Sometimes life isn’t what we thought it’d be when we were younger. Maybe you thought you’d be married by now. Maybe you thought you’d have kids. Or you’d have a business that would be further along. Or your healing would be done. Or your bank account would look different. Or you’d finally feel like the version of yourself who wasn’t still figuring shit out. Or maybe you thought that you’d feel more confident about yourself and life would be more stable. You’d have more freedom. You’d have more to show for decades of trying. And instead you feel stagnated, trapped, unsatisfied, disappointed, like a failure. Hi friend. In today’s episode, we’re talking about how to love the here and now version of you. Regardless of whether that version isn’t where you thought you’d be or hoped you’d be. Each week, we go beyond surface-level self-help and into the real mechanics of transformation. If the traditional paths to healing and spirituality haven’t produced the changes you want in the life you desire, you’re in the right place. You were never meant to struggle or wait for what is already yours. Let’s get started with today’s episode. I’m doing this episode because I had a conversation recently about how I stopped acting like a decade ago. I showed this old photo of me from Time Out New York, where I was stopped in Soho when I was 22 to be featured in their Street Style section, which was like my dream at the time. And I was so ecstatic. Two months before I moved to LA, my 22-year-old dream came true to be immortalized in that weekly street style section. And when my friends saw that, they asked me, what do you think that 22-year-old version of you would think of you now? And I said, you know, she’d probably be really fucking sad that I stopped acting because I mean, that was her dream dream, her passion for so long, which what she worked for as a teenager. I mean, that was like, that was the thing. That was what she thought that she would be for a long time. And she’d also probably be like, why the fuck do you live in a tiny mountain town of 8,000 people? Because early 20s, Linda was a city girl through and through. And that conversation got me thinking about the grief of not being where you thought you’d end up. That’s a real and specific grief that not many people allow themselves to acknowledge, let alone feel fully. And, you know, I spent a lot of time grieving in my healing last year, like intentional grieving of precisely this thing, actually. And not this acting thing, uh, yes, including this acting thing, but just like all of the losses, the almost. And it was one of the most healing and somatically liberating experiences. It changed my body, like literally. So now I’m 45, I’m still widowed, my business is mid-build. It’s actually completely restructuring. My community is still a work in progress. And for some people, that might seem like, geez, Linda, shouldn’t you be married by now? Or remarried further along. Now, obviously, I don’t hang with those people, but they’re out there. But what was really beautiful about that conversation that I had was that I realized because I grieved all the disappointments of my whole life last year in my healing. What I feel for this now version of me, who may not be that impressive to some people, is love. And, you know, I’m that’s what I feel for all versions of me. But it was nice to look at 22-year-old Linda again and be like, she’d probably not understand the choices that I made, but she will. And I love her, and I love me right now, this woman who made the choices that have resulted in this life, this very moment. And so I wanted to do this episode because this version of you right now, regardless of where you are, what you have and have not yet achieved, realized, let go of, materialized, deserves love too. And this is such a universal wound. Many people, like deep into adulting, don’t admit that they’re disappointed about certain aspects of their life or like their entire life for some people. Like admitting that might feel like betraying all that effort, all that heartbreak, you know, spoken and unspoken. And I also think that admitting disappointment means self-acceptance. And a lot of people live in denial and suppression of their true feelings, and also resistant to grieving. I actually did a whole episode about the power of grief that you should listen to if you have not. And you do have to grieve that version of yourself that never materialized in order to love them. But the key is to grieve the possibility, the dream, the hope. You’re not grieving like a quote unquote better version of you. You’re grieving the loss of an imagined version of you, because that version is essentially a phantom, and you can’t compare yourself to a phantom possibility. Now, I want to talk about quantum physics for a moment. Yay, one of my favorite topics. So before a particle is observable, it exists in what’s called superposition, which is multiple potential states, all simultaneously possible, none of them are fixed. And that particle doesn’t like select a state until observation collapses that wave function into one reality. One of those possibilities becoming measurable and material. And your life works the same way because you are made of particles. You are quantum by nature. And at every point in your life, there were multiple potential versions of you, selves, right? The one who moved out of the country, the one who stayed in that relationship, the one who left that relationship, the one who started that business five years later, the one who graduated sooner, the one who never got sick, the one who didn’t lose the person that they lost. And all of those versions were real potentials. And one of them collapsed into the version of you sitting there watching me or standing in your kitchen or walking your dog right here, right now, listening or watching me. And so the issue is you’ve been treating one of those uncollapsed potentials, a phantom you, right? That quote unquote should have been version of you as more real than this version of you. The one who’s alive here right now, who who actually materialized, right? You’ve been holding up a phantom self as the standard in your life and measuring yourself against them. And every time you do that, every single time you do that, you create tension and distortion and separation inside your own mind, body, soul system. Now we’re gonna get into more of that later, but that comparison is why you feel behind, not successful, not attractive, not enough. And that comparison, that self-punishment, because you think that you’re not where you should be by now, is actually preventing you from materializing the things that you want as the highest version of you. Because you can’t build your dream life with a version of you who isn’t here, right? Who’s just a phantom possibility in the quantum. You can only do that from the you right now, the one who is real. Now, I want to get a little deeper into the science of this because what I said is gonna make a lot more sense after we put on our nerd glasses. Okay. So when you say or you believe I’m behind, you are assuming that there’s like a single quote unquote correct universal timeline that you were supposed to follow and you deviated from it. Like in Loki, a little bit, sort of, the television show. If you know, you know. So a lot of people subscribe to that timeline of you go to college, you get married, you start your career, you have kids, you like level up professionally, you then buy house, you invest in retirement, you know, blah, blah, yuckity yuck. No shade if that’s your soul’s truest and deepest desire, but I think that’s a bit of a box, you know, when life is much more dynamic. You know, the question is, is that really your soul’s highest, truest timeline? That’s the question, friend. So if you subscribed to that track, if you got on that train and then you didn’t question that route and you just thought, well, everybody’s taking this track, and that’s how we’ll all become successful, right? And and then at some point you deviated or you’ve quote unquote fell behind or you got lost somewhere, you know, at 28, 34, 40, and now you’re you feel like you’re just scrambling to catch up. So that model of time isn’t wrong as a life goal per se, if that’s what is truly in your heart as a desire, but it’s fundamentally not scientifically sound. Let me explain. The linear or Newtonian model of time has been disproven for like over a century, friend. And yet, so many people, like a lot, most people, still operate by it. I actually did a whole episode about why you are not behind in the true nature of time that you should listen to if you have not yet. But just to briefly recap the modern science of time, Einstein, one of my all-time faves, heroes and uh person, people that I’m obsessed with, he showed us with special and general relativity that time is not absolute, time’s not fixed. It doesn’t move at the same speed for everyone, everywhere. Time is relative. It bends with gravity, it stretches with velocity. You know, two people moving through space will literally experience time differently, not like metaphorically, like measurably. Time is so not fixed that like GPS satellites have to constantly correct themselves in order for your maps to not be like janky and you know, for you to get where you need to go because of how relative time is. Time is nonlinear, and that is not philosophy, that’s physics, like the physics that actually like runs your phone and like your technology. So the idea that you’re behind on some timeline, like some correct timeline, is actually a very outdated and frankly untrue concept from a scientific lens. And when you use that to measure your self-worth, you are needlessly setting yourself up for hurt and pain that your brain and your body and your nervous system respond to. And that response is not the response that you want, because that self-shaming and that self-judgment is emotional tension, is stress. And that, of course, is just gonna shift you into sympathetic survival mode, nervous system dysregulation, because you start operating from urgency, from pressure, from that feeling that something is wrong with you and that you need to fix yourself, you need to catch up, you need to work harder, you need to do more, buy more, consume more, prove yourself more. And meanwhile, your body is just stuck in survival mode because you think that you’re behind and you’re a disappointment. Now, let’s get a little more science-y for a moment, because we’re we’re leading to something really important here. Like my bigger point. When you withhold love from the current version of yourself, and you think or you feel, I am not enough, this is not enough, I should be further along. That withdrawal of love is more than just like emotional shame and self-punishment. It actually becomes a whole system fragmentation and distortion event that creates entropy. So in physics, entropy is the measure of disorder in a system. Living systems, right, including you, uh, your body, your cells, your nervous system, that’s all living systems. So living systems maintain coherence through constant energy exchange, through regulation, through repair, through integration. And when a living system stops integrating, like when parts of it get cut off or rejected or suppressed, entropy increases, meaning disorder increases, fragmentation increases. And that is what happens inside of you and within your systems every time you reject this current version of yourself. You increase your internal entropy, right? The internal entropy of your whole mind-body system. You create more disorder and fragmentation and separation between the parts of you that need to be in healthy relationship with each other in order for you to function as a whole and coherent being, right? The highest version of you. And that entropy is not conceptual. You literally feel it every single day as exhaustion, as brain fog, as emotional numbness, as that feeling of just like going through the motions, as disconnection from your feelings, from your needs, from your wants, right? The inability to make decisions, those are not signs that you are broken. Those are signs that your mind-body system is fragmenting under the weight of constant self-rejection. If you’ve been doing the work but still feel stuck, like no matter how much healing, manifesting, or personal growth you invest in, or spiritual practices you try, something just isn’t clicking. You’re not alone and you’re not failing. The truth is, most teachings and approaches are outdated and only scratch the surface. My book, Unconditional, You Are Perfect As You Are, helps you understand exactly why things haven’t been clicking and how to resolve the root of why you’re struggling. Unconditional self-love isn’t just a nice idea if you truly want to be free. It’s the missing piece and the foundation for everything you desire. And you don’t have to do or figure everything out on your own. You deserve clear, comprehensive, and empowering step-by-step guidance in self-love, self-healing, and spiritual growth. The Source membership gives you daily support and transformative tools to actually start living your healthiest and happiest life today and every day. 100% of members who follow the program improve their mental, emotional, and physical health by over 50% in one year alone. Real mind, body, soul transformation is possible, and you can achieve it with joy and ease instead of stress and struggle. So, as a thank you for being a listener, you can get 75% off your first month of membership with the code podcast promo. Your links are in the show notes. Now, let’s get back to the episode. So the whole like quote unquote, I’m behind belief and unresolved wounds, right, underneath that are causing you harm in ways that you really haven’t realized. Every time you think or you believe or you feel and you respond to that, I’m behind, I’m not enough, you are actively distorting and fragmenting the very system that needs to be coherent in order to like carry you into the future version of you who has what you want and is successful and loved and living where you want and has the job that you want, the life that you want. Self-rejection and self-punishment become a reinforcing cycle where you cannot feel good about yourself because you keep disorganizing your living systems that allow you to be coherent and feel good. Essentially, when you reject the current version of yourself, your whole my body system spends all of its precious energy managing that inner separation and distortion instead of using your energy for creation and for clarity and for healing and forward movement. Now, if self-rejection is an entropy event, then what’s the counter move, right? Because reality is polar. You know, everything has an opposite, or we would not be able to define anything. So what reverses that fragmentation? Now, you might guess what I’m going to say, and I’m not saying it because I teach self-love and I live by unconditional self-love. I’m saying it because it’s physically, like in terms of physics, physically and metaphysically true. The answer is love, self-love, unconditional self-love, to be exact. So this is not another version of like love yourself first. Although, yes, please love yourself first. Let me explain what this means. So, love is a force, a literal, measurable, physiological force that changes the entire internal state of your body. I talk about this in my book. I talk about this throughout my source membership program, but let’s just continue to get a little nerdy for a second. There’s research that says that when you actively generate self-compassion in your body, not just like think about it, but you feel it in your body. It like measurably reduces cortisol, it decreases the feeling and effects of shame, it increases vagal tone, it shifts your nervous system out of sympathetic survival and into parasympathetic safety, right? The healing and optimized health state. That means your body literally reorganizes around the experience of being loved by you. And that is syntropy. So if entropy is disorder and fragmentation, syntropy is order, integration, and coherence. Living systems have innate self-healing properties and functions because all of life wants to survive. So that means a system can collapse and it can also repair and reorganize when the conditions are right. And self-love, unconditional self-love, meaning you loving the version of you now, as well as all versions of you. Nothing, no parts of you are exiled from your love. Unconditional love. That creates the conditions for centropy. So our Buckminster Fuller said famously, love is metaphysical gravity. And I love that because it’s so straightforwardly true. Gravity holds physical systems together. It keeps planets in orbit. It keeps your feet on the ground. And love does the same thing for your mind-body system. It keeps your mind, body, soul in a healthy relationship with each other instead of in fragmented stress and chaos. So loving the now version of you, the one that you think is like a disappointment or a failure or not good enough or not impressive enough, is not just being positive or high vibey. It’s literally healing you. And not just emotionally, but like physically, mentally, spiritually. The problem is not that this version of you hasn’t done the things that you thought that you were supposed to do by now. You are not a problem that needs to be fixed because you are like quote unquote behind or like you think you’re fucking your life up. The problem is that the now version of you, this version of you, needs your love and not like an affirmation of love, like not you just like saying I love you, but you feeling that in a real way, like felt unconditional love in your body. And that is what gives you, like literally gives you the emotional and mental and physical and spiritual capacity to be the highest version of you, that gets you past the slump, right? That makes different choices, that leaves the dead end relationship, that joins that health program and sticks to it, that abandons that shitty job where no one appreciates you, that claims the life that you came here to thrive in and to be loved wholly. Otherwise, you continue to operate from fragments. Fugmentation and distortion and exhaustion because your system is spending so much energy managing that inner tension, all of those separations of your parts and selves, right? So much stress and chaos instead of using that energy for creation, for expansion, for healing, for productivity, for clarity, for courage, for liberation. You can’t build a coherent future from an incoherent present. You can’t shift into a higher timeline from a fragmented, stressed-out, self-punishing mind-body system and fried nervous system. The integration, meaning the centropy, has to happen first. It’s a it’s a like prerequisite. An integration can only happen with love. Coherence is only achieved with love. That very love that you have been withholding from yourself. We’ve been taught to like attract what we want, but that framework is a distortion. It actually reinforces entropy because the concept that you have to attract something implies that you’re separate from it, which is not true. Separation is an illusion. The only thing keeping you from feeling and believing you are your highest version of self is the illusion that you are not already them, because you are. Maybe not fully coherent in mind, body, soul in this dimensional reality right now, but the fact that you are already your highest self remains fact, true. And the belief that this version of you is less than or lower than, not good enough, that’s not a true soul belief. That’s a wounded belief. And that wounded version has conflated this version of you with itself, with the tired version, right? The version who’s still paying off debt, the version who gained weight, the version who’s still single, the version who left that career and hasn’t figured out what the next career is yet, the version who made choices that they wouldn’t make today if they knew what they knew now, right? The version who stayed too long, waited too long, hid their true selves for too long, did nothing for too long, who started over and over and over again. That version may not have achieved everything on your list, but that version is not less than your highest self. They are actually the doorway to experiencing your human life as your highest self, because you can’t bypass where you are right now and get where you want to go, because where you are right now is literally already on the path. You just don’t understand it that way yet because you have been perceiving this now version of you through the lenses of your wounds and not through your love. That’s why you feel blocked instead of supported, why you harp on your mistakes and the past and and you don’t obsess about your possibilities and your future, and not like to daydream and disassociate, but to remember forward. There is no version of future you that doesn’t emerge through now you. And future you could continue to be trapped in entropy and fragmentation and separation, or future you could be liberated and syntropy, coherence, integration. Both versions emerge from the now you. So that means you can’t escape the now you. So you might as well just love the fuck out of yourself. So future you has the love, the money, the success, the freedom, the house, the dream job, the health, the well-being. Because it’s your coherence that shifts your timeline and your reality, not attraction. You don’t need to attract what is already yours in another timeline. That makes no sense. It’s already yours. You simply need to become coherent enough, not fragmented, not living in separation in yourself and stressed out all the time, in order for your resonance to naturally align with a higher timeline. And the greatest thing that you can do to become more coherent is to love yourself unconditionally, even when you feel like a disappointment or a fraud or a failure or a loser or like a fugly nobody, especially then, because that’s when you need the most love. And loving yourself requires you to grieve a little too, and sometimes a lot. People don’t understand that. Grief is an extension, is an expression of love. When I grieved the past versions of me that didn’t materialize, when I intentionally did all of that grief work last year, like with my body, right? I didn’t journal about, I didn’t, this is not like a journaling practice. You know, it was like full body grieving, somatic movement of grief. When I felt all of it, I let my body process those losses and those hopes and the changes and the disappointments and all the letdowns. What resolved was not like a form of resignation. It was freedom because I had loved every single version of myself that didn’t quote unquote make it or wasn’t chosen or whatever. I loved every single version of myself so thoroughly, so fiercely that all that shadowed fragmentation became coherent. And then I got to stretch into a new level of wholeness. And, you know, my body and my reality changed. Of course, because my brain changed, my relationship with myself changed, my nervous system changed, and who I am now emerged from that version of me, right? Who grieved and loved. And this now version of me, I’m so proud of. Like so deeply, deeply proud of. So here’s your action step for the week. I want you to name the version of you that you’re disappointed in. And I want you to get specific about it. Like, not like I’m disappointed in myself. That’s like way too vague for your body. Get very specific. Like the version who didn’t finish college, the version who went back to that narcissistic fuckboy, the version who went into debt, the version who didn’t speak up about their talent and then didn’t get the promotion, the version who gained weight and let himself go, the version who lost years to a boring, thankless job. That’s how specific I want you to get. So name that version, and then I want you to write down the sentence that you shame them with. The resentful, the angry sentence, like you wasted your 20s, or you should have left sooner, or you were too old to start over, or you had every opportunity and you blew it. So write that nasty shame sentence down. And then I want you to read it out loud and like let it take up space, let it be seen in full, because that sentence is the thing that keeps recreating and reinforcing entropy, the thing that fragments your system every single day. And then I want you to place your hands on your heart. I want you to take a deep breath from your belly and exhale out that nasty shame, that resentment, that anger, and let that exhale be forceful, big, long. And then I want you to picture that version of yourself in your mind’s eye and then speak to them. Say to them that you are not a fucker, you did not fuck up, you are not stupid, you are not worthless, you are not bad. I see your choices, I see your mistakes, I see your pain, your loss, and I forgive you. And I love you. You are safe with me, and I reclaim you with love because you deserve love now, then, and always. And do that every day after you write down that shame sentence, and then burn that sentence or like throw it in the trash, like shred it, release it with love. And that’s the start of integration and syntropy. If you do that every day, if you speak to that version of yourself that you have been shaming, that you have felt disappointed in, and you also let yourself grieve while you do it, and you continue to love them and love yourself and grieve until you picture that version of yourself in your mind’s eye and you feel zero ick, zero shame, zero regret, zero charge. That’s when you know that that exiled part of you has been reclaimed with unconditional love. So I hope this episode has helped you remember that the version of you who is right here, right now, is not a loser. They’re not like a leftover version. They’re not some consolation prize or the version who just got stuck with a life that the quote unquote better you, you know, didn’t choose. They’re actually the one who survived all of those collapses or those endings, those heartbreaks, the wrong turns, the grief, the years where you didn’t know what to do yet. They’re the one who not only survived, but learned and evolved and became stronger. You didn’t ruin the life that you thought that you were supposed to have. It never materialized because it was too small to hold the version of you that was actually forming. That’s the correct perspective. So love this you. Love them with everything, with your body, with your heart, with your soul. Because the future you that’s on the verge of showing up in full force is not like ahead of you, is not above you. There’s no distance, right? Your highest self is not judging you from a higher dimension. They’re already a part of you, within you, waiting for you to love yourself enough to make their arrival, their emergence safe enough so it feels like home.