Who Is Your Best Friend? Self-Compassion in Action

“Self-compassion is like a muscle. The more we practice flexing it, especially when life doesn’t go exactly according to plan (a frequent scenario for most of us), the stronger and more resilient our compassion muscle becomes.”
- Sharon Salzberg

I’ve been lucky enough to have all of my children under one roof for the last couple of weeks – some of those roofs were in Spain which was even more lucky. This gave me a brief window into their conversations, such a delightful connection to who they are now and are becoming as people and as siblings. At one point I heard one of my sons asking my daughter who her best friend is – she is about to start high school, and friends are such an important piece of this transition. I won’t get into the details of her answer, that’s not for me to speak to. 😉 What it got me thinking about is what does it mean to be a best friend? Who are my best friends? And what if I was my own best friend? What would that look like, feel like? Who would I be if I really, truly valued and loved me the way I love my family and friends?

And that brings me back to self-compassion, the third layer of the TransformAble leading from the inside out framework. It’s the piece that, as I shared in my blog post earlier this year, I left out of the framework the first time around. ​

It didn’t dawn on me to include it, not because it’s not important (it is) or because it’s not shown to positively impact leadership (it does) – it’s because my default is self-criticism and self-compassion is completely off my radar much of the time. What I realized when I started reading and learning about self-compassion is that it is key to growth, development, and connection. As Shauna Shapiro says in her book Good Morning, I Love You, the TransformAble book of the month, “As we practice self-compassion, we learn not only to confront and grow from our own struggles and sorrows, but to connect with the sufferings and sorrows of others. When we offer compassion to others, we allow them the possibility of finding compassion and growth for themselves.” This sounds like best friend material!
 
So back to the question I started with, what would it be like to be my own best friend? It’s a bit hard for me to imagine at first, it seems like it might be selfish, or silly. And when I take a breath and really sink into the possibility of it, I notice a lightness, a wholeness, a freedom to honor and care for myself fully in all the crazy that I am.
 
Note, this is NOT about self-absorption or even self-esteem. Self-absorption, epitomized in the cult of self, described by Tasha Eurich in her book Insight (last month’s TransformAble book of the month) as “the societal phenomenon that encourages us all to feel special, unique, and superior.”  Being my own best friend is not about putting myself on a pedestal and worshipping my achievements, looks, or something else about me, it’s about seeing and deeply connecting with my own inherent worthiness and enoughness.
 
Self-esteem, is also different from self-compassion. Our self-esteem grows when we do well and when we fall down, or (don’t even say it) fail, self-esteem leaves us high, dry and on our own. That’s where self-compassion serves us, that’s where being our own best friend, a true friend, offers us the warm, safe place we need to fail, knowing that we are worthy no matter what. There are no strings attached!
 
This month I’m inviting you to join me in practicing self-compassion by being our own best friend. This creates a world where we care deeply for ourselves because we are enough. And when we do this, we have the capacity to care deeply for each other because we are connected. Want help in understanding what it means to be your own best friend? Let’s connect.