What is a relationship?
When we Google “What is a relationship?”, the first answer that pops up is “the way in which two or more people or things are connected or the state of being connected”. The next answer is “the state of being connected by blood or marriage”. And the third answer is “the way in which two or more people or groups regard and behave towards each other”.
This leaves us with the impression that we do form interconnections only with people, animals and objects outside of us. And this is true but not the whole truth. Throughout our life, we develop all sorts of connections. Relationships with our parents, food, clothes, money, lovers, friends, bosses and so on.
Types of relationships
Before we are anything else, we are humans. Nothing that is human behaviour is foreign to us. We love, we hate, we laugh, we cry. And we all need to feel a connection. We all need to feel some kind of form of relationship. Any form of relationship. Because our survival is dependent on our relationships.
When we are born we depend on our attachment to those who ensure we are fed, healthy and loved. Later on, we make friends and we continue to create connections. Meanwhile, we develop relationships with the food, the weather, and the clothes we like and dislike without even giving them a second thought. This is how the majority of us go through life: not paying attention to the existing relationships and the effect they have on us.
So, I think, regardless of who or what the relationship is with, it can be either beneficial or not beneficial to us.
To find out if any relationship is beneficial or not beneficial, we need to ask ourselves how we feel about it. If we feel good, that’s great. If we do not feel good, what steps we are prepared to take to make the change if we are willing to do so? For example, if a parent or friend, is treating us as if we do not deserve it, we can stand up for ourselves and either walk away or give them the grace to change their behaviour. All that depends on the circumstances. But the main thing is that we always have a choice. We can choose to either stay in the same predicament or make a change.
However, one relationship, that very few people talk about and we cannot walk away from, is the relationship with ourselves.
The relationship with self
The relationship with ourselves is the most important relationship of all. Why? Because we wake up with ourselves, we go to sleep with ourselves, we carry ourselves everywhere. Basically, we live with ourselves.
We do everything possible to please others, to lift them up, to look after them. We are even prepared to sacrifice ourselves for our loved ones. But we do not put our needs and wants first. I am not talking about egocentric needs and wants. We need to be able to balance what we give to others and what we give to ourselves. I have heard a lot of people saying that we need to treat ourselves in the same manner as we would treat a 5-year-old. And why not? But how often when we were kids, we were told to grow up, that our emotions do not matter, that what we want is unreasonable or unnecessary.
So we grew up that what we feel, what we want, and quite possibly what we need is not important, therefore we are not important. Quite often instead of being patient and calm with ourselves, we punish, blame, and put ourselves down. And why should we be patient and give love to someone who doesn’t deserve it? Why we would want to have a relationship with someone, who is undeserving? And yet we crave to be seen, loved, noticed, protected, and cared for.
My question is:
“What is preventing us from giving love, acknowledgement, cheer and care to ourselves?”
And the answer is “We have internalised beliefs that we are not deserving and that to deserve to be loved, seen, cared for we need to work really hard. Basically to become a martyr”.
Cultivating our self-love helps tremendously with us having that connection with ourselves. The more we push our needs and wants on the side to please others or to help others, the more we feel disconnected within. This disconnection can manifest in a sense of entitlement or resentment towards those we have helped. This disconnection makes us egoistical and in some extreme cases narcissistic.
When we feel connected within, it is much easier to feel connected to others and the World as a whole.
Do you want to come out of this type of relationship with yourself and build a new, better one? Book your appointment with me:
