S1:E20 The Power of Your Beliefs, and How To Elevate Your Beliefs Through Self Love
SHOW NOTES
My goal for you in his episode is to leave feeling re-inspired to overcome the self-defeating thoughts that bring you down and make you feel like you have to settle for less. When you know that powerful self belief is only a few steps away, and that resolving stagnant self love issues can get you there faster, you suddenly have so much more hope about what is possible for you. If you have a nagging worry that you might end up leaving this life with the fire inside of you dying a quite death, then you need to hear this message!
Warmly,
Linda
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Meet Your Host!
Linda Sanderville, LCSW, RYT-200 is the founder of Satya Counseling & Yoga LLC. She specializes in concierge therapy for female founders and public figures, helping high-profile women navigate public scandal, executive burnout, and the values that will define the second half of life. Based in Albuquerque and serving clients virtually in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and beyond, Linda combines clinical expertise with somatic wisdom to help leaders reclaim their truth.
Read below for full transcript.
[00:00] Intro by Linda:
Hi, I'm Linda, self-love coach and hypnotherapist who loves a good yoga class in my pajamas, listening to the belly laughs of my baby boys, and hunting down the best vegan donuts. This podcast is for ambitious and soulful women who want to feel fulfilled in all areas of their life and are ready to dive deep into the mysteries and wonders of the subconscious mind in order to achieve that. So if you are ready to be let loose from the shackles of self-sabotage and design a life of emotional freedom and everyday abundance, you are in the perfect place. Because life can get even better than you imagine, and the biggest shifts start inside of you. Welcome.
The Power of Your Beliefs
In today's episode, I want to just drive home the power of your beliefs. Your beliefs lead to so much in your life. It leads to the way that you view your circumstances, what you use your circumstances for. It leads to the way that you overcome or are overcome by what is happening in your life. It leads to your ability to feel like you have the power to make changes that can affect the whole scope of your existence here on planet Earth. Our beliefs are the driving factors in our lives. What we believe to be possible is often what ends up being possible for us.
I don't just mean what we think or what we say we believe—it will be truly, actually held on to you on the inside. I can say that I'm an amazing mom, that I've been an amazingly nurturing mom, that I am so great for my boys. But if I, in the dead of the night, am feeling like, man, I really failed today—what's wrong with me?—then it's showing that my belief around that, that I am the best mom for my boys, is a little bit polluted. And I need to work to erase the part of that belief that is holding me back from being the fullest, most nurturing, most loving mom that I possibly can be for my sons.
So I truly have seen in my work with myself, with my work with other women, that self-love is the garden where our best and most empowering beliefs can actually take root and grow. When we have that baseline of self-love that allows us to see ourselves with clarity and with compassion, then the beliefs that come out of that are so much more positive and they give us so much more fuel for the goals that we have set for ourselves.
[02:34] Self-Love as Foundation: Choosing Your Circle & Your Future
So take, for example, if I was in a PhD program (I don't have a PhD, I have a master's degree, but), which many close friends have attained this level, which I have no desire personally to go after because of just the things that I've heard- but if I were in a program like that and I was facing adversity, if I had peers who were sabotaging my work, maybe even ripping off my work, if I had professors who talked down to me or belittled what I was trying to do, who just plain didn't believe in my capacity or my ability to succeed—I would really need that foundation, that garden of self-love, to carry me through such an experience.
And that doesn't mean that we have amazing self-love and therefore we do everything on our own and we're just lone rangers, because the truth is we do need other people. The great thing, though, is that when you have that powerful self-love as your foundation, it will also drive your choices and your decisions as far as who you even surround yourself with and whose voices you listen to. So maybe I would feel isolated in the one sense because all those who were directly in my PhD program were really discouraging, really belittling, they didn't believe in me.
And so perhaps because I had that seed of self-love planted in my garden, I could make choices about, okay, well, let me make sure that every week, maybe even sometimes every day, I'm connecting with somebody over the phone or online or in person for coffee who I know is going to love on me and fill me up, and we can be reciprocal in our relationship and I can fill them up too. And so I make intentional decisions about who I'm even around and whose voices I even let sit inside my mind—because I don't want voices sitting in my mind that don't match what I already believe and hold about myself, which is that I love myself fully and that I accept myself completely.
So that would be an example of how even when we feel isolated, we can make certain choices that can engage us in a community that is much more nurturing and much more uplifting than what may be immediately available. Because some of you are in situations where what's immediately available is kind of toxic, and I appreciate that. I've been there. And yet when we are willing to imagine that there are other resources in our environment, other people that we could make connections with, that that is still a possibility for us—it's amazing what the fact that we believe that, that there are other people who are in our environment that we can also connect with who would be much more positive, then suddenly we are able to see that as well. Does that make sense?
So when you believe that something is possible, that something is true, even if you don't see it yet, suddenly your mind is looking for confirmation of that fact. And it is a fact. There are always other people out there who want to help you, who want to partner with you, who want to love on you. I promise you—I have yet, and I'll hold my work with myself, all my work with my clients—I have yet to see an example of where that is not true. I have yet to see an example of where that is not true.
So when you have that belief, powered by self-love, then your eyes can be open to the possibility of something different than what's immediately in front of you. Your eyes are open to the possibility of something more, something better, and that makes you more willing to keep on trying, keep on trying new things, getting out of your comfort zone in order to have that thing that you imagine become your lived reality.
And let's not forget that most of the things that we now have in our lives were just things that we imagined at one point. I wasn't sure if I would ever get married and I was like, okay, I'm able to just be like that really cool auntie and I'll just keep on traveling the world forever. That's not so bad. I could imagine there were ways in which I could certainly be happy as a single woman. But it was for me personally- my desire to get married and have children. I just wasn't sure if it was going to happen. But when I revived that belief that it was something that could be true for me, it meant that I took different actions. I imagined the possibility and so I was able to engage in behaviors that made finding the right partner for me much more likely. And eventually I did.
And once I did, it was like everything from there honestly was so easy. It was so much easier than the times before, the relationships I had before that were kind of a mess in one way or another. And if I had based what I thought was possible for me just on the past, I would have been so limited. I would have been so limited. And I would have settled- maybe just not even tried- because I was making my past the biggest determinant of my future. I was making my past the biggest factor that would determine my future. And the truth is that wasn't the case. The relationship I ended up in looks nothing like my past relationships.
So if I had stayed stuck there, my eyes wouldn't even have been open to really anything else. And I might not have even wanted to be in a relationship because I would have thought, well, if it's going to be like that, then I don't want it.
So another example of what it looks like when you change your belief and have belief that is rooted in self-love—and how that can alter everything, like that can alter your entire future. There are now two little boys that exist in the world because I shifted out of thinking, oh, this will never happen to me, to knowing maybe this can still happen for me. And if it were to happen, what would I decide to do differently if it was possible?
[09:19] Inspiring Examples: Nadia Murad & Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
So in thinking about this idea of the power of belief and how our past is actually not the biggest determinant of our future reality, I wanted to give a couple of examples that I found really inspiring of women who were not limited by what had happened in the past.
So the first example is Nadia Murad. Nadia Murad is actually a human rights activist. She is from Iraq and she was born in 1993, and at the age of 21, she was actually one of a couple thousand who were kidnapped by the Islamic State in Iraq, also known as ISIS. They were captured and sold into sex slavery and human trafficking. So she was in this situation for approximately three months before she was able to escape. Okay, so I don't know how old you are when you're listening to this, but I know that someone who is of a mature age now- me at 21- I was basically a baby. And I don't say that in a judgmental, looking-down-on-myself way. I was highly capable, highly intelligent, but I was so young.
But she was 21 and experienced three months of this horror. We wouldn't want to imagine one day of this. She experienced three months of being trafficked in sex slavery by ISIS, no less. But shortly after escaping from this situation, she went on to immediately begin speaking out and speaking loudly about human trafficking and sexual violence, especially as it related to Yazidi women, which is her background.
So she eventually became appointed by the United Nations as the UN Goodwill Ambassador for the dignity of survivors of human trafficking. Mind you, this was just two years after her capture. Just think about this, right? And then she was a co-recipient—just a couple years after this, and again four years after her capture—of the Nobel Peace Prize along with a Congolese physician, Dr. Mukwege. So this woman who experienced this violence was not silenced by this.
Quick Announcement
Okay, Self Love Beauties, I have a special announcement to make. I have an event coming up this October, the 2nd through the 27th. It's called the Joy Reclaimed Summit, and it is a gathering for women just like you who are looking to experience breakthroughs with physical health, emotional health, relational health, what have you. And I've handpicked 25 exceptional women to speak and share their stories of how they've achieved their own breakthroughs and been able to reclaim their joy. So definitely come be a part of this gathering. You can find it at joyreclaimedsummit.com, and the information will also be in the show notes.
And a bonus, there's going to be giveaways each week. If you join in with the Facebook group for the event, you will have opportunities to win some really nice prizes, including some one-on-one sessions with myself and some of my other speaker coaches. And that will help you to get to your breakthrough even faster. All right? So I look forward to seeing you there.
Instead of being afraid- I mean, you know, when you go through something like this, it's very easy to be traumatized, silenced, to the point of being almost mute, terrified for your life. You know, what if you say something and something happens to you, right? And she had been bought and sold several times, mind you, in the period where she was gone. And other women were marketed to other people while this was happening. And the men in the village where she was captured from, for the most part, were killed. It's about 5,000 men. So you're talking about grief and loss. You're talking about trauma, sexual violence- like so many layers of grief and painful experiences put on top of each other.
And yet her drive to see that this didn't happen to any other woman like her, it just lit this fire to have her talking and talking and talking about this, to where it was literally her career immediately afterwards. That is someone who has a huge belief in her ability to literally change the world, right? Despite what happened to her, she could have been crushed and it would have been understandable.
Like, let's be clear about that. It would have been perfectly understandable. And yet she decided that the power of her voice was so important that she was not going to crawl into a ball and crawl into a black hole. She was going to speak out and maybe, just maybe, save somebody else. That is someone who still loves herself despite what has happened. And out of that love, also loves other people and then acts accordingly.
Okay. My second and final example for today- I mean, there's many women that we could talk about—but is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. So Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, she is a Liberian politician. She was actually the first elected female head of state in all of Africa. She was originally elected in Liberia in 2006 and she was in that position until 2018.
So this woman- I don't know about you, but you know, I know that a couple years ago we thought, oh, we're going to have our first female president- or maybe you didn't. Who knows? It doesn't really matter. But she was the first female head of state in all of Africa- an entire continent with many, many countries, many different situations. And she was the first. Not only was she the first, she also signed a Freedom of Information bill that was the first of its kind in West Africa. And also because she wanted to make the national debt- which is a huge issue in many African, especially West African countries- my family is originally from West Africa, from Ghana- she wanted to make it one of the things that she targeted.
And so she signed a bill to reduce the national debt as part of one of her main initiatives as president. And not only that, but she also established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to deal with all of the crimes that were committed during Liberia's Civil War. She was committed to fighting dictators and corruption and poverty. And primarily chose to do this through the empowerment of women and girls.
So this is someone who—just to give you a little bit of a backstory—she actually got married when she was 17 years old. And she spent the first several years of her marriage basically as a homemaker. She would travel around with her husband; her husband was actually working for the Department of Agriculture. And one of her first jobs was actually being a bookkeeper in an auto repair shop.
This is not the person that you're like, oh, she's going to be the next president of a West African nation, right? Very simple, very humble, doing what many of us have done, right? And really following in the footsteps of her husband as he pursued his career. But eventually, after getting degrees as she was traveling through the US, getting her own degrees and things like that, she eventually divorced her husband because he had actually been abusive to her, right.
And so I just want to give you these couple of examples to think about—a woman who had self-love, even if it was just a seed, right, in their garden. Maybe it wasn't the whole garden, maybe it was just a seed. It was enough to keep them from dismissing themselves, from not believing in themselves, or thinking that things weren't possible for them. Or like Nadia- oh, who's going to listen to me? I'm some random woman from this village in Iraq. Who cares about what I have to say?
Or like Ellen- I'm just a homemaker. I've been having babies since I was a teenager. Who am I to lead an entire nation? But they did not think that about themselves. And so, you know, as corny as it sounds, if they can, we can, right? And I'm sure that if I knew you, I could find examples of that from your own life. Because the truth is, we all have examples of places where we could have just given up or thought, well, I'm not enough, or I can't do this, or this isn't possible for me. But something in us decided, no, that's not okay. I don't believe that. I don't buy that. I think even if I can't see evidence of that yet, I know for sure that there's more inside of me than that.
[18:32] Why I Focus on Core Belief Work & Closing Words
Okay. So I hope that this episode has just begun to drive home the point of how powerful our beliefs are. And this is why I focus so much of the work that I do with other women on totally making over the core beliefs that they hold. Because when you can change a core belief that you hold, something that is negative, that is disempowering, that makes you feel worthless, less than, that has you comparing yourself to other people and feeling like you always come out on the bottom, when you can shift a belief like that to where you no longer even buy any of that garbage, you really do become unstoppable.
The things that you are passionate about, the things that drive you, the fire that keeps you up at night, then it has the room to shine, it has the room to come out and really blossom. And for you to make more of an impact than you ever could have imagined, just by transforming those negative core beliefs that you hold about yourself that keep you small, that keep you feeling so little.
Anyway, I hope this gives you some encouragement and some hope and that it lights you up to think about the beliefs that you now hold about yourself that are holding you back. Because baby, you don't have to live with that thing no longer. You don't have to keep toting that thing around with you. It's heavy. It's a burden to bear. And you have a choice. You have a choice to learn to let it go, and there are ways to process that. If you want to learn more about my process and what I offer, certainly check out my website. You can see the link in the show notes for Self-Love Skills. And certainly keep following me here, keep listening, and just get reactivated, get inspired for more. All right, take care.
[Editing Note: The Love Yourself Liberated! group program is not currently available. If you are interested in this content and guidance, it is now exclusively provided through my concierge psychotherapy practice, Satya Counseling & Yoga.]
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