Being your own best friend means that you embrace your feelings and open your heart to unconditionally receiving love from yourself and others. Love is the only nourishment our heart receives, and there is so much love all around us, all the time, in so many forms, but we sometimes close our hearts to receiving it. Someone I knew described it as priceless and precious.
Most people have heartache…. That’s because love hurts. It forces you to confront so many aspects of yourself. Just today, I came across a quotation on Instagram,
“May you never become so familiar with pain that you reject anything good that tries to find you.”
There is so much truth in this statement. I am very familiar with one person who I am sure, has a lot of love in him, but he seems to have got addicted to negativity and rejects anything good in others. We all get hurt at some point in time or the other. We then tend to build a fence around that hurt, just like we build scars around wounds in our bodies. Inside that fence, we are still hurting. But that fence in addition to protecting ourselves from being hurt again, also protects us from receiving love. Then, we start demanding love from others on OUR terms. Just like we imagine it to be. But that ‘imagined’ love is coming from a place of self-hurt, not self-love, so we keep on rejecting what is truly loving from the outside, and keep on hurting inside. So the quotation “May you never become so familiar with pain that you reject anything good that tries to find you.” Actually makes a lot of sense.
Getting to a point so low that the only way out is to actually make an act of self-love to save yourself from utter loneliness, pain, hurt and negativity. In my life coaching practice, I have come across many who choose to nourish their hearts and find ways to bring love to themselves. Eight tips from my practice:
- Embrace yourself (you are your best friend)
Simply love yourself and everything you see about yourself. Start by touching all the lovely positive feelings, qualities, talents, thoughts, products you produce, appreciations you receive. I often ask my clients to list down all the things they like and love about themselves, at least 20 of them, and not to stop for the rest of their lives. Its an endless discovery of so many things we did not know we loved. Each day brings new positive observations about ourselves and we continue on our path of happiness. Nobody can nourish your heart as well as YOU can.
- Accept negative feelings (especially anger and jealousy)
According to me there are no really negative or positive qualities about myself or other human beings. Things are just as they are. Just because something does or does not bring you material success, it is labelled as good or bad. So-called negative qualities, especially anger and jealousy, are nothing but opportunities to confront your own demons and conquer them.
- Indulge in self-care (pamper yourself)
Selfish self-love. Take time out, the laundry can wait, the cooking can wait, the cleaning can wait, the rest of the world can wait, but you need to take time out for YOUR self. Nobody can take care of you the way you can take care of yourself. Whether is it giving yourself a foot soak, getting out for the weekend, taking a lazy bath, massage, going out with gal pals, or the boys gang, as you like, or even mixed group of friends, retail therapy… all are forms of self-care. You do these things for your self and nobody else. Take time out at least three to four times a week, structure in time for self-care.
- Do things that give you joy (why suffer)
Make a list of things that you define as fun and give you joy. Get out there and tick these off your bucket list. No point sitting around moping at your bad luck. Nobody is going to benefit from your suffering, not even yourself. Get out there and enjoy whatever you like to do. Life is too short to sit around and mope. When you are in a state of joy, you spread it around and bring joy to others.
- Get past your traumas (here and now)
We each have our traumas and trials and tribulations. Nobody has a perfect life. We need to acknowledge this. Try and understand and make sense of what happened in the past, and now, look forward. Even Gautam Buddha says,
“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” The present moment, here and now, is what you have and make a departure from the past pain and trauma and change the trajectory of your life. Birth and death are inevitable and not in our hands. But how we live is definitely within our own hands. Every morning we are born again, what we do today is what matters.
- Avoid toxic people (protect yourself)
Ever heard of gaslighters? Emotional vampires? They are all around us. People who are looking for positive energy to feed on, because they have none of their own. They too are souls on a journey, and the reason life brings them to you is so that you can confront your self and disconnect from the pull such people try to exert on you. It is an act of self-love to protect yourself from such people and avoid them. They will meet their own destiny and pray that they find their path to happiness too.
- Don’t allow others to put you down (you are awesome!)
Never allow others to put you down, tell you that there is something wrong with you. They can only find their happiness in making others unhappy. Such people speak in insinuations and taunts, and pick faults with you constantly. Just look at them compassionately and feel sorry for the sad state they are in, and pray that they are able to bring healing to themselves.
- GET A HEALTH COACH WHO BELIEVES IN YOU: NOW!!!
A health coach is not only one who understands you, but one who holds you in infinite grace and compassion. A health coach is a person who asks you high-mileage questions that push you to explore aspects of your self and assumptions you make, and verified stances you take, and question everything that you do. A Health coach will enable you to not only express your intense feelings and vent out, but also move you in the direction of good health and happiness.
Aneeta Madhok
Coaching Psychologist
May 10, 2022.
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