One of the most crucial parts of growing up is the ability to understand yourself and others more and more as you age. But this usually doesn’t come easily.
My drama teacher always used to say that everyone should be required to go to therapy at some point in their life. The first time I heard this, I thought it was crazy. I rarely had problems that I felt like I needed to talk out with another person. And besides, what guilty thought that always comes to mind is that therapy is for loonies, right?
Turns out, the truth is therapy just gets a bad rep. “Therapy” tends to only come up in conversations with negative connotations. “My shrink told me…," “She had to go to therapy after that happened…,” giving you the impression that therapy is a complete looney bin.
And with the societal pressures we have, we are trying to prove to everyone that the last thing we should be associated with is a looney bin. Therefore, we push things like therapy or opening up to people aside.
This drama class changed my thoughts on the subject so much that my teacher's philosophy on therapy as a life necessity finally had my support. We'd begin class everyday by going around and sharing how we felt. Answers like “fine” or “tired” weren’t acceptable. And if that’s what you chose to say, my teacher would keep on asking questions until you really opened up about something.
Sometimes this ended in laughter, tears or just a deeper explanation of why you were just “fine.” And although I might have been uncomfortable and unsure how to help as I stared at the girl crying or the boy hiding his face in his hands, this class gave me some of the most important experiences I’ve ever had.
Since then, it completely changed the way I viewed relationships and the way I have acted on them. I am able to understand people on a level I never really thought I’d get to; and in turn, I understand myself better, too.
Overall, the class definitely made me a better friend. My friends have told me they view me as a friend who “always makes them feel better” or “always knows what to say,” and to me, that’s one of the biggest compliments I could ever have gotten.
But what comes with helping friends get through a tough time is the decision of what advice to give them. And that’s where my criticism as a friend comes. I’m always told that I give great advice but never take my own advice to help myself.
Honestly, I feel like this is the case with a lot of people. But why is it so hard to take your own advice when you’re so confident in telling other people how to fix things?
I thought a lot about the instances in which my friends have responded to my complaining with “you literally gave me advice about this last week," and this is what I’ve discovered.
When I give advice to someone, I’m thinking about the best decision a person can make in that situation. Whether it involves a lot of confidence, going through an awkward situation or anything that makes us go out of our comfort zones. But when I have to go through things that go outside my comfort zone, I have trouble thinking about that confident person I thought I was and then acting on it.
I think we all have this image in our heads of the version of ourselves we want to be, and sometimes that blinds us, making us believe we are that version until something comes a long and shows us that we still have a lot of self-reflecting and strengthening to do.
In my sociology class, we are discussing how hard it is to change something about yourself. It’s similar to the way you’d train a dog. You have to keep repeating the action or thought until your brain accepts it as something that’s a new norm for you. And that’s what got me thinking about what I need to work on. In order to be confident and make the best decisions for yourself, you have to train yourself to be that better version of yourself.
Sounds cheesy but if I truly love being able to help my friends and give them advice, then learning how to take my own advice is really the first step.
