Coffee Chats With Dr. D-The Cost Of Love

Hello, Cadre. It's me, Dr. D. And guess what? Let me show you something. I don't have any coffee today. Let me tell you why. So I have a Keurig, and I have a Nespresso machine in my office. And my Nespresso machine works wonderful. I love it. If you all know anybody who works there, tell them to call me, okay? Because I want to connect with them. But my Keurig machine that I have in my direct office, which is right back here, if y' all want to see, it's right there. That's where I do my therapy sessions.

And it's not putting out the water that I need to make my coffee. And it's really annoying. And I've tried everything. I've refilled the water tank. I tried cleaning the. The little nozzle. It's just not coming out. And maybe I just need to buy a new one. Or maybe this is a sign that I just need to stick with Nespresso. I don't know. Hey, Speak Wonder. So I don't know, y'. All. Do you have a preference? If you are a coffee lover, let me know. Do you prefer Nespresso machines or do you prefer Keurigs?

And tell me why. I prefer Nespresso because I like how it froths the coffee for me, because with the Keurig, I have to use my frother, and it's just more work. And the frothing on Nespresso is just. It's perfection. But, yeah, I'm. I'm talking to y' all today for my coffee chat with no coffee, because Keurig is messing up. So that's besides the point. But let's get into our topic for the day. You like the Keurig? Speak Wonder. Okay, so we are going to be talking about the cost of. Of love. And when I was thinking about this topic, I.

I really had to dig deep into my experience and dig deep into the things that I've heard clients share and what I've observed about other people that I know in my life. And I just want to start out with this basic question, but I really want you to think about your experience with love, and I want you to define it. What is love? And I think that's such a hard question to answer for some people. So if you could just drop it in the chat for me. What is love? And as you're thinking of your definition of love, think about, where does that definition come from?

So as I think about my own knowledge of love, the basis of my knowledge comes from Scripture. And if you read the Bible, there's scripture that talks about. I see that autocorrecting there. It talks about love is right in First Corinthians, chapter 13. Love is all of these things. And it lists. Love is patient, love is kind, love does not boast, love does not envy. Right? Read it for yourself. I'm not going to read it. I'm not going to tell you all of it. But it's some good nuggets in there. But I also think about, you know, with my faith, God is love.

And that's a deeper connection there. And we're not going to go there today. But just to let you know, this is where I'm coming from. God is love. And it shows us in Scripture how to love and what love is. So what is your definition of love? And I will add that love is not just an emotion. We can feel love from others, but that feeling of love comes from action that people take. So love is action. Love shows up with the actions that we take. So speak wonder. You're saying love is a connection, a receiving of affection and care.

I like that. It is definitely a connection. And I think. Think about the times where you've experienced love or you tried to show love. Let me rephrase that. When you've tried to show love to others where they don't accept it and there is no connection, you're trying so hard to give it, right? And I think sometimes. Hi, Luke. Sometimes that is the cost of love. We can give and give and give, give so much love. And sometimes it's not received. It's not received, it's rejected. Sometimes it's not received in the way that we intended for it to be received.

And that hurts us. And tell me, I don't know if it hurts you, but it hurts me sometimes when I'm trying to show someone love and it's not accepted, right? So then I'm like, well, what's the point? Right? And so I had a couple of questions I want to ask you all today. So other than what is love? What's your definition of. That's where we're starting. But I want you to consider, have you ever lost something or someone in the name of love? So have you lost relationships because you love someone else?

Have you lost opportunity to be loved because you love the wrong person? Have you lost family relationships because the person you chose to love stripped you away from those people that love you? Have you lost opportunities in life, whether it's a job or children or maybe opportunities to Travel just to see your own dreams fulfilled in the name of love. And that hurts sometimes when we admit that that's the truth for us, that we lost things that were important to us and other connections in the name of loving someone else.

And I always question, and this is hard to really comprehend, I think, is how do we love ourselves? So is the cost of loving someone else sometimes not loving ourselves? And what does that mean to love ourselves? And if you have a definition of that, drop that in the chat for me. What does it mean to love yourself? I think about that and I think about choices. Loving myself is being patient with myself, being kind to myself, telling my, like, encouraging myself when I'm hurting, giving myself hope when things don't look so good in life, right?

Choosing to take care of me so I can love someone else. That's loving myself. And we have to love ourselves first before we can love others. Because what happens, this is the cost of love here, right? When we don't love ourselves first, we are not in spaces where we can love someone else. There's always going to be a gap there. And if you're honest, I'll be honest. I've done this. I've been here. When we are trying to love someone else, when we don't love ourselves first, the gap is filled with so many questions and confusion in the relationship because you're seeking the love that you need for yourself in that person.

And sometimes that person can't do it because they're not supposed to. We have to love ourselves first. And I always wonder too, I'm going deep with y' all today, just being real and raw with you. How. How is it someone else's responsibility to love us when we don't love ourselves? Why do we put that responsibility on other people? Two of us. If you have an answer for me, share it with me. And I think back to. I'll go back, way back to childhood, right? When we're kids, we have to rely on adults in our lives to take care of us.

And this is the beginning of attachment. When we're relying on our parents, our caregivers, our family, our first connections, they are supposed to show us love, that that is their responsibility at that age. But at what point does it become our responsibility to love ourselves and not make it the responsibility of others to love us? Speak, wonder. You said one way of loving yourself is protecting yourself from toxic relationships. I love that. Yes. The protecting comes from knowing how to love yourself.

I think loving yourself is protection. Self protection. Junk food junkie. The person you should have loved the most is the one looking back at you in the mirror. Ooh, that's deep. That's deep. So I'm going to add to that because I love this concept of we are each other's mirrors. And so whoever you choose to have in your life is your mirror. And so if you can look at that person and they're not loving themselves, how are they loving you? And vice versa. Okay, I love that. Thank you. All right, I'm gonna move on here.

My next question for you is, have you ever done something to prove your love for someone? And this. This might be something that you experience in, like, your teen relationships or, like, early 20s, right? Where someone might even ask you or tell you, well, if you love me, you'll do this. If you love me, you'll go do this thing. And that is a big red flag. We may not have known that when we were younger, but if you. If you're in that space, let me tell you, this is a red flag, okay? If someone is testing your love for them by encouraging you to do something that goes against your values, that goes against your.

Your principles just to prove your love for them, there's nothing you can do to prove your love for someone. Okay? But I want you to consider. Have you done something to prove your love, such as staying silent when you should have spoken up? So sometimes we. This is a cost of love here. We may love someone so much that there are things that we want to say because it's something that maybe it's a boundary we need to put up. But instead of speaking the boundary or instead of speaking about what hurts us, we choose to act out of love and not say it to that person because we believe it's going to hurt them.

So we're trying to protect their feelings by not telling the truth or not being honest or authentic with them. And that's the cost of love. But it's not love. Speak. Wonder you feel like you're in therapy. I have that effect on people. Sorry, yes. Have you been silent because you believe that staying silent is showing love to someone? I've done it. I'm not gonna lie. I've done it. And the cost of doing that is I didn't love myself. I thought I had so much love for that other person that I refused to look in the mirror and love myself.

Because if I would have said what I needed to say, I would have avoided a toxic relationship. I would have avoided arguments or being ignored in a relationship. I would have avoided wasted time with the Person that I knew we know deep down in our hearts when we're not being loved, when I knew that that person was not for me. And I stayed in because I was trying to prove my love to them. That's the cost of love. The cost of love sometimes is we stay in relationships too long that are not healthy for us, that are not the right relationships for us.

And in doing so, we lose a piece of ourselves. We lose ourselves, and the people that really do love us lose us, too. That's the cost of love sometimes. All right, junk food junkie, you got Speak Wonder. Took the words right out of your mouth. I love that you guys are loving this today. This is. It's such a heavy topic, I think, and it's something that people are not honest about is what we lose when we say that we're loving someone. And so your challenge today and forever is to choose to love yourself.

You have to love yourself first. And what does that look like? It looks like choosing you. It looks like saying yes when sometimes you want to say no. It looks like saying no to others so you can say yes to yourself. It looks like going to therapy. It looks like, you know, deciding the cost of sacrificing for someone else just to prove yourself. You don't have to prove yourself. You don't have to prove your love. If you're in that space where you feel like you need to prove your love to someone, that might not be the healthiest connection for you.

So I'll encourage you to reevaluate that. So. All right. I hope y' all got something from this. It looks like you did. And for those of you watching the replay, drop your. Your notes in there, too. What is love? What is your definition of love? And where is that. That foundation where you get that definition and challenge yourself to love yourself this week? Yes. Choosing the best coffee maker. You know what? I might actually run to Target real quick and get me a new one, because this. Keurig, it's time to go.

But. All right, y', all, here's my empty cup. I poured it out for you. This is my heart right here. But I hope you guys have a wonderful week. And next week is new month, and so we're going to have some new topics. If there's anything that you would like me to talk about for next month, drop that in the chat as well, and I will see you all there. All right, bye.