Podcast
Your Favorite You
Hosted by Melissa Parsons · EN
Welcome to Your Favorite You, a weekly podcast helping brilliant women like you with beautiful brains to create the life you've been dreaming of with intention so you can find your favorite version of you. Your host, Melissa Parsons, is a pediatrician turned life coach. She holds the titles of wife, mom, daughter, sister, and friend of many. She became a certified life coach after discovering that coaching held the secret to the universe, and knew she had to share this magic with everyone in her orbit. This podcast is for you if ... you're stuck in fear and perfectionism thinking that your value comes from what you do or what you don't do, rather than knowing that your value comes from who you are, and this is keeping you from dreaming and trying new things, or from remembering or doing what you used to love. Join Melissa on this journey to figuring out and remembering who you are; a journey to finding and becoming your favorite you. To learn more about Melissa, visit: https://www.melissaparsonscoaching.com/
40episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Ep 199: It's Still the Clitoris (We're Back) with Nina Deep, MD
2w ago00:50:14Tap to summarizeFeeling comfortable in your body can be challenging when so much of what you’ve learned is incomplete, inaccurate, or shaped by shame. That’s why I’m welcoming back Dr. Nina Deep to help deepen our understanding of women’s bodies and tackle questions about anatomy, the existence of the G-spot, self-pleasure, and the myths many of us have carried for decades.We explore real-life examples, but throughout the conversation, you'll hear the underlying themes of how medicine is patriarchal and the deep socialization of women to feel shame around our bodies. Change starts with education, curiosity, and learning to connect with our bodies, and it's never too late to begin.Mentioned in this episode:Ep 191: It's Called The Clitoris with Nina Deep, MDThe Disappearance of Shere HiteBecoming Cliterate by Dr. Laurie MintzCome as You Are by Emily NagoskiShe Comes First by Ian Kernerbellesa.coOMGYESninadeep.comitscalledtheclitoris.com Click HERE to get the full show notes.
Transcribe →Ep 198: But You're Here Now: On Grief, Presence, and What Truly Matters
3w ago00:19:29Tap to summarizeWe spend an extraordinary amount of our lives preparing to live them: working toward the thing, achieving the next milestone, building toward a future version of ourselves and our circumstances that will finally feel like enough.We’re so focused on the arrival, but grief—real, irreversible, stopping-you-in-your-tracks grief—has a brutal and clarifying way of revealing that the moment we’ve been waiting to arrive in is happening right now. There is no future version of you or your life that is more real or more valuable than this one.This episode is a little different. I don't have a tidy takeaway, three steps, or a framework for you to try. What I have is a sentence, and I hope something in it lands for you the way it landed for me:"But you're here now. Don't waste a minute.”Click HERE to get the full show notes.
Transcribe →Ep 197: The Flip Side - Success and Struggle
4w ago00:27:30Tap to summarizeWe spend so much time talking about how to achieve success—how to work toward it, how to stay motivated, and how to push through the tough parts—but we don't talk nearly enough about what happens when success actually arrives. And on the flip side, what happens when you've been riding high and then things get hard again?Success can be just as destabilizing as struggle. And when you're used to succeeding, struggle can feel catastrophic in ways that are out of proportion to what's actually happening. Both of these experiences point to the same underlying issue: identity. What happens when your external circumstances stop matching the internal picture you have of yourself?Today, we're exploring both sides of that equation because I've lived both sides of it, and chances are, you have too.Click HERE to get the full show notes.
Transcribe →Ep 196: Befriending Boredom: What Happens When You Stop Filling Every Silence
Jun 3000:19:02Tap to summarizeWhat if you thought about boredom not as a problem you need to fix, but fertile ground from which insight, self-knowledge, and genuine rest can grow?Think about this: When you have an unexpected opening in your day—a canceled meeting, an hour with nothing scheduled, or a to-do list that's actually manageable for once—what does it feel like? For some of you, there is an exhale of "oh, thank goodness." For a lot of you, there was something closer to a low-grade panic: a quick mental scramble to fill the space and to find something productive to do.In this episode, I talk about what boredom actually is, why so many of us are uncomfortable with it, and what we lose when we never allow ourselves to experience it. Because making friends with a little more stillness can help us reconnect with ourselves, our creativity, and the version of us that's been waiting for room to breathe.Click HERE to get the full show notes.
Transcribe →Ep 195: Self-Care vs. Numbing
Jun 2300:18:51Tap to summarizeWhen was the last time you did something to take care of yourself and actually felt better after? Not just distracted or temporarily relieved, but genuinely, truly better.We have a cultural obsession with self-care. The idea is everywhere—on t-shirts, coffee mugs, and Instagram—yet so many of the things we call self-care are actually ways of numbing. Today I’m unpacking the difference between the two and explaining why real self-care often looks different from what we expect.And let me be clear: there is no shame in numbing. We’ve all been there. My goal is to help you recognize the difference so you can make intentional choices about how you care for yourself. Real self-care is one of the most loving, radical, important things you can do, and it is a foundational part of becoming your favorite you.Click HERE to get the full show notes.
Transcribe →Ep 194: A Nice Little Life
Jun 1600:20:46Tap to summarizeMy nice little life—morning walks, easy Saturdays, and time with the people I love—would not be possible if I were still seeking validation and gratification from things outside of myself.Today I’m talking about a book that helped me put that into perspective. In We Are the Luckiest, Laura McKowen writes about getting sober, but the book is not really about alcohol. It's about the ways we leave ourselves and all the things we reach for—food, wine, our phones, approval, people pleasing, pretending—when what we actually need is to come home to who we are.The reality of being an actual person with needs and limits can feel uncomfortable and uncertain. But in the ashes of the things that don’t serve you, you find the version of yourself that you’re meant to be.Mentioned episodes:Ep 3: Tell People Pleasing to Suck ItEp 32: My Relationship with AlcoholEp 43: FreedomEp 54: Accept YourselfEp 61: We Are ALL Fucked UpEp 70: You Can't Hide From YourselfEp 97: Meeting YourselfEp 123: Becoming Your Own Best FriendEp 133: Stop Rejecting Yourself for AcceptanceEp 138: Radical HonestyEp 145: Living in IntegrityEp 149: 7 Years Without Alcohol — A CelebrationClick HERE to get the full show notes.
Transcribe →Ep 193: Inside a Group Coaching Call
Jun 900:27:31Tap to summarizeToday, I’m doing something I’ve never done before on this podcast: I’m dropping you into the middle of one of our group coaching calls.We had about three weeks left in the current group container when this was recorded, and as we wind down, I offer coaching to anyone who’s having difficulty deciding whether they want to continue or if they feel complete for now.As I coached them through their decisions, these women shared the most beautiful things about themselves, the group, and the work we’ve done together. It was such a good conversation that I wanted to share it with all of you, and everyone on the call previewed the episode and gave me permission to do so. I am endlessly proud of the work I get to do, of these incredible women, and of their commitment to getting to know themselves better.Click HERE to get the full show notes.
Transcribe →Ep 192: Rest is Resistance (featuring the work of Tricia Hersey, The Nap Ministry)
Jun 200:24:08Tap to summarizeWhen you try to rest—genuine rest, not productive rest, strategic recovery, or resting to recharge—what do you hear in your head? Maybe your mind immediately starts firing back with thoughts like: you’re wasting time, other people are working right now, or you haven’t earned this.Those voices are not the truth. They are parts of you shaped by systems that were never designed with your well-being in mind. In this episode, I’m unpacking why rest can feel so uncomfortable for high-achieving women and exploring how rest itself can become a powerful act of resistance through the lens of Tricia Hersey's Rest Is Resistance.Rest is about reconnecting people to who they were before grind culture convinced them their worth was tied to how many things they could check off a list. We’ll begin unraveling those beliefs so you can rest unapologetically, luxuriously, and often—not because you’ve earned it, but because you are a human being and human beings need rest.Click HERE to get the full show notes.
Transcribe →Ep 191: It's Called The Clitoris with Nina Deep, MD
May 2600:57:02Tap to summarizeIf you think back to all of your years of formal education, was the clitoris ever mentioned, let alone discussed or explained? For most of us, the answer is no. My guest today is here to talk about why that matters and what we can do to correct it.Dr. Nina Deep is an award-winning physician and a nationwide speaker who has built an entire mission around one radical idea: that women deserve to understand and know their own bodies. She's a board-certified internal medicine doctor and has run her boutique medical spa, Nina Deep MD Aesthetics, for over 20 years. Nina is also the founder of a speaking platform, It's Called the Clitoris.In this episode, Nina shares why naming our body parts correctly is important, how women can better protect themselves medically, and why embracing yourself as a sexual being can be so powerful for women.Click HERE to get the full show notes.
Transcribe →Ep 190: When Friendships are Complete
May 1900:21:43Tap to summarizeWhat do you feel when you hear the word complete? Not failed, abandoned, lost, or broken–complete.The friendships that have run their course–that were real, meaningful, and good, but are no longer active parts of your life–are complete. And that word matters, because it doesn’t mean they were failures or that you’re a bad friend. It means the friendship did what it was meant to do in the season it was meant to be in, and now it’s finished. Like a good book, a perfect meal, or a chapter of your life you wouldn’t trade, even though it’s over.In this episode, we’re talking about the guilt and grief that can come with complete friendships, and how to give yourself permission to let some friendships be exactly what they were without it meaning something terrible about you or the other person. When you have that permission, you create space for the friendships that are meant to stay and the ones you haven’t found yet.Click HERE to get the full show notes.
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