Your Self-Love Mixtape: 10 Ways to Love Yourself
An exclusive LVMC playlist dedicated to self-love
On Tuesday’s La Vida Más Chévere episode, the listener is going to be treated to why self-love is important, how neglecting it impacts not only you, and some tips from the audience.
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With Superb Owl Sunday1, Fat Tuesday, and Valentine’s Day all in the same week, these next few days might be a lot. So don’t forget to stay hydrated, which is a simple way to love yourself daily.
It’s self-love in action, aka self-care.
The road to arriving at self-love can take some effort. That’s what these Self-Love Sunday missives are about: reminding you that you’re worth the effort. You deserve it.
And because every road trip deserves a good mixtape, here’s the LVMC playlist for your journey to self-love: Your Self-Love Mixtape.
1. Learn to Set Boundaries
In case you didn’t realize it, as a childfree Latina, you’re already familiar with boundaries. Choosing not to have children is a significant, major boundary. So congratulations!
But sometimes setting boundaries—especially with other people—can be scary. So in order to learn how to do it successfully, start small, like baby steps.
Start with yourself. Create boundaries that don’t involve other people, intrapersonal boundaries so that you can gain confidence to do interpersonally when the need arises.
Episode recommendation: #29 - Baby Steps to Setting Boundaries
2. Stop Lying About Yourself
Stories are how we connect with one another (there’s a bonus episode on this). But sometimes the stories we tell about ourselves are no longer true. They’ve just become automatic over time that we don’t even realize what we’re telling is:
LIES!
Let go of those automatic stories and replace them with ones that are actually true, and uplift you instead of keep you stuck in a time loop.
How? ⤵️
Episode recommendation: #6 - Lies We Tell About Ourselves
Bonus episode: #51 - The Healing Power of Storytelling and Reframing Motherhood with Talia Molé {Re-Release}
3. Let Out the Trash Thoughts
Imagine being full of great ideas you could never access because your inner critic’s mental barricade is too full of negativity? Knowing how to recognize and stop your negative thoughts is super crucial. If communication is the key to success, the way we talk to OURSELVES must be absolutely paramount. So releasing the pressure valve on negative thoughts is a great way to make room for all your great ideas (and create those positive stories about yourself from #2).
And since this is the 21st century, you’re not even limited to pen and paper anymore. Exciting! Check out all your other options in the next episode on the playlist.
Episode recommendation: #5 - Journaling: A Toilet for Your Brain
4. Get Curious Instead of Judgmental
Walt Whitman’s famous quote is about how curiosity trumps judgement. One of my (many) favorite quotes from guest Monica Rivera was her take on curiosity. It’s what ultimately helped her process her own grief, but also what keeps her successful:
“Try, every once in a while, to pull the thread on the sweater and see if you end up with a sleeveless dress. It's going to lead you to something, whether you're going to find out you really don't like it, or you're going to fall in love with something new, but there's nothing lost in like really following that curiosity.”
And you might just fall in love with yourself!
Episode recommendation: #55 - You Wanna Do What?! Creating a Childfree Legacy with Monica Rivera
5. Celebrate Your Wins
A confident Latina is a well-loved Latina. And an easy way to build your confidence is to recognize your progress along your journey. It sounds simple, and yet too many people wait until they’ve hit significant milestones to acknowledge their achievements. When they could’ve been building their confidence the whole time in all the steps it took to get there.
If you think I’m dismissing all my wins on the way to a 315-pound deadlift, you’ve gotta be kidding. There’s no way I could even attempt that amount of weight if I didn’t enjoy the thrill of each personal record on the way up. Including the very first time I ever did it: a mere 95 pounds that at the time seemed impossible!
Episode recommendation: #52 - The Happiness Hit: Why Celebrating "Wins" is Essential for Confidence and More {Re-Release}
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6. Accept Help
I’m so glad that Gen Z is setting boundaries and taking care of their mental health at a young age. The rest of us have a lot of catching up to do. But our culture still makes therapy feel like it’s only for broken people.
Spoiler alert: we’re all living in a broken system, so therapy can help us ALL deal with that, if nothing else! Couple’s therapy prior to getting married is how my husband and I survived narcissistic parents, a global lockdown, and moving 4 times in 5 months! So I’m a huge proponent of cleaning up the deep recesses of your mind, when you’re ready.
If you need to know how to find, vet, or even fire a therapist, Dra. Ortiz has all those answers in this episode.⤵️
Episode recommendation: #48 - Latines Embracing Mental Health: Shattering Therapy Taboos with Dra. Mildred Ortiz
7. Release shame
Shame is a natural human emotion, but it’s no longer useful. In fact, according to women’s intimacy coach Rena Martine, it’s actively harmful. She told us as much in her episode on becoming shame-free, as well as her TEDx Talk.
Releasing shame (and it’s even more evil twin, judgment—see #4) is an essential building block for the foundation of a vida más chévere. Rena dives further into this in her book The Sex You Want, out now.2
Episode recommendation: #40 - Becoming a Shame-Free Childfree Latina with Rena Martine
8. Get Your Financial House in Order
Our culture has some very fucked up ideas around money. It’s natural when so many of us are products of hard working immigrants who had to do unsympathetic and largely unappreciated labor to send money back to family. We understand the value of a dollar, but we never quite learned how to spend it. Or even better, how to invest and maximize it.
Linda García said enough! And gave us Wealth Warrior: Eight Steps for Communities of Color to Conquer the Stock Market, plus the next episode on the playlist.
Episode recommendation: #41 - Dismantling the Toxic Latine Money Mentality with Wealth Warrior Linda Garcia
9. Take Risks!
What’s it like to face the world without fear? How will you ever know if you don’t take a few risks? That was only one of the many lessons imparted by Luis in this next playlist episode.
In it he showed us how taking tiny risks now prevents regret later in life, and talked about some of the risks he’s faced in his own life. Attend DIGüey University by listening to ⤵️
Episode recommendation: #45 - Take That Risk with Luis Octavio
10. Embrace Your Authentic Self
The last stop on our playlist is a two-fer for learning to appreciate the real you, the authentic person buried under layers of toxic cultural norms. Once you learn to let go of the bullshit and embrace the person you’re proudly becoming, it’s almost like ascending to another level.
Because here no one can touch you. You’ve set boundaries, released negative self-talk and shame, replaced them with curiosity, recognized your wins, leaned on your community when needed, and even taken a few risks while securing your financial future. Along the way, you also realized you no longer have any competition outside your self.
Discovering your authentic self is beautiful. Here’s some advice for doing it from guests Ana del Castillo and Fede Vargas.
Episode recommendations:
The LVMC Playlist
Find the playlist on Spotify or click the big pink box to listen now. The track list is below.
#55 - You Wanna Do What?! Creating a Childfree Legacy with Monica Rivera
#52 - The Happiness Hit: Why Celebrating "Wins" is Essential for Confidence and More {Re-Release}
#48 - Latines Embracing Mental Health: Shattering Therapy Taboos with Dra. Mildred Ortiz
#40 - Becoming a Shame-Free Childfree Latina with Rena Martine
#41 - Dismantling the Toxic Latine Money Mentality with Wealth Warrior Linda Garcia
#51 - The Healing Power of Storytelling and Reframing Motherhood with Talia Molé {Re-Release}
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