Be Your Own Best Friend

       It is dawning on me more and more as I get older that one of the most important things in life is to be your own best friend. This is not a new concept to me, and I am not the first person to write about this by any means, but it isn't any less significant. What is interesting is that, for many people, this idea is easier to think about than to do. I've been one of those people.

    Although I have known for a long time about the magic in this kernel of wisdom, I can honestly say I wasn't my own best friend. I was other people's best friend, or good friend, while I lagged behind somewhere. I don't even know, come to think of it, if I was even a good friend to myself on most days, never mind a best one. 

    For some reason, as I grew up and then became an adult, and then did all the adulting required of me, I found it much easier to critique and pick myself apart than to build myself up, as best friends do. I've written before of the anxiety that has traveled alongside of me my whole life, but there has been another companion too, although a much more sinister one. I will call her the "Critic", for want of a better word. 

    The Critic isn't nice, far from it. Nor is she a friend in any way. She might disguise herself as a friend in the way she offers me "advice" on how I can improve various aspects of my life, personality, character, physical self... on and on it goes. The Critic is relentless. With her, things are never good enough as they are. There is always something that can be improved. I can always be a better version of myself, and the Critic tells me I should strive to be that. Underneath all of that is the understanding that I am somehow not good enough. The Critic never says this directly... she just implies it, but she always delivers her message. 

    For most of my life, I listened to the Critic. I trusted her. I believed her. I thought she was right, that she had the right view of me, of my life, my choices, of anything really. I would do what she told me to do, thinking that this latest morsel of advice was finally the crumb I needed in order to be that better version of myself, that thing that I coveted so much. The problem was, the Critic never went away, not permanently anyway. Just when I thought we were done, she would show up again.

    Over time though, I started to see the Critic differently. She was a meanie disguised as a nice girl. She was never happy. There was no pleasing her. Her intentions were never good ones deep down. The objective with her was to tear things apart in order to build something new. She believed that things needed to be torn apart, that they weren't good enough as they were. There was no celebration of my uniqueness, of the miracle of my life, of me, just by the very nature of being lucky enough to have been born.

    I'd like to be able to say here that I one day just kicked the Critic to the curb, said, "I've had enough, you silly b----! Be gone!", and that was that. But, it of course hasn't been that easy; the tough lessons in life never are. I haven't yet been able to make her disappear completely. No, she still shows up beside me, but there are some things that are different these days, because I've grown, evolved, come into myself a bit more. For starters, she doesn't come around as much. I can breathe more fully. One result of this is too... dare I say it?... I am starting to think I might be good enough exactly as I am. This is indeed a very cool and comforting thing. 

    The other thing that is different though, and the one that has been the most powerful agent of change has been the relationship I have been cultivating with myself over the past year since I quit drinking. I have become my own best friend finally, and this has made all the difference. Although the Critic can still deliver her acidic barbs (and this still happens), because I am my own best friend, I am much better able to withstand the onslaught. I have myself in my corner, for the most part, and this is a precious and beautiful thing. It has led me to conclude that being your own best friend is not overrated at all. It is crucial. In fact, it starts there.