We talk about self-love a lot, but let’s be honest—how many of us actually practice it?
In my latest podcast episode, I sat down with Beth Tellez, clinical social worker, therapist, and owner of Creative Counseling Center of NW Arkansas, to dig deep into the real work of radical self-love. Spoiler alert: It’s not just about bubble baths and affirmations.
It’s about rewriting the internal narratives that keep us stuck in guilt, perfectionism, and self-doubt—and replacing them with something truer, healthier, and more freeing.
Beth brought her clinical expertise and her personal journey to the table, sharing how perimenopause stripped away her old conditioning, how trauma shapes our self-perception, and why self-acceptance is the first step toward real self-love.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re constantly chasing validation, struggling to feel enough, or wondering how to start prioritizing yourself without guilt—this episode is for you.
We’re bombarded with messages about self-care and self-love, but Beth breaks it down in a way that actually makes sense. It’s not about adding more to our already overloaded plates—it’s about taking away the narratives that aren’t serving us anymore.
💡 Key takeaway: Self-acceptance is the foundation of self-love.
According to Beth, you can’t fully love yourself until you’ve accepted yourself. That means looking at:
✔ The messages we’ve absorbed from childhood
✔ The ways we’ve been conditioned to seek external validation
✔ The habits (like perfectionism and people-pleasing) that may have once helped us but now keep us stuck
We can’t heal what we don’t name. And the truth? So many of our negative self-beliefs aren’t actually ours to begin with. They were handed to us—by parents, society, past experiences. The work is in recognizing that, and then choosing a different story.
One of the biggest aha moments in this episode? How much of our self-worth is tied to other people’s opinions.
Beth shared that for years, she felt the need to overextend herself to prove her value. Sound familiar? 🙋♀️
✅ Saying yes when we want to say no.
✅ Overachieving to feel “worthy.”
✅ Keeping people happy at the expense of our own peace.
It’s a cycle many of us live in, and Beth explained that it often starts in childhood. If we grew up in environments where our worth felt conditional, we learned to make ourselves smaller, quieter, more “helpful” to be loved.
💡 Key takeaway:
If your value depends on making other people happy, you’ll never feel truly free.
So how do we break out of it? By challenging those narratives.
Beth recommends a simple but powerful question when self-doubt creeps in:
✨ “What do I actually know to be true?” ✨
When that inner critic says, I should be doing more. I should be further ahead. I’m not enough.
Ask yourself—is that a fact, or just a feeling?
Thoughts are not threats. Feelings are not facts. We get to challenge the stories we tell ourselves.
Beth shared something unexpected in this episode—how perimenopause stripped away her old conditioning and forced her into radical self-acceptance.
She described waking up on her 50th birthday and realizing:
🛑 No more overextending.
🛑 No more chasing validation.
🛑 No more shrinking to fit other people’s comfort zones.
While not everyone experiences this shift overnight, Beth’s story is a powerful reminder that self-love often comes when we finally get tired of the old way of living.
💡 Key takeaway: Your worth is not up for debate. Period.
If you’re constantly waiting for permission to prioritize yourself, consider this episode your permission slip.
Beth shared a simple self-compassion exercise from Dr. Kristin Neff that can help reset your mindset whenever self-doubt creeps in:
1️⃣ Check in with yourself.
👉 Place a hand on your heart.
👉 Ask: What’s going on with me right now?
2️⃣ Normalize the experience.
👉 I’m not alone in this. Everyone has struggles. This is part of being human.
3️⃣ Practice kindness toward yourself.
👉 May I be kind to myself in this moment?
👉 May I let myself rest? May I let myself be enough today?
The more we do this, the more we retrain our brains to respond with compassion instead of criticism.
Beth ended this conversation with a message that needs to be heard:
👉 Self-love isn’t about feeling worthy. It’s about knowing you already are.
We spend so much time chasing love, validation, and acceptance—when the truth is, we already have everything we need inside us.
💡 You are enough. You are worthy. You don’t have to prove it.
And if you’ve been waiting for a sign to start treating yourself like you matter? This is it.
📖 Reinventing Your Life – Book by Jeffrey Young on schema therapy and challenging negative core beliefs.
📖 Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion Practices – Exercises for mindfulness, self-kindness, and emotional regulation.
💡 Connect with Beth Tellez & Creative Counseling Center of NW Arkansas:
🌐 Creative Counseling Center of NW Arkansas
📍 Instagram @creativecounselingnwa
✔ Subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode.
✔ Share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it.
✔ Tag me on social media with your biggest takeaways!
Because radical self-love isn’t just a concept—it’s a revolution. 💛