261. My 2 Best Friends

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy episode 261: My 2 Best Friends.

Welcome to Better Than Happy. I’m your host, Jody Moore. I’m a mother to four children. I’m a huge Taylor Swift fan, and I’m a Master Certified Life Coach. I’m here to teach you how to manage your brain and manage your emotions so that you can create a life that’s even better than happy. Are you ready? Let’s go.

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I want to talk to you about two of my other friends today. I have a lot of best friends. My daughter is at that age where the term ‘best friend’ is starting to get thrown around. She’s 12 and sometimes 12 year old girls like to use that term to threaten one another or play funny games with each other. And she told me that one of her friends asked her recently, “Am I your best friend?” She said she was really uncomfortable, she didn’t know how to answer that question. And I said, “Well, you can just say, “Yeah, you’re one of my best friends and I have lots of best friends.”

At any rate I have lots of best friends too that I love, but I want to talk to you about two of them today. And I want to encourage you to think about inviting these two best friends into your life as well. My first best friend is my past self. She is a best friend to me in the same way that I think about many of my other friends which is I love her so much, she’s amazing.

And she kind of drives me crazy sometimes. She’s a little bit foolish sometimes. She does some things that I don’t really do and that I don’t understand why she does, but none of that changes that I just love her. And in fact some of those foolish things that she does are what add to just who she is overall. They’re just part of her.

So maybe you have other friends in your life that are this way. I know I do, especially some of my former roommates. I can’t think of many women in my life that I love more than some of the women who I lived with before I was married, in college or after college, I was single until I was 30. And those girls to this day, many of them I consider to be my best friends. Some of them I talk to frequently, or we interact frequently, and others I don’t talk to as often, but I still consider them my best friends.

Because when you live with someone you just get to know them so well. You get to know their heart, you get to know them when they’re at their best, like when they just got ready in the morning and they picked out the cutest outfit and did their hair and their make-up and they’re just adorable. And they’re in a good mood and they’re lots of fun and they’re pitching in and helping clean up the house and you’re just like, “I love her.”

And then you also see her when she’s a mess and she hasn’t washed her hair in a while, and she’s sad, or she’s depressed, or she’s worried, or she’s just feeling really insecure or vulnerable. Has she had her feelings hurt or has she lost her job or her boyfriend, or whatever? And you see all of that, you see the things about them that you really respect and admire and the things that you kind of shake your head and go, “Come on, that’s not going to be good for you in the long run.” And seeing all of that is what makes you love them so much.

The more we get to know people the more opportunity we have to love them, especially if they’re really willing to be vulnerable and open with us. It’s hard not to love someone who’s really vulnerable, who really is telling you the truth or showing you the truth. Because the truth for all of us is that we are a combination of strength and weakness. And that is pretty lovable to us, the truth.

Okay, so that’s how I think about those friends. That’s the same way I think about my past self. I’m just like, “Yeah, she is great, she hooked me up in some ways.” She created this amazing business that gives me so much freedom and flexibility and not only that, but I get to do what I love.

Sunday nights I get so excited thinking tomorrow I get to go do what I love in my office. And I get to work whatever hours I want to work and I get to make all the decisions about whether we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing or we’re going to change something or try something new. And I don’t have to get anyone’s approval. And I’m just like, “Wow, thanks past self, you seriously hooked me up.”

Now, there’s other things she did that I’m like, “You sort of made things a little harder for me when you ate all that junk food, when you drank all those Super Big Gulps, when you chose just to lay around instead of just going for a walk.”

Like whatever other things that she did, I’m like, “Yeah, I’m sort of dealing with the repercussions of that now. But I just love you, I get it, you were busy building a business and you were doing some things wrong, those other things that weren’t your strengths, and that’s okay. You’re just so lovable, past self.” Now, I didn’t always think that, I had to rewrite the story of my past self. Even the things my past self did that I would say, “Yeah, we’re not going to do that again, that did not work out, that was not a good idea, that wasn’t a good decision.”

Even decisions that I made that when I made, when my past self made them I knew they weren’t good decisions but I made them anyway.

I still look at her and go, “It’s okay, you know what, it’s okay, I got you, I love you. Come here, give me a hug. You know what; it’s how we do sometimes. We all make some dumb mistakes sometimes. We all do some stupid stuff. I’m going to take what we’re going to learn from that, and thank you by the way for making decisions later to make it right, thank you for not staying on a disruptive path. Thank you for picking yourself up so that we could end up where we are now. And I’m not mad at you for any of that. I love you.” Love that past self.

Now, my other best friend is my future self. And she’s kind of in the same way I think about my past self, I think about my future self in that there are some things that she’s a lot better at than I am right now. In some ways she is a lot wiser than me, she’s got more experience under her belt. And she’s accomplished things that I haven’t accomplished. She’s, you might say, ahead of me in some ways, in terms of my goals, in the things I want to understand better, the amount of patience and compassion that I want to have, the amount of just even relationships and connections.

She has a lot more relationships and knows more people than I do. She is stronger than me in some ways. And in other ways she’s a little bit weaker than me, like maybe her body isn’t as capable as my body today is. Maybe her knees are starting to give out, or she’s just starting to ache in more places, she doesn’t have the energy she used to have. Maybe she’s not able to focus. She doesn’t have the mental focus and clarity that I have today.

So I’m thinking about her and trying to take care of her, like, “Listen, I got you. Because right now I can go for a walk or a jog and I’m going to do that for you because you might not be able to at some point, but I’ll take care of you now so that you’ll be as healthy as possible. I want you to feel as good as you possibly can in your body. So I’m sacrificing some things right now in the name of you because I love you, future self. And I’m also looking to you to take care of me a little bit.”

When I feel full of doubt and fear and worry, I go to future self, my second best friend and I say, “Help me. Am I going to make it through this? Am I going to be okay? How does this turn out? How do I get through this problem or this stressful time? Or how do I accomplish this goal? Or how does all this go in the end?” I love to ask her that, because you know what she says to me every time?

She just smiles and she says, “Oh, Jody, everything turns out just fine. If you just worried a little less, if you weren’t in such a hurry, if you would just slow down and enjoy everything, you would see everything’s going to be more amazing than you could possibly imagine. And you’re going to get through this trial. And you’re going to solve for this challenge. And I know it’s hard right now but you can do it and I got you.” That is what she tells me.

So again, these two people, my two best friends, I get to hang out with and I do hang out with them pretty frequently. I might be a crazy person, this might be true. But I love thinking about them again the same way I would think about any of my other best friends, which is in some ways they’re so much better at things than I am. And in other ways they’re not as good at things.

But you know what best friends do? We take care of each other. I’m like, “Listen, I know that thing’s hard for you but if I can do it, I’m actually really good at it, so I will do that for you.” And this part is kind of hard for me, would you mind helping me out with this? Because I know you’re really good at that.”

And we stick together and here’s what is the most amazing thing, I found that myself and my two best friends are able to create whatever we want to. We have within us the wisdom and knowledge, and the ability to connect with Heavenly Father, to utilize the atonement, to find resources and tools and answers to anything we don’t know how to do. Between the three of us, we have everything we need. It’s pretty amazing.

Now, the reason I like thinking about it this way is because I like to bring a complete version of me to any of my other relationships. Not to say that I don’t rely on people for help or ask for help, or recognize that I have tons of weaknesses that other people have strengths in. But I don’t like to wait for other people to complete me in any way emotionally. I definitely want to tap into other people’s knowledge and skill but my job is to complete me emotionally, it’s no one else’s job. Between my past self and my future self I can totally do it.

And then I’m just available to other people and again, able to soak in and learn from other people, I’m open to what other people have to share. It doesn’t feel scary. I don’t use it against myself when I’m coming from that complete place. It’s not to say I’m always perfect at doing it, but when I do, do it, that’s when I feel the most connected with me and also the most available to connect with others.

So, do you have these two best friends? If not let’s just take a look at it. Like I said, I haven’t always thought about it this way, especially with my past self, I’ve had to do a lot of work on it. But I am doing that work, and in fact, I’m even doing the work on my future self because I know that she’s not going to look the way I look. She’s going to have more wrinkles than I do. Her skin’s going to get saggier, she’s going to, whatever is going to happen as I age. And I’m really working to make peace with that.

In fact I got some photos back recently from one of my photographers and she so lovingly had touched them up. But I was like, “That doesn’t look like me, those aren’t my eyes. My eyes have a lot more lines around them, they don’t look like that. So can you go back to those photos and take off some of the editing because I still want them to look like me?” I love my future self, I don’t need to try to avoid her, let’s just own that I got some wrinkles around my eyes.

So anyway, if you want to do this work, here’s how you do it. You have to first understand where you are in your current relationship with these two people. Do you even think about them, first of all? Let’s just begin there, because if you never think about them it’s sort of like ignoring your best friend. Do you think about them? And then when you do think about them, what are the thoughts that come up first?

Now, I don’t want you to judge your thoughts. I don’t want you to immediately go, “This is terrible, I shouldn’t be thinking about them this way.” Just notice what your current thoughts are about your past self and about your future self. I like to have a visual image of them in my mind. It’s easy to do with the past self, but the future self, you’ve got to just decide what you’re going to look like.

Next step, when you recognize what do you think about them currently, what is the story you tell yourself about those two versions of you? Then we have to know that that story is optional. Did you know this? Even with your past self, the way you were in the past, the things you’ve done, the things you’ve said, the person that you were, you get to decide how you want to think about her or him.

Most people don’t think about this, they don’t realize that your story of the past is a story. It’s not just your memories. It’s not just a recollection of what happened. There’s a little bit of that in there of course. But then there’s all the meaning that you’ve wrapped around it, that’s the part that’s optional.

So take a look at your current story of both of those people, try talking to those people, try going to the crazy land with me. You can do this just in your head or you can do it in writing. I think it’s more powerful, especially if you’re new to doing this, to do it in writing. Maybe you write a letter to each of them, maybe you have each of them write a letter to you. There’s a Brad Paisley song that I love called Letter To Me. Where he writes a letter to his 17 year old self, go check it out. I think it’s just really sweet and it’s sweet to think about what would I tell my 17 year old self if I could?

But anyway, go to that place of like talking to them and see what they have to say to you. See what your past self is struggling with, what would she ask you for? What are her concerns, and fears, and worries? And what would you tell her in response? What is your future self worried about? And what would you tell her? And how can you take care of her right now? What can you do to try to minimize her worries in the future?

And then again what wisdom especially does your future self have to offer you? And what does she want and desire? These are important questions. Now, of course what your current self worries about and is good at and wants and desires is all important too. So I want you to be paying attention to your current self, but a really good place to begin is with your past self and your future self. Make those two people your best friends.

Alright you guys, thanks for joining me today. I’ll be back next Friday with another episode. Make sure you’re subscribed and I will see you then. Take care.

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