Be Your Own Best Friend: The Art of Self-Compassion

What if the missing piece isn’t more motivation, but more mercy? 

Today I open up about five years of stop-and-start creative work and get honest about what actually helps you show up again: self-compassion that is real, practical, and repeatable when life gets messy.

Expect candid stories, approachable tools, and a reminder that growth isn’t a verdict—it’s a practice. If this conversation gives you a little relief and a clearer path forward, share it with a friend who needs gentleness, subscribe for more honest self-growth, and leave a review to tell me which tool you’ll try next.

Resources Used Today:

Self-Compassion: Theory, Method, Research, and Intervention

How to Practice Self-Compassion: 8 Techniques and Tips

Self-Compassion Practices

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

Hello, my dear passengers, and welcome aboard a self-growth train, a podcast that combines personal stories, opinions, and research in order to better guide you through your self-growth journey. My name is Frances Mariti Vera Pacheco, and I am your target. First, I just want to say thank you for tuning back into the podcast. As you know, over the last almost five years, yes, because next week we turn five years old. Anyways, just a little moment to pat myself on the back. But, anyways, over the last five years, I have struggled consistently with being consistent. So I just want to say thank you so much for your patience. Thank you so much for not giving up on me. Thank you for being so understanding in my humanity and in my lack of skills. Because I get on to myself all the time for not being consistent and not doing the things that I say that I'm gonna do, especially for the podcast. So yeah, like sometimes I'm not that gentle with myself, but like then I receive a message from you guys, or somebody will see me in person and be like, hey, I listened to this episode and it like really made my day, or it really helped me through something, and it just kind of reminds me why I'm doing this in the first place. So again, thank you so so much for being patient with me. I promise I am on a journey to getting better, but with that journey comes obstacles and hurdles, and mine has been being consistent. So please, please keep being patient with me and keep loving up on me because I need it and it makes me really happy. Well, my dear passengers, the time has come to buckle up those seatbells and dive into the first stop of the day. That is the topic of the day, and today's topic is self-compassion. Self-compassion is defined by the National Library of Medicine as the state of being supportive towards oneself when experiencing suffering or pain. I know what you're probably thinking. You're thinking, Francis, you're doing an episode on self-compassion after talking about, you know, not being consistent. Yes, because here's the thing. I get onto myself all the time, all the time for not being consistent with the podcast, even though I'm passionate about the podcast, even though I'm super motivated about the podcast, and even though I love the podcast over the last five years, I have not been able to put my focus and my purpose and my energy fully into the podcast to make sure that it is what I intended it to be, which was a weekly podcast, right? So I don't know, I woke up today and I was like, it's time to talk about self-compassion because I'm going hard on myself and I need to stop. And there's probably somebody out there who's doing the same thing about some other thing going on in their lives. So to that, I say, no, no, we can do better. For today's episode, I will be using three resources. Two of these are articles that I found online that were actually really, really helpful. And of course, last but not least, my own experiences with self-compassion. The first resource that I'm going to use today is an article by Positive Psychology.com titled How to Practice Self-Compassion: Eight Techniques and Tips. The first tip that they talk about is treating yourself as you would a friend. Now, I don't know if you remember, but during my last episode, I covered friendships and I defined what a friend was and how a friendship should look in order to be mutually beneficial between the parties, right? And I think that's a very important definition to bring back into this episode because the way that you're able to treat yourself as you would a friend is by understanding how you treat your friends. Like I cannot speak for you, but I can speak for myself, right? And the way that I treat my friends is honestly not to brag, but really, really good. I love my friends, okay? I am there for my friends. I might not be there a hundred percent every single time because some of them live far away and some of them have financial struggles that I don't have the capacity to help with. But when it comes to like somebody that they can talk to, when it comes to like somebody that they can come to to feel not judged and feel safe and feel vulnerable, I'm that person. And so when I treat myself like as I would a friend, again, I don't do this all the time, that's why I'm doing this episode, but when I do do it, right, I tend to come to myself with so much grace and so much love and so much welcoming energy of like this is a safe space for you to tell me everything that is happening. And again, in retrospect, it's kind of like, yeah, that should be the energy that I have with myself at all times. But I mean, like, you know how it is. It's we can't always maintain the same energy throughout the day. But yeah, treat yourself as you would a friend. And I'm kind of curious, like, how do you treat your friends? How do you show your friends support? How do you show your friends that you love them? Because I think it will be interesting to also analyze the love languages behind it. Because I I know that I use all five lump languages, which I don't remember all of them right now. Like, I mean, like I know what they are, I just I can't remember them. But, anyways, the point is I am curious to see how you treat your friends and how your life will look differently if you started to treat yourself as a friend. Fool for thought. The second tip is to become more self-aware. And again, I'm gonna use myself as an example. Like, I realized that due to many different factors, I struggle with being consistent. Really, the problem is I'm not disciplined and I have not invested the time, money, or energy into becoming more consistent over the last five years, right? So that is my reality. That is what I'm becoming self-aware about, right? However, just because I am aware of my shortcomings doesn't mean that I have to hammer on myself for having that shortcoming, right? So one of the ways that they say that you can deal with this is by you using releasing statements, which is kind of opposite to positive affirmations. So positive affirmations is when you say things like, I am enough, I am worth it, I am great, I'm going to have an amazing day. Actually, if you follow me on my social media, which actually I do keep up with way more than the podcast, which that's not something to necessarily be proud of for right now. But I'm being self-compassionate, I guess. Anyways, I post affirmations on my social media all the time, positive affirmations. However, this is a new thing called releasing statements. So a releasing statement is when you say something like I had every right to be upset, and it's okay to be upset. It's not excusing your behavior, it's humanizing the fact that you are able to get upset. Now, how you get upset and how you deal with situations, that's a whole different thing, right? And depending on the person, they might be doing it right or they might be doing it wrong, right? Because our definition of right or wrong is really subjective, it just depends on the person and their points of view. But, anyways, I'm getting a little bit sidetracked, so let's go back. Yes, another way that you can help yourself become more self-aware is by self-forgiveness. Again, you are a human, things happen, you don't have control over every single thing that happens in your life. Trust me, if you did, you would not be a human, you would be minimum a demigod. And as fun as that sounds, that sounds like a lot of responsibility. So I prefer to stay a human. The third tip that they give is to regain perspective. Well, how do we regain perspective? The first way is to let go of our need of outside validation. Wow, I feel attacked because if there's somebody out there that is constantly seeking outside validation, it's me. I am the queen of that. I'm not proud of it, but it's true. I do struggle a lot with gaining outside validation just because I don't know, like sometimes okay, honestly, it feels great when people say you're doing great, okay? It like it's a it's a nice feeling, so it's something that I like to hear, but when I don't hear it, then I'm feeling like I'm a failure. And so it really dampens my mood, it dampens my self-esteem and makes me not want to be self-compassionate, right? But if I were to let go of that need to have that outside validation, and I started to have inner validation of saying, like, no, you know what? I do have a podcast. I've had a podcast for five years and I've had my ups and downs, but I've never given up. I take my little breaks and then I come right back. Like, that's one way to look at myself with inner validation, saying, like, no, I haven't given up. I understand that I'm struggling, and I know that there's hurdles and obstacles along the way, but I'm still here. I'm still trying, I'm still picking up the pieces and putting them together and rearranging the puzzle and just proving to myself over and over again that I have that ability. If I just tap into my inner validation center. Wow, that was powerful. I need a second, I need a second to digest what I just said. Anyway, anywho, anyhow, I know that the title can be a little misleading because it says that there's eight tips and techniques, but really it's more of like three tips and eight techniques on how to achieve those tips. Which is, I gave you a summarized version of that, and I will be posting on the resources used today the link to the article so you can read the full article. But yes, for the purpose of this episode, I am going to keep it sweet and short, which is very unheard of from me because come on, let's face it, I'm Puerto Rican. I don't know how to keep it sweet and short. The second resource that we're gonna use today is an article by the Self-Compassion Institute with Dr. Kristen Neff. It's basically an article where they define self-compassion, they give you tips on self-compassion, they give you guided practices on self-compassion, and also they give you exercises that you can try because self-compassion is not something that you're gonna learn overnight. So there's no way for me to really summarize that article. I just wanted to mention it on the episode because I think it's gonna be a great resource for you, and it's gonna be definitely a great, amazing resource for myself, right? But yeah, I look forward to starting to do those exercises and following those tips of practice because your girl needs to be more self-compassionate, and I have a feeling you might do too. Well, my dear passengers, the time has come for the last step of the day. That is recap time. Today's episode discuss self-compassion, which we now know is the state of being supportive towards oneself when experiencing suffering or pain. In fact, we now know that in order to become more self-compassionate to ourselves, there are three tips we can use. The first one is treating ourselves as we would our friends, the second one is becoming more self-aware, and the third one is regaining perspective. Again, there are different techniques that we can use to achieve these tips in our everyday life, but really, if we get down to the nitty-gritty of it, the way to become self-compassionate or become better at being self-compassionate is to treat ourselves like we would a friend, become more self-aware, and regain perspective. Remember, self-growth is an endless journey towards self-improvement. However, you don't ever have to do it alone. As your tour guide, my goal is to guide you with the best intentions and the best research available. Make sure to follow me on my Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at the Self Girl Train Podcast, and to check out my new website, www.the self girl train podcast.com. As always, all of the resources used today have been added to the episode's descriptions. Well, until the next up, dear passengers, safe travels. Bye.