How do I create a healthy relationship with myself?
Do you ever feel like all you do is berate yourself? Or you find yourself saying things like ‘I’m so useless’, ‘I’m rubbish at …’, ‘why do I always get it wrong?’
This kind of negative self-talk ends up becoming our internal narrative. Our story. One of the many reasons people come to me for therapeutic support is to change this internalised belief. People really want to create a healthy relationship with themselves.
In today’s post I’m going to share a some practices that will help you change how you see yourself. And set you onto the road to speaking to your Self compassionately and with kindness.
Taking time to build a strong, secure attachment to yourself, otherwise called self-relationship, is essential for mental wellbeing. We can start to build this self-relationship with good self-care practices and self-love. Allowing you to create the foundations for good mental health.
This isn’t about toxic positivity. This is about treating your Self how you would treat your own child. Or a much-loved friend. Speaking to your Self kindly, compassionately, and offering gentle encouragement.
Building a healthy self-relationship forms the foundation upon which self-care practices and self-love develop. This is where true resilience and emotional balance begin.
Resilience?
I don’t like the word resilience because its meaning has become lost in all the toxic positivity messages we get nowadays. But let’s give it a bit of a reframe.
Resilience is not…
Carrying on when things are bad or going wrong while ignoring or not addressing the root cause
Continuing with people, situations, jobs, friendships that hurt you and damage your self-esteem
Keeping silent even when our boundaries are violated
Resilience is…
Putting in place boundaries that protect you, keep you safe, and allow you to have rich and meaningful relationships - with your Self and others
Changing things that don’t work for you
Finding the courage and curiosity to explore different options, and making informed choices about your life and relationships
When you begin to cultivate a positive relationship with YOU, you can engage in a compassionate dialogue with Self that acknowledges your needs, feelings, and experiences without judgement.
You can be truly resilient because you embody the true meaning of the word.
Self Care
Self-care practices are a kind of beautiful expression of the self-relationship. While we often get sold the idea that self-care is bubble baths, going shopping, or playing sports, in reality, self-care encompass a variety of activities. It can be anything that promotes physical, emotional, and mental health. And will be different from person to person.
Spending time doing something you love, that is nourishing to body and mind, is self-care. It can bring the gifts of social time, and alone time, that every human being needs to thrive. Giving yourself complete focus and attention by indulging in your chosen past time is the ultimate expression of a health relationship with Self.
Self-care helps to replenish energy levels, reduce stress, and enhance overall mood because it releases all manner of incredible chemicals in our body and brain. Endorphins, oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin to name a few. All of which have a crucial function in our overall system.
Setting aside dedicated time for personal hobbies, practising mindfulness techniques, or ensuring adequate rest and relaxation, are vital components of forming a meaningful attachment to Self. These intentional practices send powerful signals to both the body and mind that they are deserving of care and attention. Reinforcing a deep sense of worthiness. This can permeate other areas of your life in a positive way.
Self-care is also a key way of avoiding burnout.
Self Love
Self-love is integral to this transformative process to creating healthy self-relationship or attachment. Self-love goes far beyond self-acceptance. It involves the active embracing of your unique individuality, recognising personal strengths as well as areas you find challenging. Treating yourself with kindness and compassion. And curiosity.
You wouldn’t tell your child off for something going wrong that was out of their control. You wouldn’t give your friend feedback when they’ve confided in you along the lines of ‘What did you do that for? That was stupid!’
So why do we do this to ourselves?
How we speak to our Self reinforces our sense of self, how we feel about ourself, and creates an internal narrative that is either largely forgiving and positive. Or largely unforgiving and negative.
Where this story of ourself originated from can be complex, but often involves an older person when we were young. A well meaning, or not so well meaning, adult may once have said something that hurt us, causing shame. This creates a protector part that exiled that pain away. It felt it needed to put its defences up to keep you safe. This can manifest as being very reactive in certain situations that trigger that old wound. Or negative self-talk that keeps us small.
The protector part is always trying to keep us safe by the way. Its intentions are good, even if the results are not.
However, we can take steps to help our wounded and protector parts from running our lives. Having a nurturing attitude can significantly alter your overall perspective. Giving you the space to navigate the various challenges and setbacks that life inevitably presents.
Try this: start to notice all the negative self-talk you use over a day or a week. Keep it noted in a journal or calendar, or use your notes app on your phone.
Start to make a note of what was going on at the time the negative self-talk came up. Are there patterns to the situations that cause you to talk poorly to yourself?
Try to identify what sensations you experienced and where you felt them in your body. This can be things like a racing heart, sweaty hands, feeling sick, a pain in your tummy, or any part of your body.
Once we bring the awareness, then we can start to tackle it. When a situation occurs that usually has you berating yourself, instead try to self-soothe. You can say things to yourself like: ‘it’s okay, we’re safe and we can deal with this.’ ‘this situation is not my fault, and whatever is going on for x person and their reaction is not about me.’
In time, how you see yourself will evolve. And you will replace negative self-talk with something more compassionate and kind.
When you honour yourself wholeheartedly, you can create an important buffer against negative self-talk and external pressures. This helps with the resilience I mentioned earlier, but also starts to re-wire the brain and get us out of those ruts of repeating thoughts.
The interconnectedness of self-relationship building, self-care, and self-love contributes greatly to improved mental health. People who cultivate a strong self-relationship are more likely to advocate effectively for their own needs, seek help when necessary, and engage in healthy, positive behaviours.
You can also learn to respond to your emotions with awareness and compassion rather than fear or avoidance. Which can lead to a more integrated and harmonious existence in all aspects of life.
Interested in working with me? Why not check out my coaching and therapy pages to see how I work, and how I can help you.
I’ve worked with dozens of people to address self-esteem, trauma, building confidence, improving relationship with others and self, and so many other challenges so many of us are dealing with these days.
Or, share your self-care or building self-love tips in the comments!
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Claire x
