Stress Management - Your Inner Friendship Makeover for Personal Peace

Do You Need a Friendship Makeover?
Are your friendships more stressful than fun? Is socializing hard for you? Do you always feel left out? Do you often feel stressed because friends and acquaintances seem to be snubbing, taking advantage, being mean or making fun of you?
If you answer yes to one or more of the questions above, are you willing to make some changes in yourself to improve your friendships? If not, go read some other article! This one spells out work that only you can do, and the suggestions require sincere and consistent attention on your part.
Be a Friend to Yourself First
Still here? OK. You've probably heard the old saying, "To have a friend, you must be a friend." I'll take that one step further. To have a friend, you must first be a friend to yourself. To release your stress around friendships, you must first learn to live in the peaceful center of your own being.
Here are seven critical steps you can take to be a friend to yourself. Following these, you'll be gradually and naturally letting go of stressful frustration, confusion, worry and hurt.
Some people will say that if you do these things, you are selfish and egotistical. On the contrary, you will be much more emotionally healthy, balanced, stable, kind, loving and peaceful. Being true to yourself, you can be a friend and enjoy the low-stress give and take and fun of genuine friendship.
Seven Ways to Reduce Stress by Being a Friend to Yourself
Learn to . . .
1. Like yourself, love yourself and accept yourself just as you are. Your stress level will drop fantastically!
2. Forgive yourself for any judgments you have held against yourself. You will feel lighter and more relaxed as the judgments peel away, layer by layer.
3. Make choices that please yourself. This will release the hidden stress and inner conflicts of living to please others.
4. Take care of yourself. Be attentive, kind and do nice things for yourself. As you demonstrate that you are worth caring for, your inner self can radiate confidence and inner peace.
5. Speak kind words to and about yourself. Kind words are the balm that help to erase stress day by day.
6. Be honest with yourself. Self-honesty will help prevent you from entering new stressful situations, and when you are honest with yourself, it's easy to be authentic and strong in your personal peace with others.
7. Keep working to improve yourself day by day. As you build self-loving and self-mastery, your confidence, joy and inner peace can blossom and attract the kind of friendships with others that you have always deserved.
And if you want more practical, self-compassionate stress reduction tips, I invite you to read the many articles on my website and sign up for my free newsletter, 17 Simple Stress Solutions, at http://www.powerofpersonalpeace.com/optin.htm
Check out my articles on success, less stress, and my Ask Dr. Ilenya advice column at my blog, http://lovingyoursuccess.blogspot.com
Dr. Ilenya Marrin is a personal peace consultant, inspirational speaker and author of ebooks The Power of Personal Peace: Reducing Stress by Loving Yourself from the Inside Out and 77 Loving Steps for Success.
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