Embracing conversations with our inner friend

Week #12 - May 11, 2022

Hello everyone and Happy Wednesday.

I hope you enjoyed my interview last week with Sara Morris, which sought to understand how mindfulness can help us to ground down into the present moment. Developing a mindfulness practice can be particularly beneficial when encountering times of uncertainty or challenge, but we can also have a mindfulness practice when times are good too! Mindfulness allows people to be present and experience the moment completely. This is a very gratifying and rewarding feeling. I hope you all have started developing your own mindfulness practice and have begun noticing a difference.

The reason I enjoy my mindfulness practice is because it allows me to be alone with my thoughts and feelings. I enjoy having some time dedicated just to me because I can think about things I normally wouldn’t have had the capacity for throughout my day. I believe there’s a lot of value in taking time for oneself as it can assist to recharge and to solve problems.

The reason I believe there’s value in taking time for oneself is because it opens us up to our “inner friend.” I call our inner friend the little voice inside our head that talks to each of us. As we should all know, these conversations can be both positive and negative. Our inner friend can tell us the hard truth that can be difficult to hear, but they can also inform us on future actions that can push us towards our goals. We can only conversate with our inner friend if we are willing to take time for ourselves. If we don’t have this dedicated time, we can’t hear what our inner friend is trying to tell us.

There are many ways we can talk to our inner friend. For me personally, I talk to my inner friend whenever I take my dog for a walk. I contemplate what happened during my day and if I should have done anything different, as well as ways I can work towards achieving my personal and career goals. We can talk to our inner friend in the morning while we’re in the shower, on the drive to work, before bed, or essentially any other dedicated time throughout the day. All we need is time to listen to them. Our inner friend often has the solutions to the problems we face. We are the expert of ourselves, and there’s value in taking time to listen to what our inner friend is trying to tell us.

What if the conversation we have with our inner friend isn’t what we want to hear? There’s value in this too! Sometimes it’s something we are needing to hear, while other times it is the voice telling us we aren’t good enough. We don’t always have to listen to our inner friend, but it’s important to have that conversation and to recognize that they are there. By framing our inner voice as our friend, it changes our perception of what it means to take time and to listen to one’s thoughts. Friends try to help us, but sometimes can give poor advice. They may even require us to say “Stop, this isn’t what I need right now.” The same goes with our inner friend. It doesn’t have to be scary or frightening to acknowledge our inner thoughts and desires. It’s time to stop letting these thoughts control us. Go ahead and take some time to spend it fully with yourself. Embrace the conversations each of you have with your inner friend. Will you listen to what they are trying to say?

In closing, I encourage you all to take some time to talk to your inner friend. What do you talk about? What are they trying to tell you? Are you willing to listen?

Until next week,

Tyler

Twitter: tcmakepeace

Website: tylermakepeace.substack.com

Instagram: tyler_makepeace