I can say I am content with being alone with myself.
I love myself.
I do.
And that doesn't always look perfect.
If we have the privilege of going through seasons of life where it's just us, we have the privilege to continue to become the person that we want to be, therefore who we wish to attract.
I've been so used to placing my focus in someone else, on something else, distracting myself, prioritizing someone else, putting someone on a pedestal, getting my validation from them.
What do I do now?
How do you wish to be treated?
Do you treat yourself like that?
What are you no longer settling for?
By becoming the standard you're seeking, you will attract it.
Hi everybody, and welcome to this episode of Flowering Philosophies.
I am your host, Anaya.
I come to you on a cold day by the window.
You might be wondering why I'm wearing this big fluffy jacket, and it's because I have quite the winter evening ahead and I am wearing my grandmother's gloves.
I wanted to wear them with my favorite big fluffy coat.
So I'm feeling a plenty cozy here by the window and i'm enjoying a little bit of my favorite jasmine green tea as i come here to you today to talk about dating myself right right, so i don't talk a lot about my personal life, I guess.
There's a balance between sharing and oversharing or I never like to speak too objectively.
For a long time I've been asked to make videos about getting through a breakup or being alone for a significant period of time.
And although those were topics that I was interested in and wanted to talk about, I didn't feel as though I had acquired enough knowledge, that I had a thorough understanding of what it truly meant to be alone and to make that decision, no matter how uncomfortable, and to see that through and pursue my independence in a chapter of my life in a way that i never have before.
We are always continuing to grow and evolve and i still feel like i'm learning lessons every day, but i do feel like i have come to a point where i can say i am content with being alone with myself.
I love myself.
I do, and that doesn't always look perfect.
You know, I can sit here all dolled up with my flowers and reflect with you guys about how I love myself, and you know all these nice things.
But they come through not so great times.
They come through sleepless nights.
They come through sitting with emotions that are unpleasant.
It is lonely.
It is depressing.
It is hard moving through this life and sometimes by ourselves.
But moving through those lower dark moments is essential.
The more that we can accept that journey, the closer to some sort of peace we can be at.
And i was writing and thinking about dating myself.
What does that mean?
Because now you know, i feel like i've gone through a significant season of heartbreak and loss and change and i'm at this point in my life where i just truly am having fun with me, and that wasn't always the case.
I've really come bearing all this winter fruit to you.
These are all my winter fruits that I have on my kitchen table at the moment.
I think that these are some sort of cherry plum.
I'm not exactly sure.
I went to the Middle Eastern grocery store and bought quite a few things, and the fruit selection they had were these little guys and these pears.
I've been eating a lot of grapefruit recently.
I don't know what that's about.
I've been tearing them open like oranges and eating them and I love it.
They're so sweet in the winter.
They're in season.
It's delicious.
And I am currently smelling like my Diptyque rose hair perfume.
Whenever I spray that rose scent into my hair, it lasts all day and i was just feeling like valentine's day dating myself roses it was all just sort of coming together and then this is also another little rose oil that if the hair perfume wasn't enough putting the rose oil i have been single now for a significant amount of time i was in a relationship for the majority of my adolescence which i don't know if everyone knows that but it is true it was a very very large portion of my life and my mind and my nervous system and influenced a lot of decisions in my life i feel like i've been through sort of a long healing process within the past year i mean it looks different for everybody you know it's not perfect there are ups and downs and all arounds and I can't say that I have learned everything I need to, of course not, but in this moment, the reason why I felt inclined to have this conversation with you is because I can sit here truly now and say that I am content with being by myself and being alone.
That doesn't mean that I don't wish for somebody else to share this life experience with.
It means that I'm currently enjoying that experience on my own, with incredible friends family, people that I meet along the way.
It doesn't mean that there's an absence of love in my life.
I'm just learning how to detect it and appreciate it in other areas of my life.
Speaking of detecting, I kind of feel like a detective right now with these gloves and my big coat.
Um, i hope you guys are enjoying my updo.
I really i really have been enjoying white and red in the winter time.
I don't know.
These have been kind of my favorite colors this past season.
It has been a profound journey of healing and making decisions in my recent span of life for myself and for my own growth and my own health.
I am proud of myself for that because it has not always been easy.
Like I said, I'm learning every day, but I truly do feel proud that I have come a long way in terms of my relationship to myself and how comfortable I am with being alone and grappling with sort of the fears that I think our society puts on us every day as to what type of partner we need to find and when we need to find them and when it's too late and whenever we're doing something wrong and this and that.
There's just so many opinions and eyes on the idea of love and romance and a lot of pressure.
And I, just for once, really feel like I am in a stage of my life where I'm choosing not to feel such pressure about anything in that realm.
I'm choosing to actually learn myself, enjoy myself, feel satisfied in an exploration with myself, learning what I enjoy and becoming confident in that, knowing learning how to embody that and ultimately attract that as I continue to move throughout my life experience.
That's what I feel like I'm up to and I wanted to talk to you guys about that and how I do that and how I believe that, if we are going through a season of being single or independent or just any time, you know, I truly feel like even if we have a partner who we're intimately sharing this life experience with, we're still our own person and we want to feel secure and happy and healthy with our own presence and with our emotions and our experiences and what we're accomplishing and moving through in life.
I feel like I'm talking to everybody but, you know, just wanted to give you guys a little bit of context as to the season of life that I'm going through right now and why I'm dating myself in these intentional ways.
I truly think self-love self-care, self-respect it looks different for everybody based on where you're at in your journey, what you need, but I found that appreciating and romanticizing the little things about life you know, as there is a certain level of self-love and self-care that I think is wonderful to reflect on and appreciate.
And last year around Valentine's Day, I filmed an episode and built quite an elaborate spiraling rose arrangement.
I talked about how loving yourself is lonely and what it means to truly love yourself.
I wanted to talk about more of the dating myself in intentional ways, what I'm sort of looking to teach myself during these times and what i'm learning to experience and sort of enrich my knowledge in when it comes to what i like, who i am and my intentions, what i wish to attract romantically and just the love that i'm appreciating and giving to myself during this chapter and how i got here and how i truly feel content with where i'm at.
I literally i got in the car the other day and i just was like wow, I love myself.
And it's not from a conceited, egotistical, superficial way.
It was coming from the fact that I was so excited to read this certain book that was waiting for me in the car and something else that I had planned later that day, and just sort of where my mind was at and where my intentions and focuses and priorities were at, and just reflecting on who I am and what I'm doing and just saying wow, I love myself.
I see myself.
I recognize myself.
I would be friends with myself.
I would date myself.
I like myself.
Reason why i feel confident in saying that is because there has been a journey to get here.
That has not always been the case, and even when that is the case, it doesn't mean that i wake up every day with a positive outlook on who i am, what i'm doing, what i look like, any of that.
It doesn't mean that there's always consistency, but it means that i had a moment of recognition and appreciation for who I am and who I've become, and my journey in doing that.
And it's required, sacrifices and seasons of life where I am being intentional with myself, where I am dating myself.
I'm comfortable with myself in private all day long, but whenever it comes to actually doing things out in the world on our own, sometimes that's when it's a little bit challenging to the confidence and I just wanted to actually go through with taking myself on a few dates things that I would consider to be a perfect date with somebody else, but why not in this season of life with myself?
When I was thinking about what the perfect date would look like, I came down to sort of three things.
One would be learning a new skill.
The reason why I think this is the perfect date is because we're making some new brain patterns.
We're challenging ourselves.
We're learning something new.
It's fun.
It's exciting.
So I wanted to go learn a new skill.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're gonna, when you get to... Yes, I'm trying to.
Right at the end.
That was number one.
Number two was a perfect date to me is being with somebody who I enjoy the company of, who I could get lost in conversation with and just be so entertained.
Being in the presence of, while enjoying a beautiful view, something to truly take in and kind of be immersed in, reflecting on the beauty of nature, but also engaging in beautiful conversation, maybe some meditative silence, i don't know.
Enjoying some sort of view nature, lookout point, something peaceful.
I'm taking myself on a swimming date.
It is cold one day and then it's really warm the next.
I live somewhere where it's usually warm during the year.
We do get cold days in winter but it's like the first warm day in a long time.
And it was packed.
The parking lot is full.
But me and my friends have this tradition and way of life where when we're in a busy parking lot we just continuously believe and say i am going to get princess parking and we stay patient.
Sometimes you have to stay patient for the princess parking a princess is patient but we say i am going to get princess parking and i swear to you something about that affirmation, that belief.
It works.
And just now i was in this crowded parking lot and i was like i'm just gonna go to the front right where the gate is, just to see.
I said it looks unlikely, but i know i'm gonna get princess parking.
Tell me why i get the second closest parking space to The entrance.
Best seat in the house.
I kind of could have just done this in my backyard, in my garden, just relax.
I'm not even feeling so great today, but I wanted to do this to celebrate a warm day in the winter.
Why not enjoy the afternoon, evening?
People watching me film in my car.
We gotta get comfortable with that.
It's just part of the life.
Just part of the life.
Yeah, so just feeling kind of like not wanting to be seen fully outside by myself.
Usually i would do something like this with my friends, but just go on my own in nature around others strangers, take it in.
Let's go to be honest with you.
Sometimes i struggle getting out of the vehicle.
Sometimes i don't have bad social anxiety, but sometimes it's just like an effort.
I guess sometimes i deal with like paranoia as i feel like a lot of us do, a lot of us gals do.
One time there was a really unsafe interaction that happened here.
Yeah, i think sometimes my anxiety gets the best of me, but we will persevere and we are protected guys.
The breeze is so much colder than it was just an hour ago.
I'm like i don't know if i'm gonna be brave and swim, but we will lay out our blanket, Thank you.
The third thing was something to get a little dressed up for.
That's why i'm wearing my outfit here.
This is my valentine's outfit.
I wanted to take myself on kind of like a fancy date.
That's something i've never done before.
I've never really splurged on myself in a dinner or drink like setting alone, and it's always fun to get dressed up, to wear our favorite perfumes and to feel beautiful in our self-expression and the time that we're spending with ourselves.
I just wanted to take myself on an intimate, little pretty date night.
If you are going through a season of being alone, it doesn't always mean that you have to be lonely, of course.
Course there is a time for that.
Last year's episode was called Loving Yourself is Lonely, and I have been through some of the loneliest pockets of life as of recently.
That is part of the journey, but it doesn't mean that it has to be that way forever and that you might not be ready to put yourself out there.
But also if you can begin to ease yourself into things, slowly but surely, maybe with somebody else, with other people, with communities, small steps every single day to get yourself interacting with the world around you, because i promise you, at the end of the day, that is where the most love is reflected back to us, through friendship, through community, through the things you love to do, through exercising, moving your body, going to your favorite coffee shop or bookshop, thrift shopping, I don't know, whatever it is you like to do.
That's whenever I also feel such a true sense of healing and connection is whenever I'm engaging with the world.
So I wanted to do these little dates as like an example of that.
I guess for me, moving through periods of life where I am lonely or I'm alone or I'm going through a breakup or whatever the situation might be, Paying attention to the little things, appreciating the little things, allowing those things to get you through every few moments.
Sometimes I had to just tell myself it's hard to think about long stretches and periods of time whenever your heart is in pain or whenever you're longing or yearning for someone or something.
I had to tell myself throughout seasons of healing that like, let's just get through the next 10 minutes.
Okay, let's just make the next 10 minutes as peaceful and present or whatever they need to be.
Like, let's just be in the next 10 minutes, or the next one minute, or the next 30 minutes, or the next day, you know, whatever felt right.
Something that would help me do that was paying attention to all the little things around me, the things i could appreciate, the people I could appreciate, the moments I could appreciate the things that I still had.
If I didn't feel like creating anything or I felt powerless or I felt sad or broken, I could appreciate what did exist around me and what still was happening and the world that was still moving.
It reminded me that I was still moving and I was still going and things would be okay.
I know we talk about the lonesome journey of it all, but this is a time to celebrate and to expand your comfort zone and to appreciate those things that maybe we didn't always pick up on before, that we weren't forced to stay present with.
It's a time to expand our comfort zone, to do things that we've never done before, to see the world differently, to grow and expand in a way that we never have before.
Something I've observed in myself over the years, in people around me, people in relationships coming out of relationships.
There is a tendency to avoid what we're dealing with, what feelings come up for us.
There's this sense of panic of, I don't want to deal with that.
I haven't been thinking about that for a reason.
It would be much easier to place my focus in somebody else, in being loved by somebody else, touched by somebody else, in somebody else's presence.
It is, in a sense, easier to avoid maybe, our emotions whenever we have emotions, a level of comfortability or familiarity or a constant in our life.
I don't say that to say that we shouldn't have those things.
I think it's important to have relationships and stability in our lives, of course, and it's a beautiful thing to share that and create that with somebody in a relationship.
But i've also noticed that a lot of the time, we avoid our own issues, we avoid our own shit because we think that it's easier to sit with someone else and have them carry it with us or deal with it for us or with us.
Of course, that is true and, like i said, experiencing this life with somebody is amazing, but also if we have the privilege of going through seasons of life where it's just us, We have the privilege to continue to become the person that we want to be, therefore who we wish to attract.
If we are able to learn how to become content with who we are, where we are at, where we're heading, where we're going, we're going to attract a love and a partner that is going to add on to that experience.
The more we can go through those periods of life where we are alone with our emotions, with our issues, the things that we don't want to look at.
It's an incredible opportunity to move through those things, to sort through those things, to understand those things, to reflect on those things so that we can show up better in our lives and for someone else down the line that we wish to share a life with.
I'm not saying that we all need to be perfect here before we find our perfect person, but don't you want to enjoy your life, your life experience and the love that comes into your life?
It all is dictated on your perception, your health, where you're at.
That's going to dictate what you attract.
So you want it to be healthy.
You want it to be good.
You want to feel good.
And so I know it's a lot easier said than done, but if we can sit with our feelings instead of being scared of them, it can do us a lot of favors in our life and in the love that we experience.
The more that we can understand and heal parts of ourselves, the healthier of a relationship we're going to attract.
Growing up as a little girl and watching all these princess stories, you think that there will be that perfect man and I truly do believe that there is an incredible perfect, compatible type of match out there.
But who are you saying you want to be matched to, finding that perfect person?
You got to be in alignment with that, so being able to work through whatever you are presented with at the moment and to feel healthy and good and confident, sure of yourself, enjoying yourself, your presence, loving and respecting yourself.
You will align to that perfect match that matches that energy, that matches that love and that health.
If we're coming from a place of feeling unworthy and depending on someone else to fix that, our health, our wellbeing, our confidence, everything is dictated by another person outside of us, and I don't believe that that's healthy.
I think that the relationships and the people in our life definitely influence our own relationship to ourselves.
But you never want to be fully dependent on somebody else's perception of you.
That love is not founded on a relationship with yourself, it's on somebody else's terms.
The more that we can learn who we are, respect who we are, become somebody who we would want to date.
Sorry if that's weird advice, but like I would date myself and there were periods of life where I would not date myself and where I see you know, but we go through life okay.
You know what?
This is why this is a conversation here, right?
We can go back and forth.
We go through.
I had to go through some pretty shitty situations to learn who I was and to learn where my faults were, and to learn how to hold myself accountable.
That's why I say it's a journey.
And if we have this privilege of being alone and choosing to end something or choosing to go through a period of being single, it's a privilege to figure out who we want to be and who we want to attract.
What do we believe we're worthy of?
What is going on here?
And that's going to reflect on the outside and how we form a relationship with someone else.
For a long time, I did not want to go through with a breakup because of the anxiety.
It wasn't even sadness.
It was just anxiety, this restlessness sort of feeling of, okay, well, where do I place my focus?
I don't want to look at what's going on within me.
I don't want to look at my life.
I've been so used to placing my focus in someone else, on something else, distracting myself, prioritizing someone else, putting someone on a pedestal, getting my validation from them.
What do i do now?
There's so much anxiety there and i was just talking to a friend yesterday who's going through a breakup and she said, you know, she's not feeling so much grief and sadness, but more so just anxiety.
There were things and decisions I was avoiding for a long time, areas that I didn't want to look at, that I was distracting myself with someone else or with something else.
And the anxiety that comes up whenever you make the decision to focus on yourself or your issues, or to cut something off, or to cut out the distractions or the relationship to be by yourself.
That anxiety is real.
And I just I don't see that lightly and don't want to disregard that the reason why we usually do choose to just stay with someone or stay in a comfortable situation or avoid our feelings.
It's because of that maybe great wave of anxiety that comes about and you can see, i'm getting like uncomfortable and sick even thinking about it, but feeling relieved also in the sense that i feel like i have come far and i have learned.
I don't think we overcome anxiety, but we learn how to recognize it, work with it and move forward.
And i truly feel like i have done that and i just want you to recognize that that feeling is not abnormal.
It's not something that we should continue to run from, run from outrun, try to avoid that.
There is going to be anxiety in the idea of being alone or in the idea of the unknown, not knowing what comes next, but that doesn't mean that we should completely fear it and disregard it.
There are things to learn within that anxiety.
Like i said, we work with it, we learn through it, with it alongside us and we can find peace.
I know it feels so scary.
Like i said, i literally you guys don't even know the personal details of my, my life, but i have avoided certain feelings because of anxiety and the fear and the looming sense of that anxiety.
So it's real.
I understand it's painful, but we can do hard things and the more that we sit with those feelings, the more we are moving through them and i promise you they will continue to evolve change, shape and we can move through these things by ourselves too.
Community and relationship is important, but embrace seasons of being alone and building upon your individuality and your understanding of yourself and what you need.
Something else that we can really embrace during this season of being alone is reflecting on how we would like to be treated.
How do you wish to be treated?
Do you treat yourself like that?
Do you believe you're worthy of that type of treatment?
Or do you watch other people being treated that way and you're jealous of other people and their relationships and this and that?
Like what do you believe that you're worth?
What are you no longer settling for?
For a long time.
I would feel sad that somebody else wasn't there to recognize this thing about me or say this thing about me, or appreciate me in this way or help me with this thing, or whatever.
But then I was like, you know what?
How do I wish to be supported or treated in these ways?
What is stopping me from doing that for myself and recognizing that I can supply myself these things?
I don't have to get it from another source.
And the more that I continue to embrace and romanticize that journey, the more we're able to accept that type of behavior into our lives.
We will ultimately settle for things that we believe we're worth.
That's just sort of my understanding that I've come to many times is if we believe we're worth a certain type of behavior, that is what we will accept.
It makes sense that if we were raised in a certain way that we didn't believe that we were good enough, or we're in certain environments or we're just around certain people that are reinforcing an idea, like if we were brought up being told that we're something you know, it all goes back to our idea of self-worth.
Whatever you believe you're worthy of is what you'll receive, and sometimes that requires a bit of improvement and enhancement.
I see that for myself.
I see why I decided to step out of certain relationships and be on my own in this period of life and what I would like to embrace moving forward and that starts with me here and showing myself that I am worthy of that treatment and that I am worthy of that support and the more that i continue to fill my life with that and to treat myself as such and to enjoy that journey and to find so much it can be so delicious and romantic guys truly being with yourself like you know yourself best.
And if you don't feel like you know yourself yet, like what can you do?
What dates can you take yourself on?
What can you do to get to know yourself?
How do you get to know somebody else you know?
Like, enjoy that time with yourself, Be curious.
It's exciting.
It's exciting.
I'm smiling so giddy right now.
I'm so excited because, like I said, this healing journey has not always been easy.
But this past winter season, which I feel like we usually prepare for winter to be like the hardest and the loneliest, and the holidays and that who that is true.
But also I found my birthday and the new year to be such a fun time to celebrate with friends and to appreciate my girls and like what I love about them and what I love about just like nature and having fires to stay warm and coziness, and spending time with my mom during the holidays and my cat, and like watching shows that like heated rivalry okay, I know I've talked about this before, but that's like a romance show that got so popular because so many people just like were reminded of passion and love and it's like to feel that in the air, to recognize that in different areas of your life, to enjoy a good show, a good book, to cozy up, to embrace other relationships in your life.
Guys, it can be fun, i promise you it can be fun, it can be joyful, it can be preferred.
Honestly, falling in love like it's beautiful and i'm not saying that we should reject that or shy away from that, but i'm saying that that will align and come into our experience the more that we continue to appreciate and embrace other aspects and if we get the time to do that and we get the privilege to do that and we get the courage to do that, it can be really beautiful to be with ourselves, to date ourselves.
So yeah, set the standard for what you want, what you believe you're worth.
Learn that, explore that, and set that standard and you will attract that.
No more chasing, okay?
No more chasing, just attracting.
I don't mean don't go after what you want who you want in a respectful manner, of course.
I love all that.
I love ambition.
I love chasing our dreams.
It kind of just goes in tandem with what I was saying of setting the standard.
You want to align yourself to what you're saying.
It is that you want, if you want this perfect partner and there's these things that you're desiring create that sort of vision, that reality, and live in that for yourself, know that that person is on the way and that you can enjoy your life and see yourself in an attractive manner, like what can you do?
I'm not saying it in the sense of what can you do to make yourself more attractive, like on the outside physically, but what can you do to attract what you're saying you want to you?
How can you align yourself to that level?
By becoming the standard you're seeking.
You will attract it.
In friendships, in romance.
You are what you attract a new standard, a new way that we wish to be.
These things can be uncomfortable sometimes, but just know that the more that we continue to love ourselves, know ourselves, explore ourselves like, we can discern who we'd like to attract into our lives, people that we feel like align with us.
I truly feel like I'm at a point in my life that I enjoy my company.
I enjoy the things that I do, that I read, who I am.
I like to be friends with all types of people.
Generally, what I try to put out there is a sense of respect and love and my personality and who I am.
And I see that reflected back to me in my friendships or in people that I continue to meet.
And as I continue to move forward, I believe that whatever I put out will come back to me.
If there's something that I'm wanting, a type of relationship that I'm wanting, an experience that I'm wanting I think about how can I align myself to that.
How can I become more like that?
How can I give that out?
How can I express that?
And I know, because I've been proven many times, that it will be reflected back to me and that I will continue to grow more of what I focus on, more of what I continue to become.
I am just about to take myself to dinner and it started raining and I don't want to wear my fluffy jacket out in the rain for it to get wet, so I think I'm gonna have to change my jacket.
Okay, I have changed into my hoodie because I don't really want- my hair's already frizzy, so I guess it doesn't really matter, but I'm gonna try to preserve my hair in my hood.
I also decided that I'm going to go to a yoga class because it's right next to the bar restaurant that I'm going to.
So why not?
They have a 9 o'clock class.
It's like 7.30.
Make it a double self-loved Well, here's another really good picture.
