Learning How To Love Yourself with Ashely Rose Jellis

What would you have to be willing to let go of about you in order to access greater receiving?

In this episode, your host, Leandra Costa, talks with Relationships Done Different Facilitator Ashlee Rose Jellis about learning how to love yourself by truly receiving yourself.

In Ashlee’s journey to love herself, she has been exploring the power of not taking things personally and using vulnerability to access more receiving. She has discovered an ease with herself that has filtered into every relationship she has.

Key points from this episode’s conversation

Love yourself first
Taking Rejection Personally
Rejection is not real
Is this personal?
Vulnerability as a pathway to receiving

Love yourself first

Ashlee’s life has changed significantly since using the tools of Relationships Done Different. Previously, she struggled with everything related to relationships and used to wonder when it would be over and when she would finally get it right. She took many personal-development classes and courses because she was on a path of how to love herself. She wanted to learn to love herself because she had heard everyone say, “You can’t love another before you love yourself.” It wasn’t until her first Relationships Done Different class that she actually understood what that meant.

Her world has changed in so many different ways. Before, she didn’t trust herself, and was the person in the relationship who tried to control their partner. She was constantly in her head, worrying about everything. Now she has an ease, first and foremost, with herself. And that has filtered into every relationship she is in.

Often, we focus on romantic relationships as the ‘sole purpose of our life.’ For example, you’re right if you’re in one, and you’re wrong if you’re not in one. Relationships Done DIfferent invited Ashlee to a space of changing how she relates with everything: with her body, her business, and with money. That’s something that changed dynamically for her that she never expected!

Taking Rejection Personally

Before using these tools, Ashlee took everything personally and interpreted every form of rejection as a reflection of her worth.

Rejection is something that we believe is true. When someone rejects us - whether we are dating someone, whether it’s romantic or a friendship - we have this idea that rejection is REAL. The truth is: rejection is not real and true, and it is often a choice we make to separate from ourselves and from others. We may make it about others, but you cannot reject anything or anyone before rejecting yourself. It is this illusion that we function from to stop us from having more of ourselves.

Since diving into the topic and using the tools, Ashlee has discovered that what is underneath everything is a fear of us being too close to ourselves. It is interesting because many of us express a desire for more closeness and connection and intimacy with people, but we forget that in order to have that with others, we have to create that with ourselves first. We cannot have closeness with another without actually getting closer to ourselves.

This scares people more than anything because we don’t have reference points for getting close to ourselves. Most people think of it in a negative way and believe that if they get too close to themselves they will discover that they are a terrible person and that there are a multitude of reasons for people not to like them. So we avoid getting close to ourselves because we have decided that there is already something wrong with us. In actuality, what is more true is that you are not willing to have the greatness of you and to see where you are brilliant and a gift.

Rejection is not real

What have you decided receiving yourself looks like or means? So often, we look at it in a negative way, as we don’t want to get too close, in case we discover too much. What have you decided will happen if you truly receive you?

As soon as we make our rejection from another real or true, it stops us. When we decide we’ve been rejected, we have to look for the why - why they have done that, why we have been rejected - and we start looking for rejection in everybody else.

Realize that rejection is not real or true: it is always subjective. We think that people reject us because there is something wrong with us, rather than because we can only receive another to the degree that we can receive ourselves. So, in a totally conscious world we would not need to reject, because we would not desire to reject ourselves.

Is this personal?

What if, every time you were rejected by something or someone, you asked the question: Is this actually personal? Is this about me? Or is this about them? That creates so much space and freedom. Really start looking at whether it is about you or about them.

We are not trained to receive, we are trained to reject. We are trained to separate from everything, including ourselves. For Ashlee, receiving is a willingness to be open; with no walls, no barriers, and being willing to receive all information. When we are open to receiving all information, we can also receive the awareness that maybe things are not personal and have nothing to do with us. This gets challenging as, to be willing to receive the good, the bad and the ugly, we must be willing to not make things personal or relevant. True vulnerability comes in here, because vulnerability is the way to receive more.

Have you ever noticed when you are vulnerable with someone, there is a closeness? You are receiving not only more of them, but more of yourself.

Vulnerability as a pathway to receiving

Receiving is not cognitive, but vulnerability is a way to access more receiving. On Ashlee’s path to not take things personally, she started by looking at where she could add more vulnerability into her life, and where she could go beyond being right. This can be excruciating for people because they start to receive more of themselves, and when you have decided you are bad you don’t actually want to receive yourself!

Would you be willing to lose the judgments of you and the person you have decided you are? Would you be willing to lose taking things personally?

What can you receive that you do not want to know you can receive? And what if you could receive that with greater ease?