The Self-Vows Journey: Loving Yourself First with Dr. Michelle Hannah

What if the promises we make to others should first be made to ourselves? Dr. Michelle Hannah joins us to reveal her groundbreaking "Self-Vows" concept that's transforming how people relate to themselves and others.

Drawing from traditional marriage vows, Dr. Michelle challenges us to examine whether we truly cherish ourselves as our most prized possession. "When you cherish something, you spend time with it, create boundaries around it, and guard it because it's so special to you," she explains. Her approach invites us to date ourselves intentionally—learning what brings us joy and what sets our soul on fire—before expecting romantic partners to fulfill these needs.

The conversation takes a powerful turn when Dr. Michelle shares her recent cancer diagnosis, which came just weeks after writing her eighth book, "Access Denied, Access Granted." In a remarkable twist of timing, this book became her blueprint for navigating a health crisis she hadn't anticipated. "I'm thankful for the hardest lessons because they're my greatest teachers," she shares vulnerably. "This experience is grooming me to a level of resilience I didn't know was possible."

Perhaps most striking is her candid admission about rest. Despite others consistently telling her to rest, Dr. Michelle confesses, "I don't know how to rest, not really." She distinguishes between simply sleeping and the deeper restoration our spirits crave—a lesson many high-achievers need to hear.

The episode concludes with Dr. Michelle's most impactful guidance: "Forgive quick and love harder." She clarifies that forgiveness doesn't always mean reconciliation, but rather freeing yourself while maintaining necessary boundaries. This philosophy of becoming love, rather than merely seeking it, transforms how we approach every relationship in our lives.

Ready to revolutionize your relationship with yourself? Connect with Dr. Michelle through her Self-Vows retreats, coaching programs, and books to begin your journey toward authentic self-commitment.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Introduction
• 1:28 The Self-Vows Concept Explained
• 8:32 Cherishing Yourself: Dating You
• 16:12 Diagnosis and Life-Changing Journey
• 21:44 Finding Gratitude in Hard Lessons
• 24:57 Learning to Truly Rest
• 27:59 Connect and Final Wisdom

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yeah, let's go. Hello and welcome back to the next episode of Overcome Yourself, the podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole and I'm so excited to be here today with Dr Michelle, and Dr Michelle has an incredible story. She is an author and she had to overcome herself as soon as her book came out. So, dr Michelle, please take it away and tell us a little bit about your story, about who you are and who you help.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Okay, so I actually am the originator of the self-vows, the self-vows concept, the self-vows retreat, the self-vows program, and so recently, in November, recently, in November, last November I went to Utah and I wrote another book in three days. So everybody writes differently, but in all the books that I have written so this is the eighth book there are two that just were so spiritually connected, and usually when it's spiritually connected it just really just kind of, it almost just feels like it just falls, you know, out of me to a point where I can't even sleep because I have to write, I have to get it out. And so this book that I just wrote in November was it's called Access Denied, access Granted, and that is for me the now what to the self-files. So self-files is a book that just keeps on giving, and but I think that once you've taken the program so many times cause you will do that Like the self-housing is for different, you know, areas of your life and different seasons of your life, and so, but I think that after you get to a point where then there is a now what? And even though most of my clients are like I'm not there yet, I'm not to that, now what, I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around this self-help concept, but I was definitely at that point and boy did I not know what I was actually writing and that really I was writing the book for the blueprint for the journey that I'm on now.

Speaker 2: 2:21

So for your audience that don't know what I'm saying self-vows and I'm sure people are going what is that? What is self-vows? So what I did was, you know the traditional vows that you take when you get married to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, and sickness and health for richer, for poorer, to love and to cherish words and sickness and health for rich or for poor, to love and to cherish um and uh. To death do us part or as long as we shall live. I took those vows and I broke them down in a very unique way, because what I realized is that we will show up and say those vows to someone else and we have not said them to ourselves.

Speaker 2: 3:07

So, for example, even you, know, to love and to cherish, which is one of my favorites. Do you really cherish yourself? Are you really your most prized possession? Is you just you, all of you, flaws and all everything that connects to you? Do you cherish that? If you cherish something, you spend time with something, you actually create boundaries around it, you guard it because that's so special to you. And so when you think about that, a lot of times, we always think about how to cherish someone else, but we really don't fill our own selves up in that way.

Speaker 2: 3:53

To cherish ourselves first and to love, we're quick to say, oh yes, I love myself. But I believe that if we really love ourselves, we actually go through the whole dating process, even with self. When you're first dating someone, you want to get to know them. You want to know what makes them happy, what gives them joy, what they like to do, what are their values, what are their morals and all of those things, what sets their soul on fire. But we don't stop and say I need to go through that journey with myself, right, even when we say, oh no, I go out to eat by myself. But actually we're not eating by ourselves and we're not really enjoying the experience because we're actually going out on a date with our phone. We're sitting there eating our food, but then we're looking at our phone or we use that as a time to work. Right, I'm eating but I'm working and I'm like, oh, I'm really getting some things done. But it's not supposed to be for that. You're on a date with you. You wouldn't be on your phone when somebody's in front of you. You're just on your phone. You're supposed to be on a date.

Speaker 2: 5:06

You know we we sometimes will put so much energy in dressing up for a date. Right, our room looks crazy because we have all these clothes everywhere, because we want to wear the perfect thing for that date. But then when we go out with ourselves, you know not saying like you have to dress up all the time going out with yourself, but I'm saying like you know to put that energy into that for you, not really about what somebody is going to think or the compliment that you're hoping that they give you, but you doing that for you, because if you do that for you, you won't put so much responsibility on others to do that for you, and if you don't put that much responsibility, you won't be in the position to be disappointed when they may not do it the way you want to do it right. So whatever you like to do, you do that for you first. So that's just one vow and I'm only going over a few little things. That breaks down those vows.

Speaker 2: 6:15

The questions in the book are not yes or no. You really have to dig deep. Most people want to throw the book at chapter seven. That is usually the chapter that everybody says I just want to throw the book. Some people did throw the book. I've thrown the book at chapter seven because it really is just no running from you.

Speaker 2: 6:38

You can move to a different state, but you cannot outrun yourself, you can't outrun your pain, you can't outrun the things we need to heal over. So I just think that the book is such an intimate and sometimes intense moment of just being with you and going through that whole process so that when you show up in the world during your self-fowel journey because just because you read the book, just because you go to the program, you have to actually implement this every day. And you know, and when you do that, you find that the more that you evolve, your vows evolve too. So that's a part of at least the core of what self-vows is.

Speaker 1: 7:25

That is beautiful, and is cherish chapter seven? Or is chapter seven something else, the one that makes people throw the book?

Speaker 2: 7:34

Yeah, so chapter seven is about intimacy. Oh, okay, so it's actually to love and to cherish. That's one chapter, and then seven is to love and to cherish through intimacy. Right, so that then breaks it down into the emotional, the intellectual, the spiritual and the physical.

Speaker 1: 7:57

Yeah, and getting to know ourselves, sometimes being intentional about getting to know ourselves. You know, sometimes we have to have hard talks and sometimes we throw the book and then we got to go pick it up and then keep reading and keep doing the work. Right, it's part of the process. But you mentioned that you had gotten a very scary diagnosis right after publishing your book, and so can you talk us a little bit through about that journey and, I guess, how you use that book to help yourself through that season?

Speaker 2: 8:32

So when I actually got the diagnosis was this past December. So I had actually wrote Access Denied, access Granted, in November. And what's so funny about it is because I had just written two other books. I had written the Self-Fouls for L and self-vows for teens, and I was super excited because I was like, oh my gosh, now I have a whole series for age groups and had to say yes to in sickness and in health. And in December I was on my way to a conference and, ironically, the I fought for her conference and I didn't know that that was going to be something that I would then end up saying to myself like girl, you got to fight, you got to fight for yourself, you know.

Speaker 2: 9:33

So in going there, I know my body, because I am a cancer survivor and I suffer from something called pedental neuralgia once I decided to have a hysterectomy. So it's rare, it's complex, and so I'm very in tune with my body and I was feeling something that did not quite feel like nerve pain. It felt like when I would touch the skin it was very, was tender and it was a bit discolored, not totally, but just enough. If you look at your body all the time, you knew something was different. So I went to the doctor and my gyno, my gynecologist, and he said we need to biopsy that area. Now I wasn't really scared about that. I've had biopsies before. I said you know, no problem, I'll do it when I come back. But then there were two other areas that I was complaining about and he said we need to biopsy those areas too. So then I thought, okay, well, I'll do it all when I get back. He says, no, we need to do this, which was really going to be in less than a week. And I says, well, I'm going to Atlanta, I have to do the surgery. And this is how I really do think. I'm working on it, y'all working on it. I said, oh, I'll do the surgery and then I'll just take a flight that evening, because when I commit to something, it's hard for me, even for me, right? That's why I said the self-files is forever, cause even that part I was willing to sacrifice, me being totally uncomfortable in pain, to just commit. So that was my thought. He looks at me like I'm not agreeing with you, but okay, if that's what you want to think, right?

Speaker 2: 11:45

So I get to the pre-op and he's not even looking at me he has his back turned and I thought this is strange. And then he says, well, this was there and I didn't know what he was doing, but anyways, from what he had had done, they looked at it, you know, I guess under the microscope or whatever they did. And he came back and he said I'm almost ninety, nine point nine, that this is, this is cancer. And I thought, wait, what? Like we were just talking about a biopsy. Huh, and then I started to get really hot, like physically, because I felt like this is not happening again. This is like been, you know this? This, this happened first in 2004, but I started to feel symptoms in 2002 and they finally diagnosed in 2004. So I'm thinking it's now, you know, 2024. How am I going through this? What I just couldn't even fathom it.

Speaker 2: 13:11

So at that point I go and I have the surgery and when I come out I'm in major pain, I'm in excruciating pain. And then he says well, I hope that we got everything, but if we didn't and it's outside of the margins you're going to have to go to oncology Again. It was like those words were playing in my head again. I've been told that. So within a week later, I can't really walk that well, can't really feed myself, can't do all the things that we take for granted.

Speaker 2: 13:51

I go back because my pathology report is in like a week earlier and I'm going to tell you something Intuition when you know. You know I didn't want to know, but I knew, I knew it was going to be outside the margins. I knew it. And so I go and he kind of pat me on my back a bit and I knew I literally my eyes started to well up with tears and he said to me you have something rare and complex, have something rare and complex. That's a trigger for me, the words rare and complex. And I knew then that you don't want to be something rare and complex because that means they don't have enough data for it. So now I was on another type of journey that I did not see coming.

Speaker 2: 14:47

So how does that connect with access? Denied self-vows. In that moment the only vow that I could really commit to is for better, for worse. I couldn't even commit to in sickness and in health because I was scared, I was frustrated, I was angry. But I knew I had to commit to, for better, for worse, no matter what it was. Like. Michelle, I'm with you. We're going to get through this together and, no matter what happens, I'm going to have to see this through itself right.

Speaker 2: 15:23

Access denied, access granted. I really didn't know what I had wrote. I mean, I knew, but I hadn't really read it because it was so quick that it came out. But then, during the time of six weeks of healing, I really read my book and I thought, wow, this is the blueprint and how to get through the journey. This wasn't about me just writing another book. I didn't even think I was going to release that book into two years, but it was because I was going to need it. The universe will give you what you need.

Speaker 2: 15:57

So I knew that I was going to need that. Once I read it, I said, oh, it gives me chills right now. That was the blueprint. I knew I had to deny access to people to projects that were not supposed to be there or some were in the wrong area. Maybe you were intellectually supposed to have access to me, but not emotionally. So I went through that. And then I had to figure out what aligned with me, even down to a podcast, even your podcast. It had to align with me, it had to align with my assignment and that's the access granted part. There's a whole lot to get to this point and I'm still working through the access denied part because it is not easy. This is not an easy exercise to do, but it's a gift to me.

Speaker 2: 16:58

It's it's been a gift and it's helping me every day to now get through this journey.

Speaker 1: 17:07

Yeah, that is so, so, so powerful. Michelle, like wow. Um, thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for your vulnerability. Um, can you tell me what part gratitude played in all of this journey of writing your books, of getting to where you are right now? I can't believe that almost made me cry.

Speaker 2: 17:36

No, it's okay, because it it, it, it. The reason why the tears, I'm sure, came is because it hits so deep in terms of gratitude. I'm thankful that of the hardest lessons, because they're my greatest teachers, even now, in what I'm experiencing, this lesson, it is grooming and evolving and growing me to a place of elevation I didn't even think was possible. I didn't even think that I know I'm resilient, but this level of resilience I did not know that I was this resilient. And the word resilient is being resilient or resilience is silence, this much courage to be silent, to not be scared of what the clarity looks like, and I'm thankful for that.

Speaker 2: 19:17

I'm thankful for the word no, I'm thankful for when you say no, the one thing you will really be clear about is who really cares about your well-being, and it will open the healthy part of yes. And sometimes, when you're saying yes so much to things that are not even healthy to you but it benefits the other person, you then are saying no to what is most healthy to you. And when we say no, no spell backwards is on. We hit that on switch of what we need. We become on to ourselves, to the depths of our core. So that is why I'm most most grateful that I love it.

Speaker 1: 20:18

I love it. And to bring it back to what you were saying earlier about, like going on the date with yourself right, saying no to work means saying yes to yourself, saying yes to rest, saying yes to quality time, to letting your mind just do its thing, to just enjoying your food, like you said, instead of being on your phone. Right, like we're just stuck in the matrix all the time. Like just participate in the real world. Right, I love to. I love to, like go out and just be in nature and just be present, because we're so guilty of that, right, and when we say yes to our phones, when we say yes to scrolling, we're saying no to so many beautiful things. I love that. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 21:07

Oh, yes, yes, Go ahead agreeing that you. That's exactly what you are doing. You mentioned the word rest and I promise you that I have heard rest from so many different individuals that don't even know me, like I was in Europe, speaking, and, um, people would literally just say, madam, you need rest, need rest. And I was like, wow, do I look tired? I thought my outfit was kind of cute. What do you mean? You know what do you mean by that, but it was more of a spiritual thing that they were in tuned and it was meant for them to say that to me. And so even a friend of mine who came to Venice because I went to Venice too, and she came to Venice and she said I wanted to come to support you.

Speaker 2: 22:03

But the main thing I want to tell you right now is your heart needs to rest. So you were just speaking right now and here's that word again is rest, and what I've come to, the realization. This is such a transparent moment, but I don't know how to rest, not really. I know how to sleep, right, I know how to somewhat relax at the spa, but the kind of rest that you are suggesting, the kind of rest that others are suggesting to me they don't even know me right Is that it's resting spiritually, it's resting emotionally, it's resting physically, not just sleeping, but resting, sometimes just resting and not doing anything and sometimes you can find rest in the things that really set your soul on fire. You find peace in that, in the things that really set your soul on fire. You find peace in that. So I am on that journey too of hopefully you know that in the next six months I can really sit and say no, no, no, I've actually been resting, yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:30

And my coach always says rest is an income producing activity, because if you're not rested you're not at your best. So you can't make it too much money. So go rest.

Speaker 2: 23:40

That is absolutely true, because a lot of times we make decisions when we are on a team. So when I make a decision from fumes, you're going to get you are going to get a decision that's made from fumes. If I make a decision from frustration, you're going to get the decision that's made from fumes. If I make a decision from frustration, you're going to get the decision from that frustration. So the best decisions is when you get a decision from rest and you get a decision from a place of peace.

Speaker 1: 24:09

Yes, when you give yourself time to connect to the source, right. If you're always busy, you don't have time to just connect and hear the things that you can't hear over the TV and the alarms on your phone and all the chatter going on in the world and the traffic. You have to really be intentional and quiet and listen and you feel it more than you hear it, more than you see it. It's just something you feel and that's beautiful.

Speaker 2: 24:38

Yes, intention, I love that, I love that.

Speaker 1: 24:41

So how can we stay in touch with you?

Speaker 2: 24:45

Okay, so let me just sorry about that. I kind of forgot.

Speaker 2: 24:53

So here is the newest book, denied access granted. Okay, so you can go to amazon or you can go to the self-vowscom. That's the self-vows, v-o-w-scom, that's everything, self-vows, everything. All my books are there. Or you can go Amazon and even if you just Google my name, dr Michelle R Hanna, my books will come up. And then this I'm letting you see, actually my book. You can tell that it has been, it's been used. I'm hoping that this won't, this little part won't fold up because it has been used.

Speaker 2: 25:33

It's beautiful so that is for the self vows, and you can also go to Amazon or you can go to the self vowscom. So how to get in contact with me If you want to take the self vows journey, again the self vowscom, if you want to? When I say self-hous journey, I mean the self-hous program, the self-hous retreat. We have an amazing retreat. We do a couple of retreats a year. Oh my gosh, it's so amazing. It's the pampering, the love, the spoiling, you, the sisterhood, just the connection, the fun, the laughter, the tears. It's amazing.

Speaker 2: 26:15

Okay, so we do have one coming up in September. So we have people that come from everywhere to come to the self-vows retreat. So and then, if you would like to work with me in terms of in sessions whether it's from a personal perspective or whether it's from a business perspective, because I do help small businesses as well you can go to MikellLifeCoachingcom. That's M-I-K-E-L. Lifecoachingcom. You can reach out to me by phone at 888-983-4446. Or, lastly, you can email me at info at Michelle R Hannacom. And I am on social media as well. So if you go to IG, you can just say at the self-doubts retreat, and I will come up.

Speaker 1: 27:10

Yay, that is amazing. And all of the links that she mentioned, all of the information is going to be available down in the show notes, so it'll be very easy to access. That is amazing. One of my goals is to have retreats, so I love it. I think that is amazing. And final tip so what's that big aha moment, like that big juicy tip that you give your clients, that they just love the best?

Speaker 2: 27:36

The biggest tip that they love the best. I don't know if they love it the best, but they get the most from it. Okay, and that is forgive quick and love harder. Yeah, that is amazing, yeah, that is amazing, yeah, because isn't it interesting how we forgive, then we got to love harder. Past the offense that just happened. That might be pretty big Right. I think that is that's honestly being love, instead of looking for it or doing whatever to try to provide it. If you become it, then the energy is already there. It just comes out as love.

Speaker 1: 28:29

Yeah, imagine approaching all of our interactions that way. Approaching all of our interactions that way and it's just love and forgiveness instead of oh my, here comes my teenager. I was that teenager, right, but they, you know, you put your guard up. And what if we just approach everything brand new? We forgive and we, just because everybody has a bad day or a bad decade, whatever.

Speaker 2: 28:58

You can do that and just know that you still have to have your boundaries. See, if I forgive, that doesn't necessarily mean all the time reconciliation. That may just mean I forgive because I got to do this for me. I cannot hold this. I have to keep myself clear in peace and love, right, but I could also have boundaries, because maybe you showed me something that I now know that I have to set a boundary for where that is concerned.

Speaker 2: 29:29

But you are right, if we could just all get to that point, I think we would just be so much more at peace with ourselves and with even the things that happen, that are not, that are hard, that are not nice thing. What I'm going through now it's not easy, but my goal is is to become love, not just to share it but to become it.

Speaker 1: 29:58

And you're doing just that with your books, with your programs. I mean the fact that you're speaking out. I know what you're going through, I can't even imagine so. Again, I just want to thank you so much for being here with us today. This has been absolutely incredible. Make sure you go grab your books, check out, out her retreats and we will see you guys next time on the next episode of overcome yourself, the podcast. Bye.