A Mindful Perspective
Welcome to my podcast! I'm Nick Levesque, and I'm on a mission to help you navigate life's challenges with a mindful perspective. Join me every week as I dive deep into the realms of mindset, spirituality, and personal growth. Drawing from my own experiences, I want to provide you with tools, strategies, insights, and inspiring stories that will help you go from where you are now, to where you want to be.
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A Mindful Perspective
How to Be Your Own Best Friend
In this week’s episode, we’re diving into what it truly means to become your own best friend. I’ll share practical steps to help you build a kinder, more supportive relationship with yourself, from doing the inner work and setting boundaries to keeping the promises you make to yourself. If you’ve ever struggled with self-criticism or felt disconnected from who you are, this episode is here to guide you toward self-compassion and deeper connection.
Hello everyone and welcome to A Mindful Perspective. I'm your host, nick Levesque, certified Spiritual Life Coach, and I'm here to share insights into my journey of mindfulness and self-discovery. Each week, we'll explore mindset, spirituality and personal growth to help you navigate life's challenges with practical strategies and inspiring stories. Let's dive in. When was the last time you truly showed up for yourself in the same way that you would show up for a friend? Okay, I think for a lot of us, this becomes very difficult because we are our own worst critics, right? For a lot of us, we are constantly at war with ourselves. If you're anything like I was a few years ago, I had, you know, my inner critic was on overdrive and I was just constantly stuck in this spiral of shame and negativity. Okay, but what if we could flip that script? What if we could flip that script and go from being very self-critical to becoming our very own best friend? Okay, I think this is so important. It's an important topic to talk about and in today's video, this is really what I want to talk about and share a bit of my own journey on how I did that and how exactly I went from being extremely self-critical to becoming my own very best friend and truly enjoy spending time with myself and learning to genuinely love myself.
Speaker 1:So, just like any meaningful relationship that you have in your life, whether that is your friendships, whether that is your romantic relationships, the relationship that you have with yourself will also take time to develop, right, you don't just meet someone and automatically become their best friends. Obviously there could be, you know, a good connection, or with you know, um, a significant other it could be, you know, when you meet that person there's obviously there's there's romantic interest. Okay, you, maybe there's a lot of chemistry. You, you know you hit it off on the first date as an example, but you're not automatically going to marry them on the second date. And for that other person you don't nest, you don't typically become their best friend overnight. Right, it takes time to build trust and it takes time to build that relationship over time.
Speaker 1:And the same applies to you and yourself, right, you and your relationship with yourself, especially if you've got unhealed, wounding, you know, a harsh inner critic and all these different things that can contribute to why you don't have a good relationship with yourself. Right, because you know, if we really take a moment to think about that, there is a reason that you don't like yourself, right, there's a reason that you don't have a good relationship with yourself. There's a reason that you have trouble being alone. There's a reason that you can't go out and do stuff on your own when some people don't want to go or they have to cancel last minute. There's a variety of things, right, and these are all things that I learned about myself when I went through my journey and what I truly discovered was that, okay, like, I just really don't like who I am, right, like when I really dug down deep into who I was and what was stopping me from developing that relationship with myself, I just didn't like myself, I didn't like who I was, and you know, I had all these limiting beliefs and a variety of different things, right, and I'm going to talk about how we you know how we kind of work through that in a bit, but it's also just to say that once we're able to look at all those aspects of ourselves, right, and kind of look at ourselves from like a uh three, you know, a bird bird's eye view, if you will, right, kind of like a 360 degree of our entire life, right, the good, the bad, all these different things that's when we truly learn to understand ourselves and get to know ourselves better.
Speaker 1:And for me, it wasn't really until I tried applying curiosity and self-compassion, which I talk about in many episodes, and for good reason, right, because I just wanted to get to know myself. Because here's the thing, right? The thing that I learned personally about the relationship with myself and what I learned through my own healing journey is that the relationship you have with yourself is the only relationship that you will have from beginning to end, right From the moment you're born to the end of your life. You are with yourself every second of every day, right? So you might as well try to make it a good relationship. You might as well try to make it a relationship that you enjoy spending time with. That you don't always need people, right? Obviously, as humans, we need social interaction, we need social connection, but it's not always relying on the other person, right?
Speaker 1:And another thing that I also noticed and learned about myself is, you know, once I started developing that relationship with myself and genuinely loving myself, right, generally learning how to love myself properly, I also wasn't looking for that magical other, right? I also wasn't looking for that person to fill me, to complete me, because I understood that I could complete myself, right, and a partnership, obviously, someone that comes into your life to add to your life. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with seeking, you know, a romantic partner, having family, all these different things, right. I think that's all beautiful. But for a lot of people, we look for that magical other, right, we look for that other person to complete us, but that's not going to work, right, that isn't going to work. We can only complete ourselves, and then that other person comes into the picture and adds benefit to our life. Right, and obviously you can grow, we can learn a lot when you're in a relationship with someone but the other. You shouldn't put that pressure on someone, even if it's unconscious. Right, to complete the other person is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:Okay, and there's a beautiful quote that I read by Laurie Deschain and what she said was you can't hate yourself into a version that you love. And I found that so beautiful and for me personally, it really resonated because for myself, I really, you know, my inner critic was very harsh for many years, right, and I was spiraling down to shame beliefs. For me it was like I am not good enough and I was always constantly attacking myself and that didn't help me love myself more, right? So even if you know you're listening to this right now and you're thinking about it, it's like, wow, you know, I'm really attacking myself all the time. I can promise you that that's not going to help you make you love yourself more. The only way for me personally, right, was through curiosity and self-compassion towards myself and towards my wounding and towards the relationship with myself that I'm trying to nurture. Right, and also, the other thing is you can't learn to love yourself if you don't know who you are. Right. And this is so, so, so important.
Speaker 1:And a lot of us think we know who we are, but, like, if you truly look at who you are now and not five years ago, right, sometimes even our values have changed, how we look at life have changed, right, our perspectives, all these different things. But if we really take a moment to look at who you are now, sometimes we think, oh, yeah, yeah, I know who I am, but do you really know who you are right? I think a lot of us, like I said, we know who we are, but we can get to know ourselves even better, right, and this is how you build trust with yourself when you start listening to yourself, right. When you start listening to yourself, you start trusting yourself, and then you learn to build that relationship with yourself, which I think is so beautiful, right, and this is really what I want to talk about in today's video, more specifically, how to do that, but also, I think it's you know, you need to start showing up for yourself the same way you would show up for a friend, as an example. Right, we show up for our friends in the most beautiful ways, but we can't reciprocate that towards ourselves, right, which I think is really what we need to start applying. So I have a question for you, and you can pause me, right, you can pause me right now and think about this if you want. But the question for you is what does it mean to be a good friend? Okay, now, if you want to pause me and write that down, write a list, all these different things, you can do that. Now, the other part of that is apply that to yourself, right. Start applying that to yourself and your life, because, obviously, the way share a few things that have really personally helped me on my journey, right.
Speaker 1:So this, what I'm sharing today is really from my own subjective experience, what has helped me and how I kind of, you know, notice that process for me as well, okay, so the first thing is we have to be honest with ourselves, right, we have to do the inner work. So this is extremely hard, okay, I'm not going to lie. I think we all know that looking at ourselves and facing ourselves is extremely hard, right, but for me personally, you know, I understood that my inner critic was extremely harsh, right. And, like I've said before, I got to a point in my life where I was, I was so down that I was like, okay, I'm kind of hitting rock bottom at this point, like I need help, I need to do something in order for me to change, right, and that's the thing nothing changes if nothing changes. But I was feeling so sick of feeling the way that I was that I was like all right, I want to try something, I want to do something, right. So for me, there's a lot of different things that that helped, okay. But you know, working with my inner critic, right, that was one of the big things as well working with my inner critic to truly understand where these beliefs are coming from. Why am I attacking myself?
Speaker 1:There are so many different things there that have, truly, you know, when I started digging into that, that I was able to bring to light and I was like, okay, right, this isn't my story, this isn't something to hold on to, because a lot of the times for the inner critic, right, there's a reason that the inner critic is there. A lot of times the inner critic will be there, obviously because of your childhood, right, it's formed and it's built through childhood dynamics. Right, so it could be caregivers. So a lot of the times it'll be the mother and the father. It could be as well as an example you know teachers at school. It could be, you know, many different things brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1:Again, it all depends on your own experience, your own wounding, your own family dynamic. There's a bunch of different things. But what I'm trying to say is, typically, the voice that you're hearing isn't necessarily your own, right, it could be a voice that's formed in childhood. And the other thing is, as odd as this sounds, the inner critic is trying to protect you. Right, it's trying to protect you. It doesn't like to see you fail, it doesn't want to hurt, like to see you hurt, so it's going to hurt you before anything else or anyone else can. Okay, and I know that can sound odd a little bit, but it's it. That's really how it works, right, it's got that protection mechanism as well. So, one again, one of the things that truly helped me was inner critic, right?
Speaker 1:Another part of this as well was inner child healing. So, when it comes to inner child healing, there's many different layers of inner children that you can, you know, dive into right, many different things. This is something that I did with my coach personally. We dove into the inner child a lot. Now, when it comes to inner child healing, I think you know the reason I'm mentioning this as well is because I think it's a bit more popular today. Right, it's a bit more popular, and, I think, for good reason, because it's such a powerful tool, right, and for me personally, I'm a big, firm believer that you know when you're doing the inner work, it's important to you know, obviously, work with your inner critic as well. But if you've got a lot of trauma and stuff that can get stored in the body and you need to do some type of somatic work as well, right, so we'll dive into that in a bit, but somatic work as well, right. So, but inner child healing for me was obviously one of the things that truly, truly helped me, right, um, and, like I said, the internal world, if you will, of the inner children.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it can be multiple children that you have to work with, right, so it could be as an example. You had wounding from, you know, around six to seven years of age. It could be five years of age. It could be as an example for me. I did a lot of work with my inner teenager as well, right. So this is what I'm trying to say there's there's different layers to the inner child that you can work with, but that was an extremely big part in my own healing and then developing and nurturing that relationship with myself, because then, you know, as you nurture that younger part of yourself, I think that helps build trust with yourself as well, right, and you're kind of meeting the needs that was unmet for them at the time, right, and you're reassuring them that you are there for them and you're just you're building that trust with yourself and you're helping that inner child kind of flourish, right, which obviously helps you flourish as well. So these are definitely things that have helped me personally, right.
Speaker 1:And obviously the somatic part. So there's different things that can work here, right, breath work. You know, different types of somatic. It could be, as an example, you go through a somatic retreat, right. There are different retreats. I went to a men's retreat which we did trauma work as well, so a retreat with 18 men. There was a lot of people there and we just worked through our trauma. We were through our you know, just our wounding through different types of modalities. That was offered there as well, right. So obviously there are many different ways to do this, but I'm just sharing my own experience, right.
Speaker 1:And what's truly helped and worked for me.
Speaker 1:And obviously books. I talk about books, a lot Reading for me was another big part of my inner healing and a big part of helping me, you know, overcome the inner critic and also just work through everything that I had to then be able to nurture and develop that relationship with myself, right. And also a big part of that, like I talked about earlier, is a radical honesty, right. So I think this is very, very important because when you're doing this work, you need to be radically honest with yourself about what is working in your life and what isn't working in your life. Okay, and this is something I had to be radically honest with myself about.
Speaker 1:Because, honestly, let's say, for example, that you have a friend. Okay, let's say, as an example, you have a friend. Let's say, I'll take myself as an example. Okay, let's say that I had an alcohol problem. Okay, I personally don't drink, but let's just say in theory here that I had an alcohol problem. Okay, and my friend came up to me at one point and said listen, nick, like I think you're drinking a lot. I think you really need to. You know, slack on on the drink as an example, right, and that's what a good friend should be doing, right, a good friend should be honest with yourself or with you is what I'm trying to say, right? So if you're like, for me personally, I know that my friends right, if they were spiraling down a negative spiral and my friends were drinking four times, five times a week, and getting absolutely wasted four to five times a week, I know that they would expect me to at some point intervene and be like hey man, like do you need to talk? Do you need help? Maybe you've got an issue here, like what's going on? Right, they would expect me to be very honest with them, like I would expect them to be honest with me, and the same applies with you, right?
Speaker 1:The relationship you have with yourself is no different than the relationship you have with your friends, so now you need to again reciprocate that honesty towards yourself. What is working, what isn't working in your life? You need to have these radical, honest conversation with yourself. So, as an example, if you're someone who has been drinking more lately and you're starting to understand and notice that it's impacting your health, how you're feeling, maybe your relationships, there's many different contributing factors that this can impact, right? I think a lot of people know this already, but it's when you have to have that honest conversation with yourself, right? So this is what I'm saying. There's many different layers to inner work and I can't cover everything here, but, truly, once you start to do these things, it's hard work, right. You're going to need to meet different parts of yourself. It's a lot of different work, right.
Speaker 1:And also, for me personally, it was about looking at my own insecurities, my own shadow, right. The things that I've, you know, suppressed, the things that are my unconscious, the things that you know I'm afraid to bring up to light the things that I'm afraid to face in myself. Right, and that's to me what healing is. Right, it's about generally having that radically honest conversation with yourself and facing yourself. But once you can do that, the rewards are immeasurable, because this is how you truly start to develop that friendship with yourself. Right, because then you start to understand, like, wow, okay, like maybe my trauma, right, all the things I've been holding onto maybe this isn't my fault, right, what happened in my past? Okay, that's not for me to hold anymore, right, I, you know there's nothing I could do. There's absolutely nothing I could do as a child, right, maybe, depending on your childhood wounding, there's absolutely nothing you could do there. So, what is it that I'm holding onto, right? So, obviously, once you've understand, like once you understand the story, you understand that the story is in your own, and then you start to do the inner work, right, and you're combining different modalities to help you.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think that's the most important part, right, and, of course, somatic work, like I talked about, right, and not only in terms of men's retreat or breath work or all these different things, but also in just, you know how you treat your body as well, right, so making sure that you're eating well, exercise, different types of movement. These things are all worth noting, right? These things are all worth adding and these things are all part of the inner journey and the inner work, right, and these are all things that, for me personally, have truly helped me in developing that relationship with myself and becoming my own best friend, right? So that's the first thing that I want to share, and it's really to do the inner work. The second thing that I want to share is to spend more time with yourself, right, spend more time alone. I think this is so, so important.
Speaker 1:I think for a lot of us, it's scary, right, especially initially, when we first start spending more time alone. It can be scary, it can be challenging, because we're not used to being alone. We're typically used to being surrounded by people, for example, okay, and sometimes we're scared to be alone, because, if you're anything like me, as I was a few years ago, afraid to be alone because then my inner critic would take over and then you know, I would just spiral down into this part of negativity, right, but once you start diving into the layers, right, like we talked about earlier, you're doing the inner work, you're approaching yourself with curiosity and self-compassion, truly trying to understand where all this winning is coming from, instead of shaming yourself. And, you know, doing the work right and applying everything that you're learning, then I think that spending time with yourself becomes a bit easier, right? And for me, what happened is was I was actually enjoying spending time with myself, and this is something that I say a lot because I think it's so, so, so important.
Speaker 1:But I think, as people okay, as individuals we need to date ourselves. I think this is so important and this is like it's almost like a philosophy that I've applied to myself. Right? If, when you're dating someone, you're curious about that person, you want to get to know them. Right, so you need to apply the same curiosity and the same compassion and the same interest towards yourself, right? So when I say that it's about really getting to know yourself, right, like we talked about earlier, it's about getting to understand who you are, right On both levels, both the quote unquote good, quote unquote bad.
Speaker 1:But it's also about getting to know more about yourself. What do you like? What do you like to do? What haven't you done in a while that you would like to do more of? What are things like? This is something I've done with clients before right, write down a list of things that you haven't done yet, that you always say oh, I'll try this when I have time, I'll try this later, or I don, I have time, I'll try this later. Or, you know, I don't have time for that, but I'll try it later.
Speaker 1:On Things that you've been wanting to do for so long that you just haven't made the time for. Right, this is the time. This is the time to make the time for it, because otherwise you're not going to try those things. And this is a big part of discovering who you are and your interest in what you like and what you love to do. Right, it's to try different things that you generally want to be trying, and this is all about dating yourself. And I think once you start to date yourself, this is how you start to build that relationship with yourself. Right, you start doing hobbies that you enjoy. You start doing things that you enjoy, that you enjoy specifically. Right. And I think this is so important. Because here's the other thing, right, something I've noticed in our culture and from my friends, like you know, people that I've surrounded myself, friends that I've talked to Oftentimes, let's say, as an example, you have a coffee date with someone, right?
Speaker 1:Or just like a friend, right, you're going for coffee with a friend, maybe they cancel last minute. Okay, they cancel last minute and you're like, oh, you know, I was really looking forward to it, right. And then you're like, okay, we'll reschedule later and that's completely fine. Wrong, right, maybe they had to cancel for you know a good reason, but why are you canceling the entire event? Why can't you go for the coffee yourself? If you were really stoked about it, if you were really excited to go for coffee, then take yourself out for coffee, right? Like, grab a book, go out for coffee. Just go out for coffee somewhere that you want. Grab a coffee, go sit on a park bench or something along those lines. Is what I'm trying to say. Right, but you don't always need someone to do something, is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:And this is how truly I started doing the inner work and then incorporating this into my life was really the catalyst into how I became my own best friend and genuinely started to enjoy spending time with myself, because I was like you know what? I'm just going to do things when I want to do things and I'm going to do the things that I want to do Now. Of course, like I said earlier, it's very important to be connecting with people and to be hanging out with friends. We're all humans, we like the social interaction. But if you want to do something, you don't have to wait for people to join you, and if they don't join you, then you cancel all your plans, like. You don't need to do that, right? In fact, I encourage you and I challenge you to get out there and do more things alone, right?
Speaker 1:There is so much power in my personal opinion, there is so much power in being able to sit in a cinema alone, go watch a movie alone, go eat at a restaurant alone, go grab a coffee alone and just be by yourself. And trust me, right when I started doing this, I know and this is something I have my clients do, it's something I've heard from clients as well it's odd. It feels awkward at first. You're there alone. I've heard from clients as well. It's odd. It feels awkward at first. You're there alone. You feel like people are judging you. You feel like people are watching you and I can promise you this Even if someone looks at you for five seconds, be like what, okay, whatever? Right, and honestly, a lot of people just wish that they could go do something alone. They wish that they could spend time with themselves. Right, and I can promise you, once you start to do things alone, you start to gain, kind of like, this power in yourself. You're like, and this confidence is like wow, I can do this. Right, I can do this, I can do this alone, I can do this by myself, and that is a beautiful thing, right? So you don't always need to wait for someone to do something like.
Speaker 1:Personally, for me, oftentimes, like, I'll go to the movies alone, right, if there's something I really want to see, I'll. Sometimes I'm like you know what I'll take myself on a date, I'll go watch a movie. Or if I invite someone and they say sure, or they cancel last minute or they can't go, then I'm not going to stop my entire day for that. I'm going to go and watch the movie, right? So this is what I'm saying I'm not limiting myself and I'm not waiting for anyone else. Sure, it's nice to have someone, but why sabotage your entire night, right? Or what you were truly excited to go do because someone's not joining you, right?
Speaker 1:And this is what I mean by spending time with yourself and building that relationship with yourself, right? And the more things you start to do by yourself, the more you want to spend time with yourself and do more of the things that you love, right? And I know you know, sometimes, maybe for us introverts, it's a bit more easier because you know we like to spend time with ourselves and we'd like to be alone to recharge, right. But it's a challenge that I really impose on anyone, right? Try it out, just see how it feels. Yes, it might feel awkward at first, but I'm telling you this is really what, as you know, again, doing the inner work and this is a part of doing the inner work, by the way, as well but these things truly help you in building that relationship with yourself, ok, truly help you in building that relationship with yourself, okay. So that's tip number two is really to spend more time with yourself.
Speaker 1:Tip number three is to set boundaries and honor your needs, okay. Now, this is something for me that was extremely important, okay, in my own journey, and it's something I think that is important for everyone, right, and I think for me it's not a concept. I think we all understand what boundaries are, but for a lot of us, it's almost like we have this trouble to apply the boundaries right, and for me, this only became easier when I truly started doing that inner work. When I started doing that inner work and really truly diving into myself, getting to know who I was and then understanding what types of boundaries that I really needed in my life and needed to apply to ensure that people respect my time. You know, people respect my time, energy, all these different things, right, because here's the thing as well boundaries they're not walls. You're not pushing people away. This is not the point of boundaries, right? That's. That's a whole other topic, right? So boundaries are helpful in the way that they show people how to treat you right. They you put boundaries because you want to make sure that people know how you want to be treated right. This is the most important thing.
Speaker 1:So, as an example, maybe, right, you let's talk about a hypothetical scenario in terms of a physical boundary. Okay, so maybe you have a friend that's extremely touchy all the time. Okay, some people do this, not in the malicious way, they do this unconsciously, but some people, as an example, will you know, when they talk, they put their hands all over you and they're very touchy. Right, there's no space, but maybe you're someone who truly likes to have that space, right? So maybe it's about asserting yourself, right, in a politely manner, but, you know, asserting yourself and setting that boundary and just saying right, saying something like, hey, you know, you know, I love the conversations that we're having. I just, I don't really appreciate when you're touching me all the time. Right, is that something that you know we? Is that something that you can stop doing? Right, you're very polite, you're assertive, you're standing up for yourself, but you're putting that boundary right and most times they won't even know they're doing that. Right, oh, my goodness, I'm sorry, like I'm genuinely sorry, absolutely Right.
Speaker 1:Also, for me, another, learning how to say no. Right. Now, learning how to say no can be, you know, can be. Uh, there's a lot of different things here, but for me personally, learning how to say no was a necessity in my life. Right, because for me personally, I would consider myself a hundred percent a people pleaser, right, and if you're a people pleaser and you, you can really relate to this right.
Speaker 1:But for me, saying no was absolutely so hard, right. And so let's say, as an example, that someone would, you know, invite me somewhere, and I just didn't want to go. It was like this over explanation, right? Sometimes it would take me hours to just reply to the text because I didn't want to hurt anyone, I didn't want to make people feel bad. It was like, oh my goodness, right.
Speaker 1:And oftentimes I would say yes to people because I just didn't. I didn't want to hurt them. But also here's the thing, right, it's not only that I didn't want to hurt them, but I wanted to make sure that they still liked me, right. So that was kind of that validation. It's not only about hurting someone else or letting someone down. People pleasing often is also about, hey, like okay, if I don't do that, then that person may think differently of me, or that person may not like me as much anymore, or maybe, you know, it's that validation portion as well, right? So for me, people pleasing that was a big thing. So learning how to say no this is something I worked on in coaching as well, you know and asserting those boundaries for me, that was so, so, so powerful, right.
Speaker 1:And the other thing about boundaries, though, is, if we're being honest and we're having this conversation right, some people, unfortunately, will not respect your boundaries and some people will get triggered or offended by your boundaries, okay. Well, that's not on you, right? And you should never limit your boundary. If you set boundaries for yourself, you should respect your boundaries, right? There's a reason that you want these boundaries in the first place and, again, it's not about pushing people away. It's about showing people how you want to be treated right and making sure that is. You know. That is something that you have to be aware of right, and I don't want you to start just diminishing the boundaries that you set for yourself because that person doesn't align with the boundaries, right? So sometimes it's about having those hard conversations as well.
Speaker 1:But again, what I'm trying to say here is, if someone is not aligned with your boundaries, that's not a you problem, right. That's a problem with them. It's not a reflection of you. And I encourage you to keep those boundaries strong, right, because, again, you set them up for a reason and I want you to, you know, I want you to have them stay up right, stay up for a reason and honor yourself and respect yourself, right. So that's the third thing I want to share is to really set your boundaries and honor your needs. The fourth one that I want to share is to really set your boundaries and honor your needs. The fourth one that I want to share really quickly, and this is we talked about this a little bit earlier, but it's truly about taking care of your body.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, when I say taking care of your body, I don't mean you need to go to the gym, get ripped, have a six pack, all these different things, but I think a form of developing that relationship with herself and nurturing that relationship with ourselves is also nurturing the vessel that we have. Right, we have one relationship with ourselves for the entirety of our lives, right From beginning to end. We also have our body with us from beginning to end. Right, it is the only body that you have. It is the only vessel that you have. So, for me, taking care of this body is absolutely mandatory. It's absolutely mandatory.
Speaker 1:And again, I am not talking about six packs and extreme dieting, right, I'm talking about regular movement, whatever that looks like for you. Maybe for you Like, I have a friend that has a Zumba company, right Like, does Zumba classes. He's absolutely fanatic about that and he's great at it. Right, for him, that's his regular movement. Other people like the gym, like myself, other people like swimming, right, regular movement, making sure that you're eating well, that you're sleeping properly that, again, what we talked about earlier that you're having a rally, honest conversation with yourself about the things that you need to not put into your body as well if they are being of detriment to you, right? So if you are drinking five times a week, an example, and you're starting to drinking, you start to drink more and you know it's ruining your body, you know it's ruining your sleep, your relationships, and it's about having that radically honest conversation with yourself, right? Hey, maybe I need help, maybe I need to seek some guidance, some counseling. Maybe you know I need to do something. I need to stop drinking, I need to slack on my drinking, right? All these different things. So, whatever that is, whatever substance that may be for you, right.
Speaker 1:But a lot of times, when you are, you know, when you're developing that relationship with yourself this is the other thing as well, right? A lot of times, like people want to add stuff to their life, right, oh, I'm going to add meditation, going to add journaling, going to yes, that's that's. There's nothing wrong with that. But also it's about what do you need to take away that is taking a big impact in your life, right, maybe it's relationships, maybe it's something that you're putting into your body, maybe it's something that's not making you feel well. There are a variety of different things, right, but what I'm trying to say is, sometimes it's not about addition, it's about subtraction, right, so we're making sure and this is what I'm saying we look at the entirety of our vessel or just who we are. Right, the entirety, and that includes our vessel, is what I'm trying to say. Right, so includes everything.
Speaker 1:Right, but I, in my personal opinion, I think when you take care of your body and you treat it with dignity and you treat it like a temple right, personally, that's how I treat it I think you develop kind of a sense of respect and confidence and kind of like dignity in yourself, like okay, right, this feels good, I, and that's the thing you end up feeling great, right. So, again, I'm not saying that you can't drink every once in a while or you, you, you can't do all these different things, right, your life, you do whatever you want, type of thing, right? All I'm inviting you to reflect on is hey, are there things that I know that are really being of detriment to me, right, could I be a little easier on my body, you know? Could I be drinking more water, could I be doing more movement? Things that will help me nurture my body, which will, you know, as a byproduct, help you develop and nurture that relationship with yourself. Okay, so tip number four is really to treat your body with care and, last but not least, tip number five that I want to share is to keep the promises that you make to yourself. Now, this is something that's very important and it's something that it's kind of like a personal philosophy for me that I really tried to live by. I am not perfect. I screw up sometimes as well, right.
Speaker 1:But if you think about how you build trust in relationships, right, you have consistent actions and you have reliability, typically, right. Like, obviously, you know, if I have a friend, let's say, or a relationship, right, let's say, I have an intimate partner and my significant other, never, you know, she says, oh yeah, I'll come pick you up here, or oh yeah, let's hang out here, and then she cancels every time, or she never shows up as an example, right, well, that to me is not reliability. That to me, is not consistent actions. She's not consistently showing that you know she's, she seems interested, or she's trying to make effort, right? So that trust isn't really going to be, you know, built on a solid foundation is what I'm trying to say, right? So it's very hard to build trust with someone, right? But the same thing with yourself applies, right?
Speaker 1:If you keep saying you're going to do something but you never do it, okay, let's say you say, okay, I'm going to start eating healthier, or I want to start journaling, or I'm going to start doing the inner work, or whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish here, and you're like okay, I'm going to make this promise to myself, sometimes, a lot of the times, the New Year's goals, new Year's resolutions. In my personal opinion, you do not need to wait for the 1st of January to do this. You can flip that switch any day of the year, it doesn't matter, right? But what I'm trying to say is, if you're constantly making promises to yourself but you're breaking them over and over, you're not going to build trust with yourself. You're not going to build that relationship with yourself. That applies to the relationship with yourself, right?
Speaker 1:So do the things that you say that you're going to do. If you say that you're going to start sleeping earlier because you know that you're tired, because you know that this is going to greatly be a benefit to you, then make an effort to start sleeping earlier, right. If you say that you're going to start eating healthier, then start eating healthier, right. It's okay to slip, right, it's okay to slip up. It's okay to whatever, right, that happens, we're all human. But you get back on the train and then you continue, right. But if you're constantly making promises and you're breaking all of them, right, and you're not being honest with yourself and you're just not doing the things that you know that you should be doing, that, in my personal opinion, that is a significant factor in the ability to create and develop that relationship with yourself, because how do you trust yourself if you never show up for yourself and you're breaking all the promises that you're making to yourself, right? So these are really five things that I really wanted to talk about today that have truly helped me build that relationship with myself.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, again, like I said earlier, there's a lot of work that goes into this. This is not an overnight thing. For me personally, this was a multi-year thing, right. This doesn't happen in two weeks or a month. Right, this is a lot of significant work and, again, this will all depend on your own wounding, your own childhood experiences, whatever it is that you've gone through, right. But my message for you today is really simple right, I just want you to take a step back and really think about you know, am I being very self-critical all the time? Am I getting in my own way? Is what I'm trying to say? Right, because a lot of us do right, myself included. A lot of us do, and a lot of times, that relationship is so hard to build because we're so self-critical, right? So these things that I've really highlighted today are things that have truly helped me build that relationship with myself.
Speaker 1:I hope this helps. I really hope that this video can help you kind of on your journey to, you know, befriending yourself. That's the key word that I want to share today. So it's befriending yourself. So, with that being said, I will see you all next week. So, that being said, that's all I've got for you guys on today's episode. If you did like the episode, please feel free to leave a comment or review, share it. It really helps bring awareness to what I'm trying to do, which is really kind of you know, spread this podcast on a broader scale to really help people just navigate everyday life challenges. So, again, with that being said, I hope you have a good week and I will catch you, guys, next week. You.
