“Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.”
Laird Hamilton
It was a friend of mine who recently asked me ‘you’re your own worst enemy, aren’t you’? He caught me by surprise with this question. I thought a little about it, but right away I knew that he was right. He then told me that he was his own best friend. And it was true, that was something that stood out to me about him and that I admired. There are people who are so confident in who they are, one can actually see it from far away. It’s their aura and their energy. Honestly, it had kind of hurt me that I am not yet there. Especially after I have dedicated so much time to bettering my relationship with myself. So I analyzed what it was about him that showed that he was his own biggest supporter and best friend. And what I was still lacking. Hear me out…
It’s not a destination
This is such a huge point that I have learnt in connection to healing inner wounds, getting rid of insecurities, anxieties, changing mindsets, overthinking, having doubts, low self-esteem, self-worth and many other issues. The perfect human doesn’t exist. There is no final destination. Even the most confident person in the world not only started at an entirely different point in life, but even today might struggle with weak points. There will never be a point where one could say they have completely been able to get rid of all of their faults, that they won’t ever have to work at themselves again. However, being your own best friend means you support your own actions throughout your journey and are fearlessly yourself.
Aspects where you could betray yourself
Being your own worst enemy usually implies that you have two or more versions of yourself that are at war with one another. These parts of yourself don’t support each other, might neglect each other, go behind their backs, don’t work for the same goal or don’t want the same things for you and therefore don’t work together but against each other. It might also look like putting your own best interest last for the sake of something or someone else. It looks like betraying yourself through secretly not supporting yourself or not having your own best interest in mind. Here are 9 of such things…
1. People pleasing
People pleasing means you disregard your own needs for those of others. You do things you don’t really want to do, just so you can feel accepted by others. You’re not prioritizing what you really need because you are too busy being concerned about how others might be affected by your actions. You have difficulties to ask for things you really want or need or to reject things that could hurt you. The fact that you’re trying to earn someone’s approval or love shows yourself subconsciously that you don’t love enough yourself to not be affected of other people’s behaviors and reactions.
2. Overthinking
When people overthink, usually they mentally make situations worse than they actually are. It’s a way you’re trying to protect yourself from painful experiences by anticipating them beforehand and therefore not being surprised when that horrible thing you see happening in your mind actually comes true. Then, you say to yourself ‘see, told you’, and try to minimize disappointment. But what you’re actually doing is ruining things before they were actually able to happen. Personally, I try to fight overthinking by only allowing myself to overthink when I have an actual reason to do so. You would be surprised how rarely this is the case. Things usually turn out better for us when we don’t overthink them!
3. Talking down on yourself
Telling yourself ugly things that aren’t true is the easiest way to hurt your self-esteem and eventually your self-worth. Whenever you catch yourself doing that, think about whether you would say the exact same thing you just told yourself to a dear friend of yours. I promise you, you wouldn’t do that. So why are you treating yourself that way, especially if you had the choice to not do so? In order to be your own best friend and support whatever you do, you have to stop talking down on yourself and rather learn to encourage yourself.
4. No self-forgiveness
I wrote here that self-forgiveness is the first and most important thing you have to do in your journey of loving yourself more. It doesn’t mean that you disregard every bad thing you have ever done. Instead, it’s about understanding that whatever you did, you had a reason for and that there is no point in keeping self-hatred alive. You won’t ever be able to change something you regret doing. The only thing you can do is forgive yourself for it and try to learn from it for the future. That is the definition of self-growth.
5. No discipline
Not having discipline means ignoring what’s best for you in the future for temporary and momentary comfort. If you were your own best friend you would want for yourself to have the things you keep dreaming about. Your inner best friend knows that what’s best for you will probably be painful and will want to ignore the things you have to do in order to get there but does them anyway because he or she knows where it can lead you.
6. Not having boundaries
This one goes hand in hand with the people pleasing. Having boundaries means knowing what’s best for you and enforcing this without being scared of the consequences. People who have healthy boundaries aren’t afraid to loose people who disregard their boundaries because they know that they don’t have their best interest in mind and therefore aren’t worth investing more energy in. It’s a hard one to learn, I know.
7. Not taking care of yourself
This one could be physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. We wouldn’t want someone we care about to live in a dirty environment, to have poor hygiene, to overwork, to not sleep, eat or drink enough. Even though it takes a lot of effort sometimes, living in a clean home, eating a healthy diet, making sure we get enough rest, taking care of our body, hair, face, nails etc. is one of the most caring things we could do. Not taking care of yourself means you’re neglecting your needs and ignore what would make you feel good. Don’t do that.
8. Not healing your wounds
Not healing what hurt you in the past means you’re willing to expose yourself to the pain that could be inflicted on you anytime through something that triggered a wound you still have. Over and over again you will struggle with the same things caused by the same patterns because you weren’t willing to take a few hard steps to get away from this. Usually, it’s our relationships with ourself and other people that suffer from unhealed wounds. And you will most probably affect other people too with what has hurt you in the past. Don’t let those things get in the way of you having caring relationships with people that could add a lot of value to your life.
9. Regret
This one has a lot in common with forgiving yourself. Only that regret stands for everything you haven’t forgiven yourself for yet. Regret essentially means that you wish you were or could be someone else. Someone who didn’t take that decision, someone who would have acted differently. But by doing that you don’t accept who you are. You don’t support your own actions, even though you might have had very good reasons to have acted that way in the past. Regret is saying to yourself ‘you did something in the past that I cannot forget and that hinders me from loving who you are today’. Unapologetically supporting who you are and what you did is a form of self-acceptance and self-love – something we need as our own best friend!
The spiritual aspect of best friend/worst enemy
Of course, supporting yourself in every aspect of life is beneficial for your life’s journey and well-being. But what role does spirituality play in this game? When I looked back at one of my past blog posts, I found the perfect one for this matter. Here, I wrote about 10 characteristics or traits spiritual people have.
- Point 3: They are focused on their journey and growth.
- Point 7: They embrace failure and bad experiences
- Point 8: They live a life true to themselves
These alone prove that being your own best friend really is a spiritual matter. Being kind to yourself and having your best interest in mind will bring you much further (in every aspect of life), as letting your own worst enemy come out and working against you. So lastly, how does one best get rid of the inner worst enemy and turn into a best friend?
How to embrace your inner best friend
First things first; have conversations with people who you think are where you want to be. They know something you don’t. After that you need to go step by step.
- What do you suffer from (e.g. low self-esteem, lack of boundaries, people pleasing, self-sabotage, etc.)
- Why do you have it (e.g. you fear abandonment, you think you’re a bad person, people made you feel unloved, you don’t think you deserve it, you had to earn love, toxic parenting/friendships/relationships, etc.)
- Why is that bad (e.g. you can’t trust or open up to people, you can’t build healthy relationships, you isolate, you hinder yourself from being happy, you make yourself suffer, you miss out on life, you feel lonely, etc.)
- Why do you want to change it (e.g. you want to attract healthy people and relationships, you understood that you deserve better, you want to lead a happier life, you want to support and love your inner parts, etc.)
- How could you change it (e.g. write in a journal, comfort yourself physically when you get anxious, turn to a friend or a loved one for support, acknowledge your feelings and emotions, educate yourself through books and podcasts, speak with people who hurt you, get professional help, reward yourself for good behavior, stop accepting treatment you don’t deserve, forgive yourself, accept your own decisions, trust your intuition, stand up for yourself, stop over-apologizing, don’t put your worth on things outside of you, etc.)
- Take action (e.g. every day decide to do a handful of things that will bring you further, work on identifying your patterns, where they come from, how to act instead, choose to act differently to how you would have in the past, etc.)
Concluding…
Turning from your own worst enemy/critic into your best friend is not something that will happen over night. But it is so very importing to be gentle with ourselves. There is nothing harder than trying to unlearn beliefs that were inflicted in childhood. You know you’re trying. That’s good enough 🙂
