#188: What You'd Never Say to a Friend

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hey there, beautiful humans. Welcome back to Your Favorite You. 

Once again, I am so grateful that you are here with me again today. I want to start with a moment I had recently that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. I was getting dressed for the day, and I want you to know before I get into this that I have been doing the work. 

For the first time in my life at 53 years old, I am loving my body. I mean, genuinely loving it. I'm sleeping well, nourishing my body well, lifting heavy weights, doing yoga, taking my hormones, taking my GLP-1 medication. 

I've done many of the things. And as a result of all of this work, work I am deeply proud of, my body looks and feels different. My arms and my shoulders, they look amazing. I'm not even going to hedge that. 

They look amazing. So there I am, getting dressed, feeling good, feeling proud. I'm pulling on a sleeveless top, and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. And because I have a normal human brain that picks out the negative shit, I notice this tiny bit of extra crepey skin near my underarms, my axilla, for those of you who are medically inclined. 

And here's what my brain said without missing a beat. Well, that wouldn't be there if you had always treated your body this way. Too little, too late, Melissa. And I just stopped because I want you to think about this with me. 

I was standing there having a genuine moment of pride and progress. My body is legitimately stronger and healthier than it has ever been before. And in the middle of that moment, the most loving, connected moment I have maybe ever had with my own body, my brain swooped in and punished me for everything I didn't do before. 

Too little, too late. Now, I want to ask you something. If your best friend, let's call her Alicia, called you and said, I've been doing so well. I've been taking care of myself. I feel strong and healthy for the first time in my life. 

Would you say to her, well, it's too bad you didn't do this sooner. Your body wouldn't look like that if you'd been doing this all along. No, you would not, because you would never say that to someone you love. 

But we say it to ourselves all the time without even blinking. Today I want to talk about that, that voice, that inner critic, and what we're going to do about her. Here's the thing I want you to understand about that voice, the critical one, the one that sneaks in and kicks you when you're down, or sometimes when you're actually doing great. 

She's not your enemy. I know. Stay with me because I've told you before to name her Ursula and tell her to get the fuck out. In IFS, Internal Family Systems, we work with the idea that we are made up of parts, not one unified being, but a whole community of internal voices and perspectives. 

And the inner critic, she's one of those parts. And like all parts, she developed for a reason. She's trying to protect you. Maybe she learned a long time ago that if she pointed out your flaws before someone else did, it hurt a little bit less. 

Maybe she believed that if she kept you humble, kept you small, kept you striving, you'd be safe. You'd stay in control and you wouldn't be blindsided. For a lot of us, this part showed up in childhood. 

She was shaped by parents, teachers, coaches. For me, it was nuns, the media, you know, magazines, a culture that told us our worth was conditional on how we looked or what we achieved. And she internalized those messages and made them her mission. 

Protect you by criticizing you first. That is not cruelty, but it is a very misguided form of love. Here's the problem. She's working from very old information. She was built for a version of the world and a version of you that no longer exists. 

And the strategies that may have protected the eight-year-old version of you, they are genuinely harmful to the 38, 43, 53, 57-year-old, the you who's standing in front of a mirror having a moment of genuine pride. 

So let's talk about what she actually sounds like because she's sneaky. She doesn't always announce herself. She sounds like common sense. She sounds like self-awareness. She sounds like you. So you should have started sooner. 

You're not there yet. Of course you made that mistake, just like you always do. You're not as far along as you should be. Look at what you've let happen. These are not objective observations. These are a part of you speaking from fear, doing her best to protect you in the only way she knows how. 

I want to give you a tool today that I use with my clients all the time. It's the best friend test, and it's exactly what it sounds like. When you hear your inner critic speak, when you catch that voice saying something to you, I want you to ask, wait, would I say this to my best friend? 

Not a vague made-up friend, your actual bestie, the one whose face you're picturing right now. You look beautiful today, by the way, Alicia. Would I say this to her? I hear this from my clients constantly. 

A woman will tell me what she said to herself after making a mistake at work, after eating something that she didn't plan to eat, after losing her shit with her kids. And nine times out of 10, when I ask, would you say that to your best friend? 

She looks at me like I've lost my ever-loving mind. Of course not. That would be cruel. Exactly. So why are we allowing it to be said to us? I want you to really sit with the gap here. Think about the last time you said something unkind to yourself, something you would absolutely never say to someone you love. 

How did it feel in your body when that voice spoke? Did you notice a tightening, a sinking, a kind of deflating? Now, imagine your best friend said that to you out loud. Same words. How would that feel? 

I'm willing to bet it would feel devastating. You would probably cry. You might even consider ending the friendship. And yet, we let this happen in our minds every single day and we barely register it because it sounds like us, because it's been there so long. 

It feels like the truth. It is not the truth. It is a part of you speaking from an old wound, doing her imperfect best. And you get to choose to respond differently to her now. So what do we actually do with her? 

Because I don't want you to leave this episode thinking the goal is to silence her, to push her down, to beat her into submission. That doesn't work. Hearts don't respond well to being suppressed. They only get louder or they go underground and find sneakier ways to make their point. 

Ask me how I know. The goal is to get curious about her, to understand what she's actually trying to do. And from that place of understanding, to gently let her know that you can take it from here, that she doesn't have to keep doing this job that she's been doing for so many years in your system. 

So here's a practice I want to walk you through. The next time your inner critic shows up, and she will, maybe even before you finish listening to this episode, I want you to simply notice her. Name what's happening. 

Oh, there's my inner critic part. Mine used to be called Ursula. She's now called Sweetie. Not I'm being hard on myself. Not I'm having negative thoughts, but there's a part of me right now that is speaking critically. 

There she is. Hi, sweetie. This one shift from I to a part of me creates just enough distance for you to see what's happening. You are not your inner critic. You have a part that criticizes. That's very different. 

The second step is to get curious, not furious. Once you've noticed her, get curious, not angry, not dismissive, just genuinely curious, the way you might be curious about a friend who's acting strangely or your child who's acting strangely. 

Ask her, what are you afraid of? What are you trying to protect me from right now? When I asked this part, my inner critic part in my dressing room moment, what came up was something like, I'm afraid that if I let you enjoy this, you'll stop trying. 

Oof, there it is. She wasn't trying to ruin my moment. She was trying to keep me safe from a future failure that she was imagining. And she didn't have to imagine. I've gone back and forth with my weight in my body so many times over my lifetime. 

She was protecting me in the only way she knew how. That doesn't mean she was right, but me understanding her motivation, that changed everything. The third step is to respond from your wisest self, your capital S self. 

We can bring in our capital S self, the calm, clear, compassionate part of you that can hold all of the other parts and lead them. The you that doesn't need to be protected because she's already whole. 

From that place, respond to the critic, not to argue with her or to dismiss her, but to acknowledge her and to offer her a more accurate, up-to-date perspective. Something like, I hear you. I know you're scared, but I want to show you something. 

Look at where we are. Look at what we've done. This isn't complacency. This is the result of all the work we've been putting in. And I'm not going to let you take this moment from us. You don't have to get the wording perfectly right. 

You don't have to have a perfectly articulated internal dialogue. In fact, I highly recommend against it. You just have to show up for yourself in a way that you would show up for someone that you love. 

I said at the top of the episode that I want you to walk away with doing something. So here it is. Three things. The first is to simply notice for the next week, every time you catch that inner critic speaking, just notice. 

Name her. There she is again. There's that part again. You don't have to fix it, argue with it, or really fix anything. Just become aware of how often she shows up and what tends to bring her out, what tends to trigger her. 

Most of my clients are pretty genuinely shocked once they start paying attention. The second is to try the best friend redirect. When the inner critic speaks, ask, would I say this to my best friend? 

If the answer is no, and it will almost always be no, ask yourself, what would I say to her instead? And then say that to you. This is going to feel fucking awkward at first. It might feel fake. You might hear your inner critic chime in about how ridiculous this is. 

That's okay. I want you to do it anyway, because here's what I know. The way you speak to yourself shapes the relationship you have with yourself. And the relationship you have with yourself shapes everything else. 

And the third thing, if you feel called to this, is to just sit with being seen today. Because I know that some of you heard that dressing room story and you felt something tighten in your chest. Not because it was dramatic, but because you recognized it. 

You have your own version of that moment. Maybe it happens when you look through old photos. Maybe it happens when you make a mistake at work. Maybe it happens when you're lying in bed at night running through the list of everything you didn't do right that day. 

You're not alone in this, not even close. And the fact that you recognize the cruelty of it, the fact that it occurs to you that you would never say this to a friend, that's not a small thing. That's your wisest, most loving self pointing you toward the truth. 

You've been carrying a voice that is not the whole truth of who you are. She's part of you, a scared, protective, well-meaning part, but she is not you. And she does not get to be the loudest voice in the room anymore. 

You're allowed to stand in front of a mirror at 53 or 33 or 63 or whatever age you are right now and be proud of what you see. You're allowed to celebrate progress without punishing yourself for the path it took you to get there. 

Too little, too late? Fuck no. Right here, right now, exactly when it was meant to happen. That's what becoming your favorite you looks like. Not the absence of the critical voice, but the presence of a wiser, kinder, more true one. 

And I'm here for all of it with you. Thank you so much once again for listening to your favorite you. If you're ready to do this deeper work, to really understand your parts, to build a genuinely kind relationship with yourself, this is exactly what we do at Melissa Parsons Coaching. 

So please come find me. All right, I'll see you next week, my beautiful humans. Bye.

Hey - It’s still me. Since you are listening to this podcast, you very likely have followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes but you still feel like something's missing! If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools you need to tiptoe into putting yourself first and treating yourself as you would your own best friend, I'm here to support you. As a general life coach for women, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges as you start to get to know and embrace your authentic self.

When we work together, you begin to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You learn effective communication strategies, boundary-setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself and others.

While, of course, I can't guarantee specific outcomes, as everyone's journey is brilliantly unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support, and guidance you need to create lasting changes in your life. With humor and a ton of compassion, I'll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

You're ready to invest in yourself and embark on this journey, so head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com, go to the work with me page, and book a consultation call. We can chat about all the support I can provide you with as we work together.

I am welcoming one-on-one coaching clients at this time, and, of course, I am also going to be offering the next round of group coaching soon. 

Thanks for tuning in. Go be amazing!