Jacq Gould of Your Inner Babe On How To Learn To Finally Love Yourself

Self-Appreciation. It may sound simple, but we can go weeks without acknowledging ourselves unless we make an active effort to do so. We get so used to extending acknowledgement and appreciation to other people in our lives, but we hardly ever turn it onto ourselves. Find one thing you appreciate about yourself each day, just one, and either write it down in your journal, in the notes app on your phone, or record it in a voice note to yourself. This appreciation must be rooted in self, rooted in you. Now this may take longer for you to identify initially and that’s okay, don’t judge it. A little acknowledgement goes a long way.

As a part of our series about “How To Learn To Finally Love Yourself” we had the pleasure to interview Jacq Gould.

Jacq Gould is the founder of Your Inner Babe™, a platform she launched in 2017 to empower individuals to confront their inner struggles and reclaim their personal power. With a passion for inspiring self-connection and self-worth, Jacq offers a range of services including group coaching, 1:1 support, and breathwork. Having overcome her own self-doubt, she is dedicated to helping others transform their mindset and embrace their true potential.

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. 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?

Your Inner Babe is always evolving and I’m constantly coming up with ways to bridge the gap I believe exists in the mental wellness space. Always trying to come up with other accessible ways for people to heal their relationships with themselves or potentially even cultivate one for the very first time. In 2023 we launched in person retreats, in an effort to reach more people with the YIB method at a time. We now run 2–3 retreats per year, with a minimum of 40 attendees, alongside our signature 8-week program and our pop-up series workshops in various cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. We have a very exciting new initiative underway, that I can’t share all the details about just yet, but all I will say is a tour has been a dream of mine for quite some time now. So, expect to see YIB in a city near you in 2025!

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?

I started YIB in 2017 after battling with myself all throughout my younger years. I had an eating disorder, major lack of self-worth and was in a very toxic relationship — with myself. After years of therapy and getting help on the clinical side, I realized that this “gap” I was personally experiencing in the mental wellness space wasn’t going to be filled by anything in a text book or by a PHD or MD. If someone or something was going to bridge that gap and start shifting people’s focus to the most overlooked side of their healing, it was going to be me.

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?

To me, the answer is simple: we’re disconnected from ourselves. When I see people struggling with self-confidence in their appearance, it seems the overtly common first thought and immediate effort is to change in some way, in hopes of being seen, chosen or validated by someone else or something else. However, changing for someone and growing with someone are two very different things. When you grow with someone you like who you’re becoming, when you change yourself in any way for someone, you lose who you are. Whether it’s strictly focusing on eating differently or working out more, the missing piece is often disregarding how unproductive the narrative is that replays in their minds, day in and day out. Self-confidence at the end of the day, has nothing to do with the external, in order to sustain it, you must focus on the internal.

Ultimately, this is what I would call a “symptom of disconnection.” When we’re disconnected from ourselves, we have trouble really listening to what we actually want or need. When you rebuild your relationship with yourself, you inevitably cultivate deeper self-love, self-worth, and self-confidence, but it’s all rooted in trust. Trust in who you are and trust you’ll actually BE who you are.

To some, the concept of learning to truly understand and “love yourself,” may seem like a cheesy or trite concept. But it is not. Can you share with our readers a few reasons why learning to love yourself it’s truly so important?

Love is one of the most desired feelings in human nature. To be loved. Feel loved. To love. As humans, the most important relationship in our lives, whether we choose to focus on it all the time or not, is with ourselves. When we think of love, we often associate it to our relationships with others, romantic, family, friends, etc., but none of those relationships will sustain you in the way your love for yourself will. Learning to truly love who you are is important for so many reasons, but most importantly, self-love lays the foundation of your life. The state and quality of everything, and I mean everything, is a direct reflection of what you truly believe you deserve and the quality of the relationship you have with yourself.

Lastly, it makes room for true, life-changing growth. It builds resilience, which cultivates a deeper sense of self-trust and in my opinion, there is no greater gift we can give to ourselves than the gift of unshakable self-trust.

Why do you think people stay in mediocre relationships? What advice would you give to our readers regarding this?

We see this often — choosing comfort over growth. I get it, it’s easier to stay in something that feels comfortable, rather than disrupt your life and take a risk. Taking risk requires trust and many people don’t access that unshakable level of self-trust unless they make the choice to do so or are forced to. The human brain will never intentionally choose discomfort. We’re not wired that way. We will always, always gravitate towards what’s familiar unless we actively choose something different. There’s this false sense of safety in what’s familiar, and often, the fear of the unknown, whether it’s being alone or starting over, feels far more daunting than admitting you’re settling. But, I always encourage people to lean into fear, because I deeply believe that it is never coming up to hurt you, it’s always coming up to guide you towards more.

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?

True self-acceptance comes with disruption. Disruption of our current thoughts, behaviors, and patterns. By truly looking within, we reveal aspects of ourselves that allow us to take accountability. I always say it pays to approach your life with no judgment, only curiosity. Choosing to look deeper and ask yourself questions you’d so quickly ask others with loving curiosity.

I love prompting people to ask themselves what they want to actually want in the next five years. Are the choices you make every day going to allow you to create that reality for yourself? How about the way that you speak to yourself about yourself? Are you kind? Supportive? Is the way you treat yourself going to allow you to see clearly enough to get to where you dream (and deserve) to get to? Are there patterns and behaviors you are knowingly repeating? What if you chose to let go and disrupt those patterns? What if you finally decided to choose something different?

I recently had to get incredibly honest with myself about certain relationships in my life. I found myself staying in these relationships far past their expiration date, because they provided a false sense of safety for me, even though in reality they were completely robbing me of my own energy.

I made the decision, a year ago now, to heal some deep core wounds, to grow from them and to never look back. Ones I knew wouldn’t be easy to move through, but it was like this switch flipped inside of me one day and on that day, it became nonnegotiable. On that day, I suddenly realized I mattered way more than I was showing myself I did.

In these last 12 months, I chose myself and I’ve continued to make the choice over and over and over again. In the way I speak to myself, the way I take care of myself, of course. But most importantly, I stopped shrinking myself in any capacity to make others feel more comfortable. I stopped shrinking myself for others who were refusing to take ownership and grow.

One big thing I learned this last year was that you give off a very different energy when your confidence is fueled by self-trust and a belief in yourself versus validation from others. But what I also learned was that I hadn’t totally reached that depth of belief in myself and I definitely didn’t trust myself the way I thought I had, because I had never actually chosen myself unapologetically, without guilt.

Now I have and my life looks completely different.

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)?

No matter how much self-love and acceptance you’ve cultivated, sitting with yourself can be uncomfortable. It’s like exercising a muscle that requires practice and repetition. It all goes back to being disconnected from yourself. If you don’t intentionally make time for self-care through practices like journaling, meditation, auditing the narrative in your mind, etc., you’ll never want to feel your feelings. You’ll want to keep running from the discomfort. But, if you’re willing to walk through the fire and surrender to uncertainty, you’ll eventually experience all of the beauty that’s waiting for you on the other side. If you choose to stop running from hard things, those hard things will build the foundation for all of the good things to grow. I believe it’s the most important thing we can do for ourselves. The way you show up for yourself can change your entire outlook. Growth will always live in the in between, there’s no way to change that. It’s just whether or not you choose to lean in.

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?

I work with people of all ages on cultivating a healthy and clear relationship with themselves, because that one single relationship shapes your entire reality. From the second we’re born, we’re taught how to be in relationships with other people — from our parents, to siblings, extended family, friends, teachers, co-workers — the list goes on. We’re taught how to navigate all of those relationships from inception; but when it comes to the one we have with ourselves, we’re just expected to have this innate inner knowing. Well, we don’t, and many people move through life assuming there is something fundamentally wrong or settling for way less than they deserve.

Relationship is a skill and just like we have to be taught how to exercise that skill with others, we must be taught the same skill for our own relationship. I give people the proper system, extra support and accountability that they need in order to one day become their own self-connection specialist and to heal their relationship with themselves. I empower them through the lens of their own story, creating the space for them to see just how much control they actually have over their day-to-day lives. Once you start to play an active role in the narrative, you’re telling yourself about yourself, your entire world changes.

In your experience, what should a) individuals and b) society, do to help people better understand themselves and accept themselves?

Get curious, ask the harder questions, and be incredibly honest. The number one thing we can do for ourselves and others is make the choice to choose ourselves, unapologetically, without guilt. It may not always feel like we have a say in what’s happening around us, but we’ll always have that choice.

Connection requires intimacy and intimacy is about being aware of your own feelings, caring about those feelings, and expressing them. In order to make any change or shift, we have to accept the reality of what has already happened.

We crave other’s to be real, honest and vulnerable with us. Expressive. But at the same time, we deem certain parts of ourselves as wrong and avoid them at all costs. We judge ourselves and we hide.

However, we can only attract the right people and the right opportunities into our lives when we aren’t hiding any part of who we are. If we mask up, we’re only ever attracting based on the things we’ve deemed “acceptable” about ourselves. The parts of us we don’t criticize and judge. We must move through the discomfort of showing up as our whole selves, because through that discomfort is where self-trust is born.

Here is the main question of our discussion. 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. First and foremost, audit the way you’re speaking to yourself. Start to pay attention to the words you use to yourself, about yourself, because that narrative is shaping your current reality. Just simply dialing up the awareness and bringing your attention to everything that’s “unproductive,” allows you an opportunity to take the power back by rewriting the narrative in the moment.
2. Once you’ve begun to audit the way you speak to yourself about yourself, implement what I love to call a “disruptor.” I personally use “drop it,” but you can use whatever will disrupt the narrative in the moment (clients of mine also like “shhh” or “enough”). Once you’ve disrupted it, you’ll replace what was unproductive with something more productive (a good example of this would be: “I’m so stupid.” To yourself you’d say drop it, then replace that thought with something like, “I love my genuine heart.”) Our minds are incredibly adaptable, so focusing your attention on the words that you’re using in a deliberate way will help break the negative loops and rewire your brain’s narrative.
3. Implement a journaling practice of some kind. Create the space for you to have a dialogue with yourself, somewhere that feels safe to do so. If you want to take a pen to paper, that’s amazing, but if it intimidates you to do that, you can open the voice notes app on your phone and record yourself speaking while walking or sitting in a quiet room. Whatever it takes to get what’s on your mind out and into your heart.
4. Practice gratitude and acknowledge “What’s Going Well?” We are programmed to focus on what’s not going well. We maximize on everything in our lives that we think we haven’t done “yet,” fixating on all the ways we think we’re not enough, while simultaneously minimizing all that we’ve accomplished and the beauty of who we uniquely are. What you focus on grows, and if you actively choose to focus on the little things all around you, the more beauty you will not only see, but you’ll also feel within you. Not every day is a good day, but there is good in every day. You have the power to see yourself and your life through that lens if you choose to.
5. Self-Appreciation. It may sound simple, but we can go weeks without acknowledging ourselves unless we make an active effort to do so. We get so used to extending acknowledgement and appreciation to other people in our lives, but we hardly ever turn it onto ourselves. Find one thing you appreciate about yourself each day, just one, and either write it down in your journal, in the notes app on your phone, or record it in a voice note to yourself. This appreciation must be rooted in self, rooted in you. Now this may take longer for you to identify initially and that’s okay, don’t judge it. A little acknowledgement goes a long way.

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…

People prioritizing their relationships to themselves. Learning the skill of what it means to be in that relationship and making the choice every single day to put the health of it above all else. Our relationship with ourselves is the literal foundation for every single other aspect of our lives. If everyone healed their relationship with themselves, our world would be a very different place

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?

My Grammy was my person. She was the reason I took the leap into starting YIB back in 2017 and the constant push I needed in the beginning of this journey to keep believing in my purpose. Growing up, she was my greatest confidant and supporter. I now refer to myself as a “recovering perfectionist,” but when I was younger that specific pattern really booted me into the passenger seat of my life and I would fixate on everything needing to be perfect. At the root of it all, was this deep feeling that I wasn’t enough. One day when self-doubt’s voice was particularly loud in my mind, she looked at me and said, “you will never have to be perfect to inspire others, stop putting energy there, it’s a huge waste of your time and purpose. In fact, if you were perfect, you’d be doing everyone a huge disservice, because perfection doesn’t exist. Instead, own your imperfections and allow others the chance to be inspired by how deeply you accept yourself for who you truly are.”

We’ll never be perfect, because perfection doesn’t exist. Back then, all I needed to hear were those exact words to basically force me to wake up and stop holding myself and everything else that had to do with me up against this measuring stick that wasn’t even real. Now, I get asked all the time by other people, “when will it finally happen? When will I finally feel like I’m enough?” and I think the answer is very simple…

When YOU choose to also accept that there’s literally no real measuring stick. That it’s all completely made up.

The feeling of “enoughness” isn’t and will ever be about getting to the point where you feel like you’re at your best. No, that feeling of enoughness comes when you finally allow yourself to feel in this very moment, that it’s already okay to be you.

Thank you so much for your time and for your inspiring insights!