For years of my life I used to say, “I am my own worst enemy.” Once I understood the power of words, I realized I was reinforcing unhealthy parts of myself. I also took a course in which one of the units was “becoming your own best friend.” Before then, it had never occurred to me to become my own best friend. What a change from being my own worst enemy!

I grew up in a highly critical environment and when it wasn’t happening to me, I had learned to do it to myself. It was self protective in ways because I wanted to stay out of trouble to avoid more criticism. And, subconsciously, I thought if I was hard enough on myself, it wouldn’t hurt so much when someone else was doing it. That created other dysfunctional patterns and perpetuated an ugly cycle in my life. I’ve had to go through much healing to learn how to turn this around and become a friend to myself. I’ve had to learn to pay attention to how I talk to myself, and how I care (or not) for myself. In the past, I didn’t feel I deserved a positive comment or compliment because my own judgment of myself was so harsh that I couldn’t accept it into my heart.

What about you? Do you talk to yourself in a way that your best friend never would? Do you offer your friends, partners love and compassion and see all their wonderful parts, but can’t see your own? When given a compliment do you brush it off or do you really soak it into your soul?

If we can’t believe in ourselves and know in our hearts that we are lovable, it becomes very hard to accept it from others. Worse than that, when we are critical and mean to ourselves instead of being our own best friend—we are actually teaching others that it is okay for them to treat us harshly too. Let’s love ourselves in a consistent and compassionate way that really shows others how we want to be loved by them.

Cheri Thomas

Cheri works as a Peer Support Specialist at Recovery Innovations. She writes as an expression of her heart in hopes of connecting to others’ hearts, so that no one feels alone on this journey-and instead feels valued, seen, and heard while growing in empowerment.