💌 WITH LOVE, DOMINIQUE

Bringing meditation, mindset and spirituality down-to-earth to empower your authenticity & greatest potential.

 📚️ VOL 01 / 🕖️ READ TIME: 9 m 27 s

IN TODAY’S ISSUE:

• 💭 MEDITATIVE MUSING / Notes on self-love & empowerment from a psychic session gone wrong.

• ❓️ ASK DOM / “Ideas for self-love practices that aren’t the typical spend money on wellness / beauty practices.”

• 🎉 UPCOMING EVENT IN NYC & YOU’RE INVITED BABY!

• 💌 REQUEST / Let me know what you want to hear about next!

 💭 😎 🔮 MEDITATIVE MUSING: Notes on Self-Love & Empowerment from a Psychic Session Gone “Wrong”.

“You’re giving your power away! Stop doing that!”, scolded the highly recommended psychic that I was taking a session with.

“Okay - but, it’s not like I’m trying to give it away? What do you mean? How do I stop?” 

“Be more secretive, don’t tell anyone anything. Keep everything to yourself.” 

You’re probably wondering how I got here. To know that you need to know two things about me: 

1. I’m a practical down-to-earth gal who loves psychology, research-backed studies on how the mind works, practical mindset tips and geeking out about neuroscience.

2. I've probably gone to almost every type of esoteric practitioner in my own personal development journey - and I love me a good, highly recommended psychic.

Who says we can’t do both? 🤓 🔮 

One of the main reasons I love a good psychic or intuitive is because they’re a tool to get clarity on your own intuition and empower what you already know is truly right for you (before your mind gets in the way with its BS).

The best intuitives I’ve worked with have helped me see and believe in something beyond what I thought was possible at the time. They’ve helped me process grief, uncover what I was truly seeking when my mind was a mess and helped me feel more confident in my own inner wisdom.

To answer my practical peoples’ question of whether I really believe psychics are “real” or not - I’m going to be honest with you, I like to live life with an open mind. I think it’d be silly to not believe in experiences outside of what we think we know — because that’s one surefire way to keep ourselves stuck.

But even beyond being “open minded”, to me it doesn’t really matter because from a psychological perspective I know confirmation bias is real. When you want to believe something, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and the only way external stimuli - like the things people say - has meaning in our lives is if we’re giving it that specific meaning. 

So when someone says or does something that resonates with us in a deep way - that resonance is actually pointing us towards our own intuition.

This psychic however - was not aligning with my intuition.

I left the session feeling “yucky”, like my inner radar was saying “nope, that’s definitely not right”. 

“But I love sharing”, I discovered later that night while wondering why the session felt like it hit a soft spot. And in my personal journey of self-expansion, it’s proven to be a key to personal empowerment and liberation.

For those that don’t know, I had spent nearly a lifetime (25 years before I found meditation and discovered my own unconscious patterns) completely unaware that I was dimming my own light. 

In childhood, despite a (truly) unbearable awkward stage, I had the ultimate confidence. I wore shirts that said “I’m not opinionated, I’m just always right”, believed everyone was in love with me, was a big ol’ ball of energy, literally went after anything I thought sounded cool: writing a novel in 4th grade, forcing my parents to take me to acting castings, becoming a theater kid — and definitely overshared: alotta love, energy and sassiness. 

I don’t know when — but somewhere in my pre-teen years the voices that told me “you’re so annoying” or “you’re too much” had finally gotten to me. I started to dim my own light and my mind began hyper fixating on what a “cool girl” would do:

Cool girls are mysterious. 

Cool girls don’t talk too much.

Cool girls never text first. 

Cool girls never show interest.

Cool girls are NOT vulnerable. 

Cool girls always say the perfect thing.

Cool girls leave obscure short captions. 

Cool girls are never bothered. 

Cool girls don’t express their feelings. 

Cool girls are secretive. 

As a way to protect myself from experiencing the pain of feeling misunderstood and “wrong” for being me - my brain (just doing it’s damn best) created this hypothetical “cool girl” persona that I had to abide by. (Or else.)

As my healing journey started to unravel that in 2020, I started to see how truly lame the “cool girl” persona I made up  was and how being me (open, vulnerable, honest, vocal, easily excitable, big ol’ ball of energy) — impacted others, even strangers, to open up in a similar way. 

When I was vulnerable — people shared their vulnerabilities with me. 

When I let my goofy side show — people shared their silliness with me. 

When I was lovingly honest with my feelings — people were given a space to be lovingly honest with theirs. 

But this uncovering wasn’t about getting people to react in a certain way. This was about reclaiming my own light, my own power - so that I can show up authentically regardless of external circumstances. 

Unbeknownst to this psychic, sharing authentically from a place of being grounded in my truth and not looking for validation had actually been the key to unlocking my power - not the other way around. From my perspective, it’s been a major key to personal success for me - in friendships, romantic relationships, career and my own feeling of wellbeing. 

And in a beautifully backwards way (which is how I find the universe works best) she poked that old wound and had actually guided me back to re-empowering that part of myself that shares with her full chest. 

I share this story in the spirit of this month’s requested thematic of Self-Love because from watching my own experience and clients’ I know we all have our own Authentic, True Self and the “Cool Person” mask we’ve convinced ourselves we need to fit in, to avoid hurt and to be accepted by what we assume our peers want from us.

However, through the process of unraveling those layers and realizing that with each one released, they were never actually needed in the first place — I know we do ourselves a massive disservice by convincing ourselves that our masks are the key to getting what we truly want.

It could never be, because when we wear a mask of what we think we “should” be - we just end up on a perpetual cycle of attracting the things we think should make us happy vs. the things that will actually make us happy. And that’s because the things that actually make us happy are attracted by our authentic expression, desires, needs and self. 

When it comes to self-love, there is nothing more powerful than understanding exactly what it is that YOU love about yourself and empowering it beyond the “cool person” persona we (all in our own way) were forced to adapt to. 

If you don’t believe me, believe Deepak Chopra when he says, “We are already unique by virtue of our individual history of experiences and relationships.  What we need to do is investigate how our natural uniqueness allows us to most fully contribute our special piece of the puzzle to the completeness of the universe. Your uniqueness is a given, it’s already there, it’s just a matter of fully owning and activating your potential.”

So what if the key to your ultimate potential and satisfaction wasn’t in doing MORE and trying to fit into the should’s? What if it was in undoing the layers that keep you from your own uniqueness so you can show up and impact the world in a way only YOU could do? 

TBH, I’ve been testing that hypothesis via meditation and inner work since 2020 - and it hasn’t let me down since. If you want to uncover a bit more yourself, here’s some journal prompts to reflect on:

• What are things you love about yourself that bring YOU joy? (This is a tougher one because it’s not about what you do in the context of other people i.e. I like that I’m a nice person to others. Here focus on the way you’re characteristics bring you pleasure & enjoyment i.e. I like that I’m an optimist, it makes life easier on myself.)

• What are somethings you feel you have to do to fit in? 

• What would it look like if you didn’t have to do those things? How would you have permission to express yourself more authentically? 

• What if you gave yourself permission to live life with your full chest? What if you did everything you wanted? 

• Based on the above inspiration, what are steps you can take from the now to bring your authenticity into daily life?

Once you finish those, keep doing things that bring your unique imprint into the world. (Because we love it, we need it, we gotta have it and I freaking mean it!)

❓️ 💗 💸 ASK DOM: “Ideas for self-love practices that aren’t the typical spend money on wellness / beauty practices.”

I love questions that surround self-love, because I love giving people permission to redirect the question back to themselves. 

Before we set out on our own genuine self-love journey, we’re consciously and unconsciously looking to everyone else for the answers. 

For me, I imagine my unconscious process before I started sounding something like: 

💭 HEY - you look like you love yourself! Well at least - you’re smiling a lot on instagram and getting a lotta likes…..How did you do that?? Did you find it in that expensive outfit you’re wearing?? Or that luxury getaway? Is it in your career??? Or in the parties you get invited to?? Did your partner show you how to find it?? Or did you find it at Sephora in between the makeup and self-care aisle?? For the love of GOD PLEASE tell me! I’ll BUY ANYTHING YOU PROMOTE to know!! 💭 

The truth is - the self-love journey goes hand in hand with discovering yourSELF (you know - the only person you’re gonna spend your whole life with) and your intuition at the same time. 

I know, I know - we hate that answer. It’s uncomfy to believe that no one can teach us to love ourselves but ourselves because it sets us off on that messy journey of trying new things, them not working, feeling awkward with it, trying other new things, those finally starting to work, us finding our grove, losing our grove, finding it again, losing it again, finding it again, losing it…… okay etc. etc. you get the point.

So anything can be a self-love practice as long as it’s done with the intention of either learning how to or genuinely loving yourself. 

Some ideas include:

Saying yes more.

Saying no more. 

Starting that passion project. 

Taking a break from working so much.

Getting yourself a lil treat because you deserve it. 

Saving money because you have your eye on something special. 

Leaving the dishes because you're freaking exhausted.

Cleaning the dishes so your future (tomorrow) self has a clean kitchen to wake up to. 

Cooking yourself a nice meal.

Ordering in. 

Waking up early to go for a walk.

Sleeping in because you need your zzzz’s.

(I will however call out that Deepak recommends meditating to find true self love. I do as well, but you probably already knew that 😂 )

The last lil tidbit I don’t want to overlook here is that the journey encompasses loving yourself even when it’s hard. Doing the thing that’s best for YOU even when your mind is should-ing yourself in the opposite direction. 

If it sounds like a messy journey, good - it’s meant to be, that’s the only way we’ll learn how to love the messy parts of ourselves too. Bless this mess. 

Two questions to guide you towards your next practice: 

• What’s a habit / activity that currently feels exciting, expansive, fun or replenishing to you? Or that you’ve been simply curious about? 

• What’s stopping you from doing that? (These are those darn “shoulds” I was telling you about - watch out for them and don’t let them stop you from exploring!)

🤓 🫂 🌟 🎉 UPCOMING EVENTS: Join Us in NYC for our first Self-Discovery Session!

If you’re based in NYC and looking to nerd out on mindset things 🤓, discover your authenticity 🌟 , connect with a community of curious people 🫂 and have some fun 🎉 — come join us for The Shift — Self-Discovery Series.

WHAT: A meditative experience in collaboration with Achel Therapy to provide you with practical tips to uncover and embrace your authenticity.

WHEN: Tuesday, February 27th, 6:15PM

WHERE: Brooklyn, NYC (Exact Details in Link)

💌 FINAL REQUEST: Let me know what you want to hear about next!

Let me know what topics your interested in reading about or submit your question for it to be answered in ASK DOM 💌