#77 - The Real Reason Midlife Women Struggle to Love Themselves

Have you ever wondered why you're supposed to suffer for love?

What if the love you keep looking for outside yourself was your responsibility all along?

In this episode, we explore why suffering for love is a program — not a requirement — and why learning to love every part of you, including the parts you've hidden away, is the most unselfish thing you'll ever do.

🦋 You'll Discover:

• What suffering for love is actually costing you — and why pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.
• How self-love is not something to outsource, but has been your responsibility since the moment you were born.
• Why the parts of you that you've hidden are the ones that can help you learn to love yourself.

✨ Coming Home Question:

Which part of you have you been waiting for someone else to love first?

💜 I created Coming HOME for the woman who has done everything right and still feels something is missing. It's free, it's private, and it might be the most important thing you listen to this year — sign up here!

🦋 Midlife Butterfly is a podcast for high-achieving midlife women navigating emotional exhaustion, people pleasing, self-abandonment, nervous system healing, identity shifts, and midlife awakening. Hosted by Kena Siu, Identity & Embodiment Guide.

Instagram: @midlifebutterfly
Website: midlifebutterfly.ca

Music: Back Home by Alex Productions and  Reborn by Alexander Nakarada

Transcript

[00:00:00] Kena Siu: Did you know that loving yourself is the most unselfish thing you can ever do, and not only in midlife?

[00:00:07] Welcome to Midlife Butterfly, for the high-achieving woman in midlife who has spent years showing up for everyone except herself. This podcast is where emotional exhaustion meets nervous system healing and where people-pleasing gives way to self-remembrance. I am Kena, your identity and embodiment guide, because I know you are doing the inner work.

[00:00:35] It's time to settle that wisdom from your mind into your body so you can feel alive again.

[00:00:46] Kena Siu: In this episode, you will discover what suffering for love is actually costing you and why pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. How self-love is not [00:01:00] something to outsource, but has been your responsibility since the moment you were born.

[00:01:06] Why the parts of you that you've been hidden are the ones that can help you learn to love yourself.

[00:01:17] Well,

[00:01:17] I want to start today with talking about suffering. I came to the conclusion that it's a program. Because have you ever wondered why people are supposed to suffer for life, for love? In this case, we're specifically talking about love, and I'm not saying that love cannot be painful. It is sometimes.

[00:01:47] Also, as it is well said, pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. So why do we choose it? What happens is [00:02:00] when we get a heartache, when we get hurt, the coping mechanism of the body, of the nervous system, is to close and protect itself. Which is okay The thing is, when we close our heart and we don't open it again. We close it instead of healing and keeping it open.

[00:02:39] And the issue is when we close it, we don't only close it to love, we close it to everything else, to everything that life has to offer you. And life, it's a beautiful constant flow of giving and [00:03:00] receiving that is actually abundance.

[00:03:05] The problem is when you close yourself, you are closing yourself to life itself.

[00:03:15] And then the other part as a high-achieving woman, what we try to do is, of course, to serve others, please others, rescue others at all times.

[00:03:30] The problem is when we don't take the time to fill up our own cup, And have you ever noticed how you feel when you keep giving from an empty cup? At one point, you might feel frustration and a lot of resentment towards a lot of people when you were the cause of that resentment.

[00:03:57] Right?

[00:04:00] Because what happens is that as you want to be there for others, you have to be there for you. The same happens with love. You've gotta replenish your heart and all your cells so you can give and give without actually needing others to love you back. And unfortunately, when we do this, we are causing more suffering.

[00:04:34] We have been told, if you've been on a plane before, one of the first things they tell you is to put your oxygen mask first. Why we don't do it with love? Why not replenishing yourself with love before you can [00:05:00] give it away.

[00:05:01] The cool part about filling up your cup with self-love is the fact that it becomes into a greater kind of love, what we usually call unconditional love. But it's, it's just love. It's just love. And all you want to do is to spread it away, to give it away.

[00:05:36] So please replenish your cup as often, As you can prioritize it. That's what I mean. That's exactly what I'm meaning I remember at the beginning of this episode, I started saying that loving yourself is the [00:06:00] most unselfish thing you can ever do?

[00:06:07] And I said selfish because

[00:06:12] Why giving the responsibility to someone else to fulfill you with love. I think that's the selfish part, you making someone else responsible, when the reality is that it has been your responsibility since you were born.

[00:06:43] I know this is hard to hear because we have been programmed differently.

[00:06:51] Right? You've been told to look for love outside, through others, [00:07:00] through material stuff, by wearing masks. You know what I'm referring to, right? We have been taught to outsource love. But my message here, it's for you to do the contrary. To go inside to search for that love that is actually there.

[00:07:31] It has always been there It's just the fact that since you have been outsourcing for such a long time, you don't know that it's there.

[00:07:51] So yes, one of the main tasks, if not the main one, here in this human experience is to [00:08:00] learn to love yourself

[00:08:04] That's part of the journey that's it.

[00:08:10] It's to remember who you truly are. And one of those things, one of those things, my dear, is that you are love. And I know, that it takes a lot of inner strength, power, and work

[00:08:27] to do that

[00:08:30] Because in order to love yourself

[00:08:37] You gotta look into your light and your dark sides. It's both. You gotta look into the fragmented parts of you, Meaning the parts that you left behind because of shame, pain, guilt, resentment, or whatever other [00:09:00] reason, either if you did it consciously or unconsciously You simply forgot about it.

[00:09:07] You decided to do it.

[00:09:11] Even when those parts are still there, the fact that you hide them or ignore them doesn't make them disappear.

[00:09:25] And let me tell you something. The more you welcome those part of you that you've been hidden, the more you accept them, the more you learn to love yourself.

[00:09:42] Because otherwise, something will be missing at all times. You cannot only love your light, even though, you know, we are afraid of it. We are [00:10:00] But at least we kind of look at it and saying, "Oh yeah, I can see you." Like, be proud of it. On the contrary, we are not proud of our dark side. When we just gotta welcome it

[00:10:19] Right?

[00:10:23] And as I mentioned before, when you don't welcome it, something else will be missing in your life. And that's probably why you might be giving the responsibility to someone else to love you.

[00:10:43] Because you're not capable enough to love yourself. So instead, you give your power away to someone else

[00:10:57] And I know this sounds very harsh. It [00:11:00] might feel uncomfortable for you because wasn't easy for me to swallow this pill.

[00:11:09] What I have to tell you is that once I did, my whole life shifted. The relationship with myself, the relationship with others, the way I treat myself and approach life. It has completely shifted in the most beautiful and fulfilling way.

[00:11:36] Isn't it freeing to know that love is up to you?

[00:11:46] That when you take responsibility, when you know it, you will realize, that you are the source of love.

[00:11:59] You [00:12:00] are because I am too. I spoke about this on episode 59 if you would like to listen to it.

[00:12:15] So yes, prioritize your self-love. Take the responsibility and the power to love yourself first. In this episode, I will not be sharing a practice with you. I want you to stay tuned to the Butterfly Practice Friday, because we're going to go a bit deeper into really anchoring this into your mind, body, and soul.

[00:12:49] Self-love is so liberating when you take that responsibility. And to close this episode, I want you to know that as a [00:13:00] high-achieving woman, the best thing you can check into your achievement list is self-love.

[00:13:10] From there, it comes a shift, a change from the doing into a being a bit more and more every time, and you'll notice the difference in how you experience life. I already mentioned how my life has changed. Now it's your turn to experiment. Remember that self-love is the less selfish thing you can do!

[00:13:43] Let's start right away. This weekly please yourself challenge is to ask this question every morning: What is one thing I can do to feel loved today?[00:14:00]

[00:14:01] Let your body feel the question and take a deep breath, and be attentive to what your day brings you. And of course, act on it.

[00:14:16] Kena Siu: Summary recap. In this episode, you learned what suffering for love is actually costing you and why pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. How self-love is not something to outsource, but has been your responsibility since the moment you were born. Why the parts of you that you've hidden are the ones that can help you learn to love yourself.

[00:14:46] And if you're ready to come home to the love you've been searching for outside yourself, I've created Coming Home for the woman who has done everything right and still feels like [00:15:00]something is missing. That missing part is the love for yourself. I invite you to sign up for my free private podcast, which includes a self-love practice. The link is in the show notes. And to close this beautiful episode, here goes a coming home question.

[00:15:22] Which part of you have you been waiting for someone else to love first?

[00:15:27] As usual, sending you lots of love, And I hope you listen back in the next episode. Take care.