. And that's why I'm saying like, self-love literally is different to every single person. And then there's so many layers to it. So then it's like, okay, what is the self? And then what is love? To love yourself, you have to know yourself, because self, who are you? You're a mind, you're a body, you're spirit, you're energy, you're heart. So then getting to know all those aspects of yourself, and love, what is love? It is a feeling, it is emotion, but it's so much more than that. That actually reminds me of the second quote that I got, which is from The Path to Love by Deepak Chopra. And it is, to begin with, we can't keep confining romance to an emotional state. We must redefine it as we surrender to the mystery of our own spirit. For beneath the turbulence of emotion, that is what romance is. And I feel like that is, to surrender to your own spirit, is to surrender to your own self. So your self-love is literally you just being there for yourself, being there for every single, every single state that you're in. And you know, you're going to be anyway, because as you said, you're going to be with each other for the rest of your fucking life. So you only have one option. Yeah, and like surrendering to your authentic self, you know, like the authentic version of yourself with your true lights and your true dislikes, and like knowing that that can change every single moment at every single time. Yeah. And so then that brings the question, how do you know what your authentic self is? And then how do you know what is not your authentic self? And how do you, can you go through that relationship to then love yourself? It's like, in a way, honestly, this kind of goes back to the previous episode that we talked about with the whole sisterhood wound thing. Because one of the ways, sadly, you know, or fortunately, whatever, however you want to think about that, that you can figure out if it's something that you want is if you see jealousy, or if you feel jealousy, or if you feel like you wish that you were at a different point or aggravated, like sometimes you feel aggravated, because you want the experience of someone else's living because you want that for yourself. And it's like, okay, so if you do have that feeling, why are you not making the necessary steps of taking them, creating the habits around your life that can get you to where you want to be, which that in itself is self care, knowing that you want to have a beautiful look, you want to look beautiful, right? Like you want to feel good about how you step out of your house, you want to adorn yourself, you want your hair to look nice. But then your hair doesn't look nice. And then you feel bad about your hair, but you're not investing in the hair care products that you need for your hair type. You're not investigating the different brands that, you know, like, for example, being curly hair, like I have to investigate and sit down and try different products until I figured out which ones I like. Same thing with skincare, I had to figure out what type of skin products I like for my own skin. And I don't like wearing makeup. So it's like, I would rather invest in good skincare products than makeup itself. Because I know that I want to make sure that my skin just looks like an even complexion as much as possible versus somebody else might be more willing to invest in makeup itself. And it's just like, what can you find out that you like, and you don't like just now, and then make small steps to invite more of that into your own life. Yeah, I was talking to two females as we were walking. It was so nice. We were talking about how people just know what they want to do. They just know they just pop out. They're like, I want to be a firefighter. I want to be a nurse. And then they were like, well, I've never felt like that. And maybe, you know, you've never felt like that either. But you always do know what you like, and you always do know what you don't like. Like, if you don't know what you like, you know what you don't like. And if you don't know what, like, you always know that there's something attractive about this certain thing. And like, oh, I kind of like that. And those are all little gold nuggets to who you are. And so if the question is, how do you know who you are to then foster? Oh, this is my authentic self. I'm going to love her for all these different things that represent me or represent who I am or represent what I want to be doing on this earthly plane. Because it's like, we have all these different things that we're connected to here on Earth that are like, oh, I'm connected to how much I love. I don't know, this. I love this so much, because it represents something about me. And usually, it represents love itself. It represents, like, freedom and your own liberty. We all find freedom and liberty different ways. I love singing because it is expressive to my freedom and to my liberty. And so how do I love myself? By allowing myself to invest more in singing, because again, it expresses my freedom and my liberty. And so it's like, okay, those are your gold nuggets. And to what you were saying, self-care just 100% is connected to self-love. Because those are actions that represent that you love yourself. Actions speak louder than words. Actions speak louder than emotions sometimes. If you're not doing these things that are investing yourself, it can be because you don't know yourself. And you don't know that, oh, I'm not investing in myself because I have shame or doubt, or I need to wipe up my energy. Okay, maybe that's happening. Shame is taking a hold of you. And you can't invest in the actions. You can't take care of yourself. So in that moment, you can't do it. It's to know yourself so much because of yourself and the self-love. To know yourself so much that you're like, okay, this is like a distortion. If this is a distortion and I am loved by my nature, by spirit, it's just I'm in imbalance in my mind right now. Then how can I balance my mind? Or how can I seek help? Or how can I take an action that does represent the feeling that I don't have right now? I feel like it's just all so layered. Self-love is so layered. Taking care of yourself is so layered because you are so layered. We ourselves, again, we're a mind, we're a body, we're a spirit, we're a heart, we're an energy. We are so much. We have so many layers to our light. So then if we are so many layers, yeah, loving yourself and self-love, it's going to be a huge stream of, bam, ocean, a huge current because you are a huge current. Your authenticity is a huge current. You taking actions to take care of yourself, there's thousands of things that you could do. So then it's just like learning who you are and then doing it. I think that that is huge. And then knowing that you are 100% not alone in this journey of knowing who you are, and you're not alone in receiving love or receiving help when you can't give yourself the love that you need. Going back to the first question, do you need to love yourself to love someone else? Honestly, that reminds me of, there's that experiment where there was just three rice bowls and then the doctor talked. So there was three bowls and they were filled with water and rice. And he talked really nice things and affirmations to one. He ignored one completely and they said bullshit to one of them. He was like, you fucking suck. And then the other one who was like, I love you. And the other one, he just did not talk to it at all. One of them obviously got like really disgusting and moldy and gross. One of them obviously fermented and it made life. And then the one in the middle that he just left alone was actually like the worst one. It was like the moldiest one. It was like the most disgusting one. It just was horrible. And that comes to show back to the question of like, if you, do you have to love yourself to love someone else? Well, there's this moldy one, but who's to say that if the doctor didn't just say nice things to it, it would be fine. So if someone from external, like if you actually are saying nice things to me, even if I'm not thinking that I'm sure that it will bring me closer to love and it will heal me in such a way. And you're going to be again in so many layers because you're so many layers and you're going to be at some point in your life hating yourself because you might latch onto an energy that's not yours. And it might just like be a little pesky in your body for a certain time. Who knows? But at some point you're going to experience like, Oh, I hate this. Or, Oh, I don't like this about myself. And then it's like, okay, well, if you need an extended hand, that's fine. And also there's so many layers that you're not alone and someone else can just fill your cup when you can't do it yourself. But again, you can do it yourself, but I feel like it's okay because you have a whole lifetime to ask for help or learn how to receive. Yeah. Like talking to yourself would be good. And even like how you were saying, even if you don't believe it, like just reaffirming and having those words directed at you by yourself or like other friends, it can help and it can make a difference over time. And if you don't know who you are, like, what are some tools that you've used, or at least to like help you figure out who you are? Or like, what's the first step to like, try to figure out who you are and what your likes and dislikes are? I honestly, again, when I was having that conversation, we were all walking and I am always the youngest person in the room. I just always have been. And these two women are in their thirties. And one of them, she was like, I still have no clue what I'm doing. Like, I still don't know what, and I looked at her and I was like, but you do though, you know what you like and you know what you don't like, you know, when you don't like something. And so I think leaning on that, like, yeah, maybe you don't know what job you want, but you know, what job you don't want. And you know, what things you do like. And you know, if you like talking to people, talk to more people, why do you like talking to people? I think the introspection part is really, really, really important. So like, you know what you like, you know what you don't like, and maybe you don't know. However, if you introspect, why do you like the things that you do like? Why do you not like the things that you don't like? And sitting yourself down to reflect on that, I think is really important because you always do know. Like, you always do know. And then let's say like, you're journaling and you don't know. Like, let's say, yeah, that happens to me. Sometimes you are biased because you are you and you need an outside opinion. Call someone you trust or get a therapist or go to group therapy or NAMI, National Alliance of Mental Illness, has so many free resources. You can talk to anybody for fucking free. And so you talk to them and you're like, well, I don't like this because of X, Y, Z, or I like this because of X, Y, Z. And then you're going to find out that usually the things that you do like are because they connect to your authenticity, because they allow you to be free to be who you are, be free to connect with love. So like, the things that I really like, I've always known I've liked. I now have just let myself do it with more ease. And that is the reason why I love it more. It was always something that I loved, but I love it more now because I know why I love it. I know why I feel free when I do it. I know why it helps me. If there's a thousand things that I could do to feel free, I know why that's the one thing that I choose because of my gifts, because of my talents. Those are only things that you can do in the process of allowing yourself to do it with more ease. I'm going to love music more next year than I do right now. Just a fact, because I'm going to continue to make a relationship with it. And it's going to continue to make a relationship with me. And that is like the lifelong journey of the romance. And I, again, always knew, but now I know more about it and it knows more about me. The things that help me are parts of my gifts. So then like that takes time. That's a journey. That's a journey to figure out and then to allow yourself to do with ease because that's just a part of its nature. What about you, Ash? Like as a Gemini, you like a lot of different things. And I feel like you don't really attach yourself to a lot of different things. So then let's say there's not one thing that you really like. How can that also empower you to love yourself when you might feel like, well, there's not something, there's not one thing I'm good at. Like the movie Barbie, if it's not one specific thing, like how can that empower you too? Yeah, like that's something that I was thinking about when we're talking about when someone doesn't know what they want to do with their life. I just feel like if someone's born and they come out of the womb, they're like, I'm going to be a doctor. And like, that's actually legitimately what they end up doing because that's what they've always wanted to do. And they just continue to want to do that once they become a doctor, because that could also change, right? That's one thing. But at the same time, there's a lot of people out there that don't really resonate with that, that they might have had the idea of them wanting to be a princess when they were younger. And then now they're like, how can I be a princess unless I work at Disney? And maybe they didn't have it translate from their childhood wishes to their adulthood. But I think that if that's the case, it's because they don't have just one thing that they're meant to do. They have multiple things that they're meant to do. And it's just like, how can you make it be uniquely you? It's going to be something that no one else has done. It's going to be a marriage of a bunch of different things that are going to be coming together that no one else can replicate. And that's why sometimes those people can feel locked because it's like, I don't know what I've wanted to do. I don't know what I am doing. I feel like I want more. But how can I do more? You have to pave that path and create that path for yourself. And with me having a lot of different interests, it just comes down to knowing what I prioritize and what I find the most valuable in each day, in each moment. And sometimes it's about learning more. Sometimes it's about talking to friends and being in community and going to a group event. Other times it's about just staying home and being with my husband. Other times it's trying to see my family. And I have a lot of different things that I'm interested in. And ultimately, my biggest thing that I know that I want in life and that I definitely want to take out of everything is peace and fearlessness. How can I be more fearlessly myself? And how can I make sure that I do all of that with peace? And I can't even tell you what I'm interested in. I'm interested in psychology. I'm interested in books. I'm interested in terror. I'm interested in astrology, in family constellations. I'm interested in mythology. I'm interested in psychedelics and herbalism. But it's like some of those I'm interested in a lot more than others. If you want to know everything at all at the same time, don't beat yourself down. You have those things in the back of your mind for a reason. Yeah, I definitely agree. Those things that are in the back of your mind are the gold nuggets. And then those things are what you can lean on. Like you said, you could have always wanted to be a doctor and you get there and you're like, oh, you can like it. And you can also be like, oh, I don't like this. Even if it's not what you thought it would be, it was still your intuition. It was still like a choice you made for a reason. So kind of how you're saying it can change and there can be so many different things. There can be so many different things and that will serve you in that present moment versus what you will do in the future. And then that's going to make your unique story, again, how you said, because we all have different unique stories. I think that in the past, the white golded picket fence and the suburban house and the marriage with the two kids and the golden retriever and the American dream, that was all this pitch and sail for the people. If we're going to go back to history, the reality of the past, it was war. It was chaos. Everyone needed structure. Everyone needed stability. These are the suburban dream. Everyone wanted that suburban dream, that American dream. And so it makes sense that now our generation is like, well, everyone knows what they want. Or like, oh, comparing yourself to these different things, because living this traditional lifestyle was more of the common thing. But now there's so many different possibilities and there's so many different ways to get there. But it's like, okay, well, you can have all these different desires and wants and be different and have a different story and have a different path to get there. And that's also okay. So you can have a traditional path and you can have a non-traditional path and they're both okay. And there's not one that's better than another one, but it's what is calling you. And that's like the biggest part. And I think that this connects to self-love just because it's knowing yourself and giving yourself the life you want. And those are actions that do represent love, because you're honoring who you are. And I think that that honoring who you are is an extension of self-love, that these are all just extensions of how to love yourself more. Yeah. I think too, that if you're just starting on the self-love journey, which is similar to self-care to an extent, right? Like with self-love, you're just trying to learn about yourself. You can look up journaling prompts to learn about yourself, to learn about who you are. You could take those quizzes, like what personality are you, the ENFJ, like those really fun quizzes where you can figure out like what Harry Potter house you are and all these things, because even though they're somewhat silly and they're there for entertainment purposes, they do end up giving you a different aspect of your personality, whether you feel like that's the answer you wanted at the end of the quiz or not. And some of them are a little bit more legit than others, but those are beautiful starting points and they're fun. So that's like self-care and self-love all at once. But just have that intention to learn about who you are, about what you like, and just really have a little bit more gentleness with yourself. Talk nicer to yourself and just think about things twice in the sense that if you're going to wear something and you don't feel beautiful in it, like if there's something else in your closet that you would feel a little bit more beautiful in that day, that's self-love. Maybe your hair is all over the place and maybe all you have to do is just put on a hat and then you look like a bad bitch, you know? Like sometimes putting on a hat is self-love. Doing a braid is self-love. Sometimes putting on a hoodie is self-love instead, you know? So it changes day to day, hour by hour. Sometimes doing a self-care practice is self-love and sometimes binge watching a show on Netflix is self-love. It just depends on what you're going through. Yeah, I definitely agree. I definitely agree that there's so many different ways to love yourself and it can be, you know, what you're used to like the little bubble baths and it can also not be. Using all the tools basically you have and then also like let's say that you're like this is just so overwhelming. Doing this all by myself, I don't know. Being by myself, I don't know. Scary. It's okay because we've talked about this in the past. There's so many different groups you can join. You don't have to love yourself by yourself and you don't have to learn who you are by yourself. So again, self-love. Two words. You don't have to know yourself or love yourself by yourself. You know, yeah. That's like a tongue twister. You can go to a group on self-love. You can go to a group that interests you. You can go experiment with other people. I do say or will encourage that the groups that you go into, use your discernment and your intuition and see if the people that you're surrounded by are people that inspire you and that you would like to be like. If you wouldn't like to be like them, don't be friends with them. Don't continue to go to the group because if you wouldn't want to be like them or they don't inspire you in some type of way, you know, that's just me. That's just me. So I encourage that for y'all but you don't have to do it anyway. Because again, like to know yourself, like let's say you don't even know how to do it by yourself. Like for example, for me, learning an instrument on a phone or videos, just not going to happen. I need to be in a in-person experience to do that. It's easier. It's more fun. It's more joyful. It's an experience. And I'm investing in that for myself versus doing it by myself. And that's because that's your self-care. Like your self-care is your music and your relationship with music. Right. And it could be different. It could be a different example. Like let's say, I don't know, you want to learn how to knit as a self-love routine to like, you know, calm you down whenever you get anxious. And also it interests you. You've always wanted to learn how to knit and you now want to invest that time into yourself to do something that you've always wanted to do and give yourself like the time of day. There's so many groups that you can again go into or you don't even have to do it in person. You can do it on video. But I'm just saying that to go back to like, you don't have to do it by yourself. If the quizzes, like Ashley was saying, or like all those things of experimenting with just you is overwhelming or it's just something that you know that you can't do by yourself because change, I mean, it's honestly easier. I mean, maybe it's just me, but I found it easier whenever it's like a group and I'm investing in an in-person experience versus it being by myself. Like I feel like sometimes change can be harder with that. Yes, it can be. And also like just keeping in mind to not pour from an empty cup. Like if you're running on low, you need to care for yourself first. You know, that's self-love. That's prime self-love right there to make sure that you're taking care of yourself. That is prime self-love. So I feel like that can be the last thing we talk about before moving on. How can you fill your own cup? I feel like everything we've just said has been ways how you can fill your own cup. Here have been sprinkled different practices on how to love your own self and what self-love really looks like. But if there's anything that we can add about like, okay, well, this is self-love in this situation or this situation or any messages that we feel like that haven't been addressed, close it out with that. Yeah. So as far as like making sure that you don't pour out from an empty cup and any, the last self-love thing that I would like to say is to make sure that you love all parts of yourself, all aspects of yourself, that you pour into all versions of yourself. You know, there's that version of yourself that's gentle and nice. There's that other version of yourself that's hilarious. There's probably another version of yourself that likes to get down and party and have fun and be funny. There's another version of yourself that likes to stand up for something, likes to be more assertive and likes to put down their foot, you know, like everybody has different versions of themselves depending on the situation. And I'm not talking about this as in like different personalities per se. I'm just saying like me as Ashley, like depending on the people around me or depending on what is happening is who I'm going to be. And what if you don't love all versions of you? Well, I think that's where we are right now, where we are very, very focused on the rise of the divine feminine and bringing in love to the divine feminine. And by trying to heal the divine feminine, we're trying to push away the divine masculine when in reality we need both. Because the masculine energy provides the seed that's planted in the womb of the divine feminine and both of them together co-create, gestate back and forth to create that beautiful flower. And right now, if you're working on self-love and self-care, you're working on that feminine version of you energetically, right? You're working on that soothing, that rest, that slowing down part. So that way you can refuel your battery to be that go-getter, to hustle, to go after your dreams. Because you need to do both, right? Like the sun shines for 12 hours and it goes to sleep for 12 hours. Not even the sun can be a hustler all the time. I mean, technically it can't, because the sun never shuts down. But from our perspective here on earth, the archetype of the sun, the image of the sun, the symbol of the sun, we don't see it all the time because we're never meant to be like that all the time. So it's just really learning how to honor all parts of yourself and pour love into all parts of yourself. And that's the last snippet that I'll have about self-love. So what if you don't love all versions of you in the aspects of like all the emotions of you? How do you cultivate more self-love when you don't love every single, like who you are all the time? When you brought up the emotions, are you saying like sometimes when you're sad and you just don't like it when someone's sad? Or like when someone's angry? Or like, are you talking about like what Yeah, like if you don't love all of you, if you don't love all of you, how can you cultivate more self-love when all of you can include emotions of sadness or grief or, or anger, joy, peace? If you like those emotions, or if you're not familiar with those emotions, how can you love yourself and bring more love into it? So the emotions are just something that you feel, but they're not you. The emotions are a way that your body can alert you in what's happening, but the emotions are never you. Whenever something keeps coming up, that's it reappearing, it becomes chronic. And at that point, that means that there's something in the surface that hasn't been completely processed. And then if you don't love yourself, because you're sad, and you try to shut down yourself, because you're getting sad, and you don't want to be that version of yourself, you're going to prolong the healing process of that sadness that you're holding in your heart. Because the sadness isn't you. The sadness is a reaction to something that happened that made you sad, and then that you haven't been able to fully process in your body. The same thing with anger, like something makes you angry, and then you don't like who you are when you're angry. So you try to do everything you can to distract yourself, to push it down, and like, you know what, I'll get over it. I'm going to move on and do something else. And then you get angry again. It's like, the more you push it down, because you don't like that angry version of yourself, the more angry you're going to get under the surface, and the worse it's going to be for you. And it's just like, when we're talking about how you don't like the versions of yourself that deal with the emotions, and this is for the group, right, everybody that's listening, if you feel like you don't like the versions of yourself that are sad, that go into that sadness, that go into that anger, that go into those emotions that we shut down in this society, because they're not even lower emotions. And sure, they can be lower vibrationally, but like, we need the lower emotions, or the lower vibrations to ground us, we need the lower vibrations to protect us, and we need the higher vibrations to elevate us, transcend us, help us look at the bigger picture, and ascend spiritually. We need both. The same, we need masculine and feminine. Protection, do you get protection from black crystals, from brown crystals, from red crystals? Where is that in the spectrum of color, low frequency, because that's what protects you, and that's what grounds you, right? So it's kind of like, if we as a society continue to say that sadness, grief, anger, those are jealousy even, honestly, like, those are horrible emotions that we can't feel, that are bad to feel. Like, no, no, no, no. It's totally normal for you to feel it. You need to, because that's the way that your body lets you know, like, yo, you're angry about this, that means that a boundary has been crossed, a boundary that maybe you weren't even aware was important to you. You're sad about this, you're realizing that you lost something, how can you grieve it properly, right? Not just spend three days talking about it, but like, how can you, right? Like, if you need to create a symbolic funeral for a past version of yourself, write a letter to that version of you, write a eulogy of who you used to be, because of something that happened that was either traumatic, or that was a loss, and you had to change who you were, like, you have to redetermine and reimagine that relationship with who you are now, after everything that you've lost. So, if you don't like the past versions of yourself, because of the emotions that you feel, I want you to start thinking about yourself as, I'm Ashley, and Ashley is feeling sad. I'm not sad, Ashley. I'm Ashley that's feeling sad, right? I'm Ashley that's feeling happy now. Oh, Ashley is feeling sad again, but I'm not just sad, Ashley. Like, I'm not sadness from the movie, like, the emotions movie from Pixar. Like, that's just not me. That's funny, yeah, inside out. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. So, that's what I have to say about if you don't love all versions of you. Ashley, thank you for your fucking wisdom, and also, to love something, you have to know it right first. And so, I think what we were saying, the beginning of a lifelong romance, it's the beginning of this journey with every single archetype, every single layer, every single emotion, every single part of you, and that is a lot. And to give yourself compassion for how hard it is to heal from something chronic, you know, like, that will take time, and it's a lifelong journey. So, if you ever feel like, oh my gosh, it fucking came back, that's a part of the journey, and you're gonna make it through it. And like Ashley was saying, it's not you. And so, that's really beautiful. Thank you so much for your wisdom. And with that, the event that we have coming up next week on February 9th, Friday, February 9th, we have a Goddess Galentines event. It's gonna be like a party-esque vibe in Longwood. We're gonna be having a candle-making workshop where you get to create your own candle, goddess candle. And it's going to have vendors, so we're gonna have people that are going to be selling chair massages, crystals. We'll have card readings by your fellow peeps here. Yes, yes. We'll also be having some other really fun vendors. Like, we'll have someone that's gonna be very artistic there, just to give you a little bit of a hint for the surprise. And it's gonna be at a hair salon, so there's gonna be beautiful, organic, curly, hair-friendly products there, or just really good products there. There's gonna be skincare products as well. And we're gonna have, for everybody that comes, we're going to have hors d'oeuvres, we're gonna have refreshments, we're gonna have goddess adornments, as in like jewels that you can put on your face, on your arms, metallic tattoos that you can put that are temporary, just to really get into that goddess vibes. We encourage, but it's optional, right, if you want to come to come in in comfortable and elegant-looking pajamas, just to set the vibe of a goddess Valentine's party as you adorn yourself. And it's just gonna be a fun time amongst women, and you don't have to make the candle if you don't want to. You can just come for $5 for the hors d'oeuvres and the refreshments, and just to see the vendors and to have fun. Or if you want to participate in the candle-making experience, I believe it is a $40 for the candles and everything else as well included. So yeah, go ahead and look at our link on Instagram. It is also on Eventbrite, and it's in Longwood, Florida on February 9th from 7 p.m. till 10 p.m. If you're here, we already know that you want to connect with yourself and find guidance in all of life's situations. On this podcast, we believe the art of tarot is a beautiful practice and tool to do just that. Because of this, we dedicate a portion of our episode to you and your questions to be answered through the divination of cards. So go to our Instagram page at AlmaExpressions to submit a question through the form linked in our bio. I am going to be utilizing one of my card decks that I got for Christmas. Thank you, Santa Claus. It is the Midnight Magic Tarot Deck of Mushrooms by Sarah Richard. And it's funny because now I'm going to go into a tangent. Because I saw this at a store, and I wanted to get it. Something that I do want, especially when I go into a spiritual store, is I just tap in and ask if I should purchase this or not. And I kept getting no. And I'm like, but I like this. I like mushrooms. And then I kept getting no. And I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to bypass my intuition. At this point in my life, I can trust my intuition. My intuition keeps telling me no. So I'm just going to listen to it. And it's because I was going to get this for Christmas. So yeah. That is so funny and honestly such a good practice, bro. Because I swear I will go into a spiritual shop. I'm like, I need all of this. I need it all. I want it all. I want it. Know that you want it. Wow, so funny. We talked about high school musicals twice in one fucking episode. But yeah, I'm really happy you did that. It's such a good practice, too. Maybe to people that are listening, your self-care is to watch all high school musical movies with all your girlfriends and just have a night. Here we have a question. The question is, what insight can spirit provide for me regarding my business and finances? I want to say that one more time. What insight can spirit provide for me regarding my business and my finances? So I'll go ahead and begin. And what we have here is actually very interesting. So first and foremost, it's to have hope, to hold on to hope. There's this overall message. I got the star and the two of pentacles. So first, I got the star and the two of pentacles first. The star is about hope. It's about the dreams that we have. And this is a beautiful card to get regarding your business and your finances. And by business, I think the star is talking more about your business, about the dreams that you have are going to come true. They're not going to be exactly what you think. Because if you're thinking about possibly wanting to go into a partnership with somebody else, this is for you specifically, right? If anybody else is listening to this and they can feed off of this message as well, cool for you. But for you specifically, if you're thinking about wanting to go into a partnership with someone right now, as you're listening to this, that's not going to be the best thing for you to focus on. It's going to take longer for you to build the dream, right? It's coming. It's not here just yet, but it is flourishing. And you just have to remember that those people that have built their empire, they didn't just do it in one year, right? They did it in a span of four or five years. And they would just not give up. They would just continue to do things every single day. So with that comes the two of pentacles of how can you make sure that you do things that are going to support your dream and still have a life-work balance and still make sure that you don't have too much on your plate and still make sure that you're not burning yourself out because you're putting so much into your dreams, so much into your business, and you don't see the result and you're like, what am I doing this? I'm not getting anything back, right? So just make sure that you are having harmony and balance in the things that you do for your business, for your finances even. Why are you going to invest in a website when you might not have as many people buying things from your website? Or what would you invest in a subscription for a platform if you're not getting a lot of turnaround in that platform? So also sit down and see what you're investing into the business and if it's worth it or not. What's the return of investment that you're getting into things that you're doing? So I'll leave it there for now. And also, I think that you're being called to ask... Hold on, hold on, hold on. So I'm using Guardian Angel Messages Tarot from Riley Valentine. I honestly like only use this card deck when I am on this, but I think that right now you are being called to ask yourself, what do you love and what inspires you? You have the six, the lovers, the lovers, and the king of fire as the subconscious energy for the lovers. And I feel like this is about your passions, this fire, which is a want energy. What makes your heart burn? What relationships, what actions, what practices, what hobbies make your heart burn? And then investing in that, if there's not a turnaround with something, okay, well, are you actually passionate about it? Is it worth your time and your energy? How can you bring love into any situation with your finances, in any situations with your business? Because ultimately you're doing it because you're an abundant being with time and energy, and you can invest in anything that you wanted to at any time. So it's like, okay, so if you are power, like limitless, how can you be inspired and innovate in a way that is giving love as it's also giving you love? The best example I can think about it is whenever you're doing the sound healing, you're doing the sound healing, but you're also a part of the sound healing. It's fucking amazing. You're receiving while you give. So then what would be your personal sound healing? When you give to someone and it gives back to you, and then invest in that. If there's people that make you feel so much love and that believe in you, harness that relationship and make sure that you honor it and you send gratitude for those people in those situations. But yeah, I think that going back to love. And that's funny that you talk about that because I also, I got like a bunch of cards that came out. That's why I'm like, I started with three and then I have the other three, but like, I got the death reverse. So it's just like, it's not for you to abandon your business completely. Like definitely looking at what parts need to change for sure. But it's not like, again, the start, like you still have hope, like it's going to come to fruition. It's just, it's going to take a little bit longer and you just have to be more patient. And then we have the five of wands reversed and the eight of wands reversed. And then like, those are the last cards that came out that just flew out, right? Which go back with what Annalise was saying about your passions and with the five of wands, it's like, okay, now don't discard the business. We have the eight of wands, which is about like, yo, chill. Like you're putting all of this effort and energy into all of this and it's all being put in places that shouldn't be put right now. And with that being said, I don't know if anybody here that's listening to this can notice, but like, I can notice when someone is posting things out of desperation on Instagram, when it comes to like card readings and stuff like that versus when someone's doing it out of like goodness. And I don't mean that like there's people out there that have horrible intentions, you know, like everybody has their niche, but it's like, there's people out there that love giving readings to those people that are like, oh my God, like, does he love me? Does he not? I'm not that type of person. And that has a specific frequency. So it's like, what type of energy and frequency are you emitting when you're posting these things, when you're promoting your business, right? And right now is the time for you to stop so you can reassess. And with the five of wands reversed, it's don't let competition discourage you. Let competition make you realize what is it that you hold important in your life and tune into that. Like, what is it that you want for your business to stand for? And just know that you have the star, you know, it's going to work out. It's going to be beautiful. But this kind of reminded me, like listening to you, it kind of reminded me of the two of earth card that you were saying, or the two of pentacles, where it's like, okay, you were saying that something's not working out for you, then reevaluating how you're using your time, your energy. Well, if this is like a long term dream, and a long term star success energy, that's like, okay, well, maybe you don't really need to be primarily focusing on your business right now, in your finances, right now, like maybe you can focus on what inspires you more. So then in the long term, you know, what your niche is, like, you know, what you want to invest more time in, you know, what you want to receive money from, because it's different offering a service for money, and then offering a service because you love it for self care, like it's different. So I will just say that, like, think about all of this journal, all of this, do some like self introspection, with all of this. And then what, when you listen to this, like what makes your, your heart, like flutter a little bit, and what you feel like is really, really for you, write that down. And then, you know, every day, like, focus on that a little bit, because it's a long term thing. So it's gonna take a little of the long term introspection. Yeah, and that was the reading, you know, financially, don't spend too much money, really look at the return of investment for things and take a pause, you know, love yourself during this month of February. And whenever you listen to this, and yeah, I hope your wishes are coming true. And for anybody else here, thank you for listening to yet another episode with the SISTA Duo. And we'll see you for the next episode.