Transformation Talk Radio

Recently, Dr. Kelly Neff joined fellow Transformation Talk Radio host Dr. Pat on The Dr. Pat Show to talk about the importance of deeping loving yourself.

There has been a lot of talk around the movement of self love in the past years and Dr. Kelly brings us incredible insight into the science and psychology of holding your own needs in high priority in your life.

In this show, they discuss the pathway to loving yourself more deeply. Where do our blockages to self-love come from? How do we find forgiveness for ourselves and begin to change our cycles of negative self-talk? How can we re-train our brains to think more positively and become 'self-cheerleaders.' We will go over important steps of daily practice for bringing more love into our lives and thinking more positively about ourselves and our futures.

Dr. Kelly Neff is a psychologist, author and founding director of The Lucid Planet. Dr. Neff has reached millions of people with her articles on psychology, spirituality and wellness, which have been featured on websites like The Mind Unleashed, Mind Body Green and The Lucid Planet. Before she became a full-time author, Dr. Neff spent seven years as a psychology professor where she helped thousands of people learn about health, relationships, love and sexuality, and co-authored the groundbreaking manual in her field, Teaching Psychology Online. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Georgetown University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Claremont Graduate University.

Dr. Pat: This is Transformation Radio.FM and I have got Dr. Kelly Neff joining me here today because she is all about the lucid planet.

And you know what? When you step out into the world and you’re banging down the doors of the soul, this is the quote for the day, “Bang down the door of your soul. You’ve got to bang down of your soul.” Now why is that? People are listening and saying, “No, we don’t have to do that. Our soul is so kind.” Because our soul has so not heard from you in so long you’ve got to remind it who you are. That’s what you’ve got to do.

Today, the pathway to loving yourself more deeply with Dr. Kelly. And let me just say something, when I first met Dr. Kelly, I was shocked at the synchronicities of things.

And I’m going to say something to you, if you go to her website and Benny, Sarah, do this, thelucidplanet.com, L-U-C-I-D Planet.com, it is one of the most amazing, OK, Maria, Justin, and Jessica, don’t take this personally, it is one of the most amazing websites I have ever seen! I’d go to this website and she is providing so much information. She has got so much for us to learn, know, and connect, not just but look, mind, body, heal, transform, evolve, vision, live fun radio that’s her menu on the website! Mind, body, heal, transform, evolve, vision, live fun radio.

When I grow up, I want to be Dr. Kelly Neff.

Dr. Kelly: Oh, Dr. Pat, when I grow up I want to be Dr. Pat. You have inspired me so much. And getting into radio was something I always wanted to do but I totally did not have the cojones and I didn’t know where to start.

And Dr. Pat, think about the topics that you cover, I mean, my goodness, you have got everything. You’ve got psychics, you’ve got healing, you’ve got medical stuff, and Lyme disease, and just the whole gamut of everything. It’s really amazing. So thank you for being an inspiration and leading me down this crazy pathway of radio into the unknown and helping guide me. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Pat: You know what’s happening right now? Think about this, you and I share something in common. If we go back and we think about the first time we met, and like an epiphany happened, the guy that we studied with is looking at us right now and probably thinking…

Dr. Kelly: These two crazy kids.

Dr. Pat: “Take their name off the graduation list.”

Dr. Kelly: Oh, I think they’re proud. I think if anything they’re pretty proud because it’s all about, what did you say, “beating down the door?”

Dr. Pat: The door of your soul, you’ve got to—your soul.

Well, let’s talk about this for a minute because here you and I are, you are also the author, you’re a psychologist-author, Founding Director of the Lucid Planet. But beyond all of that, this is really, and it’s been so fun to watch the emergence of Dr. Kelly Neff and Beyond. And here’s kind of what’s interesting, you’re not just about the psychology but you really represent the integration and harmony of body-mind-soul. Visionary art, music, anybody that goes to your website – Sarah, Benny, I hope you’ve done that – you will see that there’s something that happens when we say yes.

I wanted to ask you this question because this is your topic today; what had been your challenges, as Dr. Kelly, of looking at your own pathway to loving yourself, girl?

Dr. Kelly: Oh man, it’s such a great question. In Psychology we actually joke about – you know this – it’s very easy to have the knowledge and to help other people solve their problems but that doesn’t mean you can apply it your own life. We never said that we kind of understand how to use these tools in our lives. There’s definitely been a struggle in the sense of always feeling like I really didn’t fit in. And always feeling like I had to kind of people-please and try to give everyone everything they want in hopes that maybe someone would someday help me meet my needs.

Of course, it’s just not a healthy way to live and I’ve been down this road of being surrounded by narcissists, and I know we’ve talked a lot about this. And having narcissists just kind of draining or vamping your life energy but feeling kind of unworthy to escape from that.

The narcissists are very good at making you believe that you believe them and that you’re nothing without them and you have to keep giving to them. I have been down that road and the one thing that really got me out of it was quieting myself down and going within. And really listening and connecting to myself, and almost in a soul-retrieval type of way where I have conversations with myself, my younger self in my mind.

Yeah, that might sound kind of crazy to people but there’s really something to be said for focusing in on the times in your life when you feel like you weren’t good to yourself and forgiving yourself for those times. Forgiving yourself for placating these narcissists for so long or not standing up for yourself. Then you kind of start to realize that through that forgiveness process you can make inroads into loving yourself more deeply and being OK with where you’re going because you’ve learned from the mistakes you’ve learned in the past.

Dr. Pat: This is what you and I were talking about because what is it about us? OK, here, here, we both are specialists in co-relations, here we go. What’s the co-relation between being a graduate of Claremont University and the association with narcissism, and narcissists in our lives?

I don’t know!

And then look at us now. But here’s what I think we’re talking about here, when we look at the people we attract – so let’s you and I take a little responsibility here if we could.

Dr. Kelly: Absolutely.

Dr. Pat: When we look at the people we attract, what is it that we can learn about that? Because I don’t know that I’m ever going to not attract – I hate the word never but I hate the word “hate” too – but what is it about the things that I have a cycle here and my goal is to be more mindful of who I am. It’s not that I’m not going to attract those folks but isn’t the question, “Oh, OK, how do I recognize that? How do I recognize the struggle?”

Because it is a struggle with self-love. How do I recognize it, Dr. Kelly? And then what do I do?

Dr. Kelly: Well, we have to look at the patterns. And usually these patterns started in our childhood. They’re learned behavior and programming. So for example, if your mother was a control-freak, you’re going to attract strong women in your life and it’s comforting. But often it’s comforting because it’s reminding you of how your mother was a control-freak and then suddenly you’re surrounded by control-freaks, and you’re like, “How did I get here?”

I think a big part of it is being mindful of the patterns and pinpointing where all of this started. And then we can kind of begin to catch ourselves and walk away, or at least not give so much energy. And this is the thing control freaks and narcissists, they’re people still, and many of the times they’re people that we’re attached to and we’re connected to. We have to be accountable for forming these attachments, you are absolutely right. You can’t look at everybody in your life and say that they are all the problem because they’re the mirror, you let them in. But look through your past and figure out where these agreements started and where these patterns began.

Dr. Pat: And what we’re talking about is—what you put together for today’s show is the pathway to loving yourself more deeply, and for those of you out there, I just want to say this, this is a show where you can actually call in and get some help. And what is the help? The help is what is it that is blocking us from loving ourselves?

And the conversation today with Dr. Kelly is going to be look at what does self-love actually mean? What does that really mean? How does it show up behaviorally? And then if you are in your life right now and you are not at the place where you’re feeling the love for yourself, this would be a way to call in and get some help, and get some direction, and get some opening. Because part of this being willing enough to ask the question about, “Look it, I know that I’m not feeling the love but I don’t know what to do with it.”

Kelly, when we come back from break, let’s talk about this because you and I know this road very well. That is how we ended up in relationship with narcissists. And for those of you out there, I want to be really clear that there’s a difference between the word “narcissists,” that’s being thrown around in our pop culture. No, we’re not talking about the person that likes to take selfies, no. No.

Dr. Kelly: Although there’s a correlation.

Dr. Pat: But narcissistic personality disorder is something very different. And I know I’ve been in relationship with a couple of them. The question is how does somebody break the pattern of this and then how do you create the pathway to self-love. Stay-tuned, we’ll be right back with that and a lot more.

Hey everybody, welcome back. It’s great to have you, yeah, great to have you tuning us in, turning us on. It used to be a whole different conversation about radio, and now it’s not. Its like, “Oh, I got you on my smartphone. I’ll plug it in. I’ll take you to my car. I don’t even turn on my radio.” It’s a whole new world we live in. Yeah, right, Dr. Kelly?

And it’s kind of like it doesn’t matter what age you are. There’s this myth out there that technology is all about people that are under 21. Well, technology and the information about it has changed. We are making judgments about people and what they’re capable of and what they’re not. But what we know for sure is that in order for life to be juicy and loving, you’ve got to start as inside job. Dr. Kelly, before we jump back into this, it would be really good for you to tell folks how they can find out more about you and also about the radio show.

Dr. Kelly: Absolutely, you can find out all about me at the lucidplanet.com. And that features a lot of my writing and podcasts of the radio show which is of course,
“Lucid Planet Radio.” And you can also go directly to lucidplanetradio.com to listen to all the archive or listen in on Sound cloud; soundcloud/thelucidplanetdrkelly. And if you want to get in touch with me, Facebook and twitter are a great medium because I use them pretty frequently. Facebook, it’s just thelucidplanetwithdrkelly, and twitter, @thelucidplanet. So I’d love to hear from you if you have questions or you want to share stories, or you want to know about any of the things that I’m doing. Love to get in touch.

Dr. Pat: Awesome. All right, so let’s talk about self-love and can I ask you a question about, maybe take us on a journey of talking about how self-love shows up and how the absence of self-love shows love. And why it’s so damaging.

Dr. Kelly: This shows up across the board. It’s in terms of psyche. I believe that self-love or the lack of self-love, it begins in the way that we think about ourselves and the way that we create the narrative of our life, so the story that we create about ourselves. Either it reflects love for ourselves or it doesn’t and this is where it starts.

And from there it manifests in our behaviors, i.e. the way we treat our bodies, the way that we choose to engage in activities that make us feel good or that don’t make us feel good, or that make us healthy or unhealthy. For us subjectively, it shows up in the people that we have in our lives. It shows up in how we’re following our passions. It shows up in really the way we communicate with other people.

Like we were saying the break, self-love really is about the self but then it’s also so intimately linked with other people because we do not exist on an island. We are a social species and so that social behavior’s an incredibly important part of our identity as in who we are. When we have relationships that kind of reinforce feelings of unworthiness then that leads to lowered self-love which then leads to more of these relationships that reinforce that lack of self-love.

And we can get ourselves into kind of like a vicious cycle or kind of go down this rabbit hole with it. And it can be hard to pull ourselves out but we can pull ourselves out. And it starts in the way that we speak to ourselves in our own minds, and breaking those cycles of over-thinking and comparing ourselves to others. And there are some methods that we can use to kind of do this.

Dr. Pat: Yeah, and let’s talk about this idea though that we have about ourselves. There are various aspects of who we are. And someone said to me something a number of years ago about, “Wow, you’re going to have balance with those.” And I said, “I’m not really a big balance girl but I am about the harmony.” We were talking about emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual and how to integrate all of those.

Trying to balance things has never been my strong suit. But how to make them work together is really what I love. And I would love for you to walk us through what each of those means to you. Talking about self-love, what does emotions have to do with it? What is the mind? The psychological part, and then physical is definitely another aspect, and spiritual, I think is like the step child of the conversation, it gets left-out.

Dr. Kelly: Yes, it does, that ginger step child.

The irony here is, this is my perception and what I’ve learned from myself and my experience with other people is that the spiritual really sets the tone for everything else. We like to believe, and a lot of the Science reinforce the idea although it’s changing, we like to believe that everything that everything kind of starts in the body and that the body feels a certain way, and then based on those feelings we kind of infer our emotions. And then based on our emotions we infer our state of mind, and then based on our state of mind we kind of infer our connection spiritually with each other, and the planet, and everything else.

What psychology and the sciences, and certainly what I found is that it actually works the other way. When we are spiritual, everything kind of works from the top down, so when we recognize kind of our connection, our oneness, our unity with all living beings, that we are all these different manifestations of the divine, that we are all more connection that we could possibly know and perhaps our consciousness is something that we all share; we’re all downloading from the cloud. We start looking at it like that then we can see how that spiritual perspective can affect our state of mind, our psyche which then affects our emotions.

And then our body, our physical is actually the final thing. The physical’s a manifestation of this integration of the mind, of the emotions, and of the spirit. And the body is kind of that last resort where if your body’s sick it’s telling you, “Listen. Listen to your emotions. Listen to the spiritual feelings and issues that you’re having.’ The body is not the start. The body is the final kind of ticker that there’s something going on with us. Many time when we are not loving ourselves and we are not feeling those deep connections with spirit, with ourselves, and with other people we start to become ill. And often, it’s because we’re not putting our attention where it needs to go.

We need to put love into the space. And you’re speaking to someone – I lost my uterus because I was not putting love into that space. I was not connected. And so I learned on a very personal level how important it is to be present with your body and to always recognize the connections that you have with yourself and other, and how they’re playing out.

Dr. Pat: Well, part of this too isn’t is really understanding not necessarily dwelling. Because I think there’s a difference between understanding and dwelling. Not necessarily dwelling on the blockages or the things but don’t we know it, you know what I mean by that, I get a knot in my stomach sometimes or I feel like sometimes there’s like a little flutter in my heart when I’m stepping into something that is really quite uncomfortable and I don’t know what to do. How do you help people notice that? Because isn’t that sort of – doesn’t that physical sort of give us lightbulbs that go on about something that is really not all that great for us?

Dr. Kelly: Yes. Absolutely. That’s like intuition, right? We talk about the gut feeling and learning to recognize what that is like, “Oh no!” It’s not like you ate some bad sushi, it’s that you’re actually more connected than you realize and so you’re starting to experience things that – and this happens, I should just stop to say, as we become more sensitive, as we become more connected we start experiencing these feelings more and more and it can be scary, and it can be overwhelming.

But really getting out of our heads and learning to actually trust the feeling, for me, when I first started this journey, I didn’t understand that there’s really a difference between a thought and a feeling. I kind of imagined that a thought was me thinking about the way I was feeling. But there’s actually a huge difference between a thought and a feeling. And you get to this distinction by quieting down your mind. `

Overthinking or rumination is the worst thing that you can do for self-love. Because again, it’s a downward spiral, right? When we’re overthinking and when we’re ruminating on something, we’re taking ourselves out of the present, we’re taking ourselves out of our body, and we’re taking ourselves away from the feeling. And we’re putting ourselves in the realm of thought. We need to get out of that realm of thought and back into the realm of feeling because when we get into the realm of feeling, we realize that the one true feeling that overrides all other feelings is love. And there’s an infinite amount of love that we can connect to at any moment if we get out of our own heads.

How do we get over our own heads – out of our own heads? Well, we need to breathe.

Dr. Pat: Yeah.

Dr. Kelly: That’s number one. We need to do breathing exercises. Even just breathing in for two counts into your nose and out for four counts out through your mouth. Even that can take you out of his thinking cycle and bring you back into your feeling space. We need to meditate. Or do yoga. Or do something physical. Go outside, snuggle with animals and release oxytocin. That also will bring you into your feeling space.

We need to practice positive affirmations, looking at our self in the mirror and saying, “I am deserving of love and respect in my life.” Or, “I am beautiful and my body is beautiful.” Or whatever it is that you feel is making you feel unworthy. You need to tell yourself that’s actually not true because it’s not true.

Everybody is totally 100 percent worthy of love. And that something as well, that’s learned behavior that’s been beaten into us and conditioned into us that we’re not worthy of that love. These are just some of the things that we can do to kind of get back into that feeling space.

Dr. Pat: I have to tell you one of the – I think one of the oddest things that I’ve ever done, and I actually do this when I actually work with people. One of the oddest things that I was ever asked to do and it took me a while to do it was, one of my mentors said to me, “What I want you to do, Pat, is I want you to go out and I want you to get the rubbiest reddest lipstick you can get.” Now, I’m not a ruby red girl but you know….

Dr. Kelly: Me neither.

Dr. Pat: “Ruby red, I want you to get the ruby red, the most…. And by the way, don’t just get one, you’re going to need two, so get two. And you know, if you want them in different shades, go ahead, and get them.” And so I went and I got them. And I thought, all right, I’ve got these. And so then she said to me, “OK, so this is what I want you to do, every morning when you wake up, I want you to put that ruby red on and I want you to kiss your mirror once, just any place. Your bathroom mirror, kiss your mirror and say, ‘I love you.’” And she said you only have to do it once a day.

“And then at night, what I want you to do is, ruby red, she said if you don’t want to go to bed with ruby red, go with something, same thing at the end. You say ‘Thank you,’ kiss the mirror and love yourself.” I thought that is bizarre. I mean, what do you want me to do?

So here we have resistance. When we come back we’re going to talk about this because has to do with forgiveness. What is it about us that is so unwilling to do something as listen, simple, ruby red, OK, this is for guys too but you don’t have to do the red, ruby red on the mirror. What is it that says, “Man, I’m not doing this thing.” Once a day in the morning, once a day at night, ruby red on your mirror, don’t wash it off 30 days.

When we come back, what the heck is in the way of that? Stay tuned, Dr. Kelly Neff is going to walk us through the journey on forgiveness, what it is and what it isn’t. And why, if anything, it’s one of the most important aspects of self-love. We’ll be right back.

Welcome back, everybody. You’re listening to the Dr. Pat Show, Talk Radio to thrive by. But you know what, you can tune in to listen to Dr. Kelly Neff on lucidplanetradio.com.

As a matter of fact, today’s show is really super important, it’s a really super important show because this is really a struggle now. It is actually one of the things that psychology doesn’t really deal directly with. It’s buried and hidden in a lot of other – oh, what’s the word I want to use – descriptions of pathology. But you know, that is such a sick word to begin with. Dr. Kelly, I want to make sure that folks know, Facebook, right, what’s your Facebook?

Dr. Kelly: Oh yeah, the lucidplanetwithdrkelly, mouthful.

Dr. Pat: All right, twitter.

Dr. Kelly: Just thelucidplanet, that’s it.

Dr. Pat: Nice.

Dr. Kelly: Yeah.

Dr. Pat: And Sarah, we’re getting a couple of questions on the music, tell us what the music is.

Sarah: Of course, that last song was Lorde’s song, “Ribs.” I think that was from her first album.

Dr. Pat: Very nice. Hey everybody, this is Sarah.

Sarah: Hello.

Dr. Pat: She’s stepping in here today. I know you’re used to hearing Benny but this is Sarah. She is like pushing all the right buttons, thank you.

Dr. Kelly: Go, Sarah.

Sarah: Of course.

Dr. Pat: Sarah, go Sarah. All right, love, forgiveness, self-absorption. Today’s show is the pathway to loving yourself more deeply, right. And part of this really is – and you and I, we were chatting during the break, so I might as well go there. I was telling you that, geez, I’ve got to get my hair done because it’s been like forever.

And I said, “Oh my roots are showing but actually, my roots are showing so much that what it looks like now is that I got blonde highlights in my brunette hair.”

And someone said to me, “Why are you going do – why are you going to do blonde again? Why do you do it blonde? It makes you look like you’re trying to hide up the grey and the white.”

And I’m like, “Oh, I just wanted to go blonde. I just wanted to try it.”

“But I don’t know why you’re doing it, looks like you’re trying—“

I’m like, ugh, cuss word here. And you, part of this is really being able to be who we are whatever that even looks like. But you’ve got to get through the layers of guilt, and shame, and secrecy that we carry around because if we don’t start to look at that, how are we even going to find the pathway, let carve the pathway.

Dr. Kelly: I completely agree, we have to recognize both men and women, we are being raised in a society that’s spending billions, and billions of dollars marketing to us to tell us that we’re not good enough and that we need to change and we need to buy their stuff. And as a result, that leads to a lot of internalized self-hate and feelings of unworthiness. I remember teaching in South Orange County, I was a psychology professor for many years and I would have literally some of the most beautiful people I had ever seen, we’re talking about 19 year-olds with perfect hair, and perfect skin weighing like 100 pounds, and a great body, and telling me that they feel fat, and ugly, and that they hate themselves.

And that the class that I thought on body image and how this is all like a big game and we don’t need to participate, they’re coming to me crying about it. About how this is the first time they realize that they’ve been manipulated and that they can just love themselves. It’s so sad to me because this level – just even the physical shame and guilt, and repression, and issues. And it’s not just women, men have a ton of pressure for how they’re supposed to look and for they’re – supposed to behave in terms of masculinity.

It actually makes me emotional because imagine if we were raised in a world that told you, “You’re good enough just as you are. You’re perfect. You’re perfectly imperfect. And you don’t have to change.” Imagine what we would be like. Imagine, would we have the same barriers towards accepting ourselves? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Dr. Pat: Think about it, I don’t know about you but I’ve had moments in my life and moments where I was in that space. Somebody ask me this question the other day, they said to me, “Do you ever have a moment where you felt absolutely strong, and confident, and didn’t second guess yourself?” I mean, it was like a three minute question by the way, and I thought it was going to have this answer because the question was long, I thought it was going to be, “Oh men, I don’t even know what to say to her.”

But I got the answer, and my answer was, “Yes. When I was five years-old I got a pair of boxing gloves for my birthday and I put on those boxing gloves and it was like coming home.”

Dr. Kelly: Nice.

Dr. Pat: And then they said, “Oh, all right but how about as an adult?”

I said, “Yes, in 2003, my first time getting behind a microphone doing a radio show.”

Dr. Kelly: There you go.

Dr. Pat: And that has never changed. That has never changed for me. But how do we find that zone within ourselves, Dr. Kelly? How do we find that zone? Everybody’s looking for the zone. Find the zone. Find the zone. Find the zone. But you know, we’re looking for the zone on the outside.

Dr. Kelly: Yeah, exactly, it’s all about flow. And flow is the internal dynamic that happens. Flow is when you’re – and I think that’s what you mean by “the zone.” Flow is this concept that you can be so into something and love what you’re doing so much that you lose track of time, you lose track of yourself, all those fears and doubts, and guilt, and shame, and overthinking, and ruminations, and whatever, they all go out the window because you’re so immersed in the task that you’re doing.

And for me, at least, creative expression is a huge way to start to begin to find that flow and understand how that flow or that zone works for you. Whether its writing, or talking on the radio, or making art, or crafting, or running is another one, doing something that immerses you mind, body, and spirit all together, we all have these gifts within us to give to the world. And often, the thing that brings you into flow is really a big part of your purpose.

Dr. Pat: Yeah, I want to share something, if I could.

Dr. Kelly: Please do.

Dr. Pat: We have two – well, we have two major flagship stations. We have others but we have two, KKNW, West Coast, WBLQ on the East Coast. And WBLQ is the home of Transformation Talk Radio and soon to be the home of Transformation Radio.FM. And I got a text, Sarah, for you that I’m going to share it with you. I’ve got something that I want to share with Sarah, and it comes from our other producer in Rhode Island, Hammer Bryan Sullivan and he says, “Cool, Sarah is doing quite well behind the sound board. She has my respect,” coming from “The Hammer Bryan Sullivan.”

And I said, “May I say that?” And Bryan says, “Yes, please let her know that I said what I meant.” So I wanted to say that, right, and he goes on to say, “Being a board operator requires a magic touch and Sarah has it.” Now he doesn’t have to say that. Sarah, are you there?

Sarah: Oh, of course. I appreciate it.

Dr. Pat: Did you hear that?

Sarah: Yes.

Dr. Pat: You see what that is right there? That thing right there? So Sarah, can I ask you a question? Are you able to receive that compliment, OK?

Sarah: I think so.

Dr. Pat: OK, good. Because isn’t this part of the dialogue here, Dr. Kelly, because if we’re not able to receive the love, right, even from the outside, if we’re not able to receive that I don’t even know where we begin to create it from the inside. You hold that thought because when we come back, that’s what we’re going to talk about.

Bryan, I love you, Bryan. I love you. We’re going to take a short break. We’ll be right back.

Welcome back to the show. Dr. Kelly Neff, go ahead and go to the lucidplanet.com and I bet you’re not going to be able to leave. If you go to that website, thelucidplanet.com, I actually have to put a timer and on my – I have to set my little timer on my smartphone. Every time I go to Dr. Kelly’s website I have to put a timer on there and I put a 15 minute timer on there because if I don’t put a 15 minute timer on there I am not doing my job and I’m all over Dr. Kelly’s website, her information, her shows, what she’s doing, and it’s amazing.

If you go over there, the lucid planet, L-U-C-I-D, yup, I got a little ping, “Pat, spell it.” The luciplanet.com. And on Facebook, it’s going to be the lucidplanetwithdrkelly. And then twitter is the lucidplanet. And of course, you can to lucidplanetradio.com.

Now this is the time for tips, little advise here, little compassion because what I was talking about before was being able to receive, Dr. Kelly, tell me about that.

Dr. Kelly: Well, the balance of giving and receiving is one of the greatest struggles that we have with our human social relationships. It’s funny you bring it up because we just had this fourth Blood Moon which of course was in the fourth degree of Aries but also in Libra in the sun side. And Libra and Aries, it’s all about that struggle between the self and other people really finding balance between giving and receiving.

And so many people that I have spoken to are talking about exactly this topic of feeling like they’re looking at their relationships and they’re seeing more clearly than ever before the imbalances of how to give and how to receive. And for so many of us, when we don’t feel worthy we have a really hard time with receiving. We’ll give, give, give, and give, and that’s how we end up surrounded by narcissists or other toxic people who we need to let go of. But actually be able to receive requires us really forgiving ourselves and knowing that we’re worthy of receiving.

Where does that – how do we get to that place? Again, it’s an internal journey but it’s also making changes on the outside that show we are understanding that we are worthy. So cutting out the people who don’t give back to you, who just want to take from you, or camp your light or your energy. Actually cutting the cord, or at least walking away so that you can fill that space with other people who will come into that space. It’s not always immediate but if your space is full of narcissists or people who don’t treat you as if you’re worthy, it’s going to be hard to feel worthy. And it’s going to be hard to attract other people into your life and make you feel worthy because your space is completely filled.

But if you start to take your energy away from these people who are narcissistic or toxic and leave that space open knowing that you’re worthy, when somebody comes in who’s willing to give, it will be so much easier to accept and to have what we would call it, “a balanced exchange,” where you’re both giving and receiving, a two-way street.

My partner and I always said, and this gets easier the more you’ve experienced it, when you’ve walked away and you’ve seen how much better your life gets, and how there are good people, and you can have a two-way street, it gets easier. We used to say all the time, my partner and I when we met, “No more one-way streets with people. No more, you’re just dumping, and I’m just giving, and giving, and giving and I feel completely drained after. No more of that.” So that’s a big part of being able to receive is putting the right people in to your life who are able to give just like you also have to be able to give what you can in a way that you can.

Dr. Pat: Well, this is really kind of an interesting thing. It really goes from everything from me saying, “Oh my god, what a beautiful dress you have on.” Or “I love your hair,” or something like that just in passing. And you being able to receive that. How often have you heard, Dr. Kelly, how often have you heard people, once they get a compliment they just blow it off. Can you really talk – because let’s talk about tips, that would be one; stop doing that, right?

Dr. Kelly: Yeah, for sure. That one happens all the time. I even find myself doing it where I can’t accept – sometimes I feel, I’ll get a text message or someone will say like, “Has anyone told you how amazing you are today?”

And sometimes I want to say, “I’m not amazing, what do are you talking about? I haven’t done anything amazing. I’m sitting here, there’s paperwork, and a desk, I haven’t done anything so don’t tell me I’m amazing.” And then I’m like, “Wow, listen to that negative self-talk. Imagine if I could cheerlead for myself the way my friends and loved ones are cheerleading for me, what that would be like.”

And so you really do have to kind of change the record and say, “Wow, thank you so much. I am amazing, and so are you because we’re all amazing.” And you don’t have to do anything. I guess, this is my programming that I feel like I’m only amazing if I accomplish things, meet milestones, deadlines, oh I’ve got everything done, now I’m amazing.

But the reality is there’s always going to be something that we have to do; you are amazing just because you are amazing. You don’t need an explanation. You don’t need to jump through hoops to be great. That’s a big part of it, but yeah, there’s so many times so many people who are – and the worst part is, when you give someone a genuine compliment but they think you’re being fake or you’re trying to manipulate them that sucks. And I blame narcissists for that. I blame people who use compliments in a way to manipulate and so then we feel like we can’t accept it. “You’re going to tell me I’m great one minute and then tell me I’m a loser the next minute.” But not everyone is like that.

Dr. Pat: No, and part of this is really stemming from a level of insecurity and self-defecation. I mean, we’re talking about folks that would kind of engage in life in that way, seriously wounded. And I’ve learned to have a level of compassion that I didn’t have when I was younger. Think about how much pain someone must go through to have to go ahead and manipulate a life event like that.

Dr. Kelly: Exactly. Exactly, and that’s the thing about when people treat you poorly or they try to manipulate you, it says a lot about them and very little about you. Learning to not take it personal is also a huge step in that path of self-love.

That they’re actually hurting right now. They’re fighting their own battle and the way that they treat you whether it’s nasty or manipulative, or hurtful doesn’t mean anything about how great you are as a human. You have no control over the way that they’re going to treat you. But you have control over how you react and you can walk away.

Dr. Pat: Well, this is really part of an on-going progressive conversation and there are such enormous benefits from embracing self-love and then practicing it because that’s really what we’re talking about. There’s a practical application here and I wasn’t joking when I said, “We’ve got to bang down the door of our soul,” because we’re not used to really opening it gently. We’re used to really such the hard struggle of things.

Thank you for your time today. Thank you for all you do, Dr. Kelly. I have one last question.

Dr. Kelly: You’re welcome.

Dr. Pat: What’s your personal message? What would you like to leave us with today?

Dr. Kelly: Oh wow, I mean, oh, there’s so much to say. Really, my personal message is we all want to heal and change the world, right. And we all want to help other people and so many of us are in fields where we want to have these positive impacts. But we have to help ourselves first and we have to love ourselves first. If you really want to change the world, you change yourself and you’ll see those changes happen in the world.

If you try to change everybody else but you’re still hurting so much inside it’s going to be so much harder for you. You’re just going to be taking weight on your shoulders that you don’t need. Focus on yourself and your own self-love. And from there you can have a huge impact on the people in the world around you.

Dr. Pat: I love it. Dr. Kelly Neff, everybody. Go to the lucidplanet.com, lucidplanetradio.com.

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