In This Episode Allie Discusses:

• what true self care is

• physical self care

• internal self care

• relational self care

Mentioned in this Episode:

Instagram

Courses (Use the code PURPOSESHOW for 10% off!)

The Purpose Show Facebook Community

Mom life. We’re surrounded by the message that it’s the tired life. The no-time-for-myself life. The hard life. We’re supposed to get through it. Survive. Cling on by the last little thread. And at the same time, Carpe Diem—enjoy every moment because it’s going to go by so fast. The typical mom culture that sends us all kinds of mixed, typically negative messages. We shouldn’t take care of ourselves; it’s selfish. The more ragged you run yourself, the bigger your badge of honor. But also, ditch your mom bod and work out. Don’t yell. Make more money. Show up. Be better, but not at the expense of time with your kids. I am putting a hard stop to all of this. While being a mom, running a business, and whatever else you might have going on is hard, it is a lot and there’s lots of giving of yourself, the idea that motherhood means living a joyless, nonstop-hustle-with-zero-balance kind of life, where you give and give and give and never take, needs to stop. 

I’m on a mission to help you stop counting down the minutes till bedtime (at least most days). Stop the mom guilt and shame game. Stop cleaning up after your kids’ childhood and start being present for it. I want to help you thrive in work, home and life. I believe in John 10:10 that we are called to living an abundant life and I know moms are not excluded from that promise. Join me in conversations about simplicity, some business and life hacks, spirituality and lots of other good stuff that leads to a life of less for the sake of enjoying more in your motherhood. I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.

Hey babes! Welcome back to The Purpose Show podcast. I’ve been waiting for you to hear this episode. 

We recorded this one live as part of The Purpose Show Live Event that I did back in November, so some people have already heard this one. I’ve been waiting for everyone else to get their hands on it and today’s the day.

Side note: The Purpose Show Live Event was incredible. It was so good. I definitely want to do that again. 

I’ve got to wrap my head around some other behind the scenes projects I’m working on right now and see when we can fit it in because it was so good. We’ll definitely do it again. 

But please enjoy this episode. It’s all about really simple, practical, but powerful ways that I show up for myself in my life. 

My hope is that this inspires you to think about this in your own life—more self care that really moves the needle forward for you, meaning it really pours into you. It really refreshes you. 

It’s not self care that is the stereotypical self-care that’s really not doing anything, like taking a bath for the sake of taking a bath. It’s real soul nourishing self care. 

You are actually showing up for yourself and filling up your cup so you can go out there and continue to be an awesome person, an awesome mom, and do all the things that the world needs you to do with your cup full. 

Please enjoy this episode and don’t forget to tag me on Instagram and tell me what you think. This is a really good one to share. 

I’d love to see your tags and you spreading this love to your other mom friends. Thank you, guys. Enjoy!

So far, this morning has been very airy, which is so good. It is so good to lift up off the ground of the reality of life, come up here and have a sound bath. 

Lie on your back and listen to a sound bath, breathe, and think about nothing. Or let your thoughts float away.

Then, imagine your ideal day. Have a guided meditation and do these beautiful things. But I also want to give you some practicalities. 

What was really on me for you guys this morning is practical but powerful ways that I show up for myself in an effort to give you some specific ideas for how you can show up for yourselves. What does showing up for yourself even mean? 

It’s basically about self care, but I didn’t want to even call it that because self care is so overstated and it gets lost in translation. It has taken on this whole other entity of its own. 

It has limiting beliefs and ideas attached to it because of what everyone thinks it means. People call things self care that are not self care at all. 

It’s not self care if you’re just taking care of your skin and your mind is racing. There’s zero peace, it’s just a part of your to-do list. 

That’s not self-care. That doesn’t count.  

Self care is really, deeply, deeply taking care of yourself in ways that are specific to who you are as a person. Ways that fill you up so much that you become a better person. That’s self care.

I want to give you super simple, super practical, but incredibly powerful ways that I do this in my own life. 

There are a couple that could be categorized as typical, stereotype self care, but it’s about the way you do it. And some of them wouldn’t even seem to be self care at all. 

We’re going to go over those today. These are all the ones that came up for me when I thought of this. 

Taking care of yourself, showing up for yourself is so important. If something is going to make you a better version of yourself it is not extra. Isn’t that your duty, your responsibility?

We are all running around feeling so guilty about everything that we do as moms, because we can’t win. We choose the kids and we let the house go and we feel guilty that the house is so messy. 

We choose the house and we let the kids play by themselves and we feel guilty because the kids didn’t get enough one-on-one time with us. 

We can’t win because this life, these expectations are freaking ridiculous. They’re absolutely ludicrous, right?

We’re playing this game, though, where there’s guilt, we have these expectations of ourselves, and we have to be perfect all the time. 

Even though that’s not the story I want you telling yourself, let’s play the game that we all play with ourselves for a second. 

If there’s something that’s going to make you better and give you more energy to do all the things that you’re putting on yourself to do. If there’s something that’s going to make you a better mom, a better person, a better wife, a better partner, a better daughter, a better friend, is it not your responsibility to make time for that? 

Even in the stupid BS, guilt trip type of motherhood self-care is so important. I would like us to all exit that story and come to truth. 

Truth, where you are you and no one can tell you what you should be doing with your kids. No one can tell you what you should be doing for yourself. 

It’s all your choice, your story. You’re the one holding the pen. Every day it is true that you get to decide. 

You get to choose the kids. You get to set things up so the house is running itself for the most part. 

But if there’s a mess, so what? Way worse things have happened. Why are we even looking? Who cares? 

You get to choose the house, also. You get to choose to say, “I feel like having the house clean today. I don’t want to do it this weekend. Kids go play. Figure your own lives out.” And you get to not feel guilt about it. 

So, in this new story it is still true that if there is something you can do that would make you a better version of yourself it is crucial that you make time for that.

It is your responsibility to be onward and upward. Bettering yourself, loving yourself, because out of love comes all good things. You’re better. You’re a better mom. You’re a better everything. 

So, whatever story you’re living—hot mess mom culture, guilt trip culture, or truth—self care matters. It has a place in the game. It’s so important. It’s everything.

I’m going to give you some ways that I show up for myself. These are super practical, very grounded ways. We’re going to talk through these things. 

I know people have said things like this before. This isn’t new. There’s nothing astronomical about the way that Allie does things. But I want you to understand that I am making time. 

I made time before, when we were broke. Before I had help. Before I had a team. Before I had a housekeeper that comes every other week. Before all of this. 

And that is the reason I’ve been able to do all that I’ve done. The reason I’ve been able to raise my kids the way that I’ve raised them. 

The reason I’m able to delegate what I delegate. The reason I’m able to run the business that I’m running is because of these things. Because I value myself. 

I pour into myself so that I can pour into everybody I’m meant to pour into. And I also know where that line ends. I know who I am not meant to pour into. 

There’s this respect that I have for myself. I need you to have some respect for yourself from now on. Start having respect for yourself.  

Start treating yourself and speaking about yourself the way that you hope your daughter will speak to herself when she’s your age. Or the way that you hope your son will speak to his wife. 

Whatever it is for you. Figure it out. I want you to do that. 

I want you to have such a massive respect for yourself that your self care and the ways you show up for yourself have such high boundary walls around them that no one’s coming in there.

This is sacred. This is how I show up. I will be doing this. I will be investing in myself in this way. 

I also want you to understand that if you were to take some of these ideas and actually do them instead of just listening to this, your life would completely change for the better. Considering nothing else, just this. 

I need you to understand the power that’s on the table here in this conversation that we’re about to have. I want you to take action on this. There’s no excuse. 

I want you to do whatever you need to do to be accountable. Tag me, message me, share with a friend, text a friend, go in the Facebook group, whatever you need to do. 

I need you to take action on this. There are no excuses, because we respect ourselves too much to not do this. 

Here we go. Ways that I show up for myself. I’ve broken them down by sections of my life. 

The first section I want to talk about is physical effort. Effort that I put into myself is probably my favorite form of showing up for myself because it’s a physical thing that I can do to communicate love and gentleness to myself. 

You can physically see what you’re doing. I really like this area. We’re going to go over some things that I do. 

This is meant to inspire you. You can take it and run with it. You can take the meat and throw out the bones, whatever doesn’t serve you. 

You can make this your own. You can straight up take all my ideas. Whatever serves you. 

The first thing is moving my body when I feel like it. I no longer push myself to exercise because I should. 

I no longer have a set time when I’m going to exercise because I need to look a certain way. Or because that’s what successful people do. Or for any reason whatsoever. I no longer move my body for those reasons.

It’s not life-giving. In fact, it’s death. It’s absolutely terrible. I hated it. 

Instead, I listen to my body. My body is so good. It has given me so much. I love it so much. I love my body and my body loves me back. This is the language between myself and my body. 

And when it feels like it needs movement—for example, when I have a really crappy day and feel like I want to collapse on the couch and watch The Office but I can feel in my body that I need to take a walk, I choose the walk.

I’m not punishing myself; I’m listening to my body. I’m feeling the pavement beneath my shoes. I’m feeling the good burn in my legs when I’m walking up the big hill in my neighborhood. 

I’m loving my body so well. I do Pilates and yoga when I feel like it. 

I would love to encourage you to reevaluate the way that you’re looking at exercise and movement for your body. 

If you hate it why do you hate it? What in your life taught you to hate it?

If you do it because you think you should, why are you doing that? Why do you think you should? 

Is that loving your body? Or is it training it into something that it needs to be? Why do you think it needs to be that way? 

Let’s reevaluate it.

A physical form of self care that I do where I show up for myself and pour into myself is moving my body through Pilates, yoga, or walks when I freaking feel like it. 

It has been weeks since I’ve done Pilates. The last time I did Pilates I did it every single morning, usually with Brian, for three or four weeks in a row. 

I guess I just needed that. I don’t even know why. That’s what came out of me. 

There doesn’t need to be rules around this. Move your body when you feel like it. It is self care. If you feel like it every day, great. If you don’t, great. 

The next thing that goes hand-in-hand with this is eating well. I’ve shared pretty openly on the podcast that I used to binge eat based on emotions. 

Say whatever you want to say, but I believe this is a form of self-harm and I believe it is one of the sneakiest forms of self-harm. I can say that confidently because I did that. 

In doing that, the intent was to silence myself—silence thoughts, suppress, push down, get away. And that’s harmful.

That’s not good for you. It’s dangerous because it’s sneaky. It doesn’t really seem like self-harm.

I think we all have images that come into our heads when we think of the term “self-harm,” but this is definitely that. It doesn’t seem like self- harm because it’s been normalized.

I was having a conversation with Sara the other day. I’ve shared about Sara before. She is an energy healer around food, so very woo-woo and very grounded as well, and amazing. 

I can share her with you all. If you would like her information, send me a DM on Instagram. 

I was having a conversation with her the other day and we were talking about how much I’ve changed. Where I am now versus when I first started working with her last year. 

We were talking about how I look at myself in the mirror and I can’t stop, and how funny it is that I love my body so much. 

I used to avoid the mirrors. I used to hate looking at myself in the mirror. I would dread summer.

I would dread anything that meant my body was going to be seen. And not by other people, but by me. How sad. 

She was saying the same thing. That is how she feels too. 

She had the opposite self-harm. She had eating disorders. She was incredibly thin and unhealthy in the other way. And now, she feels the same way about her body. She loves it. 

I think we need to normalize staring at ourselves in the mirror and loving ourselves so much. 

I love my body. It has given me my children. It has given me a cycle that keeps me clean, flowing, going, and youthful. 

It has given me so much joy, so much pleasure, so much happiness. So much walking, hiking, and seeing the world. So much everything. I have started a business with these fingers on a keyboard. 

I love my body and that shows up in how I feed it. And yes, sometimes I have a taco or a cookie, but I’m not bingeing to silence myself or suppress anything. 

Most of the time, 95% of the time, what I eat and how I fuel my body is so good for it. I’m on a very, very nutrient dense, specific eating plan right now. It is teaching me stuff. 

The way that the food tastes, the way that I feel, the way it makes me feel is, oh my gosh. I can’t believe that I was torturing my body before. 

Torturing it with Taco Bell, Panera cookies and bread. It was telling me that I’m not doing well with this. And I said, “Shut up, screw you.” 

That’s self-harm. I’m sorry. It is.

One of the ways that I can show up for myself is eating really, really well. 

The energy of, “I am going to eat well because I’m obsessed with my body. I’m obsessed with myself. I’m so amazing and beautiful” is so different from, “You disgust me and you better change fast. Now you only get eggs and no bread for you.” That is such a vastly different energy. 

I want you to find a way to eat where you are enjoying food, where you are in love with your body, and it shows up in the way you eat and even in the speed in which you eat. 

I think we all need to relax and chill and make a ritual around eating. Enjoy it. It’s meant to be enjoyed. You shouldn’t be torturing yourself.

It’s okay to have weight loss goals, but how can you enjoy it? How can you meet those goals from a place of love, not a place of pushing or torture or self-harm?

The way that I eat is absolutely a form of self-love. Brian helps me a lot because he helps prepare food during the day when I’m busy. 

Something that I take on the go with me a lot is a hard-boiled egg and those little bite-size peppers. I’ll chop those up and slice an apple. 

This is a perfect example of self-care with food. This is on my eating plan. It fuels my body. It gives me nutrients. 

It’s taking me to my goals, my healthy goals for loving my body and having the outside of my body match the way I feel on the inside. That’s my goal. 

I don’t know what number that is. I don’t know what size that is. I will know it when I get there.

Having that food is not enough for me. I’m not going to go and eat a hard boiled egg and then  eat peppers and eat an apple. That’s not a ritual to me. 

That’s not self-care. Every meal, every snack is self-care. 

So instead, I cut the hard-boiled egg in half and I add Everything Bagel Seasoning in a little cup on the side. I slice the peppers in a way where they’re bite sized and easy. 

I slice the apple up and I put a little squeeze of lemon juice over it to keep it from getting brown. I  sprinkle some cinnamon. 

Do you guys know what Xylitol is? It’s a natural sweetener. I put a little Xylitol and cinnamon on there. 

And on the go I eat that and I feel like a frigging queen. It tastes so good and so much better. 

Do not deprive yourself. Love yourself. 

I hope this is making sense. This is huge for me. And it’s helped me so much with eating. 

I’m smiling describing this because I love food. I love food. I love food. I love food. 

I am going on a trip next week and all I’m doing is planning my food. I’m going to see Amy and Hayley and people on my team I haven’t seen in over a year. 

And yes, I can’t wait to hug you and squeeze you, but where are we going to eat? I love food. 

I also love drinks. I love going out to drink with Brian. I still do those things. I’m just mindful. 

Am I suppressing anything? Is this a social fun drink? You have to check in. 

Be who you are, but love yourself well. 

The next thing in the physical effort category that I do to show up for myself I call “bonus hygiene.” Brian was laughing and saying, “Don’t call it that,” but I’m calling it that. 

It’s typical self care stuff. Things that most moms don’t usually do, unless they’re having a self care moment. 

It’s not enough to do “self care” and put a mask on your skin when you’re on Instagram the whole time and stressing your brain out. You’re not doing anything internally to self care. 

The exterior self care has to match the internal self care, otherwise it’s just skincare. 

Things that most moms don’t do make me feel so good and so loved by myself. Knowing that I’m taking this extra minute and most people don’t do this, that’s enough for me to feel like I’m being good to myself. 

I always show pictures with those depuffing eye pads. I love those things. Taking an extra 15-20 minutes putting those on makes me pause. I can’t do my makeup. I can’t do anything yet. 

I put those on and then I will go and sit and in a meditative position and just breathe. Literally  breathe for 15 to 20 minutes. 

I do that a few times a week. That’s adding up. That’s pretty good. 

The eye pads are good for my skin. It’s nice. It’s youthful. But it’s a symbol of pause. 

Same thing with skin care masks. I moisturize my face religiously and it’s got very little to do with anti-aging. 

I don’t even really think about that stuff. I don’t really care about that. I am loving myself and taking care of myself. I don’t want my skin to be dry. 

I’m going to share this with you, even though it’s a little weird and embarrassing. Because I’ve had such bad skin issues in the past, and the acne that I experienced was such a physical manifestation of the internal dialogue that was a part of my life as a teenager and into my adulthood, when I moisturize my skin now I say things to it. 

I say, “I send love and nutrients and blood flow to my skin now. I love my skin and my skin loves me back. My skin is beautiful and glowing.” 

I’m putting this energy into my skin and the moisturizer is the vehicle. 

It is a non-negotiable that I take care of my skin and my body. It is a non-negotiable. I’m psycho about it because it’s psycho important. 

While I’m taking care of my physical, exterior self, I’m taking care of and healing my internal self. Otherwise it’s just skincare. 

Skincare is great, but I like to tie it together. I like the physical to also be tied to the soulful with bonus hygiene. 

The next thing is water intake. Have you guys seen my big mama jug? My giant gallon jug? 

This changed my life on its own. I’m not kidding. I put it on the list for a reason.  

Actually, Brian thought of this. He said, “Your water.” 

And I said, “Yeah, everyone knows to drink more water.” 

Then he said, “No, you are different because of your water. Your skin is different. You have more energy. You are different because of the water. You literally drink a gallon a day and you have to tell them that.”

This is huge. Hydrate your frigging body. 

I’m going to give this example. When one of my kids tells me, “Mom, I’m really thirsty. Can you get me water?” 

I say, “Well, why can’t you get yourself water?” 

It’s usually, “Oh, well, I couldn’t find my cup.”Or, “I can’t find my jug.” Or, “The thing isn’t working.” (We have a filtered water spout). 

Am I the only one that gets like that? I feel so bad and guilty. 

Oh my gosh, you need water. It’s a basic human need, but how often do we go throughout the day without drinking water? 

And we notice that we’re thirsty. But it’s that subconscious “shut up” to our bodies, “I don’t have time to drink water.” 

Get a jug of water, whatever size you’re comfortable with, and drink more water. First of all, we pee out toxins and we pee out unhealthy fat, so drinking water is literally clearing your body of what is not good for it. 

It’s so good for you. It’s something you can do to literally wash and refresh. Like the skincare stuff, we can take the physical and make it spiritual.

I’ll put a piece of tape on my water bottle and in permanent marker on the tape write an affirmation. Every time I take a drink of water, which is a lot, I say the affirmation in my head. 

Do you see these little love notes to myself? These little signs of love for my own self? How hard is it to write a note on you’re frigging water bottle? It’s such a difference maker. 

Step back, stop serving everyone else every second, stop suppressing everything that you need and take a second to do something for yourself. It’s so good. 

Let’s move on to internal efforts—things that I do to show up for myself that have made a huge difference internally. 

Number one is doing the inner work. That is all encompassing. I have been doing the inner work in stopping suppressing myself, stopping dealing with things and saying, “I’ll deal with that later,” or not digging into where things come from and understanding myself. 

I stopped doing that and started doing the inner work. 2020, for me, has been all of that.

Basically, I had a lot of hurtful habits that I couldn’t seem to shake. Eating was definitely one of them. 

There were patterns that were so hard to break. I kept going back to how I didn’t want to be. 

I’d say, “I’m going to stop this. I’m going to get healthy.”  And I wouldn’t. Or I would for a little bit, and then I’d stop. 

There were these hurtful habits and I was living my life this way. They were  so hard to break. It’s not a willpower thing. It’s just ingrained in me. 

I felt the urge to get to the root and figure out why. In my own faith, talking to God, praying about it, and figuring it out, God really showed me that there’s inner work that needs to happen. 

It is inner work that needs to take place and that can look however you need it to look. 

I started with therapy, energy work, healing practices. You dive into the dark spots and you do the work. It’s hard. It is. And it’s time. 

There’s been a lot of appointments, a lot of zoom calls, a lot of doing the work and finding the root cause of some really, really hard stuff. Stuff from childhood, from high school, from everything. You have to get in there yourself, uproot it and find it. 

And as I healed, my skin healed, my body healed, weight began to come off. Everything was affected. My eating, my mindset, the way I speak to other people, the way I run my business. Everything was affected. 

Do the inner work. Find a way that feels good to you to do the inner work. If you start therapy and you don’t like it, you don’t like your therapist then find a different one. Don’t give up. Keep going. 

If you want to do energy work, go and find a great energy healer. Don’t stop till you find one.

Do the inner work. It shows up. 

Ladies, if we could be a more healed, centered version of ourselves for our kids alone, we’re changing the world. We’re absolutely changing the world just from that. 

But it won’t stop there. It will spill over into everything. 

I’m still doing that inner work. I’m always going to be doing the things that I’ve learned. Maybe I’ll share more details about that in the future; maybe not.

Do the inner work because it makes you a better mom. It makes you a better person. 

It’s so important. It’s everything. And it’s absolutely self-care. 

It is the opposite of self harm. Getting in there, finding the root causes and healing them is the opposite of self-harm. It’s so good. 

The next thing that I wanted to share about in terms of internal effort to take care of myself is journaling.

Journaling is like talking it out to yourself. It can help you figure out where you’re at, what the problems really are, and identify where you need more support, both from yourself and others like when we were talking about therapists.

You can journal through and get things out and notice, “Oh my gosh, I think this is from childhood when this thing happened.” 

And then have some guidance to go and get help or work through it on your own, whatever you want. 

How often have you wanted or needed something and not bought it because you felt guilty or selfish, which is ridiculous. Let’s change that. 

Let’s start by buying yourself a nice journal and making time for this. Even if you’re not typically a journal person, I want you to get one.

And have no agenda. The hardest part is, “What do I write?” 

There’s a journaling practice where you literally start writing what you’re going to do that day and then you start to write how you feel about it. 

Brain Dump is my term. It’s called Morning Pages, but I call it a Brain Dump. 

Start by brain dumping out what you’re doing that day. It’s easy to write because it already exists. 

The hard part is what you feel. Start writing what you’re doing today, then write about how you feel about your day.

Gratitude practice is another good thing to write. You’re already in the flow of writing and then you can start to write about how you feel, what’s going on. 

You can use that to start to get things out. And you’re just listening to yourself. 

I’d be curious to know this—how many of you feel like one of the constant struggles you seem to run into is that you don’t always feel heard? 

Maybe you didn’t feel heard as a child, or you don’t feel heard in your relationship now, but it seems to be a chronic thing that you don’t matter. You don’t feel you’re heard or listened to.

Journaling is you listening to yourself. It’s you making time for yourself and giving space. You are important and you’re giving yourself space. 

If you constantly don’t feel heard, it’s probably a reflection that you don’t listen to yourself. Give your thoughts space, give your feelings space. Journal through them. 

Practicing hearing yourself, listening to yourself, giving yourself space will help you take up space out in the world and get heard. You deserve to be listened to and you deserve that respect, but you have to start by giving it to yourself.

The next thing I do that’s an internal effort of taking care of myself is listening to things that lift me up and affirm the mindset I want to have. 

I’ll give you a little bit of a trick, because I do this even when the kids are coming into my room and asking me stuff or playing really loud. 

Using my phone, I’ll go to a podcast, listen to a course that I am in, a YouTube channel, and listen to something positive on speaker phone while I get ready in the morning. 

Even on days where it’s not a work day and I’m just slapping myself together, 15 minutes, quick and easy, whatever, I will still take the time to listen to something while I get ready for the day. 

It’s become a ritual. Every time I get ready for the day, I am listening to something uplifting. 

It could be a guided meditation. It could be somebody that you admire. It could be a podcast episode. 

It could be something you’ve listened to a million times before. It could be something new. It could be something about money and your business. 

It could be anything. Listen to something when you get ready for the day in the morning and get yourself in that mindset. 

You can do this anytime of day, but I like doing it while I get ready in the morning because it’s  setting up my day for success. It’s telling my mindset where to go before anything really happens, other than me hanging out with Brian and having coffee before I get ready.

Listening to things. This is a total form of self care. I am taking ownership. 

I’m giving myself space to get to a positive space. It’s really small, but super important and very impactful.

Another thing that’s internal self care is sharing your story.

The power of storytelling has been proven to be as effective as therapy. There’s studies about this. Telling your story is as effective as therapy for some people. 

You’re helping other people through what you’ve gone through. You’re processing it also yourself. 

There are so many podcasts episodes that I’ve done where I have gone through something, and as I’m sharing it, I’m processing it. I feel so lifted up afterward. 

It’s very healing to be vulnerable. It gives you a sense of deeper purpose in the world. 

If you have a story and you feel like you want to share it, start a blog, a YouTube channel, or an Instagram account. It is healthy and healing to share. Sharing your story is healing. 

If you’ve been sitting on an idea and you haven’t been doing it, forget about growing an audience or what people are going to think, just share it. Just start sharing it, and go from there.

The last thing in the internal category is that I know my worth and I want you to know your worth. 

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I used to think that I was never enough or that I was always too much. There was never anything in between. 

In any given relationship situation, I was never enough or always too much. I thought that I had to prove my worth and perform for love, for approval, for worthiness of any kind. 

And now, I know my worth. I know that I am worthy of living, really living, not just existing.

I’m not just a mom. I’m a person. I am worthy of taking care of myself. I am worthy of money and a successful business. 

I am worthy of friendships—real friendship that doesn’t care who I am or what I do, or how many Instagram followers I have. Friends that just want to be around me and I want to be around them. 

We both give and take from each other in a positive way and not a negative way. I’ll give you this; you receive it. You give me that; I receive it. 

I am worthy of all these things. 

I think one of the biggest things that get you to knowing your worthiness are what I call Worthiness Statements. They’re basically affirmations, but they all start with, “I am worthy of.” 

What is it that you feel you’re not worthy of? “I am worthy of taking up space.” That was a big one for me. 

“I’m allowed to take up space. I’m not less worthy than anyone else here. And just because somebody’s eye rolling or doesn’t seem to want me here doesn’t mean that I’m less worthy of taking up space in this room that I was invited into. I am worthy of taking up space. I am worthy of spending money on myself.” 

Whatever it is, worthiness statements can help you.

Say it over and over again until you feel, “Of course I am.” 

You start out with, “Oh, this doesn’t feel true. I’m struggling with this.” 

And you get to a point where you feel, “F yes!” 

Let’s move on to home efforts that I do to show up for myself and practice self-care on a practical level. Obviously, I’m going to say purging belongings that are not serving me anymore. 

Regularly practicing a little bit of minimalism and getting the excess out of my way is loving myself, honoring myself, taking care of myself, because I know the damage that it does when there’s too much.

Regularly asking, “Do I really need everything in this space, everything in this closet, everything in this drawer? Let’s reevaluate.” 

I’m totally worthy of opening up my junk drawer and it being pretty functional. It doesn’t need to be a disaster. 

I’m totally worthy of having all the things that I want to have, but are they serving me? And is it making me feel good? Otherwise what’s the point?

The second thing is putting effort into your space. Putting effort into decorating your space. This does not need to cost a lot of money, although I want you to be investing in yourself through your space, not seeking deals at any cost. 

Even though you hate the headboard, it was only 50 bucks. I want you to love yourself through decorating your space. 

The bottom line is that it feels so good to have a space that is the way you want it to be. It’s emotionally relaxing. You set yourself up for peace. 

Rethink the way that you are decorating your space. Rethink the way that you shop for decorations for your space. Rethink if the deal is worth it. 

If you don’t even love the thing, why is it even coming into your house? Wait until you can afford one that you love. 

Putting effort into decorating is the way that I love myself. Absolutely. 

Even before anyone ever saw my house, when there was no social media following, there was no one looking at my stuff, my house was decorated like this. 

It’s changed in terms of my budget, but I was always going thrifting, doing DIY projects, painting dressers, and setting up a space that I loved for me. This is so important for me. 

Borrow from that and go and do that for yourself. Put more effort into your space.

Playing music all the time in your home is another one. It’s so good. So easy. Create a playlist on Spotify and create an atmosphere that you enjoy being in. Music is a huge part of that. 

Turning on the fireplace or lighting candles, burning incense, diffusing oils all the time. It’s effort in myself. 

I’m not just going to put the Christmas time smelling oils in the diffuser when company is coming over. I do that when I’m home alone. Effort in myself.

Think of places in terms of the way things smell, the music that’s playing, the way you decorate. Think of places that you love to go because of the way it makes you feel—Target, Home Decor stores, Magnolia, The Silos. 

You go to those places because of the way they make you feel. Why not make your home feel more like that? You’re already paying for your square footage anyway.

There are ways to show up in this way and put small but powerful amounts of effort into this. 

Find the thing that lights you up. For me it’s plants and ambiance things—music, lighting, cozy throw blankets, even the cheap ones from Amazon are great. They’re so cozy. Creating that feeling of luxury in your space.

Let’s move onto the last section, which is relationship effort. Things in relationships that I do to love myself, take care of myself and make sure that I’m good. 

Friendships. Research shows that there are huge benefits to social connection, unlimited benefits. One of them is increased happiness. 

One study even found that there was a key difference between very happy people and less happy people and that was that they had good friendships. 

Better health. Loneliness is actually associated with high blood pressure, depression, all kinds of negative things. 

Good friendships, good relationships, better health, increased happiness, and a longer life. 

Literally, studies show that people with strong social relationships and community ties were three times less likely to die when they’re elderly. So, literally this is lifting us up. 

Ladies, if you move to a new area or you don’t have any friends go to my free Facebook group, The Purpose Show Community with Allie Casazza. Search that on Facebook. Get a Facebook account if you don’t have one just for that group. 

I guarantee there is someone who lives near you or would love to connect one-on-one on zoom and be a virtual friend. They’re all moms, they’re like-minded, and they’re all trying to do the same thing. 

Take advantage of this free community and go post and try to find community. There’s no excuse. 

You need to honor yourself and set yourself up with positive people, positive friendships. At the very least, listen to my podcast and let the positivity there be a connection for you until you do make more friends. 

If you need to break up with friends, you need to do that then. You need to protect who you’re spending time with because it’s everything. 

Another thing that I do in terms of this area of my life is dating my husband. I love Brian and I’ll always love Brian, but honestly, it’s more important to me that I like him. 

It’s way more important to me that I like him, so I need to spend time with him. We need to do things together.

We date. We don’t really as much anymore because we moved to a new area and COVID restrictions and stuff, but we used to go to dinner every week. 

Now it’s just quiet time in the evenings at home, going out and sitting outside on the back deck together and just sitting in silence sometimes.

One thing that we’ve been doing a lot lately that’s really nice is sitting on the couch and snuggling to music instead of TV. There’s not something visually taking away from us. We’re sitting and listening to music. 

Sometimes we talk and sometimes we don’t. I like him. He’s cozy and warm and really nice to sit next to because he’s so burly and just cozy. I just like him. It makes me like him more.

If you have a spa or a hot tub, go sit out there together. Spend the money turning the heat on and go enjoy it and just sit together. 

Do date nights. Do getaways every now and then, sure. But ask yourself, “Do I like this guy?  How is this relationship serving me so that it serves our family?”

It’s not about being selfish. It’s about what comes out of that. How can you do more things to like each other better? 

All of this—relationships, health, home, internal, external—all of this contributes massively to mental health, which is everything.

These are things that came to the top of mind when I asked myself about this, that I am doing every day, all the time. Do you see all of these things?

Of course I feel whole. Of course I’m grounded. Of course I can run my business and be an awesome mom. Of course I’m confident. Of course I’m worthy. 

It’s because of all of these things, my faith, and the groundedness that I get from that. 

There’s so much good right in front of us, but we’re suppressing and telling ourselves that we can’t have it, we’re being too high maintenance, we need to chill, we need to press through, we need to just work harder, and there’s not enough goodness in our everyday lives.

I hope this encourages you to make some little tweaks and changes to the way your days are going, and get more towards the ideal day we talked about before. 

Have these practical, but powerful ways to show up for yourself and make the actual changes. 

Do you see what I said at the beginning? That if you actually did some of these, how much your life would change? Do you hear this list?

Your life would totally change for the better if you just did some of these things. 

Be encouraged. 

Why not? Why not do some of them? Why not do all of them? It’s not like you’re not worthy. It’s not like you can’t.

These are all things that we can all do.

Thanks so much for hanging out with me! In case you didn’t know, there’s actually an exclusive community that’s been created solely for the purpose of continuing discussions around The Purpose Show episodes. It’s designed to get you to actually take action and make the positive changes that we talk about here. I want you to go and be a part of it. To do that, go to alliecasazza.com/facebookgroup. 

Thank you so much for tuning in! If you’d like to learn more about me, how I can help you, how you can implement all these things and more into your life to make it simpler, better, and more abundant, head to alliecasazza.com. There are free downloads, online courses, programs, and other resources to help you create the life you really want. 

I am always rooting for you, friend! See you next time! I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.

Hey mama! Just a quick note, this post may contain affiliate links.