Become Your Own Best Friend

The zodiac sign Cancer is known as the mother sign, with a strong desire to nurture and nourish others. In my last post, Tough Times Require Tender Care, we explored how the zodiac sign Cancer can be a wonderful source of self-care, nurturing, and nourishment for us. In this post we'll continue developing that theme, looking at how we can become our own best friend. This skill is invaluable as we look for ways of navigating our way through the unprecedented uncertainty of the current pandemic. 

How do you talk to yourself when you mess up or life takes a wrong turn? Often at these difficult times our inner critic takes over, and many of us speak to ourselves in a manner that we would never dream of speaking to a friend. Even though many of the events that occur in life are beyond our control, we can still consciously decide to cultivate a loving and compassionate attitude toward ourselves and others. 

If you are interested in finding out more about developing the skill of self-compassion, you could check out Christopher Germer's The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, or Paul Gilbert's The Compassionate Mind. 

In the Zodiac sign Cancer chapter of the Yoga by the Stars book, I include a Become Your Own Best Friend Meditation, which teaches you how to connect with your own inner loving, nurturing self, and how to show the same compassion to yourself that you would show to a friend in need. By cultivating good self-care in this way, you build up self-confidence and the resilience to cope with life's ups and downs. Although I am not including that meditation in this blog post, however, I am including an audio link to Mark Williams The Befriending Meditation. As Mark says, "When life really begins to get you down…. When you feel angry, lost or alone… When you feel close to despair… When you feel that you are your own worst enemy… The Befriending Meditation is here for you." The meditation below comes from the Finding Peace in a Frantic World website, where you will find many other mindfulness resources and free meditations. 

Hachette Audio UK · Mindfulness: Meditation 7 - Befriending