#34 Gentle Nudge: Be Your Own Best Friend

Have you ever called yourself a friggin idiot? Most of us have, but would you ever say that to your best friend? Nope! In today’s tip to make your life a little better, Dr. Harry Cohen and Connie Fontaine explore Chapter 13, 'Be Your Own Best Friend,' from Harry's book, Be the Sun, Not the Salt. Today we’ll delve into how to recognize and STOP the negative self-talk. While it’s true that we’re evolutionarily wired to focus on negativity for survival, it's crucial to disrupt this tendency for a healthier mental state! We’ll get into personal stories and some practical ways to create a positive inner dialogue and look after ourselves with self-care. By replacing self-critical thoughts with supportive self-talk and avoiding negative talk about others, we experience a powerful lesson in kindness and support that leads to personal growth and well-being.

Links & Resources

Be the Sun, Not the Salt - book

To explore the book, or for more episodes, information, tips and tools to live a more heliotropic life, visit us at bethesunnotthesalt.com and find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.

Transcript

Harry Cohen: Welcome to the be the sun, not the salt podcast. My name is Dr. Harry Cohen, and I'm joined with my cohost, Connie Fontaine, chief super spreader. We're going to dive into the chapters of be the sun, not the salt, and hope you find this uplifting 

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: And this mini episode is Chapter 13. Chapter 13 is one of my favorites, Be Your Own Best Friend. I think this is one that is, is so important. Not, not just now, like any day, you know, 

 So let's dig into being your own best friend. Mm-hmm

Harry Cohen: essence of being your own best friend is really making sure that we don't pour salt on our own roots with negative self talk, unchallenged, unaware, negative inner [00:01:00] dialogue. Now there's other

ways that you can, um, be your own best friend and take care of yourself, but this point about, um, Being aware of our negative self talk is the main point.

There's other ways which we'll talk about, but the main point is be gentle with yourself with your inner dialogue.

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Yeah. And I, there's, and it's,

oh, go ahead,

No, no, no. You've got an idea. Go ahead. For 

Harry Cohen: For me. it's when I hear myself out loud. You idiot. You, you fricking idiot. Literally. I'll say that

or worse. And when I hear it like voiced, it's

like I chuckle. what was like, dude, come on, man.

Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Come on. You got this.

I have learned. And the best part about this is a shrink. Everyone has known about negative and positive self talk for 50 years. This is not new. What is new is that we can change it.

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Mm-hmm

Harry Cohen: that you can both see your negative inner [00:02:00] chatter and challenge it and stop it and knock it off.

We're wired to be negative, but you can really, we can really dial it back. And that's, what's most exciting for me,

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Yeah. I'm almost one of those people sometimes, and I'm, I'm trying to teach myself, it's almost like I feel like I have to blame myself for a little while. And that negative self-talk though, it just accumulates it, it gets it, it makes it harder and harder to get out of it.

Harry Cohen: especially if you don't even see it.

Especially, I can sometimes hear it in, in other people that they can't hear it. Did you

hear what you just said about yourself? 

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm

Harry Cohen: And I, I just told you I can hear it about myself. But to your point, it becomes, um, unfortunately a negative rut that all of us can fall into. So let's just challenge it.

Tiny, tiny, tiny. We were talking earlier this morning, Connie, about how we want to make this easy for people. You don't, if you wanna go to therapy, that's great, but you don't [00:03:00] have to go to therapy to examine your inner negative dialogue and knock it off.

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Yeah, you can make it step one at least. I agree. So why are, why are, we are net, we're wired this way. I know we talk about this, it's just evolutionarily, we are wired, if that's a word, evolutionarily. Mm

Harry Cohen: talk negatively about ourselves and to ourselves is that we have a, a, a tendency to want to be. Conscious of any dangers in the environment. So negative seems way more important to pay attention to

than the positive that keeps us alive. That's just how we're wired.

No big deal. However, when that negative inner dialogue gets going in us, it's nothing but bad.

I'm going to miss it. Oh, come on. Oh, I'm going to blow it again.

You know, people in sports psychology talk about this all the time. How do you help people? Avoid [00:04:00] the inner negative dialogue. There's a lot of

ways, positive rituals.

You see tennis players engage in

pot in positive rituals. You see the Olympic athletes engage in deliberate positive

self talk right before they're going to do the event. That's practice. And I love that you can see these great people doing it. We can do it too. 

You can literally say to yourself, Harry, you got this.

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Well, and I think that the one that I remember that you shared with me that you noticed about me is I would always say, Oh, I'm just bad at names and you're like, no, you're, you're not bad at names, but the ones, once you decide you are, you have a tendency to not try and be good at something cause you think, yeah, I'm just bad at that.

Harry Cohen: Did that help you when I pointed that

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Oh, yeah, because I don't I try really hard not to say that anymore. And I also know I'm not bad at names. I can remember my best friend's phone number from first grade. I have no, you know, it's not my brain. It's not that I just turned 60. This is that. [00:05:00] I just, the way I process what I'm usually, what I've found is I'm thinking about something else.

I want to know how that person feels. I'm thinking about that person instead of ingesting name, stick it in your brain. So yeah, just knowing that I'm not bad at anything really. 

Harry Cohen: So, I love that I pointed out something that you were doing unconsciously, and you immediately said, God, I can change that. That's all we're saying here. You don't have to do anything other than catch it when it happens. This is the best part about these mistakes, which are not mistakes. They're the, they're the way we learn when we engage in negative self talk, we can immediately go, Oh, I just did it.

That guy and Connie

were talking about that. I caught myself way to go. Small victory. Move

on to the next one. Don't overthink this. 

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: I think there's some examples for me. I think I learned when my daughter Jackie was diagnosed with diabetes, type one diabetes, very important distinction, um, when she was a little girl. And I think I learned quickly from a parent that never let your child say you're a diabetic. You are a [00:06:00] something you, you basically have labeled the person, you know, whether it's an epileptic, you know, a diabetic, it's, you have it, but.

That's, you have diabetes and I think because there's this negative self talk that happens with some of the children especially is like now they've become something they weren't before instead of just something else new to deal with and I think that applies. That is an example I learned and I hear it consciously when other people say it, not just about someone having diabetes, but other things too.

It's like, no, you're not that. You're not, your baby isn't, uh, whatever. Down syndrome. Your child has Down syndrome. And it's, you know, there's a, there's a different, it comes out more beautifully to me anyway than labeling somebody.

Harry Cohen: The distinction is important, and I love that it was helpful for you and your daughter, who is a grown woman now,

and a mother, and she will help her daughter,

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Her boy, she's got a little son, yeah, little Thomas. Mm 

Harry Cohen: her son, with any kind of negative self talk. [00:07:00] So what we didn't get into in this chapter around be your own best friend is all the self care stuff that is really important, which we didn't go into in this chapter. But being your own best friend is not just refraining from negative self

talk. That's huge. It's also in engaging with the healthy behaviors that we already do to take care of ourselves. These are really basic. Sleep, exercise,

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: hmm. Right.

Harry Cohen: good company,

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Well, the, in the other one that you get into in the chapter though, is also about not letting negative talk about other people continue. You know, so and so did this, this person's in my head and I just don't, I keep going back to it. Um, and I think that's, that's another version of you need to be able to be your best friend to be able to stop that chatter for sure.

We 

Harry Cohen: appreciate you bringing that up because I had forgotten about this. I think my dog Yolo might bark at someone who's coming to the door, but we'll see

if She does this, this, having negative thoughts about other [00:08:00] people rattling around inside your head can be destructive. Don't spend your precious time stewing about someone else.

You pay the price for the anger or jealousy, not the other guy. I love that. And

thank you for reminding that. Don't do the cultivation of, I can't believe she said that, I can't believe he did that, I can't believe, let's let it

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Yeah, I always like to think too. Is that person sitting worried about me? Nope, probably not Time to move on. Do you do you struggle with this at all? And you know, I feel like you've got your when it comes to being your own best friend. You're pretty good at it

Harry Cohen: I don't, I work at it. I'm,

I don't struggle with this. This isn't a struggle. This is a continual reminder of the both, which, well, a, when I hear my own negativity about myself, I go, hey, dude, come on, Harry, you got

this, you know better. When. I find myself rattling negativity around somebody else. I say the same damn thing.

Well, Harry, come on, man. Let it go. Let it go.

And about the self care, I'm really, really deliberate about self care. Cause I just know how important it is.

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Well, and I think I just even [00:09:00] did it using the word struggle, struggle, who, you know, it shouldn't struggle. Like just, I think what we say even in the chapter is let's practice this. And I think if you, if every day you say, I'm just, I'm great, I'm, I feel good. I wake up and I'm going to have, I'm going to take care of good care of myself.

And these are the kinds of behaviors and thoughts that I'm going to let in my head. And these are the ones I'm going to push back on. And I think that's part of is the practice and not allowing yourself to struggle. So I just caught myself on that one.

Harry Cohen: And even you saying struggle is really important because it creates an image of a,

of difficulty and I don't want to be struggling.

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: I watch people that struggle and there's probably people listening that feel like it's a struggle. So I guess that, I'm glad I said it because then we can talk about it. That don't struggle, take a, you know, take some action. Take one piece of, you know, one thought that came from today's discussion.

Hopefully to not struggle.

Harry Cohen: And it's only when we see it by doing it, can you do something about it? Your point about struggle, that's okay. 

So big deal. We, we [00:10:00] noticed that when we say struggle, we can say, Whoa, and by the way, the, the image of struggle is, is,

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: Oh 

Harry Cohen: tense. And if you relax, the knot can be untied

more easily. When you pull at a tangle, it tends to not get untangled. 

connie_1_11-07-2024_101105: That's right.

 I think everybody be your own best friend. Thank you for listening today. If you love this, if you have something that you think you can share with others, um, please share the podcast, please follow us so that you're alerted when we drop a new episode and thanks for joining on the gentle nudge.

Thanks for listening.