Who is parenting you? Most of us need somebody to say put your shoes on and get out of there, and there is nobody doing it, so it has to be us.

Short videos are junk food for the brain and I keep thinking the next one will help. What a good parent would say is not get a grip. It is be a bit kinder to yourself in the journal tonight. There will never be one episode that sorts your storms out for good, and I would be lying if I pretended otherwise.

One thing to try: Say to yourself what a kind parent would say. Not what your critic would.

In this episode

• (0:03) Parenting ourselves, and where I came across it
• (2:26) Needing somebody to say put your shoes on and go
• (4:51) Council meetings, and not many friends these days
• (7:23) Junk food for the brain, and the next video helping
• (9:39) How about being a little kinder in the journal tonight
• (11:50) There is no one episode that sorts it all out

With gratitude to

Laura K, Stewart and Mariette.

Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk

Thank you for listening.

Steven

Links to Steven Webb's podcast and how you can support his work.

• Donate paypal.me/stevenwebb or Coffee stevenwebb.uk
• Steven's courses, podcasts and links: stevenwebb.uk

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 Matt O'Gabe,

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 the past 90 days is stewart

You're awesome. Thank you stewart 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 um 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 with some parenting. And I've looked at my life and I thought, where can

I do with 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 Steven get on, get out the door you've got to

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 going to be anything goes wrong between me and the destination yet 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 have a parent just going Steven 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, realising what I do. So awareness is everything.

Just being 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

um balancing that work, life and play, you know, it's not going

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 um You know, comfort with out

overindulging 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 um

I do hang out and get out with not so much friends now nowadays but because I'm just so busy.

But I really enjoy what I do. I enjoy the colleagues I work with, the other councillors and I enjoy

the councillors that are even on um I was gonna say opposing sides. We're not on opposing sides. We just

see things differently. We all want the same things. We all want our 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 um what else 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 on my hands, I'll leave it till the last minute.

What's that about? So just that accountability just. Come on, Steven you've got to Get

dressed, go to school. The equivalent adult will be Come on Steven just get on and record your podcast.

Little things like that um Do your emails, don't leave them until 11 o'clock at night. Or um do your

meditation in the morning when you wake up at six seven 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 I 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 oh

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 what 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 um 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 Steven 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 um a cup of tea. I've given up

coffee. I've given up lemonade. Fizzy I Have the odd can of Coke, but it's very, very rare. I

don't drink and I drink way too much tea. Going off on my tangents. Way too much tea. I probably

have, like, I was gonna 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 um It's an age thing. It's an age thing.

Middle age now. It's like, yeah,

what was I gonna say where was I to 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 but 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 recognise 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 storm One episode, told you all about um 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 all the bad bucket, you only have the good bucket to go it's not like that at all, is

it? You know um bad luck only comes in threes. Really? Tell that to the 67th time

that I've done something or um good things come in threes, does it I've had 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 they're all typing on typewriters trying to turn out um Hamlet or something,

meanwhile deciding your fate and what you're doing. No, don't believe it for a minute

um 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 um

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 could I do with a bit of loving, caring, healthy parenting right now?

And I think you'll realise that there's so many parts of your life and just over the next few days

or weeks you know what would a loving parent do for me right now in order to help me?

And that's it I just want to remind you that you can go to StevenWebb.uk spelt with a V

and you can Support me Either a 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 Insight 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'll be there anytime. Just keep an eye

out on the links on the podcast. Meanwhile, head over to StevenWebb.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 an external one, it's about

you. It's internally. Anyway,

take care and I love you.