What Would You Tell Your Younger Self?
It's the question I close interviews with. Not what the guest knows now, or what their framework says — what they would say, in person, to the child they were, in the moment she most needed somebody. Four guests have answered it on the Academy. Here they are, side by side, with the moment in each conversation where you can hear them say it.
Dr. Sherrie Campbell: "I'm coming for you."
The question: "When you picture little Sherrie that day in her room crying on her bed, or any of the other days that you did that, what do you want to tell her?"
Her whole answer is a promise: "I'm coming for you. Just hang on. 'Cause I have really come for me. And I've done a really good job at being the best person to me that I can be."
She's honest about why that promise had to come from herself. "We kind of learn how lovable we are by how our parents love us. So if you don't have that, telling someone like me to love yourself feels very flippant." Her way in was to third-person herself — to ask, if I were my own child, would I do this to me? She ends it the way she started it: "Hang on. I'm coming. And I did. And I have and I do and I will."
▶ Watch her answer (at 39:45) Full conversation
Jordan Pickell: "Your big emotions are welcome here."
The question: "If you had the opportunity to go back to little Jordan whenever she needed someone most, what would you want to tell her?"
Pickell says she has a soft spot for little Jordan — she's had recurring dreams of meeting her. What she'd tell her is the opposite of what the child learned to believe about herself: "Just telling her that her big emotions are completely understandable and welcome. And that I actually really admire her for her sensitivity."
Then she measures it the way the audience will: "And wow, to be little Jordan and to hear that would have meant so much."
▶ Watch her answer (at 27:07) Full conversation
Jenna Overbaugh: "That imagination is going to give you a beautiful life."
The question: "If you could go back in time and revisit yourself in a moment where you needed it most, what would you want to tell yourself?"
Overbaugh, who treats OCD and anxiety and lives with both, would tell little Jenna that the scary thoughts are real — and that they're not the whole story of her mind. "It's more about the breadth and the depth of your brain... As you grow up, you will come to learn that you have creativity and you have this wild, wonderful imagination. And that sometimes, yes, that wild, wonderful imagination comes out in the form of scary thoughts."
The same imagination, she tells her, will become metaphors that help her community, a Substack, a book, the best birthday parties. "Some of those are scary, but some of those are going to be really wonderful and help you have a large, rich, beautiful life."
▶ Watch her answer (at 21:38) Full conversation
Najwa Zebian: speak to her with the compassion you have now.
Zebian's answer comes in the middle of talking about painful memories — the ones the ego wants you to identify with. She describes what healing actually gave her: the internal tools to meet a memory like that and wish she could go back to that moment "and be able to speak to little you with the compassion that you have for yourself right now."
That's the practice her books return to — self-trust built by coming home to the version of you that was left. And she lives it literally: "I have her with me everywhere I go... I went out to the mall and I said I'm taking little Najwa on a date." Whenever she's going through something triggering, she's aware of how little Najwa is feeling in that moment — "and how it is now my responsibility to make sure that she's feeling safe, to make sure that she's feeling like she's in good hands, like she can trust me."
The message to little you isn't a rescue fantasy. It's a voice you can use today, on the memory, every time it comes back — and a date you can actually take her on.
▶ Watch her answer (at 12:51) Full conversation
What the four of them have in common
Nobody tells her it wasn't that bad. Nobody tells her to be stronger, or to understand the adults, or that it will all make sense later.
Each of them validates the exact thing the child was shamed for — crying alone in her room, the big emotions, the scary thoughts, needing to be heard — and then promises her the one thing she didn't have: an adult who stays. Campbell says it as a rescue she actually performed. Pickell says it as admiration. Overbaugh says it as a future worth growing into. Zebian says it as a voice you can use now.
Not sure whether your parent is emotionally immature? Take the free assessment: https://www.theacademyofselfhelp.com/assessment
Dealing with a parent like this day to day? The Emotionally Immature Parent Survival Guide: https://www.theacademyofselfhelp.com/survival-guide
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