Fear can feel like a full-time job when life collapses at once—divorce, layoffs, a financial crash, and the gnawing question of who you are without your old identity.
We sit down with relationship coach and author Jonathon Aslay to explore how he climbed out of that chaos, traded numbing habits for healing practices, and found purpose he couldn’t have imagined at the start. His story is raw and practical, full of real tools and honest detours that make growth feel possible, not performative.
The conversation turns deeply personal as Jonathan reflects on the sudden passing of his 19-year-old son and the choice to grieve with love rather than sink into suffering. We discuss self-love as a living practice—self-worth, self-esteem, self-reliance—and how to care for the inner six-year-old that still drives our reactions.
Cultural scripts and inner critics get a reality check, including a simple forgiveness ritual (the Hawaiian prayer) that calms the nervous system. By the end, you’ll have a handful of grounded practices and a fresh respect for the small, daily choices that rebuild identity and purpose from the inside out.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help others find these tools. Tell us: which practice will you try first—breath, journaling, or forgiveness?
If you wish to connect with Jonathon head over to his YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/@JonathonAslay or his Instagram: instagram.com/jonathonaslay
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey my winners, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Release Stat Reveal Purpose. And today is Jonathan Astley. And I was profoundly impacted by what I read on his pod match profile when he linked up with me and said, Hey, I think I should be on your podcast. And no doubt, for sure, he should be on the podcast because he has an amazing story of transformation from pain to purpose, truly from pain to purpose, after losing his identity across the board, divorce, losing his high-end corporate job, crashing in the market in 2008. I remember that by the way. I was going through a divorce myself. Um, so there is a lot going on in 2008 for me as well. So without further ado, thank you so much, Jonathan, for joining us on Released Out Reveal Purpose.
Oh, thanks for having me, Sylvia. I’m excited to chat with you.
It’s going to be an exciting interview for sure, because really you can tap into anything you want to tap into, and regards of your story of transformation. So please do kind of guide us into this painting story you have.
You know, I want to preface something before we get started, and that’s for those listening, is that, you know, I know sometimes you hear these podcasts, you hear stories, and you’re like, well, how does it relate to me and that sort of thing? But I think why I’m I’m prefacing this in advance is I think in some ways when we can learn to talk about our own individual story, and those listening, you have a story, Sylvie has a story, I have a story. But listening to someone else’s story actually helps us get better at talking about our emotional well-being, talking about our emotional state. Particularly we’re talking about overcoming adversity kind of thing. But when I think when we hear it enough, we become better at it. So I’m hoping that what I share today helps you get better at sharing your own story. So um, well, you know, we’d have to go back in time 20 years ago in 2000. I I just turned 40, and it’s in 2005-ish. And at that point in my life, I was uh in corporate insurance, I had a high-end corporate paying job. But in a matter of a month, I I lost I got laid off from my high-end corporate job, and I started, I was going through a divorce. And and in that period of time, I was like in such emotional chaos. And and plus, the there’s an adversarial nature to divorce in many cases. So there’s a lot of frustration, and certainly losing my high-end corporate job affected my identity. And for the next few years, I was emotionally devastated. I mean, like, and and I’m sure you’ve heard this, men oftentimes wrap up their whole identity and their professional life. And I wasn’t in the mood to, I was trying to, you know, reclaim a job somewhere else, but I was just hitting roadblock after roadblock after roadblock. And the way I navigated life back then was drugs, alcohol, and online dating. I want to be very candid. I’m not proud of that behavior, but it was drugs, alcohol, and online dating that was my drug of choice to self-medicate. And then a few years later, the market crash of 2008 you mentioned, um, wiped me out financially. And all of a sudden I went from living in a multimillion dollar home. I mean, after my divorce, I moved into an apartment. But at one point I lived in a multimillion dollar home to literally only$10,000 in my bank account, having to move in with my mother and father in a retirement community. I mean, my emotional state was at rock bottom. I was in the pit of despair. And what’s interesting is online dating, you know, became kind of my drug of choice because what was interesting, and I’m I’m I’m sharing this, I I know I’m laughing a little bit, but only because looking back, it’s almost humorous to me, but at the time it didn’t feel this way. Speaking to women online, and I developed a lot of female friendships. I wasn’t actually even physically meeting women, I was just talking to them, sharing my story, they’re sharing their stories. It was like almost like a replacement for therapy in many ways. And I was developing a lot of almost friendships. And through this process, little by little, I didn’t realize it was preparing me for the next evolution in my life because women wanted to understand what was going on in the male mind. They wanted to understand the divorce guy, they wanted to understand online dating, and keep in mind this was 17, 20 years ago. And so one day I had the brilliant idea in 2009, 2010 to throw up a cheesy website and call myself a dating coach because I was helping so many women through my dating efforts help improve their dating profiles. And by the way, let me just share, I was speaking to women all across the country, so I wasn’t physically meeting people, I was just talking to people. And little by little, I was rebuilding my life. And at the same time, though, the movie The Secret came out. I started to watch Abraham Hicks, Wayne Dyer, Joe Dispenza, you know, uh Marianne Williamson. I mean, the list goes on and on of different uh and also therapy and that sort of thing. And I began immersing myself in personal development, self-help, spiritual work, and therapy because I recognized that the problem that I was facing was me. At first, I kind of pointed the finger at everyone else. It was my job, it was my ex-wife, it was this. And I realized I was the common denominator. And when I began immersing myself in personal development, self-help, spiritual work, and therapy, I began feeling more empowered. I started to feel more. And by the way, and this is where all of a sudden I’m aware that I’m responsible for my actions contribute to my experiences. And just in that awareness of objectivity, I started to become happier. I didn’t need the drugs and alcohol anymore. I didn’t need the addiction of online dating to nurture loneliness and that sort of thing. And I’m gonna tell you, this was a long period of time. It wasn’t just overnight, but over the course of a decade, I began rebuilding myself from that identity loss. And, you know, I mean, today I’m actually considered one of the leading dating or relationship coaches, and I started from scratch 15 years ago.
Yeah, it’s funny how life works out, doesn’t it? We always our darkest chapters are our biggest teachers. Yeah, they are. I know in 2008, nine time frame, I was getting divorced myself, and like you, I fell into victim mode for a little while because we tend to view life through our lens, which is very cloudy, very, very much uh not in the space that we’re in now, clearly. Like when you become a coach and you understand how the mind works, and you start really diving deep into these methodologies and different methodologies. Do you have neurolinguistic programming and you have life coaching and you have therapy, and all of them kind of point to the same concept of look inward for your answers? The answers are not going to come outside of us, although that’s how we all grow up thinking, you know. In our first act, we all kind of fall into the same ego trap of this is what success looks like. And then when that falls apart and everything grows dark is when we’re seeking higher, our higher source of power. And in my case, it’s God. And I started to seek him very fervently, and I felt the pull to seek him, and in those years, I learned to follow him and follow his guidance into my right. But if I tried to do this on my own, oh my goodness, this would have taken way more time than it’s taken in the last couple of years. Now in my life, I just allow him to guide me. I don’t worry about things that used to really overwhelm me in the past. And it sounds like you’re in a space now uh that you’ve learned quite a few lessons. Can you share some of those lessons with us?
Sure. So, you know, if as I look back, um I and I mentioned a number number of people that, you know, over the years I read books like the ones I shared with you. Um, and there’s a variety of different books, you know, whether it was I mentioned Abraham Hicks to Jeff Brown to Eckhart Tolle to the John Gottman to Harvey L. Hendricks to Mary Williamson. I I started to read the books to develop a sense. Oh, and my favorite of all is The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, by the way. I I mean I highly recommend that. And by the way, anyone who chooses to buy that book today, do yourself a favor, only read or listen to one chapter at a time. It is so deep that you’re gonna be in the Marianna’s trenches of depth. Uh don’t try to make sense of it all in like one sitting. Break it up into 19 different sittings because I believe there’s 19 chapters. So one, you know, it’s hard to describe self-awareness, you know. Um, and and I mean, well, yes and no. I mean, you know, from the standpoint of the tools, well, it starts one of the one of the modalities I did was the Hoffman process. And that’s a deep dive into healing childhood wounds and adult traumas, recognizing first you have to identify your negative patterns and your limiting beliefs in your life. And like you said earlier, Sylvia, it’s it’s it’s stepping outside of that victim consciousness. And and I actually encourage people to step into their victor or empowered consciousness. And so it started by looking back at my childhood and and really getting a sense that while my parents, you know, I I feel like they did the best they could with what they know, uh, was learning that a lot of my behaviors was really just patterning either something I adopted in childhood or something I rejected in childhood. And when I was able to step back and see that, it allowed, you know, one of the tools would start with like breathing, learning to just breathe when I felt anxiety, learning to breathe when I froze up, learning to breathe when I wanted to avoid. And just breathing is such an amazing tool that oftentimes we overlook, humans overlook. Certainly, meditation uh is one of the tools that I use. And and they tend to be the two most important in my life, um, along with and meditations, both silent and guided meditations because and then reading books as I shared before, but is that it allowed me to take a step back and witness myself from the objective point of view, not from that victim point of view. I know this feels like a lot of words, salad, to those listening. I can’t, it’s sometimes hard to describe. It’s like trying to share a dream you just had with someone, it’s almost fragmented in some ways.
Well, because it’s a it’s a concept that most people don’t understand because we talk about it like they should understand awareness, yeah, self-awareness, and it’s a much deeper concept. The way I explained it to my husband, because my husband said, Well, I’ve told you about these things about yourself. I go, There’s a big difference between you telling me and you becoming aware of it, meaning that it pulls up from the subconscious part to the conscious part. There is a there’s a journey our mind takes us on into the point of awareness, and there’s connections that your brain is making. And so when you encounter another blind spot, that journey that you took on your own, without somebody guiding you, is what your brain is going to do now automatically for you to come to the conclusion and the self-awareness of a particular blind spot. That aha moment that you reach when you read a book, and that piece that didn’t make sense all of a sudden makes sense. It goes click in your mind. That to me, that click is that self-awareness that only you can gain by turning inward for those answers and just reflecting and being in the present moment, and that’s why you know Jonathan’s talking about meditation and breathing, because those two techniques bring you back to presence, presence where your soul and spirit are waiting patiently for you to be, so that they can guide you to the next step, to the next kind of leveling up, if you will. Because the ego, the self-image that we have about ourselves, which is what you were talking about, the trauma and the experiences and the belief systems, that’s the ego side of our mind. And it’s in constant battle with our soul and spirit. It’s just like pulling, and like it’s that doubt that we feel that stops us from stepping forward in faith and confidence and to change. Change, that’s why it scares people so much because the ego will pull and then they feel another pull that’s saying, Don’t be afraid. If you just step in here, you’ll find your way. But we’re so conditioned to not let go of our control and our perfectionism and whatever it is that’s keeping us stuck. So that’s why that self-awareness piece is such an important piece for you as an individual to go through.
You know, it’s interesting as you share this. I have a story I want to share with everybody, but I want to emphasize something to piggyback on what you said. You know, I I I want to, as it’s, and I know many of you who are listening, you’re seasoned at doing this. This isn’t like new for you to some degree, but I I do recognize that in many cases we don’t allow ourselves enough time to even allow ourselves to be self-aware. In other words, to invest in our personal development, self-help, spirituality, that sort of thing. And and I know in my own life, I invest anywhere from an hour to two hours a day, and it’s not just sitting in meditation doing home, but in true self-reflection, whether it’s journaling, whether it’s sharing publicly the way I do. And and I I want to emphasize this word of curiosity. I think we human beings are fascinating at how we could be this juxtaposition between the ego and the intuition. And I’m I’m fascinated from a curious point of view. So I share this, I invite everyone to just start being curious about themselves, particularly the way our ego and our intuition butt heads. It’s like the angels on one shoulder and the devils on the other shoulder, and and and not to make it such a you know um devious perception, but you know, um I was sharing with my uh my my partner, uh my beloved, this morning. I I was in a relationship some time back, and right after the first date, I was I was very conflicted. But I had this just you need you just never know, you know, you need more data, like keep moving forward. But in my actions were in such contrast, like I was I was giving mixed signals to this person, and we we dated only for about six weeks. But I look like a pachenko ball emotionally, and it was because my intuition said, nice person, not a right fit. That’s all it said, nice person, not a right fit. That’s the intuition. But my ego was well, we have this in common and we have this, and she checks a few boxes, and she lives close by, and like, and she’s a really nice person, and maybe I could grow into it. Like I kept like having to talk myself into it. But I was I was like such a like I was like a ping pong going back and forth, giving mixed signals, and I was actually aware, I was like telling her this. It’s because my intuition knew that we weren’t the right fit. Doesn’t mean it was a bad fit, it just wasn’t the right fit. But boy, did my ego want to just you know, like argue for my limitations. And so I believe our nervous system is speaking to us all the time. I I believe when we feel anxiety, when we overthink, when we’re trying to talk ourselves into something, when we’re we’re constantly in the head and we’re feeling it in our body, that’s your nervous system saying, Hey, this isn’t the right fit. You don’t need to put a square peg in a round hole. And boy, when I learned that lesson, and I’ve been at this for a decade and a half, Sylvia, but still as early as a year ago, I’m I’m experiencing this, because learning to trust our intuition, boy, that takes gi almost a leap of faith to some degree. Like, because I I think that’s the real journey of life is really stepping into our you, you know, you call it God, I call it God, universe spirit, our divinity, our higher self. Like learning to really step into our higher self, our God space, it feels like a leap of faith. And and we can sometimes be human, and there’s nothing wrong with it. That’s why I was laughing earlier because I laugh at myself. By the way, if you do your best to live by the four agreements, be impeccable with your word, you know, recognize that you know, do you know, your actions can affect others, don’t let others’ projections, those sorts of things. When you operate from that vantage point, I at least I believe from the place of do no harm to others kind of thing, try your best. Um, we humans can do some really laughable things. You know, and and you know what? And why I’m smiling and laughing at myself, because beating ourselves up is the worst thing you can do. Because you would never beat up a child for being, you know, a child.
Or curious, even. Because sometimes our curiosity throws us in these situations, and then we realize, okay, that’s not really the right fit. Like your your example with the lady, right? I’m like, you’re into it, don’t you? Don’t do it. Like you know better. That gut instinct, I called it God instinct in my book, in Faith and Thrive. And because I always thought God lived in our gut. So I was like, well, let’s just call it what it is. God instinct of do not do it because He knows us. He knows how He created us. He knows our hearts, our desires, and He knows the other person as well. And we don’t have that peace. We have their best. Uh, because when we’re dating, let’s just talk about the dating world for a minute. People give the best of themselves, they hide the rest initially. Yeah. And see, God sees it all. All the motivation, everything. So when you have that pull from your soul saying, it’s not the right fit, pay attention to it. But it does remind me, I’m I’m a big movie buff. I love um Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford, and that piece where he has to have that leap of faith like to step in. I think it’s the movie with Sean Conry.
It was the third movie with the step. Yeah.
And it’s that step that you have to take, that you know you have to take, but you don’t know what’s on the other side of that. Yeah. We’re both here to tell you that on the other side of fear is joy. Immense joy, immense peace. But the the the clincher here is you gotta you gotta journey through the fear. And I know that’s scary, and I know that terrifies most of us. And when I interviewed men and women for my book in Faith I Thrive, which released last year, the biggest fear they claimed on change was fear of the unknown. We’re all there’s you know everybody knows how you feel, but we’re here to tell you that as afraid as we were, we also had the courage and the peace and the strength, which presence can bring to you. When you are centered and aligned to what’s really important in life and to your purpose, to your what I call the divine purpose, it feels in true alignment. You will find the courage and the peace to make that step happen.
Yeah. You know, when you shared my bio with everybody, um, and I know you’re gonna get to this next, but I’m gonna preempt you a little bit for everybody who’s listening. Um you know, doing the work, you know, and the word work, I mean, actually, if you can kind of look at it as play, you know, healing oneself, working on oneself, if you can look at it as play, you know, that actually, you know, can put more of a smile on your face. As I look back on my journey, I I recognize that things will hit you out of the blue. And in my particular case, in the summer of 2018, um, my 19-year-old son um returned to heaven, is it? Uh as you said, uh graduated into heaven.
He’s a graduate.
Yeah, and he graduated to heaven and he was 19 years old, and and and I mean it was an accident, so there was no you know, goodbye or anything like that. And and boy, did that wake me up in so many different ways, you know, particularly to be present more than anything else. I would say one of the gifts I got from this experience is to really, and and when I say present, to appreciate a present moment, you know, is is really every moment is a gift, it’s precious, um, and particularly with those we love. Um and and most people people would say losing a child probably is the most devastating thing. I mean, you know, uh other, you know, we can you know depending on the lens, I know parents feel that. Like that would be the hardest thing I’d ever endure. When my son passed away, it wasn’t the most devastating thing for me. And I realized, and I and I started to journal about this, and I started to realize it was all the personal development, self-help, spiritual work after losing my identity that built emotional scaffolding for me to navigate this experience, not from a place of suffering, but I chose to grieve with love, like because I had immersed myself, you know, like the book Return to Love, Course in Miracles, so many different uh modalities, really emphasizing self-love, uh love of humanity, that sort of thing. And and so, and I knew that he would not want me to suffer one day. Like, I mean, if he came down from heaven and said, Dad, please do me one thing, don’t suffer one day. For me, I honor his life by choosing. I started with grieving with love, but more importantly, I started to immerse myself in what does self-love mean? And so two months after he passed, I I started to blog, I was blogging about self-love from a dating coaching perspective. And I’m like, I’m gonna turn this into a book. And nine months after the day passed, I published a book on Amazon called, or you know, I’ll show it to you, What the Heck is Self-Love Anyway? A journey of personal development, self-help, spiritual work. And and it was a bestseller within 24 hours. I was very grateful for that. Um but I recognized that you know, oftentimes that empowerment piece, that victim consciousness piece we talked you talked about earlier, was really an opportunity to find ways to love ourselves. And I know self-love can feel kind of confusing for some people. Um, let me just clarify it really quick. You know, while manicures and pedicures are great for self-care, I think, you know, self-love, if if I look at the word, I incorporate self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance. But most importantly, for those of us who are adults, we all have a little six-year-old inside of us, emotionally speaking. I’m gonna I’m gonna say as much as you might think you’re an adult and you’re very responsible, we all have an emotional six-year-old inside of us. That, and the self-love is really nurturing that little emotional six-year-old inside of us, inside of this adult body. And so, and we’re not always getting it right, you know, we can be in conflict with our intuition and our ego and all that kind of stuff, but self-love is just really taking good care of that little emotional six-year-old inside of us. And I think just like we would a child want to nurture and protect and and um want the best for, that’s what embodiment of self-love is. And um again, it’s a long journey, or when I say long journey, it’s a jer, it’s a lifetime journey. You know, I believe, you know, like maybe five minutes before our passing is when we have full enlightenment, I’ll be candid with you. Uh and and the and the question really becomes do you want to make your journey of life, do you want to make it one that you can smile at? Or do you want to be one that you’re frowning at? And I’m just here to encourage everyone to look at their experiences as an opportunity to grow individually. But as I began this conversation, I I really want to encourage everyone to start drafting your story. Start, you know, noodling on your story, start looking at from you know, even you know, from birth on, because we all have a beautiful, juicy story to share. I believe when we go inward and start really appreciating all the little facets of who we are, and then share it with others. You know, share your story with others. I believe when we share with others, we encourage that growth, we encourage that that uh awareness piece when we hear it from others as well. That’s why your podcast is so important that you interview so many different people to share their stories, and everyone listening, you have a story too. Start writing it down. It’s got it’s something worth sharing.
It definitely is, and we all have light to share. All of us are born with light. All of us are born fearless and full of curiosity. Yet when we start to encounter different emotional events in our life, circumstances, if you will, or parents telling us no or imposing their own generational uh trauma without realizing it because they don’t do it with the intention of hurting their children. They don’t know any different, they don’t know any better for a better for a better way of saying it. My father, in his anger and in fear of losing my little sister on a trip, told me that if she died, it would be my fault. It’s not something he intended to do or to cause enormous harm on me, but it did it. I was seven, and it brain did not have the capacity or the consciousness developed enough to say, well, that’s a lie. You know, that’s not true. I’m little, no one came to explain the other adult because they didn’t know how to. And uh, it took decades of work because I didn’t invite God into the mix. For a long time, I was very self-reliant, and that self-reliance leads to a lot of survival techniques being built, but also a lot of loneliness. We’re not meant to be journey alone in this life. And I want to emphasize that because when we see the mountain before us that we think we have to climb on our own, yeah, it’s not always the case. When you when you tap into your spirit, that spirit that that is inside of all of us, that light, then you can really start to see the solutions before your very own path. But every time you take a step, a solution appears. That’s been my experience. It’s been my own humble experience. But the the trick here is the courage that it takes to take that initial step, that’s on you. And you got to make a decision. Do you want to stay exactly where you’re at when you’re facing tough circumstances? Or do you want to use change as a divine invitation to step into your true light? And that’s really where I think both Jonathan and I are trying to gear the conversation towards. One thing I wanted to add when you did talk about self-love, I did want to interject because I I allow the Holy Spirit to guide my conversations with my people I’m interviewing. And one of the visions he gave me as you were speaking was of one technique I learned long ago in meditation, of all things. Okay. In 2020, I had very, very bad anxiety. I was born with anxiety. My father had anxiety, obviously. And so, genetically speaking, I’m already there, but I also had it modeled to me by my father, and that doesn’t help either. And then I had a major event that occurred that triggered it into full action. And so my anxiety was through the roof once 2020 rolled around and it started to impact my parenting. It started to spill into the way I was parenting my two young kids, and I didn’t want that anymore. So I forced myself to sit on a chair, and it as hard as it was for me, I started very, very small steps. I started with five minutes because five minutes worked for me, but for some people, even five minutes is a lot. So just start with whatever you’re comfortable with and then build up slowly. Yeah. By the end of 2020, I was I was meditating for over an hour, which was a very big thing for me because I also have ADD.
Okay. That’s the big one. I get it. I’m anxiety-based and ADD, so I get it.
But it was the best thing for me. One of the techniques that I loved that I did that has helped a lot of people in this whole concept of self-love was to get three pictures of you throughout your life. One of my pictures was with me before the trauma occurred. One of them was in high school and at the height of my bullying years, and the other one was of my present day. And I would look at these three pictures, and I would I would just put them all together and say, I love all three of you. All three of you taught me so much.
Yeah.
I know that the bullying one and the little one, you went through a lot of trauma. And and you think you need to be around to inform my presence. And as much as I love you guys, I really appreciate what you’ve taught me.
Yeah.
But you’re not part of me anymore. I love you though, but thank you. You know, and it’s accepting those three different personas of like your toughest, painful chapters and forgiving yourself and loving yourself. To me, the concept of self-love came through me as I wrote my first book in 2020, and God was using it to heal my relationship with my father before he passed away last year on Father’s Day of all days. Oh my god. Yes. I now was like, well, you didn’t think of me anyways. Might as well be on Father’s Day. And so when he graduated, I was in a very different space spiritually. I’m a woman of immense faith. I’ve been through a lot of, I’ve encountered three miracles in 72 hours. So my faith is very, very strong. And my relationship with God is one and the same of my spirit and my soul. And the concept he explained to me in the book was self-love is the way I love and see you. I want you to see and love yourself.
Yeah.
Because you are one with spirit.
Yeah.
And the way he loves us is so beautiful. It’s way more beautiful than the way we love ourselves. We’re super on ourselves. I was very critical of myself growing up. It took decades for me to just get to a space where I don’t call myself stupid or an idiot when I speak. I used to, and I used to do it in Spanish because my first language is Spanish. And so all these all these words would come out of my mouth, pendeje, estupila, you know, whatever. Yeah, yeah. And it’s because my mother speaks to herself that way. Yeah. And I remember one time she was going up the stairs. I mean, she’s 30 years older than me. She was just here a couple days ago. And she was walking up, and and the cup she had in her hand fell out of her hand and water spilled everywhere. And the first words out of her mouth were stupid. You know, what a stupid person. And I looked at my mom and was like, Mom, it was an accident. It’s okay. At this point, in my personal development grocery, I was, I had reached a very good space that I could look at that situation and go, huh, that’s where that comes from. That’s why I speak to myself that way. It’s because she did it, but she doesn’t know me better. And when I told her, Mom, don’t talk to yourself that way. Your mind is always listening. And she’s like, I’m a heat that lake. That’s so dumb, you know. But it culturally, in the Mexican culture, self-love is very misunderstood. Sure. It looks like you’re being arrogant and you know, self, I don’t know, pleasing or something. And it’s what it’s looked at as a very wrong concept. So I think part of the struggle is culturally speaking, what we see as the definition of self-love. That’s why it’s really important for for guys like Jonathan to write books on these on these subject matters because there’s so much education that needs to happen for people to get comfortable with the concept of self-love. Wouldn’t you agree?
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I thank you for sharing that story. You know, it’s interesting. My heritage is Turkish, and uh and you know, we could go on, we could do a whole podcast on our cultural, you know, uh belief system that’s been, you know, imprinted upon us. And certainly I I think for those that I’m sure your parents were um baby boomers or maybe the tail end of the silent generation, um, you know, they were raised in such a way where they weren’t allowed to explore their emotions. And a lot of that bled into those of us who are either baby boomers or Gen Xers. I think what’s interesting for the current generation is they’re almost going to the opposite end where every emotion is meant to be felt and and nurtured and everything, and it’s it that might be too far of the pendulum that way. But I like your your perceptions around self-love, um, and particularly the connection to your divinity, the connection to God, that connection to something greater than ourselves. And just like when I said my son wouldn’t want me to suffer one day, God, universe, spirit, our higher self, our divinity doesn’t want the same for us either. And so, and we humans can be the cruelest to ourselves. You know, we think we’re cruel to other people, but honestly, we can flog ourselves and and crucify ourselves worse than any other human on the planet. And look at you, you were talking about catching yourself, you know, stupid, oh, that sort of thing. It’s you know, sometimes we don’t catch ourselves, but certainly immediate forgiveness would be a practice that I would invite everyone to do. One of my tools that I use is the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer, which is um to say, whenever I’m feeling anxiety, whenever I feel something that um unnerves my nervous system, I say, I love you. And this, excuse me, everybody, this is the way I learned it. There’s three different versions of it, but I learned it this way. Uh, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. I probably say that to myself 20, 30 times a day in a variety of different circumstances, really just to calm my nervous system. Forgiveness is the one of the most powerful self-love tools available to us. And it’s not always about forgiving others, it’s really about nurturing that soul inside of you. So, you know, I I hope that our conversation today has, you know, for those listening, you know, will just go in the mirror right now. Go, go find the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer, also known as the hapono pono pono. If I pronounce it properly, I I do butcher it at times. Go Google it, read it, look in the mirror, say that to yourself. And and if you adopt and practice this on a regular basis, just like you said, the meditation for five minutes led to an hour. I I I promise you, you give yourself 30 days, you’re gonna start feeling better than where you’re at today. That’s my that’s my promise to everyone. I hope um, I hope you guys get to live up to that.
That’s amazing. Thank you, Jonathan, for being on the podcast today and for sharing all your wisdom and your stories, all of them. You know, the loss of your identity, the loss of your son, but the gains in the lessons learned and and the space that you currently find yourself in. So any last uh words of encouragement and how can people find you?
Sure. Again, thank you so much. I appreciate being interviewed by you. You know, I I I think the most I think I could come up with 20 different words of encouragement, so I’ll do with what Divinity says to me right now. Um, you know what? I I think the invitation, give yourself permission if you don’t already do so, and if you do. Fabulous, you know, but give yourself permission to spend whether it’s five minutes a day, an hour a day, or two hours a day, really connecting with your heart, that place inside of you that is all about love. And give yourself permission if you don’t do that. And whatever that looks like for you, whether it’s breathing, whether it’s meditation, whether it’s reading a book, whether it’s listening to a podcast, we all deserve that. And that’s my invitation for everyone. And if you want to connect with me, um, I’m sure look at my name is listed here. You can cut and paste it, you can put it in Google. The first thing that comes up with will be my YouTube channel. So if you’re ever curious about dating and relationships, go watch some of my videos. It’ll take you to my website, it’ll take you to my social media, and certainly Amazon, where my book is, uh, What the Heck is Self-Love Anyway. And hopefully, you know, I’ve made an impact in your life. And you know what we can all do is pay it forward. Share this with someone else. Share your story, as I said earlier, because we all have a beautiful story to share.
And that we do, because we all have light inside of us. Thank you so much, Jonathan, for those words of empowerment. What a way to end this interview on the least outreve purpose. And for those uh tuning in, you have quite a treat ahead of you. Remember, Matthew 5.14, to always be the light. Have a wonderful week. Stay safe. Love you all. Bye now.
Everyone, so that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a$25,000 private VIP day with Sylvia Worsham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.