A friend indeed

 Savitree was a wonder woman, but only if you looked at her from the outside. She was the pillar of her community, the first to organize a meal train for a sick neighbor, the last to leave a charity gala, and the steady shoulder upon which countless friends cried. Her kindness was a fortress, and she hid securely within its walls.

Inside, however, lived a different woman. A woman governed by a relentless internal critic. When she fumbled a line during a keynote speech, the crowd saw a graceful recovery. Savitree heard a voice that hissed, "Fool. You embarrassed yourself in front of everyone, again." When a project at work didn't meet her impossibly high standards, her team received praise for their effort, while she endured a silent tribunal that declared, "You should have done better. You failed."

Her own hardships of dealing with exhaustion, disappointment, heartache, were treated as enemies to be defeated, not experiences to be acknowledged. Suffering was a sign of weakness, and weakness was unacceptable. She was brutal in her self-assessment, believing this harshness was the engine of her excellence. She could extend boundless compassion to a friend who lost a job, but to herself, facing the same setback, she offered only cold, hard blame.

The turning point came on a rain-slicked highway, a Tuesday like any other. Rushing from one volunteer commitment to another, her car hydroplaned, clipping the guardrail. She was safe, shaken but unharmed. Standing in the drizzle, looking at the dented fender, the first thought that erupted was not of relief, but of self-recrimination. "Stupid. So careless. Now you've created more problems for everyone."

A tow truck arrived, driven by a woman with kind eyes and a calm presence. As they waited for the paperwork, the driver looked at Savitree, who was visibly trembling not from the cold, but from the familiar onslaught of her own inner abuse.

"You know," the driver said softly, "my old mentor used to tell me something. He'd say, 'If your best friend was standing right here, in your shoes, scared and shaken after an accident, what would you say to her?'"

The question struck Savitree with the force of a physical blow. She pictured her dearest friend, Anya, in this exact situation. Her heart would ache with empathy. She would wrap Anya in a hug and say, "Oh love, I'm just so glad you're okay. Everything is good. The car can be fixed. You are what matters."

The contrast was devastating. The kindness she would so freely give to Anya was a country she had declared herself an exile from.

Tears, long held back by a dam of self-imposed rigidity, finally mixed with the rain on her cheeks. In that moment on the roadside, the wonder woman’s fortress began to crumble. She saw her lifelong "kindness" for what it was: a brilliant distraction, a way to earn a worth she refused to grant herself unconditionally.

The journey that began was quieter than her previous accomplishments, but far more courageous. It was the slow, deliberate work of turning a friend into a friend. When the old, brutal voice surfaced after a mistake, she would pause, place a hand on her heart, and consciously ask, "What would I say to Anya right now?"

It felt awkward at first, like speaking a foreign language. But slowly, the words began to land. "It's okay to be tired." "This was a hard day, and you got through it." "You are allowed to be imperfect."

She discovered a profound truth: this self-compassion did not make her soft or lazy. Instead of hiding from her failures in a cloud of self-loathing, she found she could look at them clearly, learn from them, and move on, unburdened by shame. The energy she once spent on self-flagellation was now freed for genuine growth.

Savitree still organized meal trains and chaired committees. But she no longer hid behind these acts. She performed them from a place of wholeness, not lack. The real wonder, she finally understood, was not in being perfect for others, but in becoming a true, and truly kind, friend to herself.