Quick Spoon - What if you spoke to yourself like a friend?

Quick Spoon - What if you spoke to yourself like a friend?

Author: Ross McIntosh September 9, 2026 Duration: 1:42

When something goes wrong, it's easy to add another layer of difficulty by being hard on ourselves.

What's wrong with me?

I should be able to handle this.

Why can't I cope?

In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Dr Amanda Super recalls a nurse telling her:

“You're being very hard on yourself.”

That comment helped Amanda discover self-compassion — and it got me thinking about how differently we sometimes speak to ourselves compared with the way we'd speak to someone we care about.

So here's something to try:

Imagine a close friend is in the same situation as you.

What would you say to them?

How would you speak to them?

What tone would you use?

And then ask yourself:

What would it be like to speak to myself in the same way?

A small exercise — but potentially a useful way to notice how we treat ourselves when things get difficult.

This Quick Spoon comes from my conversation with Dr Amanda Super about self-compassion, ambition, boundaries and being human at work.

Listen to the full conversation on People Soup.

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Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

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