We can buoy ourselves up, give ourselves comfort and sustenance the times when there is no one else. Every great sage, guru and Spiritual Master has pointed to a great, life-shattering truth: other people, including your wife, husband, partner, friends, parents, siblings, daughter, son, grandchild and grandchildren will never make you happy and whole. Your occupation, retirement, hobbies, dreams, aspirations and socio-economic status will also NEVER make you complete.
You probably already know the answer, but I will restate it nevertheless. Without first learning how to enjoy, appreciate and respect ourselves, we will never truly be able to enjoy, appreciate and respect the other people and things in our lives. If we fail to put in the painful and strenuous effort of making peace with our hypocritical, deceptive, weak and sickly selves towards the cultivation of self-love and understanding, we will forever be like everyone else in society: running about like headless chickens trying to gain love, acceptance and validation in an endless futile cycle of chaos, confusion, disappointment and perpetual emptiness.
If you want to stop wasting your life seeking for something you wanted — and had — all along, you need to wake up. You need to realize that becoming your own best friend is not simply a bunch of fluffy, feel-good self-improvement talk , but an actual life and death matter. Sound a tad drastic and dramatic? It is. Without taking charge of your life and becoming your own best friend, you will continue to feel the pain of rejection, the pain of loneliness , the pain of shame, the pain of self-disgust, and the pain of abandonment.
You will continue to unconsciously believe yourself to be terrible, to be unworthy, to be an unlovable person.
And as Sol mentioned in his previous article , how can you love another person wholly and truly without first learning how to love yourself? Learning how to become your own best friend is an excellent start. The longest relationship you will ever have in the history of your life is with yourself. When you decide to take care of yourself, to take charge of yourself, there is still a big job ahead. It takes thought and effort to shake free of bad habits. That part of you that is quite comfortable in the old ways and has no desire to see things or do things differently can put up quite a fight.
We cling to what is most comfortable to us, even if that means perpetuating our own self-destructive cycles of misery and pain. Be aware of this: you must possess courage, determination, will power and persistence in order to break old habits and firmly establish new ones.
As Newman and Berkowitz comment:. It would mean admitting they were wrong. If you do decide to adopt these recommendations you will unconsciously — and maybe even consciously — be at war with yourself. The key is to not fight or resist, but to accept. Most of us equate failures in our lives with us personally being failures.
The authors don't discuss the difficulty and pain of some key choices in life -- that is my wording, but that is what I understand from the discussion. Many of us have been conditioned to have difficulty recognizing the choices that lead to authentic happiness, falling instead for short-term fixes that lead to more superficial kinds of satisfaction. Go for the long-term happiness is what they seem to advise in a few different ways. As with most great advice, the instructions are simple but not easy.
View 1 comment. Mar 28, Laura rated it it was ok Shelves: Since I'm typically happy and enjoy time in my head, I don't read Self Help books. She was good friends with the authors. The book starts and finishes strong with lots of uplifting paragraphs about being good to yourself, etc, etc, but the meat in the middle is blame your parents for your inability to love yourself and others.
I'm over that trope. Dec 25, wAnderlUst rated it really liked it. May 24, Maria Maniaci rated it it was amazing Shelves: personal-growth. I've read this before and I'm sure I'll read it again when it's time for a revisit. I'll warn you that it's an old book, from back when homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder and it's mentioned in the context of "if you want to change, you can change.
Jun 15, Lino Verde rated it really liked it. Some quotes I found helpful from the book: Life lies in letting go, in giving up your grievances. You can stop your parents from getting away with your whole life; you can stop yourself from giving up your whole life.
If you become more, it does not make me less. There is room for many marvelous people in the world, and many wonderful achievements. When we really grasp this, we take pleasure in what others are able to do; we do not feel diminished. And we are able to do our own thing without fee Some quotes I found helpful from the book: Life lies in letting go, in giving up your grievances.
And we are able to do our own thing without feeling anxious or guilty toward anyone. We should be concerned about what we do with time. Genuine growth means having the courage and confidence to try new things, and in the process, to let go of old ones. This does not mean you have to despise the self you were. You let go of what you do not need anymore because you are onto something better. You start by paying attention. See the connection between what you do and how you feel.
You may have to sit yourself down and demand some answers. When you decide to take care of yourself, to take charge of yourself, there is still a big job ahead. It takes thought and effort to shake free of bad habits. That part of you that is quite comfortable in the old ways and has no desire to see things or do things differently can put up quite a fight.
Every time you catch yourself putting yourself down, just stop and turn around and push yourself up. You must also learn to talk to yourself. You need to explain things, to reassure yourself. You need to establish an ongoing dialogue.
It can help you through all kinds of tough situations. You can take that moment and consider what you really want to do. You have the power to stop yourself; this is a good thing to know. If you come to know the child in you, you can get that feel for yourself. You can know when to be easy, when to make demands. You have to get on familiar terms with yourself. Embrace the child in you; make friends with yourself.
It gives such a reserve of strength to call on. Feb 23, Matthew Clark rated it it was amazing. This book is something everybody should read in their teen years, the idea and concept is very helpful for teenagers growing up and changing into who they are meant to be.
It is very different then most books but it's almost a handbook to love and accept yourself. It's also America's Best-Loved Bestseller. The authors are married to each other and they are both psychologists. Personally I loved this book it helped me feel better about myself and life. There was nothing i didn't really dislike about the book, on some of the quotes they could have gone and explained it more because it was hard to understand.
The authors did an amazing job with their wording and how they used their word it made it more meaningful to me while reading. If I could change anything about this book it would make it longer, I feel like it's really useful and the bigger the better.
I relate this book to myself because a lot of the stuff they talk about i've gone through or am going through right now. A Review by Matthew Clark. A short book from , on what would today be called cognitive behavioural therapy CBT. It's laid out in a question-and-answer format, like Plato's Republic. The foreword suggests that the questioner is the editor, Jean Owen, rather than the psychologist authors talking to themselves. Psychology of Solitude. Love vs Attachment. How To Stop Procrastination.
How To Increase Your Value. Do you feel inferior to others? What is Luck? Keeping up with old friends that may no longer be a part of your daily life can be hard to keep up with. FYI- I am this friend. Making new adult friends can be weird and awkward- a flash back to middle school. Putting yourself out there is hard no matter how old you are! This printable book about friendship contains eight black and white pages for easy printing. Each page will prompt your child to think about an aspect of being a friend or having a friend.
These prompts will hopefully inspire important discussions about why having friends feels good or what to when something about a friendship is bugging them. Kids can use these pages to respond independently or use them as a jumping off point for a brainstorming discussion!
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