• Kay Johnston

Become Your Own Best Friend

Why is it that most of us treat ourselves worse than we would treat our biggest enemy? We all seem to have the ability to spot others doing this. We are usually quick to point this out to our own friends, colleagues and family, i.e. “…don’t be so hard on yourself”, or “give yourself a break”. But when it comes to being kind to ourselves this seems to many like an over indulgence and something we are not naturally wired to do or something we feel guilty about.

Ask yourself:

How many times have you been over critical about something you have done?

How many times have you felt uncomfortable accepting praise or compliments?

How often do you listen to the critical voice in your head?

How long do you spend planning time / special things just for you?

How many times do you put others before yourself and then run out of hours in the day to do things?

How hard do you find it to say ‘no’ to people?

How many times do you blame yourself?

How often do you think you’re stupid?

How frequently do you choose to ignore your needs?

Learning to become your own best friend won’t happen overnight. It's like building any strong friendship, it takes time and effort. You get back what you put in. But you must want to do it, for you to succeed.

To begin making friends with yourself, you need to get rid of the bully in your head. One way to bring this horrible friendship to an end is to firstly start to notice how often this negative influence enters your daily life. What does he or she say? What do they stop you doing? Where do they stop you going? And how often do you they make you step back from trying new adventures?

Once you understand and realise how often this unfriendly element pops up throughout your daily life then you can start to do something about it. Change the voice, make it small and squeaky like a cartoon voice, treat it in the same way as you do with other people in the real world who you haven’t got the time for. It won’t be straight forward; some days will be harder than others. But keep at it and be consistent.

If you’re really struggling, write down what the squeaky bully is saying to you and take a moment. Then go back and answer the criticism/negativity as if you were sticking up for your best friend.

The more you do this the less the squeaky bully will be listened to and it might even decide to go away and find another brain to torment. Keep being kind to yourself, asking yourself “what do I want”, “where do I want to go”, and tell yourself “I can do this, I am amazing”.

And when someone pays you a complement say, “thank you”, rather than denying that you have ever achieved anything great, looked fantastic or made someone else feel good.

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