Relationship with Yourself

Your relationship with yourself is THE MOST important relationship you will ever have on this planet. That relationship is the basis for EVERY other relationship you will ever have: those with your significant other, with your family, with your children, with your friends, with your coworkers, and even with your spiritual connection (aka God/Universe).We project what’s inside ourselves onto the outside world. 

We attract the people/situations/experiences that we believe deep down we deserve. We model for our children how to either love themselves, or more often, how to NOT love themselves, because we do not know how to truly love ourselves.

 Most of us (I would even say ALL of us) are hyper-critical of ourselves and have deep-seated, limiting beliefs (sometimes completely hidden from our conscious awareness, sometimes not) about ourselves such as:

I’m not good enough.

I’m not worthy.

I’m not lovable.

I have to suffer.

I don’t deserve better (health, love, money, career, friendships, surroundings, etc).

It’s the human condition. It’s the ego self.

There is not one person on this planet who has not been hurt, who has not experienced pain, who has not felt worthless, who has not felt like a “nothing” or a “nobody” at some point in their lives, and most likely more than once, and even more likely: on a very consistent basis. Not even one. 

Of course there are varying degrees of pain that people experience, but the bottom line is that we have all experienced it and the resulting self-sabotaging beliefs that come with it…and often the transformation that also comes with it. It’s what we do with that pain that differentiates us. Some choose to turn their pain into their poison and some choose to turn their pain into their power. 

If a person denies their pain, it’s because they are either lying in an attempt to “hide” (even from themselves) or because it isn’t even in their conscious awareness, meaning it’s hidden deep in the recesses of their subconscious mind. Which basically means they aren’t ready to face it or to heal it.

I believe that part of why we come here is to learn to love and accept ourselves unconditionally, so that we can more freely love and accept others unconditionally.

If everyone did their own work to heal their inner wounds, what an amazing world this would be. There would be less hate and less pain inflicted upon others, because we wouldn’t be projecting our own self-hatred and repressed pain onto everyone else.

Start with YOU. Start where you are. Start today. 

If you want to change the world, the best place to start is with yourself. 

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise so I am changing myself.” – Rumi

Liz Burkholder, NP (originally posted on Facebook on 8.1.18)