Self Realized, Shatter Your Limits

Unlock You: Self-Awareness, Self-Love, or Both?

• Linton Bergsen • Episode 101

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Have you ever felt lost in a world that constantly tells you who to be? In this eye-opening episode, join me Linton Bergsen as I dive deep into the powerful connection between understanding yourself and truly loving who you are. Discover whether self-awareness must come before self-love, or if it's possible to love yourself without truly knowing who you are.

What You'll Discover in This Episode:

  • Why recognizing external influences is crucial for authentic self-discovery
  • How social media, work environments, and relationships shape your self-perception
  • Three essential questions that reveal what's truly driving your life choices
  • Why self-love isn't selfish—it's necessary for living a balanced, fulfilling life
  • Practical steps to start honoring your unique perspective today

Breaking Free from External Validation:
Like untangling a complicated knot, the path to genuine self-love requires patience as you examine what shapes your thoughts about yourself. Many often mistakenly believe self-worth comes from others' approval—whether through likes on social media, praise at work, or validation in relationships.

True freedom begins when you realize your will  belongs only to you—not to be shaped by others' expectations or demands.

Three Life-Changing Questions to Ask Yourself Today:

  1. Who and what is really influencing my life decisions?
  2. Do these influences help me become a better version of myself?
  3. Which positive influences should I nurture to accelerate my self-love journey?

The Power of Authentic Self-Expression:
Self-love blooms when you embrace your uniqueness without apology. When you live according to what truly matters to you, not only will others respect your boundaries—you'll finally respect yourself.

Take Action Now:
Ready to unlock your authentic self? Take a moment today to reflect on what genuinely matters to you, separate from what others think. Your journey toward self-realization and self-love starts with one simple step, honoring your own voice.

Visit selfrealized.com for free resources to guide your personal development  and join our supportive community of like-minded individuals on the path to authentic living.

Let me know your thoughts on this episode. Text me your feedback! 🙂

https://www.selfrealized.com

Linton Bergsen:

Welcome to the Self-Realized Podcast with Linton Bergsen where you will shatter your limits. I am not much into the self-help industry as much as I'm into the self-realized individual, which is you, what matters most to you, how you get there and the obstacles that may be in your way. If you would like to be part of this podcast and part of that discussion, I welcome you here with an open heart, open mind and open arms. So, without further ado, let's get on with the podcast. A very warm welcome to Self Realized, Shatter Your Limits Podcast.

Linton Bergsen:

This is episode number 101. Unlocking You: Self-Awareness, S elf-Love or both? Let me pose a question to you in today's episode, which do you think comes first, self-awareness or self-love? Do you think that you can have self-love and start on that journey and understand what that really means to you if you don't have self-awareness to begin to unravel and discover what self-love means to you? Contemplate on that for a moment. Would you agree with me that you have to be very self-aware, become very self-aware of what you need in order to develop the self-love that you would like to have for yourself, because self-awareness allows you to begin the process of investigating and beginning to obtain, with great meaning and with great consequence in your life the journey of self-development, personal development which then leads into a greater understanding of self, and the development then of your self-love. When you journey, when you begin to move forward in your life, there is an unraveling process that only you can begin to journey through and unravel the ball of string in your life that has become tangled up. It has knots in this ball of string. You find yourself, as you do, with a shoelace, sometimes, that got tied too tightly and you're struggling to undo it, and you find that you're picking at it and it's not coming undone. But eventually, because you persist, it becomes undone. Now, obviously, you can remove your shoes and continue on walking barefoot or with whatever shoe attire you decide to continue your journey on, with moving forward one step at a time.

Linton Bergsen:

The point is, is that, in order for you to be able to move forward, there's going to be a process of unraveling, so you can feel free to walk and move forward in the journey of self-love that you would like to experience. How do you begin to do that? How does it begin to unravel in your life? Well, my suggestion is this. Begin to become very self-aware of what it is within yourself that is creating a barrier between you and your experience of self-love within yourself. What I mean by that is this. Begin to make a list, get some quiet time, some solitude, some solace, some introspection, and ask yourself these three questions. Number one who and what is really influencing my life? Number two do those influences help me to better myself and make me more self-aware of what it is that I need in my life? Number three and if they do, which ones do I want to nurture, prioritize and develop that would make the most immediate impact on my life now, fast tracking my journey toward my own self-love?

Linton Bergsen:

The reason I strongly suggest that as a strong starting point to discovering self-love within yourself is because influences around you play a huge part of how you develop yourself inwardly, where all self-love originates. It never originates externally. This is an important part of being self-realized. Realizing this for yourself, understanding what people say to you, who is saying it, where you go to work every day, what you watch every day they all affect your environment. Social media is an influence. All these external influences are causing you to have different thoughts and feelings about yourself, so you become self-aware dependent upon, to a large extent of what it is your external environments are suggesting you become aware of. Let me give an example of that. If you spend enough time on social media, the suggestion would be that how you feel about yourself is based upon how many likes and dislikes that people comment on when you put up a post, or what your friends think about you, or your influences in the world based on money, based on how you look, what you wear, what someone suggested your partner should look like or be like. These are all influences on you that are making you more and more aware, self-aware of what you think will make you happy, feel good about yourself, love yourself more, have greater self-worth.

Linton Bergsen:

Awareness is a concept within itself that is profound. It is subtle. It permeates and penetrates every aspect of your life. Contemplate on this for a moment. Are you not aware 24-7, of what is going on with you consciously, subconsciously, all day long? You're even aware that you went to sleep. You may not be aware of what went on when you went to sleep, but you are aware that you went to sleep. You're aware that, when you wake up, what is around you? All of that awareness is causing you to have an inner interaction, inner voice, inner experience about how you feel about you. For example, if someone said to you they don't like the way you dress, they don't like the way you look, they don't like your friends, that conversation is now going to make you more aware of how you dress, the friends you keep based upon you wanting to make those people accept you.

Linton Bergsen:

Again, getting back to the awareness and understanding of how you interact with others and yourself and the ongoing influence they have on you will determine the amount of self-love you have for you. Why? Ask yourself this question and contemplate on it for a moment. How can I truly love myself if I spend my life looking for the approval and acceptance of others to validate me? When you've asked yourself that question, contemplate on the answer that you've come up with, and when you've come up with the answer and you're honest with yourself, you'll find that there may be a shift in your awareness.

Linton Bergsen:

Self-love is based upon self-acceptance. If you really try to continue to please others, you're not looking for self-love. You're looking for external love, external validation of who you are. That will never satisfy you because it is an endless pit that can never be filled. External validation depends on you bowing and bending to other people's will. Self-love means you understand that your will is not something you have to bow or bend to. It's yours, you embrace it wholeheartedly, with your heart and your soul and everything in you because your will is your path to your self-love and your freedom. It's internal, it is straight it is solid, it doesn't bend, it doesn't bow and it doesn't break, because you are in charge of what's important to you, what matters to you, and you love yourself enough to know and have done the personal development, self-development to discover what internally drives you into the self-realization of.

Linton Bergsen:

These things matter to me, not to anyone else. They may not conform, but they are important to my well-being. They are important to me and you need to begin to write these things down deliberately so that you can begin to implement them in your life, whatever they are, whatever these things are that matter to you and they need to be independent of anyone else. For example, if what matters most to you is that you go out into the world and have freedom of expression, and you may want to be an entrepreneur. You may want to follow a pathway that people don't approve of. You may want to date people that people may not approve of. You may want to live a life that people may not approve of, but people approving of it is not what's important to you.

Linton Bergsen:

You have enough self-love for yourself to understand that, whatever career path you choose, whoever you choose to see, whatever road you take down in life, you're going to fail or succeed by your own effort, by your own energy. Living by your own values. Self-love means self-determination. You take the pathway and roads that mean the most to you. Some will be less traveled, but you love yourself enough to explore them. You have enough confidence in yourself to experiment and go to places where others would not. And because of that innate self-love, that innate awareness within yourself that says I need to do this for me, because it will open gateways and pathways that I would not be able to access unless I took these personal journeys.

Linton Bergsen:

Because self-love is a personal journey, it is a personal self-realization of what your inner spirit and soul is calling you to do. Self-love is not selfish. Self-love is encompassing you so you can be better in relationships and situations and circumstances for other people as well as yourself. Because the more you discover about yourself, the more you discover about your emotions, the more you discover about your purpose and why you are here. That self-love, that self-discovery, that self-realization then permeates and penetrates and influences everyone around you. You become more balanced, because there is no other way for you to become a balanced individual than to take your own inward journey, to discover yourself through the self-love that you have not based upon the influence or suggestions that others may feel are important for you.

Linton Bergsen:

Self-love is a very important concept for you to begin to own and experiment with on the deepest level. And the reason I say experiment with on the deepest level is because when you start on your journey of self-love, self-motivation, self-realization, there may not be a lot of people who want to go down that road with you, because you might be shifting the status quo, because you love yourself enough to say, as an affirmation "y journey is important to me now. I choose to lead myself and not be led by others. That's it. That's the affirmation. It is a simple affirmation that can have a profound effect upon your life. You are designed to look inwardly, as a self-realized individual does on a regular basis, introspect and reflect upon who and what is having an effect on your life, positively or negatively. It's not hard, it's not difficult, it's just a habit that you exercise on a regular basis.

Linton Bergsen:

Self-love means that you are taking constant inventory of how you're feeling about you and how you validate yourself to yourself, so that you feel good about yourself and where your life is headed in a positive direction, without needing to seek the approval of who may like it or not. Self-love, in essence, is the ability for you to embrace your unique self and express it in the world without apology, totally authentic, not wanting to hurt anyone, not being a narcissist none of that. You're just saying to the world. Here I am. This is my expression of me, based on my values and my motivations, which I have taken the time to discover, and embracing that as a reality on an ongoing, daily basis.

Linton Bergsen:

As the episode is entitled, you will unlock you through number one your own self-awareness of what matters most to you from your own set of values and systems that you internally own. And once you own what matters most to you and you live what matters most to you. Other people will respect what matters most to you. More importantly, you will respect yourself, and that is self-love. Self-respect, self-love, self-worth all stem from the self-awareness to establish yourself in your own individuality and express yourself accordingly.

Linton Bergsen:

Unlock you, throw away the keys to anything that has been locking you up from your own true self-expression and become very self-aware of who and what you truly are and embrace it with every ounce of self-love within you, which is indeed divine love, spiritual love, working through you and expressing itself in your living, everyday reality.

Linton Bergsen:

Because self-love has to be practical, it has to be realistic, it has to be tangible, it has to be something that you feel within yourself, that is part of the fabric of your everyday life. And embracing your own self-love, you'll begin to tangibly be aware of a difference in yourself and how you relate to the world, because no one can relate to the world in the way you can. No one can experience the world in the way you can. And in loving that experience, that unique experience that only you have about the world you live in, answers the question unlocking you self-awareness, self-love or both? The The answer to the question is both, because they give you the freedom that you so very much deserve to express totally who you truly are. I sincerely appreciate you listening to the podcast. P lease subscribe so you do not miss any upcoming episodes. What ever platform you are on please leave a rating and review I would greatly appreciate it. Any additional information on me Linton Bergsen and my five star reviewed book Purposeful Vision is available at selfrealized. com which is all one word. You can also leave any comments or suggestions on the website. I look forward to connecting with you very soon and take good care of yourself.