Episode #860
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be your own best friend?
In this episode, we explore the transformative power of treating yourself with the same kindness and compassion you offer others. Discover how to shift from being your harshest critic to your biggest supporter.
Tim Matthews and Mo Parks delve into the practical steps of self-compassion, from practicing positive self-talk to setting healthy boundaries. Learn how these small changes can lead to improved relationships, greater resilience, and enhanced personal growth.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The importance of treating yourself with kindness and understanding.
- How to practice positive self-talk and self-respect.
- The impact of self-compassion on personal growth and happiness.
- Practical tips to become your own best friend.
Tune in to start your journey towards self-compassion and personal growth!
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Transcription
Tim Matthews 0:00
What do people want for their kids? And okay, so if it’s good enough for your kids, then why would it not be good enough for you?
Mo Parks 0:08
Yeah, you know you’d plan all these things for everyone else. If you’re going to help a friend pick up a couch, you plan that and you would have that in your calendar. Why wouldn’t you have time for yourself?
Tim Matthews 0:19
But I really love that idea of treating yourself with the same kindness, compassion and understanding that you would offer a close friend, and it’s about supporting yourself through life’s ups and downs you have you ever thought about what it would be like to be your own best friend? In this episode, we’re going to explore this powerful topic, diving into various things and give you some key insights on how you might be able to make the transition from being your own worst enemy to your own best friend. Miss Mo Parks.
Mo Parks 1:04
Hey, how’s it going?
Tim Matthews 1:05
Good? I thought you would like this topic. Okay, why do you think I thought you’d like the topic?
Mo Parks 1:10
I have no clue.
Tim Matthews 1:13
Okay, how do you think you do with this?
Mo Parks 1:16
Pretty poorly.
Tim Matthews 1:17
Okay, why?
Mo Parks 1:19
I probably because I distrust a lot of people, so I learned to distrust myself. Okay, that’d be my guess.
Tim Matthews 1:30
So in your opinion, what does it mean to be your own best friend?
Mo Parks 1:35
The things that come to me are trusting, trusting your own voice, trusting that you have your best interest in you’re gonna say yes to you before anyone else. You’re gonna choose the things that bring you joy, even if they inconvenience others.
Tim Matthews 1:55
Yeah. So yeah. The inspiration for this particular episode came from some journaling I was doing a couple of months ago, and we hear a lot about the idea within health that you got one body Right, right? So treat you well, and wherever you go, you take your body with you. Yeah, I was thinking, well, the same is true about yourself, like you’ve got one self, right? And wherever you go, you take yourself with you. So why is it that people often talk about treating your body with a level of respect, yet they often don’t talk about treating themselves in that same way? All right? And this idea of being your own best friend, I think there’s probably some resistance that people will experience in listening to this. Oh, that’s arrogant. Or, you know, I don’t want to come across as being arrogant. You know, in Australia, I know there’s something called, I think it’s tall poppy syndrome, which is essentially about nobody wants to grow and stick their head above the precipice and stand out because it gets cut off. So everyone is and I’m probably butchering this, but it’s the idea that people will only do so much because they don’t want to stand out and go further, because it’s not socially accepted. And there’s a lot of suicide and such over there as well that they relate to this particular idea of this tall poppy syndrome. Don’t know what it’s like in the US, transparently in the UK, I think there’s some pockets. I think the UK can be rather negative at times. The media love to be build people up to then pull them down. If somebody’s doing something really well, they can have to be negative in the UK of the UK, blah, blah, blah, but people can often be negative and look for what they’re not doing very well, yeah. But I think there’s this idea of, okay, well, I don’t want to be my own best friend because I don’t want to be arrogant. Don’t want to be cocky. Don’t want to be whatever. But the idea of being your own best friend, as I dived into the research on this, there was one quote I found that really liked, and it was the idea of being your own best friend means treating yourself with the same kindness, compassion and understanding that you would offer a close friend. I like that. I love that.
Mo Parks 4:25
I’m in, I’m in, I’m into that.
Tim Matthews 4:27
It’s about supporting yourself through life’s ups and downs, really.
Mo Parks 4:33
Briefly, because I know we have a large Christian like, I guess following, I’d say that this would be a concept that would be very like in a lot of spaces, non like. It wouldn’t be, at first hearing. It wouldn’t be like, highly approved, but the way you just defined it is super interesting. Because I think when you think through the lens of, Okay, God designed, I mean, from a Christian perspective, God designed man, and therefore. That’s valuable, like we are made valuable. And so treating yourself with the love kindness and empathy and respect of being made by God is actually a Christian principle. It is actually something that’s like, highly exalted and beautiful. And so I just wanted to add that in, because we were seeing different perspective, different countries, different values. And I think also, when you think through different religions, there’s a, I think, more like this concept of like, I want to think more of God and less of me. And it’s not thinking thinking, it’s not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. I think I might have said that reverse, but it’s this idea of like, no, if you’re made in the image of God, then you you should be treating yourself with the grace, kindness, love and respect that the high king treats you with.
Tim Matthews 5:49
Yeah, I love that. And the thing gets me about this is, what do people want for their kids? Yeah, and okay, so if it’s good enough for your kids, then why would it not be good enough for you? Yeah, and then I also think kids do what you do, not what you say, yes. So if it’s good enough for your kids, and you want that for your kids, and what is the best way to set your kids up for success with that particular thing is to model it. Yep, all right, but I really love that idea of treating yourself with the same kindness, compassion and understanding that you would offer a close friend, and it’s about supporting yourself through life’s ups and downs. I was sharing with Stu I think, one of my favorite books, Nathaniel Brandon, I’ve shared it with you, the six pillars of self esteem. No, you haven’t shared that with me, yeah, one of the pillars, essentially, is self compassion, and the importance of self compassion, yeah, and it’s not an easy thing, right to shift from being your own worst critic to being your own biggest fan. And it’s interesting. At the IC event that we had in a circle event that we had here last week, the guys were going through an experience, and one of the men said, I don’t trust this. I said, Well, what is it you don’t trust I just don’t trust myself. Why? Because I know myself the most. I was like, I think that’s part of the dissonance that occurs for people, because we do our we do know ourselves the best, therefore we also know the things that we think and the things that we do and so on. I think integrity was another pillar, but a different book is The Four Agreements.
Have you read that? That’s a great one. It’s just all about being in being in integrity with yourself and with your word and and so on. Because the reality is, if you’re out of integrity, I think it’s easy for for people to become out of integrity, because as guys, we are so used to shouldering the burden for things. I think I’ll say it, I’ll change it from guys as high achievers saying it’s true for women as well. Oh, we’re so used to shouldering the burden of things that therefore leads to us saying yes to things and yes to too many things, which then makes it really difficult to be Integris with your word, because the burden that you place on yourself to try and be Integris with your word is unrealistic, and therefore, if you lay your head in the pillow at night knowing that you haven’t been Integris with your word or with whatever, that can then harm your self image. Fastest way to lose confidence, make and break promises to yourself. Fastest way to build confidence make them keep promises to yourself. So I think a key component in becoming your own best friend, best friend and your own biggest fan is to be able to be in integrity with yourself, which therefore means you have to become increasingly mindful of what you say yes to and what you say no to, because if you take too much on, you’re not setting yourself up for success. In fact, you’re setting yourself up to become your own worst critic.
Mo Parks 9:34
When I think through particularly I think women in dealing with this concept of self love. I feel like there’s lot I mean, at least in my experience, I should say and won’t classify all women.
Mo Parks 9:48
But there is this. There’s this pain when I hear you talking about it like this.
Doug Holt 9:55
Hey guys, sorry to interrupt this episode. But the reality is, if you are watching or. Listening to this right now, then you are looking to better yourself, and I applaud you. You’re one of my people, and I want to give you the opportunity of taking massive action. So if you haven’t joined The Activation Method yet, it’s our flagship program, do what 1000s of other businessmen, just like you have done, and take action. Be one of the one percenters that actually does the work and takes action. There’ll be a link in the description that’ll take you right to a page that’ll just give you more information. There is no obligation, just go check it out and see if it’s a good fit for you. All right, let’s get back to this episode.
Mo Parks 10:38
Yes, it feels like everyone else is more important than me. It feels like getting to everyone else is more important than me.
Tim Matthews 10:46
It feels like that’s true of men as well.
Mo Parks 10:48
Yeah, probably just there’s other things to get to. I can always have me, but there’s other things that I have to do right now. Or it’s yeah, it just feels put off, and it feels like this massive thing, when the reality is, if I just like, stop in the sun and take a breath, for me, it’s simple, like, it’s just a one moment where I like how the sun feels on my skin. But I think a lot of people just don’t even know the things that are easy, that can give themselves compassion, they can give themselves love, they can give themselves care. It feels like, oh, it’s got to be a big thing. Like, I gotta sit down and journal for an hour. But the reality is, it just might be like, when you leave a conversation, not giving yourself that moment of, like, Did I look stupid, and just saying, like, I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Like, that’s a simple thing, but it allows you to embrace some of those things.
Tim Matthews 11:41
I agree. I think a lot of people don’t understand what they need. They don’t understand what makes them happy, what brings them joy, what just contributes to them feeling good, right? Yeah, and as a result, I think it’s very easy to fall into a trap of thinking, to your point, has to be some grandiose thing going buying a new car or building a new home, or taking a vacation for three weeks, or whatever it may be, which all seems so huge and also require a lot of effort. And to your point. I agree. It can be super simple, but if you constantly on the go, constantly doing, you know we talk about be do have is why we organize the territories, self, health, relationships, wealth and business, so that you’re able to prioritize things in the right order, so that you can have space and time to understand yourself. I can’t remember which philosopher it was that said, Know thyself. So much power in that, because so many people don’t know themselves for lots of different reasons. And to become your best friend, well, to become your own best friend, that is a journey of knowing thyself and finding ways, tiny ways, to be able to give yourself what you need or what you want in whatever moment. And that need may be able to be met by you just doing one thing for yourself, like enjoying a coffee in the sun. That need might be a thing that can only be met through someone else, maybe intimacy, so the ability for you to then initiate or speak up or whatever becomes really important. Again. As I was looking through the research, there were three key teaching points that stood out to me. One was practicing positive self talk.
Second, one was self care and self respect like that is huge self respect that’s been a game changer in my life. Well, so is positive self talk for me, the positive self talk mainly occurs through my journaling and also during my morning walk and talk in my IRS, I have a distinctly different start to my day when I wake up slowly. When I wake up slowly, what I mean by that is I don’t like explode out of the bed, so I actually just open my eyes and smile and just take a few minutes to just smile and be with the smile. This is easy for me to do and easy for me not to do. It’s also very easy for me to wake up and just have my mind racing. So we have to be disciplined in smiling. But it’s very hard to feel bad when you smile very hard. So starting my day by just opening my eyes and moving slowly and smiling and really feeling that, and then going out on my morning walk and talk and just talking out loud things I appreciate about myself or where I. Am or what I have in my life, whatever it may be, and then journaling afterwards that has had a profound impact on retraining my self talk. Now the next step to that is I also have to then align my actions in my life with what it is I am saying to myself, hence the self respect piece, because if I then allow myself to be treated aware by others, or treat myself too in a way that’s out of alignment with how I see myself, then I’m not respecting myself, and therefore I am out of integrity with myself, damages my self image. Easy for me to become self critical, and then I can find the trap of my own worst critic instead of my own biggest fan. And a lot of the guys struggle with this because they’ve become so used to allowing their wife or other people to talk to themselves in condescending ways, be it name calling, be it tonality of some kind, be a harshness, whatever it may be. And I did that for a long time. I let that happen for a lot of my life, until I realized that was one of the big things that wouldn’t work for me. Of me one of the non negotiables in any relationship I’m in with Amelia or whoever, I will not be called names. I will not be spoken to like shit, and my character will not be attacked. If anyone tries to do that, they will know very quickly that isn’t okay.
Mo Parks 16:53
Yes, they will. And if they continue to try and do that, they won’t be around me for that to be a thing, yeah, which is self respect, which I can vouch for that being very true for Tim, because I’ve watched him hold that boundary, and it’s and it’s been, it’s awesome. I love watching it because it just shows the level of respect that you’re willing.
Tim Matthews 17:10
What you allow into your life, what you allow, what is the way you tolerate,
Mo Parks 17:11
you get, what you tolerate, yeah, yeah.
Tim Matthews 17:12
Which is true, yeah, right. But all these, none of these things are hard, right? What we’re talking about right now, these concepts are difficult. It’s not difficult to smile in the morning. It’s not difficult to shift yourself talk. It’s not difficult to say, hey, no, don’t. Don’t talk to me like that. It’s very easy to do, which often therefore means for people and for me as well, in the past, it’s easy not to do, and oftentimes, the things that are easy, people lose sight of how valuable they are, yeah, how impactful they are.
Mo Parks 17:48
One of the things you said earlier around actually doing these things instead of just talking about them, I think that’s a really easy trap to fall into. We have these these truths that we say to our kids every morning, but if I say, I am valuable as one of our truths, yet I let my husband speak to me a certain way, or he lets me speak to a certain way, then we don’t embody that value. And so I think when you think through what your family things are and what you want for your kids, like you said, the A good question to ask yourself is, how am I doing those things? Like, am I watching them? Are they watching me slow down in my life? Are they watching me take care of myself and not just working out? But are they watching me take time reading a book in the morning? Are they watching me take time to whatever it might be. And I think a big piece of that is, you know, you plan like, a lot of it is even like, if I’m writing down, I’m a smile in the morning, if I’m writing that down, it’s a much higher likelihood, I think it’s like an 80% higher chance that I’m gonna do it then not do it. So planning, I think, is a big thing here. It’s not just like, Oh, I’m just gonna do it. It’s like knowing in your schedule you have time for yourself. You plan a meeting with anyone else you know. You’d plan all these things for everyone else. If you’re going to help a friend pick up a couch, you plan that, and you would have that in your calendar. Why wouldn’t you have time for yourself?
Tim Matthews 19:16
It’s a great point. I mean, look, the reality is, people listening to this, they aren’t learning right now. No learning is taking place right now. The learning occurs when behavior changes.
Mo Parks 19:31
Yep. So if no one does anything with this, no point in listening. Kind of worst I’m having
Tim Matthews 19:33
listened to it because now they know the reality of things. I know we’re going to wrap up in a moment. But there was three of the things that stood out to me from the science around this one was so three of the impacts of becoming your own best friend. I thought you like these. One is improved relationships. So when you have a strong, supportive relationship with yourself, it positively influences your interactions with others. Kind of touched on that. That’s great. The other one was great. To resilience and self esteem things is a huge one. Self Compassion enhances your ability to bounce back from setbacks and build strong sense of self worth. You become more resilient and confident in facing life’s challenges. That’s important, because we can easily face life’s challenges. But where it comes from, the self talk within that is very important to whether you enjoy the journey or not, right? And the third piece was enhanced personal growth and happiness. When you treat yourself kindly, you create a supportive environment for personal growth. This leads to great happiness and fulfillment as you pursue your goals and dreams, which, again, it’s nothing groundbreaking, is it? It’s not like, Oh, I didn’t realize that. Of course, that makes sense. But why do people then not choose to become their own best friend? Makes no sense to me, like I get it because I was there and at the same time, you are the only person you’re going to be with your entire life, if it’s good enough for your kids, and it’s then it’s good enough for you, if your kids only learn by doing what you do and not what you say. And there’s all this evidence about how it’s so beneficial, and why the hell would someone not do it?
Mo Parks 21:23
I don’t get it. You want me to tell you? I’m just kidding,
Tim Matthews 21:28
if you’ve got an idea, yeah.
Mo Parks 21:30
I mean, I think it’s forgetting, like one of the biggest things that people need in most beautiful pieces, remembering, like, remember, see that? Yeah, remembering is something that is really hard. Even you saying this is like, I need a plan better for these things and but I would argue, oh, I have another one too. But keep going, you’re
Tim Matthews 21:51
just fine for your story. I would argue, steal, sharp and steal, yeah, be around people who are doing if I didn’t have the community of men that we have, would I be as likely to be as consistent with what I do? Maybe not, yeah, but I’d also find an environment to put myself in. Because if I was living a life like I was, it was very unfulfilling and a lot of a struggle, and it was tough, and I wanted to change it. And I realized this. I mean this to be fair, you know, I don’t want to sound like I’m coming across as though this is easy, because it is, and I’ve been working on this for 12 years, right? And it’s like going to the gym, if I stop working out, I begin losing my gains. But because I know how good it feels by choosing to do this, I’m unwilling to go back to the word. I think some of my frustration right now and confusion really is I just want people to go down this path, because I think it’s it’s accessible to everybody. It’s so rewarding. I just think about the families and the communities now much of a better place a world would be if we all just committed to being our own best friend instead of our own worst critic. Amen. So guys, if any of this has resonated with you. Please begin the journey now. Whatever that means to you, it’s one of the most rewarding Journeys you can take, the journey from being your own worst critic to becoming your own best friend. Well, thank you for being here, and we’ll see you next time on the TPM show.
