Have you ever played the game of trying to decide who would you want to be stranded on a desert island with?

This game often ends with people choosing the sexiest person they can think of—someone whose body they find lovely to look at, whose body they’d like to curl up close with.

But it makes you wonder, are tight abs and a nice butt really the qualities you would be looking for, if you had to spend all your time with just one person?

Because, in actual fact, we are in this situation all the time.

We are metaphorically stuck on the desert island of life with ourselves.

We spend literally 24/7 with ourselves, and here is an important question we each need to ask ourselves–-are we good company?

I’m serious.

The way we treat ourselves is the essential factor creating the quality of our life.

There is no way around it. We are going to spend a lot of time with ourselves—through thick and thin, illness and health, the great times and the horrible times—and it is crucial that we are nice for ourselves to be around.

How we talk to ourselves is probably the biggest factor which affects whether we enjoy our days or not.

Years back, a friend challenged me—asking if I would ever let a person speak to my children the way I speak to myself.

She told me that the way I was speaking to myself—in my own mind—was verbal abuse, and I needed to put a firm end to it.

And she was right.

It took many years, but I have (mostly) put a stop now to the endless litany of self-criticism that used to run through my head.

This is really important, because we probably have more conversations with ourselves than with all the other people we talk to combined.

This is what it means to live a life based on self-love.

It means treating ourselves like someone we love—someone we care about, and someone we want to have a good day, a good week and a great life.

I promise you, that you and yourself are going to be together for a long time. Perhaps it is time to find a working relationship that makes you happy.

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Relephant:

I Got Rid of My Self-Hate: 5 Things That Helped.

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Author: Ruth Lera

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Photo: Flickr/Clare Bell