Imagine Yourself Podcast

Love Your Flaws: Malene Kai Bell’s Guide to Self-Acceptance

August 23, 2024 Imagine Yourself Podcast Season 6 Episode 13

Lanée and Sandy sit down with the insightful writer and teacher Malene Kai Bell, diving deep into the concept of self-love and acceptance. Malene's profound wisdom shines throughout the episode, especially as she challenges the common misconceptions about mindfulness and self-acceptance. Instead of offering a quick fix or an escape from discomfort, she emphasizes the importance of embracing our imperfections and being gentle with the parts of ourselves that are hard to accept. This episode is a must-listen for anyone struggling with the societal pressures to be perfect and the internal battles with self-worth.

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Imagine Yourself is hosted by Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach. Lanée is a TV writer and producer, motivational speaker and podcaster. Sandy is a radio personality, voiceover artist and podcaster. They come to you from the Detroit Metro area and invite guests from all over the world to help encourage you in your health, career, faith journey and more!

Lanée Blaise [00:00:03]:
Hello, everyone. I'm Lanae here with Sandy at Imagine Yourself. And today, we want to imagine ourselves lovable, peaceful, smooth, really getting back to the people that we intended to be. And we have a guest here today, Malene Kai Bell, who is a writer, teacher, avid meditator who believes in the beauty of unconditional love. She has written a delightful book called lovable and she's also set to release a new book called Reclaiming the Sacred Self. So we just want to welcome her to Imagine Yourself and learn from her all the lovely things about ourselves. So welcome, Melene!

Malene Kai Bell  [00:00:54]:
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:57]:
We're so happy to have you, and this is a big thing. I feel like especially for women, the whole idea of feeling lovable, of having self acceptance, feeling like we're enough. Why do you think that is?

Malene Kai Bell  [00:01:12]:
So I don't have the golden answer. Right? I don't think there's one answer. I do think it's complex. I think that as a society, when I think about the message that we give women still, even to this day, just in terms of what they should shouldn't say, how they should and shouldn't feel, or they're too overfeeling. Right? There's a lot of messages that are, delivered to women before they're even women, when they're girls. A lot of it has to do with internalized messages from our society, but also internalized messages that we might receive within our families. I know for me, I've definitely experienced my fair share of trauma both inside the family and outside the family. And, for, I don't know, maybe 30 plus years or so, it took me time to journey through some of what I experienced within my my upbringing and then carry that over even into just some of my personal and romantic relationships.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:02:09]:
And a lot of it came back to not really understanding who I am or who I was and that I was worthy of love. And I just wanna pause there when I say worthy of love because I think sometimes we also focus externally rather than internally. And I think the shift happened for me finally when it was, like, not about receiving love from the outside. Not that it's not important, but the core of it, the seed of it, the blossom of it really comes from within.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:40]:
That's a beautiful answer. I think it yeah. Looking forward outside is never gonna be enough.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:02:46]:
No. It's not sustainable. And, yeah, it's just not sustainable. I almost I almost was gonna say it's not love, but that's not true.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:56]:
It's more approval maybe than than love. I mean, it can be love, but sometimes it's approval, and sometimes it's people pleasing, maybe.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:03:05]:
Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's all of the above. And I think, you know, again, just to kinda pull it back to within, when you get to that place where, you love yourself from within, it's such a sturdy position that whether you have it inside or outside, it it doesn't matter. It's really hard to kind of articulate. I think it's it's easier to answer the question, well, what gets in the way of, like, not loving ourselves? It's a question that I I put to myself because I started putting together a lovable curriculum for girls. Mhmm. And so, you know, the question I had was, well, how do you teach someone to love yourself? Okay. Well, the way to do it is to kind of remove some of the barriers, some of the things that often get in the way.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:03:48]:
But even that, there is just this place within ourselves that nothing can touch, can shift, can change. It is full of power, and that power is love. You know, it's really, really hard to articulate because it's such an internal core thing. I wish I had a better word, but it just really is it's this thing, this almost said possession. It's not possession. It's being in possession of yourself. Right? Absolutely rooted, absolutely grounded. It's not perfection.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:04:23]:
It's not unicorns and rainbows, even though they're really cute. It's not smiling all the time. It is total self acceptance. And dare I say, it is also a deep connection to who you are. And we know that we are more than just flesh and bone. There's also this connection to spirit. I feel like it's a gift. Not just the love, but even the access to it and the recognition of it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:47]:
A gift from God. Absolutely. Yeah. Mhmm.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:50]:
Yeah. I'm glad that you're saying this because back to the part where you said it's not perfection, it it doesn't have to be a set of approval from anyone else. I just feel like it's just that focusing inward and upward, you know, inward to yourself, upward to God, and it is a powerful force, and it can be used for good. And I love that's why I love the book. So your book Lovable in a way, when you when a person looks at the cover, they're gonna say that it's a children's book, especially for little girls. But you have you know, I've spoken with you in the past, and you have mentioned that it really can be for people of all ages. It really can be a way to pour into yourself as an adult or to reach back to I know people don't talk about it as much anymore now, but about that inner child that, you know, that's within us that maybe didn't get all of the love or all of the confidence that was necessary, but we can revisit and restrengthen ourselves that way from the core and from, you know, from the inside out. But I just I love everything you're saying because a lot of times we do think of love in one way, you know, romantic love or even the concept of self love as just giving yourself a mani pedi

Lanée Blaise [00:06:12]:
or you're

Lanée Blaise [00:06:12]:
going to a spa. But it is way deeper than that. And you're really showing us head on how it's way deeper than that. And I really appreciate that. I You know, your upcoming book also Reclaiming the Sacred Self, that's another component of I'll let you say it though, but of bringing back that lovable ness within ourselves too and that strengthening. Right?

Malene Kai Bell  [00:06:37]:
For sure. I almost feel like you put it better than I did. I love the in and up. Yeah. Just kinda going back to lovable. It's interesting because the book really just poured through me. I I was doing mirror work. There's a book by Louise Hay called mirror work.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:06:55]:
Part of what it has you do is just well, it's different exercises, but part of what I was doing was saying just positive affirmations in the mirror, looking at myself directly in in my eyes. And the affirmation that came was I am lovable. After that, you know, the couplets that you see in the book really just came forth. And to your point, I do think in fact, I don't think. I know it's a universal message. And I wrote it really for women, but I knew that I wanted it to be with illustrations. You know, as I step back from it, I also feel that it is a book that's really speaking directly to the inner child. I do think that some of the questions that, you know, the quote, unquote character's asking is specific to some of the things that we as women struggle with.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:07:45]:
Like, do I have value if I haven't brushed my teeth yet? My hair is a mess. Right? Do I have value when I'm angry? Because don't get me started. We're not supposed to be angry. Right? Mhmm. Am I less lovable because I feel this way? And so those are, you know, some of the questions that lovable asks. I have a friend. He's like, I don't know, my age, you know, late forties. And, he was moving through a tough time.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:08:09]:
He has the book. And he sent me a message just saying that this really helped him. And that meant a lot because, again, I do think if I put my myself in it, I do see it as a book for women. Certainly, girls, these are the seeds that they need. But to also hear this man who is a good friend and I look up to to say, hey. This really helped me was just the best. And, of course, anything that has a message around the heart is universal. Probably my favorite character in the book is the heart.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:08:40]:
The heart is always there. When the girl is angry and she has fire coming out of the hair, who's there? The heart, just smile. I'm like, no. It's all good. There's nothing that you could do that wouldn't make you okay. You're perfect exactly as you are, but not perfect in the sense of completely buttoned up. Your hair is slick down. Like, I had to slick mine down before getting on this call.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:09:01]:
Like, it doesn't it doesn't matter. Right? At our essence, who we are, no matter where we are, we are lovable.

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:10]:
Linae, you have a copy of, Lovable with you. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:09:13]:
I have a copy of Lovable right here in front of me, and there's 2 components. The first part is when I went to purchase the book online, there's a message that I'm guessing you must have written, Millenie, but it says, above all, Lovable is a reassuring and uplifting message that no matter what life throws our way, we remain lovable at our core. And like, there's there's a page in the book. Am I lovable when I feel small and broken and the world feels like a great big ocean? Yep. Still lovable. And it's got that heart that you said, Yep, still lovable. Got the little heart. And you see the with the illustrations, you see the character is probably at her worst right there.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:10:00]:
She's Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:01]:
It just looks like the this ocean of everything going on in the world is gonna just swallow her up, but that heart is still there. And, yep, she's still lovable, and so are we. Mhmm. It's just phenomenal. My my mother is the one who originally introduced me to your book. And, like you said, it was, you know, given to my nieces. Yeah. But I have my copy here too.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:25]:
And the fact that you said that a a wonderful grown man

Malene Kai Bell  [00:10:28]:
was a grown man. Yes. Such a grown man.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:34]:
Power and acceptance and confidence and goodness in it is just, you know, inner strengthening. This is what we love to promote on imagine yourself because we want people to imagine themselves more lovable, more hopeful for who they are. And like you said, that part about realizing who you are and the worthiness there too, that's beautiful journey too.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:10:56]:
To go back to the the passage you read, that's my favorite image there. So the little girl is actually in a teacup that is based on Japanese art called kitsugi. I might be getting the name wrong. Forgive me. But what kitsugi is is, like, if a dish breaks, the dish is put back together with gold. So the metaphor exactly. So the metaphor there, I just like, I wanna roll on the floor right now because I love it's such a beautiful metaphor for for us, for our life, how we can, quote, unquote, put ourselves back together in an even better way. Right? So she not everybody gets that, but she's in the kintsugi.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:11:41]:
And I know I'm getting the word wrong. I'll have to get it right next time, but she's in a teacup that, you know, had been broken and it's sealed with gold. And she's in the ocean and her heart's with her. And she might be feeling that way, but it's all good.

Sandy Kovach  [00:11:53]:
And that is beautiful on so many levels.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:11:56]:
Yeah. I love

Lanée Blaise [00:11:57]:
And I can see it too, like, the seams where there you can see that there were cracks where it where the tea cup had been broken, and the gold is along those fault lines or whatever. But it is perfectly sealed, and it it has her within it safely, you know, and and the all the the water is all around, but she is still inside and put together. Yeah. I never knew that message, and I love that the part that resonated with me the most was also your favorite part too.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:12:29]:
Yeah. It it totally is.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:31]:
It's such a power in these children's books because it it's the most basic thing and the most beautiful thing. We had a guest. I don't know. This was a few years ago. She was another children's author, and she wrote a book called, Violet the Hugging Octopus. And it was, her name is Sherry Duquette, And it was about hugging yourself, and she would go and read the story to kids in schools and everybody would practice hugging themselves. So, boy, I mean, between your book and that book and getting these positive messages out, was is that really important to start early?

Malene Kai Bell  [00:13:08]:
In terms of positive messaging?

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:10]:
Positive messaging and self love and hugging yourself and filling yourself with gold when you're broken.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:13:17]:
Absolutely. I would say what I also would say is that life doesn't always work like that. I think sometimes that's sometimes the challenge that I have with I don't know what to call it. Maybe, like, the positivity movement. Meaning, there are people who have been through what you might call hell and back. And so I think if you are blessed, if you're lucky enough to be in an in an environment where those seeds are planted, fantastic. But sometimes we might be in the middle of that that broken teacup phase. I need to know that even there, I'm lovable.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:13:56]:
I need to know that even that doesn't make me unacceptable. Even through that, I am lovable. I would say the message about lovable is totally about self acceptance. And the reason why I'm I'm trying to make that definitive is because I think that sometimes when, you know, we wanna keep it all positive, we don't look at maybe the shadow parts of ourselves and love on that too. And in fact, I think that's where the work is. I think that's where additional seeds need to be planted. Mhmm. If the if that makes sense.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:29]:
No. That makes that

Lanée Blaise [00:14:30]:
makes total sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:14:32]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:33]:
You're you're hitting on that part where we don't want to have anyone walk away from this episode saying, oh, so I love myself, the all the great parts about myself and think about, well, there's some really harsh parts of my life or seasons that were in my life that are a part of me. Mhmm.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:14:57]:
And

Lanée Blaise [00:14:57]:
I'm just gonna brush that to the side and pretend like that doesn't exist so then I can still stay acceptable. You're saying the whole, the whole person, all but some of your parts, you are still not. But we

Malene Kai Bell  [00:15:11]:
are perfectly imperfect. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have to be perfectly perfect, if that makes sense. Right?

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:17]:
Totally. Yeah.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:15:18]:
Because part of the struggle is for us as women, we're trying to be perfect, whether it means we're trying to be perfect moms. And, you know, once your kids grow up enough or you have another, you're like, oh, I don't have to be perfect mommy. Right? You learn it. But I I'm just remembering when my daughter was little, just feeling so nervous because I didn't wanna mess anything up. But that's impossible. Right? It's impossible not to make mistakes. You're not gonna do it perfect, but we're perfectly imperfect, and that is okay. And I wanna make sure that when I say that, it's not being heard as not wanting to do better, to achieve or excel at certain things within or even outside of yourself.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:16:01]:
That's not it. But it is this embracing, as you said, of all of me, all of you, and being gentle with those parts that maybe we don't like, that are hard to swallow about who we are. I feel like in my family, with myself, with my women friends, I often hear them just be harsh with themselves.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:26]:
Negative talk. Yeah.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:16:28]:
Negative talk or just like, wow. Who who do you think you're supposed to be? You don't have to be mother Teresa in order to be lovable. It's okay. Right? Like, it's okay. You're okay exactly as you are. And you know why? Not because Melanie said it, not because your friend said it, but because god made you that way. Yeah. So let's not trip, and let's remember Yeah.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:16:51]:
Get to that place where it's okay.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:54]:
Now just kind of a question. We talked a little bit about the negative messaging that we can get as young and as women, you know, all through life, especially women. Social media with its messaging of being perfect in one way or the other, whether it's an influencer, talking about parenting, talking about, your face being moisturized, talking whatever. Do you think this has a harsh effect on us through life? And and what can we do to sort of wrap ourselves so we don't feel all of it? Is that even possible?

Malene Kai Bell  [00:17:32]:
Yeah. It's a really good question, and I don't feel like I have the the one answer. What I can share and what I can tell you, and and this really, for me, relates to reclaiming the sacred self. For me, in my life, what really helps me and helped me maintain balance was meditation. And in particular, I practice mindfulness meditation. And I'll say the reason why I believe that mindfulness really is helpful to me, and, you know, I used to teach mindfulness as well. And and why I, I'm a proponent of it is because what mindfulness helps you do alright. I'm gonna say it in one way, then I'll, like, break it down.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:18:16]:
So it helps you cultivate awareness. You hear that all the time. Mindfulness is being present in the present moment. And it's like, what? I'm already present. Right? So it sounds ridiculous, actually. But it's not when you actually experience it. So when I say cultivate awareness, this is what I mean. Our minds are chattering right now.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:18:37]:
Even as I'm talking with you, I might not be like, it's not in the forefront, but our our minds are often chattering. And what happens is that the thoughts and the emotions that are running through us, either we see them or we don't. If we don't see them, it means that, for example, if I have a thought like, oh, I feel like Luke today. I'm a piece of blank, or I'm not worthy enough. If I don't see that thought, I'm gonna, quote, unquote, become that thought. That means there's not enough awareness there for me to just observe it without becoming it. Does that make sense a little bit?

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:14]:
Yeah. Like, it's going on in the back of your mind, but it's still in your mind.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:19:19]:
It's in your mind, but there's something that happens if there's not enough awareness there. Right? I'll try to say it again. This thought of I'm not worthy. If I just see it as a thought, I understand that it does not represent me. It's literally just a thought. It's just this thing that's passing through. You've heard, you know, mindfulness teachers just say, hey. We're the sky.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:19:41]:
The thoughts and emotions are just clouds. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:19:44]:
That are passing on through. Right. And so it goes on and doesn't stick, I guess, or doesn't subconsciously fester.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:19:53]:
Exactly. And I would say when we say doesn't stick, they also use the language of we don't identify with it. For me, that means I don't become it. I can see it. I can witness it without becoming it. Let's take the emotion of, I don't know, sadness. Same thing. You can actually just see it rather than become it.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:20:15]:
And so back to your question, why I think mindfulness and meditation and things like that can be really important when you're bombarded with messages that say, we're not enough. You need to buy this, do this, etcetera. That mindfulness that I was just describing, right, of being able to see that thought for what it is, a thought, not me, you can bring that same type of mindfulness to, let's say, social media, etcetera, whatever those messages are. Because you have enough distance between the thought or the thing that is in front of you, and that distance is equivalent to actual awareness. And that's actually I didn't intend to go go there, but awareness, the word doesn't actually describe what it is. Awareness is is you. You're not those thoughts. That's the best way I know how to say it.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:21:07]:
It's it's really just it's such an you know, I hear people talk about it all the time. Eckhart totally talks about it amazingly, but it's it's one thing to talk about it and another thing to experience it. Hence, why I'm saying, like, I I often advocate just sit, develop a practice because once you experience it, your entire I shouldn't say your let me say once I experienced it, everything shifted for me. Everything shifted.

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:34]:
I like that.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:21:34]:
And, yeah. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:37]:
I mean, yeah, if we

Malene Kai Bell  [00:21:38]:
So I know that's probably a really unorthodox answer, but that's where we begin.

Sandy Kovach  [00:21:42]:
Actually, it's one of the best answers I've ever heard. Because what's the other alternative? Oh, just put your phone down. Well, sure. You know, using our phones less is definitely a positive, but our phones are part of our daily lives, and sometimes we love social media to stay in touch with people. But the point is if you can be scrolling on Instagram and see something that ordinarily might make you feel negative, let's say it's an ad and, you know, they're trying to sell you something, their skin care product, you can say, oh, it's just some influencer, and it's making me feel like my skin looks a certain way. But it it's just a commercial and has nothing to do with me.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:20]:
No. I love it. I love it because like you're saying, you're not identifying with it. We had another guest, Stephanie James, who mentioned the language component to, like, I'm mad. I'm angry. Well, I, Linae, I am not anger personified. I, Linae, I'm experiencing anger right now. And then you couple that with Millenie, you know, showing us that it is we see that and we understand that.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:48]:
We don't identify it with ourselves, but we let it roll on through. And then when that that experience of anger or sadness or even feeling unworthy passes, then we we're grateful because we're able to still be ourselves and still go about our business and understand that that was a blip when we felt that way, but that is not the entirety of who we are. And it's not setting up a whole camp in our brain

Malene Kai Bell  [00:23:15]:
of No.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:17]:
An unworthy land, you know, or No. It's right. Angry land. Yeah.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:23:21]:
The other thing I wanna add is that well, I wanna say 2 things. 1, the cloud and sky metaphor, we hear that a lot. It sounds so simple. I'm just gonna say it's not as simple as it sounds because it it literally takes they talk about cultivating it. Right? So it does take a capacity in the practice. You're likely not gonna sit down the first time you met you know, practice, let's say, mindfulness and be able to do that. For the 1st year that I meditated, my mind was always, and I just had to keep practicing when the thought came in or emotion came in thinking and just letting it go. Even now, you know, I still have to practice that.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:24:00]:
The other thing I wanna say is that sometimes we try to force it, and I think that's also what makes mindfulness really hard. You can't force it. You can't force awareness. You can't force the mind to show for months, you might be wrestling with that. Like, my god. I'm forcing it. Oh, no. I need to stop.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:24:17]:
Then I'm gonna just like, the mind is wild. It's wild. It's been like, oh my goodness. So so I'm only saying that because I feel like sometimes there's a misconception, and that misconception makes people just kinda give up. There's this misconception that, oh, when I sit down and meditate, like, I'm at the ocean and I should feel completely relaxed. Well, not really. Not when you're checking in with this thing that's doing its own thing for a while and it's you know, they say we have 75,000 thoughts a day or something like that. Wow.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:24:48]:
Hence, the reason why you you don't wanna even pretend like you can control it. Right? Just quit it. You know, it it just takes a practice and and some cultivation. The last thing I wanna say is, in addition to seeing it, and by it, I mean the thought or emotion, which you also learn to do let's say, if you're dealing with an emotion, again, like anger, you learn how to sit with it and be with it. You learn to sit with the discomfort of it. You learn to feel it, and, eventually, you might even learn to make friends with it. That's you know?

Lanée Blaise [00:25:20]:
So much healthier than trying to shove it down, stifle it, pretend like it doesn't exist, pretend like I don't have the anger, or let it consume you, but it's way healthier.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:32]:
Yeah. What about and Lanee and I were talking about this, I think, in our episode on unforgiveness because negative self talk has a lot to do with this sometimes positive things, like you talked about mirror work and talking to yourself. Mhmm. Affirmations, maybe listening to positive things, maybe listening to, scriptures, what God says about you, things like that. Can you put these things in? Or even like your book when you meditate on that, how much of that is gonna help you, the things that you're putting into your head?

Malene Kai Bell  [00:26:11]:
I think that's really important. I had a teacher once say, I can't say exactly how he said it, but it's kinda like, you're not gonna eat McDonald's. Right? If you eat McDonald's every day, let's just say for a month, you're gonna have some problems. Right? Because of what I'm just saying. Right? What you're digesting, what you're putting inside of your body is not nutrient rich. And so if we take that same idea and flip it to the things that we're consuming, putting into our mind, if we take that same idea and flip it to the things we're also saying, what we're ingesting mentally, physically. By physically, I just mean, like, I'm reaching over here because I'm sitting on a nice soft sofa with a really, like, I don't know, textured, comfortable material. Right? Yes.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:27:02]:
So all of those things matter, and I think tuning in with yourself to, I'm gonna say sense, because I don't wanna say figure out, but sense what is right for you. Meaning, for some people, scripture is that's gonna feed them. Yeah. For other people, it might be mantra. But what I also think you're getting to, and and I think this has to do with sacred self, is that your home, where you are, is a sacred space because you are sacred. And so wherever you can again, not everybody can have maybe a big fancy house or everything that they will want. But if you can make your room, right, whether it's your bedroom or even if it's a small corner of your room, just a place where you're feeding your soul, where you're feeding yourself, absolutely, that all matters. But not one without the other.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:28:00]:
Meaning, you're feeding the internal so you can handle the external. When can I just say sugar hits the fan? Yeah. Because sugar's gonna hit the fan. I don't like, at some point, there's gonna be a challenge, right? And that's okay. But all of those kind of things work together. So, yes. For me personally, in my home, I'm always playing, like, some sort of vibrational music just to saturate the space. Sometimes it's gospel.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:28:27]:
Sometimes it's Reiki healing music. Just, you know, I want the vibe in my place to feel peaceful. I don't do a lot of hip hop. It's just not what I want in my space, but that's me. Other people might feel differently, and that's okay. But certainly where you lay your head, how you wake up in the morning, that's important too.

Lanée Blaise [00:28:50]:
Oh, Melinda, you are just, you are lovable. You are just tremendous.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:28:55]:
I I'm gonna call you every day. We need to have this call every day. So we can bring up

Lanée Blaise [00:29:00]:
our our whole vibe every morning because I really do think that everything that you've said, it's just not things that we hear every day, unfortunately. And I think that you are spreading that message and that movement in a great way. Now what about this? If someone wants to purchase your book or reach out to you, is there a way on either social media or online or ways that they can do that?

Malene Kai Bell  [00:29:32]:
Sure. So, you know, I have a website for Lovable. It's you are lovable.com. You can order the book there. I also have a website for reclaiming the sacred self. It is reclaim the sacred self dot com. I am on Instagram. Yeah.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:29:46]:
It's okay. You can find me on Instagram, under my name, Melanie Kai. But I would say the best way to reach me would be through my website. In terms of Lovable, it's available almost everywhere. So you could order it through my website or you could get it on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, etcetera. Yeah. Please, you know, reach out. I love to talk with people with being the operative word.

Sandy Kovach  [00:30:10]:
And we will put all those links on our website and in the show notes as well because, I have a feeling some people are gonna wanna get in touch with you. Like Linae said, some of some very unique and thoughtful answers.

Lanée Blaise [00:30:23]:
Yeah. Lifts the spirits, lifts the mind. So you not only told us, be lovable, love yourself, but you told us how. And you even gave us the grace that if we do the mindfulness meditation, we do not need to get frustrated if it doesn't just hit all the switches on the first time around. And you reminded us too to make sure that we take the whole person, all of ourselves, not just the shiny, pretty parts of ourselves, but to accept and love the whole Lanee, the whole Malene, the whole Sandy, the whole if you're out there, Shannon, Deborah, whoever's listening I don't know. I'm making up people. But I'm like, you know, even even Thomas, you know, who might be listening. But, no, we really, really need to emphasize that as much as possible because, like you said, sometimes the positivity movement can just be, everything is great.

Lanée Blaise [00:31:22]:
You should feel great. Go feel great. That's right.

Malene Kai Bell  [00:31:25]:
And that's

Lanée Blaise [00:31:25]:
right. I don't feel great right now, and as opposed to it's okay that you don't feel great right now. You're in that teacup and that you will be made smooth with that gold to seep into the crevices with gold to to do the healing. So my brain is swimming in goodness right now. But yeah. Sandy or Malene, do you have anything else to say before we head on out?

Malene Kai Bell  [00:31:51]:
I'll just say thank you for having me on the podcast. This has been really great. I said in the beginning, I was nervous. And, yeah, just thanks for listening. Thanks for having me on. Really appreciate it.

Sandy Kovach  [00:32:01]:
Well, we really appreciate everything you said, and, know, our podcast is imagine yourself and just imagine yourself practicing a lot of the things that Malene has taught us, but remember too that it might take some time. But you gotta start and, reach out to her. If you have any questions, get her book, get her book for your, if you've got, little ones in your family, especially lovable.

Lanée Blaise [00:32:24]:
Reach out to us too on imagine yourself podcast.com. If you have something that you want to speak to that we mentioned today, something that hits you right in your beautiful big heart out there listening. But overall, thank you so much for listening and imagine yourself lovable, worthy, confident, fulfilled, and blessed.

Sandy Kovach  [00:32:47]:
So happy you could spend a little time with us. As Lanee mentioned, you can get in touch with us at imagine yourself podcast.com. Social media is a great option too, and we even have a way to text right through the app where you're listening. Check the show notes for all the information.