How to learn to finally love yourself, with Visa Shanmugam and Dr. William Seeds

Self-forgiveness — this has been one of the hardest but important strategies I have had to learn. We are good at holding grudges with us and others. I am a recovering perfectionist and nothing I ever did was good enough for me in the past. Now, I have learnt that perfectionism stems from lack of self-love and a terrifying fear of making mistakes. When you can forgive yourself easily, you are more willing to try new things, make more mistakes, because you recover from it quickly.
As a part of my series about “Connecting With Yourself To Live With Better Relationships” I had the pleasure to interview Visa Shanmugam. Visa is a mindset transformation coach and the founder of Becoming You LLC. She is an MBA graduate, with expertise in marketing and digital advertising at Fossil and Microsoft. In addition to her traditional accomplishments, she is most proud of healing herself from an auto immune disease that no-one believed could be done. Upon leaving her corporate career, she founded Sound Sleepers LLC (an infant sleep coaching company). She went on to build a network marketing business for three years, before launching Becoming You LLC, a mindset transformation coaching practice. In her practice, she helps women who feel unfulfilled and adrift, experience a soulFULL life through self-love and spirituality. As a virtual coach she helps women all over the world, from North America to Asia and Europe.
Thank you so much for joining us! I’d love to begin by asking you to give us the backstory as to what brought you to this specific career path.
Being a mindset transformation coach was the last thing I ever thought I would be doing with my life. It happened through a series of missteps, which on hindsight, weren’t missteps at all.
I created a picture-perfect life by checking off all the things that people say you need — a successful career, an MBA, a beautiful family and financial stability. But I found myself frustrated, resentful, checked out of life. I wanted “more” but I didn’t know what more was, how to get it or why I deserved it.
In my search for more, I quit my promising corporate career and started my own business. Building a business taught me so much and became a mirror for the relationship I had with myself.
I stumbled from one business to another, until I realized that the only way to achieve ‘success’ on the outside was by feeling successful on the inside. So, I began diving into self-development and personal growth. I started sharing everything I was learning with others for free because it felt like someone had finally turned on the light in the middle of all the confusion, emotional turbulence, lack of connection and unhappiness I had been feeling.
Helping others through coaching lit me up and made me feel alive like nothing else had done before. I launched Becoming You as my legacy to help other women stop feeling like a powerless spectator of their life and become a powerful creator of their future.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you hope that they might help people along their path to self-understanding or a better sense of wellbeing in their relationships?
Yes, in fact I am. I recently launched a 12-week program called Unstoppable to help women embark on a journey of self-discovery so they can uncover their potential, ignite their internal power, shift their mindset and become the unstoppable forces that they inherently are.
I am also working on collaborating with other women in the industry that I admire and who inspire me, to put on a two day live retreat that offers deep transformation for women that are struggling with making sense of life and how they fit into the bigger picture.
I also have a book launch and speaking engagement coming up for Her Global Voice, an anthology designed to help women rise through powerful stories of others who have done the same.
Do you have a personal story that you can share with our readers about your struggles or successes along your journey of self-understanding and self-love? Was there ever a tipping point that triggered a change regarding your feelings of self-acceptance?
Two major things come to mind.
First was when I was diagnosed with an auto immune disease at 23. It had a major impact on the quality of my life and my emotional well-being. After living with it and managing the pain for 11 years, I woke up one day and decided, unequivocally, that there simply had to be another solution, because I couldn’t fathom living this way for the rest of my life.
So, I went looking for answers and simply trusted there was one. Against my own better judgement, I personally spent money on a course of treatment that had no guarantees. Within 6 months of that decision, I was a new woman.
It was the first time in my life that I truly understood the power of self-trust, following your intuition and being your biggest cheerleader, despite it appearing illogical and irrational.
The second instance was when I was struggling in one of my business ventures. I was working hard, doing all the right things, spinning my wheels, but my business wasn’t reflecting any of that in results. A business coach, I hired, pointed out a painful fact to me, which was I had so much self-loathing and self-judgement. There was no compassion, kindness or grace that I extended to myself.
When I started understanding the toxic relationship to myself, and started working on it, I immediately started seeing the results in my business change. It was mind blowing to me that an internal shift, had a direct correlation to external results.
According to a recent study cited in Cosmopolitan, in the US, only about 28 percent of men and 26 percent of women are “very satisfied with their appearance.” Could you talk about what some of the causes might be, as well as the consequences?
I was one of the 74% of women who wasn’t satisfied with my appearance until recently. Though people told me I was beautiful, I never believed it or trusted the compliment.
Growing up I was teased for my dark skin, buck teeth, my religion etc. So, no matter how many compliments I got as an adult, the inner child in me never heard it. I just always focused on what wasn’t perfect.
For all of us, what we hear as children is imprinted in our cells. Childhood experiences tell us that we aren’t enough — smart enough, beautiful enough, hard working enough, confident enough.
We aren’t taught how to love ourselves and know that we are perfect in our imperfection. The secret to being satisfied with our appearance is to know that we are perfect and more than enough just the way we are.
As cheesy as it might sound to truly understand and “love yourself,” can you share with our readers a few reasons why it’s so important?
If we can’t love ourselves, then how can we expect others to love us the way we want to be loved?
Our capacity to love and be loved can only be as deep as the capacity we have to love ourselves. It is impossible to truly receive someone else’s love, adoration and respect, if we constantly feel like we don’t deserve it.
Loving yourself goes beyond shopping and spa days. It is about having tough conversations with those that don’t treat us well, setting boundaries, forgiving ourselves for past mistakes, being kindest to ourselves and always putting our own happiness as the most important priority on our list.
When we can get to this state, we will fight fiercely for our well-being and it has an unfathomable, but positive ripple effect on our children, community and our planet.
In a way, learning to love yourself unconditionally, is required for the well being of our planet and humanity.
Why do you think people stay in mediocre relationships? What advice would you give to our readers regarding this?
I think people stay in mediocre relationships or maintain mediocrity in relationships (without actively working on improving it) because on some level they believe this is what they deserve, or assume they aren’t going to find anything better.
Leaving a relationship requires you to trust that something better is available for you and that you are worthy of the love you desire. If the self-trust, self-worth, self-belief is lacking then we tell ourselves fear based stories that nothing better is available for us.
If you are in a relationship that underwhelms you right now, it’s important to decide if you want to work on improving it or end it. That decision needs to happen first. Then act. What needs to change in the relationship? What part do you play in contributing to the challenges? Finger pointing, blaming and expecting the other person to change is not the solution.
Changing yourself is the only solution. But it doesn’t mean that you allow yourself to be disrespected or taken advantage of. It means you begin teaching your partner how you expect to be treated, loved and spoken to.
But this work can only happen when you start learning how to love yourself and put your well being above all else.
When I talk about self-love and understanding I don’t necessarily mean blindly loving and accepting ourselves the way we are. Many times self-understanding requires us to reflect and ask ourselves the tough questions, to realize perhaps where we need to make changes in ourselves to be better not only for ourselves but our relationships. What are some of those tough questions that will cut through the safe space of comfort we like to maintain, that our readers might want to ask themselves? Can you share an example of a time that you had to reflect and realize how you needed to make changes?
Some painful but eye-opening questions to ask are:
- What would I like my relationship to look like?
- How am I contributing to this situation?
- Am I communicating my needs clearly and often?
- Am I reacting to situations or am I responding?
- What old wounds and stories do I need to heal from past relationships?
When I first started out as a business owner, I had to borrow from personal savings that my husband and I had built up. I felt an immense amount of guilt about this. So even though it was MY business, I would constantly turn to him to ask for permission (instead of advice) on making investments in my business. When we didn’t see eye to eye, I would feel so much anger, resentment and bitterness towards him. Why couldn’t he understand how badly I wanted to succeed? Why couldn’t he understand that I needed this?
I was putting the burden of decision on him, when I didn’t have any right to place that responsibility on him. When I woke up to that fact, we had an honest conversation where I shared boundaries I needed him to respect when it came to running my business and I had to give him assurances so that he had peace of mind.
I stopped asking for permission and instead realized that I needed to give myself permission to take bold steps and trust myself.
So many don’t really know how to be alone or are afraid of it. How important is it for us to have, and practice, that capacity to truly be with ourselves and be alone (literally or metaphorically)?
I think fear of being alone is what drives a lot of us to settle for relationships that aren’t ideal. Solitude, silence, introspection, and stillness are some of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves.
In fact, I just got back from a two-day silent meditation retreat and the number of people that told me how they could never do that was mind blowing. People are terrified of the monsters that might come out if they become still. They don’t want to face some of the hard truths. We are ‘doing’ machines, so that we can avoid doing the one thing that we were meant to do, which is just ‘being’.
But if we keep running from ourselves, we will never be happy. Happiness and fulfillment come from getting to know all parts of you (the good, the bad and the ugly) and learning to embrace every single aspect, including the imperfections.
That can only happen with silence, alone time and stillness.
How does achieving a certain level of self-understanding and self-love then affect your ability to connect with and deepen your relationships with others?
My favorite part of my own self love journey has been getting totally comfortable with my perceived weaknesses, mistakes, and weird quirks.
When I started owning every piece of me, I was able to allow others in my life to love every piece of me. When we aren’t happy in our own skin, we tend to present a different version of our self to the world, a version which we think will be more acceptable.
And so, the people we build relationships with, fall in love with that edited version, not the real version, which is what makes people feel so isolated in relationships. I have experienced this in my own life, early on in my marriage.
The more I rejected myself, the more reasons I would find to pick fights with my husband. How could he love someone like me? I was doing this sub consciously and totally self-sabotaging the relationship. But after 16 years of marriage, as I fall deeper in love with myself, so does my husband.
In your experience, what should a) individuals and b) society, do to help people better understand themselves and accept themselves?
Individuals need to understand that the happiness, freedom and inner peace they are desperately looking for, by achieving and doing, is already available to them, if they just begin to learn to accept themselves exactly as they are, in this moment. There is nothing more freeing than saying “Here I am world. Love me as I am”.
Every mistake or unforgivable thing that they punish themselves for on repeat, is the very thing that’s keeping them stuck from what they want in life. This constant judgement and criticism erode our mental well-being. If you think about it, we have a bully that lives in our head 24/7, which is so detrimental to our growth and happiness.
As for society, I think we need to understand that prioritizing self-love practices is not selfish, but essential. We need to stop glorifying hustling and working until you burn out. Instead, we need to celebrate the people that admit they are taking a step back to work on their mental well-being. We need to champion the people that are not afraid to admit they are working on the most relationship in their life, which is the one they have with themselves.
We need people to boast about how slow their weekend was, because they were focused on me-time, as opposed to how busy they were.
Most of all, we need everyone to understand that time alone in silence is not something to fear, but cherished.
What are 5 strategies that you implement to maintain your connection with and love for yourself, that our readers might learn from? Could you please give a story or example for each?
1. Meditation — It has transformed my life. It slows down my thoughts and helps me become aware of patterns that aren’t serving my highest good. It calms me down when my inner thoughts are on a downward spiral. I have seen things about my future in mediations.
About a year ago, I was on a retreat and we were in a deep meditation, where I saw myself on stage, speaking to women, inspiring them with my story. At that time, I had no intention of speaking publicly. Within a year that exact vision came true.
2. Journaling — I resisted journaling at first because I didn’t think I had anything to write about. But journaling is simply writing out a channeled stream of thought, without judgement. It’s a powerful way to empty the mind of the endless chatter.
Journaling has helped me uncover many truths and reframe negative beliefs. I once had a coach ask me to write 100 things I love about myself. It seemed impossible in the beginning but once I started, more and more came to mind. Now, I look through that list or write an updated one and it instantly reminds me that I am worth loving.
3. Self-forgiveness — this has been one of the hardest but important strategies I have had to learn. We are good at holding grudges with us and others. I am a recovering perfectionist and nothing I ever did was good enough for me in the past. Now, I have learnt that perfectionism stems from lack of self-love and a terrifying fear of making mistakes.
When you can forgive yourself easily, you are more willing to try new things, make more mistakes, because you recover from it quickly.
4. Say goodbye to relationships that don’t serve you — one area of my life that I continue to work on is building real and meaningful friendships with other women, that aren’t based on gossip or drama.
Growing up, I was always the new kid in school or the different one. My fear-based story was “I don’t belong”. This meant that I was desperate to find a click of women that would welcome me into their fold. What ended up happening was that I felt excluded, always on the outside and treated as an afterthought. There came a point, where I had to break up with a friend because of how she treated me. That was heart breaking but liberating, because I realized I was going to be OK. I continue to work on this area, but I am more secure and happy with the girlfriends I now have, who are inspiring and championing each other.
5. Learn to say NO — Saying yes because you feel obligated or you don’t want to upset someone, means that you are saying no to you. Saying no doesn’t make you a bad person or selfish. It means that you are making an intentional choice to direct your energy towards things that make you feel good.
Growing up in Indian culture, I learnt that it was important to put others’ needs ahead of your own, in order to show others how much you cared. It was hard to change this ‘norm’ in my life, but I no longer say yes to things to please others; even my parents (which was difficult). I love my parents and I want to please them and make them proud, but recently, I have learnt to honor what’s important to me, above pleasing them.
What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources for self-psychology, intimacy, or relationships? What do you love about each one and how does it resonate with you?
I am a huge fan of Gabrielle Bernstein and all her books, but the one that was pivotal in my life was The Universe Has Your Back. It really helped me understand how my own thoughts directly impacting the life I was creating and what I could change so that I felt supported in life, instead of fighting it.
Rachel Hollis’ book, Girl, Wash Your Face is a great inspirational read on how to push through our limitations and fall in love with our imperfect self, so that we can stop making excuses for not showing up.
Finally, You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay — everyone MUST read this book, if you want to know how to physically heal your life through loving yourself. She has a powerful exercise in the book called Mirror Work and it’s transformational!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? Maybe we’ll inspire our readers to start it…
My movement would be to help people stop living on auto pilot. My mission is to stop people be a powerless spectator of their life and realize that they are the powerful creators of their future. For that to happen, they need to start living with intention, curating their life as though it’s a piece of art or a living masterpiece.
A masterpiece begins to take shape when we design everything we do around joy. Joy is my compass today. If it doesn’t make me feel good in the moment, or the result doesn’t align with the future I am trying to create, then I simply say NO!
This is how you start becoming a creator of your future, instead of simply living my default and believing that you are powerless.
We have a lot more power than we realize.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote” that you use to guide yourself by? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life and how our readers might learn to live by it in theirs?
This quote isn’t famous (yet), because it’s my own…. “You cannot get to the future version of you by talking smack about yourself today”.
I was so good at tearing myself apart for my mistakes, lack of success, lack of clarity, lack of inner strength, physical appearance, parenting skills. You name it, I chose to focus on what wasn’t great about me.
What I realized in my own journey was that I cannot continue to hate myself while I was building a version of me that was worth loving.
Learning to love yourself is the hardest journey you will ever embark on, but it is THE journey we were meant to embark on, when we were created. This is our life’s purpose.
Thank you so much for your time and for your inspiring insights!

