Just for Today - March 8th, 2026 with Josh S. - Learning To Love Ourselves

0:00All right, welcome to the Anonymous Podcast, 2026, just for today's series on your host, Douglassel. If you've been rocking with us for years or listening for your very first time, you're welcome here. And you're encouraged to participate. This is not just a podcast, this is a community. If you want to read it just for today, if you want to share it on the just for today episode, join a book study, be a part of the dialogue, welcome, we'd love to have you. Reach out to us. You can chop it up on the Facebook page or the podcast number, which that'll come directly to me. But either way, if you have the desire to jump on in and we got you. Please know this. It never cost anything to listen to any of these episodes. We don't charge. We don't make any money from doing it. We don't pay our guests to come on. This is truly 100% a labor of love.

1:00Every episode is created by addicts and recovery who are eager to participate and grateful to be of service. And we won't have it any other way. As we focus on that magic six letter word, others, we collectively believe if one person benefits from our efforts, including one of us, then without a doubt, it's all worth it. All right. So here we go. This podcast is a commentary and discussion of narcotics and anonymous literature intended to enrich the recovery experience. This is not. All right. Let's double us. Double down on this. This is not a replacement for sponsorship, step work or participation in any other form of the fellowship. Please use this podcast as an additional resource as we continue to grow together. The anonymous podcast does not represent in a. We are not affiliated with NA as a whole. We are simply addicts seeking recovery, nothing more, and for sure, nothing less. Now, let's get started. I'm Felicity.

2:08I'm an addict. My clean date is May 23, 2022. I attend meetings in the gateway to freedom area and my home group is younger recovery. Just for today. March 8, learning to love ourselves. What we want most is to feel good about ourselves, basic text page 101. We'll love you until you can learn to love yourself. These words hurt so often in our meetings, promise the day we look forward to eagerly. The day we will know how to love ourselves. Self esteem, we all want this elusive quality as soon as we hear about it. Some of us seem to stumble upon it accidentally, while others embark on a course of action complete with affirmations made to our reflections in the mirror. But fix it, your self-techniques and trendy psychological cures can only take us so far. There are some definite, practical steps we can take to show love for ourselves. Whether we feel that love or not, we can take care of our personal responsibilities.

3:10We can do nice things for ourselves as we would for a lover or a friend. We can start paying attention to our own needs. We can even pay attention to the qualities that we cherish in our friends, qualities like intelligence and humor, and look for those same qualities in ourselves. We're sure to find that we really are lovable people, and once we do that, we're well on our way. Just for today, I will do something today that helps me recognize and feel love for myself. Hi, welcome back everyone. It's March 8. I'll learn to love ourselves. I'm hanging out with Josh S. Josh. Can you let the folks know your clean date? Were you at 10 meetings? Give your home group a shout out. Yeah, I'm Josh S. My clean date is June 6, 2025. So I just got nine months a couple days ago. Home group is scars and tattoos at IctoMe Tattoo Shop in Minneapolis, but I'm attending meetings currently for the time being in the St. Cloud area. And home group meets Saturday mornings at 10.30.

4:11But I think it's interesting to take on a home group. It's really cool. So it's in the Tattoo Shop, huh? Yeah, yeah. The Tattoo Shop is, I'm pretty sure it's owned by folks in recovery, but for sure everybody that works there, I believe is in recovery and the group was started by someone who works at the Tattoo Shop. So you're right on. Alright, cool. Yeah. Awesome. Alright, what do you think about the reader? Learn to love ourselves. Dude, all of these readers hit me at a time when I need it most. This is something that I've been reflecting on a lot lately. Just learning to love myself. I love what it says here. We can do nice things for ourselves as we would for a lover or a friend. For me, that started just like as I have been going along in my clean time, just talking to myself like I would a friend rather than like calling myself an idiot, just changing my perspective on things like, oh, I just made a mistake or oh, that was, you know,

5:12a little bit silly. Something that you said in the podcast early on in my recovery that I heard has really stuck with me. It's like if you're going to beat yourself up, use a feather. Yeah, bro. Not a bat. Yeah. Oh, dude, you know what, that man, that touches me. You bring that up too, man, because one of the dudes, the closest humans, man, like HP just put this dude into my life. He's this English guy. We met in China, you know, and stuff and we got really close, but he has this beautiful accent, you know, and all that, and that's what he would say. He would say, our kid put down the bat and pick up the feather, but he said in that like most beautiful, you know, accent, man, and it was at times where, because here's the thing, dude, yeah, like you're talking about, I will, I will, when I speak of myself, I'm a bad person, okay? When I speak of you, bro, you did a bad thing, man. You did a fucked up thing, you know. Do you see the difference?

6:12Like, like, you get a fucked up thing, you know, let's work on, let's work on, you know, loving ourselves and getting into the solution. Same thing, talking about myself, I'm a fucked up person. Yeah. I did a fucked up thing. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That's something that I've always struggled with, like, since as long as I can remember, just like being gracious with other people and then being a perfectionist on myself, I think that has a lot to do with it. Like, I can understand, you know, and I come from an education background, that's my full-time career. So it's like, you know, my students make a mistake and it's like, you just made a mistake, you're learning. But then I've always struggled with like, using that same philosophy on myself. It's always like, oh, I should know better, oh, I should do better, oh, I'm terrible. You know, and learning to love myself has come a long way in my recovery. Like, now, I would say that like, oftentimes, my first thought is like, oh, shit, I messed

7:12up. I'm a terrible person. But then very quickly nowadays, I'm able to be like, no, check that. You know, I just, I made a mistake. Let's roll with that. There's a big graciousness to myself has been growing. Some of my homies, man, like Jennifer, we usually talk every day, kind of get current, you know, and she's out in Cali. So she lets me know like what the West Coast likes, looking like, and she lives a really cool life. But we, so we'll be, we'll be sharing about stuff. And if, if I start in on what you're talking about, like if I start in on talking like that, she's very quick to remind me, talk nice to my friend, but, you know, me and me, like, you know, talk, talk nice about me, you know, that's what, that's what she said. And it's a little cool reminder, dude, of like, you know, I have people in my life who watch out for that, you know, we can do that, you know, like we, we get to do that for one another, man. It's having people in my life that, that's like, that's okay. If you're, if my pre, if I'm, if my disposition is to be critical of self, kind of like you're

8:16talking about, like, dude, like overboard, and that's me, the people I surround myself with may, can pull me up on that. And that's what I need sometimes, man, just like that little redirection of like, yeah, you know what, I'm not going to, I'm going to be nice to your friend, me and me. Right. Exactly. Great way to think about it. And it's even more inspiring right now for me, just to like, make sure that I'm surrounding myself with people that love me, not so much for that external validation, because that's, you know, that's something that I'm working on too. But just like, for those friendly reminders, like, I'm somebody's friend, you're somebody's friend, treat that person nice, you know, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, sure is. And do, and so another part of this, another part of like being kind to self and loving ourselves and stuff, is to, is to really be open to, to receiving that, you know, like a compliment to, if I, I, and you're a very handsome man, so I'm sure like, you know, you get compliments and all that stuff, and, and, uh, me, I've been told I have a face

9:17for radio, you know, so there's, there might be, there might be, there's air, bro, but, but, but it, it, you know, like, like, I get a compliment, humor, deflect, humor, deflect, you know, this and that. But you, you, you tell me something, like, I've done, you know, fucked up or whatever, I'll grab onto that dude, I'll bear hug that, you know, it, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll embrace it. Like, it's, it's the truth coming right from HP, you know, anything negative, dude, it's like that, that, that's what I'm putting on as a blanket. Yeah. And I'm shucking, dude, I'm shucking, you know, it's been a process, man, to learn a very simple, two word phrase when I get a compliment. Thank you. It is, Josh, it is, it is hard to do, man. Oh, yeah. You sure you want that? Yes, absolutely. I always want to brush it off. I always want to be like, oh, it's nothing. And, you know, kind of like, I don't want to say like false humility, but like, it kind of feels like false humility. Like, even if it's something that I'm proud of, it's like, oh, yeah, there was no big

10:19deal, you know, just like you were talking about, like, shucking around it. But yeah, just learning how to say thank you and just accept it, especially when people are like speaking kindly to me is, it's been a challenge. But I'll get the healthy thing for us. I have to look at it as like a healthy thing for us to do, you know, like, and because I think it really, like with the reader being the background, you know, in the backdrop of, of, you know, of that, like the action item of saying, hey, thank you. Like, when you're pouring into me, man, with somebody else or somebody I don't know, maybe compliments, you know, on a work thing or whatever. Like, like, if I can, if I can just refrain from, from, you know, deflect them with humor or like dismissing it, if I can, if I can just stop being comfortable and say, thank you, that's a loving part of myself, man, you know, like, that's a loving part of myself. That's, that's almost, it's, it's almost the same thing as me, as me speaking

11:20positive about myself, allowing you to do that. Yeah. I don't know why I do. I wonder, like, what's, what's really, like beneath all that, man, like, why is it uncomfortable to hear something good? Because I'll give you a compliment right now. But I'll say, you know, something here, something there, something there, and it's easy. And I mean it. No, like I, like, I'm good with paying a compliment. I'm good with looking at the good and new and stuff like that. I'm cool. I don't know what's underneath. What do you think, man? Have you in your sponsor got to, to, to, to talking about any of that yet? Not directly. But I, I think we've been in various conversations. We've kind of talked around it. I think it's just that for, for me, it goes back to that line from the basic text, like, we were slowly committing suicide. Like, I think at the bottom of it, like whatever, wherever that comes from, why, why ever that's our default to like dodge compliments or, you know, speak poorly

12:24about ourself, I think it, it comes from whatever happened, whenever in our lives, like we just don't, we don't believe what others say about us. Like, for me, yeah, my, that would be a great conversation to have with my sponsor. Yeah. One that I don't, I don't, I don't think we've had that conversation directly yet. Do you know another, another thing where, when I, when I take a look at like, so what are the most loving things that, you know, that I've done on my journey, you know, since I've gotten clean. And I guess the, the, the big ones, let's say, let's say in recovery, I guess the, the, the, without a doubt, the, the major pieces are any time of being a, of service. Like, if there's somebody who needs, you know, who has a need or who, who, who, especially like time, like, so when I invest my time and I'm of service to other people, I think that, that, that, that, that, that

13:26was the first thing that I did to, to build some kind of self esteem or some kind of, like, to look at me as like, Hey, man, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a friend, a friend would like to have, you know, so, so I can see that very clearly. Outside of recovery, but as a direct result of recovery, so, so follow me on that one is like parenting my sons, you know, I get this show up for them and to be rock solid, man, like, especially like when fucked up things are happening, and, you know, and they're in that kind of, because they're 18 and 16 now and, uh, and like my one home, Eric says, you know, teenagers don't know shit. You know, I, I, I provide myself that every single day, but, but, uh, you know, but, what about you, man? Like, have, have you identified, like, these past, you know, coming up on a, coming up on that big birthday cake, coming up soon, bro? Yeah. Have you, have you had some things where you felt like, you know, what I'm, I'm loving myself, man, like I'm, like I'm, like I'm, like I'm doing this. Yeah. Um, I think just

14:29working on my steps, uh, has been the biggest, um, the biggest helper. Uh, you know, slowly, but surely I'm getting through some of them and, um, it's, it, it has been also that group mentality of like, um, you know, the kind of a cliche, like we'll love you until you love yourself. Like that shit's true, man. Like people, like I hated myself coming into the rooms and, um, you know, I, more days than not now, I love myself. You know, I think it's, I think it's been my spiritual growth is reminding me that I'm not alone. Um, uh, my sponsor, like two weeks into, to our, uh, sponsorship, um, uh, combination we, uh, we started, he started making me do a gratitude list and, um, he was like, I want you to do this every day. Um, I think, I think maybe it's a false memory, but I think he said, I want you to do this every day until I tell you to stop. Um, and he hasn't told

15:30me to stop yet, you know, even if it is, even if it is like a, a positive, it's a good good, you know, yeah. Um, you know, and I'm, I'm, it's, it's kind of fallen off a little bit now, but I'm, I, you know, he keeps reminding me when I get down on myself, we're like, oh, you know, I haven't made my gratitude list, you know, in a couple of days, like he's really quick to remind me, like, hey, there's more than one way to live in a state of gratitude. Like just keep that in mind. And, um, so he showed me a lot of love. The, the people I met in the, in the rooms showed me a lot of love. Um, and then through my step work, it's kind of like helped me discover like other people are seeing these things about the real me. Like they're allowing me to be honest, you know, I feel comfortable being honest and open with them and, and they're accepting me. So I'm going to give that back to them. Um, and then yeah, like service work, of course. Like I said, I come from an education background. So I feel like I've always kind of worked in or around, like some type of serving others.

16:30Um, you know, and just seeing, seeing the impact that the positive impact that my actions and the time that I take with my students or with other people, um, seeing, seeing the growth that comes from that in other people, like is a nice way to remind myself of like, hey, I'm, I'm, I'm here on this planet to do something helpful. I'm here on this planet to do some good. Um, and I can be proud of that. Yeah. That's such a cool way to, to, to walk through too, man. Yeah, I always talk about like finding my purpose and stuff and, and, um, yeah. And, and when I can, when I can lean in, and I can meet a need for somebody else, you know, um, I don't question what my purpose is. But do, let me get into a season to where I'm all about me. What can I consume as fast as I can consume and, and fuck being a service to other people? My per, like, HP is here. And I'm all the way over here. Like dude, I can like, I can feel that separation. And so without a doubt,

17:34man, I'm, I'm 100% convinced that the ideal state for me to be in is to be of like, hey, how can I be a maximum use to you? You know, and, and working on getting to know myself through, through looking for the blessings of HP sends my way. Don't want to tell you, I want to talk about this for a moment before we wrap up the episode. I, I do think like the gratitude, um, gratitude list and being in touch with gratitude and stuff is a super loving thing that we can do for ourselves and other people and we talk about it because the man, it takes the focus from like, I don't have, I don't have, I don't have to. Hell yeah, man. I got this. I got this. I got this. I got this right. Like it, it, it is, it's, it's that shift in our thinking, which, which impact everything else. So, um, I can't remember how long ago it's been maybe four or five months ago, maybe a little bit longer. I can't remember, but we were down, I think it was at the how this camp out in, in Florida, okay? And so a couple of my homies, so it was like Steve and Travis and Mo, who's, we were on our way to the airport and we were having, we stopped off to get some food.

18:34And um, the, I think it was like, Mo's alarm goes off. I just like, hey, I want to do my gratitude, three things to, to, that I'm grateful for. And so we all, all of us shared three thing. And so then the conversation went to, she has a set in her phone, 1215 every day. And so we had a discussion about it. And I just thought that was the coolest thing, bro, of like, you know, because like 1215, there's enough going on in your day, like some fucknuts have kind of pissed me off by about 1215, right? You know, you with me and there's still enough hours left in the day that I don't want to, you know, I don't want to be shitty like the, the, the whole day through 1215 is kind of, so I put that alarm in my phone. I have not missed a day since, bro. At 1215, that alarm goes off, man, and I, and I, and I rattle off three things I'm grateful for. And you know, check this out. My youngest boy, my 16 year old, we do hot yoga on Sundays. And, and so we're in the truck on our way to hot yoga every Sunday now, 1215. You know, that's just like kind of the time that that we're handing. He does it too, you know, so awesome, right? Yeah, so, so, so, so it's,

19:40so when we're talking about the gratitude piece, man, I would invite you, you know, and maybe that's the invitation of folks, listen, one thing that we could do, you know, in this journey of like, learning to love ourselves, I could each day, bro, each day, man, I can, I can rattle off, you know, a couple of things I'm grateful for. And believe in that, that's going to shift me a little bit. Just starting to momentum, you know, I'm going to shift and it's going to start, start with those things. Josh, maybe you could do that, bro. Maybe you could join in like 1215, you know, and that goes for a little while. It's pretty neat. Yeah, absolutely. I heard you talk about that on a previous episode. And then I was doing my gratitude lists in the mornings. And then I listened to that episode. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's great. So then I started doing my gratitude lists like toward the end of the day, like the end of the work day. So it's like, I've had most of the day to like, ebb and flow. And then, you know, the rest of the evening is in front of me. So I still can be like, hopeful and it's like a good reset point for me. Yeah. But yeah, maybe 1215, I'm usually,

20:41I'm usually on my lunch break by then. I could probably join you. Yeah, that's good. That sounds good. Eight and in three months, dude, in three months, when you celebrate your year, come back to celebrate with us doing episode on your anniversary. Okay. Yeah, we'll do. All right. Thank you for spending your time with us today on the anonymous podcast. And so whether you're enjoying listening quietly or, you know, maybe maybe you're having this desire to participate, just know that you're welcome. 100% you're welcome. You're this is a safe space because addicts show up willing to share serve and looking for ways to focus on that magic six letter word others. And until next time, I'm your host, Douglas L. Namaste and God bless.