Date Yourself Instead - the power of choosing yourself.

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

choosing yourself is so much deeper than self-care.in this episode, i’m talking about what happened when i stopped looking outside of myself and started healing the patterns underneath it all this is about becoming the woman who feels safe within herself first. xx LyssYouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@lyssofficialcontact - [e-mail]

Okay, hi. So I want to talk about choosing yourself and what that really means. I always thought I knew what it means until I actually did it for real. And my life looks completely different than it did 30 days ago. I'm making this video because I know there are a lot of you who probably are on your self-love journey or you're looking to just upgrade your life or transform your life for the better moving into the fall and moving into 2027. It's so crazy that we're already in September. It's like my favorite time of year. And this is a month and a season, September in particular, in October. I feel like where it's time to transform and really lock in and get serious, I never wait till January. So let's talk about it, the power of choosing yourself and what that really means. It doesn't mean saying a million self-love affirmations. It doesn't mean going to the gym and getting a workout in and journaling after.

Taking care of yourself is one thing. And that's really, really important. But there's a whole other layer and component to it that I felt like I was missing for so long, and I feel like a lot of you are going to probably relate to this. Choosing myself wasn't about doing things on my own and taking myself out to dinner and, you know, being with myself. Choosing yourself requires getting rid of your hypervigilance. Now, what is hypervigilance?

It's when you're constantly living in fear mode and scanning the room for something to change or waiting for something external outside of yourself to change so you could feel better about yourself. For example, once I'm in a relationship, once I'm married, once I meet the love of my life, then I'll be happy. Or once I get this job promotion, then I'll be satisfied. Then I'll be happy with my life. Once I get to travel around the world and make a certain amount of money, then I'll be happy. Coming from someone who's been everywhere, I'm not saying that in a flex way, but I've literally traveled so much in my life.

I've been so lucky enough to have so many amazing opportunities in my life that I'm so grateful for. But coming from someone who's done a lot of things in my life, I can confidently say that none of those things long term made me happier and made me really love myself. Were they fun? Was it cool? Did I have an amazing time? Yes, in moments. As I said, I'm so grateful for what I've been able to do in my life. But I was missing so much within myself that any time I would go to a place, my internal state would just follow me there. I would get a dopamine rushed for the first couple of days, and then I would sink back into this version of myself

where I was like, something is off, like something is missing, and I couldn't put my finger on it until I understood this concept of hypervigilance. Hypervigilance is what I was just saying. It's like you're always on high alert. You're always like looking for the next best thing to satisfy your ego and something external that's going to make you happy,

whether it's a relationship, whether it's money, whether it's an opportunity, you're always waiting for the next thing to make you happy. When in reality, you have to get happy with yourself, regardless of what's going on, before you're able to properly receive anything. And that's how the laws of the universe actually work. And that's how energy works. I fell into this very rigid way of manifesting, which is why over the last couple of years, I haven't been able to manifest the way that I wanted to.

I have been able to do amazing things. Don't get me wrong. I've had a lot of amazing things happen to me. I met amazing people. I definitely achieved a lot of things in my career that I wanted to achieve, but I felt like there was something heavy blocking me from reaching my greatest potential. This is what choosing yourself really is about. It's getting rid of that feeling of always waiting for the next best thing

and learning how to sit with yourself and love who you are without anything. And what happens when you really master that is that you're not looking for anything or anyone to complete you. Once you master that, everything else in your world is going to change because you're going to become naturally more magnetic, grounded. You're going to become emotionally regulated. And you're going to be able to show up for other people and situations and things in your life a thousand times better as the best version of yourself. I wasn't only hypervigilant about love and like waiting for the next best thing to come along. I was also this way about my career. If I didn't get a certain number of downloads at a certain specific time on my podcast or I didn't see a certain number of views on a video, I kind of like just assumed that it wasn't good content.

And it kind of made me feel like I shouldn't continue doing what I was doing. I do take everything as feedback and I'm like, okay, if the community doesn't like this, then I have to pivot. When in reality, I know if I had just stayed with it and stayed consistent, something probably would have come of it. but my fear of not being chosen by the public caused me to pivot, which isn't always a bad thing when you're taking feedback if you're looking to be successful at something. But it's also important to follow what lights you up and makes you happy. What makes you happy?

And that's also why I had to take a step back from the podcast and from my videos and from doing social media because I've been doing this since I'm a teenager and I'm in my 30s now. I just felt partially validated by my career, by the numbers, by the views, by the growth. It's just kind of built in when you've been doing it from such a young age. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think if you're really looking to be authentic in your career and level up in the right way and stay true to your values, you have to get really honest with yourself and understand why you're creating what you're creating. Are you creating it to go viral and just look cool? or are you creating it because it's coming from the heart and soul?

And you know that it's you. And you know that this is for you. And it's not about anyone else. The most successful creators on social media are the most authentic ones. And it's so easy to spot bullshit. It's so easy to sense when people aren't confident within themselves and they don't love themselves. Of course, if you work really, really, really hard, you can get to where you want to be. But there's a way easier way to get to where you want to be.

And I think that's through just being so true to yourself to the point where you're creating content for you. You're creating the magic and the music and the book and the essays and the videos, whatever you're doing. Right. It could be anything. You're creating the art. Whatever it is you're creating for your job or for anything. There's a huge piece of you that's doing it for you. And of course, it's nice to get praise and to feel like, yeah, people like what I'm doing. but if you don't like what you're doing, it's never going to be consistent because you're just going to wake up one day and be like, I don't like this. It's hard to be consistent when you're not 100% all in with your heart. And that's also why I took a break from social media too, because I had to really make sure I was doing it for the right reasons. Now, I have millions of followers. I started a really long time ago. I almost was just like, why am I doing social media? Could I be happy doing something else? Could I be happy?

completely reinventing myself and rebranding myself. That's why I'm creating this new program that I'm creating called The Rebrand. I know that so many of you are probably going through this where you're like, I want to do something different for myself. Like I want to be happy within myself and create because I love myself and this is my truest self, right? I'm creating this program because I'm in the process of rebranding and I know that if I'm doing it, a lot of you are also doing it or want to do it.

And so that's authentic to me. When I thought of the idea, it was like, this makes so much sense because if I'm actually going through something, it is so true to who I am. And I know that other people are going to relate to it or resonate with it and want to be a part of it. Whereas, some of the other things I've created, some podcast episodes, old TikToks that I deleted because I was like, this is not in alignment with who I truly am. I was creating them because they were performing well.

When you see a video go viral, then you repeat it. And it's a domino effect. more people find you and like it's easy to get swept up in that but when I was watching the videos I was like cringing at myself I was like this isn't what I want to be putting out even though it was fine it was like positive motivational content it wasn't really like me was a bit performative and I was just like I'm cringing even though other people are really into it when I was getting literally five to seven million views a video okay we're talking about like huge morality and numbers of course it's easy to be like let me just roll with this

and let me just like do it for the sake of, you know, being successful online and getting exposure. But it wasn't me. So I was like, I can't upkeep a script. I need to just roll with it like I'm doing right now, like rolling with the camera. And that means I'm choosing myself. I'm not choosing the validation of social media and what people are commenting and liking. I'm choosing what works for me, which is a short term maybe a bit of a more challenging decision. but at the same time, I feel more confident about it.

And long term, I know that's going to pay off. The next thing is with dating and romantic relationships. Now, I was very, I was in a relationship for a very long time. I've had a few long-term serious relationships. And then I fell into a relationship that really hurt myself esteem, and I was like anti-relationship. I had to get honest with myself as of recently, because one of the things on my vision board is finding the love of my life,

my soulmate and getting married. And I'm ready for that now. I kept running into the same feeling when I would meet a new guy where my guard was up. My guard was so up to the point where I was attracting the wrong people because I was living in survival mode. I was always on edge, on guard being like, is this guy legit or is he not or whatever?

When in reality, when you live like that, you're always going to end up attracting people that can't give you what you want because you're guarded, right? And everything is an energy. And when your heart is guarded, you're going to attract people that are emotionally unavailable. Or they're just not the right match. They're reflecting your fears back to you.

So the last guy I went on a couple dates with, he was saying how he is like terrified of being in a long-term relationship because he loves his freedom so much. And I had to look myself in the mirror after I heard him say that and be like, what made you attract him into your field? Because if you're looking for a husband, he's like the opposite of husband material. He's literally point blank telling you to your face

that he's emotionally unavailable. That's when I really caught myself and I was like, there is something within me that has a fear of commitment because of what happens to me from my past. And I have to get honest with myself and heal that immediately. If I want to meet the love of my life, it's time to go heal. I spent weeks in meditation, literally, undoing all of the things that happened to me from my past.

And I was like crying a lot and releasing a lot and letting go of a lot, but there was such a big piece of me that had been blocked from receiving. Now I could confidently say my heart is so much more open and I feel so much better about myself. I don't feel that desperation of like, oh my God, like I really, really want to meet the love of my life. It's more just like this calm feeling of let me just be with myself

and be happy and it will happen at the perfect divine timing, which is our nature at our core to be this way, to be calm and grounded and centered and not chasing and not desperate for a partner. That's our natural baseline as human beings to be regulated within yourself. And then at the perfect divine timing, you will meet the love of your life when you're in a good energy and a good head space with yourself. I kept saying like, I'm good, I'm healed, I'm doing all this work. But what I didn't realize is that I wasn't opening my heart. And I learned so much about the heart and brain recently, and your heart is the most powerful organ in your body. If your heart is closed in any means, in any way, shape, or form, you're blocking your manifestations.

My brain was open to meeting the right person, and I was like, I'm ready for a relationship, let's do this. But my heart was taped up, bandaged, and guarded and caged and locked away. Because anytime I would meet someone, I was, like, scared of getting hurt again, which is a normal feeling. when you've been really badly burned. But when do we let that go, right? When are we brave enough to completely let that go and sever that past and be like, that doesn't define me.

I don't even want to think about this anymore. I've been saying to myself something that's kind of funny, but it just makes sense for me where I'm like, I'm a newborn baby starting fresh. Like I'm literally starting over from scratch and nothing from my past has any weight or meaning or defines me at all anymore. Like I don't even remember what happened.

Of course I remember, but I'm not even going there again. I'm not thinking about it. I'm moving into a new chapter of my life where I'm a blank slate starting over again. That's what really choosing yourself is about. It's getting honest with yourself and showing up for yourself every single day and really locking in to self-love. Not just saying like, oh, like, I do love myself. It's not about what you're telling yourself. It's how you really feel inside.

If you're telling yourself that, but you're still like looking for the next best thing or you're looking for a relationship or you're on dating app. swiping all the time or you're complaining about everything in your life and you're like all over the place. You're not in the right energy. Choosing yourself feels calm within your body. When you get there, you'll know. Like you'll know how it feels because it feels so different from living in stress mode and living in like that hypervigilent state where you're like, when is it happening or why isn't anything happening or why can I manifest? You won't even be asking yourself those questions anymore because you'll feel so good and stable and peaceful from within. I'm going to go have my morning walk and coffee,

but I hope this message can inspire you today to go a little deeper with yourself, open your heart, do a nice little meditation today. Do something really healing for your heart and your soul. Be brave enough to let go of what hurt you because I promise you, if you're looking for true love, if you're looking for a really big change in your life, choosing yourself is about opening your heart.

I love you. day. Leave a comment, subscribe. I read your comments. I appreciate all of them. I love you guys. Thanks for listening as always and stay tuned for future videos. Bye.