Alone is how I spent this past week, holed up in an English countryside cottage. My son is off with his dad having a great time and I am by myself — having a great time.

Such an extreme change of pace, demand and noise level; a chance to really hear my thoughts. It’s a week dedicated to being nice to myself.

Shouldn’t we always be nice to ourselves?

Yes! I just don’t always manage it in my regular chaos and busyness. I still often end up at the bottom of the priority list. I continue to make choices or allow situations based on expectations or to please, while that inner voice vocalises negative play-by-plays of harsh judgment — all the stuff I write about working on each week.

It is work to combat those negative patterns and habits. Work that doesn’t always get prioritised among all our other commitments.

That’s why I use this holiday to focus on it: being kind to myself, listening to my needs and reconnecting with the friend that I can be to me.

It’s a powerful thing being our own BFF.

What wouldn’t you do for a friend?

Someone told me recently how, despite being rather weedy at school, he punched a senior boy in the nose for harassing his buddy.

The irony, he said, was that he too had been bullied by him the term before but not done anything.

I’m reminded of that Carole King song. Couldn’t we all do with running to our own rescue more often?

There are situations I allow or put up with that I would jump to defend a friend from.

I would encourage that friend to live from her heart and listen to her own wisdom and reassure her that she is loved whatever her decisions. And I too would pop anyone in the nose who spoke about my Bestie in that mean manner of our inner-voice.

Lately I’ve been trying simple ways to be my own friend:

• Having fun dressing for myself. I have been putting together outfits that have a theme, little in-jokes that I can laugh with myself about: my ‘Princess Di meets Ellen DeGeneres look’ or the ‘punk rock secretary’ or sometimes just frazzled mom.

• Plating up my food like I’m eating in a restaurant.

I’ve always done it for my son — put his meal together so it looks special and inviting — but used to serve my own like gruel from a billycan to save time. Nope.

Now I take that extra minute and make my dinner a mini work of art as I would for any welcomed guest.

• Buying myself flowers or something beautiful as a treat.

• Laughing at my own jokes.

• Telling that inner voice to back off and cut my ‘ace gurl’ some slack.

Reconnecting with our inner friend means we’ll never be lonely.

There will always be someone to have our back. A week alone is just an extended slumber party! Don’t lose touch, reach out to your BFF today.

•Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com.