It wasn’t until my world turned upside down, at the lowest I’d ever been in my life, when I truly started to learn the importance of having a relationship with yourself. It’s real. And if you do it right, it can change your life.
People say that all the time: “Love yourself before you can love another,” “practice self care,” “fill your own cup,” etc., but there’s more to it than that. We know we need to take care of ourselves, we feel a nagging pull to do so, but our lives move too fast, we have too many responsibilities and not enough time. The thing is, every time we choose not to take care of ourselves, we move further away from our true selves.
Your relationship with yourself should be treated as any other relationship you have – with friends, family, kids, husbands, wives. It may sound trivial but it requires the same outputs: listening, learning, understanding, nurturing. Think of it as if there are two parts to you – two selves. You have the first self: the one who interacts with the outside world, the one who lives your day to day, the one who shows itself in every moment, most of the time unconsciously. Then you have your subconscious self, the truly conscious one. It’s almost as if she’s sitting in a dark corner, observing, watching everything you say and do. Though it sounds unsettling, your subconscious self is your true self. I describe her as creepily sitting in a dark corner watching you because most people are disconnected from her. They ignore her and she gets moved further and further away from the crowd in your mind and backed into a corner. But she’s still there. She’s patiently waiting for you to see her again, speak to her, ask her what she thinks.
When you’re disconnected from her, when she’s in that dark corner, that’s when things start to go haywire. That’s when you start to feel restless and your world enters the realm of chaos. You say things and do things that pleases someone else but you feel are left with an uneasy feeling, unhappy with yourself to some extent. Maybe you can’t pinpoint why. That’s when your subconscious self is whispering things like, “you don’t really think that,” “you don’t really believe that.” Your actions reveal your values and when they don’t align, we feel it. We can’t always explain it, but that’s what’s happening. We typically ignore that uneasy feeling and go about our day. It starts as just a twinge of unease. Nothing to worry about. But over time it builds up. Until one day things fall apart. That’s when the disconnection to your true self peaks. That’s when you feel lost and sickened by yourself. That’s when you feel the most alone, when you’ve hit rock bottom. That when you know it’s time to rebuild your relationship with yourself.
I’d argue that it’s easier to plummet to rock bottom to begin working on that relationship. At that point all you have is yourself and you have to make that worth something. So you start there. You rebuild. You start getting to know yourself. You ask yourself questions. You listen. You ask yourself what you truly believe, how you truly feel, what you truly want. You listen to the answer. You feel the answer. You start to tell yourself the truth. No lies. You cannot fool your subconscious self. She knows you better than you do. You cannot outsmart her. Once you start telling the truth and understanding who you are in your inner world, you begin acting in alignment with yourself and what you value in your outer world. Then you begin to trust yourself. Every action you take, every word you say that is truthful and aligned with who you are proves to your subconscious self that you are trustworthy. When you trust yourself, you become confident. When you become confident, the world opens its doors to you. You become strong, honorable, honest.
Building the relationship with your subconscious self is crucial to your happiness. When you know that you are not only capable of taking care of yourself but that you will take care of yourself, you are unstoppable. When those excruciatingly painful emotions rise up, you know that you will be there to sit with your inner self, to comfort your inner self, to feel the emotions, be with them, to let them come and to let them go.
I’m not a fan of “shoulding,” but this relationship should be the highest priority relationship in your life. When you have a strong relationship with yourself, you can build strong relationships with others because you know what they need. You know that they need you to tell the truth, to be trustworthy, to sit with them in times of pain and suffering and to share in times of joy. It all starts with you and your inner self.
moodybreadcrumbs 