Dr. Andrea Pennington
The Real Self Love Handbook – A Proven 5-Step Process to Liberate Your Authentic Self, Build Resilience and Live an Epic Live
by Nina from MindGourmet
A life-long journey
“I grew up always having this sense of not being good enough. (…) Dealing with that kind of low-grade not-enoughness and depression ultimately led me in my early career to really want to get out of life.” When she hit rock bottom, Andrea felt a deep urgency to find solutions.
The Real Self Love Handbook is all of the solutions Andrea discovered. These solutions got her out of depression, allowed her to get to know who she really is, and enabled her to love herself. She now travels around the world teaching about her findings and guiding others through the same processes she learned to support them in their self-love journey.
The Cornerstone Process
In our conversation, Andrea takes us on the path to self-love by guiding us through the elements of the Cornerstone Process.
Andrea and I speak about becoming aware of who we are and aren’t, of moving into acceptance, and rewriting our internal stories. We dive into how we can take our lives into our own hands without guilt and shame, ways to understand our inner guidance, and the importance of taking inspired action. The final step of the Cornerstone Process is all about the power of appreciation and all other elevated emotions.
Becoming aware of who we are not
Awareness starts with knowing who we are not.
Before trying to figure out who we really are, it makes sense to first look at who we were programmed to be, recommends Andrea. When we’re becoming aware of our programs, we start to feel which parts of us aren’t expressions of our true, authentic self.
Our family, your parents, your religion: they all had an influence on us. A big part of our programming happened at a very early age and was an unconscious process. The things we heard growing up became our beliefs and assumptions about what’s possible in life.
Our adaptation and coping strategies were essential for us when we were young but in our adult life, they often keep us from living a live we love and from fully loving ourselves. Awareness helps us to know what isn’t ours so that we can let these aspects go and become who we truly are.
This is just a little taster of the first Cornerstone, which is Awareness. Andrea and I talked about so much more. Enjoy our conversation!
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- Andrea’s journey to who she is today (03:00)
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- The Cornerstone Process – an overview (7:00)
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- Becoming aware of our true nature (12:15)
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- Moving into acceptance (19:00)
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- Rewriting our internal stories into a new reality (20:40)
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- Taking responsibility for our lives without guilt and shame (24:50)
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- Hearing our inner guidance and taking inspired action (30:30)
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- The power of elevated emotions (36:50)
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- How to learn from and connect with Dr. Andrea (41:25)
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- Andrea’s love for music and music’s instrumental role in Andrea’s healing journey. You can listen to her singing her own song I Love You, Me at the end of her latest TED talk (42:20)
