{"id":3095,"date":"2012-06-04T12:01:07","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T16:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?p=3095"},"modified":"2012-04-18T22:54:27","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T02:54:27","slug":"make-friends-with-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/06\/make-friends-with-you.html","title":{"rendered":"Make Friends with YOU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>How would you feel if a friend called you fat for having ice cream? It would ruin your pleasure. What if she called you stupid for making a mistake? You\u2019d feel angry and hurt and think she should be kinder. You wouldn\u2019t do that to her? Yet you\u2019d do it to yourself. Be your own friend by acting like one! You need to accept that your best friend is the person in the mirror. The only person who can help you improve your life is you. While other people may encourage you and give you support, only you have the direct power to make the necessary changes.<\/p>\n

People will come and go in your life. The only consistent, guaranteed person who will always be there for you is YOU! So it’s up to you to stop criticizing yourself and judging you in a harsh way. That means it\u2019s time to treat yourself as the best friend you\u2019ll ever have. You may not feel that way right now but it\u2019s the right time to begin to show yourself some love. As you do, it gets easy to be kind about how you think of and treat YOU.<\/p>\n

When I was a DoorMat I couldn\u2019t imagine being my own best friend. All I found was faults when I looked in the mirror. I was my worst critic and was a good friend to everyone but me. My needs came last, as most of us do when we\u2019re people pleasers. It\u2019s so easy to forget about yourself when you\u2019re focused on other people. But it\u2019s critical to start if you want to be happy.<\/p>\n

Seeking perfection makes you overly self-critical. That\u2019s not loving! Yet you\u2019d never be so unkind and unsupportive to another friend. Why are you different? Think about it. Would you say the things you think or say to yourself to a friend you care about? I doubt it! Yet we so easily hold ourselves to much higher, often unattainable standards. That\u2019s the opposite of being a friend!<\/p>\n

Be self-loving by cutting your best friend\u2014YOU\u2014slack. Sometimes you might not work as fast as hoped. It\u2019s okay! Try your best. Shortcomings don\u2019t make you bad, or a loser. At parties, my willpower goes on hiatus. I pig out\u2014guilt free\u2014and take control after. Once when I\u2019d reassured a friend who beat herself up during occasional pig-outs that one indulgence wouldn\u2019t ruin her, she punished herself with each bite, chanting, \u201cI\u2019m a bad girl.\u201d I doubt she enjoyed anything. Take pleasure, not guilt trips, in splurging!<\/p>\n

When you need encouragement, feel guilty about something, start to find fault with something you say or do, or only pay attention to your faults, think about what you\u2019d say to a friend who felt that way. Give yourself a pep talk in the mirror. Reassure yourself about why you shouldn\u2019t feel guilty. Look for your good qualities and praise yourself. The more love you give yourself, the more you can begin to recognize that your best friend can, and should, be YOU.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been my own best friend for many years now and could never find a better friend if I tried. The more I loved me, the stronger my bond with me grew. Now I make the effort all the time to treat myself with kindness and it feels great. When you treat yourself the way you\u2019d treat your best friend, self-love grows and life on every level gets better.
\n***************<\/p>\n

Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Challenge<\/strong><\/a>–a pledge to do something loving for yourself for the next 31 days–and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways<\/a><\/strong> for free at http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com<\/a><\/strong>. Read my 31 Days of Self-Love Posts from 2012 HERE<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Please leave comments under my posts so we can stay connected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How would you feel if a friend called you fat for having ice cream? It would ruin your pleasure. What if she called you stupid for making a mistake? You\u2019d feel angry and hurt and think she should be kinder. You wouldn\u2019t do that to her? Yet you\u2019d do it to yourself. Be your own…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,15],"tags":[379,27],"class_list":["post-3095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nice-people-can-finish-first","category-self-love-acceptance","tag-be-your-own-friend","tag-self-love"],"yoast_head":"\nMake Friends with YOU - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/06\/make-friends-with-you.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Make Friends with YOU - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How would you feel if a friend called you fat for having ice cream? It would ruin your pleasure. What if she called you stupid for making a mistake? You\u2019d feel angry and hurt and think she should be kinder. You wouldn\u2019t do that to her? Yet you\u2019d do it to yourself. Be your own…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/06\/make-friends-with-you.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-04T16:01:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-04-19T02:54:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/files\/2012\/06\/girl-in-mirror-225x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daylle Deanna Schwartz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Make Friends with YOU - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/06\/make-friends-with-you.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Make Friends with YOU - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","og_description":"How would you feel if a friend called you fat for having ice cream? It would ruin your pleasure. What if she called you stupid for making a mistake? You\u2019d feel angry and hurt and think she should be kinder. You wouldn\u2019t do that to her? Yet you\u2019d do it to yourself. 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Let Me Count the Ways, a She's appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, including Oprah, Howard Stern, and Good Morning America and has been quoted in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Marie Claire, and Men\u00b9s Health. After being a consummate People Pleaser who felt unworthy of getting her own needs met for many years, Daylle found a path of self-love that enabled her to build her self-esteem and reinvent herself into a dual career. She learned to get taken seriously without being overtly assertive when she became one of the first women to start an independent record label (on a dare!) and learned to play ball nicely and successfully in an industry dominated by men. To help independent musicians empower themselves, Daylle writes music business books for Billboard\/Random House, including the very popular Start & Run Your Own Record Labe and I Don't Need a Record Deal! Daylle's books have been translated into over 10 languages and are popular around the world. She speaks for colleges, organizations and corporations. Through her company, Project Self-Empowerment, Daylle creates programs and materials to help people empower themselves. One goal is to raise the money to self-publish her book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways and give it away for free in colleges and through organizations, to give thanks for all her blessings. Daylle uses her writing and speaking to help others find the kind of contentment and empowerment that she has.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/author\/dschwartz"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3095"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3100,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions\/3100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}