Draft#3

Draft#3

  

 Colors symbolize the pitch - lighter=higher

| - for pauses (mainly dramatic)

Some words are in bold because they should be strongly emphasized

Tempo is conveyed through different length - self-relationship self-relationship

↘ - falling tone  ↗ - rising tone

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 make you happy, because ↗self-relationship is the ↘foundation of everything else.
          To ↘build this foundation | we need to find ↗out:

·       ↘ Why self-relationship ↗important.

·        ↘What can it ↗give to us.

·        How we can ↘work on it.

You may ↘wonder, | «why she says ↘ ‘relationship’ at ↗all?». I agree, usually it means interaction between ↘two people, and no, I am not talking about mental ↗disorder, the ↗ things is, there are ↘layers of personality, which interact. ↗Friends, ↗parents, ↗mentors… | We are ↘designed to play roles to ourselves. ↗ Sadly, | some of them do not↗help, but ↘hurt.

Let’s ↗decide, | what ↘friendship means to you. |  ↗Sympathy?  | ↗Support? How often do we apply this to ↘ourselves? | If our friend is in ↗trouble - |we ↗ listen and not ↘judge, and we certainly don’t tell they ↘deserve it. But what if we do it to ↘another important person?

It’s not easy to noticed the ↘warning lights. I had a ↗ friend - you may call it ↘outgoing - always somewhere with ↗someone, having ↗fun, or watching ↘series all night long. She cares only about ↘herself, I ↘thought. | Then she failed ↘exams – She does not care about ↘anything – I ↘thought. ↘More cracks appeared in our friendship. ||When she never ended her abusive ↗relationships, I finally ↘thought - 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 are not ↘there for us and ↗friends, | are not ↘always there too.

↗ Befriending yourself - | creating your ↗internal support system -| can give us a ↘lot, not ↗less, than ↘other people. ↗ For example, | if you had a tough ↗childhood, I mean, every childhood is ↘tough, but ↗ worse - no ↘love and no ↘compassion, | you may get it from a deeply powerful ↗process | - ↘re-parenting. Nature gave us such ↘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 just to ↘live your life, we need listening to constantly ↘rediscover our personality. We actually have silent self-talks all the ↘time. If we ↗ stop doing it, our brain will operate much like ↘monkey's! But ↗beyond control it can get ↘destructive. ’Why didn’t you do this in ↘time? |`You are disorganized and ↘miserable. | “She did it ↘better”. | – does not sound like a friendship at ↘all.

 Talking ↗out loud will take this control to a ↘new level. It’s officially not a sign of ↘insanity! Instead, it would help understand our ↘thoughts better. Surprisingly, but we are also able to ↘talk ourselves down. Did you know, that talking to yourself in the third ↗person is the most ↘effective way to do it? It cheats on our ↘brain and makes it think of ourselves as of ↘other people.

Befriending yourself is not a ↘new concept. But we keep ↘forgetting about it. This ↘isn’t just a bunch of fluffy self-loving advice. We ↘have to work on it, if we want to be ↘happy.

 I know one powerful ↗technique, that will probably shed ↘more light on this concept, so I want to apply this to ↘you. Please, 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 a similar situation. What would you tell them? How compassionate you would be? Try to apply this attitude to yourself. If you were doing this more often, how your life would be different?

      Well, I'm not a ↗psychologist, frankly speaking, 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.
The ↗ first one is of course, ↘Listen. ↗Naturally, to ↗improve this ability we need to spend time ↘alone. It's necessary to be alone for ↘20 minutes at least just not to fly off the handle, but spending ↗more time doing what ↘you want without adjusting to somebody else is already a huge step!
The ↗ second idea - Be ↘kind. Too ↘abstract and too hard to start. ↗ Well, start with a random act of ↘kindness for yourself, ↘celebrate small achievements, rather than put pressure. Today can be hard to get ↘up and if you ↗do it, it’s a small ↘win. Let Instagram with its mania of productivity go ↘by!

And ↗finally, ↘accept. We need to ↗realize, that critical parts of us are not our ↘enemies, they are trying to ↘help, to make us ↘better, but their protective mechanisms went out of ↘control. ↗Befriending means accepting them as ↘well and ↘forgiving them for making you feel that.

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 happiness.

  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.