The most important relationship you have with anyone ever in your life is the relationship you have with yourself.
Why is having a healthy relationship with yourself so important?
Because the world is a mirror.
Other people can only treat you as well as you treat yourself.
The foundation of all your other relationships with everything and everybody can only be as solid as the relationship you have with yourself.
Your physical and mental/emotional health can only be good if you have a healthy relationship with yourself. Otherwise, you will simply be making yourself sick and crazy.
There are four primary dramas that indicate that you don’t have a healthy relationship with yourself:
- Poor Me
- Aloof
- Interrogator
- Intimidator
- Poor Me. If you see yourself as “Poor Me,” you will always be talking about how busy or tired you are. You always see the negative – what’s missing in your life versus what you actually have. Poor Me is always looking for problems rather than celebrating what’s great about all your blessings.
- Aloof. If you are playing “Aloof” with yourself, you will not be fully present, grounded or in your body. You will be lacking a good mind-body connection and won’t really be aware of what’s actually going on inside yourself. You will hide your true feelings even from yourself.
- Interrogator. You play the “Interrogator” if you are always questioning yourself harshly about everything that you think you could possibly be doing wrong. You are highly self critical.
- Intimidator. The “Intimidator” holds a tremendous amount of unexpressed, inner directed anger. You are almost impossibly strict with yourself. You feel there are no excuses for not following a rigid plan.
How can you break these patterns and begin to form a healthy relationship with yourself?
- Start by recognizing your underlying pattern. Although it is possible you may be playing all four negative dramas, more than likely there is a predominant role you are playing with yourself. Notice your inner dialogue. How do you talk to yourself when nobody is listening?
- Set your intention to have a healthier relationship with yourself. Energy follows intention.
- Meditate regularly. When you take the time to meditate, you observe your inner dialogue. Often, just by meditating, you allow your monkey mind to run its course and eventually find some degree of inner peace.
- Give your shadow self – the one that wants to feel sorry for yourself, ignore your needs and feelings, question every little thing you do wrong or beat up on yourself constantly – a funny name.
- When your shadow self is in charge, you actually aren’t being your true self. Your true self is an unlimited, self actualized being. When your shadow shows up, say to yourself, “Oh, there he/she is again!” Have a sense of humor about it – you are only human after all.
- Practice kindness with yourself. Honor your true needs – whether they be for quiet time, rest, healthy food, exercise, prayer or time to have fun.
- Finally, love yourself just the way you are. The more of your total self you can actually love, flaws and glories, the more at peace you will feel inside. You are practicing being a human, doing the best you can with all the resources you have gathered up to now.
What is healing? Healing happens when we take the time to form a healthy, happy, unconditionally loving relationship with ourself.
