11 ways to be a great ally to yourself

where maybe you haven’t been

Photo of a large dog being walked on a path bordered by snow from Reagan Freeman on Unsplash

​Want fewer than 11? Skim the list (bold print is here to help) and go in where you see a spark of something that would represent you showing up for yourself. It could be game-changing.

1. Clean up a stupid little pile somewhere, on a wrongly used chair or stagnating desk corner, that’s really not hard to sort through at all but you keep acting like it is. ENJOY DOING THIS. Notice how easy it is to make something right.

2. Clean the bathroom mirror. That’s it. That does something. Harness the symbolic value, if you want more, and tell yourself, I’m clearing things up. I’m seeing more clearly. I love a clear view of things. (Apply this harnessing and naming of the symbolic with anything you do. It adds layers of meaning otherwise lost on you.)

3. Move more slowly, not just in your walking gait, but in your gestures. Do this especially if you typically move fast; especially if you think you have a lot to do and you need to get it done. Move slowly. Move deliberately. Feel yourself moving through space, through time, through your life. (Note this is a presence practice, a SIMPLE trick to be more conscious.) Feel that your life matters, this moment matters. Your life is not to be rushed through.

4. Talk to yourself out loud (double-duty accomplished if, as you talk, you’re walking the dog or watering plants or wiping surfaces or stretching your amazing body) and give yourself a whole bunch of good and real and true LOOK AT ME messages, just between you and you. Here’s a brief audio example, just between you & me.

5. Pause with every apology you hear yourself make (until you can pause it before it gets stated out loud, until you break yourself of this habit), and consider whether there was actually something to apologize for. You’ll mostly find there wasn’t, so take it back. I mean this: quit apologizing for little stupid things like not responding to a text when you think someone wanted you to. Categorically DO NOT APOLOGIZE WHEN YOU’VE DONE SOMETHING WRONG. Or hear yourself and take it back (at least between you & you). Learn to say I’m sorry only when you’ve actually violated your own code of ethics, when your own integrity feels affronted by your own actions. And then it will mean something, and you won’t be walking around apologizing for your existence, for taking up space, for being a human being born onto this planet. Here are some examples of sorry apologies if you want more guidelines for that.

6. Have more fun. Feel good more often. Laugh more. This does a million times more good than a gratitude journal, so if you like things like that, like this too. Feel good about whatever part of current conditions you can feel good about. Focus on what’s fun, what’s easy, what feels good, what you’re proud of, what makes you laugh, what brings pleasure. Cultivate all of this. Make it a project.

7. Get faster & faster at interrupting trains of thought that don’t serve you. That means anything about what’s wrong with you, how you’re not doing enough, how you’re doing it wrong, how this isn’t good enough, how this isn’t okay. That means interrupt it as it comes up, now and now and now. IMMEDIATELY give yourself kinder and truer messages, as many as you can string together. Ideally, do this out loud or in writing.

​8.Deal with something, one thing, that’s kind of big and pretty much ignored. Lighten the thing that weighs you down. You know what’s waiting for you. Just start it. And then do another bit another time, soon. Go in via your point of least resistance, just to show yourself you can. Do on bite-sized piece until you’ve found your inner pac-man that can gobble up anything. (Is pac-man still a thing?)

Photo of Pac-man neon sign from Sven Mieke on Unsplash

​9. Go to bed feeling good about the day. Appreciate all it held and all you did. If you can’t feel good about today, for some reason, at least be done with it. Put it down fully. Be done with today. You did enough. You did well enough. LITERALLY NEVER GO TO BED CARRYING WITH YOU A SENSE OF AN UNFINISHED NOT-ENOUGH DAY. Never. Never. Just quit it.

10. When you go to bed, tell yourself, Tomorrow, All things new, All things possible. If you want or need help to really set yourself up for letting go of today and looking toward a tomorrow full of possibility, go to sleep listening to affirmations or soothing music. My current favorites are from Crea tu frecuencia. Yeah, they’re in Spanish (I personally think this beats Duolingo by a long shot). Lots of people provide them in English. Try Jason Stevenson, if you like Aussie accents & a soothing male voice.

11. When you wake up, do things INSTANTLY to set yourself up for a good day. Do not start the day telling yourself awful things or cultivating things like fear and dread and sorrow. If you wake up already feeling some kind of way, DO NOT JUDGE THIS. Be sweet to yourself. Get curious. Greet  whatever it is with curiosity. What’s this, sweetheart? Do anything to soothe it, soften it, give yourself kind messaging that counters any thoughts that come hand in hand with this feeling. If you’re not sure what they are, write down, “I feel [whatever it is, as best you can name it], and that means that …” Getting your thoughts on paper will point you to the turnarounds that will counter them, and often will start to shift how you feel. Value, at the very least, that you’re not just going with the thoughts that reinforce bad feelings. Because that, my friend, is NOT being your own best ally.

I start most days with focus wheels these days (a process from Abraham-Hicks). Try it, you’ll like it. Whatever you feel a wobble about, write into the hub of the wheel what you want to feel or believe, and then stay put till you’ve filled the wheel with 12 reasons you can actually believe—you actually do believe—that center statement. My website has a whole page that illustrates and explains how to make a focus wheel and offers kinds of statements to reach for.

Love & blessings, Jaya