“Friendship with one’s self is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

We run around begging for love, attention, and validation from everyone around us. We think that our salvation, our happiness and our sense of wholeness will come from outside ourselves. We look for “special” people that will make us feel “special. We buy all kind of expensive things, to make us feel unique and important. We live our lives in a way that makes sense for others but not for ourselves. We surround ourselves with people who make us feel so lonely. We engage in unnecessary conversations and we force ourselves into building meaningless friendships.

We look for love in all the wrong places; we cling on to all kind of unhealthy relationships and experiences and we get our sense of worth from all kind of weird places.

We clutter our lives with all kind of glorious, expensive and precious things and the more stuff we accumulate, the less we seem to have and the emptier our lives seem to get.

Until we don’t build the friendship we have with ourselves, none of these things will bring us long lasting happiness… none of these things will make us feel whole and complete…

We run in circles. We bump our heads from wall to wall. We’re sleepwalking, unaware of the harm we are doing to ourselves and to others.

Life is easy, it really is but we choose to complicate it.

I have realized that the closer you get to your Self and the stronger the friendship you build with your Self-becomes, the easier life gets and the happier you become.

“If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.” ~ Maxwell Maltz

What I will share with you below are 7 beautiful ways to help you build the friendship you have with your Self so that you can attract all the love, happiness and abundance that you so much desire:

7 Beautiful Ways to Build the Friendship with Your Self

1. Spend quality time with your Self

How do you build strong, healthy, loving and supportive friendships? By spending quality time with the people you wanna be friends with. The same goes with the friendship with your Self.

Commit yourself to giving more of your time, your love, your energy and your attention to your loving Soul and lovable Self. Do more of the things that nurture your heart, your mind, your body and your soul. Engage yourself in activities that are meaningful to you, activities that awaken the Soul, rejuvenate the mind and renew the body.

2. Take time to renew, refresh and rejuvenate your Self

No matter how busy you are and no matter how many urgent and important things you have to do on a daily basis, it’s crucial that you make some time to renew, refresh and rejuvenate yourself. The world will not come to an end simply because you took a break to nurture your Self.

When you are centered and at peace with yourself and everything that is happening around you, it is a lot easier to be more present and more engaged in everything you do. You have a lot more energy to do many of the things you need to do, the quality of your work improves, your relationships seem to flourish, your partner is happier because of you and you just feel good.

Whenever you feel like you really need to take a break to renew, refresh and rejuvenate your Self, take it! It’s not just you who will benefit from you recharging your Self, but everyone around you.

3. Acknowledge your Self

We all want to be appreciated and acknowledged by those around us, for who we are and for what we do, but what about appreciation and acknowledgment from our own Self? We expect so much from others but not so much from ourselves. Does this make any sense to you?

We all have a little child within us that needs to feel loved, appreciated and acknowledged, not so much by other people but by our own Self. Take time to appreciate, acknowledge and express your gratitude for the beautiful being that you are and for the wonderful things you have done so far. Take time to love and nurture your Self. Take time to prove your Self that you really matter and that you are valued. Give to your Self the love, appreciation, and acknowledgment that what you expect from others.

4. Give more of your Self

Each and every one of us has something unique and of great value to offer to the world. The more we work on connecting with who we really are at a deeper level, and the stronger the friendship with our Self-becomes, the easier it will be for us to discover what our unique gifts are and the easier it will be to share these gifts with the world.

Giving is a sign of having and the more you give, the more life will give back to you. Give more of your Self to the world. Give more of your love and attention; give more of your unique gifts and talents; give more of your laughter, your joyful energy and give more of your beautiful presence.

5. Empty your mind of all thoughts

“Stop thinking, and end your problems. What difference between yes and no? What difference between success and failure? Must you value what others value, avoid what others avoid? How ridiculous!” ~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

They say that on a daily basis there are 60,000 thoughts that run through our minds and that 75% of these thoughts are repetitive and negative. We are damaging ourselves by allowing our minds to bully us into thinking that our lives are a lot worse than they actually are. We allow our minds to bully us into thinking that there is something wrong with us. As a result, we begin to look for love, validation, and approval outside ourselves. We buy things we don’t really need, to impress people we don’t actually like, and we build our build our lives on a shaky foundation.

Step back from your own mind. Empty your mind of all thoughts. Detach from all the drama that your mind is trying to create and realize that you and your thoughts are not the same. Empty your mind of all thoughts. Spend at least 5 to 10 minutes every day in silence. Focus on your breathing. Observe the thoughts that run through your mind and the noise that is up there. You are that noise and you are not those thoughts, you are the one observing that noise and those thoughts.

6. Set your boundaries

By constantly saying “yes” when you know deep down inside that you actually meant to say “no”, and by constantly trying to please those around you just so that you can feel loved and appreciated, you will continue to make yourself very unhappy. Why? Because you will continue to betray your own feelings just so you can please them…

People treat you the way you allow them to treat you, the way you teach them to treat you. Learn to say “no” when you feel like saying “no” and “yes” only when you truly feel like saying “yes”. Set your boundaries. Let people know what you tolerate and what you don’t. Honor your integrity and you will gain a lot of respect, love, and admiration from those around you because of this.

7. Commit your Self to life-long learning

If each and every one of us would commit to life long learning and to doing the things that bring us joy, happiness, and fulfillment, the world would become a much happier, brighter and richer place, and in time, poverty will cease to exist.

We all have our own path to walk, our own destiny to fulfill. By taking one step at a time, by working each day on improving the relationship we have with ourselves and by doing the things that have real meaning to us, we are able to understand what the meaning of life is and we are able to discover why we are all here for.

We all have our own role to play, and just like Martin Luther King, Jr. said it, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

We are all in this together. I do my part and you do yours. The more love we poor into everything we do, the more we learn to treasure who we are and the stronger the friendship with our Self-becomes, the more meaningful our lives will get and the happier we will all become. To paraphrase Carl Jung, our vision will become clear only by looking inside our hearts. Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. And I hope you’ll awaken… 🙂

~love, Luminita💫

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