FOUNDATION FRIDAY: Be Good To Yourself by Orison Swett Marden

Nothing changes if the voice in your head is still your harshest critic. I’m diving into Orrison Swett Marden’s Be Good to Yourself and pulling out the ideas that still land hard in modern life: self-talk as the architecture of your identity, self-respect as a real foundation, and the difference between discipline and self-contempt.

We spend time on “false economy,” the sneaky habit of cutting corners now and paying later. Think fast fashion, bargain chasing, skipping rest, running on caffeine, under-eating, or delaying health care until it becomes a crisis. I share a painfully real example from my own life and connect it to burnout, decision fatigue, and the way chronic depletion shrinks your capacity to show up as your best self. Being good to yourself isn’t luxury or narcissism, it’s refusing to use unstable fuel to run your life.

From there, we reframe leadership as self-mastery and internal reliance, not dominance or loudness. I also talk about how we treat others as an extension of how we treat ourselves, including the “company manners” problem: giving the world your best and bringing the dregs home. 

We close with the healing power of nature, a grounding reminder that stillness isn’t laziness, and a short guided meditation to help you choose a kinder inner tone.

Our final quote to end the episode is a good reminder to leave behind the things no longer serve us. Marden writes, "Nothing is more foolish, nothing more wicked than to drag the skeletons of the past, the hideous images, the foolish deeds, the unfortunate experiences of yesterday into today's work to mar and spoil it. There are plenty of people who have been failures up to the present moment who could do wonders in the future if they could only forget the past. If they only had the ability to cut it off to close the door on it forever. And start anew."

To listen to the audiobook, follow the link to part one

If this lands with you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs a steadier inner voice, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one small shift you’re making to be on your own side?

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Transcript

A Book Club For The Soul

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is Foundation Friday, which is an offset of the Reverse Reset Restore podcast. I'm your host Sally, and in these episodes, we explore a book that has in some way reshaped, redefined, or even challenged me personally, and hopefully others who read along with me as well. Think of these episodes as a kind of book club for the soul. Today's book is Be Good to Yourself by Orrison Sweat Mardin. And despite its age, the central messages still feel deeply relevant to our modern world. At its core, this book is an invitation toward building an authentic life that isn't rooted in the foundations of what other people have, think, or do. It's a book really about being good to yourself. That's something I'm learning every day, one chapter, one page at a time. Nothing changes if the voice in your head is still your harshest critic. In this Foundation Friday episode, we're exploring what it means to be truly good to yourself. And I don't mean being indulgent or self-centered or avoidant or even endlessly positive. Because those aren't things that show that you're being good to yourself. So what does Martin, the author of Be Good to Yourself, really mean here? My perception, my takeaway from this, is it's about being steady in who you are, being respectful to your body, to your gifts and your talents, and to ground yourself by living an authentic life with kindness and purpose at the helm. And this includes one of the things I've struggled with in the past, the way you speak to yourself. Because our self-talk is not a small thing. It is architecture. It is design. It is foundations and floors and load-bearing walls. You are creating your life by the words you speak. We build the lives we live in using what we know, the experiences we've had, the gifts we've been given, and the language we use. And while much of our life may feel outside our design brief, maybe they've been shaped by circumstances beyond our control or history or other people and expectations and our families and cultures and money and all the billions of other things that kind of do impact our lives. The reality is that there is one relationship that quietly determines the strength of the structure of this thing that we call life. And that is the relationship we build with ourselves. Before we move into the ideas that I want to talk about in this book, and it's one of those books I feel like I'm constantly referring to. I'm sure everyone at work has been like, oh my God, she's talking about that book again. And I can't help myself because it has been one of these books that really have made a foundational shift for me. But before we get into that, what I like to do during the Foundation Prada episode is always have a little bit of a focus on the person who wrote the book. In order to understand or to appreciate maybe their history, their experiences that stand behind the book. So who is the man behind Be Good to Yourself? Orrison Sweat Martin was born in 1850. And like a lot of the people that I end up doing book reports on, his early life was not easy. He was orphaned as a child, and he experienced poverty firsthand, probably in part because of the circumstances of not having parents. Much of his early years were shaped by instability and loss. He worked wherever he could, often in physically demanding roles, while he also educated himself in whatever time and way he could manage. And that's something that you can clearly see evidenced in this book. He talks extensively about making use of your time and how invaluable you can make yourself and your life experiences be by taking moments, pockets of time here and there to create something with rather than just fritter it away. And we're all guilty of frittering time away. It was during this period of time where he was working these demanding roles and he was trying to also like better himself, educate himself, that he encountered a book that would for him change the direction of his life. And that was a book by Samuel Smiles called Self-Help. And it's not something I've regretted, but it's on my list now. And that particular book introduced Orrison to the idea that character, effort, and personal development could shape a person's path, even in your difficult circumstances. You can feel that influence in his writing, not as theory, but as something that Orrison lived. Mardin eventually went on to study, to build a career, and to found what would become Success Magazine, which was a publication focused on personal growth, mindset, and achievement. The pages of Be Good to Yourself are heavily leaning on these three tenets. And these are all things that we are in our modern world still continuing to strive for, right? There is a multi-million dollar industry on personal growth and mindset and achievement and success. This in itself is not unusual language to be introduced to. But as I discussed in the introduction to the audiobook, out now on the Reverse Reset Restore YouTube channel, his work was written at a time when the world was very different. There was less understanding of psychology, there was less awareness of systemic barriers, and less language for trauma or mental health. So some of the ideas are pretty old-fashioned, and they may be a little bit difficult to swallow. You may not be so readily welcome to hear some of these ideas. And this is where we need to read him, like any old book or any book at all, actually, of this type of nature, with a bit of discernment. Because his writing reflects both a deep belief in human potential and a strong emphasis on personal responsibility. And that is my jam personally for me. I love the idea of the potentiality that all of us have within us and the capacities we have for growth, for being able to live authentically, for kindness and empathy and understanding, for intelligent conversations and critical thinking. Even though the world would try on a daily basis to refute that belief. And the evidence is pretty scary at times. If you get on social media, you quickly realize critical thinking skills are not very common, among other things. I'm very much in line with thinking about people's potential. But I also recognize that we've got our own personal accountability. And those are the two things that I think have really messed us up as a society, in my view, is that a lot of us have lost this desire within ourselves to recognize our own potential or we rely heavily on other people to prop us up. And we also have moved away from personal responsibility or personal accountability. How many people blame everyone else but themselves for the way their lives have turned out? I think that is a bit of human nature as well, to want to pass the buck, so to speak. So while not every statement in this book or every chapter you might read or listen to if you listen to the audiobook will translate cleanly into modern understanding, because some of it is okay. You've got to remember it is the language of the time, how things were seen at that time and the shifts that were being made. But there is still something consistent at the core of his work, which I feel very much in tune with and that it belongs to this time and this place, this book. And that is the belief that how we relate to ourselves matters, that encouragement builds capacity, that self-respect is foundational, and that we participate in some way more than we realize in the direction of our lives. So as we move into the themes of this book that we're going to talk about in this episode, it's helpful to hold both things at once. The context of the time in which it was written, and the enduring relevance of the ideas underneath it. So let's talk a little bit about the context. Because Be Good to Yourself was written in 1910. We're talking quite a while ago. And this was written at a time where ambition and optimism and individual effort were deeply embedded in cultural thinking, especially in the American cultural context. And on the surface, this book can sound like that story. Think better, rise higher, become more. But if you sit with this book a little longer, you start to see that it's not offering one single idea here. It's offering, I think, a set of foundations. It isn't a book about becoming exceptional. It's a book about really refusing to be your own demolition crew. Because no matter how capable you are, no matter how intelligent or driven, if the voice inside you is constantly criticizing, shaming, or threatening you, the structure that you're building will eventually crack. You can't build something stable while simultaneously tearing it down from the inside. I know, because I've tried, and it's no bueno, it's no good. You want strong foundations. You need to have a strong foundational voice that is your cheerleader, that is not going to come in like a wrecking ball every five seconds, like my brain has done at times. As I mentioned earlier, there are a few themes that I want to focus on in this episode because I feel like they are particularly relevant to how we live now, and because they're the ones that continue to sit with me and percolate in my brain every day. The book has 22 chapters, all with their own themes and focus points. Some are only a few pages, some are a few more pages. I will only be focusing on a few of the chapters, but I would encourage you to go and listen to the audiobook. I've broken it down chapter by chapter, and I've also split it into four parts for those who want to listen a little bit longer, and that's on the Reverse Reset Restore YouTube channel. So just to give you a preview of what we're going to talk about, we're going to delve into the idea of false economies. And what he means by this is the ways that we, in quotation marks, save time, money, or energy in the short term that only end up costing us far more, both financially and physically. The second topic is around leadership and personal accountability, but not as dominance or control, but as internal reliance, the ability to stand in your own capacity and take responsibility for how you show up in your life. Which ties nicely into the third focus on our inner world and the distinction between discipline and self-contempt, the tone of the voice we use with ourselves, and how that either strengthens us or quietly erodes us over time. We'll talk about the healing power of nature, the divinity that surrounds us at all times, and touch on the importance of respect. Not just how we present ourselves externally with our company manners, a terminology I love, but how we show up for the people closest to us, the people we say we love. Do they receive the best of us or what's left of us? So rather than reading this book as a series of instructions, I want to explore it as a set of invitations. In spite of its age and its language, there are a lot of concepts in this book that feel modern. You can pick up the chapters and apply it directly to our here and now. And that's what makes this book so important, because we are speaking into the truth of the human condition. We can often look at the past with these rose-tinted glasses, right? Or that there's some distance that cannot be bridged. But what we're going through right now is not all that different than the struggles or the challenges or the wish lists of past generations. Let's start with this idea of false economy. Mardin calls it a false economy, would probably call it you get what you pay for. A false economy is found in the ways we cut corners, the ways we try to do things cheaply, or how we try to save in the moment, they end up costing us far more in the long run. One of the examples we could use in our modern day life would be fast fashion. People buying things as cheaply as they possibly can get through Timu, shots fired, and that stuff wears out quickly because they're brought cheaply and they've brought cheap quality. Martin actually uses this type of economization as an example. In the chapter Economy That Cost, which is chapter two, he says, Some people will waste a dollar's worth of valuable time and suffer much discomfort in visiting numerous stores looking for bargains and trying to save a few cents on some small purchase they wish to make. They will buy wearing apparel of inferior material because the price is low, although they know the article will not wear well. And then he goes on to say, and as a person who likes thrifting, or used to do a lot of thrifting in my younger life, this does feel a little bit shooting close to home. He says, bargain hunters are often victims of false economy. They buy because they are cheap. A great many things they do not actually need. Then they will tell you how much they have saved. If they would reckon up what they have expended in a year, they would generally find that they have spent more than if they'd only brought what they actually wanted when they needed it and had paid the regular price for it. He then talks about especially people who have a mania for attending auctions and buying all sorts of stuff that maybe doesn't necessarily match anything that they have or they're just constantly filling their life with things. Then he says, then they never get the first best wear of anything. These second hand things are often just on the point of giving out and constantly need repairing. Beds break down, legs come off arrows, casters are always coming out, and something is going to pieces all the time. This foolish buying is the worst kind of extravagance. Quality, durability should be the first considerations in buying anything for constant use. Yet many people keep themselves poor by buying cheap articles which do not last. Now I have to say I have been the type of person that has brought stuff, whether it's clothing, whether it's things that I've needed for my house, on the cheap because that's really all that I could afford. I literally furnished a house when I was living in Connecticut that was basically furnished completely from furniture that we found off the street. I lugged and hauled huge bits of rickety furniture that I repainted and fixed up. I actually couldn't afford anything else. He's not talking about that type of situation in the context here. He's talking about people who can actually afford to buy firsthand, but choose not to, not because they're trying to be like I'm also part of a recycling, pass it-on type of group on Facebook. There's a few groups that I belong to of that nature, which is about reusing, reducing waste, recycling things that are still got some life in them. Again, we're not talking about those types of people or those sort of situations. What he's saying here is that people who can afford to actually go and buy firsthand brand new items of good quality, especially clothing, I think is a really good example with fast fashion being what it is. He's saying that economizing for the sake of saving a buck when you end up having to spend more because you're constantly using things that are on their very last legs may not be the deal that you think or the bargain that you think that you're getting. And I think fast fashion for me personally seems like a really good way to make an understanding of this. I know that I've brought things cheaply at cheaper stores to wear because it was$10 or it was$20. And that's fine as well, because sometimes you want stuff like that, you're like, I'm gonna wear it around the house. It doesn't matter if it gets stains or whatever, I'm gonna do it for running, it doesn't matter. Like those types of things I don't care about. But ultimately, especially if you know that you're gonna spend$60 or$100 on the same type of thing for a brand name, that's the other false economy, I think, that happens. It's about finding the right balance. Being good to yourself is actually not thinking that you're getting a bargain when you're actually hurting your pocket further down the line because that bargain stops working within a few days or a few weeks or even a month. It's about looking at what you're expending, what you can afford to expend, and going, actually, if I buy the brand new car, I'm going to get X amount of years out of it, hopefully. Whereas if I buy that run-down thing that still needs a warrant and it needs all these things to be fixed on it, but I can get someone to do that, that may end up costing you a lot in the long run. One of the clearest examples Mardin gives us is in food. And he writes, No ambitious person can afford to feed his brain with poor diet or wrong fuel. Never cheat your body or brain by the quality and quantity of your food. Poor, cheap food, which produces low vitality and inferior brain force, is the worst kind of economy. Now again, the language is of its time, but the principle underneath is incredibly relevant because this isn't about ambition, it's about energy, it's about capacity, it's about what you are building your life with. And I think we often think of nourishment, whether it's food or it's rest or it's time or the way that we might self-care, as an optional thing. And sometimes as something that we can minimize or that we can worry about later. Something that we'll invest in down the road when push comes to shove. I don't know how many times I've said, I'll sleep when I'm dead, to downplay a lack of sleep. But what Martin is pointing to is Is this. When you under resource yourself, you reduce your ability to function, to think, to decide, to create, to respond. You end up responding maybe in a lower plane of yourself rather than the higher plane that you could be. And then everything just becomes harder or slower. And we have to apply more effort, and in my case, more coffee, to keep things going. We might not call it brain force anymore, but let's put it into language that we would understand. So we understand blood sugar impacts mood and focus, nutrition impacts cognition, sleep impacts decision making, chronic depletion impacts everything. So when we save money, time or effort by skipping proper meals or choosing convenience over nourishment or running on empty or pushing through exhaustion, we're not actually being efficient, okay? Let me just be very clear. We are not being smart or clever or efficient. We're actually being under resourced. And that's the false economy. We are saving in one place only to pay for it somewhere else. In fatigue and irritability and poor decisions and burnout. While I was recording the audiobook of Be Good to Yourself, I was suffering from a chronic toothache. And in true Sally fashion, I initially just added it to the list of things I need to sort out later. But toothache, if you've ever had it, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about here. It is not a wallflower, right? Tooth pain can be all consuming. It'll wake you up from a sound sleep, just so you know it can't be avoided. It will turn your head inside out, demanding your attention. Like a toddler. Ignorance is no option when pain exists. But because I am so used to being in pain, I just tend to carry on like the good little South Martyr I am. So, anyway, I'm recording this book for the YouTube channel and reading Martin's words about being good to yourself and false economies. And I had this thought. All this denial of pain and putting it off because of money and time, that is not being good to myself. I am causing my own suffering. And I'm letting money and time and I'll just suck it out be the reason why. Why am I doing this? Why am I refusing to be good to myself by getting this sorted? I can't sit here and talk about change and self-care. And I'm literally reading a book entitled Be Good to Yourself. And I'm not living these wise words. Being good to yourself means going to the dentist and getting this tooth sorted, Sally. So now, thank you to this book for giving me the come on, girl, get it together. I'm in the process of a root canal. And unfortunately, because I have tried the false economies over the last few years, I have put off getting my teeth sorted properly. And I'm now going to be paying a bigger price because I need to get other teeth now sorted that if I had just kept on top of it when they started to be a problem a few years ago, I wouldn't be in the position I am now. So yes, I know dental care is ridiculously expensive. It's scarily expensive. But it's even more expensive now for me because I practiced a false economy. I made it not a priority. I had workarounds to manage what was going on in my mouth, and things would calm down and I would leave it be. I think that this is the perfect example, practical example of a false economy. This is a foundational instruction. You cannot build a steady life on unstable fuel. You wouldn't run your car. If your car needs petrol or gas, and you put in diesel, you're gonna have a problem, right? It's not gonna work well. You can't use unstable fuel in your car. You cannot think clearly when your system's depleted. You cannot lead yourself well when your basic needs are constantly being compromised. And you're the one compromising them. This is where it connects directly to the core message of this book. Being good to yourself is not indulgence, it's not excess, it's not luxury, it's not selfishness or self-centeredness, it's not being a narcissist, it's not being full of yourself, as we might say in New Zealand or Australia, or up yourself. It's about refusing to under resource yourself in ways that quietly weaken your capacity and thus your authenticity, your ability to show up and be present in your life as the person you were designed to be. Deprivation is not discipline, okay? And underfueling yourself is not strength. And that is the bullshit that we've been told that we've been fed. It's a lie. And using the example of my teeth, sometimes the most expensive choice is the one that looks cheapest in the moment. So for me that meant putting off or doing the bare minimum to get my teeth through that moment. Was cheap at the time, but now has become more expensive because if I had paid to get my tooth fixed when it needed to be originally, it wouldn't have needed a root canal, right? I probably could have got away with a filling and solve some of the problems. So where in your life, and I'm gonna ask you this to make myself feel less alone in my own false economizations here, where in your life are you choosing the cheaper option that is quietly costing you more? Okay, let's chew on that quietly, pun intended. While the book moves into something that feels like a different conversation, but is actually still very much connected. And I'll talk about how in a minute. I want to discuss leadership. What does that word mean to you? When we tend to think of leaders, instinctively I think a lot of us think about the leaders who have been part of our lives, in whatever form that might be. So what does that word mean to you? Power, domination, authority. We've all encountered those types of leaders, and I use that word very loosely in how they operate. But I love how Marden reframes it in this book. He writes, we want our young people to depend upon themselves to develop their individuality, their originality, their power of initiative. And you could take that and go, oh, that's a call to be forceful or to dominate or to rise above others, but that's not what's being described here. He's speaking really about developing your individuality, your originality, your own initiative, kind of as an education of yourself. And he refers to education as unfoldment, calling out the possibilities within a person, not forcing someone else's ideals or expectations, and not comparing yourself to other people or not imitating, which is what we see so much of in the world. In chapter 13, don't let your past spoil your future. Even though that's talking about other topics. There is a section in here that can be related really well back to this idea of personal internal leadership, personal integrity. And he says people do not realize how rapidly vitality is wasted in friction, in worry and anxiety, is harsh, discordant notes which destroy the harmony of life. How many completely exhaust themselves in needless worrying and bickering over things which are not worthwhile? How many burn up their life force in giving way to a hot temper, in quibbling over trifles, in bargain hunting, in systemless work in a hundred ways when a little thought and attention to the delicate human instrument on which they are playing would prevent all this attrition and keep the instrument in splendid tune. That obviously is where he's talking about the idea of don't worry about things that have happened, because you can't change the things that have already happened. There's no way to go back and correct those things. But how much time and effort we spend frittering away our peace because we've caught up on replaying things from the past or worrying about things that may or may not happen. And I'm guilty of this, definitely guilty of this, and I've definitely been feeling this way with the state of the world. And social media for me has some days I can handle it really well, and other days it just does make me fret and worry and get me grumbly and upset. And pain makes me get annoyed with things that lowers my capacity to function to the best of my ability. And obviously, he's using this as a framework for how we worry ourselves, but I won't apply it to this idea of internal leadership because it also is very relevant. If we are spending a lot of time freaking out about stuff or worrying about something or having a lot of anxiety or even rage, which may be the case. It's been the case for me. I have a lot of rage in myself about things that are going on in the world. And I feel almost this like anger towards people who don't seem to be as enraged at clear injustices or use the excuse of, oh, it's not in my country, it's not happening to me, it's not I'm not directly impacted by it. And I'm like, but we're humans, of course we're directly impacted, like we are collectively a species here that are hurting each other. There is a time and place for rage, I believe. But what this particular quote that has been rolling around in my head is the idea that this is also in direct relationship to how I foster this sense of internal leadership, who I am and who I want to be, and having authority over my own life and my own choices and the way I represent myself to the world and the way I am with those around closest to me and who I am when I'm by myself. So I wanted to share it in the context of like, how are you looking at things? How do you waste your vitality? How do you spend your energy creating disharmony basically, which destroys your capacity to function well and negate the authority that you have over your own existence by maneuvering through the world out of that sort of baseline reality. When we are in leadership of ourselves, we are organized, we are mindful of who it is that we want to be, but how we also want to lead our own lives. And I think if you're going to be wanting to be a leader, a good leader, in my opinion, is someone who takes leadership as an internal responsibility, not just an external role. Leadership he is referring to is this internal reliance. This is not about domination. I think this matters, particularly now, because we are living in a time where cruelty is being mistaken for strength, where loudness is mistaken for leadership, and where domination is viewed as powerful. Put a wheel on the world and spin it around and almost anywhere we would land would show this type of leadership in action. But in my opinion, and I think and what Marden is expressing in the depth of this book is that isn't leadership at all. At least not in the way Marden has challenged me to think about it. Leadership in its truest, most pure form, is not about mastering others, it is about self-mastery. It is the ability to stand in your own capacity without needing to diminish anyone else. And if I look at some of the current world leaders, I don't see leadership. I see lack. I see fear parading as force. I see self-hatred masquerading as strength. Leaders who are at war with themselves so much that their need to impose their will, their insecurities and their fears on others is almost pathological. But the kind of leadership, quiet, grounded, internally stable that Mardin is talking about in this book is far more powerful than anything driven by fear. Because it's the opposite of where fear sits, right? That kind of authentic self-mastery leadership builds trust, it builds stability, it builds something that lasts, and it's not driven by ego or insecurity or hatred, which by the way are all actually deeply rooted in fear. To be able to depend upon ourselves to develop our individuality, our originality, our own power of initiative is the leadership that shapes the world for good. Can you imagine just how powerful and incredible and wonderful this world would be if that was the way each of us approached our own lives? And when we cultivate leadership as originality, as authenticity, and move away from the idea or need to control others or force our will, I think it opens up natural opportunities to lead other people. And in my own experiences, both as a leader and as someone who's been led, leading by example is far more powerful and effective than leading through domination or fear. I want to turn our attention now back to our inner world, our inner environment, and how we build this environment in the language that we use, that what we speak over ourselves, whether we say it out loud or we think it. And hey, I agree with this ideology. I have lived experience with the power of changing my thoughts and the differences it's made in my life. My self-talk habits, for example, are wildly different now than they used to be. I used to refer to myself as a an aliphopotomus, a ho and an elephant combined, in a derogatory manner, especially to those amazing creatures, but in a derogatory manner to myself, referring to my displeasure at being overweight and putting it into those terms is not healthy and not helpful. But I've managed to over the years change that narrative. But there's another narrative that comes out of this industry of the change your thoughts thinking group. That I can think myself thin, or that if I just say enough affirmations, telling my body I love it, it will change to be what I really want it to be. And that's not really what affirmations are designed to do. In my opinion, the reason affirmations can work is because it changes the language that you use and it helps you develop a different mindset and a different way of looking at the world. And then it gives you opportunities where it opens things up because your mind is healthier and you're able to make better choices and things like that potentially. So I know that words have power and powerful words shape and change lives. And that's been the truth for my own life. So I'm standing a little bit on the edge of contradicting myself here a little bit because I do 100% know and believe and have seen enough of myself that if you change your thoughts, you will change your life. But it's also not as simple as saying words and seeing the results, like we all wish we would see would happen quickly when we're facing a challenge in our lives. So I do want to be a little bit careful here because while I believe in the change your thoughts, change your life ethos, I also understand that our lives are shaped by far more than our thoughts. They are shaped by external sources that we don't necessarily have all full control over. We can control our thoughts. And by controlling our thoughts, we change our life. But we've also got to factor in things like biology, environment, relationships, trauma, opportunities, or missed opportunities or lack of opportunities, especially if you're a person of color in places in this world. These are real forces that we contend with. I've got an autoimmune disorder. I've got chronic health problems. Me trying to will myself or give myself positive thinking hasn't changed my body. It hasn't magically, I haven't woken up and these 40 pounds have gone and I've no more back or neck pain or shoulder pain or whatever pain I'm feeling on the day. And I think I had this concept, that's how it was going to work. That I would just magically wake up having done a lot of self-healing work and a lot of reflection and a lot of trauma-informed therapy, and that magically my body would just go, cool, sweet, let go, and it everything would be fine. And it hasn't worked for me, and sometimes that does my head in, not gonna lie. But influence is not the same as fault. What is around me is not necessarily to blame. Even my thoughts are not necessarily the chains that keep me confined to certain things, right? There's a lot of things that happen. But what we do participate in is the tone of our inner environment. That's where we have the control because that tone matters. So that's where that change comes from within, which I always open reverse, reset, restore podcast episodes with, except for Foundation Fridays. Change comes from within. If I want my life to be different, I have to make the changes. And that change starts from an internal perspective. And so the language that we use, the tone that we set matters. The things that we say to ourselves absolutely has an impact. If you wake up and you're in a bad mood and you carry that bad mood. Throughout the rest of the day, that's not a good way to be experiencing your life, right? You can also choose a different way of being. So not only what you say, but how you say it. If you're just sitting there going, oh, I love and approve myself, I love and approve myself, but you don't believe it, it's probably not going to have much effect. And if you don't see results, it can be really discouraging to keep on with that work. But I can just tell you, I haven't seen results, but I'm still doing the work because you know what? I'm damn well going to love myself no matter what shape I'm in, no matter how frustrated I get or how upset I become or how enraged I can feel at times with the way that my body is unresponsive to the message I'm trying to share. Getting angry doesn't help that relationship that I'm trying to reaffirm with who I am. Encouragement builds capacity. Encouragement builds a space for change, for growth, for healing to come. Contempt erodes it. So if I approach my body in anger, it's going to respond like to like. It really is. I'm constantly having to be like, I love, I accept you. Even though I am struggling right now, I'm just being honest with you. I'm really angry that you're in pain and that you're making me suffer. But I don't want to be angry with you. I want to love you. I choose to love you. I choose to respect and honor you right now. What can I do? What can I give you, body, to give you some comfort, to give you some peace, to give you the reassurance that I love you just as you are. And if you do not change, just as you shall be. And that's the key here, at least it's been for me, is to let go of that desire and that need and that expectation and that demand and that belligerence at times that comes over me because I get so frustrated that things are not moving at a pace I want it to. Instead, just having to let go of that ego, let go of that, and just be like, you know what? No matter what, you still show up for me, body, every day. Even if the days are sometimes hard and the pain is real and it's like it sucks, you're still here, you're still with it, you're still making my arms and legs move and keeping my heart beating and my brain is running and all these amazing processes I don't have to think twice about because you just do the work. And if I can appreciate you for doing what you need to do to keep me going, man, I'm gonna do it because it's worth it. And you know what? If I carry extra weight, I carry extra weight. Who cares? I'm gonna love you anyway. I'm not gonna shame you, I'm not gonna be contemptible about it, I'm gonna continue to build into this relationship that I've wanted to re-establish with my body. And it's slow work and it's painful work and it's frustrating work at time, but it's worth it because I'm worth it and my body is worth it. And this kind of comes back to the idea that you cannot build something stable while constantly tearing it down from the inside. If I'm trying to do something and then it's not working the way I want to do, and I'm tearing it down by the language I use to speak to myself or the feelings that I put on myself and my partner says, Oh, what's your cortisol peoples? Those sorts of things. Opposing forces are happening. You can correct yourself without condemnation. And the difference between those two things is the difference between building or dismantling your own foundations. So that's something that I've been really working towards personally in my life. Because I've become so much more aware that I have for many years tied the sense of shame to myself. So stress and shame were very closely associated for me. And that is basically what I'm really describing is this chronic stress, and it's a system that's under pressure, my mind is under attack, my body cannot settle. And you can't do good work when you feel like you're constantly being undermined. You can't heal if you're feeling like you're in battles all the time. And you can't come to a place of peace if you are constantly fighting conflict and criticism, even if that conflict and criticism is your own voice. Which brings me to the next point I want to make. And this is like a follow-on through how we are good to ourselves, how that outplays to how we are good to others. And that's really the quieter thread that runs through this book. How we treat others is an extension of how we treat ourselves. So if we treat ourselves well with a true love and respect and value for who we are, then that's naturally going to extend to other people. And that's not in a performative way. He talks about this idea of company manners, how we behave around other people compared to when we're at home. When we're at home, we let our guard down, we let it all hang out, we basically can be a true version of ourselves. But what's interesting to me, and he repeats this in several of the chapters in this book, is really about how you put on your best manners for other people outside of your home who are in your workplace or thing like that, and then you come home and you treat the people in your home like garbage. This is something that I've been guilty of myself. I have the best Sally available to everybody else, and then I come home and my darling partner gets the worst Sally, the depleted Sally, the Sally that is done with her company manners for the day and just wants to be her smallest self. And so one of the things that really has been pressed upon me through reading this book is that it's really easy to offer patience and presence to our colleagues and to our bosses and to clients and to strangers and people on the train and the guy that gives me my coffee in the morning. We bring out our best self into public spaces. But the challenge for me has been to recognise what do the people closest to me receive? And in particular, I'm talking specifically about my partner who I live with. Does he experience my respect, my attention, my care, or does he carry the weight of what's left after everything else? And some days we are going to be completely depleted and we won't have much to offer. But being good to yourself is not separate to how you are with others. Because when you're internally resourced steadily and you're not in constant conflict with yourself, you then have more capacity to bring something meaningful into your relationships. And that's not about being perfect, but it is about being present and it is about offering them the best version of you as well. That the company manners isn't just available to those once you've left your home, but that they extend to your partner, they extend to your siblings and your children and your cousins and your grandparents and your mother and your father and your friends. You know, that they get the best of you as well, not just the dregs. And so that's been something that every time I don't give my company manners to my partner now, I'm very consciously aware of like, oh, I just gave him the dregs. And I don't want to give him that. I want him to have the very best of me. That's important to me. He's worth it. And I'm worth it. Being good to myself is also being good to my partner, is also extending kindness and love and empathy and fun and infusing a sense of delight into our house. Not bringing home the stress of and worries of work. Leaving that at the door. Martin suggests leave it at the office. Don't bring it home with you. And I can't remember who, but I remember years ago hearing a story about someone suggesting before you get in your door, you hang up your worries on the tree outside your house. I think the actual analogy was that they left their work bag outside. It did not come into the house. Obviously, we wouldn't do that now because most of our work bags have expensive items like laptops and whatnot in them. But the concept is, even if you can do it from a mental standpoint, before you open your front door and you walk in, mentally hang up your worries, your work woes, your disappointments and frustrations from the day, whatever that may look like. Hang it up outside. Don't bring it inside with you. Let joy and delight and fun and adventure and passion and you know, all the good things that make us feel invigorated. Let that be the things that you bring into your home. Don't carry the worries that don't belong there inside with you. And I know this is a challenge, and some days I'm really able to do this, and some days I fail massively. Same with my partner. Some days he comes in and especially because he bikes to and from work, and sometimes it's very dangerous. Close calls, or you have pedestrians who just because they're phone zombies, so their heads are in their phones and they're not even paying attention and they've got headphones on so they don't even hear, they don't look around, they're not proactively looking at who else might exist in the world around them. And he's had a lot of near misses with cars, he's had very aggressive people that think he shouldn't be where he's allowed to be because it would be completely unsafe for him to be on that particular road. So he comes in and his he's upset and maybe aggrieved or whatever and that comes out. And then it's like this uh feeling that sits over me. And so the idea here, what he's saying is your company manners. Think about if you're not bringing your best to your partner, if you're bringing all your worries or your frustrations or your like spent energy, you're just depleting the other person or the other members of your family, those that live with you, they're going to feel that, right? We've all walked into a room somewhere where people have had a fight or something, and you're going, okay, that this is very full-on energy in here. Like the energy is not cool. Why are we bringing it into our houses when we don't need to? My latest challenge is to be like much more mindful of what energy is it that I want to bring back into my house and how can I be good to myself by ensuring that I'm good to those around me. That's just a little weird sort of aside. I don't know why I I just feel like maybe someone else needs to be reminded too that we're allowed to be human and we're allowed to be pissed off about things. Like that is the reality of existing. There are things that are gonna upset us and annoy us. To be good to ourselves means that we don't let the people that we love or that we claim to love wear that pain or wear that shame or wear that frustration. And that is a challenge for me personally. And I'm assuming that I'm probably not alone in this challenge either. Maybe if this is something that you can relate to, hit me up with a comment or something so that I know that that I'm not just out here blowing in the wind by myself, but that it's something that you've experienced for yourself as well. And this is something, like I say, we're all works in progress. And it's something that takes time. It's not an immediate change. But as we proactively recognize these things and pull ourselves up when we're doing it and go, oh, you know what? I just had a really bad attitude about that and I shouldn't have. Or I use pain sometimes as a justification, more bluntly as an excuse for why my tone might be sharp or I might get frustrated about something because I'm just like I'm not in the mood because everything is pain. That's not helpful to my partner, and it's not helpful to me, and it's not been good to either of us. So this book is really challenging that narrative for me personally, and it's really making me reflect on the areas where I bring my a game to every other person in my life, but the one that I live with some days. Not all the time, definitely not all the time. But being a lot more aware of it and not just excusing it or justifying it, but going actually, yeah, there might be some justification here at times, but it doesn't mean that's still okay. And you know, what can in correcting myself. And it's hard, ugly work, some of this stuff. Like actually sitting down and being honest and going, ooh, that's a really ugly trait that I have, or that's a re not even a trait, just habit. It's a habit that I've adopted at some point as a protective measure, sometimes. Like you react for different things, right? But recognizing, oh actually, that wasn't justified reaction. There was no need for me to expend my energy in such a way, this person deserves the best of me. And then making those efforts. And then what happens, just like there when you change your thoughts that we were talking about before, and as you make this a habit to recognise, oh, I've stuffed up here or I've done something or I've thought this thought again. Again, it's not about shame. It's not coming from a place of shame, it's not scolding yourself, it's not making yourself feel like you're a terrible person. It's recognizing, oh, I came from a place which wasn't the best of me there and I need to work on that, and it's okay. And give yourself some grace to move through that as well. Because I know for me, shame has been a big part of my personal battles, and it's definitely hand in hand with stress response when I feel like I've not done something well at work, for example, or whatever it is in my life. I've always felt like this explosive pressure and stress, but also a sense of shame, a sense that I've let someone down, and that comes from being a recovering people pleaser. So that's something that I will maybe I'll battle for the rest of my days, maybe I'll get over it by next week, who knows? But I think recognizing that when you are conscious of things that you can change to make your life better and to make other people's lives better, then we have the obligation and the responsibility. And that's where coming into that personal accountability and responsibility about ourselves, and that is a big part and parcel of how we should represent ourselves in the world. It comes a little bit to that personal accountability. It's really a sense of discipline minus the self-serving of self-contempt. We've been raised to believe that harshness is what drives growth, right? If you're not hard on yourself, that you're gonna fall behind and pressure equals progress. This is the way our world has been designed. That discipline is rooted in this sort of self-contempt, but not only is it unstable, it's unrealistic, and it's definitely not the way that we can be good to ourselves. Sure, it might produce short bursts of effort, it might produce some really good outcomes at times, but as a foundation mechanism, it's not sustainable, it doesn't sustain growth that is is worthy. If you're constantly being hard on yourself, the self-hatred or self-contempt because you're failing or you're not measuring up or you have to fight, or you're at loggerheads with yourself. So just a reminder for you, for me, that you can correct yourself without condemning yourself. The best source of discipline is one that comes from love, not from fear, not from a sense of failing or self-hatred or rejection. In chapter 5, Nature as a Joy Builder, Marden writes about nature as being a place we can each use to build joy into our lives. We've all seen a sunset or a sunrise or a vista that makes you stop and take it in. And if you haven't seen that, please go out and experience it because it is life-changing if you start to build that into your life. I've literally watched thunderstorms for hours, just being in absolute awe of the crackling of the thunder rolling over here, the jagged edges of the sky lit by sheets or forks of lightning. I'd happily lie on the grass or the sand, watch the clouds flit and float above me. There is for me something powerful knowing that those very clouds have never existed outside this moment, and they'll never exist again. If I'm lucky enough to see a cloud, I appreciate its short lifespan and the beauty unfurling in the sky over me as the wind moves it and recreates it into something else. Marvin describes nature as God's great cathedral. Now I've stood in man-made cathedrals like Notre Dame and been mesmerized by its design, the details like the stained glass windows and the soaring beams and the centuries-old floors, and I've marveled at the brilliance and ingenuity of these gifted men who have created these amazing buildings and spaces. And great cathedrals demand a kind of quiet reverence. And regardless of how you interpret that language, I think that there's something deeply grounding in the idea that there are places like a man-made structure, like a cathedral, or God's great cathedral of nature, that help remind you that our true state of being is where nothing is demanded of you. There's no need for performance, there's no striving for improvements, no trying to prove yourself, you're just being present. And Martin speaks about this harmony between character and environment. And again, if we just bring that into understanding of modern language, we might call that regulation or restoration. And we might call that, I guess, stepping out of our constant doing and allowing ourselves to simply be. Because we live in a world that rewards productivity, right? And we can get caught up in this idea that we must always be constantly doing to prove our worth, to provide a reason for our existence. But we forget that stillness, that rest, that just being, it's not actually laziness at all. And getting out into nature and being a part of that experience, being able to enjoy some aspect of outside, whether it is you literally look out your window and watch the clouds or watch the blueness of the sky change as the light changes, or watch the way that the wind blows through the leaves, or whatever it is, there's some part of nature, bring it into your day, bring it into you for a moment. And that's not being lazy, that's about coming back to yourself. It's about recalibration. And perhaps part of being good to yourself is allowing space for those moments to notice beauty and to appreciate nature, to feel the gratitude of living in this moment or seeing that cloud or that sunset or that sunrise or the way that wave breaks upon the shore, the sound of the birds or the flittering noise that the trees make when the wind rustles through the leaves. Being in nature is being with a part of ourselves, in a sense. Mardin says there is a spirit in nature which finds kin in us to which we respond. The things which God's thought expresses in flowers and grasses and plants and trees and meadows and rivers and mountains and sunsets and the song of birds touches our very soul. It puts us in tune with the infinite. It brings us into harmony with the great spirit which pervades the universe. There is a magnitude. Magical restoring power in the spirit which breathes through nature, a healing balm for the wounded heart, a powerful refresher for the jaded, weary soul. To step even briefly out of the pressure of life and into presence. Because you cannot build well from a state of constant depletion. And we are honestly, constantly depleting ourselves. I think this is enough of me talking. I just want you to think about the foundation that you've already created or that you're creating in your life. Because foundation is not just what we do, it's how you relate to yourself while you're doing it. Are you building yourself up? Are you tearing yourself down with the way that you speak to yourself, with the way that you speak to others, with the way that you move through the world? So I want to leave you with this. How do you speak to yourself when no one is listening? When something goes wrong? What is the tone of yourself talk? Because that voice is building something. And it's either building something beautiful and magnificent and gorgeous, or it's building something that's designed to continue to self-destruct and create discord and create problems between you and other people and problems in who you want to be and where you're gonna go. Remember, nothing changes if the voice in your head is still your harshest critic. The most foundational shift you can make is to stop being your own demolition crew and start becoming something that you can build with. Before I close out with our final quote, I actually want to offer a guided meditation because I just feel like there's an opportunity here for just to give us some space for ourselves. Just find a comfortable position. And if it feels right, gently close your eyes. Keep your eyes soft. Don't look specifically at anything too hard. Just take a slow breath in and a steady breath out. And I want you to breathe in through your nose and then out through your mouth. Again in and out. I invite you to just bring attention to yourself. Not what you need to do, not what you need to fix, not who you think you need to be, just you in this moment, here, now, present. Just you. Now gently notice what is the tone of your inner voice today. This is not the time for analyzing, we're just observing. Is it soft? Is it harsh? Is it sharp? Is it tired? Is it demanding? Is it kind? Whatever you notice, just let it be there without judgment. Now imagine just for a moment that you're standing inside a structure. I want this structure to be something that you create, a space that represents your inner world. Notice what it feels like. Is it steady? Is it strained? Is it quiet? Is it under pressure? What does the structure feel like? What does it look like? Is there a ceiling? Or is it open sky? Are there walls? Are there cracks? What do the foundations feel like underneath your feet? And how gently, I want you to imagine setting something down. And the something that you're gonna put down is the need to criticize, the need to judge, or to push, or the need to get everything right, the need to be perfect to strive, the need to be right, the need to be at the top. Just for this moment, you don't need to build anything, you don't need to do anything, you don't need to improve anything, you are simply here in this space, breathing, existing, and from this place where you're standing in, see if you can offer yourself one small shift. Don't pick up the box or the thing that you put down on the ground, you're gonna keep it there for now. I want you to offer yourself something that you can make a small change or a small step. This is not about creating perfection. It's not about trying to get something right, it's about just offering yourself grace and space and support. Maybe your sentence for yourself will be, I am on my own side. Or I can build from here. Or I don't need to tear myself down to grow. Or I am worthy of love. Let that settle. Whatever the sentence that you choose to infuse with yourself at this time, repeat it over, swirl it around, let it rest, take another slow breath in through the nose, and out, carry the mouth, breathe again a few more times, nice and slow, in and out, in and out. And when you're ready, gently return to this time, this place, this space where you reside. Thank you so much for joining me today. I know it's been a bit of a longer episode than normal, but I feel like we only scratched the surface really of this book, at least in how it's impacted my life. I want to remind you that on the Reverse Research Restore YouTube channel, I have an audio recording of the entire book. I've broken it into four segments, four parts, mostly because I was having trouble uploading it as a whole book. And I've also allowed you the opportunity to listen to it chapter by chapter. So all 22 chapters of this book are available on the Reverse Reset Restore YouTube channel. As always, I'm going to end the episode with a quote. And this isn't something that we've touched on in particular, but I do love this quote. It meant a lot to me when I read it. And it's something I wanted to share with you because I think it is really challenging me about not getting stuck in what's happened to me in the past and bringing that stuff with me that I don't need to bring into my future, to my present. I just want to encourage you with this final quote that if you were dragging the skeletons of your past around, that you don't necessarily need to. Be encouraged that you can move beyond your experiences, your bad habits of false economies and the way that you think, the way that you believe, the way that you represent yourself to the world, and become the person you were always intended to be. Nothing is more foolish, nothing more wicked, than to drag the skeletons of the past, the hideous images, the foolish deeds, the unfortunate experiences of yesterday into today's work to mar and spoil it. There are plenty of people who have been failures up to the present moment, who could do wonders in the future, if they could only forget the past, if they only had the ability to cut it off, to close the door on it forever and start anew.