How to Be Your Own Loving Parent

Speaker A: 00:00:03

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Stillness in the Storms. And I want to talk about parenting ourselves. And I come across this concept in the past week when I was reading the book by Gabo Mate.

I think that's how you pronounce his name, Scattered Minds. And it just. It just really hit home. What do you mean by parenting ourselves? And what does it mean by do I really need it?

Do I need a parent in my life? I've got carers, I've got PAs. Do I really need them telling me what I should and shouldn't do? But it really did resonate with me.

And I've been thinking about what areas of my life do I need a parent in? And I think it's a brilliant concept. I think it's really good. And, boy, do I need to be my own parent at times.

But just before we start on that, I just want to say thank you to everybody that donates. You guys are absolutely awesome. So thank you to Laura K. Jimmy Major is over on Instagram, and someone else that did not leave their name.

And I think that's it. Currently, the biggest donator of the past 90 days is Stuart. You're awesome. Thank you, Stuart. You're the number one at the moment.

And I just want to say thank you to Mariette. You have subscribed to Monthly, and I didn't know that, but you could just tick the little box. It's just Monthly. You guys are awesome.

Thank you very much. And to be quite honest, I have no ads on the podcast, simply because I don't like tuning into a podcast and then listening to 20 minutes of ads.

Then here I am talking about the Donators for two minutes. Anyway, let's get on with today's podcast.

Just imagine for a minute that if you had a kind, wise, loving parent in your life that you just trusted to be able to go, do you know what? Just have a look at my life and see where I could do some parenting. And I've looked at my life and I thought, where can I do some parenting?

One, getting out of the house on time and not being late. I need someone to go, hey, look, put your shoes on, get your coat on. Get out of there. Not quite. Put your shoes on and get your coat on.

But I need someone 20 minutes before I'm due somewhere that takes 18 minutes to get there. Just tell me 30 minutes. Just, Stephen, get on, get out the door. You gotta be somewhere. I have this magic thinking that I don't.

I forget about travel time, and I have this wishful thinking that there's never gonna be anything goes wrong between me and the destination. Yeah, I go through town, I get stopped and people talk to me and I'm nearly always late. So I need to really think about that.

So I could do a parent just going to Stephen, you need to be at so and so today, on time. A simple thing that so many people find easy to do. I find it so difficult. Literally I have, I have to be in town.

It takes me about six minutes to get into town and it's 10 minutes to go and I think, right, I've got four minutes to check my emails. Why? What ridiculous thinking. But I still do it. I've got better at it, realizing what I do. So awareness is everything. Just been aware that we do this.

So I'm not late as often but wherever things, boundaries for ourselves, just, you know, turn the TV off, turn the lights out, you know that parent comes in the room and goes, time for the TV to go off, come on. I could do with that sometimes. And I could do with the parent just going, no, not tonight, look, you've had unhealthy food for days, eat your greens.

And it's like literally little things that we all know, you know it, I know it. Balance in that work, life and play, you know, it's not going to full on into one or the other.

I tend to go full on into one and then full on into another and I don't balance it properly. You know, comfort with out over indulging in it, you know, I'm not a smoker, I don't drink.

When I look at my life, I think, you know, am I doing anything interesting at all? I go to council meetings, I, I do hang out and get out with not so much friends and all nowadays, but because I'm just so busy.

But I really enjoy what I do. I enjoy the colleagues I work with, the other counsellors and I enjoy the counselors that are even on. I was going to say opposing sides.

We're not on opposing sides. We just see things differently. We all want the same things. We all want a healthy. We all want money in our pockets, we all want to live life well.

We just see different things in different ways. We see different obstacles in the way to getting that, that's all. Well, did I put on my list holding ourselves accountable? I really need that.

I'm always looking for external people to hold me accountable.

If someone says, right, your podcast has to be out on Sunday, otherwise, you know, if I've got to do it for somebody else, I'm on it, but if I'm doing it for myself, I'm terrible. If I've got too much time in my hands, I'll leave it to the last minute. What's that about? So just that accountability just.

Come on, Steven, you got a. Get dressed, go to school. The equivalent adult would be, Come on, Stephen, just get on and record your podcast. Little things like that.

Do your emails, don't leave them until 11 o' clock at night. Or do your meditation in the morning when you wake up at 6, 7 o'. Clock. Don't check your phone, stop scrolling. I've even noticed.

Have you noticed now on the doom scrolling, they. I know they always added it at the bottom and it's been a while since you had the endless scroll, but it literally has become endless.

I'm like, I want to find the bottom. It's become a challenge now to find the bottom of the page that I know doesn't exist.

How many times have you done, the bottom's got to be here somewhere. And you're still scrolling. That's me.

Luckily, I don't do TikTok so much because if someone sends me a TikTok, I don't go and have a look at it, because if I do that, I won't be back for like four days talking YouTube, know what I want to watch before I know what I want to watch. And it's just like, it's junk food for the brain. It really is. Doesn't help me in any way. I just think the next video will make me happier.

Not that I'm miserable, but, you know, I mean. But I think the most important thing when it comes to parenting ourselves is the final one that I wrote down.

And you might have your own ones, but the final one is giving love and reassurance just instead of criticizing ourselves, instead of going, you haven't done this, or you can't do this, or you're useless. Just to go, do you know what you're doing all right? Do you not accept you the way you are? Because in that acceptance, there's room to grow.

In criticism, there isn't the room to grow. And I think that's really important. We need the space to be able to go, do you know what? Let's look at what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong.

And when we do that, with space, with someone that totally accepts us, we can find that bit of clarity, that bit of hope, that bit of room to grow, that room to go, okay, I can see it now. I Can see where I'm going wrong. And we don't need someone coming in and telling us because that just annoys us because we all know it.

We're all the same. That's how we all know it. There might be one of you that's going, well, I always eat healthy. Brilliant.

And there might be one of you go, I have a good work life. Play balance. But somewhere in this list, you'll be guilty of needing a parent. But it's not the old parent that is the.

The stick that's telling you what to do. No, I would not like in any way for someone to come and tell me what to do.

If my carer started saying, you would need to eat this or you need to leave the house at this time or you need to. I would fall out with them very quickly. But I do need to parent myself.

And that little voice inside of me that looks up and goes, do you know what, Stephen? You could do it doing this today. And this is why. How about do this? How about. How about just be a little more kind to yourself in the journal tonight?

How about be kind and give yourself a drink of water instead of a cup of tea. I've given up coffee. I've given up lemonade. Fizzy. Have the odd can of Coke, but it's very, very rare. I don't drink enough. I drink way too much tea.

Going off on my tangents. Way too much tea. I probably have, like, I was going to say, about 100 cups of tea a day. It's probably. Probably 15 cups of tea a day. That's mental.

And I'm only awake two hours. I'm joking. I'm awake more than that. Slightly more. It's an age thing. It's an age thing. Middle age now. It's like, yeah, what was I gonna say?

Why was I too. Love and reassurance. Just take it.

Take a look at your life and just think of, in your life, where could you do with a loving, kind, wise parent showing up? Not your parent that you had. Even if your parent was amazing, not that one. If your parent was, like, deemed as unhealthy and didn't really help you.

Not that one either. Just the loving parent that will help you to be just a little more healthier, happier, nourished version of yourself.

Just to nudge you in the right direction. Just to nudge that needle in the right direction. Just that one to go, hey, come on.

I know you're struggling, but let's take a little small step now and just to be there with you hold your hand to give you a hug, to just recognize that things are not always plain sailing and things are not always easy because they're not. They never will be. You know, Otherwise I could have done Stillness in the Storms.

One episode, told you all about how to get through the next storm, and you would have been done for life. No, the universe has got way more bad buckets for you, as my analogy always says.

Somewhere in all my podcasts, I mentioned that the world that I always thought when I was younger that the world or the universe or something had two buckets and one was a good bucket and one was a bad bucket. And once you had all the bad bucket, you only had the good bucket to go. Just don't like that at all, is it? You know, bad luck only comes in threes.

Really? Tell that to the 67th time that I've done something or good things come in threes, does it? I read loads of good things, more than threes.

So, you know, there is no buckets. The universe is not keeping score.

You know, there's not 10 million monkeys up there all typing on typewriters trying to turn out Hamlet or something, meanwhile deciding your fate and what you're doing. No, don't believe it for a minute. That would be the public sector and they can't afford to pay all the monkeys. So that's why I know that's not true.

Little joke. I found that really funny. Can't help it. I'm really tickled now.

Anyway, right, Going back to today's podcast is, you know, so I've recorded a meditation to go with this podcast and I will release it at the same time on inner peace meditations. And just really just.

Even if you grab a piece of paper and pen or pick up your phone and just don't scroll, but just pick up the notepad or record a note to yourself and just sit. Where can I do of a bit of loving, caring, healthy parenting right now?

And I think you'll realize that there's so many parts of your life and just over the next few days and weeks, what would a loving parent do for me right now in order to help me? And I said, I just want to remind you that you can go to stephenweb.uk spelled with a V and you can Support me Either PayPal or buy me a coffee.

Although I've given up coffee. It's. Yeah, don't ask. It pays for the podcast. It's not cheap. Hosting the podcast and my inner peace meditations, I release them all on there.

I have just done a new course as well which is waiting to go out on Insight timer. Once it's out on Inside timer I will release it to you guys and I would do what I normally do. You can pay what you want.

This is how to find peace in the busy times. It's not about stillness in storms or anything like that, it's just how do you find peace in everyday busy life. And that's it. It's quite simple.

Just a seven day audio course and that will be there anytime. Just keep an eye out on the links on the podcast. Meanwhile, head over to steven web.uk all my links are on there. Anyway, that's it for today.

Thank you for your time and just consider what a loving parent might be able to do for you today. And it's not about external one, it's about you. It's internally. Anyway, take care and I love you.