Brown Girl Empowered
Welcome to Brown Girl Empowered the self-help podcast that blends insightful guidance with real-life stories, hosted by Manpreet Dhaliwal, a Brown South Asian psychotherapist with a passion for helping you thrive. In each episode, Manpreet dives deep into powerful topics like mental health, breakups, self-love, confidence, leadership, and more, offering practical tools and heartfelt advice to empower you on your personal growth journey.
Whether she’s sharing her expertise solo or featuring inspiring guests, Manpreet’s mission is to help you break free from limiting beliefs and step into your true power. With her warm, relatable style and years of experience as a therapist and educator, Manpreet is here to guide you towards a life of authenticity, resilience, and self-compassion.
Tune in, transform your mindset, and unlock the best version of yourself with Brown Girl Empowered.
About Manpreet Dhaliwal:
Manpreet is a brown woman who holds a Master’s in Social Work and a Bachelor of Arts. With years of experience, she’s dedicated to making mental health resources accessible and relatable for all.
Manpreet Dhaliwal has worked as a therapist for many years and has served as a college instructor in British Columbia.
Instagram: ManpreetDhaliwal.88
Email: dhaliwalcounselling@gmail.com
Psychotherapy Services: www.dhaliwalcounselling.com
Book a consult:
Brown Girl Empowered
How to Love Yourself
What if embracing your imperfections could lead to profound self-love? In our latest episode we challenge the relentless pursuit of perfection and offer a compassionate, authentic path towards genuinely loving yourself. We dive into the essence of self-love, exploring how it's not a final destination but an evolving process that adapts to life's changes. Through the episode, we discuss moving away from the cycle of self-judgment and instead embracing self-compassion, treating your mistakes with kindness, and allowing vulnerability to pave the way for real growth.
Join us as we reveal the practical aspects of self-love, from attending to your body's needs and ensuring basic self-care to being present with your pain rather than seeking external distractions. We also draw a fascinating parallel to the yellow brick road, illustrating that the journey of self-love is continuous. Learn how to respond to and care for your entire being, embarking on a path that is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. Tune in and transform your relationship with yourself, moving towards a more compassionate and genuine self-love.
Instagram: @manpreetdhaliwal.88
Emails, questions:
Dhaliwalcounselling@gmail.com
Services: www.dhaliwalcounselling.com
Psychology Today Profile:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/therapists/manpreet-dhaliwal-surrey-bc/332001
What does loving yourself look like? How does one do it? That's going to be the topic of today's episode and this question. It can become so confusing, right? Because you can only get to move towards that goalpost of loving yourself the more insight you develop about yourself. So in order to truly move towards loving yourself, you need to really get to know your own self. If you don't have that insight, you won't be able to peel back the layers of the onion. That is yourself to see your true self is yourself to see your true self.
Speaker 1:But, honestly, loving oneself is a journey. It's not a final destination, because life is ever-changing. Everything in life is changing. We're always changing. Situations around us are always changing. We're always being presented with many different challenges, new challenges, throughout time as we go through this life journey. Nothing stays the same in life, and the same goes for us human beings. Throughout different times, such as breakups, divorce, loss, death, loss of friendships and many other different changes, our self-love may be rocked to its core and we will have to work on it all over again. So it's an ongoing process. Nothing stays the same, things are always changing and so we are always changing, so our self-love is always changing. It's an ongoing process that never ends. So this can be like oh no, I have to work on this all the time. Yes, we always have to. So the question is, how do we get walking on the yellow brick road that is self-love, because self-love not a final destination. Well, it might be easier to talk about what self-love is not.
Speaker 1:Self-love is not moving towards perfection. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Perfection, in fact, it's quite the opposite, it's learning to accept yourself with all your imperfections that you have. You see, perfection is a lie that is sold to all of us. We are sold this idea that we can finally get to that destination of perfection, ideal beauty that is attainable. However, the truth is, the more we run towards perfection, the goalpost of perfection will keep moving further and further away. It's unreachable. We can never reach perfection, but we can try. We do try and we feel bad about ourselves and it's not a good. It's not a good thing to try to move towards or try to chase this idea of perfection, because we can never reach perfection. Trying to look perfect, trying to be perfect, trying to look perfect, trying to be perfect, trying to behave perfect, we might try all these things, but it's all an unreachable, an illusion. And it's a terrible illusion because when we strive towards this perfection, people will gravitate away from us. So not only is perfection not good for us, but it also hurts our relationships when we are always trying to be perfect.
Speaker 1:True self-love is the opposite of holding on dearly to the concept of perfection and and letting it go. To learn to love all of one's misdirections, errors, and learning to accept embarrassing moments we all have had, because to be human is to have these moments of misdirections, errors and embarrassing moments. Because to be flawed is to be human. To be human is not to be perfect. To be flawed does not mean we intentionally hurt others and accept that behavior, but it means we treat our errors in the same manner we would treat our friends' errors with loving, kindness and compassion. Ultimately, to be loving towards ourselves, we need to be really brave. We need to be brave enough to be flawed and to show that we are flawed. However, we need people who are also brave enough to be flawed around us. Only then can we truly be our authentic selves. In contrast, when we meet someone who seems incredibly perfect, it's hard for us to lower our shields and be truly vulnerable and to be ourselves. So for others to relate to us, we need to allow ourselves to be seen as flawed individuals.
Speaker 1:To love ourselves means to move away from self-judgment and towards self-compassion. Self-compassion in all its forms from soothing, loving statements we tell ourselves in difficult times to loving statements we tell ourselves when we have our wins. Self-love includes when we use the power of touch to comfort ourselves in those difficult moments. It's when we mirror the love that we deserve back to ourselves instead of looking for that love and support outside of ourselves. So, honestly, practicing self-love is being there for yourself, instead of ignoring your hurt and pain by distracting yourself. Instead of ignoring your hurt and pain by distracting yourself. So many individuals try to distract themselves with external things when they experience hurt, such as shopping, gambling, alcohol, drugs and so many other different external distractions. However, when we are doing this, we are ignoring the cries of our mind, our cries of our body, cries that deserve to be heard and responded to. These cries deserve to be heard, to be listened and to be held.
Speaker 1:Self-love means recognizing what you need in the moment and giving yourself permission to give yourself exactly what you need in the moment, and giving yourself permission to give yourself exactly what you need in that moment, from love to self-compassion, from being real with yourself to facing all your defenses that are keeping you away from the love you deserve. Self-love means giving yourself the basics getting up and getting your water intake as basic as this is. So many of us ignore this self-love aspect. Listening to our body, giving ourselves the basics, taking a warm bath when you're feeling stressed, getting enough hours of sleep in, taking some time to rest. It means listening to what your body needs in that moment. That is a part of self-love. So if you're trying to do self-love yet you're not listening to your body, you're not getting your water intake in, you're not resting your body.
Speaker 1:How are you really engaging in self-love? You see, you may accept your outward appearance, you may be happy with your appearance, but if you are not responding to the tune of your body, are you really engaging in self-love? Engaging in self-love? This can be so difficult to do and you may feel this difficulty because we are so wired by society to treat our bodies as if they are machines at the mercy of the bigger goals of society and the goals that we have. We put our system, our body, behind these bigger goals created by society and the bigger goals that we might have. For example, we might have career goals, and so we may neglect our body. We learn to sacrifice our bodies for these bigger goals.
Speaker 1:For those of you who have experienced childhood neglect or trauma, you may have become used to ignoring your needs. So self-love may look like learning to listen to your body and learning to provide what your body needs at that time, because we need to love and care for our bodies, just as we love and care for our minds and our souls, because it is all connected. Our souls feel the love and the care when we care for our body. You see, we go from loving ourselves by meeting our basic needs, such as water, safety and housing. Then we go to meeting higher order needs, such as engaging in the passions that we love, such as writing, safety and housing. Then we go to meeting higher order needs, such as engaging in the passions that we love, such as writing, reading, art, poetry, etc. Making something. We go from meeting the needs of our body to the needs of our mind, to the needs of our soul. How do we satisfy the needs of our mind and soul? By being in sync with our own values. Because what about when our values are not in line with what someone is asking of us?
Speaker 1:In these situations, we need to learn how to draw boundaries. We must learn to once again listen in and tune in to our body. We need to tune in to the feelings in our stomach when someone makes a request asking us of something and we need to feel that feeling in our stomach that we are having and respond accordingly to that request in regards to how we feel. So the feeling in our stomach may be saying no, don't go through with this request, it doesn't feel right, and we need to listen to that. Or a feeling in our stomach, in our heart, may be feeling really good and it may be feeling like it's telling you to go ahead with that request and then you would go through with it Once again.
Speaker 1:The mind, body and soul is all interconnected and we must be constantly listening to the tune of all those different parts of us. Ways you can do this is making a habit of checking in with yourself, asking yourself what does my body need right now? What does my mind need right now, what does my soul need right now? Making a mental note to check in and check in often, you will get better at this when you also realize the body, the mind and the soul are all connected. Sure, the body is the container of the soul. However, the soul truly feels it when we are taking care of our body.
Speaker 1:Therefore, self-love comes from embracing our imperfections, realizing that to be human is to be imperfect, lending ourselves to self-compassion in all moments, from pain to joy, listening to the tune of the mind, body and soul, and resisting the impulse to distract oneself with external things. Self-love means loving and responding to our entire being, from our body, mind and our soul. Self-love is hard. It's not a destination. It's a yellow brick road we walk on. When we get to that destination, we hold our hands out to get that token that proves that we have achieved self-love. But the truth is, we've been building it all along within while we've been walking that yellow brick road road. So I hope this episode helps you understand how you can start walking on that yellow brick road of self-love, understanding that it is not a final destination but it is a journey. If you like this episode, please like, follow and review this podcast. Thank you.
