Before anyone can think of being in a relationship with anyone else, the most important relationship to focus on first is the one with yourself. In fact it is arguably the most important relationship in life. Afterall you are in the presence of yourself and in your own mind every moment of every day. And if that space is not a loving, safe space, it can be very hard to function in life positively, and enjoy moments at all.
What is Self-Relationship?
Self-relationship is the foundation for every other type of relationship in life. And more specifically to establish a relationship with yourself, it all starts with first analyzing your traits and how certain attitudes affect your relationship with others. For example: your sense of empathy, narcissism, overwhelming shame etc. You need to begin by digging deeper and understanding why you have certain feelings about yourself and why you have certain feelings towards others. You can do this even simply by beginning to identify traits which we associate with others being in a good place, having their act together, showing good interpersonal skills, appearing successful by conventional definitions. This will help you understand why you hold yourself to the standards of others and why some of those self imposed definitions may not be the healthiest. Still not sure how to get started? Luckily OnlifeCoach is a great place to start. Providing a virtual life coach making getting to love yourself that much more convenient.
The Goal of Self Love?
The main goal is understanding yourself and focusing on your own relationship with yourself. If you can establish a nurturing relationship this essentially is self love. Many of us are naturally in a place where we feel doubts and insecurities about ourselves and that's normal. Those may in fact never go away, but there are certainly actions we can take to improve your view of yourself starting with possibly looking into some professional help and finding a professional life coach. After all we all need some help sometimes.
But what factors go into how you see yourself initially? Before self love begins?
A lot of it has to do with early development and our childhood experiences. Our parents, how they treated us, how they treated each other and others in their lives etc. it sets the tone for our own relationships even with ourselves going forward. As humans we tend to mimic what we were taught and saw as a child. So if your parents were toxic and unsupportive in their own relationship, it is likely you will not have the healthiest relationship with yourself and project those same toxic behaviors internally. However that doesn't mean you have to stay that way forever. With the help of an online life coach you can get started on the path to healing.
So what does having a healthy relationship with yourself mean?
Having a really good relationship with yourself means that, while I know that you need other people in many ways, you should have a certain level of self sufficiency established. You should be able to know that although your relationships with others are important, you have everything you need in terms of emotional support within yourself. If you are able to cultivate that relationship you will be completely autonomous and essentially feel powerful and stronger in every aspect of your life. This kind of feeling is truely priceless. Wanting to get there? Again, OnlifeCoach is a great place to start, simply sign up and start finding the best life coach for you.
So what can you do to get to this level of self love and understanding?
Some of these will seem repetitive and obvious from previous research or word of mouth, but hopefully some, if not all can be of use to you.
- Set the long term intention of getting to know yourself and knowing that over the years understanding yourself will change as we are ever evolving people.
- Furthermore break down this long term goal into achievable small mini goals. Have proven ways to stay on the right track
- For example: you notice you are extremely judgmental towards yourself about your professional career and success. Give yourself some exercises to change that, such as positive mantras etc. and in a few months check in and see how you’re feeling and if there has been any change.
- Furthermore break down this long term goal into achievable small mini goals. Have proven ways to stay on the right track
- Prioritize basic self care. How we take care of our bodies on the outside, will directly correlate to how we feel on the inside. This includes sleep, exercise, your food intake etc.
- Seek others who have the same mindset. This means both spending time with people who make you feel good about yourself, but also spending time with other people who have the goal to get to know themselves and love themselves as well. When you surround yourself with people who have the same mindset and goals you become each others examples and encourage each other to stick to it.
- Have a personal crisis plan. Know that in life there very well may be some bumps in the road and challenging times. Be mentally prepared for this and have a plan for how you will in a more healthy way approach and handle the situation. How you will understand your own emotions better and not fall back into old habits like self pity, or justifying negative behavior.
- Speak differently to yourself. This means actively paying attention to your thought process. When you begin to feel that you are insulting yourself or being overly critical stop. Stop, take a breath, recognize the anxiety you are imposing on yourself and then try to rephrase and speak to yourself more kindly.
These are just a few suggestions to help get you started on your path to self love, but you can always do more. Be sure to do some more research and take this task seriously. You are the most important person in your own life and the first step to achieving true happiness and satisfaction in life begins with how you love yourself. Start looking into some life coach organizations and you will see it is worth the effort.