Being My Best Friend: Day 8
Today I have been thinking about the idea of becoming my own best friend. I listened to a TED talk and the speaker discussed this exercise in which you close your eyes, put a hand on your chest, and then envision what it would look like for you to be your own best friend. I did the exercise and felt such peace in that moment. I was at the gym, and so I imagined my best friend standing next to me whenever I became tired, encouraging me to keep pushing myself through just one more set. This then led me to wonder what a best friend is for. Are they there to provide unwavering support, or are they there to offer support coupled with honesty so that we can achieve our goals and avoid pursuits which might not be fruitful?
If I told my best friend about my desire to quit looking at porn, I would expect to hear some type of affirmation along with the question of why. I would tell them that I want to do it because I feel that I have become addicted to the feeling that it gives me, and porn is not media that I want to consume as someone who honestly wants to eliminate the objectification of women. My friend might respond well to this, or they might say that the goal and my justifications seem somewhat trivial. Regardless, I would assume that my friend’s response, whatever it may be, is in the interest of steering me in a direction that my friend believes might have some benefit to me regardless of their own interests (ie. their like of porn or dislike of porn). This is what a friend is supposed to do, I think. They are supposed to support you without getting in the way of you pursuing the things that you want to do, all the while telling you the truth when it matters most.
Tying this back to the conservation about becoming my own best friend, I think that the challenge that I might face will be separating my own interests from that inner best friend so that he can support me from a place of empathy and objectivity rather than self-interest. In my gym example, my inner best friend would come from a place free of physical pain or a desire to give up. My best friend might not want to exercise either, but he knows that I do, and that is reason enough to support me.
Being my own best friend is certainly something that I want to try from here on out, but how do I find the balance between unconditional support and telling myself the truth? I suppose it is a skill I will learn by practicing, and I suppose the only way to practice is to just live as though I am already my own best friend. Eventually I will get to a point where the relationship is natural, and I will stop asking for what I need because he will already know.
Day 8.
