STREN - A MODEL OF A HEALTHY ATTITUDE, FEELING, BEHAVIOR, COPING SKILL OR CONCEPT THAT I CAN USE TO ENRICH MY LIFE

This stren deals with companionship.

          More than anything, our peace-of-mind and wellness of body depends on the relationship we maintain within our self. 

          We need not be lonely.  We always have our self as a loyal traveling companion.  In our on-going conversation with our self, we can be a marvelous companion, a formidable enemy, and anything in-between. Where would you rate your self?  By far, we are the single most important person to our self through life’s journey.  We can’t escape from our self.  We spend 100% of our life with our self and we engage in active dialogue with our self most of that time.  In contrast, if we were fortunate enough to find the most ideally compatible mate to share our life, the amount of time we’d spend with him/her would be relatively small.  Even during the time of day we’d share proximity of space with our companion, dialogue is limited.  One investigator concluded that spouses/companions spend about seven minutes a day in attentive dialogue with one another. 

          That we are the most intense life companion to our self is even more apparent if we consider that:
(a) Our early years don’t always involve our lifetime significant “other.”
(b) Because one companion or spouse usually outlives the other, the remaining individual will   
      have, on the average, eight to thirteen years to live without his/her important “other.”
(c) Our significant other(s) usually falls short of being our 100% ideal companion.
(d) We have immense resources to change our self and are wise to recognize our limitations in   
      changing others. 

          By recognizing that we can take responsibility for making us a great friend to our self, we can increase what we’d like life’s journey to be -- interesting, joyful, enthusiastic, self-directed, creative, with peace-of-mind (you name it!), and diminish what we don’t want – boredom, frustration, guilt, resentment, apathy, excess anxiety, self-pity (what else?).

          Suggestion: Study the strens on self-endorsement; they can be of immense help to your becoming your own best friend.