Living Your Truth: My Journey to Self-Love and Compassion | S1E042

Linda Orsini: 00:00:08

Hello and welcome to a call for love. I believe the most powerful gift you can offer yourself is to give and receive love more freely. I'm your host Linda Orsini meditation guidance spiritual coach. Everyone has the desire to be seen, heard, respected and loved. The journey to becoming more connected to your greater purpose lies within the ability to live from the deep source of love within you. Let's begin.

Linda Orsini: 00:00:39

Hello, and a warm welcome back friends to a call for love. Today's episode is a departure from the usual because a few months ago, I had the honor of being a guest on another podcast, the shining brightly podcast. And it's hosted by my dear friend and colleague, Howard Brown. And here the tables have turned and I have found myself on the other side of the microphone. And let me tell you, it was a journey of self discovery. And yes, I might have sounded a bit nervous. After all, it was my first interview. In any case, since then, I've had the privilege of being on other podcasts. But I really wanted to share this particular episode with you here today. I would also like to extend a big heartfelt thank you to Howard Brown. He is the visionary behind shining brightly. And he's not only a best selling author and an award winning international speaker, but he is also a two time stage four cancer survivor. Really, you're going to love Howard, and connecting with Howard was more than just an interview. It was a really special experience for me. I'm immensely grateful for his support and advice over the last year as we both ventured to begin our podcast together. And most importantly for his impactful contributions to the world, driven by his mission around hope. And today's episode, I open up about my journey in creating a call for love podcast, and how I navigated the delicate balance between fear and love. It's raw, and it's honest, which is who I am and what I tried to be. And my hope is that you find inspiration and comfort in these shared insights. So thank you for joining me on this journey. And without further ado, let's begin

Howard Brown: 00:02:51

Hello, is this Howard Brown? Welcome to the shining, brightly show. So glad to have you. Listen, it's really important. We hear these terms self care equals self love. What does that all mean? Well, I've got a great guest who's going to talk us through it today and tell us why this is so important in building your self confidence in you, Linda Orsini Welcome. How are you?

Linda Orsini: 00:03:41

I am fantastic. Thank you, Howard.

Linda Orsini: 00:04:28

Well, I'm so happy to be here. And I love your podcast. So what an honor it is to speak with you and your listeners. I am the youngest of 11 children. So you may not know that yeah, I have 10 older brothers and sisters. And so I'm the youngest and maybe feisty. Like to add feisty there and really independent and I get things done. So I am self motivated. And I just do not wait for things to happen. I kind of had the mindset

Linda Orsini: 00:05:00

To create them myself. So that's just a different piece of information I like to share. You had a whole team of people love and oh my goodness, you are the baby. So oh my god, you had so many people taking care of your that's amazing. Did you get special treatment as being the youngest of 11, you know, my mum had the bedroom at the top of the stairs. And every time somebody came in the house, she'd say, I made an apple pie just for you. And then the next person would come in the house. And she would say, I made an apple pie, just for you. And we would all hear this, but we would all be delighted. And then one day I was in a bookstore, and the title said, Love each child the most. And I think she really live that both my parents did, there was lots of love to go around. God bless her 11 children. That's amazing. And it's great sage advice from your mom.

Howard Brown: 00:06:02

So I thank you for sharing that. Well, let's dig in. And we're going to chop it up a little bit. So school teacher for 30 years. And you you actually in your bio, I read that you have an anxiety you had sold for tea, Soul fatigue, what is that you have to explain as self limiting beliefs? Tell us what happened to you. What's your story?

Linda Orsini: 00:06:23

Well, I was a school teacher and I loved it. Like I seriously loved it. But I would wake up every morning, almost in tears, didn't know how I was going to make it through each day, I was completely exhausted. And this is where it's just not exhausted in your body, but your energy. So I am a yoga meditation guide, sound healer and Reiki master. So I do know what it feels like to be in your spirit. So depleted. And I would wake up each morning almost in tears, not knowing how I was going to manage to the day. And I decided to find my own path to healing my energy body. And my mind because I was very anxious and anxiety, as we know, is worrying about the future. So I decided to really empower myself by first diving into somatic healing practices. And when I say so manic, which I'm sure your your listeners will be interested to hear. We carry trauma, pain, worry suffering in our body in our physical body. And in order to relieve that is very helpful and actually detrimental to relieve it through our energy body, through nature, through restorative yoga, through breath, work, all these different modalities that really guide you to self healing.

Howard Brown: 00:07:54

Wow, I resonate with it, but I am not a yoga guy or a meditation guide. I get it all out on the basketball court through extreme exercise, hiking, biking, basketball, but there's a lot of my audience here that needs to be able to process that, especially folks that have been dealt with cancer or caregivers. And I, I heard something that resonated with me with you is that you are you're waking up every day with fear before you went to work. And that can lead to bad things and burnout. And I hear that in the nursing profession. We're hearing that in the teaching profession now. And that's not a good way to wake up every day. I mean, you want to wake up every day and try to be as positive you can and be blessed. Be grateful, seize the day, but you had to overcome that. And now you help others to do so. So that's really, really important. Now, I've listened to your podcast too. We're mutual fans. We're very aligned, about motivate, educate, and inspire our listeners. And I want you to tell us how your podcast came about. And it's called a call for love. And what inspired you to choose that name and what does that really mean to you?

Linda Orsini: 00:09:16

Well, it's so interesting, because I knew I wanted to start a podcast and I didn't know what what I was going to name it. And it came to me one day because if you think of your day, Howard and if the listeners think of the day, how many different emotions have you felt up to this point of listening? You could have had joy, exhaustion, fear, stress, anxiety, anger, you could have had resentment. You could have had a whole range of emotions and in one day, you can experience so many emotions. And instead of calling them in some spiritual texts because I am a student of A Course in Miracles They say there's two emotions, there's fear. And then there's love. And the first episode of my podcast series, I talk about the difference between the two, and and how on these rocks, I was painting, fear on one side and love on the other. And fear means stress, anxiety, resentment, anger, sadness, all those negative emotions. And that's the What fear kind of represents. And I realized, I don't want to think of my life as love and fear, because fear is so native, and I'm in it a lot. And so through A Course in Miracles, and the tax, there is another term that you can call fear. And that's a call for love. So you can be in two places, you can be either in a place of love, or there's a call for love.

Linda Orsini: 00:11:02

And I think it's really empowering for us to notice, where we are standing, are we standing in the light? Are we starting in the shadow in the darkness, and noticing it, just noticing it, and that's the first piece, are you in a place of love? Or is there a call for love. And then when you notice that and you give yourself some time and space. And when you offer yourself Self Compassion, because to notice it requires some courage to say, Oh, I'm feeling really angry, and to hold space for that, then you can invite love in. And that's a call for love.

Howard Brown: 00:11:45

Well, we're shining brightly, as you know, with the sun coming off those that are listening on video, I'm staring at a sign behind you, and I want to read it, because you just said about the two places of a call for love, or it's amazing. So behind you, I'm reading and for those listening, and watching, you'll be able to see it. But for those listening, it says every day, laugh, celebrate love, dream, hope, learn embrace, wish, share, enjoy, give live and smile. And it's, it's I'm just staring at it going. That's amazing. And you're trying to live in that embodiment. Or you're trying to get there. And that's it's cool. So I, I really appreciate you having that sign behind you, it's a great reminder to where we can get to or if we're already there to just really be thankful and grateful that we were there in some parts of our day or our life and things like that. So on your path to self love. You give me some stories of how this, how this transformed you. I'm sure people look at some tangible examples. So share some stories with us.

Linda Orsini: 00:12:57

Okay, I will, I am so happy you mentioned this because I had guided a retreat for some woman just the other week. And on my way home, I had an experience that was not very pleasant. You know, I have a super great marriage, like divorced and remarried. And I hadn't been with my husband for almost three weeks, because I had been traveling yada, yada, yada. And I was listening to all the things he was doing without me and I have some jealousy, I had some jealousy. And so this is noticing. And then I got a little cranky. And you know, all these feelings were coming up that were not very pleasant. So because of my practice of a love or a call for love, I noticed I was not in a place of love. And I could say things that were just unnecessary and, and nasty and mean, and I didn't want to this is marriage, you know, we're all if you're in a marriage or a partnership, you know, these things come up. And so I was thinking to myself, Okay, I noticed that I'm not in a place of love. I'm not in a good space. So what am I going to do? I'm going to step back, and I'm going to say anything. I'm going to feel all my emotions, hold space from my emotions, and then offer self compassion and there's three components to self compassion. There's the first one is self kindness. Oh, I'm feeling these feelings and they're not comfortable. What am I going to do? So I offer myself some soothing touch, maybe I placed my hand on my heart, or maybe you know, I rub my forehead or I roll my shoulders and release it from my body. And then I say, you know, this was not unusual. All that, you know, I've been away for about three weeks. And you know, we've led our separate lives for a couple of weeks. And these emotions could come up. This is part of the human experience, just noticing that and appreciating that. And then I gave myself some space, I breathed into it, I went for a little walk, I put my feet in the, in the grass and the ground, that gave me some space, I took some deep breaths, and pranayama, which is breathing techniques in yoga, and then I let it go. And then I can, and then when I finally got home, I could greet him with love and kindness, because I was very happy and excited to see him. But it was a journey, it was a journey to notice that we get triggers in our life, that are painful or uncomfortable. We notice them, we create space for them, we offer a self self compassion. And then we switch, we flip the switch from those unhealthy emotions that hold us back from living our true light from shining brightly into a place of love. And that's what I want to be. And that's what I advocate for is that it's through our mindset, and through practices that we can flip into a place of love. And then when you are self compassionate and loving. What does that do? It ripples outward, it makes the whole world a brighter place. And everything all love comes from self love. All love comes from ourselves. So that is an example of how I practice how I walked the talk.

Howard Brown: 00:16:50

I appreciate that. So it's fear of missing out because you he was maybe golfing or doing something with his friends and I get it. And then so you said there were three things in self compassion I got one was self kindness. The second one was with creating space.

Linda Orsini: 00:17:06

So self kindness, yes, common humanity, which is really knowing that this is part of the human experience. Okay, and number three, and and they're in no particular order. And mindfulness, that means holding space noticing. So you're going to notice, maybe offer yourself some kindness, and then know that this is not unusual. And they could come that you can have some more of one than the other. And they can come in different order. But always usually, it really starts with the mindfulness piece is just noticing. And I like to say where you're standing. Are you standing in love? Or is there a call for love? So noticing first the sensations of uncomfortable.

Howard Brown: 00:17:55

I appreciate that. And I the reason I wanted to get that down was because it's easy to hear it, but I missed it. Because I was really listening to your examples, and then putting it into practice. So I wanted to actually then now, you're an advocate for self compassion, and you have this wisdom when someone is going through struggles, okay, I live in the cancer world, and the patients and their caregivers and their families are struggling. But you know, whether it's addiction or loss of job or divorce or relationships, we all get knocked down. And it's you have to get back up again. And I always say that we lift ourselves up. And that's what you do. So when someone comes to you, what advice do you offer them? When they're in the struggle? Well, how do you get started? And where do you take them through?

Linda Orsini: 00:18:45

Well, that's an excellent question. And I have coaching clients and although I have not particularly dealt with cancer patients per se, I have dealt with people who are really struggling with death of a partner or a friend or breakups, life traumatic events. And what I say is, what are you feeling? What are you feeling what what emotions are going through? And no doubtedly fear will come up. Where do you feel it in your body? Where is this sorrow? Where is this fear? Where is this anger? Where are you feeling it in your body, your emotional body, and they can sometimes place their hands on their heart, you know, they can feel it in their digestion. And you know, when your body when you're holding these thoughts in your mind, it becomes dis is an ease in the mind is not helping the body. So knowing what you're feeling noticing where it is in your body. And then the instinct is no one likes uncomfortable. We always are trying to push away, what is not pleasant. And the key here is to hold space for what is unpleasant, in order to move through it. Because if we push it aside, we're ignoring it. But when we hold space for it, it can move through us. And we can leave it behind. And it doesn't become a burden, and it doesn't become a weight.

Howard Brown: 00:20:39

I appreciate that. One of the things that where you and I have just really, really well aligned is that, so I carry my stress on my shoulders, and then you carry it obviously, in your head, what I do is, at times, go help somebody else, it actually takes my mind off of that and going being a mentor, or listening ear or a hug for somebody else. And that actually helps a little bit in rejuvenating me, and then I can focus back on me. Because I say, you know, you've got to lift yourself up first. And but I find that helping others, the endorphins, just kind of, then allow me to come back to me all that. But the world is stressful. And, again, it's how you actually take it on is what I'm hearing from you. But focusing back and giving people the right tools, whether that's breathing, I call it finding your happy place, the stress free zone. So we're talking about the same thing. You use the mindfulness techniques and things like that as well, which are certainly important. And when people see these things working for them, I think you'll agree that the practice of gratitude, self gratitude, and gratitude really helps carry you forward. And so can you speak to that a little bit?

Linda Orsini: 00:22:01

Yes, well, I would like to go back a little bit and say that, first of all, we need to know what our body needs to release that cortisol that springs up and you said, you played basketball, you know, sometimes that's what you need, you know, you need to release that that energy, and then you can come into a place of more calm. But when you practice self compassion, it automatically creates a more empathetic person. And that's what we want. Because when we become self compassionate, and self compassion is not selfish. It's tapping into what we need. Only then can we be more empathetic to others. And that's what I say, a call for love. What are we living if we're just loving ourselves, and we're not spreading that out to others, so that you first reach out to others. It's an act of love. An act of love grows, right? It's not limited, is full abundance. So you're spreading that love and energetically, that's a higher vibration. And when you are sharing that light, and that love with others, it can't it can't not stop. At just them. It permeates everyone. And that's a sense of gratitude. When you fill and live your life from a place of love, without resentment without fear all those places, your vibration changes, your health changes, your skin changes, I swear your whole physical body changes. You have this glow and this light around you shining brightly. How can you shine brightly if you're living in a place of fear, anxiety, stress? No, is but I say that it's it's not automatic. For a lot of people, a lot of people need some guidance to work through it. Because we stick we stick to those negative emotions and that's where meditation is so so important, because it teaches us that we are not going to die from an unhealthy emotion. That is like the wave of the ocean is going to come to us and guess what is going to roll away.

Howard Brown: 00:24:16

So you that meditation is one of the tools and practices that that helps. I'm assuming you are there others you speak of a couple others on your podcast I noticed.

Linda Orsini: 00:24:27

Yes. Well I in my podcasts I am including meditations and I am on Insight Timer now. I'm an advocate for meditation because of the benefits are really mind boggling. It's 1000s upon a probably since humankind has come on this earth. Meditation has been a practice. Meditation is paramount to living healthy in our mind and body and to be best stewards of this earth. So meditation I do believe that you know energy Have we created or destroyed? It's not even my belief. It's a fact, right? It's a scientific fact that energy cannot be created or destroyed. So your energy, how are you living in it? How are you moving through it and it can get stuck in our body. And then once again, that's where it dis ease can come in. And so as a Reiki Master, and transfer, formative life coach and I am trained in hypnotherapy, all these modalities, I think I've studied almost everything there is, it's a strength, but it's a weakness, because I'm more of a student than a teacher, I love learning. The thing, the reason why I've learned all these modalities is because something's going to resonate with one person. And when I have my clients, I have a whole toolbox that I can pull from that resonates with them. Especially if there's certain personalities, you know, some people are not going to want to sit still through a meditation, but I can guide them through a very gentle movement practice, which helps them get closer to that somatic healing.

Howard Brown: 00:26:09

Well, you spoke of, you know, fear, anxiety and stress, and I in my book, I refer to that as darkness. And that's where people are trying to get out of, I just read a fact that coming out of the pandemic, and COVID, where we were very much restricted on what we could and cannot do. The number one thing coming out now is the emotion of loneliness. It's really interesting in a world, you know, people have really missed getting out and being amongst people, the embrace of a hug and things like that. And how can how can get into the place of love, help that help you? Because loneliness is something that people are dealing with now. And you need to be able to look inward and be able to then share yourself once you're, you know, ready to ready to, you know, on a solid foundation. So did you know that about loneliness is one of the big emotional malaise coming out of the pandemic?

Linda Orsini: 00:27:11

Well, I would say loneliness could be all the time, but it was just more emphasized in COVID. You know, you know, and the jail, what did they do? The worst torture is putting you in solitary confinement, right? Yeah, so being alone is is often terrifying. And it's funny that you should mention this, because I just came off of a five day silent retreat. And being alone with oneself is no walk in the park. It's not a picnic. And I, once again, if we're feeling lonely, notice the feeling off for years noticing is mindfulness than offering yourself loving kindness. And then knowing that it's not unusual to feel lonely. It's part of being this human experience. And then shining brightly taking that love and taking it outward. My father always used to say, Go serve. My parents were big, volunteer people, my brothers and sisters, we're really advocates for loving and loving and moving outside of ourselves. So if you're lonely, give what you want. You want more love, give love. You want more time, give time. You want more attention, give attention, and then it will come back to you like a boomerang.

Howard Brown: 00:28:38

That's That's great advice. While this is this, my show is only a teaser because people gotta go watch your show and get in touch with you. So this is the moment we are going to shine. We have shined all show but now the shining brightly spotlight is on you, Linda, I'd love for you to tell people how they can get in touch with you. And then give us some final thoughts and then kick it back over me for the show wrap.

Linda Orsini: 00:29:00

Well, I would love to offer your listeners journal. It's a seven day guide to self love, which I will keep available for your listeners. And of course I'm on all the platforms. A call for love is my my podcast name, and also my social media. But my Business is Global wellness education because I'm a speaker, a coach, mindfulness guide meditation guides, so many modalities. So I decided as an educator, and global I advocate for wellness so my my business name is global wellness education.

Howard Brown: 00:29:41

And well thank you and also I want to add that you're also a teacher and a student as well because you mentioned so so we'll we'll definitely include all that information in the show notes and on all the socials and definitely the link to the PDF that journal will will definitely include that. Give me some final thoughts and we're going to wrap the show

Linda Orsini: 00:30:01

my final thoughts is that we are so lucky to be alive to be breathing. And when we find the love deep love within us, it is our duty as humans part of this spiritual experience to give it outwards. So shine the light to shine the love. And if you're not in a place of love, then there's a call for love. But you can always decide

Howard Brown: 00:30:30

Wow, powerful. Thank you. Well, it's so nice to have you Linda and sharing your, your teaching your wisdom and your passion with with my audience. Thanks for being here today. So this is Howard Brown, you've been on the shining brightly show, you can reach me at shining brightly.com I've got the book, my speaking also the podcast. There's also things about my cancer journey, lots of video and also other podcasts. So come seek me out there. There's also discussion guides that are free downloadables on survivorship, mentorship as leadership and interfaith meeting the other so lots of good resources there and get interactive with me. Again, Linda Orsini thank you a call for love. Really a pleasure to have you on the show today. Thank you.

Linda Orsini: 00:31:17

Thank you, Howard.

Linda Orsini: 00:31:22

Thank you for listening. It would mean so much to me. If you could share this episode with someone you feel could benefit from its message and subscribe to a call for love podcast. To receive new weekly episodes every Tuesday. Head over to global wellness education.com to learn more.