How is your relationship with yourself? To have a strong relationship with yourself requires work. We want to able to say we are our own bestfriend and in order to do so our relationship with yourself needs to be a priority. It impacts your relationships with others and overall mental health.
In this post, ways to strengthen your relationship with yourself will be provided, but remember it will take consistency, patience and work. Everyone’s journey is different and on it’s own timing. Give yourself grace and gratitude for putting in the effort to improve yourself.
This post is all about your relationship with yourself, reflecting on it, and strengthening it.
How was your relationship with yourself as a child?
It takes guidance to create and nurture a healthy relationship with yourself. Did you receive that guidance? As a child, if we are always shown disappointment and anger when we make mistakes we are going to believe we are deserving of that treatment. We will repeat the same harsh, judgemental words to ourselves even when those harsh parents/adults aren’t there. It becomes second nature that we don’t even realize how tough we are on ourselves, we think it’s normal because it’s all we know.
If you weren’t shown love, grace and patience as a child I just want to let you know that you are not your mistakes/failures. You are human and humans make mistakes, it’s part of learning to mess up. I’m truly sorry you experienced that, but now you have the power to give yourself the compassion and patience you needed as a child. Speaking from experience, it’s definitely not an easy process but you will strengthen your self love and be your own best friend.
Self-Reflection/Journaling Opportunity:
If you have a journal, I recommend you write your answers to the questions below to collect your thoughts. You can also just reflect on these questions mentally or outloud. If you start to feel triggered or upset after reflecting on your childhood, pause and take a few slow, deep breaths. Allow any strong emotions to come and go. Show yourself and your inner child extra love in that moment.
Think about how you felt about yourself when you made a mistake or failed at something. How did your parents speak to you? How did they treat you? Did they tell you loving, kind words to ensure that you weren’t so hard on yourself or did they make you feel worse by yelling, blaming and showing disappointment? Were you allowed to fully express emotions when you were sad or angry? Did they teach you how to regulate your emotions and express yourself in words?
How is your relationship with yourself now?
Compare your relationship with yourself as a child and now, is there similarities? Do you still see yourself and speak to yourself the way you did when you were younger? Whether your relationship has gotten better or not, it’s still important to acknowledge how you were raised to view and treat yourself.
Obviously you are here because your relationship with yourself isn’t where you would want it to be, but why is that? How do you speak to yourself? How do you view yourself? Do you enjoy your own company?
Would you speak to your friends/partner the way you speak to yourself when you make a mistake? Do you judge your friends/partner the way you judge yourself? Most likely not. Now think about if your friends/partner spoke to you the way you did yourself, would you still allow them in your life?
Ways to strengthen your relationship with yourself
Spend time in solitude
Being in solitude allows you to truly focus on yourself. Spending time alone gets you comfortable to be with your own company. You are able to reflect, relax, and have peace. With time you will begin to love your own company and have a sense of self that enhances how you view yourself. I have two posts that can help you enjoy being alone: Learning to Be Alone & How You Can Start and 11 Simple Solo Date Ideas|Enjoy Being Alone.
Self care
There’s so many ways you can implement more self care. Self care can be taking a break from work to prevent burn out, or taking 15 minutes of your day to meditate. Show up for yourself. Do things you know are good for you, like reading more, getting more sleep, maintaining boundaries, and masturbating ;). You get to decide what is self care because you know what’s best for yourself.
Have self compassion
I know this is easier said than done, especially if you are tough on yourself. When you’re beating yourself up for a mistake, think about what you would tell a friend if they were in your shoes. Tell yourself or write down some uplifting words you would tell a friend. You have the capability to express compassion, your brain is just trained to automatically go to judging yourself. You wont always remember to be kinder to yourself, but that’s completely fine. It takes time and a conscious effort to unlearn thought patterns you’ve had your whole life. I highly recommend reading Self Compassion: The proven power of being kind to yourself by Kristin Neff. The book is easy to read and provides a ton of examples and exercises to practice self compassion.
Speak Respectfully To & About Yourself
Words are power. The words we say to and about ourselves have more an affect on us than we realize. If you are always making comments to yourself and with others, “Ugh, I’m so dumb” , “Ew, I look so ugly right now”, “Omg I wouldn’t be able to do that” then you’re going to subconsciously truly believe those words about yourself! Not only that, but you’re showing others that you lack confidence and some people might start to think they can treat you without respect since you’re already showing that lack of respect for yourself. Try to change those words to, “It’s okay, it was just a mistake.”, “I always look good.”, and “I am capable of doing that!”.
You are worthy of respect, so even if you don’t believe it, give yourself those damn compliments! It’s nice to receive a compliment from someone else, even if we don’t 100% believe it. So why not get used to giving yourself compliments and give yourself that validation? If you’re still struggling to speak kindly to yourself, atleast catch yourself when you’re putting yourself down. You can simply correct yourself and say, “Nope, that’s not true”. Be more conscious of how you speak to yourself, at times we don’t even realize how often we negatively talk to and about ourselves.
Heal your inner child
That little child that wasn’t shown guidance on how to have a healthy relationship with oneself is still there inside of you. Now you have the power to be there for your inner child and let them know that they are safe with you. Reparent yourself. Show love to that younger version of you, tell yourself the words you wish your parents told you, they need it.
Do things your younger self enjoyed. Be goofy and dumb with your friends. Dance the night away. Play video games. Anything you enjoy that brings out the childlike energy inside you.
Have self discipline to complete and achieve goals
If you have the self discipline to complete and achieve goals, you will gain much more confidence and pride in yourself. You will see that you truly are capable of what you set your mind to. It’s not easy to always be self disciplined, but your future self will thank you.
Whether you’re in a relationship or not, your relationship needs to come first. Once you have a healthier relationship with yourself, you project that self love and become an even better friend, partner, sibling and so on. You’ll handle setbacks better and your mental health will improve.
Goodluck on your journey of self improvement and self love. Thank you so much for reading and have a great day/night <3