“You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” —Louise L. Hay
Relationships are how we perceive the world we live in. It is the interaction between ourselves and everything outside of ourselves that creates experience, conveys information, evokes emotion and generates life. We’re usually quite focused on the relationships we have with others – things, people, places, etc. – but what about the relationship that we have with ourselves? Often, this relationship doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It can go unnoticed or neglected, taking a backseat to the interactions and experiences we have with others. However, our relationship with ourselves, is the most fundamental relationship we can have. It has the potential to be the deepest, most intimate, complete relationship of any we could ever know and it is the foundation for all other relationships!
Our relationship with our Self determines so much about us – how we interact in the world, how we view the world, how we view ourselves, whether or not we feel safe, feel confident, can trust, and whether or not we believe in positive outcome and possibility. It dictates how well we’re able to give and receive, find happiness, peace and satisfaction. The ability we have to connect with ourself determines how well we can access strength, freedom and comfort, find perspective, direction, make choices and ultimately LOVE.
Cultivating our relationship with our Self is beneficial not only to ourselves but to everyone! So, how can you discover and deepen this bond with your Self?
Read on for 10 tips to improve your relationship with your Self!
#1 – Allow time and space for yourself. Many of us seldom create time to just be with ourselves. In fact, you may even avoid spending time “alone”, but you are never really alone, because there is always someone there with you – YOU. Your Self! Really! You are very much able to be your own company. Give it a try. Spend time alone really connecting with yourself. This can be done by meditating, journaling or just being alone with your own thoughts while sitting, taking a walk, or doing an activity that doesn’t require too much of your attention. Give your attention to your Self, just as you would another – a friend or loved one. How are you doing? What’s going on inside of your head, inside your heart? Allow your time alone with yourself to be whatever it needs to be for you. Only you know you the way you do.
#2 – Listen to yourself. Just like any good relationship, communication is key and good listening is the most important part of good communication. This goes for communication with yourself, too! There is a voice inside of you that is trying to help guide you, but sometimes you may be too busy to hear it, or maybe you hear it but don’t take the time to really listen and consider what it is telling you. We all have intuition, an inner wisdom that knows what’s best for us, but often this gentle voice is covered up by loud thoughts, worries or judgements. Your inner wisdom is your number one ally and always has your best interests at heart, so any voice in your head that is tearing your down, judging or criticizing you is not your inner wisdom. That scared part of you that usually has unpleasant things to say is your ego, and all your ego really needs is to be told that everything is ok and that it can relax because your inner wisdom is there too and it has this. Once the loud ego has been given permission to take a break, you’ll be better able to feel your intuition and hear what it has to say to you.
#3 – Pay attention to your emotions. Your emotions are another really important method of communication. Emotions carry information about our experience. They are a natural way of processing everything that happens to us. We often want to push our feelings away, especially the uncomfortable ones. When we do this, we are cutting ourselves off from our natural, authentic Selves. Like putting up a barrier or door, we might want to stop the emotions from coming, but if we don’t let them through, we are blocking ourselves off from everything that comes along with them – experience, release, acceptance, learning, growth, living! Accept and allow your emotions as important communication. Usually they just want to be heard and once they’ve said their peace, they shift and move on. For more help embracing your emotions click here.
#4 – Be mindful. As you go about your day, pay attention to how you treat yourself. Notice what you are saying to yourself. Is it kind? Is it berating? Do you ever ask yourself for something and tell yourself no? Are you even listening to your requests? Are you pushing yourself really hard – do you need a break? Be mindful of your actions towards yourself just as you would any other. You may have fallen into the habit of treating yourself less than kindly. The first step towards changing this is to notice when you’re doing it and to make deliberate attempts to be kind to yourself instead. Remind yourself throughout the day to give yourself the love that you deserve.
#5 – Support yourself. How great does it feel when someone believes in you? When we are supported by others, it lifts us up, makes us feel like we can do more than we may have thought we could without that support. What if I told you that you could give that same support to yourself? You can! Just give it a try, even if you don’t think it’s possible. Believe in yourself. Believe that you can do it, that you are strong, that you are kind, that you are worthy. There’s nothing stopping you from doing this but yourself, which means you have 100% control over whether or not you decide to do it. It just takes practice. Start simple, even if you’re not sure that you mean it, tell yourself that you believe in yourself, that you are good enough, that you love yourself. Be your own cheerleader and watch yourself be lifted up by yourself!
#6 – Gain perspective. Sometimes we get stuck. We’re so focused on the tasks at hand and their outcomes that we lose sight of the whole picture. Something “really important” is taking all of our attention. It is more important than anything and it’s all I can see. We think that we need this thing to be OK. We’ve convinced ourselves that we need a certain thing to be a certain way and this is the ONLY way. We think. And we can’t see past these thoughts to anything but this idea. But if we pull back, if we take a moment to just step outside of ourselves for a moment and look at ourselves from another point of view. If we become the witness and notice ourselves, suddenly we can see. We can see what we are doing! Maybe we can even understand why we are doing it. We can see that we actually DO have choices! That we only got stuck clinging to an idea and we lost sight of ourselves. If we can shift our perspective to notice ourselves outside of our situation, suddenly we have clarity, full vision, and we remember more of ourselves exists than this one part we’ve been acting through. Through this awareness we are able to connect to our total being and suddenly we are free. There is a way forward and it starts with you.
#7 – Practice Self Care. Take care of yourself! Would you let someone you love run themselves ragged? Deny themselves the things that bring them joy? Of course not! The same should go for you. Make sure that you are getting enough rest, eating well, honoring your body, making time to do the things that you love to do, paying attention to your needs and meeting them! Do things that replenish your Soul. You can’t serve from an empty vessel – making self care a priority ensures that you are well enough to be able to show up as your best Self in the world. Your Self will thank you for it! (and so will everyone else).
#8 – Know that you are worthy, just as you are. You are deserving of love, happiness, joy, peace, fulfillment and life itself, just because. You have nothing to prove. You don’t need to do anything special or be anything different. You are enough. So is everyone else. Don’t tell yourself anything different. Don’t exclude yourself from happiness or punish yourself for “not being good enough”. You’re welcome to work on yourself, everyone is a work in progress, but at your core, your true, authentic Self is infinitely worthy. Allow this to sink in and try to remember it when you are looking in the mirror.
#9 – Love yourself unconditionally. Love yourself, no matter what. Even when you “make a mistake”, don’t make that a reason to withhold yourself of your own love. How are you meant to heal yourself without compassion towards yourself? When we withhold love from ourselves as a sort of punishment for our actions or for any other reason, we lose faith in our ability to overcome challenges, to change and to grow. We are less able to move forward and can get stuck in a pattern of self shaming or hatred. We feel desperate for love and approval from other people and places where we may not ever find it. We feel like there isn’t enough love for us and therefore not enough love to give to others. Our well runs dry, but all it takes to replenish it is to look within and allow that love to come through, starting with ourselves. Loving yourself unconditionally doesn’t mean that you aren’t honest with yourself or that you let yourself off the hook when you display bad behavior. It means that you look at yourself and you say “I know I can do better, I support myself and I love myself enough to do my very best, even when it’s hard.” And if you “fail” and fall and get hurt, you are there for yourself to give yourself the love you need to get back on your feet, always.
#10 – Recognize oneness. If you have a hard time treating yourself as well as you do others, connect with the concept of oneness. Because we are all interconnected and each of us is a part of one great unified existence, our actions affect each other, even when those actions are directed at our own Selves. Compassion for our Self is compassion for others and vice versa. When we connect with the fact that when others are suffering we suffer in response to their suffering, we must also realize that it goes both ways. And, when we suffer, others are affected negatively by our suffering. So when you take care of yourself and treat yourself well, you are helping and healing all beings, especially those directly affected by your own wellbeing (partners, children, family, friends, co-workers, anyone you come into contact with). When you lift your own Self up, you create the potential to lift others up as well!
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