I often talk with my clients about the idea of befriending ourselves. Perhaps this is something that comes easily to you, or perhaps it’s something you’ve never considered. For people who come to me for counseling, I find it’s often a large piece of the work we do together.
As with so many things in life, befriending ourselves relates to our sense of love and being enough. Often times, it’s in the reflection of someone loving us that we begin to see our own worth and feel real. This experience, whether it happens when we are a babe in arms, a young child, or perhaps further along in life, is magic.
It’s similar to the concept of the Velveteen Rabbit, that magical children’s tale. For those of you who don’t know or remember that tale, here’s an excerpt from the book by Margery Williams.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day…
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.” When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
Some of us may feel like we might break easily, or have sharp edges, or need to be carefully kept. Learning to soften around the edges, to adapt to changes and challenges, and to let life be messy can be hard. Sometimes the magic we need to learn how to do these things is to see ourselves as a friend – to treat ourselves with the same kindness and compassion we would to a friend. And in doing so, we can learn to befriend ourselves.
Children’s books often have such wisdom. The wisdom in this tale is that some things take time, that there is value in allowing ourselves to be vulnerable enough to be truly seen and loved for all of who we are – and that to do so, we have to let all our messiness be seen. To let ourselves get loose in the joints and very shabby.
As Brené Brown writes,
“To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly.”