Once upon a time, I’d imagined myself the Lone Ranger physician, self-sufficient and incapable of weakness, and when I had my spinal cord injury in 2008, I really felt alone, in the negative spiral of a victim mindset, my own worst enemy and in a dark space where my idea of myself felt entirely lost.

Then, one day, in December 2009, I heard about a center for spinal cord injury recovery in San Diego, United States. Under the watchful eye of my trainer, Mica, I overcame my fear of standing on my own.

“You’ve got this,” she told me, and I took my first few painfully slow steps in 2011. It had been three years since my accident.

“The doctor is back in the house!” I heard myself say.

Where did that voice come from?

Who was that person who was able to see past all the tragedy and unfairness to see what was possible and declare proudly that I was back?

It was me, of course. That was my voice. I had never heard it before then, but now I knew I had to listen to it.

I realized then that if I was going to be able to fully recover—to get back to the life I loved, the profession I loved, and the person I knew myself to be—I would have to find a way to believe in myself. If I were going to get through this, I would need to have my own back—to be my own best friend.

That was a revelation. When I first arrived at the center, I imagined that their cutting-edge technology would help me recover. The truth I found was that everything I needed was within myself. What I really needed was self-compassion, self-acceptance, and letting go of the self-critical, hyper-high-achieving attitude that used to define me.

Instead of being on autopilot, I had to slow down and be mindful–literally–of each slow step I was able to take.

I took off my Lone Ranger mask and took the time to connect with my fellow spinal cord injury survivors, bound together by our common humanity and our common suffering.

Most important of all, instead of being a perfectionist who beat me up for every mistake, I learned to accept myself for who I was.

Mindfulness, common humanity, and acceptance are the three pillars of self-compassion, and through them, I learned what it meant to be my best friend.

Yes, there were times when I felt like giving up. But that’s true of a lot of us. I see this daily in my work as a pain physician. When patients arrive in my office, they often feel like they’re at the end of the line. They’ve given up on ever getting rid of their pain and, most seriously, given up on themselves.

Hold on, I tell them, how would you treat a best friend?

Now treat yourself that way.

We’re there for others, but we need to be there for ourselves.

It means believing in yourself.

It means having your own back.

Remember that you are your own best friend.

Olivia Ong is a pain and rehabilitation medicine physician in Australia.