Here’s Why Befriending Yourself Can Be So Hard (and 3 ways to make it easier)

Just so you know, I’m also writing this to myself as I share this for you. To remind both you and I, of the context in which we exist, the pressures placed upon us and the hopeful ways in which we can return to a place of ease and connection in our own lives.

We move so often in environments that seek to pull us out of ourselves, to tell us we are not enough and need to do this, that or the other in order to feel worthy or ‘ok.’ Faced with billboards that aim to sell us the idea that we will ‘be happier’ if we drink Coca Cola, or ‘find our dream partner on the beach’ if we wear Zara. In such an environment, and without the tools to re-connect with ourselves as our first companion, it is almost by default that we live in the trance of unworthiness.

Oh and on top of these pressures in the physical world, we also now have the other virtual reality of the online world, that sneaks into our lives in some insidious and some dramatic ways. Our lives now in some ways moulded around our mobile devices, packed with yet many more mechanisms to suade us into comparing ourselves against others, deadlines and possibly the biggest threat of all — the notion of time and the haste we must carry ourselves with.

The last ingredient to this recipe being our very own inherent negativity bias, making it difficult to ‘see the goodness’ by default.

So how can we come to befriending ourselves, again, and build the…