I hope you all had a nice Monday. It was absolutely gorgeous here in Jersey/New York which made for a pretty fantastic day to bee bop around. Yes.. bee bop.
Beautiful flowering wonderland I stumbled across yesterday while walking around the Bronx.
So, today I want to talk about a skill that I believe is crucial to cultivating a deep sense of happiness and inner peace. This practice is learning how to be your own best friend. Relax, I'm not saying you should ditch all your pals and become a lone soldier. We need and thrive on relationships with other people (and animals :)! ). What I am suggesting is that we learn to talk to and about ourselves in the exact same manner that we would speak to our closest friend. Seems like this should be easy, right? No dice. I find this internal practice to be so flippin' hard! The fact is, not only can we become our own best friend, but we can also be our own worst enemy. Think of the way you talk to yourself sometimes when you handle a situation in a manner that you don't deem to be perfect? Do you say, "Self, it's ok! You did your best- noone is perfect- and you handled things in the best way you knew how in that moment. Let's look at what we can learn from this."? If this is the way you talk to yourself... my hat's of to you. My internal dialogue sounds more like "You flippin' ding dong... what were you thinking? Who do you think you are? You should have known the perfect way to handle things. You should feel bad about yourself". Sounds kind of like I am in a verbally abusive relationship with myself, huh? I would NEVER talk to my best friend this way. Heck, it makes me cringe just thinking about it. So, why would I talk to myself this way? The only thing that happens when I treat myself like this is that I end up feeling depressed and beat up. Rarely am I able to rebound from the proverbial punch in the face and say, '" hey, what did I learn from this situation". I usually want to numb out and push down whatever icky scenario I screwed up.
don't wrestle yourself...
The thing is, we think that the only way to ensure that we will handle things differently "next time" or "get things done" is to yell at ourselves. I don't know about you, but treating myself like a punching bag typically does not ensure that I will learn from an experience and handle it better next time.
Let me give you an example. Last week, I came home from work one evening and was beat. All I wanted to do was veg out, despite the fact that I had prescribed myself a long list of "to do's" for the evening. I wanted to clean, I wanted to do yoga, I wanted to blog, I wanted to make dinner, I had administrative tasks that I wanted to attend to. Well, I came home and instead of completing my "stuff', I sat down and reemed myself out for not wanting to do it. So, what was the result? I didn't do anything that I had wanted to do, and I spent the evening feeling like shit about my lack of productivity. At least if I was going to take a night off to relax, I could let myself enjoy it right? Now, things have to get done... I'm not saying that. However, I did not have anything pressing to do, and I would have been better served had I just given myself a break. I would have likely awoken a much more refreshed version of myself early the next day to do what needed to be done. If I rewind this "scenario" and think about what I would have said to my best friend if she or he were in my shoes, my conversation would have sounded WAY different. I would have said, is there anything you have to do tonight? What is one thing you feel like you could do? Give yourself a break... it's one day! You shouldn't feel bad for wanting to veg... this doesn't mean you are lazy, unproductive or unmotivated.. it means you are a human being who needs a break! When I feel the difference in the way these words affect me, my whole body relaxes. Sure, there are moments when I might encourage my best friend to attend to a situation despite internal reluctance, or complete a difficult task even though it seems daunting. We all need a little push sometimes. The difference is that the way in which I would coach her or him would be gentle and loving.
So, I'm asking you to join me for the rest of this week. Practice changing the conversation with yourself. Literally talk to yourself as if you were a separate being whom you deeply care for. I'm warning you, it's hard work, but so worth it. You many consider me a looney toon, but sometimes if I am having a hard time hearing my own nurturing voice, I talk to myself out loud. With that said, I do usually try to refrain from having an audible dialogue with myself in public. :)
....if all else fails... go buy yourself some ice cream or fro yo with rainbow sprinkles :) That's what I did on Sunday evening and it was quite a loving gesture if I do say so myself!
....and if you are simply at a loss of loving words for yourself, go be with someone who will assure you that you are perfect and wonderful just the way you are.
Be your own Guru. You are the one that you've been waiting for :)
Be good.
xo
Sarah
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