I'd love to see me from your point of view…

Like love with a chip on its shoulder

Have you got one minute to spare for you? This simple meditation is just for you. You don’t need to find a special place to sit, you don’t even need to close your eyes just take 1 minute of self compassion for you.

Amelie has been singing this song for days, over and over, it was only a matter of time before it got stuck in my head. Then it struck me…I’d love to see me from your point of view.

Now I’m going to save you the Ariana Grande version but imagine if we spoke to ourselves the way our friends spoke to us? If our internal dialogue matched the advice of a good friend. This outrageous concept has a name, Self Compassion, it also has substantial studies and science to back it up, yet we are still canning ourselves for every perceived wrong turn.

Why is our default is to comfort a friend, and another default is put ourselves down? So quick to eviscerate ourselves when we don’t meet our own standards. Why does it feel like weakness to be compassionate with the one person we can not live without, like really not live without.

You speak to yourself more than anyone else. Can you connect to the very reasonable wish that you be well? I’m not talking about happy, joyful, sickly sweet bundle of love - just well.

A technique for strengthening self-compassion is speak to yourself like you would a good friend. I’m going to add to that. When you next put yourself down, bring a dear friend to mind and ask ‘I’d love to see me from your point of view’. Perhaps you’ll get a different response than the one you were ruminating over, either way it will give you a moment of pause, or you’ll get that song stuck in you head…