Okay it’s time. You know it and I know it. Time to get real about the “you and the me” and this thing we call friendship.
If you have been a reader here read for any length of time, you know I don’t mess around with the surface level fluff. That’s right, if we are going to be friends and talk about our friendships we are going to go straight towards the most challenging aspect. The hardest relationship known to us all.
The one we have with ourselves. That’s me, myself and I.
Not because it’s a hack, not because self-obsession is sexy, (though trendy), but quite the opposite. It is the most difficult, AND in my world, the one that lays the foundation for every relationship that follows.
The only way I know to begin is to lay bare what has been “up” in my world. Because physical pain has been a theme on repeat loop, I have been asking myself this question daily.
“How do I treat myself when I am in pain?” Maybe from a heavy workout, from a lousy pillow, or just because I am a post-menopausal woman who has pain in her joints more than she’d like to admit! Fine there it is, I said it. (Can’t you just feel the self-judgment, ugh, must remember not to do that).
I do however, like most of us, know how to be with someone else’s pain. I lean in, open my heart and mind, and do my best not to judge, deny or diminish their experience.
But when it’s for me, the show always begins with self-blame, “What did I do now? Workout too hard, or not enough, not take my magnesium, my fish oil, my estrogen! Oh goddess, that’s it, it’s the estrogen. That’s what you get for drinking too much wine, having the cheese plate, and not stumping up the $$ for some personal training so you stop injuring yourself—duh.”
The second act is predictably pushing through or denial. The internal narrative is, “Okay so this is my stiff, achy, grumpy, painful reality, but there’s still lots to get done today so I better knock back a couple Tylenol and just get on with it. There’s nothing I can do about it, so don’t think about it.”
For some variety, occasionally the poor me card gets thrown down. “What’s the big deal, maybe your first world suffering could win a prize for biggest sissy, now go back to your Matcha tea latte with oat foam and your meditation cushion and stop complaining!”
The final blow is when my inner–bully shows up. She taunts, punches me in the kidneys, takes my milk money and leaves me face down in the mud feeling small and worthless. It reminds me how it felt in the locker room as a 13-year old girl surrounded by my peers, pointing and laughing, because I didn’t fit into the volleyball uniform and had to to wear my own shorts.
Is some of this sounding familiar??
So just a quick recap in the “how not to treat your friends” department. Don’t use blame, denial, judgment or bullying.
Instead think of how you want to be treated by those you love and care for?
Think of how you show up for them when you are really available?
Stop now and jot down some ways you want to be supported in friendships and relationships.
Here’s my list for today…
-
I want to be heard, deeply heard
-
Not interrupted
-
Not judged
-
Not talked down to
-
I want to feel their heart warming, opening and expanding to include my pain (aka compassion)
-
My body wants to be comforted: to be held, brought a warm cup of tea, or given a shoulder massage
-
In and through it all I want to feel NOT ALONE and that they’re on my team—No matter what.
Today in walking meditation I got a download on how to make my own internal friendship a resource, not a battle, during a pain storm.
The wise and impactful work of Viennese neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, floated in through the window and hit me square in the chest. He said that no matter what the circumstances of our lives, how dire, how much suffering, how little control we have in our day to day, that the attitude of the mind is always ours. Even more pointedly he talked about how between the stimulus (the sounds, the thoughts, the feelings, the events) and our response (the blame, the tears, the denial, the judgment), there is a space.
And as he so eloquently states, “in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our choice and freedom.”
I walked up and down my mat today feeling into that space. Between my breath and the next step, between my thoughts and the next feeling, between my cat meowing to get into the room and my mental-emotional response. Between any stimulus that arose and my response, I imagined a space or gap. A place to put my attention—again and again.
I let that space deepen, lengthen, be as big as it wanted to be. And as I did, I noticed it felt a lot like befriending myself. I was allowing not resisting. I was listening not judging or denying. The more spacious my mind became, allowing whatever I thought, felt or sensed to simply be there, the more friendly I felt with myself.
Like, yeah go ahead, take up space, there’s room for you here. All of you. Damn that felt good. Real good.
My encouragement is to practice befriending yourself. Maybe in the way I just described or maybe in another way. Find your way. Because in the end when we feel loved, supported, cheered for, encouraged and included, we take that out into the world and give it right back to those around us.
Now that sounds like a very nice world—give it what you got!
P.S. I guarantee you no one has ever ever come into my office and said, “yeah I’m here because I’ve been too nice to myself, loved myself too much, given myself too much grace and my relationships are suffering because of it. It just doesn’t happen.
Big big Love & Gratitude,
Kari
Meditate Wenatchee kari@meditatewenatchee.com
