What other people think about you, is none of your business.

But what you think about you. That is your business.

How you feel about yourself should not be determined by whether other people like you or not.

If you like yourself then it doesn’t matter what other people think about you - positively, negatively, good, bad, indifferent.

If you like yourself then you are friends with yourself.

And if you are friends with yourself then you like and accept yourself, just as you are.

In this episode of the podcast (it's super short, and super sweet) you'll have an opportunity to reflect on the relationship you have with yourself, and how much you may be impacted by what you think the outside world thinks and feels about you.

Despite what we know, let's face it, moments happen in which we become emotionally reactive – slaves to our thoughts and feelings.

Some ways you may experience this:

• You are about to lose it, you are losing it, you've lost it
• Yelling or screaming back at another in an argument
• A stream of verbal insults
• Thoughts, intention and action to physically lash out
• Uncontrollable crying

In this episode of the podcast, you'll learn about the Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale (SUDS). This is a framework used to measure the subjective intensity of distress or disturbance experienced by an individual. SUDS is a self-measuring assessment developed by Joseph Wolpe using a scale of zero to 10 to rate the level of emotional disturbance.

The benefits of becoming familiar with this scale (you don't need to know it verbatim) is that it provides an instant self-assessment reference to where you are at, in the present moment.

Because the thing with emotions is that if you can name it, you can change it – this is acknowledgement and awareness.

Using the scale and knowing where you are will allow you to pause and take action to process and ease the level of distress. This may help prevent your emotional distress from escalating, and will help you help others when they are not control of their emotions.

The problem and the solution are two sides of the same coin.

When we can understand our problem, we can understand the solution.

Our problem with other people is nothing to do with them.

It is 100% our problem.

We may know this.

But are we really living it?

Are we embodying what we know?

Are we honestly implementing it in our lives?

Truly, knowledge and awareness are nothing without understanding and action.

In this episode of the podcast, I am exploring this idea from another perspective, and I really encourage you to listen in.

If you are the problem, and if you can completely accept that, then equally, you are also the solution.