With Valentine’s Day upon us, I wanted to raise awareness of why I believe the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.
I know it can be wonderful to have a relationship with someone you love, however I also know the most important relationship is with yourself.
Why is the relationship with yourself so important?
Because if you don’t have a good relationship with yourself it’s likely you’ll end up seeking externally to feel good about yourself. It’s an innate need to feel good about yourself and you will always find a way to achieve this sense of being.
External validation can become something that you then rely upon to make you feel happy, good enough and complete. If you’re in a relationship with someone to help you feel good about yourself, you’re constantly be seeking validation from them.
Why is this a problem?
Consider if that person you seek validation from is having a bad day, or at worst you end up splitting up and they stop communicating with you, imagine how you’d feel? Pretty lost, alone and down on yourself.
What if the person you seek love from makes you feel like crap and you end up staying out of fear due to threats, children or believing you’d be unable to live and manage without them? Over time that erodes all sense of self-worth.
You miss out on so much when you’re not in a relationship with yourself!
Imagine knowing and embodying yourself as the love you seek externally? Your natural state of being is love, you never need to seek externally for love.
You’d feel able to make decisions knowing you’re good enough and worthy of more.
Love is your natural state….
Consider how you feel when you are walking along and the sun is shining on your face, if you are being in the present moment, you’ll have no cares or worries and experience your inner state of love.
How do you feel when you are doing something that you lights you up? Excited, happy or full of joy.
What about when you wake up after a great night’s sleep: oh the bliss.
You see there are so many ways in which you evoke the feelings that are often sought outside of the relationship with yourself.
What’s most magical about being in relationship with yourself is there is never a need to worry or feel the fear of something not working out, because when you’re in a relationship with yourself you just know that whatever may occur it’s always taken care of.
Even if your mind believes you can’t handle it, your heart and soul know that you can.
Being in a relationship with yourself is about knowing and trusting that you are always safe and always being taken care of.
This level of awareness is what creates a sense of inner peace.
But if you’re too busy believing that you’ll only find happiness and inner peace by something or someone externally you’ll miss the opportunity to connect with your greatest gift: YOURSELF.
Plus by being in relationship with yourself you actually create more deeply connected relationships with your partner, children, family, friends and colleagues. How? Because you are more present, you listen, you hear and you see them and give them the space to be who they really are.
Being in a relationship with yourself is by far the most important relationship you can have.
5 simple ways to start create a loving relationship with yourself:
- Spend time alone and really get to know you.
- Talk to yourself (I promise you are not going mad).
- Allow yourself to write freestyle and see what comes up.
- Be kind to yourself, express appreciation for everything you create and experience.
- Spend time ‘being’ in the ways that light you up.
At first, you may need to get past negative chatter or words that present themselves, but the more kind, loving and appreciative you can be of yourself as the creator of all your experiences, the more you’ll start to fall into a relationship with yourself.
The key is to start trusting and believing in yourself and know that you are perfect exactly as you are.
If there are things you do or say to others, or yourself, that you don’t like, become mindful of these words and actions and take responsibility to end them.
It really can be simple to create a loving relationship with yourself.