[Summer Series] Having Your Own Back

Welcome to the Summer Series. In this episode, we are exploring what it really means to have your own back, especially when life gets hard, when people misunderstand you or the self-doubt creeps in. This is about becoming the kind of woman that you can count on no matter what. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello. Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Summer Series where we are revisiting some of the episodes from the past. I told you all when I decided to do this series that I wasn't completely abandoning the podcast that I was going to really expand upon or talk about how these different episodes relate to my life now.

And someone reached out to me on Instagram last week and she was telling me, she was like, "I'm loving this series so much because you're diving even deeper." It feels like I'm just taking it to the next level. So I hope you all are enjoying revisiting some of these episodes. And today is a special one, and it's all about having your own back.

This is a concept that when I talk with members, they tell me has really changed the game for them. And I was thinking about what it means to me today to have my own back. And I didn't even go back and listen to the episode. I'm just talking from my experience today. I probably mentioned some of these things in the episode, so please listen to it. But I really drilled it down to 10 things that to me are traits of a woman who has her own back.

The first one is self-trust. Believing that you will do what you say you will do. When you learn to trust yourself, you trust your word, you trust your commitments. There is a confidence that comes from that. You know you're not going to let yourself down. You don't betray yourself. You trust and believe that your feelings and intuition are valid. There's something powerful about learning to trust yourself.

And the only way to build that is to begin keeping promises with yourself. And if you've been someone who's been breaking promises to yourself for a long time, as probably all of us have at some point in our lives, I always encourage people just to start small. Choose one little promise, one little commitment that you're going to keep to yourself. Not only will you create results from that, but the best part of that is the self-trust that you'll build with yourself.

The second trait of having your own back is self-compassion. Y'all, we are so hard on ourselves, we would never treat other people the way we treat ourselves. If you want to be a woman that has her own back, you have to start being compassionate with yourself. I always ask members like, "What would you say to your best friend right now? What would you say to the person you love the most?" That's what you need to hear from yourself. And I promise you, it's probably going to be full of compassion. You don't need to pile on guilt and shame, but instead, use words that encourage growth instead of constantly punishing yourself.

The third trait is emotional resilience. You need to learn how to stay with yourself during hard emotions. When I look back at the hardest times in my life, it's when I was self abandoning. When things got hard and I would turn to food, procrastination, creating drama, like anything to abandon the discomfort that I was feeling in the moment, that's when I created so much chaos in my life.

You need to learn to expand instead of collapsing when things get hard. And when you do that over and over, you stop fearing life because fearing life is just you fearing an emotional experience. And when you learn how to feel your emotions, you'll realize there's not as much to fear. And that comes from building that emotional resilience.

Trait number four. A woman who has her own back, she has very healthy boundaries. She says no without guilt. She protects her energy and her peace, and she doesn't over explain or justify her choices. She protects her space. She protects her mind. She protects herself by having healthy boundaries.

Trait number five. She is accountable without self-abuse. This is really important. She owns her actions without beating herself up. She makes amends, forgives herself, forgives others, and then moves forward. She doesn't use mistakes as proof of unworthiness. She uses mistakes to learn and to grow. There's a very big difference. I call this tough love. I like to think of it as what would the most loving mother say to you right now? What would she do? What would she encourage you to do? And sometimes a loving mother is like, you need to cut that out. Why? Because I love you. Because I know that you are capable of more. But it's not from a place of abuse. It's accountability with a whole lot of love.

Number six. A woman who has own back is her advocate. She speaks up for what she needs and desires. She asks for what she wants and she doesn't rely on others to validate her.

Trait number seven. She embodies self-worth. She does not shrink or apologize for her existence. She walks into rooms with this energy of I belong here. And she knows that she is enough. She doesn't need to perform. She doesn't need to hustle. She just chooses to believe it.

And guess what? You can choose to believe that. Right now where you are, I don't care what's happened, I don't care how many mistakes you've made, I don't care about the past. What I want you to know is right now in this moment, I am enough is a belief that you get to choose to practice believing about yourself. And your brain will start to look for all of the reasons why you are. Your brain's always answering the questions that you give it.

So if you walk around thinking, why am I not enough? Why do things never work out for me? Why is this so hard? Your brain will answer those and it's not going to give you an answer that is going to be supportive. But if you walk around saying, "How can I do this? How am I enough? Why is this possible for me?" Now your brain's going to be looking for answers that support you.

Trait number eight of a woman who has her own back is that she is committed to her own growth. She knows that her dreams and her desires are valid and she invests in them. Why? Because she believes in herself. She knows that she is worth it. She knows that she is her greatest asset, and every investment that she makes in her herself will have a positive ROI.

She practices consistency, not perfection, and she doesn't sabotage her progress when fear arises or when she fails. She has a growth mindset. So she uses everything as fuel, as opportunity, as things to make her better, even the failures and sometimes especially the failures.

Trait number nine of a woman who has her own back, and this is a good one. She has inner loyalty. She doesn't throw herself under the bus to avoid discomfort. She will defend her character even when others don't understand her, and she refuses to abandon herself for other people's approval.

Imagine what it'd be like y'all to have that inner loyalty like I am loyal to me no matter what. I stay true to myself even when it's hard. I don't leave myself to make other people more comfortable. I am loyal to myself. That's what a woman who has her own back, that is her relationship with herself.

And then finally, trait number 10 of a woman who has her own back is that she celebrates her wins. How many of you downplay your accomplishments? How many of you were raised to be humble, to not brag? Now when it comes to this, I always say it's the intention behind it. If you're bragging and celebrating your wins to try to be better than other people, and it's coming from a place of insecurity, that's a moment to stop and reflect. But also equally, if you're not celebrating your wins out of fear from contracting, from trying to make other people more comfortable, that's also coming from a negative energy.

There is space for us all to be super successful, for us all to have wins. There is more than enough. And something crazy happens when you start celebrating your wins. I am a big believer in that when you celebrate life, life celebrates you in return. And there's something about that energy. Remember what you focus on grows, if every day you're looking for how you're winning, that winning energy is going to grow in your life. You're going to start to see more opportunities. You're going to be feeling better, you're going to be feeling more expansive. And when you're showing up in that way, it's inevitable that you're going to attract more opportunities into your life.

You get to be your own hype woman. You get to feel pride without guilt. You get to really stop and enjoy the wins that you are having every single day. And that is what it feels like to have your own back. So consider all of this a prelude to the original episode, having your own back. Enjoy.

How's it going? I'm having the best morning. I'm having one of those mornings that's like leisurely. I woke up at eight o'clock, I went and made a cup of coffee, turned on some Snoh Aalegra, love her voice. And now I'm recording this podcast. I'm leaving later this afternoon to take my daughter to Scottsdale with her friend. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she was like, "I just want a girl's weekend. I want to relax by a pool. I want to really focus on health. And well-being."

And so we have a spa day scheduled and we have a hike planned, and I'm so excited just to disconnect for a couple of days and spend some time with my girl and her friend. It's going to be super fun. But today. I want to talk with you all about the concept of having your own back.

I'll never forget years ago, I heard Maya Angelou say, "I have my own back." And I thought, "What a concept. I have my own back." And I thought about the times in my life where my mom or my close friends would say to me, "I got your back." And the relief that came from that.

I remember even recently, I was making a big bold decision. And Fonz said to me, he was like, "Listen, no matter what happens, I got your back." I thought about the time that my dear friend was leaving her husband and she was terrified and the terror made her want to stay in a relationship that was not healthy. And I said to her one day over lunch, I'm like, "Listen, I got your back." And knowing that, for her, it gave her the courage to go out there and do the thing that she knew she needed to do, knowing that no matter what happened, someone was there to catch her if she fell, and to support her and to cheer her on.

And I began to think about what it would be like if we all had our own back. Within the School of Self-Image, we focus on living and being the future versions of ourselves now. And one of the things that I envision for all of us is that our future selves, we are women that have our own backs, which means we have to practice having our own backs now.

So this is one of the things that I've been practicing for years, and I cannot tell you the peace that comes from it. I think about my friend who hearing me say those words to her gave her the courage and the confidence to go out and make this decision. And so for me, knowing that I have my own back allows me to relax, allows me to take bigger risk, allows me to have the courage to go after what I want.

And so when I was preparing for this podcast, I thought about what it really means to have our own backs. And I thought about me specifically, what it means to me when I say I have my own back. And the first thing that came up is that I have my own back when I make decisions. And what this looks like is when I make my decisions, I'm like, "Listen, girl, no matter what happens, I got you."

And I decide how I'm going to feel about it. I decide on the outcome that I am going to create, and then I know that I'm going to have my own back in that process, versus I see so many of my clients and my friends waffling. They're afraid to make decisions. And I believe the reason why they're afraid is they don't have their own backs. They spend a lot of time fearing making the wrong decision. They spend a lot of time afraid that they're going to fail, and so they live in this space of indecision, and that indecision breeds familiarity and nothing changes. But when you have your own back, you're willing to make big decisions because you know that no matter what happens, you got you.

If you fail, you've got yourself, you've got your own back, you're going to pick yourself up and you're going to move on. If you succeed, you've got your own back by celebrating you. And so that is one of the ways that I practice having my own back. I have my own back when I'm willing to make the decisions and support myself no matter what happens. So that's the first thing.

The other thing that came up for me is having my own back means I show up for my promises to myself. You think about a friend that has your back. She's not going to flake on you. She's not going to tell you that she's going to meet you for lunch and then just not show up. She's got you. She's like, "Hey, listen, when I tell you I'm going to be there, I'm going to be there."

And yet do we do that for ourselves? How many times do you promise yourself, "This is the year that I'm going to fill in the blank. I'm going to get healthy. I'm going to write the book. I'm going to start the business. I'm going to start dating again. I'm going to buy the house." You make these big lofty promises to yourself, and then year after year you disappoint yourself.

Having your own back means, "Hey, listen, my dreams are important to me and when I promise myself that I'm going to take action to support my dreams, I show up for them. I've got my own back." The other way that I have my own back, and this has probably had the biggest impact on my life, not probably, 100%, this has had the biggest impact on my life.

Having my own back means I don't beat myself up if I fell, if I say something that's offensive to someone, unintentionally, if I make a mistake, if I don't reach my goal, I don't beat myself up over it. I know that I'm a human being, having a very human experience, and I'm not always going to get it right. I'm going to make mistakes, especially the bigger the life you want, the more mistakes and the more failures you have to be willing to experience. So I just know it's part of the curriculum. I just know that that is the path. You cannot avoid it.

And so for me, I just don't beat myself up ever. There was a day that I just decided I was done beating myself up, and I've been practicing that decision for years now. And to me, this is at the core of having your own back. I think about the times that I've said to my friends like, "Listen, I've got you." And the relief that they felt.

And what I was really saying to them is, "Hey, listen, no matter what happens, I'm here. We're going to figure it out. I'm going to support you. I love you." And it's taking that same energy and applying it to ourselves. When I think about my friends who have made big decisions, we didn't know if they were going to succeed.

It's not a guarantee. But what I knew is that no matter what happened, we were going to learn from it and we would figure it out, and I would be there to hold her hand and wipe her tears, and we are going to keep going. And that to me is such a beautiful energy to apply to ourselves.

So instead of adding to our suffering when we fail, we take that layer of beating ourselves up off, and we hold ourselves with grace and with love and with compassion, and we're like, "Hey, listen. It's part of the journey. I love you, honey. Let's keep going." That is having your own back.

Having your own back too, means trusting your intuition, trusting your gut. So many times we outsource this to other people. We trust other people more than ourselves. And so it leads to this situation where you are ignoring yourself. And I've done this, especially in business. I know what I should do. I know what my community wants and what they need. I know who I am, and yet someone will come along and say, "Hey, listen, you should do this."

And then in the past, I have given them my power, even though it didn't feel good. And guess what happened? Never worked out. I collected some failures along the way by not trusting my gut. But having your own back means, "Hey, listen, I trust me and I'm going to pay attention to my internal GPS system that is always guiding me. That's always showing me what's a yes and what's a no. And the minute I don't have my own back and I start listening to everyone else, I abandon that navigation system."

Here's the thing, y'all, we all know what to do. That's a belief that I have about all of us. We know what to do, and yet sometimes we need permission, and other times we're afraid. And so we want someone else to say to us, "Hey, listen, this is what you need to do and I got your back." But sometimes what that person is telling you that you need to do is not what you need to do.

So what I'm inviting you to consider is that when no one else is around, when no one has your back, will you trust yourself enough to listen to your own intuition and make the decisions that you know need to make and then have your own back in that process? Ultimately, having your own back means being in service to your future self.

And what I mean by this is that many times we look around at what is and what has been, and we keep showing up in a way that doesn't serve the futures that we're wanting to create. So for me, having my own back is getting up and getting dressed even when my brain is telling me that it's just not worth it today.

I'm like, "No, I got my own back here. I am going to get up and put something on that makes me feel amazing." Having my own back means going to the gym when my brain's telling me, "Ugh, you should just relax today. This is too hard. You can do it tomorrow." Having my own back is recording this podcast every Wednesday. It's like, "I got you. You're going to do this. It's already planned. It's already pre-decided."

Having my own back is the willingness to fill the discomfort of growth and change, not allowing myself to shrink. I had a really interesting moment yesterday, actually, that I should probably record a whole episode about, but I had a meeting with an attorney, and that meeting blew my mind. Literally blew my mind.

In fact, I think what I'll probably do is for those of you within the School of Self-Image, I will share about this experience and behind the scenes, but while I was sitting there, I could feel myself wanting to pull away. I could feel myself fighting against possibility, which is crazy, right? Someone shares with you what's possible, and you're like, "No. No. Not for me."

And having my own back in that moment was not doing that, even though I could feel myself wanting to, because this possibility stepping into it is going to require that I completely shift how I see myself. It's going to require that I step into a whole new way of being and completely transform my self-image, which is what I teach, it's what I do.

And yet I understand it for all of you who are going through this and you're in that push and pull, it's like the pull back to who you've been and the push towards who you're becoming, and that's where I was yesterday. But having your own back is the willingness to step into that next version of yourself and feel all of the discomfort that will be a part of that process, 100% guaranteed.

So here's my question to you. Is there anyone in your life that you find yourself, maybe not saying it out loud, but you're thinking it, "Listen, I've got your back?" If you have children, I'm sure you have that attitude, right? "Listen, I got your back. No matter what, no matter what you do, no matter if you fail, no matter what I am here, I'm going to hold you and we're going to get through this together."

I want you to think about how you think about that process with that person. What does it mean to you when you think I have your back to someone else or for someone else? Now what would your life be like if you applied that same concept to yourself? What would your life be like if you were a woman or a man who has your own back?

Have a beautiful week, everyone, and I cannot wait to see you in next week's episode. Hey, before you go, I have a little gift for you that pairs beautifully with the work that we do around here. It's called The Calm Ritual. It is a short, powerful meditation to help you return to your center, quiet the noise and reconnect with you, because that's where your power lies.

Real self-image work doesn't start in the mirror. It starts in the stillness. It starts with calm. So you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/becalm and begin shaping your self-image from the inside out. I'll see you next time.