anything goes with emma chamberlain - growing HURTS

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

Most of us have some things we want to work on in our lives, and Emma is chatting through all of that this episode. From thing she’s been working on, ways to improve our self-esteem, when is it time to be alone and self-reflect vs. being around people, positive things we can do to be better people and improve our lives, and some tips on being happier and feeling more fulfilled.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to anything goes. I'm Emma Chamberlain, your host. I hope you're having a beautiful week. You know what's really interesting Is that my newfound passion for reading is affecting me in other areas of my life Obviously, you know reading is a great form of entertainment that is constructive rather than harmful, a harmful form of entertainment would be social media and stuff like that, blah, blah, blah. But it's also like affecting me in other areas of my life in a good way, which I think is just so crazy.

For example, I've gone really into writing in a journal. Like, I'm talking about all right, 10 pages a day in a journal. And I don't want to stop. Like, I love writing now. Like, I never liked writing in a journal. Like, I liked it because it was good for me and mentally it was kind of therapeutic. But I didn't enjoy it necessarily. It was more like a tool to help me deal with my problems, but it was not luxurious. I didn't love it.

I wasn't enjoying it when I was doing it. But for some reason, after reading two books, now all of a sudden, I'm obsessed with writing in a journal. Like, it's almost creative. Even though I'm just venting about my thoughts and feelings and day-to-day experiences, I enjoy writing about those things creatively and it's becoming a creative and enjoyable thing.

I never thought this would happen, ever. And I find myself getting more philosophical with the things I'm writing about, whereas if I read journal entries that I wrote two years ago, I'm writing about. Whereas if I read journal entries that I wrote two years ago, I'm writing about my Coachella outfits and what I want to wear to Coachella. And I'm talking about toxic boys that I was talking to and manifesting that they would love me back one day.

That's what my journal entries used to be about. And now I'm thinking about much deeper things. And I can say that this is from the books. This is from reading books. So anyway, the book marathon continues. I'm gonna keep reading hopefully forever until the day I die. So hopefully this is a never-ending marathon.

I hope that I don't ever stop. I don't know what I'm gonna read next, but I'll keep you guys posted. Anyway, this is not a fucking book club. You guys don't wanna hear about books anymore. I know it's probably annoying, especially if you're not somebody who's maybe into reading. I can't imagine how annoying it is

to hear somebody talking about books. When I wasn't into reading, I hated people that read books, and I hated people that talked about books because I was like, shut up. Like books are for fucking old people. Shut the fuck up. And I get it because it's like, it's one of those things where it's like,

you don't know how good it is until you get into it. You know what I'm saying? And it's really easy to dismiss it as just something that people do to brag. And I get that. So we're just going to move on. But anyway, let's get into today's topic. So today's topic came about in my brain through a journal entry that I wrote into my journal last night because I was having some realizations and I thought, hey, might as well make a full

episode about it. But the topic for this week is about the dark side of a loan time, a loan time meaning obviously time spent by yourself. Now if you are a long time listener of this podcast, you know that eight times out of 10, if somebody asks me, how do I get over a breakup? How do I get over a toxic friendship? How do I feel more confident? How do I find my passion? How do I blah, blah, blah?

When somebody asks me that, my advice almost every time is you need to spend time alone. You need to spend time alone. You need to spend time alone. And I say this all the time. This is like my go-to advice. And it's not because I'm a lazy advice giver and I'm just spewing out the same answer to everything. This is my answer because it's true.

It's just fucking true. Majority of the problems that you face in life can be fixed or at least better understood by spending time alone. But I almost feel like it's irresponsible to be giving out that type of advice without touching on the side of a loan time that's a little bit less romantic. You know? Because as helpful as spending time alone is and as crucial as it is for growth and for healing and for reinforcing the connection between your mind and body, it's also not that fun and it's not always

comfortable and it's not always easy. And so in today's episode, I'm going to be talking about that. The struggle of spending time by yourself when you need it. I guess I should say the struggle of spending time alone, but why it's worth it to push through the tough moments, why it's worth it to force yourself to be alone sometimes. So let's start out with addressing the obvious. When you're out with friends, when you're three glasses of wine in, when you're when you're scrolling through social media, when you're on FaceTime with somebody, when you're in class, when you're at work,

you're being distracted, right? Every day we experience distractions. It's just part of being a human being, you know? And distractions can be actually a good thing, you know what I'm saying? It's healthy and necessary for us as humans to have things that we can be focused on that distract us from our own thoughts, right? Let's say you're at dinner with your friends. You're not going to be thinking about the fact that, you know, you didn't do your chores. When you're at work and you're getting your work done, you're focused on work.

You're not focusing on the thoughts in the back of your head. That could be about anything. It could be about, oh, I miss my ex-boyfriend. Oh, you know, I wish I had more friends, like stuff like that. You're not thinking about that because you're distracted by your work. The only time that you can really self-reflect

The only time that you can really self-reflect is when you're alone and you're on a walk or you're reading a book or you're journaling or you're cooking or you're listening to music by yourself. That's the only time that you really have a chance to self-reflect fully because yes, you can self-reflect with a relative or a close friend, but it's not the same. It's not. True self-reflection happens when you're completely by yourself and you're interacting with yourself. You're having a dialogue within yourself. That's the only time that you're truly self-reflecting. With no other voices,

no other opinions, just yours. And that's important. And you need to have that in your life. Okay, now let's go back to why I recommend true alone time for problems like breakups, bad self-esteem, feeling lost, feeling you need to grow, feeling you need to make new friends. Why do I say you need alone time? Like why do I say that? It's because alone time is helpful for these things because you're forced to face your problems head on, simple as that. When you're partying, when you're socializing, when you're going on social media, when you're, God, I don't know, in your cafeteria talking

to random people at school, I don't know. You're heavily distracted and you don't have to face your problems. Now, I'm not saying that if you're struggling with a breakup or bad self-esteem or whatever those examples I mentioned, I'm not saying that if you're struggling with those things that you need to lock yourself in your room for 24 hours a day and never leave and just isolate yourself until you figure it the fuck out. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, you need to a lot a loan time for yourself more often than you normally would. And you need to make sure that you're using that

a loan time wisely. Because listen, you can have a loan time and you can go on your phone and you can watch movies and you cannot have a single constructive thought. It's very easy to do. When I'm prescribing a loan time, when I'm giving advice, I mean like no distractions.

When you're dealing with one of the struggles I mentioned earlier, you need to make a conscious effort to find time for that pure alone time. But here's where it gets difficult. There's delayed gratification when you force yourself to be alone. What I mean by that is, in the moment, it's not fun. It's painful. It's uncomfortable. And the joy doesn't come immediately.

The joy comes maybe a month down the line, maybe a year down the line when your wiser. But in the moment, it just feels like you're lonely and you're forced to be locked in a jail cell with your own mind. The thing is, is that most really powerful things in life, most really positive, impactful things in life, involved delayed gratification. You don't get to enjoy the fruits of your labor right away. You know what I'm saying? You have to wait for it to become good.

It's like you have to work before you get to enjoy, type of thing. You know what I'm saying? This whole work now, enjoy later thing, fits perfectly with alone time. It's like spending time alone, working on yourself, reflecting, et cetera, is the work.

That's the work. But later down the line, your life is gonna be so much more enriched because of the wisdom that you have from the time that you are alone and the time that you are growing. It's like because you took that time to develop yourself, you won't make the same mistakes again. And you'll be making better decisions. You know what I'm saying?

You'll make better decisions, and you'll make smarter decisions because you took the time to grow. But it's actually really easy to just throw this all out the window. I'll give you an example. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's no instruction manual when it comes to being an adult.

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Call or go to statefarm.com for a quote today. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is more than a website builder. It's in all in one place to make an online space that's entirely your own. Their all-in-one platform allows you to customize everything from the fonts and color scheme to your domain name. All you have to do is choose from one of their beautifully designed templates as a starting off point.

Then, at whatever you need to show off your ideas to get your side hustle on, you've got all the tools you need to sell products, schedule appointments, and send email campaigns to your mailing list. Plus, everything is optimized for mobile, so it looks just as good on a phone as it does on a desktop. Check out Squarespace.com for more features and inspiration, and when you're ready to build your site, use the offer code Emma for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. purchase of a website or a domain. Last night, it was Saturday night. And I got invited to a few different kind of social events.

And I knew all too well that I wasn't in a good place. You know, I was feeling lonely and I was feeling desperate to just be social and just do anything to get me out of my own head, right? I'd been really in my head all day and it was really uncomfortable for me. And so one night time I rolled around and I got invited to these social events, I was like, well obviously I'm to go. But then I thought about it more and I was like, Emma, what's your intention here? Do you want to go to these social events because you genuinely are excited

about them and you think it's gonna be a great time. Or do you wanna go just to distract yourself from the pain of your own mind? Do you just wanna go to distract yourself from the shit that you need to be dealing with? And when I asked myself that, I was very disappointed to find out that the answer was, I only wanted to go just as a distraction.

I didn't want to go for any genuine reason. I didn't want to go out for any reason, except for a distraction. So I didn't let myself go out. I said, Emma, you are doing this out of weakness. You want to go be social out of weakness. Not because you want to go have fun, not because you think it's going to be fun, not because you haven't seen one of these people in a while and you want to catch up. Not because of any of that. You only wanna go out to distract yourself from your shit so that you don't have to fucking deal

with it and that's lazy. And I looked at myself in the goddamn mirror and I was like, that's lazy, Emma. That's lazy. You don't need to go out tonight. You don't need to be social tonight. Guess what you're gonna do? You're gonna stay home.

You're gonna write in your journal and you're gonna do? You're gonna stay home, you're gonna write in your journal, and you're gonna work through this now, so that in a week, when you get invited to another social event, you can go out, you can enjoy it purely because you wanna go because there's people you wanna catch up with because you genuinely think you're gonna enjoy it. Not just to cover up and mask your problems.

I consider myself to be somebody who has pretty good self-control. Like with everything in life, I feel like I have good self-control and good balance, you know? And that's something I'm really proud of. But even I try to run away from doing the self-reflection that I know that I need, because it's so much easier to just distract yourself

than to face your demons. It's so much easier to just go do something else. It's so much easier to go do something that pushes it out of your mind temporarily. The problem is that that's not solving any problems. When you're just covering it up, it doesn't go away. You have to solve it. You have to solve the problem.

That's where the alone time comes in. You see what I'm saying? It's like, you feel like you just can't get over this stupid breakup and it's been six months and you're like, why am I still not over this person? It's because you haven't worked through it. You've just covered it up, covered it up, covered it up, covered it up, you haven't faced it head on.

Now, I wanna be really, really clear that things that I consider distractions, like going to dinner with friends, going to a party, having a few glasses of wine, watching a movie, going on TikTok, like whatever it may be, those things are all completely fine in moderation and those are all completely fine in general. You know what I'm saying?

Like those are all completely fine. I'm not demonizing these activities. Being social as a human is crucial for us and enjoying distractions I feel like is also kind of crucial, maybe less crucial than being social, but like we need to feel moments of relaxation where we just get to let go, you know? We deserve that.

And I'm not trying to demonize these things, but what I am saying is sometimes you need to have some discipline and say, I need to shut all of these things out and I need to just reflect because there's things I'm not working through. You know, I guess the rule of thumb here is that you never want to do something out of desperation, right? That's when you know that you're neglecting to handle your, you know, your problems.

If you're going to parties out of desperation, if you're scrolling on TikTok for hours out of desperation, if you're hanging out with people that you don't even really like out of desperation. It's because you'd rather do things that are possibly harming you. You'd rather do that than be by yourself and face your own shit. It's simple as that. And so my rule of thumb for myself is,

okay, Emma, you can do whatever makes you happy and you can do whatever you want as long as you're not doing it out of desperation. You know? And I'm not gonna be perfect at this. There are gonna be moments when I know I need to work through shit,

but I get invited to dinner and I'm like, you know what, I'm just gonna do it anyway. Even though I need to work through shit, I'll work through shit, but I get invited to dinner and I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to do it anyway, even though I need to work through shit, I'll work through shit tomorrow. And guess what? That might work that day. But it's when you're partying every night, you're spending eight hours a day on TikTok when it's out of control. You know what I'm saying?

And you need to reel it in. Listen, I'm not telling you what to do. I think I'm kind of almost talking to myself here, you know, more than anything. You can take this or leave this. This is all just my opinion. But I think I am in a way kind of talking to myself right now. It's like, this is kind of what I was writing about in my journal.

I was like, you don't want to do things out of desperation. That's the tell telltale sign. Ask yourself before you engage in these distractions. Am I doing this out of desperation? Or am I doing this because I just genuinely want to do it? And it's going to make me happy. The second you start doing that, you learn so much about yourself.

And it's super telling, and it's a great tool that I'm just now starting to use. Based on my experience, the hardest part about this pure alone time is how painful it can get when you're on the brink of a breakthrough. And you won't realize it, right? You're like, maybe you're journaling, maybe you're just sitting in bed listening to music and you're thinking, maybe you're on a walk and you're thinking, whatever it may be, your brain starts to go down these dark tunnels, right, and starts to work through things. And sometimes it can be a great thing, sometimes it can be a beautiful thing.

And it's fun and almost enjoyable. But sometimes your brain can go down a dark, dark hole. And you start working through things that are painful. And you may working through things that are painful. And you may start crying and you may feel awful, right? Based on my experience, after those painful moments of self-reflection, that's when the breakthrough comes in. Because you dig yourself so deep and dark into this dark tunnel of your mind,

that you get to a point where you're like, okay, I can't, I actually can't. Drown in this sorrow anymore, I need to figure out how to fix this problem. It's like you have to go to a painful place, painful enough to motivate you to get yourself out of it. Right? It's funny how that is.

That might just be me and my experience, but I bet a bunch of you can relate to that. It's like when you're at your lowest moment, Funny how that is, that might just be me and my experience, but I bet a bunch of you can relate to that. It's like when you're at your lowest moment, when you're feeling the most pain, it becomes so excruciating that you just cannot take it anymore. And so you have to fix it.

Whereas if you're just covering it up every day and you know, you're just kind of forgetting about it. It's just a dull pain. It's like having one of those migraines that's like just in your eyebrows and it just kind of hurts a little bit, but it doesn't hurt like bad enough where you're like bedridden, but it's like just kind of bugging you all day. Like, that's how these unresolved problems are. It's just a dull pain that you can live with, but it's still uncomfortable and you wish

it wasn't there, but it follows you, you know. But you don't want that, you know what I'm saying? You don't want to be living with that pain. Even if it's more subtle to just push it away, isn't it better if you just deal with it all at once, get it out and then move forward? So going back to last night, I decided to stay home instead of going and being social. Because I had been struggling all day with this feeling of like very severe loneliness, right? And it's completely self-inflicted, this loneliness.

But I mean, it also has to do with my specific kind of, life circumstance. The life that I live makes it hard for me to find genuine friends and genuine people I can trust, and blah, blah, blah, blah. Nobody knows how to hear about that. But I have been isolating myself a lot recently to do this kind of, because I've been feeling like I need to grow, you know?

But it hurts. It hurts really bad right now to be this lonely. And I'm not completely lonely. I have a support system for sure, but it's like, I've been dealing with a lot of shit on my own. And I've been talking to people about it a little bit less. Trying to find ways to deal with my problems on my own.

Because in the past, I had always gone to other people to be a soundboard so that I could just like talk to other people about my problems and get comfort from them. But I've been realizing recently that I actually need to figure out how to find comfort within myself. And so in order to do that, I've been isolating myself a lot more, talking about my problems a lot less to people, in order to try to find a way that I can self-soothe myself. Now trust me, bottling up your problems and not talking about them and not sharing them

with people is not good. But trust me, that's not a problem for me. I love talking about my problems to my closest friends and family. Like, it's not a problem for me. I've never had an issue with that. My issue is a little bit less common, where I don't know how to deal with that stuff

without help from others. That's where I need the help. So, I've been spending a lot more without help from others. That's where I need the help. So I've been spending a lot more time alone trying to figure out how to do that self-suthing and gain that skill so that I don't feel as dependent on other people, especially my parents,

to help me deal with the tribulations of everyday life. Is that the right word? Tribulations? Definition of tribulations. That was a good word. I used the right word, see? It's because I'm fucking reading books. Now I know words all of a sudden. God, it's crazy. Anyway, moral of the story is, last night I was feeling really lonely and frustrated because I was like, I know that I'm working on a really, really important skill that I need to have for my life.

I know I'm working on that, but I'm also just lonely in general. It was like this very confusing. I still don't have it all figured out. It was like, I'm lonely already in life, but right now I'm also just lonely in general. It was like this very confusing. I still don't have it all figured out. It was like, I'm lonely already in life, but right now I'm extra lonely. That's pretty much what it was. And I wanted to go out and be social

just because I was feeling desperate, whatever. Well, I didn't. Because at the end of the day, I knew that it was the right thing to do, and it would help me grow a long term. Distracting myself in that moment would stunt my growth, and I knew that. And I also knew that, guess what? There are going to be nights when I get invited to dinner, and I don't want to go out of desperation, I want to go because I know it's going to be fun. There's going to be thousands of those moments

throughout the rest of my life. And I'm going to enjoy them ten times more if I use tonight to grow and I sacrifice tonight. I'm sacrificing tonight for the hundreds of great nights I'm going to have in the future. And that's my welcome to my TED talk. I'm done. That was my those were all the points that I had to make. They were a little bit messy. I probably repeated myself way too much. But I hope that at least one thing I said made sense because I swear to God I blackout when I record these episodes and I have no idea what the fuck I'm saying until I listen to it. And it's terrifying, but hey, I hope that that made sense.

So I asked you guys to ask me some questions about self growth on the Twitter at AG Podcast. Go follow. If you want to participate in future episodes, future, God fuck future episodes, it's a party over there. So let's see what you guys asked me. This episode is brought to you by LiquidIV. LiquidIV believes everybody needs hydration every day. It's not just for athletes or that one time

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of liquid IV at a store near you or head to liquidiv.com and use the code anything for 20% off your order. That's liquidiv.com with the code anything. Tap the banner or visit this episode's page to learn more. Somebody said, how do you realize you actually need to grow as a person? Like realizing you are the toxic person and you need to grow? Well, obviously, some self-reflection needs to occur, right?

Look at the patterns in your life. What a friendship between you and somebody else ends. Did they really do anything wrong or did you? Or was it mutual? If it's mutual, then that's irrelevant. But if you had a bad falling out with a friend analyze it Did it end because you did something bad or did it end because they did something bad and don't fucking lie to yourself

Stop lying to yourself the biggest issue That we as humans have is that we as humans have is that we let our egos convince us that we can do no wrong. And you can train yourself out of that mindset, but it's not easy. Like you could be a terrible friend, but if your ego is big enough, you'll convince yourself that you being a bad friend is justified and that ego is big enough, you'll convince yourself that you being a bad friend is justified and that you have the right to do that. You know? So, if you want to figure out if you're a toxic person, stop lying to yourself. Would you be friends with yourself? Would you date yourself?

Would you want to be your sibling? Are you pleasant to be around? Do you treat others how you really, truly want to be treated? Like, truly, don't make excuses. Stop with the fucking excuses. And guess what? Sit in your bed, think about this, and cry, and feel guilt if you need to.

Let yourself be mad at yourself. Don't sit in your bed and say, well, it's okay that I made out with her ex-boyfriend because they broke up and even though we're best friends, like he likes me and so I don't feel bad. No, don't make excuses. Be honest, stop lying to yourself and realize where you've wronged because no matter who you are,

you've probably fucked up at least once. So I think everybody could benefit from, you know, looking at their past fuck-ups and feeling the guilt and shame and then making a plan about how you can be better in the future. You stay toxic if you keep justifying your toxic behavior and you let your ego do that Somebody said hi Emma this past week has been very dark for me My dog died and I didn't get accepted into my dream school I'm in such a dark place right now, and I don't know how to get out of it love you so much well

for starters I'm I'm really sorry that, you know, both of those things happen to you. And I know right now, it may seem like there's no way, you know, that things are going to get better. Like, when things like this happen, it's so easy to feel like, well, things can only get worse from here, you know? The first thing I would tell you to do is to accept this pain, you know?

Accept it. Don't push it away. Don't try to run away from it and get out of it just yet. You just went through something that was upsetting. Two things that were upsetting. Don't rush to get out of that. You know what I'm saying? Because running away from pain doesn't help. You know what I'm saying? Take care of yourself. You know, treat yourself with love and kindness

and don't put pressure on yourself to feel better tomorrow. Because that's just not realistic. Things like this hurt. And sometimes there's no immediate cure to pain in suffering. Sometimes it's just the cards that were dealt and we just have to ride the wave

and we just have to get through it. I'd say the first thing that you do is just take the pressure off yourself to have it all figured out and to get over it tomorrow. You know what I'm saying? It's because it's not realistic. And the truth of the matter is when it comes to your school situation, everything happens for a reason with things like that, like things like that are, you know, maybe a little bit more, not materialistic, but my opinion on everything happens for a reason,

like my philosophy on that statement is that that really only applies to, in my opinion, that philosophy only applies to things that don't regard human life. It basically works, that statement works, for everything that doesn't regard human life, or any life in general. So I wouldn't say everything happens for a reason when somebody passes away or your pet passes away because I don't think that that's The right statement to use but when it comes to not getting into a school everything happens for a reason with that shit. I swear Okay Who knows you may end up going to another college where you end up meeting you know the most amazing friends of your life And you wouldn't have met them if you would have gotten into your dream school.

It's like you never know. Those things work themselves out. So remind yourself of that. But when it comes to your dog, that's just pain and grief that you're just going to have to be patient with yourself with. The moral of the story is it's all time in patience with this type of stuff. You just have to be patient because things always get better, but you just have to wait it out and you just have to write the wave.

Somebody said, do you think acceptance plays a role in self-growth? I really struggle with accepting myself, how I come across other people, my personality, sexuality, et cetera. I think absolutely acceptance plays a role in self-growth. And I think that actually acceptance comes with self-growth if that makes sense, which is why I really think you would benefit from having some alone time.

Here we go again, but really, spending time alone forces you to grow and reflecting forces you to grow. We've talked about this for fucking long enough. God damn it. And through that growth, you're going to find more and more acceptance for yourself. Because the more time you spend reflecting, the more time you can spend finding things about yourself that you really love, I would say journaling could really help with this, you know.

Write every day in a journal for five minutes about something that you're proud of yourself for or how great of a person that you are, you know, talk about the great things about you in this journal, talk about ways that you could improve so that you can be even more proud of yourself and even more accepting of yourself. Self acceptance and self growth go very much hand in hand. Somebody said, is the best version of yourself, the point where you've fully grown, is there a best version of yourself? I do not believe that there is.

I think that life is just growing every single day until you die. And then it's over. Like really, I think that you never, ever stop growing, ever, ever. Unless you never reflect inward and you just distract yourself every day of your life until you die. Then you never grow, you know? And some people grow throughout their lives more than others. And that's okay, and that's normal, you know? It's like everybody's so different, and everybody, you know, has a different path. But I don't think that you ever reach your fullest, but there's no such thing as your fullest potential, because there's no golden standard necessarily. Each person is an individual, so there's no limit.

There's no need to box yourself in, you know what I mean? And say like, oh, you know, once I'm this wise, I will be fully grown. It's like, well then why not get a little bit wiser? You know what I'm saying? It's like, why stop? I don't think you should ever be the full best version of yourself, the full grown version of yourself.

I don't think you should ever even necessarily strive for that because it's an abstract concept. It doesn't even exist. I think that the focus should be on, you know, working on yourself more and more every day. In the present moment, you know what I mean? Somebody said, how do you get over your ex friends? Like how do you distract yourself and make new friends? Well, I kind of talked about this earlier

when you're going through a growth period socially and you're maybe out growing your old friends and you're kind of looking for new ones, it can be really easy to just go back and hang out with your old friends and you're kind of looking for new ones. It can be really easy to just go back and hang out with your old friends because you're lonely. The same thing applies to relationships. You know, you're single and you're lonely

and you're like, it would be so easy to just go back to my toxic ex right now. It would be so easy. But in those moments, you need to have discipline and you have to remember what I said earlier that you never want to do something out of desperation. You don't want to go back just because you're desperate. It's not good. It's not good for your self-esteem.

It's not good for your overall well-being. It's terrible for your growth. It stunts your growth. It's not good. This time where you feel maybe friendless is a great time to make your bonds with your family stronger. You know, reach out to one of your cousins that you haven't talked to in a few months. Go to dinner with your mom, you know.

Maybe go to the, go on a walk on the beach with your grandma, like lean into your family, you know, that is huge, that it's the perfect time to do that. Strengthen those bonds, because those are so important. But also, you know, figure out how to enjoy being by yourself as much as possible. Now, being alone can be bittersweet, we've discussed this. But find things that you like to do by yourself that could be like picking up a new hobby, that could be finding a new exercise that you enjoy doing, start cooking, find an interesting topic that you want to watch documentaries about and learn about something new. Don't just sit on Instagram and TikTok and get sad, okay?

Like, try to use this time wisely to build yourself and make yourself better and, you know, make yourself more well-rounded so that when you go out in the world to make new friends, without you even realizing it, you're gonna start attracting people that are like-minded like you. Because you've worked on yourself, you're going to attract naturally a friend that's more

elevated. You know what I'm saying? You're going to find somebody, or even multiple people, that match your current headspace so much better than your old friends. Somebody said, I'm still a teen, but I often look back at my childhood and feel like I have no self-growth. I avoid facing my current self and that upsets me. I wish I was smarter and more aware of common knowledge so I wouldn't disappoint the old me. What do I do? Well, it's huge that you even realize this.

Give yourself credit for even realizing this and admitting this to yourself. This statement within itself is growth. You having this realization is growth more than you can even realize. Now the next step is, you know, to start implementing these healthy habits into your life, whether it's journaling, reading, going on walks, like whatever it may be, doing those things and reflecting, start working on those things because it seems that you're motivated to do so and you're already taking a great step in the right direction by realizing that this is an issue in the first place. So the next step is just to act on it. It's never too

late. You're a teen. You're a teenager. It's the perfect time to start self-reflecting and to start growing. Somebody said, how can I know that I made it in life? Again, I'm sorry, y'all, I don't believe you ever fully make it in life. I don't, I don't think that that is, it's like life is not that simple. You know what I'm saying? It's not, life is not that simple where it's just like,

oh, you reach a point and you've made it. Like, oh, you've made it a certain amount of money and you have a family and your kids went to a nice college. Oh, that means you made it. Hell no, it's so not that simple. You never just make it. You just don't. It just doesn't work like that.

You know what I'm saying? Like, when you think like that, you stop yourself from experiencing more growth and discovering more knowledge and wisdom about things. When you believe that there's a point in life where you've quote unquote made it. Because I don't think that that's the way to do it. Like what? Are you supposed to be, you know, a 50-year-old and you know, you make a certain 50 year old and, you know, you make a certain amount of money and your kids are going to expensive college. Now you've quote unquote made it. Are you just supposed to like stop growing and stop developing now?

That sounds like a painful existence. I don't think you ever truly ever make it. Somebody said, life in society in general, like taxes, making a bank account, etc., the life stuff that they don't teach you in school, stresses me out. How can I stop fearing the adult life that I always dream about? By the way, I'm a junior in high school. I always used to be so stressed out about this stuff, but what I'd always tell myself is, I don't know any adult who hasn't figured it out.

You know what I'm saying? I don't know any adult that hasn't figured it out. Try to think of one adult in your life that doesn't have that element of life figured out. Trust me, if 90% of the adults that are walking on this planet right now have all that shit figured out, I'd even argue probably 95 of them, who knows, but whatever, probably terribly wrong statistic, but whatever. If such a large percentage of the adults that we know, have it figured out, you can do it too. Trust me. You know what I'm saying?

Like everybody else has figured it out. So you definitely can. Like feel comfort knowing that all the adults that you know, that have all the tax shit figured out, that have all of the life shit figured out, they were you once, they were a junior in high school once, and they didn't know what the fuck taxes were. And they made it work, they figured it out.

So guess what, you can't do. That's the way I look at that. Somebody said, how to care less about how other people are living their lives so I can live mine. This is huge. I almost wish I could make a full episode on this, but I want to talk about it now because I'm impatient. I've noticed that the moments when I'm the most consumed by what other people are doing are when I am the most unhappy with my own life. Looking at other people's lives and judging them and having opinions about them, that's a form of distraction.

That's distracting you from your own reality. Judging what other people are doing means that you don't have to judge yourself in that moment, and that's relief. Okay, I've actually talked about this kind of before, because I feel like I've said that before. I just got deja vu, but it's a distraction. And that's relief. Okay, I've actually talked about this kind of before because I feel like I've said that before. I just got deja vu.

But it's a distraction from your deeper issues. So if you face your deeper issues, you lean into that alone time and you handle that problem, head on, you handle those problems head on. You're gonna find that your life is so much better on the other side. And you're gonna find that you're so much less bothered by what other people are doing because you're not running away from your own life. You're actually happy with your life.

So you don't mind sticking in it. You know what I'm saying? You don't mind just sticking in your own lane, sticking in your own life. Keeping your eyes on your own goddamn paper. You know what I'm saying? You won't feel the need to run away from yourself because you worked through your shit. And so you won't feel as drawn to these negative distractions, you know,

judging other people's lives being one of them. Somebody said, how do I initiate a personal growth process? I know that I have to grow in multiple areas of my life, but I don't know how to start. I don't know how to be consistent and dedicated towards the process. I get bored easily and I'm afraid I won't be able to maintain discipline.

Listen, anybody can do it. You can do it. You're fully capable of doing it. You're fully capable of doing it. A thousand percent. The only person that you're fighting is yourself and the little devil on your shoulder that's

like, well, I would rather have three glasses of wine than think about this, you know? It's like practice makes perfect for my experience, and it doesn't make it any easier, but you start to get the hang of it, right? It's like, let's say, you know, your main distraction is social media. You let yourself disappear into social media for hours and hours per day to distract yourself from your problems. And you're aware of this and you're like, I want to start growing. I need to start using my time more wisely and using this time to grow. Let's say that's your scenario.

Let's say that's your distraction. Maybe on the first day, you decided to go in a walk, you decided to write in your journal for an hour, and you decided to read, and then you decided to watch a documentary, and you feel like, wow, okay, I had some time to self-reflect, and I learned about some stuff today, like I did a really good job, and I feel like that really helped me in my self-development journey. Like, good job, I did a good job and I feel like that really helped me in my self-development journey. Like, good job. I did a good job today.

But then the next day rolls around and you're like, God dammit. I really just want to go on TikTok for eight hours today and I really don't want to do any work on myself today. You have two choices. You can say, well, I did really good yesterday, so today I'm gonna spend eight hours on TikTok. Or you can say, I did really good yesterday, and I feel really proud of myself.

Let's keep the street going. Let's really try to do it again today. And you may need to push yourself, and it may be painful, and it may be uncomfortable, you may need to push yourself and it may be painful and it may be uncomfortable. And you may be bored and you may be sad and you may be uncomfortable and you might start the things that you need to work on might start creeping into your head.

That means you're doing it right. But unfortunately when you're doing it right, it's uncomfortable, you know? It sucks, it sucks. It sucks. But after about a week of, you know, really, really working on changing your lifestyle habits so that you can grow,

you'll start to feel good about yourself, you'll start to already, already, you'll start to feel the joy of your labor. And your hard work, you know? And then you'll be like, wow, I feel really good when I'm really consistent with this stuff. And I already feel myself growing. I already feel myself growing. I already feel myself becoming a better person

because this week may have been kind of difficult here and there, but I came out of this week feeling like a better person than I was in the beginning of the week. Then you can use that as a tool down the line to motivate you, you know? And hey, maybe you went on TikTok for an hour during the week, that's fine. It's better than going on it for eight hours a day

like you were before, you see what I'm saying? It's almost like how runners get a runner's high. It's like when they first start running, you know, in the beginning of their running journey, it's like running is terrible. They hate it. It hurts their body and they don't enjoy it. But then maybe six months in, now they crave a run every day. They crave to go run, you know, because they get that runner's high.

And it's like it's finally paying off. Now they get joy from running. But in order to get joy from running, they had to have the pain in the beginning. And it's the same thing with, you know, implementing these habits into your life that, you know, produce growth. In the beginning, it's uncomfortable and it's not fun. But then, you know, you get into the swing of things and then you don't even You can't even think of life in any other way. You can't even imagine

Filling your life with distractions as much as you used to Somebody said I have friends, but they all are judgy and toxic, but I have to hang out with them because they are the only people I talk to. So can you give me some advice on how to enjoy my time with them? I love this question because I'm about to fucking flip it on its head. Okay. So here you say, and I quote, I have to hang out with them. No, you don't.

No, you don't. You don't. You're telling yourself that you have to because the concept of spending time by yourself doesn't even seem like an option to you, which is totally normal. Like, don't get me wrong. So normal and like totally okay, too. But I'm here to say, let's switch that mindset around. You don't have to hang out with anybody. You don't. You're choosing this. You are choosing it and take responsibility for that.

And realize that you could be by yourself. You don't need to hang out with these people. You are choosing to spend time with them. That is your choice. And I quote, you say, can you give me some advice on how to enjoy my time with them? No, I can't. I cannot give you advice on how to enjoy your time with them.

Because they're toxic and they're judgy. It's impossible to enjoy your time with people like that. It is impossible. So my advice for you is that you need to enjoy time by yourself or at least attempt to. And whether you end up figuring out how to enjoy it or not, I can guarantee you're gonna grow in the process. And you need to find new friends. And it might take some time and you might need to be alone for a while, but you need to make new friends. And you need to, and you need

to have some of that alone time. But I think that, you know, you all could have figured that out without me saying it. So, somebody said, do you think it's normal to start enjoying being alone as you grow? I have higher standards now than I'm older, so it's hard to find good friendships or relationships. And I just prefer to be alone and I actually really enjoy it. I can completely relate to this. And I think that this is normal for sure. And I think that this is actually a good sign. I think that it's good for your standards to get higher.

And for you to better understand what type of people you want in your life, I think that's a really, really positive thing. And I think that enjoying time alone is so beyond important. You know, it's super important. And that's not to say, sometimes it's not gonna suck ass. Okay, duh, that's not gonna, and I'm not saying that sometimes you aren't going to want

to be social because you are a human and you want social interaction, duh. Like, you know, of course, I'm not saying that you won't, that you shouldn't or that, like, it needs to be one way or the other. Like, you can enjoy time alone, but also enjoy time with people that enrich your life. Like that's the ideal formula. The ideal formula is to enjoy time alone when you're not with people that enrich your life. You know what I'm saying?

The goal is to only surround yourself with people that make your life better. It's a lot easier to do that when you're fine with being by yourself and you're comfortable with being by yourself and you're familiar with being by yourself because you're not going to make desperate decisions just because you're lonely. I think that as your standards raise, you know, your life may become a little bit more lonely,

but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Somebody said, looking back, what were times where you thought that you weren't experiencing growth, but in hindsight, you actually were. where you thought that you weren't experiencing growth, but in hindsight, you actually were. I would say for me, the times when I'm the most convinced that I'm not growing is when I'm going through, like maybe a depressive episode.

But the funny thing about my maybe depressive episodes is that I always come out of them with a new perspective every time. And as fucked up and terrible as depression is and as out of hand it can get, I learn something in the process of the darkest moments every time, whether it's a new way to cope with my mental health problems, whether it's figuring out a new way to help me cope or whether it's realizing in the darkest

depth of my despair that there are certain people in my life that aren't making my life any better. Like sometimes it takes me being in a depressive episode to have realizations, which is so bizarre. And I don't know if that's normal actually, I don't. It takes me being in a depressive episode to have realizations, which is so bizarre. And I don't know if that's normal, actually. I don't. But I always come out of those episodes, you know, with a fresh new perspective.

And it does not feel like I'm growing in those moments. But weirdly enough, I am. Even though it's like, even though with depression, it's like so extreme, right? It's like, I could definitely learn the same things I learned during depressive episodes, not in depressive episodes. But regardless, I still learn things in those moments.

And trust me, I wish that I still learn things in those moments and trust me, I wish that I could learn them without the episode. And I probably could, but it's like, I'm not gonna say that they don't go hand in hand in my life sometimes. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, but I don't? But I don't know. I don't know.

It's kind of messy because depression's so out of your control. And it's so extreme at times that I even struggle saying that I learn something from it because as much as I do learn things in those moments of deep despair, I also have these irrational moments of just like pain that are like not useful. You see what I'm saying? Like that are just terrible and awful. So like I don't want anybody who's struggling with depression to hear this and be like,

oh God, like Emma has a depressive episode and like, she just has a positive experience at the end of it. It's like, no, that's not it. It's like, it's just that I've had moments where I've been depressed, where I've also been learning things, even when I didn't realize it. But depression also comes with a lot of things that just fucking suck and that are not fair. You know what I'm saying?

So I don't know how to explain that. I hope that made sense. Okay, last but not least, somebody said, if we're growing every day, how do we make sure that we're growing in the best way possible? Well, I think for starters, you know, it's just simply doing your best. You know what I mean? Not every day is going to be filled with reading books and journaling and taking walks and thinking about your feelings.

Okay, that's unrealistic. Not every day is going to be like that. I think it's about taking it day by day, being honest with yourself, not lying to yourself, not putting band-aids on your problems, avoiding that at all costs, doing things out of the genuineness of your heart rather than out of desperation for a distraction and just fucking doing your best. Like really it is just doing your best to be the best person that you can be. That's all you can do. And being proactive in the sense of like, how can I make

today the best day I can? Some things are going to happen that are going to be shitty and they're out of my control. But how can I, you know, out of all the things that I can control, how can I make this day the best day absolutely possible? Can I replace the time that I'm going on my phone with something that's more productive that's going to make my life better? Yes, am I going to do it? Well, that's up to you. And on that note, I really appreciate you guys hanging out with me today. I had a lot of fun with this episode and

You know, I hope that this was useful in Some way to somebody even if it's just one of you out there that found something useful in this I Feel that my job is complete and I feel that this conversation was successful I really appreciate you guys coming back every week and listening and hanging out and If you are not subscribed feel free to subscribe on any platform that you listen to podcasts. And if you like the podcast, feel free to rate us on Apple Podcast, Five Stars. I love the way that I say, you can rate us as if I don't do this podcast

by myself every day, every week. Sorry, not every day. Imagine if I made a podcast episode every day. I don't think I have a brain capacity for that. I think that actually drive me insane. I think I'd actually go crazy. Cause these podcast episodes, I really do deepen the depths of my brain.

I need a nap after I record this shit. Anyway, but that's all I got. I love you guys. Thank you for hanging out with me. I really hope that you have an amazing rest of your week. And I'll talk to you next week. Love you. Bye.

Bye. Bye.