Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast, where we provide one lesson every single day to help you with your most important job, being a parent.

I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, and insights from

parents just like you all over the world. Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Are you a parent to yourself? We all do it. We chastise ourselves for getting upset for letting things get to us. We beat

ourselves up when we lose our cool and have to take a minute. We berate ourselves thinking about a

mistake we made and how it actually made that situation with our kids worse. As parents, yeah,

we do this. But we need to shift our perspective, especially because we never react like this with our kids.

If we knew they were trying their hardest, if we knew that they were just overstimulated, that they were exhausted, that they'd had a hard day at school before it all happened, we'd react differently, wouldn't we?

We'd try to comfort them. We'd listen to what they needed. We'd be understanding, right? We'd try to talk to them gently. And one of the most beautiful passages in Seneca's letters, he talks about a recent breakthrough he had, says, I've begun to be a friend to myself. A person who is a friend to themselves, Seneca, wrote, is an aid to all mankind.

They are kind, they are calm, they have empathy for themselves and others.

They handle struggles with patience, and these qualities radiate outward,

rippling through the household, helping to make sure that we're an ancestor,

as we've talked about, and not a ghost to our kids.

So if not for your own well-being, do it for your kids.

Try to be a better friend to yourself.

Try not to beat yourself up.

When you're caught up in some negative talk,

try to interrupt yourself and say,

hey, you're not to the Daily Dad podcast.

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