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Everyone Needs Someone To Be Honest With
Yourself Is Not Enough
Solitude is a crucial skill to master. If you can be comfortable in your own silent company, then useful reflection (conscious or subconscious) is pretty much guaranteed.
But it’s not quite enough on its own. There is something essential about talking to someone else about your life.
When you’re talking to another person, you have to make sense (enough to be understood at least). You can’t just disappear into an endless loop of self-delusional (and likely self-critical) rambling.
Thoughts have to be ordered, arguments formulated. Sometimes when you try to vocalise what is going on in your head you realise it doesn’t add up.
That mistake you’ve been beating yourself up about doesn’t seem so bad. That problem that has been troubling you now looks a bit more solvable.
If you have someone you can talk openly and honestly with — and I mean a friend rather than a therapist — it is a true gift indeed.
Think about it — this person who you are talking to cares enough about you and is interested enough in you to take the spotlight off themselves for a while (do not underestimate how rare this is) and put you center-stage.