How can someone be your best friend forever?
Surely there’s only one person who’ll really be around with you forever…and that’s YOU!
I’ve seen the acronym BFF around for a while on social media and I have to admit — I had no idea what it meant. When I found out I was skeptical.
How can someone be your best friend forever?
Isn’t that just a childish fantasy born of the need to believe that there is someone we can rely upon never to leave us?
I guess that’s something we all wish were true… like having the perfect parents and family life which gives us deep feelings of security and a knowing that ‘everything will be all right’.
Surely there’s only one person who’ll really be around with you forever…and that’s YOU!
I’ve met, known and worked with many people over the years who felt lonely. They’ve had an emptiness and an ache deep inside them that nothing seemed to fill or soothe. Some of them kept people at bay — in a variety of different ways — because they feared being hurt again.
Others wanted and expected that the right friend or romantic partner would fill that empty void and make them feel whole and complete, joyful and at peace, loved and secure.
Reality check — no-one can ever do all that for you
The good news is that you can learn to give yourself all the benefits of having a BFF. And when you have that in place you’re far more likely to attract loving, caring, generous and genuine people into your life who can enrich what you’ve already ensured is there.
After all, friends come and go. Over the last 40 years I’ve lost count of the friends that have drifted, or been pushed, into the shadows of my life.
Some friends were only around to meet our mutual need for social company without depth or commitment.
Others drifted away because the foundations weren’t in place to weather the storms of greater distance when one of us moved away or there was ‘too much’ time between contact.
Some were too busy with their other better-established friendships to make time to build one with me — and vice versa.
A few have betrayed my trust, or were two-faced and gossiped about me, or they were underhand and tried to deprive me of something or someone they coveted for themselves. They were not worthy of my friendship and they had to be banished to the not-my-friend-anymore zone.
When we know and value ourselves and our time we become more selective about whom we share our energy with. The friendships that work only one way are a drain and they add negativity to our lives — these are the ones that have to go first!
What do we want in a best friend?
Someone who is:
Genuine
Loyal
Reliable
Trustworthy
Optimistic and positive
Honest and who gives us helpful feedback
Emotionally intelligent and balanced
Fun to be around
Willing to share both the good and bad times with us
Eager to see us and to jointly plans things for us to look forward to together
A supportive advocate — they’ve ‘got your back’ and will help you to ‘fight your corner’ when things get tough
How Can We Be Our Own Best Friend?
By giving ourselves as much as we can from that list above — and checking out ‘How can I best provide these things for myself?’
If anything is missing then ask yourself why, and what would have to happen for you to have that in place.
For instance, instead of being disloyal and betraying yourself with personal put-downs, or not trusting people, or being fake and wearing a mask — find out the purpose these behaviours would have had for you in years gone by.
Perhaps they gave you the illusion of safety, or kept other people at bay, and prevented them from really knowing you. What people don’t know they can’t reject. What they don’t like they won’t attach to.
Then decide if these still serve that purpose nowadays. If not it’s time to ditch them and allow more up-to-date and helpful thinking, feeling and behaving to take their place.
As you change your friendship with yourself, this will make some space for new carefully selected friends to step into — friends who mirror these qualities.
When you behave like your own BFF you’ll replace loneliness with great company and you get to do the things you love to do. You’ll replace boredom with excitement, fear with love and trust, and see the world through the eyes of your ‘Inner Child’ as a place of playful adventures and wisdom gathering.
You’ll never feel lonely or unsupported when you become your own BFF — after all you are the only one who will never leave you.
Treat yourself as well as you’d treat a well loved best friend, and behave in ways that you’d be happy for your best friend to witness — and enjoy the rewards!
Maxine Harley (MSc Psychotherapy) MIND HEALER & MENTOR
www.maxineharley.com — where you’ll find a page of FREE resources to help you to improve the most important relationship you have — the one with yourself and your inner child.
www.maxineharleymentoring.com — helping professional, executive, business and VIP women to understand and manage their emotions, boundaries and behaviours… fo FEEL better, so they can BE, DO and HAVE better!
Originally published at medium.com