Draft

My favourite poem can perfectly describe what is going on here:
who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish

Draft

  
Have you got a best friend? The one that is always there for you, sympathize you, worries about you. Wait, don't tell me, I know you have. Even if it's bad times... this friend is still there - inside each of you. Because you are your very best friend.
I would like to talk about this complicated relationship that everyone has, but unfortunately, often neglect. However, other people will never ever make you happy, because Self-relationship is the foundation of everything else.

To build this foundation we need to recognize:

• Why self-relationship is so important? 
• What can it give to us?
• How we can work on it?

   First of all, I want you to think, what a good friendship means to you. Sympathy? Support? Trust? How often do we apply this to ourselves? If our friend is in trouble - we listen and not judge, complaints that their partner is not kind with them - we don't tell they got what they deserve. But what if we do it to another important person?

    You may wonder, why self–relationship is a relationship at all?We usually think of two people connected, and no, I am not talking about multiple personality disorder, the things is, there are layers of our personality which interact. We all remember Freud's theory, and similar concept is repeated by psychologies again and again. Friends, parents, children, mentors... We are disigned to play numbers of roles to ourselves. Unfortunately, some of them, created to help, eventually hurt.

   I always loved being by myself, but people around me loved being in company, they could not stand ‘booredom‘, and I thought I was probably broken. My friend was just like this, you may call it outgoing - always somewhere with someone, trying to have fun. She also loved series and watched them all night long. She cared only about herself, I thought. Then she failed exams -  does not care about anything at all, then. How irresponsible! More cracks appeared in our friendship. I never noticed the warning lights. And then she never ended her abusive relationships. What is going on?? The answer was simple and too complicated at the same time. Shutting ourselves off, looking for love to escape or watching TV non-stop, because we can not stand our own thoughts anymore, we can’t truly escape from problems, instead, we are not there for us anymore, and friends, as proved, are not always there too. 
Befriending yourself - creating your internal support system - is probably the most precious thing you can do for your own wellness. It can give you a lot, not less, than people around. For example, if you had a tough childhood, I mean, every childhood is tough, but worse - no love and no compassion, we may get it from a deeply powerful process - re-parenting. Nature gave us an ability to comfort, encourage, calm ourselves down. And we are supposed be best experts on our needs!
But are we? To know yourself it‘s not enough to live your life, we need listening and analyzing to constantly rediscover our personality. We actually have self-talks all the time. Silently. And it’s a really healthy thing, there was even a study, which proved that our brain can operate much like monkey's if we just stop talking to ourselves! But beyond control it can get destructive. ’Why didn’t you do this in time?` You are disorganized and miserable.‘ 
Talking out loud can take this control on a new level. It would make us concentrated, organized, smart and productive. uttered words are much more powerful even if they heard just by you.
it is officially not a sign of insanity. Surprisingly, but apart from encouraging and organizing, we are able to talk ourselves down. According to another study, talking to yourself in the third person is the most effective way to calm down. It makes us think of ourselves as of our friends and look at the situation from the side. 
Befriending yourself is not a new concept. But I never really knew what it meant. The fuss of everyday life distracts us, while being practically isolated in quarantine, we have to be in peace with ourselves more than ever and we have time to think. That's when I woke up and realized it's not a bunch of fluffy self-loving advice. Bit a life-death matter. How we can work on it?
First of all, we should know in what state we are now. Examine the quality of your foundation. Is it solid enough? What parts need to be mended? If you are not feeling good, take your time. Patience is what we’ll definitely need. Start with self-care, step by step. Eat tasty food, take time-out or take a bubble bath. Simple, but essential. Otherwise nothing would change.
It's a good start, but not befriending yet. I've learned a powerful technique, that will probably shed more light on this, and I want to share it with you. Close your eyes and remember any situation when you were critical to yourself. Stay there for a moment. Ask yourself, what was the actual reason you felt that way? And now, put your hand on your heart. Imagine your close friend in similar situation, what would you tell them? How compassionate you would be? Try to apply this attitude to yourself. If you were doing it more often, how your life would be different?
I am not a psychologist, but I read a good deal of articles on how to befriend yourself, and I think we can define 3 basic ideas to start with.
1)Listen. Listen to your feelings, thoughts. I‘ve said a lot about talking already, and naturally, to improve this ability we need to spend more time alone. It is recommended to spend 20 minutes a day to prevent break-downs, and befriending requires more. Do what you want to do without adjusting to someone else.
Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better
2) Be kind. Too abstract and too hard to start. Well, start with a random act of kindness for yourself each day and celebrate small achievements, praise yourself, rather then put pressure. Today it can be hard to get up and it is a small win if you do this. I think, today‘s Mania of productivity perpetuated by Instagram is a huge obstacle on our way.
As Newman and Berkowitz point out: “when you do something you are proud of, dwell on it a little, praise yourself for it, relish the experience, take it in.”
3)And finally, accept . Nobody is perfect and not everything can be changed. But our self-relationship can.
To start with, critical parts of you are not your enemies, they are trying to help, to make you a better person, to protect, but their protective mechanisms went out of control. Befriending yourself means accepting them as well and forgiving them for making you feel that and putting them under control again.
A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are

We can learn to be our own best friend. If we do, we have a friend for life! But I’m afraid there is no choice. A conflict inside will slowly poison our self-esteem, our relationships, our life in general. If we lose ourselves, we‘ll lose any landmark that can lead us to a happy place.

Instead, discovering your personality, accepting all its layers, and forgiving them - will change everything. Remember, your self is unique and your journey of befriending is also unique. Value this time spend alone, value your crazy ideas and small achievements. Value you as your very best friend.