This is episode 80 liking oneself. You're listening to the Rise up and Shine podcast with Claudine and Ashley as an empty nester and a mom with young kids. We have both shared very similar and very real struggles from chaos to coaches. We now help other women live an authentic and meaningful life. So tune in weekly for girl talk and tips on how you too can rise up and let your light shine bright. This is the Rise up and Shine podcast. Yeah. Welcome back everybody today. I've got a scripture to start us off with. It says in Mark 1231, love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these. Well how well are you doing at loving yourself? It's easy to love others for some of us and a lot harder to even like ourselves and that's what we're going to be talking about today liking oneself.

So when I say that when I say you must like yourself, what are some of the thoughts that come up for you out there Ashley? Any thoughts come up for you? I think the easier ones that come up are I start criticizing myself. You know, I think that's more um prominent than even thinking of all the things I like about myself. Yeah, I think part of it because it's so easy for us to think of where we're falling short what we should be doing differently. You know we could just be pretty harsh with ourselves and then we criticize and judge and you know we don't really have a good self compassion. Yeah, I should say And I definitely struggled with that. I think part of it too. I didn't even really know myself right? Well certainly that's part of it. And then the things we do know we don't like sometimes. But it's interesting for me because I totally agree with what you said. I think it's so much easier to judge ourselves and to criticize ourselves. I mean we've done episodes on the inner critic and the mean girl and all that and we talk to ourselves so harshly sometimes that kind of becomes our default mode.

But to really like ourselves is challenging. And for me, I know when I think about that I'm like well then I might get too prideful or it might be too vain if I spend too much time liking myself. And what does that say? Well other people think if they know I like myself, then they'll think that I think that I'm perfect and we have all these odd thoughts that run through our brain. It's almost like this protective mode. Like I don't want other people to judge me if they know that I like myself and yet how can we really like others? How can we love others if we don't first do that for ourselves. So that's why we're talking about that today because so many of us, especially women, it is so easy to be critical of ourselves and to push our needs in ourselves to the side. But really how can we love others? How can we really like others if we don't even like and love ourselves. Um, so there's so many reasons this comes up, right, A lot of fear like I talked about, but it also, um, could be from our childhood.

I know for me I was raised, I have great parents, wonderful parents. I definitely felt loved as a child. I didn't feel insecure or any of that. I didn't have any childhood traumas or adverse childhood experiences as you call him. Um, but there was always a standard I felt especially loved and especially accepted when I performed to a certain standard. Right? So then now I hear this inner voice, the you should do, I could do the should the woods, the goods, those tend to echo in my brain because I heard so much of that as a child, there was always a higher expectation to reach. And again, not out of a bad heart or anything negative, really just wanting the best for me. But as an adult that has been translated to, it's never enough. And so it's hard to like yourself if you feel like you never meet this imaginary standard that just keeps growing right. The standard keeps get higher, it's like you reach one level and it's like, oh now I need to do this or now I need to reach this or now I need to get here.

And so for me personally, that's part of it was just uh definitely a challenge to like myself, certainly in my twenties and thirties. So, but as an adult, as a christian, we have the ability and I dare say the obligation to like ourselves. What do you think about that? Yeah, that I have to sit on that one for a little bit obligation sometimes that that word, the obligation can kind of rub us the wrong way, right? But um it feels like a lot of pressure sometimes, but it's so apparent because when we focus on things like I don't like my hair, I don't like my voice, I don't like my looks, I don't like my body. I don't like, you know, we go through, especially growing up as girls, we go through so much comparison and we start repeating a lot of things to ourselves that we don't like or even taking in what someone else might say, you know, I don't like that outfit, oh, I don't like. And so what happens? We repeat these things, We focus on it and we kind of create our own beliefs and it doesn't make them true, They feel true.

How can we really show up and love others when we're in that place towards ourself. And so really you think you think of it as well. Gosh, I can even love so much more if I have a healthy understanding on myself and like myself more and not be so harsh with myself, I can actually love at a greater capacity. Yeah true that I want to do right? How do we do that? Bloody Yeah. Well that's and that's why we're talking about it today. Because truly if we don't like ourselves, if we don't have a certain level of self acceptance, you can't truly have that for someone else, right? I mean we think we do like we're not as judgmental with others, but deep down it does reflect it does come across. It's just true because we project, we all have some level of projection onto others. But certainly growing up and even as an adult, there are things about myself that I didn't like. Um one of them was being highly emotional and sensitive which we addressed in our last episode.

Um I didn't know at the time growing up that I was an impact. I just was crying all the time. It was very emotional and I think people around me didn't understand that. So it confused people that I would cry at the drop of a hat or you know, someone looked at me wrong, I started crying but obviously now I understand that but that was something I didn't like about myself. The other thing was I was very clumsy. Still am still in clumsy, still Trip bill things. Yeah, there were things about myself like it was a joke like with my friends and my parents that I was clumsy and another one that I didn't like about myself and and still don't, although I've accepted is that get fatigued very easily. So physically, I just never felt like I had the kind of energy that other people had my best friend while we're raising our kids had seven kids and I only had four and yet I was exhausted and we'd go running errands at two o'clock. She was bright and chipper still and I'm like, I need to find a couch. I need to find a bed. I can't do this anymore.

So those were things I didn't like about myself and what I did was resist them. There was a lot of resistance. Like I'd fight against it in myself instead of accept it. Now. I've just come to a place where, yeah, sometimes I spill things and it's okay, you know, it's okay. And sometimes I cry at the drop of a hat and guess what? That's okay too. And sometimes I do get tired really easily. And again, that's okay. So all these things about me, these shortcomings, they're not me, they're part of me, but they're not me. And that's what helped me get some self acceptance and decide, well, I really like me. You know, I like her. She just has some things that, you know, everyone does. We're all imperfect and these are my imperfections. These are mine. What are some of yours Ashley, You know, one thing that really resonated with me, especially as a teenager, I didn't like my legs, My legs were long and I felt like it was not proportional with my whole body, so my torso was shorter, my legs were longer and that was something I really focused on it, I would say all the time, and my mom would try to reassure me, okay, so I'm going to stop you, because that's really weird because I've never noticed it, but we have the same body type.

I have a very short torso, an incredibly long legs, and that was my favorite asset, my favorite part of me, I was a gymnast, so I was always in little tiny leotards and people always commented on my legs, carry on, my friend. So see interesting situation. Yeah, very different perceptions and I don't think anyone ever said anything to me. I mean, who knows? They had two older brothers, who knows if they teased, I don't know, But it was something I would say to myself over and over and over and over. So I felt really insecure about it and things that I would wear. I always hated tucking in my shirt, hated it, and I'm like, no, I'm just going to be sloppy and not, you know, tucking in your shirt in the 80s and 90s was very popular. Yes, it was and I did not want to do that. I would wear t shirts that were passed my shorts, I felt so it kind of gives me length up here kind of balances out the length of my legs. And I have a niece who's a teenager and has very long legs and beautiful. I don't know how she feels about him, you know, but seeing that in someone else, I take it very differently when it was myself.

But we do, we just didn't I don't like this about myself. I don't like that about myself and it's so easy just to focus on that and whatever we focus on. We're just going to keep feeling that it reinforces what we felt. And I like what you were saying about resisting because that's exactly what happens when we resist. We don't accept. And so even if it's something that we don't like about ourselves, understanding that it's just your opinion, It does not make it truth and it does not mean other people think that way about you. I know for myself the things that I would criticise myself it was things that I thought other people might be criticizing me about, even though they didn't say anything like they must be thinking it, they must be thinking and I would focus again on my legs and I hated buying pants, they were too short. I hated buying shorts, they were too short. I couldn't have anything. Can people make the size that I want to see it? If I can't find clothes then something's wrong with your probably like me too, you're probably thin and so when you're thin, you couldn't find lengthen pants.

But gosh, this is so, I never knew this about you. And this is so interesting to me. And it really proves our point that the circumstance was totally neutral. We both had long legs, right in shorter torsos. And for me, I looked at it as a huge asset. And for you, it was a liability. It was something you didn't like about yourself. For me, it was something I was so proud of. Like, I was known for my legs. Like I always tried to show them off, but I don't have to be careful with shorts and skirts because I, you know, I needed to be somewhat respectful, but it was hard because they were short. But anyway, interesting when I did get older in my twenties and thirties, I did start like you figured it out. You figured oh yeah, I do. Yeah, I'm like, oh, I do like, and they tan nicely. So yeah, there you go. I didn't really like my feet though. I had great feet. Do you have great feet? So, you know, I also know in our conversations you said you don't like the sound of your voice? Yes, which I like the sound of my voice.

Thank you for admitting that publicly to all of our listeners, you're so welcome. But you know the same circumstances. It's just we think different things, which is right. That's why, again, it proves the point that it's not a truth does not make it a truth. It can feel like that because we have focused it so much, you know, focused on that, but we can change the dialogue. Yes, we can. It's so true and you know it is we keep talking about but it's so important to like ourselves. I mean I think for me and I've shared this before, I think about the scripture where God says I am fearfully and wonderfully made, that's what he's saying to me. Listen, I made you you are fearfully and wonderfully made like you are unique. You are one of a kind, there's no one else like you and that is what helped me turn up corner years ago with just accepting myself liking myself. Um Finding confidence was okay if God says this, who might argue with him right now, there's still things and behaviours in myself that I don't like, but I know I have the power and the capacity to change those.

So there is a point where, you know, I'm not saying let's like all the sinful things about us or the mean things we say or do, like are being disrespectful to our husband, let's not like the behavior, but let's like ourselves who we are, who we are in our essence and that's so important. Yeah. Another thing I was thinking also is if we've experienced some sort of trauma or life different experiences that were very challenging to go through. Um it can definitely play a role as well, they are, our brain tries to make sense of what's happening around us, you know, and what's happening outside of us and so especially if you're a child and you're going through certain experiences, your brain just going to make up whatever reasoning it possibly can with your underdeveloped brain, um, to figure out, just to make sense to figure out why this could be. And then, so that's where a lot of our beliefs stem from, most of our beliefs stem from is earlier in childhood and because our brain is trying to process it makes sense and it needs to find a reason and those reasons most of the time are not accurate, right?

And, but they, that's why when we grow up, we feel like they're so true because that's just what our brains did and we sat on it and we bought into it basically, we bought into those beliefs. That's what I like to tell myself. Like these were beliefs that I bought into because I could come back out of it. I don't have to stay in that place and I can rewrite that story, right? So just really understanding and having grace on yourself to not, um, not punishing yourself for these beliefs, not just with curiosity, just being aware of, hey, I think this, I believe this may be because of these things I experienced or because of this thing that was said to me or um, whatever, but really what I found that I want to point out that it came down to is our value and our worth. And I think that is a big thing that has been the root issue of not liking ourselves because we don't value ourselves or we feel like we're not worthy and so it can be hard to just sit and be with ourselves sometimes when we don't like ourselves.

And so a lot of times what happens as well also distract ourselves will cope, we'll do other things, maybe have unhealthy behaviors. So to help kind of compensate for those feelings and deny them or avoid them altogether. Yeah, absolutely. Or constantly spend time with other people because you don't want to be alone with yourself that can be definitely assigned to, But it's so true. I I like what you said. I mean when we're kids, we process what we process and by seven, most of our belief systems have now been coded, so to speak right in our brains. And so now as adults, we're allowing a seven year old, a seven year old mine, a seven year old concept of whatever they've seen, whatever they've heard, whatever they've done to kind of, um, give us direction today. And that's why I said earlier, I feel like as an adult, as a christian, we have the ability, right? We have our developed prefrontal cortex, we can make new thoughts now we can choose new thoughts and have new feelings and no emotions and take new actions and even almost I say an obligation because why are we letting a seven year old right?

Which is at the time we were developed, still have the impact today when we're in our twenties thirties, forties, fifties, Yes, that that didn't have the processing ability that just heard things like, you know, I for some reason I believe I heard I was lazy when I was little, so when I grew older I just got busier and busier and busier because I didn't want to be lazy. But looking back, I don't even remember that ever being told to me. But somehow my little child brain must have heard you clean your room, you're lazy or something like that. And all of a sudden it became who I am. So I've overcompensated by keeping myself so busy to prove to the world that I'm not lazy, but then I'm also very fatigued. So it's just double and I'm like, I'm fatigued though, I'm going as fast as I can, but I'm fatigued. But you know what I look back and I'm like, I'm not a lazy person as an adult, I had to go through it and go, do I really believe that? Is that a belief says, no, it's not, I'm not, that's not who I am. I am a hard worker when appropriate. But my little child brain was telling me I was And so it does take this adult ability and even as a christian when we're called to love ourselves and love our neighbors to to really take time to like ourselves.

So that's what we're talking about this today. We need to like ourselves, it's important, right? And really understanding and kind of respecting that inner child, that those were meant to save us and protect us and make sense of things around us. And so now as an adult, we can essentially become aware of it, thank our inner child for that time and for protecting us. And and now just bring in the adult self and rationalized and help really make sense. You know, factually about what was going on and have a healthier balance in liking ourself, you know? Yeah. And even when I became a christian in my twenties, there was a part of me, it almost seemed holy to put myself down. Does that, like, did you ever feel that it almost was like, well, I shouldn't think so much of myself, so I'll just keep putting myself down, or like, I'll tell everyone on my bad faults first, before anyone else can tell me it was it was a weird unhealthy dynamic.

Like, I'll just keep putting myself down and I guess it won't give anybody else the opportunity to do it. And also, if I think too highly myself, I might get corrected on my pride or my vanity. So it was very distorted for me for a while. And obviously as I read the bible more and got in tune with the heart and the meaning of the scriptures. And I understood, no, I don't think God's telling me not to like myself. I mean, he created me just like I would never tell my Children not to like themselves. Certainly their things in their behavior. I want to see them change when they were little and even as their older, but I loved them and I liked them. And so I would think that God would want the same thing for me, Right? Oh, absolutely. And we do that all the time. I mean, I remember when I became aware of this, it was so eye opening. I thought, gosh, why do I do that? But it was interesting because uh, the way I would talk to myself, I would never talk to my right. I've never talked to a friend. I would never talk to anybody the way I talk to myself.

But for whatever reason, I gave myself permission to talk to myself in a certain way that was hurtful and damaging and just so condescending. You know, it's critical and then that's the place you're going to be functioning out of that. You're going to experience that, you know, those are the emotions you're going to sit with. And but the good news is it doesn't have to be that way. And, you know, we can have a healthy sense of liking and loving ourselves and appreciating ourselves to and accepting as you said, and that's where we want our listeners. Yeah. You know, Yeah, I mean, this is called Rise Up in china. It's really hard to Rise up in china. If you don't like yourself and you don't accept yourself, Let's talk about some of the practical for liking oneself. You think it should come naturally? But like we're talking about for some of us, not so much so, um, one of the first ones that I came up with was make a list of all the things you do well and I promise you this is a lot harder than it seems, at least for me. It was really hard.

It's really hard to sit and put pen to paper and write down the things that you do well, because there's all that second guessing what you don't do it that well. So and so does it better. Right? We get into that comparison trap and gosh, I don't even know today with social media, it must be so hard for people to like themselves because there's always someone doing it better in comparison, constant comparison. But anyway, get out a piece of paper and make a list of all the things you do well. And if you get stuck, ask people that know you well, hey, what do you see in me? What do you think that I do well, what are my strengths? This is so much harder to do than it is to say. But number one make a list of all those things and keep them handy. Another one is and we've talked about this. You've talked about it, but treat yourself with kindness. Speak to yourself like you would a friend or your child. I mean, be kind yet we can be so mean to ourselves. Right. I mean I can call myself a name that was really stupid. That was really, I would never say that to my Children or my loved ones.

You know, my friends, I don't think I'd have friends if I talked to him like that. I don't know, maybe people out there talk to their friends like that. I don't. But anyway, but I was healthy relations in a healthy relationship, but I'll talk to myself that way. Right? It takes a lot of effort and mindfulness and awareness of how we are even speaking to ourselves, but treat ourselves with kindness. Yes. And going off of the list that you are referring to, using those as affirmations to speak those things to yourself. You know, I mean, put them on a sticky note anywhere. You can, anywhere that you'll see them, read them to yourself because a lot of times you, you're not going to believe him first. And this is why it also helps as you said. If you're having a hard time coming up with something, then ask people, hey, what is it something you like about me? Because there were times where I was just in a low place where intellectually I knew well I like my sense of humor, but in my heart I didn't feel it because I was sitting in a place where I was so critical of myself and I'm happy and feeling like a failure and I was reciting those things to myself and so I had to get a little help like what are things that you see in me that you appreciate and you like about me?

And then those were things that I would recite and meditate on meditation is basically just being in the moment and really taking control of what you focus on and what you think about and taking your thoughts captive really. And so just being able to think about an input those things for yourself and then your heart will start catching up, your heart will start believing it after a while if you do it consistently well. And every time we think new thoughts were developing new neural pathways. So the more we, yes, the more we focus on the positive and the things that we do well that will become our default go to thinking. But the more we keep criticizing ourselves judging ourselves being negative and mean to ourselves, that becomes default and it does take effort and it does take practice. It does not happen overnight, you and I both know that, but it does happen and it's nice now to go to the default. My default is very positive and very self accepting and very and it's such a nicer way to live.

I just got to tell you, it brings me more joy. It brings my husband more joy everyone around me. I mean it's different when you like yourself, when you're coming from a place of peace and acceptance that energy, people can feel it and it uses out of you. It's a positive energy. I know you say all the time. Good vibes only good vibes only good vibes only. We'll try to have good vibes only when you're not liking yourself, right? It's very hard. So another one is go on a date with yourself. Now that would have been really hard for me like five or 10 years ago, like to be alone. Like I like being alone to recharge but in the safety of my house, like in my room or maybe on my couch, but to go on a date like go somewhere alone and treat yourself like you would be on a date that would have been very stressful for me just being alone in a public place like but now I can do that. Now I can go, I still like to be safe. So I'll probably go to a Starbucks, a really small restaurant but go on a date, go to a park and take a book, go do something out of the ordinary and treat yourself.

I have no problem treating myself to a manicure or haircut Haircut, I've gotten really good at those and of course for 30 years I went to my dear friend, so that was very safe, but I can do dates like that with myself, I can go eat by myself, I can go somewhere to a park and read a book by myself, I love going big girl by myself. I've only done that once, I think, do you really well, that's because you're alone and I don't know if I can go somewhere to eat with myself. That's a tough one. Yeah, it is, that one's hard, but I've done it a few times really, I actually yeah, and I have great conversations with myself, loud and not loud. Is that crazy lady again, that keeps not out loud, I just go with myself, man, we refuse service you quickly, we're putting you in the back um Yeah, it is hard, isn't it? But you get to a point where you just enjoy your own company. It takes time. Yeah, it really does really what I learned. I've shared this many times that I would have to have tv on or music on because I didn't like being in my own head because I would be critical, right, harp on myself a lot, but really going back to even the kindness, just showing yourself kindness.

One of the practical Xai have is to think of your adult self, talking with your child self, you know, that's kind of like some of that inner dialogue and that helps change the tone of the conversation does right, because then you realize this is where a lot of my healing came and I started focusing focusing a lot more on the inner child, my inner self and then bringing in the adult self and being able to reason and use logic and make sense of things from an accurate person, an accurate, fully grown developed prefrontal cortex, that can make correct sense of things that went on as a child, so then becoming aware of the um becoming aware of those beliefs that I bought into, like I mentioned earlier and where they came from and really just discovering it out of curiosity, nonjudgmental behind remember we're focusing on being kind to you, um but really just kind of hey, you know, talk to your inner child, talk to your child and be like hey gosh, I know that really was rough, that was rough, and you thought this or you believe this about yourself, but hey, like let's talk through this, let's you know, let's make sense of it and let's create a new story in your head, focus on and a lot of the struggle with liking ourself is a lot of those beliefs like we mentioned, right, and so just being kind and just kind of having like I like to say talk yourself down and I know when my emotions start getting the best of me I think of that as more like my inner child coming back out trying to protect, protect safety mode.

And then so my brain, my adult brain now needs to kick in and say, hey, like I get we're feeling this, this is a tough situation. Let's let's try and find a solution or let's try and you know, basically how you would kind of guide friend, you help guide and let's talk through this, how to walk through it with another person that you care about that with yourself and your inner child. It is really powerful. Yeah, it really is. And and so many of us don't realize that we're still carrying things from our childhood because subconscious, right? And so they're triggers and we get triggered and we just think, oh, I don't know what we think. We don't know what to think. We don't understand all the childhood. But yeah, it's such a great point to be able to say, thank you for protecting me. You got me here, I'm here now I can take care of this, We've got this, you know, so powerful point. Another one is aimed to change the one thing you don't like pick one, like, one like I have a name to change clumsiness because I've kind of accepted my clumsiness.

So I'm not looking to change that one, but one thing that I've talked about before is I can be an emotional eater. So that's something I made a decision a couple weeks. So like I'm not going to meet, eat out of emotion. Like I'm only gonna eat when I'm hungry and I asked my husband to help me because he, he likes to eat a lot at night. And so then I just joined him because usually by that time I'm restless and bored and he's eating so I'm eating but I'm not even hungry. So it's something that I'm working on consciously. One thing I want to change that I don't like, it's a behavior I don't like, I like myself, but this is a behavior I don't like and I have the ability to change this. So it's conscious and I'm doing one thing at a time. I'm not like, okay and I'm going to run 20 miles a week. Like that would overwhelm me. So just pick one thing and work on that. Something about your behavior, something that you would like to change. Also, I did change my gray roots. I did get those colored, I like myself better without roots, but that's more of a joke than a truth.

But anyway, I did get my hair color, I did get my true, I did, I'm not ready to go all gray yet. So I'm resisting that resisting the, but you know, it's so easy to do, it's so easy. You go and get your hair color and you're done and it's a little bit of self care and self love. So there you go, I'm fighting that for a bit. But another point to is as christian women, we are given God's word to help us. And this is really powerful for me because it's it's a lens that we can apply to our lives, like we can hold our lives up to it and go, okay, what is it about me that I like? What is it about me that I don't like according to God's word, you know, obviously I don't want to be a selfish woman. I don't want to be a prideful woman. There are a lot of things I don't want to be because of God's word. And I think about in second timothy three, it says all scriptures got breed and useful for teaching, rebuking correcting and training and righteousness. And I think as christian women, we want to be righteous. And if there's things we don't like about ourselves that are unrighteous, we use God's word to set the standard, not our opinions, not granny's opinions, not tv, not social media, but just the standard is God's word and that has simplified it for myself.

Now I know, okay, I'm not looking at. So and so you know, whoever is the hot media star of the moment to set the standard for me. God's word has stood the test of time for 2000 years. This is who I want to be. This is where I want to find my peace and where I want to find my standard and if I'm holding to this, it's so much easier to like myself because this is my standard and it's not going to change. Absolute. I don't know what's going to be on social media in 10 years. So I know everything's changing. Styles are changing, opinions are changing, culture is constantly changing constantly. I let that be our standard, right? So that's why it's so important to just be very careful about the comparison. I was thinking about something recently, I painted our kitchen, right? And our new kitchen table thing and I was so excited about, I really loved it, I liked it a lot and then I went to somebody else's house that's, I'm like, oh there's a nice, nicer and then now I came back and like I don't really like it anymore, why do I like it?

But my, I just felt like this instant comparison, oh my gosh, they have, you know, furnished their house like beautifully and I just did the kitchen and I just, and I quickly went back to that spot of judging it. Yeah. You know, but it was almost like a lack, it was an area of lack that I was focusing on and gosh if we spent more money on things for our house, it can look nice just as nice as theirs and it was really interesting how it quickly, you know turned again to oh there's this better well and that and that's funny when we use the world standard. It is going to be really hard to stay consistent liking ourselves and liking what we have because it's constantly changing and that's why we have to be very diligent and where we look what what we take in and social media Pinterest. I mean I know you love Pinterest you know looking at all those things which is great. But then like for me I realized I have an easier time looking through magazines at homes and stuff like that than I do on social media obviously in person or Pinterest because it's like an actual person like actual persons house especially when they have young Children.

Well who do you think they're photographing in those magazines? Those are actual houses. I think they're models. You know I mean they pay to have cameras set up and everybody comes and you don't think Pinterest is of interest to me is like magazines. But anyway, that's so funny. Funny. I want social media, you know I mean all these people like I go through instagram and I'm like what filters do they use? What programs do they use to edit? Like everything just looks so white and clean. Yeah it's lighting fashion. You know like Morris the faces and the body types. I'm like I've seen some pictures recently and like the body is not naturally made that way It does not. It is not that shape. No one's body is that shape. So I know it's being edited. Of course. We're talking about a lot deeper things when we talk about liking oneself. Hopefully for you listeners, it's deeper than your appearance. I mean we're talking character and you know, our loving selves and I know our listeners are all loving kind of people.

So we're talking more about that. But it is hard in this day and age not to constantly compare. It's very difficult in comparison is the thief of joy. We know that so be diligent on what you focus. Yes. And make it a practice and lastly, just remember no one is perfect. No one is perfect as much as social media and Pinterest and everything makes you think that their bodies, their lives, their homes are perfect. They are not. We've been around too long to see too many quote unquote perfect people's marriages implode and there, you know, you find out that they've spent six figures on there. Looks or I don't know what, you know, or then they're in debt and file bankruptcy, but they had a beautiful house for time. There's just too many stories like that. So easier said than done. Of course. Very true. Alright listeners, thank you for joining us as Byron, Katie says, it's not your job to like me. It's my own until next time. Yeah, Yeah. All right, everyone, thank you for joining in on our conversation today here on the Rise up and Shine podcast.

If you haven't already, please take a second to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss an episode. And while you're at it, share this episode with a friend who you know it can bless today if you want to visit us as well on our websites, you can catch Claudine over at Clotting Sweeney dot com and Ashley at mind over chaos dot com Are links are in the description. We also have some free resources there for you as well. So remember, ladies, no matter what you are facing in life, it is never too late to rise up and shine and live your best life. Yeah.