E01: Be your own friend and have grace for a busy season

This has been a tumultuous year for most of us. Isn't it time that we allowed ourselves a little grace in a time of chaos? Even in our hardest times, we can speak kindly and reset expectations with ourselves, and practice self-care as a way to relieve pressure and anxiety.

This concept of being your own friend is foundational to everything else I’m going to say. I didn’t figure this out on my own. I spent years beating myself up - I wasn’t thin enough, strong enough, popular enough, I couldn’t do everything perfectly, and more - and these neurocies followed me into adulthood and marriage where I ran into issues that forced me to be kinder to myself. 

Notably, I had a miscarriage a couple of years ago and it was devastating. I had zero control over what my body was doing and it was a physically very distressing experience for me, in addition to being emotionally gutting. 

At the time of the miscarriage, my already busy and overwhelming life suddenly felt like it was suffocating me. I had a high pressure job doing marketing consulting for technology companies, there were social and family obligations, and any marital stress or fight would always send me over the edge. On top of that, I had put pressure on myself to lose the 10 pounds I’d gained while pregnant. I wasn’t giving myself any grace or time to heal. If a friend of mine was going through a similar season, I would encourage her to give herself a break and set realistic expectations about what her body should be doing. But I didn’t give myself this same positive talk.

 If your best friend were in your shoes, what would you say to her, how would you treat her, and what kind of grace would you give her for her circumstances?

We’ll talk about the things we do and the lies we tell ourselves that keep us from being our own friend. But first, we need to understand why being our own friend is so important....

To read more, please visit my website at www.youruncommonlife.com/blog/categories/podcast-transcripts

Motivational Piano Background Music by Nikita Lukyanov | https://soundcloud.com/lukyanovnikita
 Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US