Be Your Own Friend
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A few weeks ago an impromptu collaboration on Twitter led to the creation of this meme: I enjoy and appreciate the many self-other love and growth loops in my life, and I think there is a lot to be gained from internalizing that you get to be your own friend. It's simple but not always easy: treat yourself how you want your friends to treat you. See the good in who you are and what you do. Take good care of yourself. When you're your own friend, your friendships are resilient because you can give and receive the truth about growth areas and mistakes and shortcomings. You appreciate everyone's courage and vulnerability for receiving each other's perspectives. You take your friends' feedback seriously, but you are the final authority on your choices. You don't outsource your sovereignty to your friends, that's not their responsibility. Being your own friend is the ultimate port in the storm of life. Other people may at times judge you and misinterpret you and hurt your feelings. Your friendship with yourself is the solid ground that lets you support yourself when emotions are heightened and ruptures occur. You can relax in any environment because you've got yourself. You get to enjoy the longest, deepest, and most intimate friendship of your life. Announcement: I am hosting Look At My Projects September on Twitter! To participate, simply talk about and share at least one of your projects in September. You can do this on any social media or offline. If you have made or done something interesting, then it's worth sharing :^) |
@strangestloop
In any situation you can take a moment to notice whether you could enjoy it more - maybe a lot more or maybe a little more - and then take action to raise your enjoyment. Turning the act of noticing into a habit yields huge gains for lifetime enjoyment. This has been the message for me lately and so it is my solemn duty to pass the message on to you. Some examples: During a conversation someone asked me out of 10 how comfortable I was in my seat and I said 7. Once I was aware of this it was...
"Get back here!" I find myself shouting at my focus at times, but that's just a story. The internal tug-of-war isn't real. I could stop giving my attention to the distraction at any time, but I instead let the avoidance process run its course, and then I am resourced to do the task. Let me just run eight miles first, thinking intermittently about the message I want to send, and then I will feel resourced to send it and possibly receive a response that is not to my liking. I am practicing...
Asking is a skill which also makes it a game. It's a cooperative game between the asker and the askee and I'm going to describe a few examples I was in close proximity to recently in order to see what this game involves: The group asked for the delicious off-menu dessert and they got it. They had an advantage in that there was only upside. Since they weren't attached to getting the dessert, their circumstances would either stay as they were or they would get better. So an acceptance of any...