Imagine a large playground. One group of kids are chasing each other trying to see who they can tag. Other kids are frozen in place waiting to be 'released' from the bounds of the tag as the infamous freeze tag game rules demand.
Others are playing one on one with a broken hoop.
Others jumping rope and singing Double Dutch rhymes.
Some are just sitting and talking or reading alone.
(Except now, it's likely all virtual or just Fortnite I guess.)
Either way, it's just a group of rambunctious children getting their 30 minutes of innocent recess fun.
Suddenly, a shadow looms over the group.
The moment pauses.
Everyone looks and sees...the bully.
It's the stereotypical bully too. The one who looks way too old for the grade. The one with the obscenely steroidal muscles despite having that crackly puberty voice. The 'big man' with the single piece of hair on his chin--the only facial hair in the entire class. The one who even shaves that single piece of hair.
The looming presence that terrifies you. And then, amongst the silence, he opens his mouth and says...
~~~
Insecurity is a finnicky thing, isn't it?
You know, once I tried to apply for Model UN and had to do a debate interview. My high school teacher, who led the interview, afterwards called me a chihuahua ( should really be respelled as chiwawa to save people a world of pain...and autocorrect). She essentially said that although I was little, I kept barking loud the entire time.
Insecurity is a chiwawa (I'm sticking to this new spelling as a matter of principle, I don't care). It seems like a little presence, but it is actually quite louder than the name suggests.
At the same time, it's also that looming bully in your head. The one with the authority over you. The one that you hand the doubts to in a glass case labeled "break me" and boy does it ever...
At the end of the day, when I'm in bed exhausted and ready to rest, I settle in, grab my kindle, and finally prepare to get my 30 minutes of innocent fun. After reading, I get ready to sleep and bask in the silence of the pitch-black room.
Then, that single chin-haired bully enters the room.
Erica, you're wasting time again. Are you seriously thinking you can rest after the day you had?...Remember this moment from today? That was embarrassing...you really should lose weight, everyone notices it now, it's kind of gross...Oh yeah, remember this moment from a year ago? You should probably apologize for that....And oh boy, you messed this moment up so badly, you shouldn't EVER forget it.
By then, I've been tossing and turning for so long that there's only 4 hours left before the alarm rings.
It doesn't have to just be then. When I drop my pen and go "You're so careless" or confuse the dates to an event and say "You're so stupid"--that's the bully peeping his head out to give me his two cents.
I don't think I'm unusual for having any of these experiences. From what I heard, it seems like a lot of people share similar moments. I mean, it has to be normal given that so many cliché sayings about them exist for a reason, right?
When people tell me to be my own best friend, it feels like a gimmick. When people tell me that I'm my own worst enemy, it sounds like a cliché. There's over 100 different variations to that same advice. Next, they're going to tell me to hang a 'Live, Laugh, Love' poster in my room and sing "Don't Worry, Be Happy".
It just all feels like overused words.
Words that are just as empty as an apology with no change.
It seems like a simple idea--you can either support yourself like you would your best friend or hurt yourself because of your self-criticism. But it's more complex than that. What does it even mean to be your own best friend and worst enemy, and why does that advice feel so unpowerful to me? How do I define a best friend? How about an enemy? I know there has to be a reason this quote is said so many times by so many people. It's like a Mona Lisa hanging up for everyone to see, but waiting for the hidden message to be revealed, and the only way to crack it is to call Tom Hanks...or crack it ourselves.
Let's start with the infamous enemy: In movies, the enemy is always so obvious and clearly evil. There's never a redeeming quality in this person, and we love to hate them. We can't wait for the hero to vanquish this foe and save the day. Recently though, more movies started to show the origin stories to these villains, and suddenly it becomes less clear how evil they are. An enemy is someone we hate--there is something we see in that person that threatens us and raises our defenses. We see something they are doing (or multiple things) as an attack.
That's the bully in our head, but so much worse. We know ourselves better than anyone and we know what threatens us more than anyone. So the words we say to ourselves ends up being the biggest digs. These are the words we either heard being said to us, noticed within ourselves, or simply observed in relation to others. But we know the ones that hurt us the worst. And we say them, because we think we deserve to hear them. How do we know we deserve it? Cause we lived our lives and know ourselves best, of course. So we berate ourselves and degrade ourselves and constantly threaten ourselves to the point where we are tense and restless simply because we hate ourselves and who we are. But we need someone who can take a step back and see our origin story to show that we aren't so deserving of that hate we self inflict.
Well that's where we start discussing the best friend: the people in this world are vastly different with different experiences, love languages, and beliefs, so it's not like we all have the same definition of the ultimate best friend. In hard times, some people look to a best friend for emotional support, some need rationalization, and others just look for a safe space to talk. In good times, we look for someone who is similar to us in some way. I have a best friend who's the polar opposite of me, but we share similar life experiences and can truly understand each other's thinking. Another best friend is so scarily like me in our interests that we can just talk for hours about those very topics. These people connect with very different parts of me...and they are my best friends. There's no single best friend for me. And the thing is, I have so much overflowing love for all of them. When I hear them even doubting themselves or hurting about anything, I get this tightness in my chest and this uncomfortable pain in my gut simply because it hurts to hear that information given that I know how special they are.
That's why I want you to take a pause and think of your best friends. You could think about one person specifically or about a variety of people, whatever you want. Be aware of that love you feel for them and really recognize where you feel it's coming from--a fullness in the chest? Maybe warmth radiating through the body? Really truly feel how endless that love feels for them and how appreciative you are. Think of what makes them so special to you. For me, some of the things I thought of were memories of their empathy, their humor, and their honesty. Then, imagine them telling you that they hate themselves or hate an aspect of themselves. That their thoughts race constantly about how they aren't good enough or smart enough. How they can't sleep, because they need to be more.
I guess that's what that means. A best friend is someone who truly sees you at your best and helps you at your worst. A best friend tells you constructive things in a way that help you grow, and you are always secure in the fact that it comes from a place of love. Saying "you have anger issues" is very different from saying "you know, I recognize that your anger is hurting you. What if you try to count down from 10 next time or take a walk?" It's so obviously different, because it's not berating or accusing. It's calling out a habit and offering a constructive solution. And while we feel that much love for a best friend that connects with just a part of us, imagine how much more we can love someone who connects with every part of us. The only person that can be though, is you. You have the ability to unlock this incredible support for yourself that is so loving and helpful, and it is just waiting for you to explore it. That's what's so powerful.
Through the constant repetition of the "you can be your own best friend or worst enemy" saying, we lost the strength of its meaning, but I think we cracked the code and got it back now. Now, I'm not saying we'll never be insecure. That's not possible. Sometimes a little insecurity is what guides us to produce stronger and better work, but we shouldn't be sitting so heavily with the hateful thoughts. We shouldn't be the enemy silencing our inner best friend.
That's why my dash of advice for today is to silence the little chiwawa bully, so you can hear your inner best friend. It's what I will do once I finish this post: Write down what a best friend means to you. Write what you love in your best friends, cause there's a good chance those qualities are in you too. Reflect on your thoughts and think how you can help yourself change them. And finally, give yourself a massive hug for me and the best friends in your life. That way we can fully unleash the limitless love of the best friend waiting on the other side.
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