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Created by Roselis Cortez • Co-host: James Stanley
Seam Notes explores luxury as behavior
How you think, how you move, and the standards you hold when no one is watching.
This isn’t about status or appearance. It’s about composure, discernment, boundaries, and self-respect. The things that quietly shape how you live.
Through lived experience, we talk about growth, outgrowing environments, and learning to move differently without losing yourself in the process.
No performance. No exaggeration. Just real conversations about what it takes to hold your own.
New episodes every Wednesday.
Roselis (00:00)
This is Seam Notes. Taste standards and the decisions nobody sees. My name is Roselis. I'm the creator of Seam Notes. Here with you today with my co-host James.
If I asked you right now, who is the love of your life, you would probably say it's your partner, your child, the family member.
We've never been taught to say our own name.
And yet, you are the only person you will never be without.
every relationship you have ever had is a reflection of this one.
James (00:41)
Of the one you have with yourself, right?
Roselis (00:44)
And this whole season, every episode, every conversation has been pointing to this. The most important love relationship you will ever have.
Is the relationship you have with yourself.
James (01:15)
Agree. It is the most important, the most influential. It is the one that really guides. our relationship with self is is the most important. Everything grows from there. And if we have a relationship with self and I think most of us are unaware that we can and that we do. Cause
It's awareness, we use the word a lot, but it's just aware. There is a self in here that I am relating to.
And usually, bear with me, the self that you're relating to is not the true self. It's a version you created. Right? But the love, the kindness, the compassion, we must have for self. We must learn to develop a relationship like that, right? So this way we can then give it to other.
Roselis (02:05)
That's the only way that really we can give it to other. Mm-hmm. Because if we don't have that for ourselves
James (02:09)
Correct
Roselis (02:14)
How do we really know what love is? Because if we're not loving self and we are doing for other, it really becomes more of a sacrifice, more of an obligation, more of an expectation, whether it's societal, familial, business, whatever it is. And you're there giving of something that you really
can't support in a sustainable way because the original love is not there.
James (02:53)
Yeah, and let's not confuse you know there are so many versions of love, right? So we think, I love you, and I can't, you know, we listen to love songs that have been written from the start of time. I can't live without you. You know? Every love song we know, right, is this broken heart, I can't live without you. But what we're truly saying is that, you know, my love for self depends on you.
Right? That's what we're saying. And that's not sustainable, to use your word. For one, and secondly, I don't believe by design that was meant to be. That we that we put all our eggs into a basket and without this person, without this family, without this thing, we can't feel love or we don't feel love. That's not love. That's just grasping at other or thing.
Roselis (03:24)
Right, right.
No, no!
And depending on other or you know, depending on you doing this for them so that you get the validation that you need, which has nothing to do with self love. It has to do with ego, it has to do with all those things that are not necessarily a healthy, constructive relationship with yourself. Right?
James (03:55)
One thousand.
Self-cherishing.
You know, we were talking earlier off camera, we should have recorded it, but that you know selfless love, Wishing love is the ultimate in love for self and others. Meaning that you know you have a partner, a friend, a colleague, a person on the street, a child, your pet, etc. You feel love for. And if we truly love them.
Then we want them to be happy regardless of how it affects us. Right? So it's self, it's wishing love, right? Instead of grasping, saying, you know, I love you as long as you do this. I love you as long as you're this way. And don't ever change, by the way. You know, when we started dating, you used to do this. Or when we were married, you did this, but you don't do it anymore, so I don't love you.
Roselis (04:53)
One hundred percent
James (05:16)
Well, then the love was never there, right? And for self, right? We do the same thing to self. I must I was taught, quick story, to be perfect as a child. I know that sounds hard, but I was taught to be perfect. Speak well, be the smartest kid in the room. I wasn't allowed to get dirty. I wasn't allowed to play with other children. Had to be perfect, you know. And I of course we, I grew up, but we grew up in a time of, you know, seen and not heard. Oof.
Roselis (05:29)
The expectation was there.
James (05:46)
And that was a tough one for me 'cause daddy's loud if you haven't noticed. So, you know and so I started doing the same thing to self. I had to be, in my younger days, you know, really self critical. Well, that's not loving self. Right? Loving self is accepting all the versions that sit around the table, you know, and really saying, you know what? I'm taking all of you with me and I love all of you. And I love the
The loud one and I love the smart one and I love the not so smart one and I love the love of because we all have different versions, right? The son, the partner, they're all different versions of James. I take them all with me and I didn't always do that. You know? Now I do. And I feel I feel I truly the love of my life, and not in an arrogant way, is me. And then I, I can take that love, and I think I do, I hope I do, and I try to give it to other. Right?
Roselis (06:25)
Yeah, nor did I.
James (06:43)
and how do we replenish that? So we talked about it's is it sustainable? Well it's not if we're not refilling in some way, taking time for self, right? Giving to self.
Roselis (06:55)
And again, that's exactly what we've been talking about this entire season
James (06:58)
It all ties to this.
Roselis (07:00)
this is our last show of the season. We are taking a small break and we'll be back in a few weeks. but this is the culmination of all the conversations that we've had and the message all along is that, So we like to speak of the luxury that is these things, Because we keep talking about luxury not being our,
things although we love them and we keep saying that and it is true, you know, it's but the real luxury is all in here. And the ultimate luxury, is waking up and genuinely loving the person you see in that mirror.
James (07:45)
Which is I know sometimes not easy.
Roselis (07:48)
Go look at you're not performing. You know, they tell you
James (07:52)
Go look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself I love myself and da da da da da da da da da da.
Roselis (07:56)
No, no, no, no, no, no. That's we're not even remotely suggesting you do that. This is you wake up and you love who you are. You genuinely are joyous of being the person that you are. All those personalities that James just spoke of, Embracing all of that. Exactly.
James (08:23)
Accepting them, loving them. We may not all be there though. There was a time in my life I wasn't there, there was a time in your life. So how do those people how do they look in the mirror, they may not see it!?.
Roselis (08:25)
No, no!
Nor did I!
We get there by accepting all the little parts.
James (08:36)
All of us. Yeah.
Roselis (08:38)
It's not judging those parts I wanted to be blonde and blue eyed, I wanted to be the Italian kid that was in my school that was cute and everybody loved. So I, would talk to my little imaginary friend that sat on my shoulder in bed at night and tell him that I wanted to wake up as this person the next day, and then when I would wake up not being her,
I was disappointed, So as a child I didn't want to be me. Yeah.
I think that when I got to that place where I experimented all the little parts of me because I had to expose them, I couldn't hide them in the closet anymore. I couldn't hide them from my mother because I wasn't home. Now I'm with three hundred other kids in a boarding school. How do I avoid any of this? I can't, So it was facing all of that and remembering what he had taught me.
Yeah. But I think it's acceptance that gets us to the place where we can love ourselves. I'm a very visual person and I spent years and years and I still do it and I'm almost 60 for God's sakes. I walk around the streets of New York like this, looking up, looking into people's windows, and then
I run into a fire hydrant and I fall and I tear up my knees and I get up and I keep going and then I start looking 'cause I forgot that I just did it, right? And I keep going and then the next thing I know is I run into those little fences that are around a tree that are taking care of the plants. And boom, there I go. And I got bruises all around my shins and knees and stuff and all the time I've done it my entire life. Right?
But I have to love that one too. I mean, she's annoying as fuck. Exactly.
James (10:25)
Yeah, correct correctly. Clumsy, it sounds too.
Roselis (10:34)
but that's the whole point, It's like embrace all of that.
James (10:40)
So I have a similar story, but not in the same way, As a child, I would be singing all day, which my mother encouraged, and I would be dancing around singing into a hairbrush, and my mother wanted me to be this really tough guy, because she was tough. I mean she was a tough broad.
And I'm like, mommy, I just want to sing all day long and I would take crayons and paint all the walls. And I would take her nail polish and paint shit. I mean cars, the tables, you know, I was very expressive that way, right? Very artsy my whole life. And so as I got older and I get into school and my cousins and I really kinda like butch it up, And I locked away
The child that saw color and that was happy all the time and that was joyous and would run around and be adventurous and just see the life the glass half full as it were. And I locked him away because he was weak. And I became this really tough guy, So all through my twenties and thirties I was so disconnected with self.
it got pointed out to me. And this therapist gave me this visualization he said, I want you to envision James as a child and I want you to hug this child and I want you to say it's okay to dance around the living room
and paint the walls and sing into the hairbrush and be happy and catch butterflies and talk to people and really just love and love that version of yourself. Accept it. And I was like, I do that. And I was nowhere near doing that. And another visualization same therapist. He said, you're gonna sit at a conference room or at a dining room table and you're gonna bring up all the versions of yourself. The child that sings.
The one that loves race cars, the one that, ran a construction company, the one that your mother used to yell at that would be fearful, the etcetera, etc., etc., Because James is all over the place, right? So all these versions. and I want you to love all these versions. And the day swear to you, he says, this gives me chills, the day that you can walk out of that room with all of them in tow, side by side, is the day that you will become whole and love all
aspects of yourself. Accept them all. And I finally learned how to do that. Like it took years. I would wish at you know someone is blessed to be in their teens or twenties and be able to do that. Really love all versions and they're probably out there and those people are truly blessed.
Roselis (13:13)
Yeah! They are blessed, because there are. There are definitely people out there who have that joy, from the very beginning, because it's been inculcated in them by the love that's being shown to them by their parents, the acceptance. Because that's really it, right? If you get that acceptance from your parents and not criticism and not a judgement or a rule of behavior
But a suggestion of behavior and acceptance of who you are, then of course you're gonna have that kind of self-esteem and self-love that comes from that. But we had to teach it to ourselves. We had to be the parent.
James (13:55)
Become the parent.
And I tell people this all the time, you know, yeah we, I had a fucked up childhood, you had a childhood that wasn't so lovely, right? Even though she is blessed because she had a father that was an angel, right? a very spiritual being. So fantastic, but at some point guys, we must become the parent, and parent self, and say okay I got this stuff that I'm carrying with me that I don't have to carry with me and I can see all of the versions of me and say, I love all of you.
And then when you look in that mirror and you see maybe somebody's aging or maybe you see somebody that's not blonde and blue eyed or whatever it is you think that you don't see, you still love it. Because I'm getting older, I look in the mirror sometimes and I see my mother and I'm like, Whoa. Huh. Uh-huh. And then I kind of smile because I know that I'm a good person. I try my best, I really do, with the best intentions, and I really love who James is. I really do.
And it took me a lot of years to be able to say that wholeheartedly. And I wish that for everybody, Everybody on this planet that spins around on this rock, that we find love for self, that true love for self, because then it's so easy to give it to others. Effortlessly,
Roselis (15:10)
Right, right. So if we were to ask you right now who the love of your life is, who is the first person that comes to mind? And if it isn't you, why is it not yourself, I mean it's something to ask oneself
James (15:26)
And be aware of, but we may say oh the love of my life isn't me, it's my children, my husband, my wife, my parent, my mother, my father. Who, let me ask you this, who is the one person you think about all the time? I'm hungry, I'm tired, I need this, I need that. My children, my husband, my home.
Roselis (15:49)
Exactly. My husband, my home.
James (15:53)
Our entire existence revolves around self. Imagine if we could truly feel self-love.
Roselis (16:00)
Exactly. Exactly.
James (16:02)
Then how blissful could that be? Yeah.
Roselis (16:04)
So, it's kind of like what does the relationship with yourself consist of? And in we're not talking about the rituals and the things that we do that, give us structure, but where and how do we really go there? Like you had this exercise of the visualization, Of all of your parts for me is just really being able to laugh at myself.
James (16:30)
I do that now all the time. People think I'm on crack. I laugh at myself all the time.
Roselis (16:34)
See all the parts and all the things that I think are nutty and be okay with it all, Because what's wrong with that? we don't have to be one of the masses. I mean we are one of the masses in the human race, but we do not have to be like others. there is no such thing as normal. It's these uniqueness that we can embrace,
That make us who we are and makes us special and makes that relationship that we have with ourselves that if we're able to impart it and give it to another, it's giving a gift. Right.
James (17:18)
Do you think that it's one that because we're at this stage in our life, the third act that we're able to do that easier than when you were younger? Because when you're younger, you know, you're trying to fit in, you're trying to be in you know, fit into whatever this thing didn't exist when we were younger. So I think it was a maybe easier. But
At a certain age you just stop caring so much what other people think and just really go inside and think, what do I think? What do I feel? and that's one great thing, if not the best thing, about getting older, but what do people do that aren't in our age group, that are much younger, that are trying to fit in? How do they love self? How do they or how do we get that awareness to that person,
Roselis (18:04)
It's such an interesting question, you know, because I think about yes, I do believe that a lot of this comes with time. Yeah. Right. I do believe that a lot of it comes with age. And I do believe that because we had similar experiences in that stage of our life, We ended up with specific types of
Insecurities, if you will, that many others don't have if they have an accepting situation in their home, But I also think that for me, like I think about this.
my father's children were very good looking. My father had two children from a prior marriage and one of them is a is a female, so he had a boy and a girl. Exceptionally good looking, both of them. Right. Okay. On my on my dad's side. Right. We never lived together, so I never had this sibling experience, but they are my siblings, right?
James (18:51)
So you have a sister and a brother?
Roselis (19:02)
And I remember when I was a child, I would go walking down the street with my father. My father knew everybody in the street. So every block or every two blocks we would be stopped by somebody. Oh, it' so good to see you, you know, the hug, the this. And I'm like sitting there like you know, and they would say look at this beautiful child, and my father would say, Beautiful. You should see the other one.
James (19:14)
Oh really?
Roselis (19:32)
Right? So I learned, but this is interesting, this is interesting. I learned that I wasn't the beautiful girl. But it didn't make me any less loved. However, I didn't like the label beautiful because that label was not applied to me by my dad. Right?
James (19:53)
Interesting. Now I never knew this story and I know almost all her stories. Wow. Okay.
Roselis (19:58)
So when I was younger and I started dating and boys would say to me, oh my God, you're so beautiful, I would say to them, no, I'm not. I'm attractive.
James (20:13)
That's where it comes from. I have heard you say that. That's where that comes from. Wow. Okay. Wow. Okay.
Roselis (20:18)
That that's where that comes from.
But notice, notice that I didn't go into the I'm ugly. I am less than. I am not a good looking girl. I you know, in in no way am I negating that I'm good looking. I'm just saying I'm not beautiful because the beautiful is my sister. That's the type of beautiful. Okay?
But that's but but but but but but allow me to finish this this statement. Okay? So what happened in a way is that there was this acceptance of the girl that I am, the female self, right?
is attractive, is interesting, is someone that can lure, that can be sexy, that can be all these other things about being a woman. And I didn't need to be beautiful.
So I didn't have body issues. Because my entire life I had given myself the permission to feel as an attractive person.
James (21:32)
You cultivated that. Isn't that powerful how the human mind can work and body that she at a very young age cultivated this?
Roselis (21:34)
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly.
Right. Right? And so what I'm trying to get to by telling this story, right, is that it is that way how we can get to love ourselves and not have to wait until you are in your 50's to see that, right? Even if it's a trick of the mind, at the same time is not diminishing the person you are.
James (22:01)
Getting older, yeah.
One thousand percent.
Roselis (22:13)
Finding
ways of preserving that sense of value within you.
James (22:23)
Wow. Interesting story. I do think you're beautiful. And it's interesting because I have been calling you beautiful for fifteen years, fourteen, fifteen years. Almost every morning. No?
Roselis (22:39)
Yeah! That's how you how you address yourself to me. Like I say, Hey handsome.
James (22:43)
Correct, you know? So interesting. so my two cents for what it's worth and all that, for one I think brilliant. I think that yes, with age, hopefully experience comes, and with experience we learn to accept. And then love self. At a younger age, I was very, my tools were arrogance.
I was very arrogant as a young man, I was really macho and arrogant, it was all a shield, I had no relationship with myself. So to be that twenty-year-old guy today, I would give him a big hug and say, you know what? You are good enough, bro. And you have everything it takes.
You're going to do well and you're gonna love yourself one day. What so with that being said, can you do that now at a young age? Of course you can. If we can cultivate love for others, which I think every young person every human being is has some version of cultivating love for others, a parent, a child, a sister and brother, whomever, a lover. If you can cultivate love for them, you're cultivating the love.
You are here. Which means it's here. It's not out there. The person, the girlfriend, the boyfriend, the mother, the father is not dropping the love off to you. You're cultivating it and giving it. Uh-huh. So what is that telling us? It's here. It started here. When I discovered acceptance and all of that and my spiritual journey and just added and added and added, this just exploded.
But wasn't it always here the whole time? Yeah.
Roselis (24:27)
And see that's where I was gonna go next If we think about it in what we discuss as the spiritual terms,
And we are able to really early on learn about that, And how do we learn about that? We learn about it by trusting ourselves. By trusting that kind of oomph that happens in our body that nobody tells you if there's none of that in your household.
Nobody tells you to listen to your gut instinct because it's literally a punch in the gut that happens when you are in that space, If we are able to learn the discipline of spirituality, which is about a lot of things that we've talked about here, about the silence, about respecting ourselves, about taking joy it about
the journey about not accepting, all of these things they all come down to that, that space within you if you can at a young age you get the sense and you test it you go and you do the thing that you thought was the correct action
But you felt that you needed to go in the other direction. And when this period is over and you have tested that action and recognized that the other was the way to go, if you're able to internalize that, that's a huge step of self-love
James (26:14)
It's huge. It's our inner compass, So listen, I'm a big advocate for spirituality and I think that at a young age I was a very spiritual person but of course I wasn't aware of it. I was practicing, heavily steeped in the Christian faith and Catholicism and I studied many different things, right? so there was always that voice, always the consciousness was here guiding me,
But I didn't always listen to it because I didn't know how to listen to it. So today, if I could say anything to someone any age, but especially young people, really try to tap into the consciousness that's here because all the answers, they're not out there. We can read, we can get on this twenty-four hours a day, Which we do unfortunately, or sometimes fortunately, and or read or educate. All the answers are here. We just need to be aware and tap into it.
Roselis (27:01)
And so if we get to that bit and we think about it, not loving yourself can cost you that, Because that's exactly it, So you went into this direction because you thought intellectually that that was what you needed to do. But you weren't being loving of yourself by honoring that bit within you that had told you exactly where you needed to go and what.
you needed to be. So, you know
One of the things to think about and one of the ways of thinking how or what you can change, is
What are the things that you would never do to someone else that you do to yourself?
So here's an example, Like I would never say to somebody, you are an idiot or you are so stupid or you are a good for nothing right? Mm-hmm. And I don't say those things to myself. I that's just again, I always put a positive spin, I'm not saying that that's correct, but I've been very lucky to not have that
James (28:14)
Dialogue.
Roselis (28:14)
dialogue
with myself. But I hear all the time people who do that. So if you think about would I say to others, You are so stupid. You are a good for nothing. Would you do that? I mean I know that I wouldn't, So
It's a way of you to learn if you wouldn't do it on to somebody else and all of a sudden you catch yourself doing it to self, change that. And that's a step in the direction of loving yourself.
James (28:53)
Being kind to self. Like we think of being kind to other, but when's the last time we were kind to self? Absolutely. You know. That's really
Roselis (29:01)
It's really that simple. Really
that simple. Right. Yeah, yeah.
James (29:07)
that kindness shines out, right? And if we can give it to self. And I only recently, in the last maybe ten, fifteen years have learned that. Or not learned it. Be aware of it. Right. You know? Right.
That even you catch me sometimes. You're like and I'm not being kind to self, right? I'm beating myself up. You know. I mean I am blessed with a lot of awareness, But then at the same time I'm still human and I still live in this cycle of existence, So I forget sometimes, you know, and I get caught up in the in in the world in life and I'm like, I should have been doing this and I I didn't do that and I fucked up here and I da da da you know.
Roselis (29:45)
There are habits that we fall back into very easily. But the moment you catch it, The moment that you go, what am I doing?
how could I have done that? No, that's not the dialogue. It's like laugh. Oh shit,
James (29:59)
Yes, that's it. Exactly I do that.
Roselis (30:01)
I made a mistake.
I mean like what's the big deal, it's embracing all those little things. And that's how we do it. I mean, there were many years of many insecurities for me and they had to do with some of my intimacies of allowing things that I didn't need to allow because I made excuses for one of the parental units as to not being, respectful or honest or, whatever and having all those fears. So in those circumstances I allowed a lot of this that didn't give love to self. But as I learned those boundaries and as I learned that those things were not acceptable, it didn't matter from where they came.
Then I was able to give that love to self that I couldn't do before because in that seeming acceptance or grace that I was giving this other human I was actually not giving it to self Exactly.
James (31:05)
Of course.
Like you were not giving that grace to self.
you know when my mother passed away, many years ago, 2014. We unfortunately had some not so nice dialogue right before she passed away, nothing that I definitely do not feel guilt about. But it was, it stayed with me for a lot of years. And I realized at a certain point that I had become her Like she had already passed, I put her in the ground, and then I took over the role of judging me. Of not showing myself love, right? Of saying you need to do this and you need to do this, and by this this age you have to have this, and by this this da-da-da-da-da-da. One thousand percent. But I became that parent.
Roselis (31:49)
Because that's what she had put on you. Right?
James (31:54)
And then this brilliant, you know, we're blessed with certain pathways and when this therapist had me do this exercise of seeing the smaller child and hugging it and talking to it, I still do it today, guys. When I'm in a fearful mood and I catch it, I hug that child inside and I'm like, I got you, bro. I'm the parent, I'm the dad now. Right. And the mom and the source and I'm going to take care of self. Right? And not in an arrogant way, in a very loving, kind, compassionate way.
Roselis (32:21)
And that's the spirit, right?
James (32:23)
That's the consciousness that is always there. It's always been there. We're just connecting to it now. Yeah. Right? It's kinda the battery's fully charged, now we're connecting, and I think now that I think I know the battery's fully charged even when you're very young. We just don't have the awareness that we're carrying around that love, kindness, all of it
Roselis (32:44)
So if you're in an early stage of life, or even if you're not, but this is not a bit that you're accustomed to. It's one of the greatest exercises and the greatest ways of showing yourself love.
James (33:01)
I cannot advocate enough for sitting with self. Mm-hmm. when is the last time you sat with yourself and did nothing but just sit with self? At a young age, an older age, doesn't matter. If you sit with self, the answers, the love, the compassion will eventually arise because there are no distractions to distract you from what you carry every day.
Roselis (33:24)
Just like you always talk about observing our thoughts, right? What is happening? What is really what is your self, higher self? And we're pointing to our chest or in our being for those of you who cannot see what we're doing physically. We're talking about what's inside, in our chest cavity, in our
James (33:42)
That Chakra, the heart chakra
Roselis (33:49)
pit of our stomach that's the one that gives us the warning and then the one up higher that gives us that drive, right? So listening to that. Being in tune with that. In that silence.
We're talking no TV, no radio, no social media, no nothing it's sitting quiet.
James (34:14)
No talking, nothing.
Just with self and observe the thoughts if you can if you can take it to the observe the thoughts but if just start off with sitting by itself.
Roselis (34:26)
And if that doesn't yeah, you know, pay attention to your breathing, pay attention to the murmur of your air conditioner, whatever it is, focus on one thing and then observe the thoughts as they come. And life will tell you exactly what you have to do to love yourself.
James (34:43)
Because the love's there, guys. We don't have to search for it. Right. It's not outside of us. It is us. Right? Yeah. So this is that's you know, it's joyous news. That's like, you know, that should be on the front page or in every social media thing. The joy is within. The love is there. We carry it every day. We're just distracted and not listening and connecting. You know?
Roselis (35:06)
So James, thank you. Thank you so much for this season for being a partner in this ride that I wanted to take. This was one of those. It was you know, the thought came and I felt it and I accepted it, embraced it, proposed it and here we are, So
James (35:11)
Yeah. My pleasure.
And hopefully it's touched somebody out there that has made a little shift, and it makes it all worth it,
Roselis (35:35)
As we close the season, if Seam Notes is something that meant anything to you, if you've followed please go to Apple, rate us, leave a review, it helps us be able to continue to do this in order to help others 'cause that's the main idea behind all of this. We want to be able to help others get to the place that we've been able to after much self search, many mistakes, lots of falling downs, not only with fire hydrants.
James (36:06)
Many
But in many different ways.
Roselis (36:14)
you know
So remember the love of your life has been there this whole time. You just hadn't introduced yourself yet.
Thank you for being in this room every single week. Season two is coming. This is Seam Notes. Luxury from the inside out.