The Art of Being Your Own Best Friend | Carissa Karner | TEDxBelmontShore

[Music] [Applause] think back to the last time you were critical of yourself maybe it was a week ago maybe it was yesterday maybe it was just a minute ago remember what happened that caused the criticism to arise really picture it in fact go ahead and close your eyes and let that memory become vivid in all the gory details now keep your eyes closed take one hand and place it on your heart imagine that you are your own best friend and as your best friend now listen to yourself trust yourself forgive yourself go ahead and open your eyes and now imagine if you lived your life from this place right here what would your life be like if you came from this place the next time you look in the mirror to decide what you're gonna wear or the next time you eat a second helping of dessert or the next time you feel like you just royally screwed up how would your life be different this technique is something I do when I'm having a hard time being nice to myself and as a psychotherapist it's something I teach to many of my clients it is also the basis for befriending yourself which I have found both personally and professionally is the most important thing you can do for your mental wellness the idea of the friending yourself it's not a new concept many others have spoken about the importance of self love and self compassion and I was first introduced to the idea several years ago I was at a point in my life where a lot had been going wrong I was recently divorced I was depressed and anxious I was struggling to figure out my place in the world and I was being very hard on myself about it and I picked up this book by Tara Brack who is a therapist and a Buddhist teacher I picked up her book radical acceptance and in the first few pages she talked about how she stumbled on to the idea of being her own best friend I read those words and it was like a light bulb clicked on this was a total aha moment for me because honestly at that point I thought self-love meant that I should eat a chocolate chip cookie and take a bubble bath I didn't understand how to change my relationship with myself so I read that book and I embarked on the journey of understanding what it meant to be my own best friend and along the way I worked with hundreds of clients over several years and I helped them to become their own best friends too and in working with those clients I discovered that when they would befriend themselves that it would calm anxious thoughts it would ease depression it would help heal symptoms of trauma and it even decreased eating disorder behaviors and I realized that whatever kind of healing work you do whatever method or technique it is most effective if you begin with befriending yourself it's fundamental now I do know firsthand that it is not easy when I was first invited to do this talk I was over the moon but very quickly my inner mean girl decided to jump up and let me know all the ways that I could fail seriously she said you are not smart enough for this and then I mean you should probably just back out now I mean you don't even have anything to wear and then she hit me with the classic who do you think you are can anyone relate you may notice that my inner mean girl seems to be about 14 years old and she's pretty catty but she's also clever and she tries really hard to keep me from looking dumb or or getting laughed at because here is the kicker she is trying to help the critical parts of me just like the critical parts of you are doing their best to help you survive it's vital to realize that those parts of you are not your enemy they are aspects of you that have created strategies for your safety and survival because when you're a child your understanding of the world that gets laid down like the programming of a computer operating system that's built for connection and safety so when a trauma or a confusing or a distressing event occurs from something as simple as your crying and no one comes to soothe you to something as devastating as abuse your young brain and nervous system creates an understanding or a belief about how the world works often those beliefs they don't get updated as you grow up instead they get reinforced through your expectations and those parts that hold the beliefs they don't realize that the danger has passed and that where they were once helping they're now getting in the way of you experiencing the life you want to go back to the metaphor of a computer it's like you're functioning under the programming of an outdated operating system your hard drive needs an upgrade now it's tempting to think that it would be better to delete those files and start over but those files are parts of you so you can no more delete them then you could say you could heal a cut on your finger by chopping off your whole arm it doesn't work the most effective way to reboot your system is by befriending yourself and that means befriending all of you the parts you like and the parts you don't like the wounded parts the protective parts and even the critic when you befriend all of you something profound will begin to happen the wounded parts will start to feel safer the protective parts will realize they don't have to work so hard and the critic will begin to calm down your system will begin to function more effectively so if you want to learn the art of being your own best friend it's helpful to break it down and the way that I do that for myself and for my clients is to think about what it means to be a good friend and then you apply that to yourself and the way that I see it being a good friend it must start with listening listening is how we get to know one another it's how we feel seen and understood and neurobiologically when you feel understood it's one way that your brain and nervous system can calm down so when I called my best friend to let her know how nervous I was about doing this talk well she acted like a good friend she was quiet and with a few well-placed wounds and OHS she listened and I yammered on about all my worries and my what-ifs and she still listened she did not try to fix me she did not dismiss me but instead with her receptivity she let me know that whatever I felt was okay just by listening she helped me feel calmer in a way to do this for yourself is to create a space to listen to yourself with a friendly ear this entails slowing down and getting quiet like my friend did for me and then you ask yourself what do I feel right now what emotions are brewing inside of me name those emotions make space for them and help yourself to feel calm and understood by listening the second aspect of being a good friend is trust so without trust you really can't let your guard down Trust lets you know that the other person has your back trusting yourself can be challenging you are bombarded by messages that say that you don't know what's best for you you need to look to someone else for the answer from fad diets telling you that you eat wrong - advertisements telling you your body is wrong to social media telling you that your life is wrong you're assaulted from countless sources that say you need to look to something outside of you for the answer but no one is a better expert on you than you for example I work with a client who spent much of her life in a profession that her parents wanted her to do it took befriending herself for her to acknowledge how unhappy she was in that profession and then it took trusting herself in order to figure out what her own wants and needs were now trusting yourself does not mean blindly following every impulse instead what it means is that you cultivate the ability to listen to your own wisdom and then give yourself permission to act on that wisdom the third and maybe most important aspect of being a good friend is forgiveness there is nothing better than knowing that you can make a mistake that you can be human and messy and a friend will love you anyway I realize the value of forgiveness when I worked with a client who struggled with a debilitating eating disorder her inner voice told her she was worthless it would cause her to stop eating and it spiraled her into total dysregulation she could not silence that in her voice by telling it to shut up she had to work with it and to see it as a part of her and she began to forgive as she forgave herself for all the things that part told her that she did wrong and she forgave that part for lashing out at her it took time but she went from starving herself unable to go to school or hold a job to being a full-time student and creating programs for other people to heal from there forgiveness means letting yourself off the hook when you don't know the answer and it means allowing yourself to be imperfect and it means having compassion even when you screw up I want to say just a few words about what being your own best friend is not so being your own best friend does not mean you sugarcoat things to make yourself feel better good friends are honest and it doesn't mean that you give in to every inner demand a lot of people get hung up on the idea that oh you know if I'm nice to myself I'm gonna probably just lay in bed all day I'm eating chocolate and ice cream and I will never get anything done but really I mean is that what you would say to a friend would you say go lay in bed all day and eat ice cream you might if maybe she went through a breakup but really nobody wants to do that all day every day and the research on self compassion tells us that when you are compassionate and supportive of yourself your fear of criticism goes down and that means you are able to accomplish more you have better relationships you have more access to your creativity which means you are more engaged in life well being your own best friend does mean is that if you do find yourself in bed all day eating ice cream and chocolate that you make a space to listen to yourself with a friendly ear ask yourself what do I feel right now is this sadness is it anger is a disappointment and then ask yourself what do I need maybe it's to stay in bed longer or maybe it's to help yourself get up and go for a walk but whatever it is trust that you are the expert on you and then forgive yourself for laying in bed all day eating ice cream and chocolate listen trust forgive if there's only one thing you take away from this talk today let it be this the art of being your own best friend is simple it all comes down to treating yourself the same way you would a beloved friend so the next time you find yourself being critical ask yourself if this were happening to my very best friend how would I treat them and then put your hand on your heart and do that [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 144,094

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Health, Compassion, Emotions, Friendship, Mental health, Personal growth, Psychology, Visualization, Women

Id: -W1OXmQQRe0

Length: 13min 32sec (812 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 05 2019