Change Your Life with Dr. Amen Kaur

If you've tried to love yourself first and it hasn't worked, there's nothing wrong with you. Dr. Amen Kaur explains why self-love is learned through connection, what happens when you stop feeling you deserve good things, and the place inside you where you discover you are love.

Have you been told to love yourself first, tried hard, and still felt stuck? You're not failing. Research on attachment shows we learn how to treat ourselves from how others treated us, so self-love was never meant to be learned alone.
In this episode, Dr. Amen Kaur shares her own story of learning self-love, a client story of going from burnout to promotion, and five lessons to help you stop being so hard on yourself and reach your next level.
Take your free assessment: find out what's really holding you back in about three minutes. Go to linktr.ee/dramenkaur and tap "Take your free assessment."
In this episode you'll learn:
Why you are the hardest person in your life to love
Why self-love is taught through connection, not figured out alone
What attachment research says about how we learn to treat ourselves
How hidden guilt and "I don't deserve it" stop you reaching for opportunities
The difference between soothing yourself and truly loving yourself
Why your brain predicts rejection, and how to test that prediction
How naming a feeling helps your brain settle
Why self-love is presence, and you are love

Can you learn self-love on your own?
You can, but it's slow and hard. Most people learn self-love through how they're treated. Research on earned security shows that adults who started out insecure can become secure later in life, often helped by mentors, partners, teachers or a supportive group.
Why is it so hard to love yourself?
Because you see everything about yourself, including choices nobody else sees. That closeness makes self-judgment easy. But being hard on yourself doesn't move you forward. It keeps you stuck.
What is self-love, really?
Self-love isn't telling yourself you're wonderful. It's bringing love, understanding and compassion to the parts of you that you'd rather avoid, including the parts you judge, hide or feel guilt about.
Research mentioned:
Hazan and Shaver (1987), adult attachment styles
Roisman and colleagues (2002), earned secure attachment
Lieberman and colleagues (2007), putting feelings into words calms the amygdala

Work with Dr. Amen Kaur:
BEYOND is a 4-month immersion with Dr. Amen Kaur, built on her Human Intelligence Framework. It uses science, neuroscience and research to help you let go of the limits holding you back, through love and awareness, so you can reach your next level in your career or business. It includes a live Mastermind every Monday, direct Mentorship, and lifetime access to Self-Mastery training. Limited places each month.
Explore BEYOND: amenkaur.com/beyond
Have questions first? Book a free BEYOND call: calendly.com/amenkaur/beyond-call

Podcast collaborations: amenkaur.com/contact

Free assessment: find out where your core block sits in three minutes at linktr.ee/dramenkaur
How to know what you truly want (and what's blocking you)
Not sure what you want right now? Or do you think you know, but can't make yourself move toward it? In this episode, Dr. Amen Kaur explains why we often want things so we'll be seen, rather than for how they make us feel, and how to tell the difference.
The short answer: ask how it will feel, not how it will look. Research shows people get more happiness from experiences, and from things they buy in order to experience something, than from objects owned for status.
In this episode:
1. The question isn't how you look. It's how you feel.
2. What you wanted might not fit anymore.
3. Where the need to be seen comes from.
4. The three things that block you: emotions, thoughts and your body.
5. Why love is the repair.

Research mentioned:
- Van Boven and Gilovich (2003) on experiences versus possessions
- Guevarra and Howell (2015) on experiential products
- Brickman, Coates and Janoff-Bulman (1978), and Diener, Lucas and Scollon (2006), on hedonic adaptation
- Kasser, Ryan, Zax and Sameroff (1995) on upbringing and materialistic values
- Lisa Feldman Barrett on the brain as a prediction machine
- Heinrichs and colleagues (2003) on social support, oxytocin and stress
- Arnsten (2009) on how stress affects the thinking brain
- Holt-Lunstad, Smith and Layton (2010): across 148 studies, people with stronger social relationships had a 50% higher likelihood of survival

Free assessment: find out where your core block sits in three minutes at linktr.ee/dramenkaur
About the host: She has spent over 25 years working with leaders, coached more than 1,000 people, and seen more than 200 through her programs. amenkaur.com

Curious about how to change your life? click here for coffee and chat
Change Your Life with Dr. Amen Kaur
If you lost your job, were laid off or made redundant, or came out of a divorce, and you know what you want next but cannot make yourself move, the problem is not discipline. In this episode, Dr. Amen Kaur explains the science of why working harder stops working after you have been devalued, why you have no motivation even though you know what to do, and what actually switches motivation back on.
In this episode you'll learn
The four words that reveal where your energy is going: should, have to, need and want, and why only one of them moves you forward
Why shame keeps you repeating the exact behavior you are trying to change
What the still-face experiment reveals about attention, motivation and feeling stuck
The difference between being seen and being validated, and why praise never fixes it
The real cause of burnout according to burnout research, and why rest alone does not fix it
The two ways people cope with feeling unwanted, and why both keep you stuck
A simple one-week experiment to find your motivation again

Why do I have no motivation after losing my job?
Because a layoff, a redundancy or being managed out is an experience of being unwanted, and the human system goes still when attention and value are withdrawn. That is not laziness and it is not a flaw. It is the same response the still-face experiment shows in infants. Rest and pressure do not fix it, because neither one is the missing input.
Why can't I make myself do what I want?
Wanting is not willpower. Effort runs on wanting, and wanting runs on being seen. When something cuts the third one, the other two fail behind it. Motivation returns when you are seen for who you actually are, not when you push harder.
The four words
Should looks at what is missing. Have to looks at obligation. Need looks at lack. Want looks at the thing itself. Want is the only one that pulls you toward your goal.
Research mentioned
The still-face experiment, Tronick and colleagues, 1978
Donald Winnicott on the mirror role of the mother and the false self
Carl Rogers, 1957, on the core conditions of therapeutic change
Norcross and Lambert on the therapeutic relationship as the strongest predictor of outcome
Maslach and Leiter, the six mismatches that drive burnout
Hebbian learning, neurons that fire together wire together
Joe Hudson on shame, wants and the 10 percent more enjoyment experiment

Try this week
Pick one thing you keep telling yourself you should do. Drop the should. Ask how you could enjoy it 10 percent more, without changing it or buying anything for it. Then notice which of the four words you are using.
Coffee and a chat?
If you are capable and still feel stuck, grab a coffee and let's talk it through. Twenty minutes, no pitch, nothing to prepare. We will look at what might be keeping you stuck and what could help. Book here: Coffee & chat
About Dr. Amen Kaur
Dr. Amen Kaur is a trauma-informed somatic coach and former FTSE 250 partner with over 20 years in recruitment and career development. She helps professional women rebuild confidence and get what they actually want after major life and career transitions. Learn more at amenkaur.com.
Topics: no motivation after layoff, no motivation after redundancy, lost my job and feel stuck, can't motivate myself after losing my job, how to find motivation again, identity after redundancy, lost sense of self after job loss, feeling unwanted at work, managed out of a job, burnout recovery, career transition, feeling stuck after divorce, self-compassion, being seen, should vs want, still-face experiment, science of motivation

Coffee & Chat? Click here
What does it mean when you say "I don't know who I am anymore"?
It means you lost the things that were telling you who you were. A job, a marriage, a home, a parent, a version of your life you expected to keep. Your sense of self was resting on those, so when enough of them go, it goes with them. It is not a sign that something is wrong with you, and it is not a weakness. It is what happens when the labels come off.
In this episode, Dr. Amen Kaur explains why losing your identity and losing your motivation are the same thing, why they arrive in that order, and what brings both of them back.
Why don't I want anything anymore?
Because wanting something you believe you can no longer have is painful, so the mind withdraws it. A 2015 meta-analysis of 90 studies by Colin Leach and Atilla Cidam found that shame leads people to act when a failure feels repairable, and to withdraw when it does not. A marriage that ended cannot be unended. A job that let you go cannot be undone. So the system stops reaching. Your desire did not die. It was pulled back to protect you.
Why does losing a job or a marriage feel like shame rather than disappointment?
Because the standard you fell short of was probably never yours. Research on the self finds that shame tracks the gap between who you are and a standard you have taken in, and the standards that bite hardest are the ones that came from other people. Married by thirty. Successful by forty. The one who made it out. Disappointment is what you feel when your own plan fails. Shame is what you feel when you fall short of someone else's.
Why can I still enjoy things but not want anything?
Because enjoying and wanting run on different brain systems. Kent Berridge at the University of Michigan spent thirty years showing that wanting (the pull toward something) and liking (the pleasure once it is here) are separate. One can go quiet while the other is intact. That is why you can have a lovely afternoon with a friend and feel no pull toward anything afterward, and it is not evidence that you are broken.
Would getting the job or the relationship back fix it?
No, and most people already know this because they have had the thing before and it did not settle them then. Jennifer Crocker's research on contingencies of self-worth found that staking your worth on achievement produces the volatility without the payoff. In one study, students who based their self-esteem on grades reported studying more and did not get better grades.
So what actually helps?
Self-compassion, which is the opposite of what most people assume. Juliana Breines and Serena Chen ran four experiments in 2012. People given a self-compassionate response to their own failure were more motivated to fix the weakness, and spent longer studying after failing a test, than people given a self-esteem boost. Easing up on yourself does not cost you your edge.
Who this episode is for
Professional women some months on from a layoff, a divorce, a bereavement, a home lost, an inheritance, children leaving, or an ending they did not choose. People who have done the work, know roughly what they want next, and still cannot make themselves move.
Chapters
00:00 "I don't know who I am anymore" and what it actually means 00:00 Why the labels were never yours to begin with 00:00 Why your wanting went quiet 00:00 Wanting and liking are different systems 00:00 Why getting it back would not settle it 00:00 The question underneath all of it 00:00 A short practice you can do right now
Research referenced
Colin Leach and Atilla Cidam (2015), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, meta-analysis of 90 samples on when shame leads to constructive action
Kent Berridge, University of Michigan, on wanting and liking as separate systems
Jennifer Crocker and Connie Wolfe (2001) and Jennifer Crocker and Lora Park (2004), on contingencies of self-worth and the cost of pursuing self-esteem
George Bonanno and Charles Burton (2013), Columbia University, on the fallacy of uniform efficacy in coping
Juliana Breines and Serena Chen (2012), on self-compassion and motivation to improve
Rupert Spira, on the awareness of being
Come and talk to me. I am offering a twenty minute coffee and a chat this week. You tell me where you are, and we look at the pattern underneath it. Click this Link
Dr. Amen Kaur is a trauma-informed somatic coach and the host of Change Your Life. She spent over twenty years in recruitment and career development, latterly as a partner at a FTSE 250 company, and holds a PhD. She works with professional women rebuilding a sense of self after a major loss.

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About Dr Amen Kaur

Starting Over, Being You with Dr. Amen Kaur is the podcast for high-achieving women who have been quietly losing themselves inside the life they built. Dr. Amen Kaur, PhD, is a former scientist and former Partner at a FTSE 250 company with 20+ years of corporate experience. She teaches the Human Intelligence Framework, the Five Intelligences that orbit Your Self, and how to bring the integrator back online when it has stepped away from the seat.

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Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical, psychological, or financial advice. Please consult a qualified professional for guidance specific to your situation.