Robin Ducharme | Welcome to Let's Talk Love. I'm Robin Ducharme, and today we're joined by Ruby Dahl. Ruby. Thank you for being with us. I recognize your background from all of your Instagram posts and your videos and your podcast.
Ruby Dhal | I know Hi, Robin, it's so good to be here. And yeah, I mean, this is, this is my study. This is where I record everything and where I work and where I do everything. So I don't have another room. Unfortunately,
Robin Ducharme | I love it. This is where I do everything to this is where all the magic happens in my office at home. So we're, we're both in the same boat here. So Ruby, can you please tell our community at Real Love Ready about yourself, who you are, and what you've been up to in the last you know, you've been busy been a very busy girl.
Ruby Dhal | Absolutely, I am. To begin with an author. I have self published five books of poetry, prose and bite sized self help, and the self love content creator. So I talk about all things healing and self love. And I'm an advocate for mental health. So I write pieces about that as well. I talk about love and relationships. And most of my pieces take the form of quotes. So they're, like short form there pros. And I have recently released a very special book, it's called The Path to Self Love.
Robin Ducharme | Beautiful book
Ruby Dhal | And it's published in Random House. Oh, my God you have it.
Robin | Of course, I haven't I read it. I read it all week. It was excellent
Ruby | Really glad you like it.
Robin | And it was published by Random House. So that's fantastic.
Ruby | It was a dream come true. What I have wanted to be published by them for as long as I can remember, it's 10 year old Ruby's dream come true. And this book has two years of my life had gone into this book, just from the conception to writing it, signing with Penguin, and then working on on the whole project. And so, so much of my hard work, and just everything that I've learned over the years has gone into it. And so it's just such a special book. It's all about self love, and healing. And it's a step forward from everything that I share on my social media, it's just a go through much deeper into everything that I advocate for. So yeah, it's just such a special book.
Robin | I bet it was, I thought it was really special Ruby, and you, you bring out a lot of things that I was that I've been working on in my own life and reflecting on so I'm excited to talk to you about it.
Ruby | I'm excited to talk to you as well, and I can't wait to you know, just get into it and talk all these self love. So
Robin | Let's start there. Because I know this is what you this is what you do you you're helping people understand or work through and grow our self love. And I think that that's one thing you do talk about quite a bit throughout the whole book is we as a culture, as a society, let's just say on Instagram, you got you know, on social media got a million followers plus. And I think there's just this idea that self love is all about all the nice things all like having a bubble baths and going for long walks and, and journaling. Journaling is okay, we talk talk to us about self love, what's your definition of self love.
Ruby | Um, so in the book, in particular, the definition of self lobby has three separate components. The first is that it stays away from this me me me mindset.
Robin | Right
Ruby | So it's not all about me, it takes into consideration your relationships, which in today's day and age, we focus so much on, you know, if I want to practice self love, it should be all about me what I want to do, where I want to go, what would make me feel better. And so the definition of self love that I propose, the definition that is the most impactful is, you know, a self love that takes your relationships in the people around you into consideration, it values those relationships, because the only way that you can grow is if your environment is thriving and your you know, safe space and your support group is healthy and good for you. So that's one aspect of self love. Another aspect is, essentially the main aspect is that you live with an intention to take care of yourself. So the intention is, is that essentially, and the last thing is that self love isn't unconditional. Okay, so it's not feeling unconditional love towards yourself all the time. The reason being for this is because it's impossible. To love anybody unconditionally, we say that we feel it. I think the only time that you can ever truly, perhaps get an insight to unconditional love is if you're a parent, I think as a parent as someone who loves their children could definitely feel that form of unconditional love. But I feel like in general, we don't experience unconditional love with our friends with our parents with our partners because to unconditionally love someone would be to love them without having any expectations from them. So they can love you. They could you could love them and they could let you down again and again and again. And you would still love them. That's what unconditional love would imply, but that's not the case. Because your love for them would wither with time, you would feel, you know, hurt, you'd be in pain, the relationship would suffer, essentially. And so you can not in the same way love yourself unconditionally. Because that would be saying that I love myself and I'm going to take I'm going to live with the intention to take care of myself. But I have no expectations for myself. How does that work? How do you love yourself without expectations? That means letting yourself down but still loving yourself. That's not true. When we let ourselves down, we do feel bad, we do feel guilty. When you know, you say you're on a diet or you are working on your health. And suddenly you have that cheat meal, you feel bad, you're like, oh, no, you know, my diet is getting messed up or my whatever it is, whenever we do something that is at odds with us wanting to practice self care or self love, we do feel let down. And so unconditional love is not something that self love incorporates. And so self love is great, right? You're living with the intention to take care of yourself want to better your life. But the thing is, a lot of people see this is meaning only self care practices.
Robin | Right
Ruby | And that's why Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I distinguish between soft. Oh, sorry. That's why I distinguish between easy self love and tough self love.
Robin | Yes, but Okay, so let's talk about that because I really love this distinction that you give in the book around easy versus tough self love. I think the easy self love is we all know what what's all over social media. Right?
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | But we're not talking about the tough self love, which is so important. That's where your, your real healing is going to take place is practicing tough self love. So can you please explain what you mean by tough self love?
Ruby | Absolutely. So, essentially, top self love is doing the hard work. So with easy self love, we see it online, we you know, experience people indulging in it. When we think of self love easy self love instantly comes to mind. The bubble baths, the runs in the park walks with your dog, the coffee dates by yourself, the catch up with your friends, everything that you associate with as feel good activities, activities that will improve your mental, physical and emotional health. Make you feel better, that you feel happier in the moment are done with the intention to improve your life. And you're aware that they they will be improving your life. That's all easy self love. And so we think that if we do just these things, we will experience and feel that love and that satisfaction, that contentment, but when we don't feel it when we say okay, so I'm doing everything that Janet from Instagram is doing. You know, she has this that she has real that she posts on her day. I followed exactly what she does in her day, I went for a 5 am run. And then I got a coffee from my favorite cafe. And then I met up my met up with my friend. And then I went home and I decluttered my workspace and my room and I did everything. But why do we feel still feel empty? It's because you're not doing the tough self love. Because you're not doing the tough stuff. The tough stuff is having the difficult conversations about certain feelings that you're having. So say that you feel really, really low. Ask yourself, why am I feeling low? Tough self love is admitting that you have, you know, a problem. Perhaps it's a drinking problem. Perhaps it's, you know, addiction to social media, whatever it is, ask yourself, Admit that you've got a problem. Perhaps go to an AAA meeting. That is tough self love, get therapy that is tough self love, have honest conversations with your friends, or your controlling mother, you know, who keeps telling you what to do have those conversations that is tough self love? Because
Robin | Yes
Ruby | Because it's
Robin | It's going to it's going to challenge you. And it's not easy.
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | And this is but it's so necessary for caring and loving for yourself on the deepest level.
Ruby | Absolutely. Absolutely.
Robin | Something that I was just watching I can't. I cannot remember her name right now. But this was something that just like, it was a real on Instagram. And she made this awesome point. She said, people come to me all the time for for self love for like, how do I how do I just do exactly what we're just talking about Ruby. And she said, okay, well tell me about that relationship you're in. And the person saying, well, it's it's really bad. Like we it's not a healthy relationship. And she's like, well, you're here to spend half an hour an hour with me. And I'm giving you some tools, but actually, you're in the muck you're in that mess 24/7 with this in this very bad relationship. So tell me like, you know, you like like, we just like you just mentioned Ruby, you could be you know, eating green shakes and working out every day and your physical body you're taking care of it. You're journaling Okay, you're doing all the easy self love that stuff it makes you feel good for on a physical level. What are you doing for your heart? And what are you doing with the environment, the relationship that you're in? That that needs to be? Like? That's the tough stuff that we're talking about. Right?
Ruby | Yeah absolutely. It's like, I've just thought of a comparison. And it's like, when you are renovating an old house, a really old house, you're renovating it, you do all the outside work, you know, you do the paint work and the brick work and you've replaced the roof and you get a new door and you, you know, take care of the garden outside in the driveway and everything. But from the inside the house still looks the same. It's still old and shabby. And there's mold and there's, you know, it's damp, well, you can do everything on the outside. But if on the inside, you don't work on the house, it's eventually going to crumble anyway, it's eventually going, it's still going to be old on the inside, new on the outside. So when you want to practice self love, it's the same ideology in that you can do all the external stuff, you can do all the runs everything and I advocate for it, because I myself, one of the biggest things for me, you know, a walk a 10k Walk every single day, like I need to do 10,000 steps every day. Okay? Usually 10,000 steps every day, I need to go to the gym a few times a week, it's not been looking to great recently. I'm not gonna lie. However, that's as part of my self care practice. The reason I can feel good about those things now is because I've been doing the internal work. I've been doing the trauma work I've been doing, you know, I've been journaling. I've been asking myself the difficult questions, I have been sitting with my trauma and trying to see how I can move on from the past or take it forward with me in a way that doesn't hurt as much as it used to. And the reason I wanted to write this book, and the reason why I talked so much about self love is because it's such a hot and trending topic that no one seems to understand.
Robin | You, I agree with you. I fully agree with you. I had a conversation with my my boyfriend as well as a good friend this week around being being in a very bad relationship. My last marriage was was was very toxic. And I was in a place of like, a lot of blame, self blame and shame for for a long time around it. Because I'm like, How the hell did that happen? How did I fall into this? Right? And then you're like in that and that's all necessary kay all I had to go through that period of shame and blame, and all of that rumination in order to be on the side I'm at now. And when one of the things talking about just tough self love around when I decided to end my marriage, that was freakin the hardest thing. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Because we went through therapy, we do all the things. And I'm and it's like, making that decision was like one of the most loving things that I could do for myself it was the most loving thing that I could do for my family. So like, we are misunderstanding what love is as well.
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | Right. Love is not always about all of the positive unconditional words that we use right around you know, you could throw all the love out there. But if you're in a toxic situation, the most loving thing that you can do is, is either try to fix it and try to figure out if there is a way you can or walk away. And that's love.
Ruby | That's love absolutely.
Robin | Love is love can be many things. And sometimes it's very hard, right? So I love that you really point that out. You really really talk about it, Ruby.
Ruby | Yeah, love is hard. And I think people do get that people do understand when, say, for instance I am you know, I'm following this particular influencer, who's promoting all these self care things, and I do it and I do the affirmations and I do everything. And I don't feel the love. I know it's hard. I'm like, why is it that I don't feel it? It's so hard for me to feel love. Why am I not? You know, why am I still battling with these emotions? Why do we still have low self esteem? Why do we still, you know, feel bad about myself after every broken relationship, like what's going on? It's so hard. But the thing is, I get stuck on that I get stuck on the fact that it's hard and I continue to do the external work instead of thinking, perhaps it's hard because I'm not doing the tough stuff. I'm not doing the stuff that's truly going to change my life. One form of self love, after say, having a breakup is deleting all their photos and deleting them off social media and distancing yourself. Another form of self love is sitting down and giving yourself closure and sitting down and asking yourself what went wrong? You know what went wrong? How could I you know, things happened. There was two parties in the situation he did whatever wrong that he was to do, but what could I have done better? How can I improve myself? How can I make sure that I don't go for these kind of people in the future? You know, I do I have a knack for picking a certain personality type? Is this because of my past you know, adolescent years or my childhood years? What is it? What is it? That's good? That's tough self love that that is self love, you know, working on yourself trying to improve your life for the better by doing the stuff that doesn't make you feel good, essentially.
Robin | Yes exactly. So you say there is this misconception around healing internally is like healing externally. Yeah, where there's a process and you reach it endpoint apps. Right. You talk about how it's like, people are misunderstanding. Healing has been like a wound that like you know, it's gonna heal and you might have a little bit of a scar but you know, you're good to go. That's not the way it works with healing. Can you tell us about your your journey more? Because you do you share a lot about yourself in the book. That's, that's beautiful.
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | So you're you're now happily you're you're happily married?
Ruby | Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Robin | And you actually go you go a lot about hurt. You talk a lot about heartbreak in your book.
Ruby | Yeah., yeah I do
Robin | Can you talk to us about how you ended up, like, what work did you do the internal, the hard, the hard, tough love work that you did, to, like, you can reflect now and be like, This is what I did. And this is how the result is I'm in a beautiful relationship I'm very happy in.
Ruby | Yeah. The okay, so I see my husband as a manifestation of the person that I always wanted in my life. So when I was younger, I was very unhappy as child I was, you know, I wasn't going through a very healthy childhood upbringing. And so I always envisioned for myself the life that I wanted, I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be, you know, an author, I wanted to write books, but mostly I wanted healthy love in my life. I wanted healthy love, whether it was at the time, it wasn't romantic. At the time I was a child, I wanted to be, you know, healthy love around me, in the form of my relationships, my dad, whatever it was, but when I met my husband, I realized that I had manifested the healthiest love for myself. And the way that I reached him. The way that I got to him is, I was in a lot of pain. You know, I was in my early 20's, I was in a lot of pain. And the first thing that I wanted to do, the first thing that I looked towards was social media. Okay, I looked around and I was like, okay, I need to heal from this. I need to practice self love. And I need to move on, essentially. And so I looked at all these different things that people were doing, I started in the gym, I started eating healthy because I wanted to feel better about myself physically. I started chanting affirmation, I started doing all these external self care things. I still found myself in pain, I still find myself hurting, I still find myself thinking, why do I still keep coming across, you know, unattached people, or people who are not aligned with what I want from my life, or people that, you know, are displaying the same kind of idea of love that I've had what is going on? And then I sat down with myself and I was like, Okay, what is love? What does love actually mean to me? Okay, what is love? And through reflecting and through really diving deep down into my past, I realized that I had a toxic perception of love altogether. And I wrote about it in the book as well. My perception of love was it was tainted, it was, you know, I saw love was synonymous with pain, essentially. So if it was a struggle, it was love if it was toxic. If it was love, if it was painful, it was love. I learned. Yeah.
Robin | You were surrounded with that. right Ruby?
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | Because you lost your mom, your mom died at a very young age.
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | And your dad fell into alcoholism. And was so and you were you brought in by your, your aunt, right? Your family. And it was just it, you were surrounded by all of this pain that was not being addressed was not being healed. So it doesn't surprise me that all that modeling and like living in it, right. And now there's really no end in sight, right? Because you're thinking well, if you see the people the adults in your life and the community around you, not dealing in like using using tough love to get beyond that, then how do you learn that yourself?
Ruby | Absolutely. And for me, it was mostly through modeling, essentially modeling behavior that I saw. So when I met Ivnit I was still healing, I wasn't at a point Ivmet my husband, whenever Ivnit my husband, I was still healing. So I wasn't at the point where I didn't even realize what tasks off level was at that point. Okay, I was still healing what was done moving on, and it was through the relationship that I learned and I reflected, because of the fact that there was all this pent up emotion and all my past trauma that I would always project on our relationship. Okay, so he was the guy who is you know, he was sorted he was motivated he was dedicated but also he came from a background that wasn't as messed up as mine was he came from a normal attachment stable family, he was stable compared to me, okay, mentally and emotionally.
Robin | He was secure. We would say that, you know, yup,
Ruby | Yeah, he was secure. And so every time I would, and I had problems, I had trauma, I had baggage. And so every time I would essentially act out in our relationship or act in a way that indicated there's problems, there's underlying issues there. Instead of being, you know, confrontational, instead of being like, to me, you are being, you know, a horrible person or horrible girlfriend, he would just sit down in meetings, like, what's going on? What's going on? Everything's okay. Is there something that's bothering you talk to me, and it was through these conversations with him that I realized that I need to start having these conversations with myself as well. And I need to figure out what it is that I am so bothered about, here I am in a healthy relationship, I've never had a healthy relationship, I've never been used to a healthy relationship.
Robin | Right
Ruby | And I'm in a healthy relationship, and I am out to destroy it, I'm out to mess with it. Because healthy isn't love, to me healthy is healthy, it's normal, but it's not pain. It's not toxic, it's not suffering.
Robin | And so he's mirroring that back to you, we'll be I just love this, because he's because he was able to be that mirror, rather than taking it in being defensive.
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | You were able to see these patterns,
Ruby | These patterns. Absolutely. And it was through having these conversations with him that a, I understood the importance of having a safe space, and having a safe, you know, a safe spot to go to, which is why I talk so much about support circles and having a group of people who can help you, when you're healing and you're practicing self love, but B that's when I understood that all this time, I have been working on myself externally, all this time I have been doing, you know, all the external stuff. I you know, I've been writing books, I've been healing, through poetry, all of that. But I'm not dealing with the deep stuff within and I will sabotage my relationship, I will sabotage myself my chance at a happy life, if I do work on these internal problems. And so that's, for me, the biggest thing was that, if I don't work on myself, I will lose the most healthiest relationship in my life. And that's when I sat down with myself. And I reflected on my past, and I understood my concept of love and how it was toxic, and how that's when I really like I would sit down and I'd reflect and I'm like, okay, this is what I've done. This is what's happened. So. And that's when I unlearned, all the toxic things I had known about love and accepted, healthy, honest, love into my life. And when that happened, I slowly started working on the other areas in my life. All the tough stuff I started, me and my brother were really close my older brother, we have these deep conversations all the time, we've gone through the same thing. We have gone through everything together. And so here is my best friend, I talked to him with, you know, uncover our past trauma kind of reflect on how we want to move on for what we wanted. And it was just, it was so healing. Robin, it was so healing and it just helped me uncover how important it is to do the tough work so that you can form a strong foundation and a strong basis for yourself. And yeah, the biggest thing in me learning about love and manifesting and staying with everything, because any healthy person could have come any any person could have. But if they didn't stay and mirror back what was going on, if they didn't, you know, show me that they are here, and there's something you know, I need to work on. And they're here with me regardless, like he told me very clearly that look, I love you, right. And if you're gonna continue being like this, I'm still gonna be there. But I need you to work on yourself for yourself, essentially. And so yeah, the more that I worked on myself, the more that I realized, every part of my life was just slowly healing, it was slowly getting better and naturally, like I am, you know, I now tell myself that I have got the life that I dreamt off as a child. And as a teenager, you know, the life that I dreamt and what did I dream of, I dreamed of being happy. I just dreamed of being happy and content. And that is the life I dreamt or I dreamt of being you know, just waking up and not having not feeling pain in my chest. Not feeling emptiness, not feeling a dark cloud over my head of what's going to happen with my dad and I've lost my mom. Like I just wanted to be happy without that lingering pain. And I am you know.
Robin | Oh my goodness, I just think that it's just such a it's so great. It's a testament to doing how important it is to do the work so that you can be in that place like it's not and I just I just really I just love this reminder Ruby that you're talking about like okay, I was going to the gym, I was doing all the things. So I was in my dynamic with with Invit right that you're like
Ruby | Oh no his name is a bit of a tongue twister.
Robin | I was getting it wrong.
Ruby | It's Ivnit
Robin | Ivnit. I'm sorry. Ivnit. Um, that he that he was able to help you heal the the, the relationship dynamics.
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | That were sabotaging and I think a lot of people will relate to this.
Ruby | Yeah, you know? Yeah.
Robin | Yeah if we're not if we're not raised in an environment where we're not we're remodeled that was really healthy dynamics. It's like I'm learning as I go here but are you know, when you're telling the story I was reminded of when I was married for in my first marriage. And when I was growing up, my parents argued a lot. And there was a lot of yelling, and screaming, and slamming doors and my brothers. And I would just like kind of like, be quiet, leave the room. And kind of just like, we're like, what's the word? Weary the storm? No,
Ruby | Yeah, Wear out the storm
Robin | Something like that, until the storm would pass. And so this is how we learned about relational dynamics. Like, if you're really unhappy, you yell and scream and carry on. And then and then actually, later on, you don't talk about it, either. Like that was really too big, very strong dynamics in my household. And so when I was first married, then first dating my husband, this is what happened, I would get really get mad or get whatever and be raise my voice and yell, right. Yeah. And I remember him saying it was very early on, like, in our relationship, and he's like, I don't know what's happening here. But no, I don't I don't I don't operate like this. I don't talk like this. Like, this is not okay with me. Like, he was very strong in his like, absolutely not. And I was like, oh, yeah, okay. Okay. Like that. It was it was just like a clear boundary, but also communicated like, this is not how I'm going to do this with you. And from then on, we weren't we did not do that. So you, it comes from a place of almost innocence, sometimes our behaviors. And but we want to learn from that.
Ruby | You know what, Robin, I completely agree. Because Ivnit was the same, so when you see that kind of behavior modeled in your childhood, when you see your parents behaving that way you think that's normal, you think that's how relationships are, that's how love works. But it takes a strong partner, like, you know, I'm sorry to hear that, you know, you've gone through divorce, and so on, but it takes someone who, who hasn't come from the same background as you to tell you that no, this is not this is not how relationships are, this is not how love works. And this is not how a healthy relationship works for you to understand, Oh, okay so, all this time, I thought, I thought that's what it is, but it isn't, and then you're forced to reevaluate, and you're forced to, you know, relearn everything, you're forced to relearn everything, you're forced to try and understand love and relationships in a completely different way. Because we are the product of our experiences with a product of everything that we've gone through everything that we've seen, we've witnessed, and that was the biggest thing for me to, you know, not only learn about love in a different way, and understand it in a different way, but also understand that that's not, it's not just about love, it's about everything in my life, it's about the fact that we're going to, if my perception of love is like this, my perception of happines smust be tainted in my perception of friendships, everything that, you know, it must all be affected in some way, because I've not had a normal upbringing, I've not had a, you know, I've not had the kind of experiences that I assume that, you know, most children have almost people who come from a household with two loving parents would experience. And so the biggest problem, I think Robin is that people who go through a traumatic childhood, people who come from broken homes and broken lives, think that that's all that's meant for them, because subconsciously, that's the kind of thing that they are attuned to. That's the kind of thing that they're attracted to. And it takes a really, really strong person, and it takes a really, really strong willed person to be like, okay, you know, what, I don't want my life to go in the same way. And then the only direction that I've seen it go, I want something different for myself. But that's the only way that you can make a change. That's the only way that you can, you know, there's intergenerational trauma is just going to keep going until someone breaks out of the cycle, essentially.
Robin | That's right.
Ruby | You know, and I think yeah, I think that's why self love is so hard, even though it appears to be so easy to Millennials and Gen Z and everyone like oh, it's so easy. The generation above us so my parents generation didn't even know what self love is. Okay.
Robin | There was no talk about self love.
Ruby | There was no talk about self love let alone telling your kids you love them that never happened, I barely ever had my dad tell me he loved me. He tells me a lot now but you know, when I was growing up,
Robin | Now there's an abundance of like you said, like our social media is consumed by the concept. But it's very misunderstood.
Ruby | Absolutely. And it's so misunderstood that it's, it's almost to the point of alienating you almost to the point of you becoming hyper independent. And it's understood, because people have started to think that self love is so independent and so individual that until I don't, and there's a chapter in the book on this as well, which focused on relationships and love, and so on. There's this particular thing where it says until I don't love me, I can't love you.
Robin | And that, and that is such a bunch of BS, okay, Ruby, you just shared your story about yourself and how you that that's a great example of how you went into your relationship with your husband, and you had these behaviors and patterns that weren't absolutely prevalent. And it wasn't until that relationship with this man that you were able to work through. Like it this idea that you have to be fully healed in order to be in a good healthy relationship is so it's just a lie. And it's just not true. Because we're we heal in relationship. Our friendships, help us heal, our families can help us heal our partners, hopefully can help us heal our children. These are all like your life is just a never ending journey of healing.
Ruby | Absolutely. I completely agree with you Robin and I think that's why people have this perception because of that misconstrued perception of healing, which is comparable to external, it's not comparable to external healing, but people think you will be healed. And then you can find love, you will be healed, and then you will be successful and you will be healed. And then you will be happy. And it's like, no one is healing, you're always Goddamnit healing, you're healing from one thing or another. You could be healing from a heartbreak. But you could also be healing from your very first failure, you could be healing from the time, you know, you got bullied at school or something, you could still be healing from that it could still be affecting your self esteem, you'd ever reach a point where you have healed, you just reach softer, lighter places in your life where that experience doesn't hurt you as much anymore. But it goes forward with you. It always goes forward with you.
Robin | Yes, you talk about in your book, you talk about how your body issues, right. And I absolutely had body weight issues. I think there are many women and men and non gender people that have body weight issues. But you talk about like, you know, the source and how you didn't think that you had, you know your little girl like you're going through puberty, nd yeah, and like you said, you and your cousin like wore the same outfit because you were like sisters.
Ruby | Absolutely.
Robin | And you were so proud of the outfit that you were wearing. And your aunt was like you can't wear that like your your cousin can because she's got the body for it. But you can't like this is not appropriate. You're like you're chubby. You're like she said she's trying to be loving as she's saying it. But it's absolutely not loving right it's the opposite. And it's so incredibly hurtful. And that carried forward, I can see it Yeah, right. We can all I've got examples of that, too. Yeah, it's just, yeah
Ruby | It's hurtful. And I think, I mean, till this day, you know what, I wear an Indian outfit, and my blouse is too short. I worry about my tummy, I worry about my arms, I worry, I'm more comfortable in baggy clothes than I am in tight jeans and tight clothes. And I think that's one of the thing that stays with you forever, when you are made to feel a certain way at such a young age. And I think those primal years, those years are so important that anyone dealing with kids should just be so careful with what they say to them. And it's even more terrible for kids who go through such a traumatic upbringing, who go through trauma who experience loss and grief and go through such horrible things. Because that person, that child not only has to grow up and go through all the other experiences that kids their age are going through, but now they have all this stuff to unpack when they get older. All this baggage all this
Robin | Right. Yeah. And you know, you also tell the story about your brother, and he's trying to help you. But it was the opposite effect, right?
Ruby | Absolutely
Robin | He's like ok let's go, I'm gonna help you lose the weight that then you're being told you have to, like you're no your bodies not rightt. So he's like, let's go, like people jog around, jog around the field, or he's gonna ride his bike and you're gonna run behind him. He's like, trying to be your support.
Ruby | Absolutely
Robin | But it is just reinforcing that your body is not right. And you need to change in order to be accepted.
Ruby | Experiences stay with you. Like, there's so many experiences I've had in my childhood, but that's what stays with me. Can you imagine that's what stays what those experiences. You know, we laugh about it now because I was seven, eight, he was he was he's only two years older than me. So he was no older than me to know what's going on to know. You know.
Robin | He's in the same boat thinking this is like
Ruby | He's tryinng to figure it out, but he's a problem solver. So he's like, okay, if people are saying this to you, I as your older brother, I'm going to help you But neither of us know what's going on. And he's, you know, some days he would join me like he would run with me on the field. He's like, I'm going to run to and he's like some skinny little, you know, skinny thin little boy and I'm trying to run with him. And, you know, we laugh about it now. But I'm like, you know, really traumatized me. Like, that really affected me because I knew that you wanted to help. And I know that you didn't know any better because you were a child yourself. But to think that I needed to change to make me feel like I needed to change. It stayed with me forever, because then I always felt like, I need to change and I need to be a better version of myself want to be loved. So I need to, you know, if this person doesn't like me, okay, I need to change I need to make myself better. What can I do? And I would seek this affirmation and validation from people so much in my teenage and adolescent years that it was only when this is something recent, right. My husband says this to me, okay. And he says, he says, I'm not a team player. He said, He says it about himself. Okay. He's not a team player. Okay. And the reason for this, and he's made me like this as well, where when I first met him, I was such a people pleaser, okay, I was such a, oh, my God, I'll do this. I'll do this. oh, this person said this about me. I feel so bad. How could we feel this way? And I will tell my husband was and then boyfriend and I would be like, you know, I need to go the extra mile I need it. He'd just be like, Why are you so concerned? He'd be like, look at yourself, focus on yourself, be happy in yourself. You can never please others to the point like, no one's he said, you can't please everyone. You can't please everyone. And you can't live your life in a way where other people's validation is going to keep fueling your self worth and your self esteem. If people will always have something to say one person in a room filled with 50 people is going to be unhappy with you at least one person, maybe 10, maybe 20? Who knows.
Robin | Yes.
Ruby | You know. And so if you live your life with this perception that I need to make everyone happy, only then can I be happy, or I need everyone's validation. Everyone in the room needs to say Ruby, you look pretty in order for me to feel pretty no, right. Like I need to live for myself. And so that's when I realized that self love it comes from within, it's very, very important to come from within, it's essentiated. And it flourishes when you have a safe space and a support circle, who who's there for you who listens to you, who you know, nourishes these uplifting thoughts that you're having about yourself. But it completely dwindles if you just live with this perception that I need other people's affirmation, I need other people's validation I need. So now I'm this person where if an environment is depleting for me, I will leave. It's that simple, you know, doesn't matter if it's a friends function, it doesn't matter if it's a party, it doesn't matter if it's any of that. Me and my husband went to a wedding the other day. Old me, five years, six years old. ago, me previous me, if I went to a wedding, I would I would make sure that I'd stayed there till the end and Indian weddings, boring. Just okay, that was the wedding. But that was function number four that I had gne to.
Robin | Wow, yes, yes, they go and go and go. Yup.
Ruby | Indian weddings are not only week long, two week long. But also the functions are all day, like all day, 5,6,7,8,9 hours a day. So I was at this wedding from I think it was 10am. And it was now touching 5pm. And there was no sight of it being over. And I looked at my husband and he goes, let's go. And I was like, Yeah, but there's so many guests here. Because who cares? Because who gives a shit? He goes let's get out of here.
Robin | Right
Ruby | We've made you know, we've paid our visit. We've done what we needed to. It's like, let's leave. And I was like, but we're not team players. Because we don't need to be team players. We just need to focus on ourselves and get out of here.
Robin | Right. Well, I really liked that example. I, my boyfriend was telling me a story of how he went to a birthday party. And same thing, he had had a great time, and it was time to go to gathering doesn't matter. But his example was just that he said it was around I think 9:30 And he said to his buddy, like, Hey, I'm gonna go now. Yeah, but it was like, What are you talking about? Like, it's so early, like, Give me a break. You have to stay like, you know, we can all relate to this. And he was like, No, I'm gonna go and his buddies like, Why? Why are you leaving? And he's like, because I want to, I want to. And just walk through the door. Like, who cares? But that is a perfect example of just honoring what, like ordering yourself enough to be like, I'm good. I'm done. And there's there's a lot of ways that we can apply that I really liked that. Okay, so in your book, I really I love the fact that you talk about how the importance of community the importance of having good, nourishing, healthy relationships of people around you and how important that is for love for self love.
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | So how How would your life be did that translate from like, like, did you do like, did you used to have unhealthy relationships that you like you ended some friendships? Or, you know, I would just love to hear you're like, how are you.
Ruby | I told my husband the other day that I'm probably not going to have any friends. Like, by the time I'm in my 40s, because because I don't have I don't know if I can swear, no, but I don't have space for crap anymore. Like, I don't have space in my life for people who are not bringing me the kind of energy that I need. And so a huge part of the self love work Robin was in my early 20s. In my teenage years, I had like a thriving social life, I had all these friends for my community, all these girls, even in high school, lots of friends. But when I reflected on it, and when I saw, I always thought, especially in high school friendships with girls who were prettier than me, girls who weren't very nice to others, but I always wanted to be a part of this group, because I wanted to be a part of something. And when those friends that I made complimented me or said, you look pretty, I would be so like, I'd be so happy. And I'd be so enthralled that I just keep following them as their as the little minion. And so I attached myself to friendships and people who validated me people whose validation I seek, and those people didn't really I sought, and those people didn't really treat me very well. So I had friendships where, you know, I'd be it was like, I don't know how to explain it. So when you have a toxic partner who treats you badly 90% of the time, but 10% of the time, they're really nice. And so you stay because you hold on to the 10%. And that's how most of my friendships work. That's how most of my friendships were because and it wasn't their fault. It wasn't that they're bad people, it's because I was seeking those kinds of people in my life. You know, like they could be, to me, they were not great, okay, they could be great to others. But to me, they didn't treat me very well. And that was because that was the kind of personality subconsciously, I looked for, I look for a challenge. I looked for validation, I looked for pain, in love, for pain in friendship, I look for a struggle.
Robin | Wow
Ruby | And so the older that I got, the more I realized that I need to stop looking for these kinds of friendships. And so I slowly cut out my friends that had caused me pain. Well, you know, horrible to me. I've mentioned in this in this book, where there was one friend who was very, very horrible to me in my early 20s. And so I completely cut her out while I was healing, because I realized that one reason why I had such low self esteem is because she kept affirming the same beliefs that I had formed. As a child, she kept making me feel bad about myself. And I held on to her. It wasn't her fault. I held on to her, because she was filling that void in my heart. That was from when I was younger, she was filling she was feeding me the same, you know, the same
Robin | Felt familiar
Ruby | Yeah, she felt familiar. And so when I realized what I was doing, and when I realized what I deserved, I, I stepped away, I stepped away from her. Over time, I made more friendships over time, you know, I got to know new people. But right now I can honestly count, I probably have like two or three really close friends. But even those, I will meet once every couple of months, I will talk to here and there for me, my safe space is literally my family. So my relationship with my dad has always been a work in progress. But over the years, it's gotten a lot stronger, it's gotten a lot better. We talk about staff, I'm the person that he goes to when he needs advice when he needs you know, someone you know, I call him every day we talk every day, my brother is my best friend. I talk to him every single day we share everything. My cousin the same one that I've grown up with who I used to wear matching clothes with. She's my best friend, my husband, there's so many people in my life who have been there for me in my tough times, in my good times. And you know, family really is, I feel like it could be the strongest thing around you if you work on those relationships. We all go through stuff in our relationships, especially our familial relationships, we go through stuff with our parents, we go through stuff with our extended family. Some of them we're saving some of them aren', how do you decide that you try and work on them. And for me, I didn't want to, you know, I wanted to work on my relationship with my dad, I wanted to work on my relationship with the people who are closest to me. And as that relationship worked out, as it got better and better and as we became closer I've understood that it's it's all about trying to surround yourself with people who are good for you who take care of you who love you, but people who've been there with you throughout it all who understand your struggle, you know, who know where you've come from who you've become. And I've reached this point where I just don't have space for drama for negative energy for toxicity for narcissism.
Robin | Yeah
Ruby | And yeah, maybe like you know, I feel like you have waves in your life when you're a teenager, you have friends in your 20s, you have friends that you probably get to know new people. And so I'm ready for that new wave. We're ready for that new wave of friendships and people. I'm ready to get to know right now I'm happy with my close and close knit group of, you know, a couple of friends and family. And if I'm destined to meet new people who share my vibe and are aligned with who I am right now, not who I was 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, but now I'm ready for it. I'm ready for it.
Robin | It'll happen, Ruby. I mean, I'm in my mid 40's. And yeah, I'm so incredibly lucky to have a group of friends that I've been best friends with since grade 10 and I have a very close family. I've lost I've absolutely broken up with friends. Yeah, over the years. And, and the grieving is very real. It's like breaking up with a long term partner or right somebody that you were so supposed to. But that was necessary for my own for my own well being.
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | And there's too, right. So it's all it's all part of it. It's all part of self love. It's not always easy. That', that's the bottom line, right?
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | But I really
Ruby | You have to do it, you have to make tough decisions. Cutting relationships is a part of practicing self love cutting off relationships is.
Robin | Yes, it sure is. Life is life is full of so many. So much pain, but also so much goodness. And I was I was talking to a friend about this, like, just this week, I said, I understand that life is really hard. But I want it to be okay, we got like maybe 30% hard and 70% Joy. So let's just like keep the balance and work towards the joy.
Ruby | I love that
Robin | I’ve so enjoyed our talk today, Ruby. And I hope that everybody picks up a copy of your book. It is really, it's really well done The Path to Self Love. And I learned a lot and it was I love the reflection, because there's a lot in here, you leave a lot of room, there's lines for us to journal. And for us to do a lot of self reflection, that's, that's it's really important, right. That you're, you're just taking everything that you know, the gifts that you're giving, and the reminders you're giving in your book that people apply that in their own lives and, and go from there. So thank you very much, Ruby.
Ruby | Thank you, Robin. And I had a great, great time speaking to you today. And yeah, I think it's so wonderful to have these conversations and to reflect on self love and to know that it's not easy, but it is doable and and it just brings you so much joy when you do practice it. And so
Robin | You can create you can create a joyful life because of that statement. So I'm going to close our chat with a blessing because I do that every podcast and it's really with your words. So
Ruby | Ooooh
Robin | May we use self love as a significant tool that we can use in our healing journey to improve the quality of our lives and relationships to achieve long lasting happiness. And may we choose self love as an intention to nourish our lives, encouraging us to set healthy boundaries, which we didn't really talk about, but we did. It allows us to thrive in our relationships and gives us the courage to conquer our daily challenges. So and hopefully create a lot more joy in our lives.
Ruby | Love that, that's amazing
Robin | Thank you Ruby Dahl
Ruby | Thank you Robin
Ruby Dhal | I know Hi, Robin, it's so good to be here. And yeah, I mean, this is, this is my study. This is where I record everything and where I work and where I do everything. So I don't have another room. Unfortunately,
Robin Ducharme | I love it. This is where I do everything to this is where all the magic happens in my office at home. So we're, we're both in the same boat here. So Ruby, can you please tell our community at Real Love Ready about yourself, who you are, and what you've been up to in the last you know, you've been busy been a very busy girl.
Ruby Dhal | Absolutely, I am. To begin with an author. I have self published five books of poetry, prose and bite sized self help, and the self love content creator. So I talk about all things healing and self love. And I'm an advocate for mental health. So I write pieces about that as well. I talk about love and relationships. And most of my pieces take the form of quotes. So they're, like short form there pros. And I have recently released a very special book, it's called The Path to Self Love.
Robin Ducharme | Beautiful book
Ruby Dhal | And it's published in Random House. Oh, my God you have it.
Robin | Of course, I haven't I read it. I read it all week. It was excellent
Ruby | Really glad you like it.
Robin | And it was published by Random House. So that's fantastic.
Ruby | It was a dream come true. What I have wanted to be published by them for as long as I can remember, it's 10 year old Ruby's dream come true. And this book has two years of my life had gone into this book, just from the conception to writing it, signing with Penguin, and then working on on the whole project. And so, so much of my hard work, and just everything that I've learned over the years has gone into it. And so it's just such a special book. It's all about self love, and healing. And it's a step forward from everything that I share on my social media, it's just a go through much deeper into everything that I advocate for. So yeah, it's just such a special book.
Robin | I bet it was, I thought it was really special Ruby, and you, you bring out a lot of things that I was that I've been working on in my own life and reflecting on so I'm excited to talk to you about it.
Ruby | I'm excited to talk to you as well, and I can't wait to you know, just get into it and talk all these self love. So
Robin | Let's start there. Because I know this is what you this is what you do you you're helping people understand or work through and grow our self love. And I think that that's one thing you do talk about quite a bit throughout the whole book is we as a culture, as a society, let's just say on Instagram, you got you know, on social media got a million followers plus. And I think there's just this idea that self love is all about all the nice things all like having a bubble baths and going for long walks and, and journaling. Journaling is okay, we talk talk to us about self love, what's your definition of self love.
Ruby | Um, so in the book, in particular, the definition of self lobby has three separate components. The first is that it stays away from this me me me mindset.
Robin | Right
Ruby | So it's not all about me, it takes into consideration your relationships, which in today's day and age, we focus so much on, you know, if I want to practice self love, it should be all about me what I want to do, where I want to go, what would make me feel better. And so the definition of self love that I propose, the definition that is the most impactful is, you know, a self love that takes your relationships in the people around you into consideration, it values those relationships, because the only way that you can grow is if your environment is thriving and your you know, safe space and your support group is healthy and good for you. So that's one aspect of self love. Another aspect is, essentially the main aspect is that you live with an intention to take care of yourself. So the intention is, is that essentially, and the last thing is that self love isn't unconditional. Okay, so it's not feeling unconditional love towards yourself all the time. The reason being for this is because it's impossible. To love anybody unconditionally, we say that we feel it. I think the only time that you can ever truly, perhaps get an insight to unconditional love is if you're a parent, I think as a parent as someone who loves their children could definitely feel that form of unconditional love. But I feel like in general, we don't experience unconditional love with our friends with our parents with our partners because to unconditionally love someone would be to love them without having any expectations from them. So they can love you. They could you could love them and they could let you down again and again and again. And you would still love them. That's what unconditional love would imply, but that's not the case. Because your love for them would wither with time, you would feel, you know, hurt, you'd be in pain, the relationship would suffer, essentially. And so you can not in the same way love yourself unconditionally. Because that would be saying that I love myself and I'm going to take I'm going to live with the intention to take care of myself. But I have no expectations for myself. How does that work? How do you love yourself without expectations? That means letting yourself down but still loving yourself. That's not true. When we let ourselves down, we do feel bad, we do feel guilty. When you know, you say you're on a diet or you are working on your health. And suddenly you have that cheat meal, you feel bad, you're like, oh, no, you know, my diet is getting messed up or my whatever it is, whenever we do something that is at odds with us wanting to practice self care or self love, we do feel let down. And so unconditional love is not something that self love incorporates. And so self love is great, right? You're living with the intention to take care of yourself want to better your life. But the thing is, a lot of people see this is meaning only self care practices.
Robin | Right
Ruby | And that's why Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I distinguish between soft. Oh, sorry. That's why I distinguish between easy self love and tough self love.
Robin | Yes, but Okay, so let's talk about that because I really love this distinction that you give in the book around easy versus tough self love. I think the easy self love is we all know what what's all over social media. Right?
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | But we're not talking about the tough self love, which is so important. That's where your, your real healing is going to take place is practicing tough self love. So can you please explain what you mean by tough self love?
Ruby | Absolutely. So, essentially, top self love is doing the hard work. So with easy self love, we see it online, we you know, experience people indulging in it. When we think of self love easy self love instantly comes to mind. The bubble baths, the runs in the park walks with your dog, the coffee dates by yourself, the catch up with your friends, everything that you associate with as feel good activities, activities that will improve your mental, physical and emotional health. Make you feel better, that you feel happier in the moment are done with the intention to improve your life. And you're aware that they they will be improving your life. That's all easy self love. And so we think that if we do just these things, we will experience and feel that love and that satisfaction, that contentment, but when we don't feel it when we say okay, so I'm doing everything that Janet from Instagram is doing. You know, she has this that she has real that she posts on her day. I followed exactly what she does in her day, I went for a 5 am run. And then I got a coffee from my favorite cafe. And then I met up my met up with my friend. And then I went home and I decluttered my workspace and my room and I did everything. But why do we feel still feel empty? It's because you're not doing the tough self love. Because you're not doing the tough stuff. The tough stuff is having the difficult conversations about certain feelings that you're having. So say that you feel really, really low. Ask yourself, why am I feeling low? Tough self love is admitting that you have, you know, a problem. Perhaps it's a drinking problem. Perhaps it's, you know, addiction to social media, whatever it is, ask yourself, Admit that you've got a problem. Perhaps go to an AAA meeting. That is tough self love, get therapy that is tough self love, have honest conversations with your friends, or your controlling mother, you know, who keeps telling you what to do have those conversations that is tough self love? Because
Robin | Yes
Ruby | Because it's
Robin | It's going to it's going to challenge you. And it's not easy.
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | And this is but it's so necessary for caring and loving for yourself on the deepest level.
Ruby | Absolutely. Absolutely.
Robin | Something that I was just watching I can't. I cannot remember her name right now. But this was something that just like, it was a real on Instagram. And she made this awesome point. She said, people come to me all the time for for self love for like, how do I how do I just do exactly what we're just talking about Ruby. And she said, okay, well tell me about that relationship you're in. And the person saying, well, it's it's really bad. Like we it's not a healthy relationship. And she's like, well, you're here to spend half an hour an hour with me. And I'm giving you some tools, but actually, you're in the muck you're in that mess 24/7 with this in this very bad relationship. So tell me like, you know, you like like, we just like you just mentioned Ruby, you could be you know, eating green shakes and working out every day and your physical body you're taking care of it. You're journaling Okay, you're doing all the easy self love that stuff it makes you feel good for on a physical level. What are you doing for your heart? And what are you doing with the environment, the relationship that you're in? That that needs to be? Like? That's the tough stuff that we're talking about. Right?
Ruby | Yeah absolutely. It's like, I've just thought of a comparison. And it's like, when you are renovating an old house, a really old house, you're renovating it, you do all the outside work, you know, you do the paint work and the brick work and you've replaced the roof and you get a new door and you, you know, take care of the garden outside in the driveway and everything. But from the inside the house still looks the same. It's still old and shabby. And there's mold and there's, you know, it's damp, well, you can do everything on the outside. But if on the inside, you don't work on the house, it's eventually going to crumble anyway, it's eventually going, it's still going to be old on the inside, new on the outside. So when you want to practice self love, it's the same ideology in that you can do all the external stuff, you can do all the runs everything and I advocate for it, because I myself, one of the biggest things for me, you know, a walk a 10k Walk every single day, like I need to do 10,000 steps every day. Okay? Usually 10,000 steps every day, I need to go to the gym a few times a week, it's not been looking to great recently. I'm not gonna lie. However, that's as part of my self care practice. The reason I can feel good about those things now is because I've been doing the internal work. I've been doing the trauma work I've been doing, you know, I've been journaling. I've been asking myself the difficult questions, I have been sitting with my trauma and trying to see how I can move on from the past or take it forward with me in a way that doesn't hurt as much as it used to. And the reason I wanted to write this book, and the reason why I talked so much about self love is because it's such a hot and trending topic that no one seems to understand.
Robin | You, I agree with you. I fully agree with you. I had a conversation with my my boyfriend as well as a good friend this week around being being in a very bad relationship. My last marriage was was was very toxic. And I was in a place of like, a lot of blame, self blame and shame for for a long time around it. Because I'm like, How the hell did that happen? How did I fall into this? Right? And then you're like in that and that's all necessary kay all I had to go through that period of shame and blame, and all of that rumination in order to be on the side I'm at now. And when one of the things talking about just tough self love around when I decided to end my marriage, that was freakin the hardest thing. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Because we went through therapy, we do all the things. And I'm and it's like, making that decision was like one of the most loving things that I could do for myself it was the most loving thing that I could do for my family. So like, we are misunderstanding what love is as well.
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | Right. Love is not always about all of the positive unconditional words that we use right around you know, you could throw all the love out there. But if you're in a toxic situation, the most loving thing that you can do is, is either try to fix it and try to figure out if there is a way you can or walk away. And that's love.
Ruby | That's love absolutely.
Robin | Love is love can be many things. And sometimes it's very hard, right? So I love that you really point that out. You really really talk about it, Ruby.
Ruby | Yeah, love is hard. And I think people do get that people do understand when, say, for instance I am you know, I'm following this particular influencer, who's promoting all these self care things, and I do it and I do the affirmations and I do everything. And I don't feel the love. I know it's hard. I'm like, why is it that I don't feel it? It's so hard for me to feel love. Why am I not? You know, why am I still battling with these emotions? Why do we still have low self esteem? Why do we still, you know, feel bad about myself after every broken relationship, like what's going on? It's so hard. But the thing is, I get stuck on that I get stuck on the fact that it's hard and I continue to do the external work instead of thinking, perhaps it's hard because I'm not doing the tough stuff. I'm not doing the stuff that's truly going to change my life. One form of self love, after say, having a breakup is deleting all their photos and deleting them off social media and distancing yourself. Another form of self love is sitting down and giving yourself closure and sitting down and asking yourself what went wrong? You know what went wrong? How could I you know, things happened. There was two parties in the situation he did whatever wrong that he was to do, but what could I have done better? How can I improve myself? How can I make sure that I don't go for these kind of people in the future? You know, I do I have a knack for picking a certain personality type? Is this because of my past you know, adolescent years or my childhood years? What is it? What is it? That's good? That's tough self love that that is self love, you know, working on yourself trying to improve your life for the better by doing the stuff that doesn't make you feel good, essentially.
Robin | Yes exactly. So you say there is this misconception around healing internally is like healing externally. Yeah, where there's a process and you reach it endpoint apps. Right. You talk about how it's like, people are misunderstanding. Healing has been like a wound that like you know, it's gonna heal and you might have a little bit of a scar but you know, you're good to go. That's not the way it works with healing. Can you tell us about your your journey more? Because you do you share a lot about yourself in the book. That's, that's beautiful.
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | So you're you're now happily you're you're happily married?
Ruby | Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Robin | And you actually go you go a lot about hurt. You talk a lot about heartbreak in your book.
Ruby | Yeah., yeah I do
Robin | Can you talk to us about how you ended up, like, what work did you do the internal, the hard, the hard, tough love work that you did, to, like, you can reflect now and be like, This is what I did. And this is how the result is I'm in a beautiful relationship I'm very happy in.
Ruby | Yeah. The okay, so I see my husband as a manifestation of the person that I always wanted in my life. So when I was younger, I was very unhappy as child I was, you know, I wasn't going through a very healthy childhood upbringing. And so I always envisioned for myself the life that I wanted, I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be, you know, an author, I wanted to write books, but mostly I wanted healthy love in my life. I wanted healthy love, whether it was at the time, it wasn't romantic. At the time I was a child, I wanted to be, you know, healthy love around me, in the form of my relationships, my dad, whatever it was, but when I met my husband, I realized that I had manifested the healthiest love for myself. And the way that I reached him. The way that I got to him is, I was in a lot of pain. You know, I was in my early 20's, I was in a lot of pain. And the first thing that I wanted to do, the first thing that I looked towards was social media. Okay, I looked around and I was like, okay, I need to heal from this. I need to practice self love. And I need to move on, essentially. And so I looked at all these different things that people were doing, I started in the gym, I started eating healthy because I wanted to feel better about myself physically. I started chanting affirmation, I started doing all these external self care things. I still found myself in pain, I still find myself hurting, I still find myself thinking, why do I still keep coming across, you know, unattached people, or people who are not aligned with what I want from my life, or people that, you know, are displaying the same kind of idea of love that I've had what is going on? And then I sat down with myself and I was like, Okay, what is love? What does love actually mean to me? Okay, what is love? And through reflecting and through really diving deep down into my past, I realized that I had a toxic perception of love altogether. And I wrote about it in the book as well. My perception of love was it was tainted, it was, you know, I saw love was synonymous with pain, essentially. So if it was a struggle, it was love if it was toxic. If it was love, if it was painful, it was love. I learned. Yeah.
Robin | You were surrounded with that. right Ruby?
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | Because you lost your mom, your mom died at a very young age.
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | And your dad fell into alcoholism. And was so and you were you brought in by your, your aunt, right? Your family. And it was just it, you were surrounded by all of this pain that was not being addressed was not being healed. So it doesn't surprise me that all that modeling and like living in it, right. And now there's really no end in sight, right? Because you're thinking well, if you see the people the adults in your life and the community around you, not dealing in like using using tough love to get beyond that, then how do you learn that yourself?
Ruby | Absolutely. And for me, it was mostly through modeling, essentially modeling behavior that I saw. So when I met Ivnit I was still healing, I wasn't at a point Ivmet my husband, whenever Ivnit my husband, I was still healing. So I wasn't at the point where I didn't even realize what tasks off level was at that point. Okay, I was still healing what was done moving on, and it was through the relationship that I learned and I reflected, because of the fact that there was all this pent up emotion and all my past trauma that I would always project on our relationship. Okay, so he was the guy who is you know, he was sorted he was motivated he was dedicated but also he came from a background that wasn't as messed up as mine was he came from a normal attachment stable family, he was stable compared to me, okay, mentally and emotionally.
Robin | He was secure. We would say that, you know, yup,
Ruby | Yeah, he was secure. And so every time I would, and I had problems, I had trauma, I had baggage. And so every time I would essentially act out in our relationship or act in a way that indicated there's problems, there's underlying issues there. Instead of being, you know, confrontational, instead of being like, to me, you are being, you know, a horrible person or horrible girlfriend, he would just sit down in meetings, like, what's going on? What's going on? Everything's okay. Is there something that's bothering you talk to me, and it was through these conversations with him that I realized that I need to start having these conversations with myself as well. And I need to figure out what it is that I am so bothered about, here I am in a healthy relationship, I've never had a healthy relationship, I've never been used to a healthy relationship.
Robin | Right
Ruby | And I'm in a healthy relationship, and I am out to destroy it, I'm out to mess with it. Because healthy isn't love, to me healthy is healthy, it's normal, but it's not pain. It's not toxic, it's not suffering.
Robin | And so he's mirroring that back to you, we'll be I just love this, because he's because he was able to be that mirror, rather than taking it in being defensive.
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | You were able to see these patterns,
Ruby | These patterns. Absolutely. And it was through having these conversations with him that a, I understood the importance of having a safe space, and having a safe, you know, a safe spot to go to, which is why I talk so much about support circles and having a group of people who can help you, when you're healing and you're practicing self love, but B that's when I understood that all this time, I have been working on myself externally, all this time I have been doing, you know, all the external stuff. I you know, I've been writing books, I've been healing, through poetry, all of that. But I'm not dealing with the deep stuff within and I will sabotage my relationship, I will sabotage myself my chance at a happy life, if I do work on these internal problems. And so that's, for me, the biggest thing was that, if I don't work on myself, I will lose the most healthiest relationship in my life. And that's when I sat down with myself. And I reflected on my past, and I understood my concept of love and how it was toxic, and how that's when I really like I would sit down and I'd reflect and I'm like, okay, this is what I've done. This is what's happened. So. And that's when I unlearned, all the toxic things I had known about love and accepted, healthy, honest, love into my life. And when that happened, I slowly started working on the other areas in my life. All the tough stuff I started, me and my brother were really close my older brother, we have these deep conversations all the time, we've gone through the same thing. We have gone through everything together. And so here is my best friend, I talked to him with, you know, uncover our past trauma kind of reflect on how we want to move on for what we wanted. And it was just, it was so healing. Robin, it was so healing and it just helped me uncover how important it is to do the tough work so that you can form a strong foundation and a strong basis for yourself. And yeah, the biggest thing in me learning about love and manifesting and staying with everything, because any healthy person could have come any any person could have. But if they didn't stay and mirror back what was going on, if they didn't, you know, show me that they are here, and there's something you know, I need to work on. And they're here with me regardless, like he told me very clearly that look, I love you, right. And if you're gonna continue being like this, I'm still gonna be there. But I need you to work on yourself for yourself, essentially. And so yeah, the more that I worked on myself, the more that I realized, every part of my life was just slowly healing, it was slowly getting better and naturally, like I am, you know, I now tell myself that I have got the life that I dreamt off as a child. And as a teenager, you know, the life that I dreamt and what did I dream of, I dreamed of being happy. I just dreamed of being happy and content. And that is the life I dreamt or I dreamt of being you know, just waking up and not having not feeling pain in my chest. Not feeling emptiness, not feeling a dark cloud over my head of what's going to happen with my dad and I've lost my mom. Like I just wanted to be happy without that lingering pain. And I am you know.
Robin | Oh my goodness, I just think that it's just such a it's so great. It's a testament to doing how important it is to do the work so that you can be in that place like it's not and I just I just really I just love this reminder Ruby that you're talking about like okay, I was going to the gym, I was doing all the things. So I was in my dynamic with with Invit right that you're like
Ruby | Oh no his name is a bit of a tongue twister.
Robin | I was getting it wrong.
Ruby | It's Ivnit
Robin | Ivnit. I'm sorry. Ivnit. Um, that he that he was able to help you heal the the, the relationship dynamics.
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | That were sabotaging and I think a lot of people will relate to this.
Ruby | Yeah, you know? Yeah.
Robin | Yeah if we're not if we're not raised in an environment where we're not we're remodeled that was really healthy dynamics. It's like I'm learning as I go here but are you know, when you're telling the story I was reminded of when I was married for in my first marriage. And when I was growing up, my parents argued a lot. And there was a lot of yelling, and screaming, and slamming doors and my brothers. And I would just like kind of like, be quiet, leave the room. And kind of just like, we're like, what's the word? Weary the storm? No,
Ruby | Yeah, Wear out the storm
Robin | Something like that, until the storm would pass. And so this is how we learned about relational dynamics. Like, if you're really unhappy, you yell and scream and carry on. And then and then actually, later on, you don't talk about it, either. Like that was really too big, very strong dynamics in my household. And so when I was first married, then first dating my husband, this is what happened, I would get really get mad or get whatever and be raise my voice and yell, right. Yeah. And I remember him saying it was very early on, like, in our relationship, and he's like, I don't know what's happening here. But no, I don't I don't I don't operate like this. I don't talk like this. Like, this is not okay with me. Like, he was very strong in his like, absolutely not. And I was like, oh, yeah, okay. Okay. Like that. It was it was just like a clear boundary, but also communicated like, this is not how I'm going to do this with you. And from then on, we weren't we did not do that. So you, it comes from a place of almost innocence, sometimes our behaviors. And but we want to learn from that.
Ruby | You know what, Robin, I completely agree. Because Ivnit was the same, so when you see that kind of behavior modeled in your childhood, when you see your parents behaving that way you think that's normal, you think that's how relationships are, that's how love works. But it takes a strong partner, like, you know, I'm sorry to hear that, you know, you've gone through divorce, and so on, but it takes someone who, who hasn't come from the same background as you to tell you that no, this is not this is not how relationships are, this is not how love works. And this is not how a healthy relationship works for you to understand, Oh, okay so, all this time, I thought, I thought that's what it is, but it isn't, and then you're forced to reevaluate, and you're forced to, you know, relearn everything, you're forced to relearn everything, you're forced to try and understand love and relationships in a completely different way. Because we are the product of our experiences with a product of everything that we've gone through everything that we've seen, we've witnessed, and that was the biggest thing for me to, you know, not only learn about love in a different way, and understand it in a different way, but also understand that that's not, it's not just about love, it's about everything in my life, it's about the fact that we're going to, if my perception of love is like this, my perception of happines smust be tainted in my perception of friendships, everything that, you know, it must all be affected in some way, because I've not had a normal upbringing, I've not had a, you know, I've not had the kind of experiences that I assume that, you know, most children have almost people who come from a household with two loving parents would experience. And so the biggest problem, I think Robin is that people who go through a traumatic childhood, people who come from broken homes and broken lives, think that that's all that's meant for them, because subconsciously, that's the kind of thing that they are attuned to. That's the kind of thing that they're attracted to. And it takes a really, really strong person, and it takes a really, really strong willed person to be like, okay, you know, what, I don't want my life to go in the same way. And then the only direction that I've seen it go, I want something different for myself. But that's the only way that you can make a change. That's the only way that you can, you know, there's intergenerational trauma is just going to keep going until someone breaks out of the cycle, essentially.
Robin | That's right.
Ruby | You know, and I think yeah, I think that's why self love is so hard, even though it appears to be so easy to Millennials and Gen Z and everyone like oh, it's so easy. The generation above us so my parents generation didn't even know what self love is. Okay.
Robin | There was no talk about self love.
Ruby | There was no talk about self love let alone telling your kids you love them that never happened, I barely ever had my dad tell me he loved me. He tells me a lot now but you know, when I was growing up,
Robin | Now there's an abundance of like you said, like our social media is consumed by the concept. But it's very misunderstood.
Ruby | Absolutely. And it's so misunderstood that it's, it's almost to the point of alienating you almost to the point of you becoming hyper independent. And it's understood, because people have started to think that self love is so independent and so individual that until I don't, and there's a chapter in the book on this as well, which focused on relationships and love, and so on. There's this particular thing where it says until I don't love me, I can't love you.
Robin | And that, and that is such a bunch of BS, okay, Ruby, you just shared your story about yourself and how you that that's a great example of how you went into your relationship with your husband, and you had these behaviors and patterns that weren't absolutely prevalent. And it wasn't until that relationship with this man that you were able to work through. Like it this idea that you have to be fully healed in order to be in a good healthy relationship is so it's just a lie. And it's just not true. Because we're we heal in relationship. Our friendships, help us heal, our families can help us heal our partners, hopefully can help us heal our children. These are all like your life is just a never ending journey of healing.
Ruby | Absolutely. I completely agree with you Robin and I think that's why people have this perception because of that misconstrued perception of healing, which is comparable to external, it's not comparable to external healing, but people think you will be healed. And then you can find love, you will be healed, and then you will be successful and you will be healed. And then you will be happy. And it's like, no one is healing, you're always Goddamnit healing, you're healing from one thing or another. You could be healing from a heartbreak. But you could also be healing from your very first failure, you could be healing from the time, you know, you got bullied at school or something, you could still be healing from that it could still be affecting your self esteem, you'd ever reach a point where you have healed, you just reach softer, lighter places in your life where that experience doesn't hurt you as much anymore. But it goes forward with you. It always goes forward with you.
Robin | Yes, you talk about in your book, you talk about how your body issues, right. And I absolutely had body weight issues. I think there are many women and men and non gender people that have body weight issues. But you talk about like, you know, the source and how you didn't think that you had, you know your little girl like you're going through puberty, nd yeah, and like you said, you and your cousin like wore the same outfit because you were like sisters.
Ruby | Absolutely.
Robin | And you were so proud of the outfit that you were wearing. And your aunt was like you can't wear that like your your cousin can because she's got the body for it. But you can't like this is not appropriate. You're like you're chubby. You're like she said she's trying to be loving as she's saying it. But it's absolutely not loving right it's the opposite. And it's so incredibly hurtful. And that carried forward, I can see it Yeah, right. We can all I've got examples of that, too. Yeah, it's just, yeah
Ruby | It's hurtful. And I think, I mean, till this day, you know what, I wear an Indian outfit, and my blouse is too short. I worry about my tummy, I worry about my arms, I worry, I'm more comfortable in baggy clothes than I am in tight jeans and tight clothes. And I think that's one of the thing that stays with you forever, when you are made to feel a certain way at such a young age. And I think those primal years, those years are so important that anyone dealing with kids should just be so careful with what they say to them. And it's even more terrible for kids who go through such a traumatic upbringing, who go through trauma who experience loss and grief and go through such horrible things. Because that person, that child not only has to grow up and go through all the other experiences that kids their age are going through, but now they have all this stuff to unpack when they get older. All this baggage all this
Robin | Right. Yeah. And you know, you also tell the story about your brother, and he's trying to help you. But it was the opposite effect, right?
Ruby | Absolutely
Robin | He's like ok let's go, I'm gonna help you lose the weight that then you're being told you have to, like you're no your bodies not rightt. So he's like, let's go, like people jog around, jog around the field, or he's gonna ride his bike and you're gonna run behind him. He's like, trying to be your support.
Ruby | Absolutely
Robin | But it is just reinforcing that your body is not right. And you need to change in order to be accepted.
Ruby | Experiences stay with you. Like, there's so many experiences I've had in my childhood, but that's what stays with me. Can you imagine that's what stays what those experiences. You know, we laugh about it now because I was seven, eight, he was he was he's only two years older than me. So he was no older than me to know what's going on to know. You know.
Robin | He's in the same boat thinking this is like
Ruby | He's tryinng to figure it out, but he's a problem solver. So he's like, okay, if people are saying this to you, I as your older brother, I'm going to help you But neither of us know what's going on. And he's, you know, some days he would join me like he would run with me on the field. He's like, I'm going to run to and he's like some skinny little, you know, skinny thin little boy and I'm trying to run with him. And, you know, we laugh about it now. But I'm like, you know, really traumatized me. Like, that really affected me because I knew that you wanted to help. And I know that you didn't know any better because you were a child yourself. But to think that I needed to change to make me feel like I needed to change. It stayed with me forever, because then I always felt like, I need to change and I need to be a better version of myself want to be loved. So I need to, you know, if this person doesn't like me, okay, I need to change I need to make myself better. What can I do? And I would seek this affirmation and validation from people so much in my teenage and adolescent years that it was only when this is something recent, right. My husband says this to me, okay. And he says, he says, I'm not a team player. He said, He says it about himself. Okay. He's not a team player. Okay. And the reason for this, and he's made me like this as well, where when I first met him, I was such a people pleaser, okay, I was such a, oh, my God, I'll do this. I'll do this. oh, this person said this about me. I feel so bad. How could we feel this way? And I will tell my husband was and then boyfriend and I would be like, you know, I need to go the extra mile I need it. He'd just be like, Why are you so concerned? He'd be like, look at yourself, focus on yourself, be happy in yourself. You can never please others to the point like, no one's he said, you can't please everyone. You can't please everyone. And you can't live your life in a way where other people's validation is going to keep fueling your self worth and your self esteem. If people will always have something to say one person in a room filled with 50 people is going to be unhappy with you at least one person, maybe 10, maybe 20? Who knows.
Robin | Yes.
Ruby | You know. And so if you live your life with this perception that I need to make everyone happy, only then can I be happy, or I need everyone's validation. Everyone in the room needs to say Ruby, you look pretty in order for me to feel pretty no, right. Like I need to live for myself. And so that's when I realized that self love it comes from within, it's very, very important to come from within, it's essentiated. And it flourishes when you have a safe space and a support circle, who who's there for you who listens to you, who you know, nourishes these uplifting thoughts that you're having about yourself. But it completely dwindles if you just live with this perception that I need other people's affirmation, I need other people's validation I need. So now I'm this person where if an environment is depleting for me, I will leave. It's that simple, you know, doesn't matter if it's a friends function, it doesn't matter if it's a party, it doesn't matter if it's any of that. Me and my husband went to a wedding the other day. Old me, five years, six years old. ago, me previous me, if I went to a wedding, I would I would make sure that I'd stayed there till the end and Indian weddings, boring. Just okay, that was the wedding. But that was function number four that I had gne to.
Robin | Wow, yes, yes, they go and go and go. Yup.
Ruby | Indian weddings are not only week long, two week long. But also the functions are all day, like all day, 5,6,7,8,9 hours a day. So I was at this wedding from I think it was 10am. And it was now touching 5pm. And there was no sight of it being over. And I looked at my husband and he goes, let's go. And I was like, Yeah, but there's so many guests here. Because who cares? Because who gives a shit? He goes let's get out of here.
Robin | Right
Ruby | We've made you know, we've paid our visit. We've done what we needed to. It's like, let's leave. And I was like, but we're not team players. Because we don't need to be team players. We just need to focus on ourselves and get out of here.
Robin | Right. Well, I really liked that example. I, my boyfriend was telling me a story of how he went to a birthday party. And same thing, he had had a great time, and it was time to go to gathering doesn't matter. But his example was just that he said it was around I think 9:30 And he said to his buddy, like, Hey, I'm gonna go now. Yeah, but it was like, What are you talking about? Like, it's so early, like, Give me a break. You have to stay like, you know, we can all relate to this. And he was like, No, I'm gonna go and his buddies like, Why? Why are you leaving? And he's like, because I want to, I want to. And just walk through the door. Like, who cares? But that is a perfect example of just honoring what, like ordering yourself enough to be like, I'm good. I'm done. And there's there's a lot of ways that we can apply that I really liked that. Okay, so in your book, I really I love the fact that you talk about how the importance of community the importance of having good, nourishing, healthy relationships of people around you and how important that is for love for self love.
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | So how How would your life be did that translate from like, like, did you do like, did you used to have unhealthy relationships that you like you ended some friendships? Or, you know, I would just love to hear you're like, how are you.
Ruby | I told my husband the other day that I'm probably not going to have any friends. Like, by the time I'm in my 40s, because because I don't have I don't know if I can swear, no, but I don't have space for crap anymore. Like, I don't have space in my life for people who are not bringing me the kind of energy that I need. And so a huge part of the self love work Robin was in my early 20s. In my teenage years, I had like a thriving social life, I had all these friends for my community, all these girls, even in high school, lots of friends. But when I reflected on it, and when I saw, I always thought, especially in high school friendships with girls who were prettier than me, girls who weren't very nice to others, but I always wanted to be a part of this group, because I wanted to be a part of something. And when those friends that I made complimented me or said, you look pretty, I would be so like, I'd be so happy. And I'd be so enthralled that I just keep following them as their as the little minion. And so I attached myself to friendships and people who validated me people whose validation I seek, and those people didn't really I sought, and those people didn't really treat me very well. So I had friendships where, you know, I'd be it was like, I don't know how to explain it. So when you have a toxic partner who treats you badly 90% of the time, but 10% of the time, they're really nice. And so you stay because you hold on to the 10%. And that's how most of my friendships work. That's how most of my friendships were because and it wasn't their fault. It wasn't that they're bad people, it's because I was seeking those kinds of people in my life. You know, like they could be, to me, they were not great, okay, they could be great to others. But to me, they didn't treat me very well. And that was because that was the kind of personality subconsciously, I looked for, I look for a challenge. I looked for validation, I looked for pain, in love, for pain in friendship, I look for a struggle.
Robin | Wow
Ruby | And so the older that I got, the more I realized that I need to stop looking for these kinds of friendships. And so I slowly cut out my friends that had caused me pain. Well, you know, horrible to me. I've mentioned in this in this book, where there was one friend who was very, very horrible to me in my early 20s. And so I completely cut her out while I was healing, because I realized that one reason why I had such low self esteem is because she kept affirming the same beliefs that I had formed. As a child, she kept making me feel bad about myself. And I held on to her. It wasn't her fault. I held on to her, because she was filling that void in my heart. That was from when I was younger, she was filling she was feeding me the same, you know, the same
Robin | Felt familiar
Ruby | Yeah, she felt familiar. And so when I realized what I was doing, and when I realized what I deserved, I, I stepped away, I stepped away from her. Over time, I made more friendships over time, you know, I got to know new people. But right now I can honestly count, I probably have like two or three really close friends. But even those, I will meet once every couple of months, I will talk to here and there for me, my safe space is literally my family. So my relationship with my dad has always been a work in progress. But over the years, it's gotten a lot stronger, it's gotten a lot better. We talk about staff, I'm the person that he goes to when he needs advice when he needs you know, someone you know, I call him every day we talk every day, my brother is my best friend. I talk to him every single day we share everything. My cousin the same one that I've grown up with who I used to wear matching clothes with. She's my best friend, my husband, there's so many people in my life who have been there for me in my tough times, in my good times. And you know, family really is, I feel like it could be the strongest thing around you if you work on those relationships. We all go through stuff in our relationships, especially our familial relationships, we go through stuff with our parents, we go through stuff with our extended family. Some of them we're saving some of them aren', how do you decide that you try and work on them. And for me, I didn't want to, you know, I wanted to work on my relationship with my dad, I wanted to work on my relationship with the people who are closest to me. And as that relationship worked out, as it got better and better and as we became closer I've understood that it's it's all about trying to surround yourself with people who are good for you who take care of you who love you, but people who've been there with you throughout it all who understand your struggle, you know, who know where you've come from who you've become. And I've reached this point where I just don't have space for drama for negative energy for toxicity for narcissism.
Robin | Yeah
Ruby | And yeah, maybe like you know, I feel like you have waves in your life when you're a teenager, you have friends in your 20s, you have friends that you probably get to know new people. And so I'm ready for that new wave. We're ready for that new wave of friendships and people. I'm ready to get to know right now I'm happy with my close and close knit group of, you know, a couple of friends and family. And if I'm destined to meet new people who share my vibe and are aligned with who I am right now, not who I was 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, but now I'm ready for it. I'm ready for it.
Robin | It'll happen, Ruby. I mean, I'm in my mid 40's. And yeah, I'm so incredibly lucky to have a group of friends that I've been best friends with since grade 10 and I have a very close family. I've lost I've absolutely broken up with friends. Yeah, over the years. And, and the grieving is very real. It's like breaking up with a long term partner or right somebody that you were so supposed to. But that was necessary for my own for my own well being.
Ruby | Yeah
Robin | And there's too, right. So it's all it's all part of it. It's all part of self love. It's not always easy. That', that's the bottom line, right?
Ruby | Yeah.
Robin | But I really
Ruby | You have to do it, you have to make tough decisions. Cutting relationships is a part of practicing self love cutting off relationships is.
Robin | Yes, it sure is. Life is life is full of so many. So much pain, but also so much goodness. And I was I was talking to a friend about this, like, just this week, I said, I understand that life is really hard. But I want it to be okay, we got like maybe 30% hard and 70% Joy. So let's just like keep the balance and work towards the joy.
Ruby | I love that
Robin | I’ve so enjoyed our talk today, Ruby. And I hope that everybody picks up a copy of your book. It is really, it's really well done The Path to Self Love. And I learned a lot and it was I love the reflection, because there's a lot in here, you leave a lot of room, there's lines for us to journal. And for us to do a lot of self reflection, that's, that's it's really important, right. That you're, you're just taking everything that you know, the gifts that you're giving, and the reminders you're giving in your book that people apply that in their own lives and, and go from there. So thank you very much, Ruby.
Ruby | Thank you, Robin. And I had a great, great time speaking to you today. And yeah, I think it's so wonderful to have these conversations and to reflect on self love and to know that it's not easy, but it is doable and and it just brings you so much joy when you do practice it. And so
Robin | You can create you can create a joyful life because of that statement. So I'm going to close our chat with a blessing because I do that every podcast and it's really with your words. So
Ruby | Ooooh
Robin | May we use self love as a significant tool that we can use in our healing journey to improve the quality of our lives and relationships to achieve long lasting happiness. And may we choose self love as an intention to nourish our lives, encouraging us to set healthy boundaries, which we didn't really talk about, but we did. It allows us to thrive in our relationships and gives us the courage to conquer our daily challenges. So and hopefully create a lot more joy in our lives.
Ruby | Love that, that's amazing
Robin | Thank you Ruby Dahl
Ruby | Thank you Robin
