They say love starts from within but what if the person you struggle to love most is yourself? Join host Melissa as she sits down with Amar Hisso, a recent High school graduate who shares her story of insecurity and growth, and Jeff A.D. Martin, a motivational speaker helping people find purpose through pain. It’s an honest, emotional look at what self-love truly means in a world that keeps telling you you’re not enough.
This is almost one hundred and seven a Fanshawe College journalism student podcast. Get real. I'm never going to fit in. I'm not enough. You'll never be good enough. You always mess things up. You're a burden too much. You hear those voices. They get loud sometimes so loud that you start to believe them. I know because I've been there. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Asking myself what is wrong with me? But what if nothing's wrong with you? What if those voices are lying and they're really you as just waiting to be heard? I'm Melissa, and this is almost one hundred and seven, a podcast about self love, healing and remembering who you are underneath all the noise. I'm at Amar. He saw a recent graduate who knows that feeling all too well. When she was in school. She told me every day. Felt like a fight to feel good enough. My biggest challenge that I faced growing up was the issue of me comparing myself to other people. That caused me to have a lot of insecurities in high school and just throughout life in general, I've had groups where I knew I didn't belong, but I would try to fit in. I would like, try to force myself into the group, or fitting in with the girls or trying to talk to them, and that caused me to always compare myself to them, like, oh, how come I'm not fitting in? How come they're not talking to me? Am I lonely? Do people think of me as a loner, as not a strong person, because I can't stand up to myself and have my own opinion? If by any chance you had to go back and sit in that exact classroom with the exact friends with Omar today, Still be the summer before in some way. Yes. Just recently also graduated high school, so I haven't fully healed. But there are some things that I know I progressed on and I did better on. So if I did go back, I would make sure not to force myself with these people. When you wake up in the morning and you look at yourself in the mirror, what crosses your mind? If I will be so honest with you for now, nothing, because it is something that I'm still healing and I'm still working on. Hopefully if I do get to that, the goal that I want to achieve and wake up and think about myself is that I'm a strong person and I know how to defend myself and how to not allow people to get to me and make me feel bad about myself. Thank you so much for being in my podcast today. It was really nice talking to you. Next we have someone whose words have saved lives motivational speaker and life coach Jeff Addy Martin. My name is Jeff Martin. I am a speaker. I am a motivator. I am someone who really loves to help people to strive in the space that they're in. I do a lot of work with mentorship with young people throughout Canada. I get a chance to travel throughout Canada, some work in the US as well, and just really, again, just really helping people to strive and become the best version of themselves. I've seen your videos on Instagram, especially the one where you had people repeating after you. I am beyond measure. That moment gave me chills. I know that I'm worth it. I know that I am. You also said something about pain. Pain is necessary for us to change. A lot of people struggle to love themselves when they're in pain. How did you come to understand that truth in your own life? Yeah. You know, one of my favorite sayings is we have to learn to crawl through our difficulties in order for us to stand in our greatness. And simply, what that means is that we're going to have to go through some difficult situations. You know, it's through tough times that we learn. It's through tough times that we grow. You know, I'll say this, Melissa. You know, I think that things we go through in life, it really can it impacts us in a lot of ways. But I believe that even in the difficult situations, there's things that we can learn. There's things that we can take from it. There's lessons that we can ask ourselves. You've helped so many people see their own power. One moment in your life showed you your own. That's a great question. You know, I think that when I look back, there's multiple times that I can see my own power. I think when we're in the middle of things, we don't often see it, but when we come out on the other end, we can see it. I think it's important that while we are going through the difficult times, we ask ourselves, what can I learn going through this situation? What can I learn going through this difficult hardship? So, for example, you know, many years ago I had a cousin who was killed, who was murdered downtown Toronto. It was such a difficult situation for me because you can imagine the pain, you know, when you lose a loved one, especially in the manner in terms of him being murdered, you know, it's not like he died of old age. He didn't die of a heart attack. He died at the hands of somebody else. If I didn't go through that hardship of losing my cousin Omar and the pain that I felt, I didn't want anybody else to feel that pain. So I went out there and I started to become an advocate. And I started to speak to our young people and let them know, you don't have to pick up a gun. You don't have to get involved in violence. You don't have to sell drugs. And that's what put me on the path that I'm on today. Sorry to hear that. Thank you. Um, what you said is really meaningful. And a lot of things that happen in life change us as humans. It makes us the people we are. And I feel like that's so important. You're absolutely right. You can have a situation that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. And of course, in life we can't dictate the way life's going to go. But what we can dictate is how we come out on the other side. And so you can go through something and come out on the other side and be like, man, that was tough and not learn a single lesson. And if you have to go through that again, you may not know how to do it because you know you've survived it once. You'll survive it again. But you maybe, perhaps didn't take any lessons from it. You again. You lost some a parent. You lost a sibling. That's difficult, that's tough. But guess what? Now you have information. You have healing information that will help somebody else who's going through it right now. And do you think we're taught to love ourselves, or do most of us have to unlearn self-judgment first? Yeah. You know, I don't think our world, you know, at least the environment that we've come up in, you know, I don't believe that it really teaches us to love who we are as much as it should. And it could I think that it's it's more of a self actualization, a self-realization of seeing the value in who you are. You know, we grew up in a world that when you look at a magazine, it shows a certain type of woman. And if you don't fit that standard or that certain type of woman, if you're not the same skin color, if you're not the same complexion, if you're not the same background, then it leaves you feeling that you're not enough. Being able to love yourself, to see the value in yourself. It's internal. It's seeing the value in who you are, despite what the world wants to tell you who you are. Can we truly love others if we don't love ourselves first? Or is that a myth? No. I think you're dead on. Dead right on, I really do. I think you've hit the nail on the head. I really do believe it goes hand in hand when we can love ourselves to that degree, regardless of how that person treats us. Regardless if that person walks in our life or out of our life. We can truly love ourselves nonetheless, because we've learned to have that self love. What do you think so many of us, so many people of us, are comfortable being kind to others than being to their own selves. You know, I think giving kindness to others is so important. But yeah, I really do believe it starts with giving kindness to yourself, speaking kinder to yourself, speaking softer to yourself. Our worst enemy can be our own selves. We can be so harsh with ourselves. We can be so cold to ourselves. You know I don't like the way I look. I don't like the way I. You know, I don't like the way that, you know, the clothes I have. I don't like the way that, you know, and then we turn around and, yeah, we can be kinder to other people, but the same way, how we can be kinder to our best friend, the same way how we're kind and, you know, tell our best friend, no, it's okay, you're fine. And you know, yeah, you made a mistake. But guess what? You're going to get through it. The same way we speak to others really should be the same way we speak to ourselves. If your younger self could see you now, today, what do you think he'd say? That's such a powerful question. My younger self would say, I'm so proud of you. I too, just like a lot of people have at times in my life, have struggled with loving me. I've struggled with what the world has told me, who I am, and so I believed it. I'm a black man when I watch TV, when I see what the world says about me, oftentimes it's negative. For my younger self, who had struggled with seeing the value in who I am, to see where I am now. Don't get me wrong, like I'm, you know, life's not perfect. I'm still going through it. At times I still doubt myself at times, but when it's all said and done, I think my younger self would say, man, Jeff, I am so proud of you. I'm so proud of the impact that you're making. I'm so proud that you still love yourself enough that you can help other people. Despite all of that, you continue to push forward, and I've met a lot of people who don't see the value in themselves. There was a young woman I was speaking to one day and I was speaking at her school. She said, Jeff, I loved everything you spoke about, about seeing the value in who you are and affirmations. And she said, based on what you said, Jeff, I'm going to stop. And I said, stop what? And she pulled her sleeve up and I can see all her self-inflicted wounds. And she said, Jeff, because of what you said, I decided I'm going to stop self-harming. I got a chance to speak at another school in Alberta. While I was out there, I was telling the story about the same young woman, and at the end someone came up to me and said, Jeff, I loved everything you spoke about. But that piece right there by that young woman, that really changed my life. I'm like, what's going on? She's like, I have an eating disorder. And if that young woman can stop and I can stop as well. I took those two stories and I went out to Niagara Falls, Ontario, and I'm speaking at one of the biggest youth conferences. And at the end of the conference, there was a young person who came to me with tears in her eyes and she said, Jeff, you saved my life tonight. You saved my life tonight. And so I realized that it is important for me to see the value in who I am, because really, it's not even about me. It's about those who I'm able to help along my journey. Such an amazing person. The fact that you saved lives, that you go to schools, you spread the love. You remind them that they should always look out for themselves. For me, I strongly believe having yourself is the best thing you can ever have in the world. Because once you have yourself, the world goes quiet. It's all in your head. I'm an exchange student. I recently came to Canada. Two years ago, I had to leave my family alone. I had to leave my loved ones alone, my friends. So some days I feel like how can I make it out of bed? But then I force myself and I tell myself, for you to get there, you should be able to make it out of bed. And I don't go hard on myself because, like, I know for a fact, if I go hard on myself. It's only going to push me backwards. Now I'm going to push me forward. No. That is. That is so admirable that you were able to make that leap and, you know, come to a country. Leaving all your friends and family behind. For someone like yourself, it is extremely important to see the value in who you are. I truly believe everyone should experience this type of change out of their comfort zone to be able to like, figure more about themselves. Yeah for sure. You know, stretching yourself is so important. We can get so used to the norm. We can get so used to the status quo. And the reason why we get used to the norm and status quo is because you don't get in trouble for stepping out of the status quo. When you do what everybody else is doing, you don't get in trouble. When you do what everybody else is doing, you don't stand out. I can walk around and I can. I can dye my beard purple. And if I dye my beard purple, people are going to look at me and be like, what is wrong with this dude? What is wrong with him? Like, what's going on? Like, why is he doing something like that? Now you let some celebrity do it and everybody's going to follow the same thing. You know, let LeBron James dye his beard purple. Now everyone else is dyeing their beard purple. And now you look like you're just blending in like everybody else. Melissa when you decide to get on that plane, when we decide to step out of our comfort zone, we can make such an impact on this world that is greater than we even know it. But when we love ourselves enough to step out regardless. Yeah, people are going to laugh at me. Some people are going to think it stinks. If I write that book, some people are going to think it's not very good. But what if I stepped out of that status quo? What if I changed somebody's life because I created that podcast? Does that mean that people aren't going to laugh? Yeah. They could. Does it mean that people are going to think it's terrible? Absolutely. But what if I change somebody's life with the words I wrote on that paper in that book? Life is short. We're not here forever. And so when we sit back and worry about what our best friend's going to say, what mom's going to say, when we worry about what someone else is going to say. We're losing opportunities. We're losing days. We're losing weeks. We're losing months. We're losing years of our life. When we make a decision to go out there and not walk. The status quo, but be their original. Be authentic to yourself like we were created to be. Whose life could you change? What impact could you have in this world? What would you be able to do with this life that you were given because you decided to love yourself enough to step out and be the original that you were born to be. If someone listening right now feels broken, what would you want them to repeat to themselves instead? If you are someone right now who is feeling broken, you're feeling lost. You've been going through some difficulties right now. You just don't know how you're going to make it through. I just want to remind you of how valuable you are. I want to remind you that of the eight billion people who live on the planet right now. There is not another you. Actually, let's go back even further. Of the one hundred and eight billion people who have ever lived on this planet, I'm talking about from the very first human being, from Adam and Eve, or whatever it is that you believe from the one hundred and eight billion people who have ever walked on this face of this earth, there has never been another you. Nobody has the same fingerprints as you. Nobody has the same DNA. The exact same DNA is you. So you have to recognize how special you truly are. You have to recognize how unique you are and that uniqueness, that value and what you bring. It is your job to share it with the world. Yeah, I know you're going through something right now. I know you might be struggling. I know you might be dealing with what life has to offer. But while you're going through this difficulty, I want to ask you this. What can you learn in the difficult thing you're going through? Because when we can start to answer those questions, that's where the healing begins. I want to remind, you know, those who are listening, someone who might be struggling, you might be going through a situation right now, and perhaps you've got to the end of the situation. Perhaps you're about to get out of this difficult circumstance that you might be in. So you're reading this book and you're on the very last page, the very last chapter that you're about to close the book on, that ugliness that you've had to deal with in your life. But while you're on the very last page and you close that book and you're done with your situation, there's somebody else who's just starting the very first page. But because you've been through it, you have what it takes to help that person in their situation. So I want to encourage you to keep going, to keep pushing, to keep making life happen because you have something within you that nobody else has. Thank you so much. And I'm so happy that I got the chance to talk to you. Uh, Melissa. I'm grateful. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for reaching out. It's a blessing and an honor. And if you take one thing from this podcast, let it be this you only get one life. You only get one you. So live it. Love yourself a little more than you did yesterday. Make mistakes. Take chances. Do the thing that scares you. And when you mess up. Don't go hard on yourself. Instead, look in the mirror. Smile. Give yourself a high five on the way. Because you are worthy of all the good things in this world. You are precious and you are enough. Thanks for listening to almost one hundred and seven. I'm Melissa. Find more episodes on one hundred and six point nine. Com or wherever you get your podcasts.