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How to create more self love.
80 Plays1 year ago
Self love - often the least prioritised when it comes to focusing on your wellness. However, it is key for long term health and wellbeing.
Amy is a self love coach. Find her on Instagram @amysselflovespace. She is a self love coach, particularly specialising in those with disabilities.
As you may know self love in the context of disability is of personal interest to me since my daughter was born with hers. I spend a consistent amount of time ensuring that she builds her self love. I feel that is one of the most valuable tools I can give her!
Self love is also a key priority in my coaching in the women's wellness and intimacy field. It is certainly essential when it comes to improving our intimacy and pleasure. Without self love you will never cultivate enough worthiness to be comfortable with the vulnerability of intimacy.
Check this episode out and as always, get in touch with any questions or feedback on info@pressing-desires.com or head to https://pressingdesires.mykajabi.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Pressing Desires'
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Pressing Desires, the podcast exclusively for women wanting to improve their health by unlocking their mind, body, spirit and sexual wellness.
00:00:19
Speaker
Join us on this transformative journey as we explore topics that touch your soul, invigorate your body, and reignite your passions.
Topics and Expert Interviews
00:00:27
Speaker
From cultivating a resilient mindset, nourishing your physical health, awakening your spirit, and embracing your deepest desires, nothing is off limits.
00:00:45
Speaker
Pressing desires is your go-to resource, featuring expert interviews, inspiring stories of triumph, and practical tips to help you unlock your true potential.
Empowerment and Wellness Goals
00:00:59
Speaker
Subscribe now, and together, let's embrace our pressing desires and create a life that exceeds all expectations.
00:01:07
Speaker
Get ready to ignite your passions and live a life with more pleasure. Yes, please. This is Pressing Desires, the podcast that empowers women to improve their health and go on a journey towards mind, body, spirit and don't forget sexual wellness. Hmm, I'm really looking forward to that last bit.
Meet Amy Lockry, Self-Love Coach
00:01:35
Speaker
Hello and welcome to today's episode. I'm talking to Amy Lockry. She is on Instagram as Amyselflovespace. So she is an accredited coach with the Coaching Masters and she is a self-love coach. Now don't we all need more self-love? I always think it's the part of wellness that we probably neglect the most so we prioritise the least but it's certainly the key ingredient to having long, healthful lives.
00:02:01
Speaker
So Amy is a self-love coach that mainly works with people with spina bifida and hydrocephalus or people with disabilities. So we've got a lot to learn from Amy. She says her personal experience of how self-lovers helped nourish her own life and she's going to share her expert tips on the topic. So let's dive straight in and get to it. Okay. Hi, Amy. How are you?
00:02:27
Speaker
Lovely to see you again. Yeah, I'm well, thank you. So I'm really excited for this chat today because I'm obviously a massive fan of self-love. I think it's really important for everyone. So I'm really interested to hear what you've got to say and your take on that. But why don't you start and tell us who you are and what you do.
Amy's Journey to Coaching
00:02:50
Speaker
My name is Amy Loughry, I'm Irish, I'm 29 and I'm a self-love coach. Okay, so why did you want to be a self-love coach in the first place? Then tell us about your journey to get to that point.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah. So in the past couple of years, I'll start back at the very beginning of the pandemic. So I unfortunately started getting online trolls by a so-called friend. And I just I felt really low within myself over that time. And I did invest then myself in a self-love coach. She was actually someone I discovered online.
00:03:29
Speaker
some time back before that so she started off doing makeup tutorials because she broke her neck in a car accident and was teaching people well showing people that she could teach herself how to redo it and basically the message was anybody can do anything they put their mind to so she kind of started to step away from that a few years later because she was like I think I've done enough
00:03:54
Speaker
makeup tutorials. It's the same thing all the time. So then she said, I'll become a self-love coach. And I just really benefited from what I got from her. And then this year wasn't really great for me either. So I decided, well, like it wasn't all bad, don't get me wrong. But there were elements of it where I kind of felt like I forgot how to put self-love back into me again. And I needed to
00:04:20
Speaker
So I kind of thought I would be able to help people. I've been getting a lot from my friends, boyfriend, et cetera, that I am a nice person. I am able to help other people. I'm an easy listener. So let's give it a go. That's basically it. So tell us a bit about what self
Understanding Self-Love
00:04:40
Speaker
-love means. So how does someone know if they've got self-love, if they've never even like thought about this before?
00:04:48
Speaker
I suppose they would feel more confident in themselves and they would believe that they're able to do the things that they never thought they would.
00:05:01
Speaker
like for instance me, I never thought I'd be talking on a podcast. I never thought that I'd be a self-love coach and yeah and a lot of my friends and boyfriend as I said in the I'll talk about the service again in a few minutes but basically they do and I used to do past tense now but
00:05:22
Speaker
activities that they and I never thought that they were going to be able to do in that thing but it's just giving it a go because you don't know until you try.
Self-Love for People with Disabilities
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah and you work mainly with people with disabilities who want to boost their self-love but obviously self-love applies to everyone, really important for everyone. So
00:05:45
Speaker
How important do you think it is for someone living with a disability to pause a bit and think about their self-love and reflect on whether or not they actually do show themselves that? Yeah, I think it is really important. I think that they should
00:06:07
Speaker
be focusing on the things that they can do rather than the things that they can't do and sometimes there are ways around doing things that might take a little bit longer than others but there's still a way around it and I spoke about this before but
00:06:25
Speaker
people need to see that there's a person there. At the end of the day, you need to see past the wheelchair, you know, they should see past. Yeah, so I think it's just ignoring. I know it's easier said than done. I found it hard, but ignoring.
00:06:40
Speaker
the people who don't have very nice things to say and focus on surrounding yourself with people who do love and care about you, do things that you enjoy and that make you feel happier and I think that that would really benefit. Yeah, yes. And I suppose as you develop your skills in self-love then
00:06:59
Speaker
it is easier and easier to just dismiss the negative and incorrect things that someone might say to you. So I guess that's the way to look at it, isn't it? If someone does like your experience of being trolled online, if you don't have very much self-love, then I guess you can take those remarks personally or start questioning yourself as to whether or not they have any truth to them.
00:07:26
Speaker
Whereas if you were strong in your self-love then they would say something and you would just accept that it was untrue or you know as if they'd said you've got blue hair and you just go well I don't have blue hair so yeah I have no idea why you've said that but it's not true and it doesn't bother me.
Self-Love Practices and Routines
00:07:46
Speaker
So tell us a bit about when you were working with your personal self-love coach
00:07:51
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How did you know you started to feel more self-love? How did you know that it started to work? I was able to offload an awful lot about what was going on and she would give me advice based on personal experience and how she would deal with it if she was in my situation. And then also just some self-love tools in general, like aside from what you can do to tell yourself things.
00:08:21
Speaker
you know she taught me things like meditation and using affirmations, journaling and believing in manifestation and the love attraction and they seemed to work for me in the long run. So is that how you practice self-love on a day-to-day basis? Do you like implement those tools every day or like several times a week or is it something that you think about every day?
00:08:47
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Yeah well I do it a few times a week. I should probably, I am going to start because I'm being held accountable. I have actually because as coaches we need coaches too to you know kind of bring, it's not only self-love but just no matter what we're teaching we need to make sure that we're okay within ourselves as well and that we've invested
00:09:12
Speaker
in ourselves enough to feel ready to be able to help other people so I have invested in a self-love coach in the past few weeks and she funnily enough is Irish too but she has been living in Australia the past few years but she's
00:09:27
Speaker
back home on holiday for a while now. But she has been holding me accountable because as coaches, that's what we're meant to do for our clients. And she has set me the task of saying some affirmations in the morning. And I have stuck to that. And she's also sent me some journaling prompts, which I still have to get around to. But
00:09:52
Speaker
It's basically asking me questions of how do you feel about yourself? Why are you feeling this way? How can you make it better? What kind of things do you enjoy? Yeah. So is that what you would recommend as a self-love coach for people with disabilities is to start doing like a journaling exercise like that and create their own affirmations? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And there's good. I haven't.
00:10:19
Speaker
started one yet I've been sent a few links as well with meditation exercises and they're only like you can do a meditation in as short as five minutes it doesn't even have to be that long but just when people are talking back to you and those recordings then you can close your eyes and really feel that and by the end of it you feel great because you do feel more empowered and you do feel
00:10:46
Speaker
it does have a big effect on you and you do feel like I can do this. Why am I doubting myself? It's actually going to be easier than I talk or anything. Yeah, absolutely. Meditation is such a powerful tool. That's one of the reasons why I became a meditation teacher and used it as part of my work as a doctor. So I would prescribe meditation to patients and write them for them for lots of different health conditions.
00:11:15
Speaker
As you said, meditations can be as short as you want, really. So I will often be able to just do it for just a minute. So say if I'm really busy, just do it for a minute, particularly if like someone's wound me up or something or someone's hurt my feelings, then just even doing it just to kind of calm the stress down and get a bit of space is really helpful, isn't it?
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. So what else do you do to try and improve your self-love or the self-love of other people around you? So your friends or family that you spend time with, what kind of things do you tell your friends and family to do?
Coaching Strategy: Listening
00:11:57
Speaker
I just I'm a good listener so and because of that and because I'm not to blow my own trumpet but I'm friendly person and nice and all that jazz so they they feel comfortable with me and they know that they can know like and trust me that's something that we use in the coaching world that you have to get your clients to get to know like and trust you and
00:12:23
Speaker
I feel like my family and friends know how to do that so they know that even though and as coaches we don't always have to give advice and that's something I was worried about in the beginning I was like oh thank god because I wasn't sure whether I was going to be able to but I think being able to
00:12:43
Speaker
like reassure them that you will listen to them and you're always there and to be able to talk to them is a big thing so that's what I try to do. And often people kind of know what they need to do themselves as well don't they? So you're actually just spending the time or prioritising that time to actually you know sit down and think about things. Yeah. Some people can come up with the answers can't they?
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's what the whole coaching thing really is all about. Like, we know that. And I think deep down, the clients know themselves, they do have the answer in them somewhere. But it's about how you ask the question and what type to ask. And then eventually they'll go, Oh, why didn't I think of that? You know, it's actually easier than I thought it would be. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think the consequences are if
00:13:35
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someone doesn't practice self-love and they don't prioritize
Challenges of Lacking Self-Belief
00:13:38
Speaker
it. What do you think then sort of happens to them day to day? I think they'd feel very isolated. It's common from experience anyway. They'd feel isolated, lonely. They'd feel like they can't talk to anybody because they'd be a burden. There is the lack of belief in themselves then if they
00:14:02
Speaker
And is that how you felt before you started this whole journey of self love? Yeah, unfortunately, I felt like I was annoying people. And like, even though they're there and they don't give off that impression, it was just my head telling me and like, your head can be a very dangerous place. So just talk to people because yeah, it's better to get it out than keep it all in. Yeah, just how you interpreted things as in?
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah. And then how did that affect your relationships then? Like, how did it affect your relationships with your family, your friends, with your boyfriend? Did it have an effect because you didn't have good self-love at the time? Yeah, it did. I was a lot quieter than I am now. They can't shut me up. Yeah, just, yeah, as I said, I didn't want to put my problems on to other people. And now I know that it's okay to do that. And I'd encourage other people to do that too. But
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, just for a while I did feel like, oh God, am I doing something wrong because I feel like this or am I not, you know, giving myself enough self-love. But it was a mixture of both that I just wasn't talking to enough people to get things off my chest and I wasn't practicing the things that I could do to improve my mental health.
00:15:21
Speaker
And then how long did it take then before you started feeling better and you started feeling more confident and you weren't as quiet and you felt better about yourself? So once you started implementing those tools, do you remember like how soon you started to feel more yourself? No.
00:15:45
Speaker
Yeah, probably. Yeah, but the thing is, like I could say that it started a while back, but then there's things that, as I touched on earlier, happened since that kind of made me feel down again. So it's only kind of recently, after a while of feeling crap again, that I'm starting to get back up.
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, but I suppose it's just being consistent over a matter of weeks, isn't it? But it's still very short, isn't it? So even doing these self-loaf practices for a short time, you know, if you look at the spectrum of someone's life, it doesn't take long to turn things around, in my experience, when people do actually prioritise it. Yeah, no, it doesn't. Yeah. And tell us a bit about
00:16:31
Speaker
how, like why you feel so passionate about being a self-love coach specifically for people with disabilities?
Focus on Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus
00:16:40
Speaker
I have a disability. I have, well I've two actually, I've spina bifida and hydrocephalus, so I just, I've grown up with a lot of people with the same condition as me, as I mentioned, my friends and my boyfriend.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, I just, I was talking to a girl who I made friends with through all this coaching and she's doing free coaching sessions with me at the minute just to test the waters and to see how things go. And she basically suggested, which I think is a good idea to niche down even more. So I don't necessarily have to cater for everybody with disabilities because there's millions and billions around the world. So
00:17:22
Speaker
She was actually suggesting, why don't you? Because it will relate to you even more and kind of make it easier on you. And, you know, you'll understand people more, they'll understand you if you niche it down to people with your disabilities alone. Right. Okay. Yeah, that's really interesting, isn't it? Yeah. So that's what I'm planning on doing. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:46
Speaker
And I think that'll just be so helpful because like you said then that just makes it instant instantly relatable doesn't it? So if they know that you know exactly what it's what it's like obviously everyone's individual experience is different and you know no matter what people's conditions are you can often have
00:18:05
Speaker
different experiences of that same condition. But there's going to be common things, isn't it? Yeah. And what about the support from your boyfriend and your family and your friends? Have they been really supportive of your change in career to being a self-love coach?
00:18:23
Speaker
They have, mostly. I don't think this isn't saying anything bad about the family. I love them to bits. They're so supportive. My brother and I are so close. He's the most supportive person ever. So he gets it. I don't think my mum and dad get it just yet. They don't really think
00:18:44
Speaker
that coaching is you know can be a job and that you can earn you know a good amount of money from it and stuff so I just think it's just because I haven't really explained it to them properly and they haven't experienced it so they don't know how it works but that's not saying anything negative about them it's just I think I need to
00:19:05
Speaker
kind of explain a bit more and then they'll be like, ah, okay, she's doing well. She's hearing it and she's happy, which is the most important thing. Yeah.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's true of anyone around us, isn't it? Like any family or friends, then people just want the best for us, don't they? So people can be apprehensive sometimes because they do just want everything to be happy and safe, which makes sense. Okay, so going back to the topic of self-love then.
Admitting the Need for Self-Love
00:19:34
Speaker
So if someone feels, if someone is listening now and then they think, oh, actually, I'm not really sure if I have got
00:19:40
Speaker
a good amount of self-love. Where should they start and how would they start developing that? Just start talking to people I suppose and the best thing you can do if you're feeling low and you're not really sure where to go about things is to speak to someone I think because the first thing is
00:20:03
Speaker
getting things off your chest and admitting that you don't really love yourself and you need help. But I think that's a very brave thing to do. And I think I've heard the expression before that the first thing or the first step to getting help is admitting that you need it. Yeah, so true. Like there's no shame. There should be no shame. And I think there's a big stigma of
00:20:30
Speaker
like people think and I was guilty of this for a good while I thought that you know I felt ashamed at the beginning of asking for help and I thought it was because I was weak and I thought you know I shouldn't be doing this I'm better than this but actually you'll find that when you do reach out and ask for help it's really rewarding and there are people out there that do care and it's a positive thing to reach out so.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I just find it utterly mind-blowing that people don't want to look at things like personal development and growing because it does take a lot of courage to do that. And to me, it seems weaker just to know there's a problem and do nothing about it and just rather stick in that bed of the devil, you know, space rather than just going, actually, there's a lot of potential.
00:21:22
Speaker
in everyone and you don't know what that potential is until you start exploring it and pushing the limits.
Connect with Amy Lockry on Instagram
00:21:32
Speaker
So where can people find you then? So if they're looking for a self-love coach, particularly if someone has got a hydrocephalus or spina bifida like you mentioned, if they feel like they would be really interested in having a coach to themselves, where would they be able to find you?
00:21:49
Speaker
Um, so my Instagram page is called Amy's Stealth Love Space. And I had it all in one word, obviously. And, uh, I have a discovery colleague in the bio. So if anybody would like to jump on a call, we'll just talk for 30 minutes and like a first, and we'll go through, you know, what the person is struggling with and see how I can help them. And then we'll see if they're, where the right fit for each other.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, because that's the most important thing really with the coach, isn't it? Just to actually know, is that the right person that can serve you and help you get to your destination, isn't it? So those discovery calls are really important. Is there any other things that you think people should know about self-love?
00:22:38
Speaker
I think earlier on I was touching on doing things that you enjoy and I wanted to even though I'm not part of it anymore I'm still part of the family they won't get rid of me that easily but I have recently had to leave
00:22:55
Speaker
a service that is called the Open Opportunity Service but my friends and boyfriend I've like known a lot of people before I started and then made a load of new friends and because of the new job that I got I will be able to they have
00:23:12
Speaker
arrest by break two nights away in two weeks and I'm still able to go to that and still be able to go to weekend events and that kind of thing but what I was going to say there is about people finding stuff like try and find something like that in your area because it will get you out of the house, it will help you make new friends, it will possibly help you reconnect with old friends like I did
00:23:39
Speaker
And then as I touched on before, I did activities in there like Taekwondo and that helps with something I struggle with, which is sense of direction. And it gives you more confidence in yourself. And there are a lot of other activities as well. But yeah, I think it would be very beneficial in terms of self-love and people putting themselves out there because they'll find that
00:24:07
Speaker
actually the things that they didn't believe in themselves enough to be able to do, they can do it. They might have to do it in a different way, but they'd still be able to do it. Yeah. And I think that's the key really is, is
00:24:23
Speaker
connecting to your community so being part feeling like you're part of something so part part of self love is obviously spending time connecting to yourself and developing that kind of inner voice and that an inner feeling of self love, but often that can come from actually pushing your boundaries, exploring new things and
00:24:42
Speaker
realising what your personal talents and strengths are and appreciating your own adaptability and that actually nothing can hold you back. Only your mindset, isn't it? And there are loads of those kind of centres all around.
00:24:57
Speaker
So there's always pockets of community that are just waiting with open arms, aren't there, for people to join? It just takes that kind of first step, which obviously can be really scary for all of us to just push ourselves there. But it's so worth it, isn't it, once you're there, because you kind of find your tribe, don't you?
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So just as a final point then, have you got any tips that you can share about self-love?
00:25:29
Speaker
Just that if you just like if you start implementing like the best thing to do with anything is just start it with I've learned over the past while and yeah as I said reach out to people just if you're feeling low and you feel like you need to implement more self-love I think the first thing is admitting that you need it reaching out to people and then
00:25:58
Speaker
finding the places that I spoke about like our service that we run and then also the smaller, well they're smaller in comparison to the other things but just gathering those tools if you have time in your day like the meditation and the affirmations because they are really powerful and effective so
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, perfect, perfect. Well, thank you so much, Amy. That's been so helpful. Obviously, in these show notes, I'll add links to your Instagram page so that they can find you and book your discovery calls. But thank you for taking the time. That's been so helpful. So, yeah, to conclude, just start doing the affirmations, meditation, journaling, find your tribe and obviously find a coach like Amy. It's the most important thing.
00:26:49
Speaker
Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, Amy. That's been so helpful. Thank you. No problem. Thank you for having me. Bye.