We live in an output-based society. To the point that many of us fall in to the trap of believing that our worth is equal to our output. Examples of this include economic success, productivity, or friendships/relationships collected/maintained. We are so busy and so focused on these measurable aspects of what we do that we can lose focus on who we are. How often do we take a break from our relationships with our careers and other people to take a good look at our relationships with ourselves? What is your relationship with you?
This can be an uncomfortable question for many of us. If we do not particularly like ourselves, which is very common in our society, we will not enjoy a hard look at our relationships with ourselves. Similar to how a bully doesn’t enjoy honestly examining why they bully someone. If you are in an unhealthy relationship with yourself, you are both bully and bullied. Neither position is a comfortable one to be in.
It feels much easier to just focus on other things. It is more important that we just sit in this discomfort for the time it takes to understand where our relationships with ourselves could be healthier, and make changes necessary to do so. Unlike an unhealthy or abusive relationship with another person, or even with a situation like a job that you invest much more than you receive, you cannot leave a relationship with yourself for the sake of your safety, health, and wellbeing. This is a life-long relationship—the closest and most important relationship that you will ever have—and if yours is unhealthy, it is time for a change.
How to Evaluate Your Relationship With You
I encourage you to sit down with yourself and ask yourself some hard questions about your relationship, thinking of yourself, if it helps, as you would a romantic partner:
Do you …
- feel like you know yourself?
- trust yourself?
- enjoy your own company?
- spend as much time with yourself as you would like?
How do you …
- take care of yourself?
- talk to yourself?
- show love to yourself?
Do you have different standards for yourself than you do for other people?
For each of these questions, try to notice your answers without judging them. For many of these, your answers can create opportunities for more questions. As an example, if you answer “I don’t,” to your question about showing love to yourself, ask yourself why you don’t. The exercise of asking “why” to your own answers, following it down to the real root of the issue, can be a powerful and surprising one.
Next, I encourage you to ask yourself the following:
What do you like about yourself?
What traits do you value?
How have you demonstrated the traits you value?
These questions will likely give you a point of connection with yourself that you can build on. If your perception of yourself makes it impossible to answer these questions, I recommend seeking counselling support to help you.
Moving forward from this meeting with yourself, I encourage you to make two small shifts to the way you interact with yourself that will have big results:
- Replace subtle judgement words for yourself/your actions like “should/shouldn’t” or “good/bad” with “healthy/unhealthy.”
When you catch yourself thinking the equivalent of, for example, “I should/shouldn’t do ______,” stop and reword! “Doing ______ would be healthy/unhealthy,”. This may seem like such a miniscule difference, but think of this in terms of a relationship. Who likes being told what to do all of the time? Who enjoys every small action being judged off-hand as good or bad?
- Talk to yourself the way you would to another person that you love.
You may be faking it at first, but fake it until you make it. If you wouldn’t say something to a close friend, your partner, your parent, or your child, don’t say it to yourself.
How Does This Change in My Day
The beauty of changes like these is that they will stick with practice. At first you will be catching yourself and re-wording. Then, sooner than you think, you will be treating yourself better without trying. Communicating with yourself will become a healthier and more effective process. You will understand yourself better. As you judge yourself less, you will like yourself and enjoy your own company more, and spending time with yourself will get easier.
All of these skills and your healthier relationship with yourself will also seep into other relationships you have and other aspects of your life. This isn’t the point of this post, of course, but it is a great benefit! Just remember that investing in your relationship with yourself is the most important investment you can make in any relationship. This is not because you are the one person that you are truly stuck with. It is because your relationship with yourself is the deepest and most committed relationship you will ever have.