21. Loving Your Divine Self with Aliah Hall
Happy Valentine’s Day! Our focus today is about what real love and acceptance of one’s self means in pursuit of becoming more like the Savior Jesus Christ. In today’s world, self-love is often synonymous with self-absorbedness. We are told to love ourselves, but we are not really given the right tools to do so. There is a lot of self-indulgence, running away from our problems, spending money on unnecessary things. So how do we focus on loving ourselves by adding the things that bring real value into our lives?
“If you’re tired, go to bed. If you’re hungry, eat. If you need a break, rest. Don’t give up.” — Aliah Hall
Aliah Hall is a licensed clinical social worker who works with individuals and couples find healing through compassion, empathy, and connection. Her clinical experience is part of why we invited her, as well as her passion for the gospel. Kathryn and Aliah discuss what it means to really love yourself and how approaching this topic with the lens that we are all divine children of God will help us cut through what the world is saying, and really focus on eternal truths.
We have always been divine. Loving ourselves and finding our true selves is how we become more like the Savior.
You take care about the things that you love, so taking care of yourself shows you love yourself.
Anything worth having takes discipline, including a love of yourself and a knowledge of your divinity.
You cannot win a battle outside of yourself if there is an internal battle you are losing within.
Small & Simple Challenge
Talk to yourself like you would talk to someone you love. That's it!
Transcript +
Kathryn Davis 00:00 Self Care and self love are often meme-ified into women wandering around Target whenever they need a little pick me up. And although that can work for some, what if we looked at self love at times as true care and discipline? And sometimes maybe we just need to take a nap. Hi and welcome to magnify an LDS Living podcast where we cheer inspire and embolden each other as women and followers of Christ, we hope to use our influence to make a difference in the world. I'm your host, Kathryn Davis, a mom, a seminary teacher, and a grilling enthusiast who loves God. In today's world, self love is often equated with self absorbedness. We are told to love ourselves, but we are not really given the tools on how to do so. There's a lot of self indulgence, running away from our problems spending money on unnecessary things. So how do we focus on loving ourselves by adding the things that bring real value into our lives? Today, we hope to discuss what it means to really love yourself and how approaching this topic with the lens that we are all divine children of God will help us cut through what the world is saying and really focus on eternal truths. Aliah Hall is a licensed clinical social worker who works with individuals and couples to find healing through compassion, empathy, and connection. Her clinical experience is part of why we invited here as well as her passion for the Gospel. Aliah, we're so excited. You're here.
Aliah Hall 01:29 Thanks for having me.
Kathryn Davis 01:31 Before we begin, it has become somewhat of a tradition here on magnify to get to know our guests with some rapid fire questions.
Aliah Hall 01:39 Okay, I'm ready. Okay. Awesome.
Kathryn Davis 01:42 You said on your Instagram that you are "ocean people." Yeah. So my question is, how many oceans have you visited? And which ocean or beach have you not been to yet that you really, really want to add to your list?
Aliah Hall 01:59 Oh, I think the only ocean I have not been to is the Indian Ocean, which I would love to visit. And that is like the kind of Gulf of India and North Africa area of the world. And it's a very holy place to, like Hindus and Muslims. And I think that would be really awesome place to visit.
Kathryn Davis 02:21 But you've been to every other ocean. Pretty much. Oh my gosh, what's your favorite? What would you go back to if you could?
Aliah Hall 02:28 So I was an exchange student in Costa Rica. And on the east coast of Costa Rica hidden the Atlantic Ocean, there's a black sand beach that meets a white sand beach, like a point. And so like, there's black sand on this side and white sand on that side. And it's so beautiful. So I'd love to go back there.
Kathryn Davis 02:48 So fun. Yeah. Okay. My next question. You are a bit of a nature girl.
Aliah Hall 02:56 A California nature girl. California nature? Yes.
Kathryn Davis 03:01 Not Utah nature.
Aliah Hall 03:04 Well, what I've noticed is that in Utah, being in nature requires gear. Like when I first moved here, people were like, what gear Do you have? And I'm like, what gear do you need? Just go outside with like flip flops in a bathing suit? I love to be outside, but I have no gear. And then I'm like, if you need gear, I don't want to do it.
Kathryn Davis 03:26 You don't want to do? No. So what is your favorite non gear requiring activity to do outside?
Aliah Hall 03:33 being outside.
Kathryn Davis 03:34 just being outside without the gear
Aliah Hall 03:36 like I love to just sit outside and read outside, be outside and look around outside and walk around outside. I love to be outside. But if I have to have some sort of gear to be outside of that I don't want find me like multi layers of clothes, or like a helmet or a backpack or like shoes with spikes in them or something. For me flip flops and a bathing suit.
Kathryn Davis 04:06 Flip flops and a bathing suit. Yeah, then what would you consider your perfect day? Is it flip flops in a bathing suit? Or what would your...
Aliah Hall 04:07 Flip flops and a bathing suit. and to be in the ocean.
Kathryn Davis 04:19 I love it. Well, Aliah, I'm really excited to have you here today to discuss a topic that I think a lot of people are discussing, and a lot of people are trying to figure out. We hear a lot about self care and self love today in every sphere, I think. And I think there's some confusion on what self care and self love can mean. And I think there's also a stigma associated with self care. Yeah. And so kind of as we start this conversation, I want to ask first of all, do you think there is a difference between self love and self care?
Aliah Hall 04:59 I think there is definitely a difference between self love and self care. Self Care, I think is a more the physical aspect of taking care of yourself. And self love is more of an emotional and spiritual exercise of loving who you are and what you have to bring to the world. And I think, particularly in our faith community, we really struggle with both of those things. Because we're very outward looking people are always looking to serve and to help and to notice others. But I, when I talk to people that I work with and clients, when I talked to them about self care, and with self-love, like you can't give what you don't have, if you don't have love for yourself, you can't give love to someone else. If you can't take care of yourself, you can't really take care of anyone else. And so instead of being like a selfish thing, like Oh, I'm gonna go get a mani pedi or, you know, whatever worldly kind of capitalism we've put on to it with like buying things and pampering yourself. I like to think of self care and self love more as, particularly when I'm in the temple doing initiatories. And like, it's a time that I feel most like a queen, and a priestess, because of the things that are happening in an initiatory. And I think of myself, like, I am the daughter of a most high God, which makes me a queen, and makes me a priestess. And to do those things, I have to care for myself, and I have to take care of myself.
Kathryn Davis 06:42 I love that idea. I think sometimes we get caught up in the self care. And to me, the self care is like administering CPR, right? It's the self love, which is loving the person. And some people I think, confuse self care and self love and try and get at self love through self care. Like the more I do those things, the mani pedi is the shopping the time for me, then I can truly love myself more. And I think that sometimes gets confused. And so I just kind of want to talk to you a little bit first about I love what you said about self love. And that's truly understanding our divinity. And maybe there's more to it. And maybe there's more that God wants us to know about self love. And so how do we understand what self love is? And how can we obtain that a little bit more? Does that make sense? Yeah.
Aliah Hall 07:39 And I think it goes back to even what you were saying just now like this idea that self care is like an indulgent, you know, getting your hair done or your nails done. But I would really shift that would be more self indulgence, where self care is get enough sleep at night. Okay, eat, eat vegetables, if you can, you know, get out in nature, have enough sunlight, that to me, you know, when I talk about self care, it's about caring about yourself that you like you have a physical body, which our heavenly father gifted you. And it is a temple. That is where his Spirit can be housed. And so are you taking care of the house that he gave you? Are you washing your hair? Are you taking a shower? Are you eating healthy food not to excess? Are you getting out into nature? Are you taking care of yourself? And so I think because of materialism, and because of how things work in the world that we live in, you know, people try to manipulate every situation for economic gain or for whatever. And so they've turned this idea of self care into this indulgence, where you're indulging in these behaviors or indulging these luxuries where real self care has to be really is about taking care of the body, and the mind and the spirit that our Heavenly Father has given us. And when we take care of things, we learn to love them. When we neglect them. We don't we don't neglect the things we love.
Kathryn Davis 09:26 So why do you think it's so important to take care of ourselves? Why does God want us to take care of ourselves?
Aliah Hall 09:33 Because you're his daughter, and he loves you. I think of my children and I want them to smell nice. I want them to take a bath and I want them to eat healthy food. And I want them to exercise and I want them to explore their mind with literature and I want them to be social because that's how they learn and how they grow and how they become the best version of themselves. And so I can only imagine that our heavenly parents are like, this is my child, and I love her. And I want to see her grow and be happy and prosper. And if she doesn't take care of herself, she doesn't take care of the body a gave her she doesn't take care of the mind that I gave her. She's not going to blossom, she's not going to fulfill the measure of her creation.
Kathryn Davis 10:31 So it sounds like a little of what you're saying is that sometimes this self care and self love is focusing on our growth, and our potential and who our heavenly Father knows we can become. And it's not just an indulgence, and I think, obviously, it's important to take care of ourselves. So how do you balance the discipline of taking care of yourself and not neglecting this mindset that we know is so important to serve? And when the Savior said, if you lose yourself, you'll find yourself? So how do you balance those two principles?
Aliah Hall 11:15 I think when we think of kind of the opposite of what we would call like self care and self love, you know, this, this principle of humility. And I think we use that word humility in a lot of different ways. But kind of the connotation of it is that you don't think highly of yourself. I don't think that's correct. I think it's that you think less about yourself, not less of yourself. Like I'm not less than, but I'm just not thinking about me. Because I'm already taken care of, when I take care of me, I have more in which to take care of you. When I talk to young women, and relief societies like, if you imagine yourself as a vessel, you know, and you're ladeling out the spirit, or you're ladeling out water to the people who are coming to you for help or assistance or whatever they need. Is it better to ladle out of the bottom? Where they're getting the dregs? Or is it better to ladle out of the top where they're getting the overflow?
Kathryn Davis 12:15 It's a good question to be thinking about.
Aliah Hall 12:17 So if we are not filling ourselves, if we're not taking care of ourselves, then we're giving people the dregs, we're giving them what's leftover, instead of from our abundance, that I have so much love that I have enough love for me, and I have enough love for you. I have enough time for me, and I have enough time for you. I have enough faith for me, I have enough faith for you. I have enough, because the Lord is Lord of abundance. He's not a God of scarcity. He doesn't live in scarcity, and of course, supposed to be learning to be like him. We can't live in scarcity.
Kathryn Davis 12:52 Well, there's a lot of women who are struggling with this concept of self love and self care and feeling depleted. I know on many days, I feel very depleted. And I don't know if I have more to offer. Where do we start? How do you suggest to people where to start with understanding the importance of self care?
Aliah Hall 13:13 Go to bed. Go to bed at a reasonable hour.
Kathryn Davis 13:19 That's your first idea?
Aliah Hall 13:20 The dishes will still be there. Yeah, yeah, the dishes will still be there in the morning. Whatever's going on in the world will still be there in the morning, go to bed, go to bed at a reasonable hour, get enough sleep, eat some food. One of my previous callings, I taught in the Relief Society. And we've I don't remember what the topic was. But we were kind of talking about how busy everybody is. And now we've got we're taking kids to basketball and Junior Jazz and baton twirling and whatever we were taking our kids do nowadays, you know, and they're like, Oh, we're so busy. And I told them, I'm not too busy. If you need me, I will drop whatever it is. Because nothing's more important than my sisters. I'm not too busy. My house can stay dirty. My kids could miss piano like I'm not too busy.
Kathryn Davis 14:12 So it's I think it begins to understand what the why?
Aliah Hall 14:15 We're prioritizing. What really is important to you, is your neighbor and her well being or whatever more or less important than your kid going to soccer practice is going to bed and getting enough sleep so that you're not cranky and mean to your husband and your kids. More or less important than making sure your sink doesn't have any dishes on it.
Kathryn Davis 14:39 Aliah, that is a good question to ask. And sometimes I struggle with that because when I think of somebody else, yes, they're more important. Yes, I'll drop everything to help a neighbor or a child. But I don't think that about me.
Aliah Hall 14:54 But you cannot give what you do not have.
Kathryn Davis 14:58 So the question is how do we get to having more so that we can give more?
Aliah Hall 15:03 You have to get more, go to bed. If you're tired, go to bed. If you're hungry, eat, if you need a break, rest, don't give up. Our Heavenly Father gave us this body to experience life. It hungers, it pains. It's tired. Listen, your body is communicating with you, your emotions are communicating with you, your mind is communicating with you. And shutting it down. And saying like, That's not important. Nothing about me is important, is not fulfilling the measure of our creation, we came here to experience this body, with all of its frailties with all of its needs and all of its want. And so taking care of it is taken care of the gift that our Heavenly Parents gave us. If you're like, Okay, we're going to scrimp and save this year, and we're going to buy our son or daughter, this amazing bike or video game or whatever it is they really wanted for Christmas, and you bought it for them. And then they just kind of like tossed it on the floor and like, kicked mud on it, and shoved things into it that didn't belong. You'd be like, they don't really appreciate this thing that I gave them. Our Heavenly Parents gave us these bodies, they're on loan, and how we take care of them shows our love for our heavenly parents.
Kathryn Davis 16:32 How did you come to realize that, Aliah was that always something you understood? Or where did you come to realize that taking care of ourselves is showing our love for our Heavenly Parents?
Aliah Hall 16:44 Nobody ever believes this about me. I am an extreme introvert. I experience crushing depression and debilitating anxiety most of my life that impedes me from doing a lot of things that I love and would love to do. And being with people is one of those things. It's really hard for me sometimes. But it was in the depths of a moment like that when my depression and my anxiety was so bad that I could barely leave my house that I thought about I pray like you do when you're having a hard time like that. And like I gave you this body, like and it has its weaknesses, and it has its strengths. But I want to see what you can do with it. I can do more than lay here and cry. And for a while it was one thing a day. Like my goal was like do one thing a day. So let's just get up and do one thing a day. And then I'm like, okay, can do two things a day. And I'd get up but I do two things a day. And I do three things a day and then I just kept going until I could be like okay, now I am a mom and I've got kids my husband and I'm there forever needy of my energy. Everything is true. Yeah. Oh yes. It is a never ending ask but sometimes I still have to be like this body was a gift to me and I have to take care of it too. You were a gift as my child or as my husband or whoever you were a gift me but I was a gift to me too. And I take care of all the things that I love.
Kathryn Davis 18:23 So it sounds like anything worth having takes a lot of work.
Aliah Hall 18:29 Anything that you love, you will take care of.
Kathryn Davis 18:33 And so I love how you said that anything that you love you will take care of and and maybe it starts with learning to love ourselves, learning to truly believe what God says about us. It's one thing to believe God. It's another thing to believe what he says about us.
Aliah Hall 18:50 And he said that you are his daughter. That you have a divine nature. You would no sooner treat... Like if you met a queen, you know or princess or whatever whatever land, fairy tale or real, you would never treat her the way we treat ourselves.
Kathryn Davis 19:09 So you know, our health friendships, our relationships, a testimony, our understanding of our divinity that all takes work.
Aliah Hall 19:20 Yes it does. And we are here to work. Unfortunately, this is not a holiday.
Kathryn Davis 19:27 I wish sometimes it were.
Aliah Hall 19:30 You and me both. You and me both, but we did not come here to be on holiday. We came here to work.
Kathryn Davis 19:36 So why do you think it requires so much work? Why is it sometimes so hard, Aliah?
Aliah Hall 19:41 I think we get distracted from what is really important in life. I work with a lot of teenagers a lot of young adults and one of the things that I do with them is this little activity called the value sort. Yeah, we have like three piles. It's like Very important to me important to me, not important to me. And then I have like a stack of values. I have them put them in these different stacks of like what's very important to me what's just kind of important to me what's not important to me. But understanding what you actually value. And living a value driven life is really fulfilling, because then you know how to make decisions. So, I know when I became a mom, my mom was a very good housekeeper. Our house was always tidy, always clean. We had to clean before the cleaning people came to clean our house. Yeah. Yes, that was my mom. And I love her. And she's wonderful. And I'm not speaking ill of her. But when I became a parent, I really was like, if the choice between playing with my child and washing the dishes, I'm going to play with my child, because I love my child. And I don't love my dishes. I love my husband. I don't love the floor. Does it need to be swept? Yes. Do the dishes need to be washed? Yes. But first these people need to be loved. First People then things we used to love people and own things. And now we like love things.
Kathryn Davis 21:15 Do you think that's where some of that self indulgence comes in is that we love things? And do you think that's where the adversary tries to come in with this idea of self indulgence, rather than self care or self love?
Aliah Hall 21:29 I think anything that distracts us from what's really important, is not good. But before he can distract us from what's really important, we have to know what's really important.
Kathryn Davis 21:43 And trying to really focus on how we can know that. Let me share this quote with you, which I love. It's from Sister Holland, she said this, "the person who is engaged in such a constant internal fight has little energy and power left to win the outside battles. To be successful in the many skirmishes of life, you cannot afford to be your own worst enemy." And then she goes on to talk about firing mortal shells into your very soul, and how damaging that can be. And I love that thought. What do you think of that, that in order to be successful, you cannot afford to be your own worst enemy?
Aliah Hall 22:24 I think we as a culture as a faith community, and we hear it in the scriptures too, you know, like they were stiff necked or they were hard hearted and, and they were always in need of chastisement to stay on the straight and narrow road. And we have like, over internalized that. So we, we have this belief system in our faith community, that if I've constantly strict with myself, I'm constantly, you know, telling myself how I'm not good enough, or I'm not doing well enough, that somehow that's going to keep me on the straight narrow. And that is a lie of the adversary. Fear will not keep you on the straight and narrow. Love will.
Kathryn Davis 23:04 Yeah. Fears, fear as a motivator. It works. It does work, right?
Aliah Hall 23:10 Short term,
Kathryn Davis 23:10 short term,
Aliah Hall 23:12 short term, not long term.
Kathryn Davis 23:14 And God doesn't use fear.
Aliah Hall 23:16 No. And so this idea of these mortal shells, and they are coming from outside, but I've found in my work that they're more often coming from the inside, where in our mind, we have this dialogue in our head of I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough. I'm not thin enough. I don't know enough. I can't do that. If I just had this or if I had a better car or better this or better that, then I would be worthy of the love and admiration or I'd be happy, then I'd be happy then. Until our mind is playing this all of this time this like you're not good enough. You're not enough. You're not enough. You're not enough, you're not enough. And that is exhausting. It is spiritually destroying, mentally exhausting, and physically detrimental to the people that we are. It's trying to convince us that we're not who we are. And we are children of the Divine Creator. And if Satan can convince us that we are not, then he wins. If he can convince you that you're just some Mom, you're just some lady. You're just some person, that your life doesn't really matter.
Kathryn Davis 24:34 You're not making a difference.
Aliah Hall 24:36 You're not making a difference.
Kathryn Davis 24:38 You failed here.
Aliah Hall 24:39 You failed so far back. There's no point in even trying now. You can't be forgiven. I mean, just give up. Yeah, but if you wake up every morning, you're like, I am a queen, I am a priestess. I am a child of God. Then you get up every morning you're like I am ready to take on the world, and not only do I know that about me, but I know that about every sister that I come in contact with every brother that I come in contact with every child, that I come in contact, I am like, oh my cost, there is the queen of happiness. And I treat her different because I treat me different, you cannot give what you do not have, if you do not feel that way about yourself, you cannot treat other people that way sincerely, you can fake it. But you can't really do. If you don't really love yourself, you can't really love anyone else. And if you don't really take care of yourself, you can't really take care of anyone else.
Kathryn Davis 25:37 I think that's so powerful. And I think that is from the very beginning. That is how Satan has tried to use his influence, right is to take away our divine identity, he came to Moses, man, God, yeah, calls him son of man, even when he tries to tempt Jesus after fasting 40 days, oh, that you really want them to know that you're the Son of God, you'll do this like focusing in on taking away our divine identity. And we so often allow him to.
Aliah Hall 26:07 Yeah, but we have to claim that, yeah, we have to claim that and live up to it. I am a daughter of God, and therefore need to be treated accordingly, first by me, and then by everyone else around me.
Kathryn Davis 26:20 I love that claim it and first by me, then by everyone else. And I just learned this lesson so powerfully the other night, my son transferred high schools because of some bullying. And he played a basketball game against the school he transferred from and it was at their home court. And there were a number of kids in the stands who were brutal. And said some horrible things to him the entire game. And in fact, the student council came up and apologized to him after the game. I had some students apologize to me. And I sat there as a mom. And I heard some of those things being said, and my heart broke, and then that Mama bear came out. And I was so upset. I was so upset. We got home that night, and I was shaken and upset and angry. And my son came into my bedroom. And I was so mad. And he said this, he said mom, I was born to be a bigger person. God created me to turn the other cheek. Do you not think it hurt to hear all those things said about me? And every insecurity I will ever have laid out in front of everybody. But I know, God created me to be different. And God created me to take the higher road. And God created me to turn the other cheek. And I sat there and I said, But I'm tired of turning the other cheek. This is what I said to my son, I'm tired. And he just said, so am I. But God created us to be different. And I sat in my bedroom completely humbled and in awe of my son, who truly taught me what it means to understand our divinity. And I think it took him a long time to learn that. And I know that's going to come and go. But if we can truly understand our divinity, what type of attacks can we withstand, whether that's from the outside world or from our own minds and our own thoughts? What can we withstand the power and understanding who we are.
Aliah Hall 28:58 When we understand who we are. And we love and care for who we are, then what other people think about that becomes inconsequential.
Kathryn Davis 29:09 So do you believe in this idea that we will receive more when we give more have you seen this in your own life?
Aliah Hall 29:18 I have. So there's an older couple in my ward growing up in California who were who were lovely, lovely people. And I spent some time with them before I left on my mission because my family had moved but I didn't want to move right before my mission. So I stayed with them. And I remember them telling me this story about the law of the tithing. And they said, you know even when they were really the when they were young and married, that whenever that they would come upon like financial hardship. They would up their tithing, even if it was just like $1 that they would just pay more tithing. As like a teenager early 20s. I was like, that doesn't seem right but They're like, but we never went without we always had enough. You know, whenever we would have financial difficulties, we'd have our tithing and then we'd get more than we would have enough that really struck a chord for me because one of my my family mottos is enough and to spare, which is also from what's in the doctrine and covenants as well as in thr Old Testament. I truly believe that the Lord does not operate in scarcity, like he doesn't operate in scarcity. He operates in abundance. And if you have an abundance, and you give an abundance, you'll get more abundance.
Kathryn Davis 30:33 So what do you think the Lord is teaching us about ourselves and his love for us when we get lost in the service of of others?
Aliah Hall 30:41 I think, I guess that's a question I think I'd have to ponder a little bit like, I don't think that we get lost in the service of others. I think maybe it's maybe it's a semantic thing that when I am serving other people, I don't feel lost to myself. I feel more myself.
Kathryn Davis 31:03 You feel more yourself? Yeah. Why is that because that's who I am. You're someone I love.
Aliah Hall 31:08 I love serving, I love. Even though I'm an introvert, I love being with other people. I love to see other people happy, I love to see other people grow. I love my brothers and sisters. And so when I am in the service of others, I have not lost myself. I have more of myself.
Kathryn Davis 31:29 So it sounds like this idea of self love, knowing who we are. And then engaging in self care, because we know who we are, will enable us to serve more, and be His disciples and be his hands.
Aliah Hall 31:48 Because we'll be more like him, which is more like us. We are like him. So when we do the things that he does. We become more like Him. But we've also become more of ourselves. We're not losing ourselves. We're finding ourselves. That's who we are. That's who we've always been.
Kathryn Davis 32:09 So I am actually a little fascinated by the idea that you just said that we can become like him, especially when we feel self love and engage in self care, we can become more like Him. So where in the scriptures do you see the Savior taking care of himself, or engaging in self care?
Aliah Hall 32:29 Well, I can't imagine that he walked around... like that we have multiple accounts of him like eating food. We have multiple accounts of him taking a nap. Yeah, we have multiple accounts of him like sitting by a well, looking around at nature, walking it out, talking to people being with people having dinner over at so and so's house, being social, having conversations about things that he found important his whole life.
Kathryn Davis 32:59 And it's not self indulgence. It's he's no filling himself so he can serve more even when the crowds. I like that idea when the crowds are coming. And he's feeling overwhelmed. There's a press of it. Yes, he has to separate himself for a moment.
Aliah Hall 33:20 He takes time. You're like, wait, hold up. I need to fill my bucket. And then I'll be back. He goes into the wilderness. He goes into the wilderness. He goes on a boat. He does a lot of like, like, Oh, he got on a boat went out. Because like the congregation was like thronging him. And he went out and like took a nap on a boat. I'm like, that is my Jesus. Take a nap on a boat. Please, like, Let me gather myself for a minute. I'm in like, I'll be back for you. Let me go talk to my dad for a minute. And I'll be back for you.
Kathryn Davis 33:54 So it's finding that thing to fill your bucket? And is that going to look different every day or at different stages in our life?
Aliah Hall 34:02 Absolutely. When I was young and single that looked very different than being married and being married look very different than having kids. And I'm sure it will just continue to change. But that is part of our growth process is learning how to shift and move and what do I need now. And like some days, I'm going to need more of this. Some days, I'm going to need more of that. And some days it's going to look like this. And some days it's going to look like that. And Sally's going to be doing this and Suzy is going to be doing that. But I don't like either of those things. So I'm going to do something completely different.
Kathryn Davis 34:36 And it's just trying to figure that out. Right? Because that can be hard.
Aliah Hall 34:39 Very hard, very hard, because there's a part of us that wants to fit in. Which requires us to be like everybody else instead of belong, which requires us to be ourselves.
Kathryn Davis 34:52 I love that I talk a lot about that is I don't like the idea of fitting in. I love the idea of belonging that we belong because of who we are. And we don't have to try and fit in. So Aliah let me ask you, what is something that you have found that fills your bucket at this stage of life?
Aliah Hall 35:18 Every day, I take time to be alone. Like that fills my bucket like being with myself and in myself, for myself, that can sometimes be uncomfortable. It can be sometimes it's really lovely. And sometimes it's really hard. But it's always fulfilling.
Kathryn Davis 35:37 From our conversation, I can gather that self care also requires self discipline.
Aliah Hall 35:44 Yes, what it takes to take care of us isn't always easy. It's not easy to go to bed on time. It's not easy to get up early. It's not easy to prioritize what's really important to you or even know what's really, it's not easy to go against the grain.
Kathryn Davis 36:02 It's not easy to turn off those conversations or that negative self talk that tells us that we're not enough yet. Or to find moments of...
Aliah Hall 36:10 Get off of social media, stop, stop talking to people who don't uplift you. None of those things are easy.
Kathryn Davis 36:19 It's so good. I love that to tap into who we are created by and that to truly love ourselves, we are showing our love to our heavenly parents. So Aliah, we like to end every episode like with a small and simple thing that we can do throughout the week. So as we close, I just want to ask you what is a small and simple thing to begin to engage in self care and in self love.
Aliah Hall 36:49 So I would say talk to yourself, like you're someone you love.
Kathryn Davis 36:54 That's good. That's so good. I don't think we're good at that.
Aliah Hall 36:59 Talk to yourself, like you're someone you love. If you wouldn't say it to your best friend. Don't say it to yourself.
Kathryn Davis 37:04 I'm going to work on that this week. I'm going to try. Thank you so much for being here, Aliah. I so appreciate your time and your wisdom.
Aliah Hall 37:13 Thanks for having me.
Kathryn Davis 37:15 I loved today's discussion. And one of the favorite things that I learned was when Aliah said you treat with care the things that you love. And honestly, treating ourselves with care and understanding what it means to love ourselves is the way that we show our love to our Heavenly Parents. Thank you for being here and hop on over to Instagram at magnify community for more inspiration and conversation. And of course subscribe and listen to the magnified podcast wherever you get your shows. Let's meet up again next week.