Hi friends. Welcome to episode 52. Today I’m going to do something kinda fun. It’s called the Sweet Baby Squirrel voice, and it’s one of my answers to the question: how do I stop being such an asshole to myself. I say this all the time, be nicer to yourself and people are like but HOW though. When I’m down and I’m feeling stuck and I’m just thinkin all the nasty things about myself, what do I actually do to stop being so mean to me?
So today I am going to tell you one kinda fun and also really effective way that I have stopped being so mean to myself. It’s kind of silly but that helps me to also not take myself so seriously and that in and of itself is really helpful for me. To remind myself not to take this all so seriously.
Ok but real quick I have to remind you that when this episode comes out you will have just a few days left to purchase the Communication Masterclass so you can learn to communicate like a non-bitchy boss with anyone and everyone. Communication 101 and 102 video courses plus a communication workbook I made for you are all available right now for just $20. You need to get on it though because this link is going to expire on June 30th. So you ready? www.hannakokovai.com/communication. Go check it out if you have trouble communicating what you want or what you feel or need and you want some help creating a really effective communication protocol for yourself. Go get that. It will disappear on the 30th and go back to living only inside the Client Portal for my private clients so if you are interested I made it super affordable for anyone.
Ok so back to the Sweet Baby Squirrel voice. So one of the things I am big on is self compassion, talking kindly to yourself and not being such an asshole to yourself all the time. And people are like yeah that sounds wonderful but I don’t know how to do that. I hear myself beating myself up and I don’t know what talking kindly to myself actually even sounds like or how to do it.
So today I want to share something, just one of the ways that I do this with you that I have been doing for quite a long time and some of my client’s know about this already. But I created this I’m going to call it an idea, I came up with this idea when I was inspired by a youtube video of a little girl holding a dead squirrel. Now, I really wanted to actually play that youtube video for you all to hear today, but I cannot. Because it no longer exists.. And I am SO PISSED because it was recently deleted or taken down off youtube for violating some sort of youtube guidelines. I found this video, probably 13 years ago. And it was actually two girlfriends of mine and I who were obsessed with this video. Just because it was hilarious and cute but I don’t know why after 13 years it’s just now being taken down and I was literally fuming about this the other day and kicking myself for not somehow recording it for my own records because I just love it and refer to it all the time. And I’ve sent it to clients before and now they can’t access it any longer and I was planning to play the audio for you today but I cannot.
So sadly I’m going to have to just explain it to you and hopefully it will still land, I will do my very best at that. Ugh. But the video is called Dead Squirrel!! That’s the title or that was the title. If anyone can find it, it is a video of a little girl who’s dog has just killed a squirrel and the father is filming her. The little girls name is Thea, and the dogs name is Ivy. The dog is a greyhound. The mom also at one point comes into the video. So anyways, if you ever come across this Dead Squirrel video please send me the link!
So the video of this little girl Thea inspired me to create what I call my Sweet Baby Squirrel voice, which I use to talk to myself with compassion and unconditional love.
And here’s why: in the video the little girl is holding a floppy dead squirrel. And she’s petting it’s fur. And she’s saying Sweet baby Sweet baby Sweet baby squirrel. And her father who is filming and her mother as well are both a little put off by this interaction. Right they are like ok let’s not touch that, let’s put it down. And the little girl is like but why? I want to hold it. And she’s walking around with this dead thing and she is unphased by it’s deadness. She doesn’t think that it being dead is a problem. It’s just a squirrel that was minding it’s business, and got killed by a dog. And the father even says to her at one point, what happened to the squirrel Thea? And she just says, Ivy ate it. Just so matter of fact. No emotional outrage or disaster, just Ivy. And now there is a dead squirrel and it’s no less sweet, no less of a baby to hold and love on. No less worthy of my time and energy. Sweet baby sweet baby sweet baby squirrel.
And this voice, similar to Thea’s is something that I adopt now and kind of turn it into my own authentic voice. I have to do it intentionally of course because that voice doesn’t really sound like how I automatically talk to myself in my head. After years of being conditioned that circumstances are NOT neutral, that things are mostly bad, How I usually talk to myself sounds like “You suck you’re an idiot, what is wrong with you. Suck it up. Snap out of it. You’re a fucking fraud you dumb person posing as a Coach look at you crying and being such a baby and not doing shit right, no one is going to like you.” Anyone relate to that voice?
Ok, so the sweet baby squirrel voice on the other hand is the voice that we have to coax out with intention. It’s the voice that comes out of somewhere that knows that everything isn’t all bad and circumstances ARE neutral until we have thoughts about it. For me, the sweet baby squirrel voice, it is a combination of the words you’ve heard from others that calm your spirit and the understanding of the young child who has the perfect amounts of delusion about the world and pure love and curiosity about it. Right and I am using the word delusion without any negative connotations. Delusion is something we must strive for to be able to speak to ourselves with with unconditional kindness. That father might have thought it delusional to have such grace and respect for a dead rat with a fluffy tail. It might be delusional to want to be nearer to something so disgusting. But that little girl she saw the purity in that dead squirrel, and she could love it exactly as it was.
So, The sweet baby squirrel voice is the one that, for me, sounds like “sweet baby girl, I got you.” “My love you are human.” “Hey hannie, I’m here.” “Sweet girl, I see you.” “Angel nothing has gone wrong”.
And that voice, is much much less common of a default. Why? Because of years, maybe decades of conditioning that tells us that we aren’t actually enough. Only success is worthy. Emotions are wrong. Masculine energy wins. Light a fire under your ass by hating yourself into change. Humanness is pathetic. All of that and more and we forget our true voice of compassion and grace. That childlike sense of delusion, wonder, love and curiosity.
To find your sweet baby squirrel voice you have to tap into that childlike energetic for a moment. That part of you that cares for dead and dying things. And unbecoming things. The things that adult humans shy away from or close their eyes to. Have you ever seen a kid get really interested when someone is sad or emoting hard? Like kids going up to other crying kids on the playground and just looking and being near them. And then as adults it’s harder for us to be with people in pain. We don’t want to see that. Or we hide that from others because we’re taught that that’s not something people want to see. Right, so to find this voice of self compassion and love you might need to call on the version of you from wayyy back when. Or a version of someone, like Thea, that you can learn from, right.
Because frankly, when you’re talking to yourself and being so nasty, it’s because you’re seeing a dead rotten squirrel. You are the dead squirrel. And right now you see all the imperfections. The guts hanging out. There’s not actually guts hanging out in the video but you know what I mean. Like you’re a dead squirrel and your first reaction unintentionally is to be like ew. Gross. What’s wrong with you?
But listen, dead squirrel. Sweet baby. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were just minding your own business living your squirrel life and boom, dead squirrel. That happens to squirrels. Yeah? Dead squirrels don’t need to worry themselves about like oh I shouldn’t have been eating that nut or sitting on that bush because then that dog wouldn’t have gotten me. No, you were jsut doing squirrel life. That’s it. And now you’re dead. You’re laying there helpless. Limp. Dead.
And the person you need to be next to you, to pick you up, to hold you close and rock you and keep you safe now that you’re dead and limp and spent…is the little girl who just sees this all as totally fine and normal.
What does she say? What does that girl say?
She says hey, sweet baby, I have you. No need to worry, I’m here to hold you. You’re good. You’re doing good.
So the sweet baby squirrel voice: It’s the pet name you give yourself or the tone you take or the specific to you string of words you whisper to show yourself that you’re genuinely, compassionately and unconditionally loving you for being exactly as you are now. It’s the reminder that you’ve always got someone to back you. It’s the drop the tude and be real with yourself. It’s the way you speak that tells you that you care.
And you’re like but I don’t know if I do care though. I don’t know if I do thing that I love myself.
I want you to know that if you didn’t you would have stopped listening to this podcast a while ago. Wanting to love you and wanting to care for you is caring, is loving. So maybe the words you say for now sound like, “I’m trying my best to care for you sweet girl.” “I’m working on loving you through this now.”
The times I use the sweet baby squirrel voice most often are when I’m in judgment of my feelings, when I’m in judgment of my actions and when I feel stuck.
Judgment of my feelings could sound like “I shouldn’t feel this way” or “I hate feeling like this” or “this is never gunna end.” “What’s wrong with me?”
Judgment of actions could be like “I can’t believe I did that” “I don’t know what I’m doing” “I’m an idiot” “I Suck.”
And when I’m stuck it might look like I’m in a thought spiral, out of control, don’t know what to do, feel helpless. I’ve been trying at this forever and it’s not working, I need help.
Like we are cruel to ourselves in those moments. And moments turn to days and weeks and soon all you know is your own cruelty right. I noticed that I was being cruel to myself a long time ago. I was getting mad at myself for having anxiety. I was saying I was a failure. I was calling myself names for staying in a relationship that wasn’t healthy. Piling shame on top of blame on top of stuckness right lots of cruelty. But I didn’t know how to be nice, and one of the things that happened ws I watched a video of a little girl unconditionally loving a dead ass squirrel.
Haha.
I mean there is alot more than sweet baby squirrel but this was literally monumental for me and so I wanted to share this with you if you can take something away and use it your own way.
You can do this any time but these are three examples of times when compassion and unconditional self love really go a long way. And that’s what the sweet baby squirrel voice is. It’s self compassion. Self love. It’s self talk that sounds like you and not some quote you read on instagram. Maybe it’s quote worthy. But people ask me all the time how do you speak kindly to yourself? And the answer is: however sounds authentic to you.
Like this little girl is talking to this baby squirrel that didn’t do anything wrong. And also she knows somehow innately that nothing has gone wrong. She’s so sure, without even being conscious maybe, that nothing is wrong. She’s just holding that squirrel loving it exactly as it is now. Being curious about it. Giving it time and energy. The fact that it’s dead isn’t phasing her one bit. The squirrel being dead is just a circumstance. It’s neutral. That girl isn’t having a shit fit yelling at the dog or freaking out. She’s just being there in the moment with the squirrel. She’s even deflecting thoughts from someone else who is making this dead squirrel mean something totally different. Right!? The dads over here like we need to bury it and get rid of it, and she’s like no I’m gunna stay here for a bit longer. The dads like don’t touch it it might have rabies, and she’s like I wanna see, I wanna look. The dad’s like Ok Thea that’s enough now and she’s like I just want to stay here with it.
That’s you. You can get curious. You can stay with it. Whatever the pain is you can stay. You can talk to yourself like you know it’s all good, that nothing has gone wrong. You can hold yourself up with your words. You can notice that whatever youre going through is just a circumstance and you can decide to love it exactly as it is now. You can be unphased by your failures, but just be there for it. You can be intrigued where you used to be disgusted. You can take time with yourself when you used to try to bypass or rush through. You can do all of this with a sweet baby squirrel voice of your own.
The sweet baby squirrel is what I think about whenever I know that I need someone to make me feel safe. That I need someone to stand beside me and hold me. To not look away or get grossed out or disgusted with the state that I’m in. To notice that everything IS actually ok. That circumstances are neutral. It’s when I need someone to remind me that I’m only human. And that I get to feel and let myself feel and have my own back. I need someone to remind me that I get to do that. That person can be me. And I hope that you can be that person for yourself sometimes too. Practice this. Do it right now. Say something from love and curiosity and delusion about what’s right and wrong. Say it even if it sounds nothing like you. And say it again and again, until it does.