Let’s get right to it.
Your most important relationship is the one you have with YOU.
Lau Tzu said it: “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.”
Aristotle said it: “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
Oscar Wilde said it: “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
Even Madonna said it: “No one knows you better than you know yourself. Do the thing you want. Don’t wait for someone else.”
But on a regular basis, we are undermining our own relationship with ourselves.
Why does this matter?
In the end, it’s just me. Or you.
In the end, I’m responsible for how I treated myself and whether or not I respected myself enough to listen to what I knew, as opposed to following everyone else’s ideas of what they thought they knew for me.
So here you have it.
10 Ways You Are Damaging Your Relationship with Yourself
1. Making choices based on guilt.If we are letting guilt (or shame) guide our decisions, we are making choices that are about meeting the needs of other people without considering what is best for us. We can only help others if we help ourselves first. That’s why on the plane they tell you to secure your own oxygen mask first. How can you help anyone if you’re passed out because you didn’t take care of yourself first? I mean if you want to, you know, actually be there for others.
2. Putting everyone else first.All right. So maybe this should be #1, Part A, but it bears repeating. If you have drained yourself, your bucket, your-whatever-metaphor you like, you have nothing left to give. Did you hear that? If you are empty, there is nothing else left to give. You have to prioritize your own health and well-being in order to have a single drop to spare for others.
3. Not setting healthy boundaries.In order to get our own oxygen mask on, we have to have at least a little room to move. We get no room to move when we don’t set boundaries and say yes to everyone, putting their needs first and foremost. Boundaries are not meant to be barriers shutting us away from the world. A barrier is like a mote and a castle wall, 10,000 feet tall. A boundary is like a fence with a gate. You can open the gate if you want. Or you can keep it closed. You can even add a lock if you need to. But the point is that it is up to you who gets in…
4. Worrying about what others think about you.We spend so much time worrying about whether or not other’s will see us in a positive or negative light, if they will see us as amazing or pathetic, if they will see us the way we have decided they should or if they will see through the cracks and actually glimpse a real human being. Honestly. How many choices have you made, not based on what is best for you and your life, but what you feel others expect of you? My number is too high to recount in just the length of a normal blog. I’m just sayin’…
5. Hating your body.Our body is the only reason we get to be here. We berate her for being the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong look. We berate her for not being fit enough, for liking ice cream, for getting tired. We punish her by starving her, stuffing her, and over-working her. But do we ever stop and honestly think about what our body gives us, no matter what she looks like? She gives us the only vehicle we have for life…
6. Trusting society.This is all about giving our power away to advertising, sales, people trying to convince us we aren’t good enough the way we are. We need their product. We need their body. We need their success. It has nothing to do with what YOU need. It’s all about salesmanship. It’s all about manipulating you into thinking you need something outside of yourself to make you worthwhile. It’s bullshit. You are worthwhile just the way you are. You are. You are. YOU ARE!
7. Letting your Inner Superwoman be in charge.Your Inner Superwoman gets duped by society a lot. She thinks you need everything they are selling because she wants you to be good enough. Her intentions aren’t necessarily bad, just misguided. You do not need to be Superwoman. You aren’t Superwoman. And you can’t be Superwoman. Sorry to break it to you. She isn’t real. She is just what you’ve been convinced you should be.
8. Not being honest with yourself.Sometimes we gloss over our real intentions or why we are doing what we are doing. Lying to yourself will never last. If there is something legitimate that needs your attention so you can have peace in your life, fucking take care of it. None of us are all glitter and rainbows. We all have things we need to work on. Just do it. You can trick yourself into thinking you don’t have any issues. But I guarantee, it’s a temporary fix at best.
9. Talking yourself out of what matters to you.You have to hold true to what stirs your soul. Fabienne Fredrikson said it better than I ever will, “The things you are passionate about are not random, they are your calling.” YOUR CALLING…
10. Not listening to that part of you that just FUCKING KNOWS.We all have it. Some of us are more in tune with it, some are more connected to it, some are just learning to recognize it, and some think this is total bullshit. But I, with all my heart and soul, know we have the answers we need within us. We just need to learn to trust our hearts, our souls, our spirits, our whatever you want to call it. It’s our Inner Wisdom. She knows all and she is always there for us, just waiting for us to listen. “The Universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.” –Rumi
Look inside yourself. Everything that you want you already are!!!
With so much love,
