Welcome, uh, this episode is coming out a tiny bit late because I have some big news in my personal life We bought a house I don’t know how much I’ve talked about it on here, but We sold our house last summer and we’ve been living at my in laws, which we’ve been so appreciative of but we finally have made some decisions and figured out where we’re gonna land and we’re able to You Well, start buying a house, which if you’ve gotten a mortgage lately, it’s a, it’s a lot of work.

So I spent a lot of this week just doing a lot of paperwork and, you know, phone calls and all of that. So I’m just glad to be here and to be doing this podcast and be talking to you because it is one of the highlights of my week. I love it so, so much. I love getting to talk to you. Please. Come and talk to me.

There’s lots of ways you can do that. Come on Instagram. Send me an email. Come and talk to me on a connection call. I am here. I love chatting with you. Leave me a review. I love reading those too. It’s kind of a way that you get to talk back to me too.

So I am really thrilled about this episode in particular. I think it’s something that we need to be reminded of over and over and over, but we’re gonna talk about loving our past selves who didn’t know. They didn’t know. Uh, It’s so easy to look back and judge ourselves for things we’ve done in the past, and we wonder why we chose what we did, why we did what we did, and why we did what we did.

We think about what our life would be like if we did something differently and wishing we could change the past is kind of normal, but it doesn’t help us move forward. It keeps us stuck and it causes a lot of pain. We can’t go back, but we can start today to love ourselves, not in spite of what happened or what choices we made, but because of it.

Now, I want you to think about it this way. You know how in relationships we want people to love us, kind of warts and all. We know we’re not perfect, but we have so many good qualities. We want people to give us the benefit of the doubt. We want people to give us second chances when we mess up. But we don’t do the same thing for ourselves.

Have you ever looked back at your life and wondered, What is wrong with me? You beat yourself up for decisions you made or paths you took things that you said, things that you didn’t say, how you acted choices you made, especially around your loss and not knowing things that you didn’t know. We can be our own harshest critic, but that is going to stop today because I have a better way for you.

If you’re ready, let’s do it. It’s exhausting blaming yourself for things that you can’t change, my friend. So how do you stop? It’s really simple if you let it be. First, we’re going to accept reality. You cannot go back in time and you can’t change what happened. So continuing to do this only hurts you today.

Second, we’re going to give ourselves loads of compassion. Your past self did the best they could with what they knew. And third, We’re going to take back your power today by changing your story. The way you talk about you and what happened is creating your experience. Now, if you don’t like how you feel, look at the stories you tell and be kind and be loving because you deserve it.

That’s what I want for you here is just for this to be like this warm, fuzzy hug of a pep talk. So let’s dive in. Let’s break down these steps and add some more details so you can apply this in your life. Before we start, just Take a moment and really think about something you are blaming your past self for.

It could be related to your loss or it might not be. We have lots of opportunities to look back and have that 20 20 hindsight and use it against ourselves. So like I’m saying, it could be like you forgot something yesterday or it could be like you’re totally blaming yourself for the death of your baby.

Anything in between. Um, Please have just a specific idea on your mind as we go through this, because I think that’s one of the most useful ways to use this podcast is to really apply it. But also, if you’re just walking along and you want to just listen, just do this at some point, journal, whatever you want to do.

Um, recently. In the Super Bowl, there was one choice that a lot of people were talking about. Now, if you’re not familiar, the Super Bowl is a championship for the National Football League, and at the beginning of the game, there’s a coin toss. Whoever wins, the captain gets to pick where they want to start.

In this year’s game, It went into overtime. And so there was a second coin toss during the game and

the team who won the coin toss made a choice about whether they wanted to, um, go on offense or defense first. And when they lost the game, everyone was questioning why they picked what they did. So some people said. These guys didn’t understand the rules of overtime. Some people stood by the decision.

Some people blame the coach for not drilling the overtime rules into their heads like the opposing team had. Some people thought. This was a massive mistake that cost them this huge championship and their big sparkly Super Bowl ring and like the confetti raining down, you know, they all walked off just so sad and dejected and then, of course, immediately, Everyone wanted to talk about it.

And this all played out in real time with so many eyes on the team and so many opinions being shared. And I can only imagine how the players and the coaches involved felt. I can bet that some of them will carry the regret of that choice with them for a long time. Maybe their whole lives they’ll feel like that.

One little choice cost them a Super Bowl ring. I don’t want you to carry the regret the rest of your life. And I hope these guys have life coaches because they have a lot of coaches, right? Amazing professional athletes all have coaches. That’s why I think we as human beings should all have coaches too.

It’s so much fun. Um, one of my favorite thoughts to help with this is really simple. You did the best you could. You With the knowledge that you had at the time. The people who made choices at the Super Bowl did the best they could with what they knew. Sure, they could have made a different decision, but the point is they didn’t.

There’s nothing they can do about it now. So being mad only brings them pain and anger and everyone else standing around saying they should have done it differently or they would have done it differently. They weren’t there. Their opinions honestly don’t matter. It’s so easy to stand outside and judge, but it’s different when you’re on the field and playing.

Uh, this kind of reminded me of Survivor. I’ve loved Survivor for so long. This is a television show where people go live on an island, but everyone at home, you’re like, I could do that. Or I would have done that differently. Or why didn’t you run faster and win that challenge? Why didn’t you figure out that puzzle?

But it’s like so easy to sit on your couch and say you would have done it differently. But everyone who goes on Survivor says it’s a lot harder than it looks. Right? And we’re all out there on the field of life. We’re in it. We’re in the game. And if you want to do big things, you’re going to have to make choices.

Now you can continue blaming yourself and regretting decisions, or you can love yourself and keep taking action that’s going to move you forward. Let’s do these tips. Tip number one is really simple, and yet our human brains make it nearly impossible. Accept reality. What’s in the past is done and over with.

You cannot change it. As long as you wish you could, and as long as you continue beating yourself up, you will suffer. Suffering is extra pain we add on top of what we’re already experiencing. In baby loss, this looks like grieving the death of your sweet child, and then telling yourself you should have gone to the hospital sooner.

Our brain is doing its job trying to make sense of something so out of control, but that doesn’t mean you have to believe it. This idea is a universal truth, and you will find it in most belief systems, that when we fight the reality of our lives, we create a lot of pain. You were not supposed to go to the hospital sooner.

You weren’t supposed to know more. You weren’t supposed to make different choices. How do I know this? Because you didn’t. As much as it might be hard to believe, you weren’t supposed to save your baby. If you feel a big response to that, allow it. Journal it. Come talk to me about it. But let’s look at our options.

You can spend a lot of time and energy fighting the past and blaming yourself and The outcome doesn’t change or you can choose on purpose to believe that you did the best you could and you did everything you could. How does that feel different? You can still miss your baby. You can still grieve hard.

You can still have a broken heart. You can still think about your life and even you could think about how it would have could have been different. But do it from a place of love and of acceptance and of truth. This is your life. The sooner you can live this, the better. What’s right in front of you the better you’re going to feel.

Tip number B is to give yourself loads of compassion. This is always a rule when self coaching. We don’t do the blame and shame thing here at Smooth Stones Coaching. So if you catch yourself, give yourself lots of compassion, then stop it. as a gift to yourself. Like I said before, it’s natural to want to blame ourselves.

It’s natural to look back with the information you have now and tell yourself you should have done something differently. But it’s not very kind and it’s not very useful. What I find really helps my clients the most is when they finally start giving themselves permission to love themselves right where they are.

If you can love you now, you can also learn to love past you. Past you is amazing, worthy, and whole. You have a relationship with past you, and when you can heal that relationship with love and compassion, you are going to feel better now in the present, and you’re going to open up to a lot more opportunities for yourself in the future.

Love is a practice. Many of us have bad habits of being judgmental, unkind, and harsh towards ourselves. You don’t have to change overnight. But you do have to put an effort into changing these patterns, whether it’s for little things or big things, just start practicing. Tip three is to take back your power by changing your story.

Stories are so powerful. They weave through our whole lives. They are how we relate to nearly everything in our world. When you think about your past self, what story do you tell? I often hear people say, Oh, I was so naive. Like it’s a bad thing. Like they were stupid. When you tell your story through that lens, you can’t see reality.

Maybe your story is, I was stupid, or I messed up, or I didn’t trust my gut. Maybe you have a victim story where you tell yourself you were influenced by someone, and so you blame them, and then you also blame yourself for listening to their influence. There are millions of stories, probably billions and infinite stories.

But what’s most important is yours. When you look at your past self and the choices you made, how do you describe yourself? Now. What if you could add some compassion and some perspective in order to change your story, right now, today? Sometimes people think this takes time, and it might, but it also can be really easy.

Those football players from the Super Bowl can give themselves compassion, accept the choices they made, be proud of their effort, and change their story anytime they want to. If you want to do this work in your life, get curious. Learn Take a step back and study your life like you are a scientist.

Imagine you’re watching yourself on a movie screen. Don’t listen to any outside voices that make you question you. Right? Because sometimes we have that added bonus of other people in your life echoing your story or introducing stories to you. We gotta really watch out for that. Listen. You did the absolute best you could.

I know that you did. If you want to love your past self, this is the way. You can heal this relationship. You can take the energy you’ve been using to berate yourself and start using it to encourage yourself. Think of what would be different if you put this weight down, this huge backpack full of rocks that you’ve been carrying of

looking back and being awful to yourself.

Think of what would be different if you fought against some of our conditioning, especially as women, that we ought to know everything and we ought to do everything perfectly all the time. You’re not supposed to know. You weren’t supposed to know. No one can know everything. You are an amazing mother. You love your baby fiercely.

I know that. If you could have done something differently, you would have. Open up to the possibility that you could believe that you did everything you were supposed to and then see what happens. If you’re really struggling to forgive yourself, I want you to come join my lift program. We spend an entire quarter of the program learning how to find peace and then actually putting it into practice in real time.

You have me on our weekly sessions, but you also have unlimited voice messaging support so you can reach out anytime you want to. My name is Amy Watson. I am a certified life after baby loss coach. I have been through this. I’ve experienced a stillbirth. and a miscarriage. I have had three pregnancies after loss.

I have been helping and serving in the baby loss community for over a decade. Uh, my daughter, Lauren’s 11th birthday is coming up next week and I am so grateful that I’m able to be here and I want you to know that I know how to help you. All you need to do is go in the show notes, take a leap, And let’s help you feel better, find yourself and really heal.

You deserve it. I love you. I’ll see you next time.