Relationships are often time the corner stone to our lives. We build relationships with people on a daily basis and learning how to create a balance in these relationships allows us to have a better understanding of who we are as individuals. I was always taught that if you don’t love yourself then how can you expect anyone else to? Having a healthy relationship with ourselves is often times over looked or put on the back burner. We set out to please others and if that means putting our own needs aside then well, we might do it a few times but then a “few times” becomes many and before long it’s a daily occurrence.
As women, we are wearing many hats; we serve as Wife, Daughter, Mother, Sister, worker, Aunt, friend and so many others. While we are working to achieve these jobs and duties we may not think about what it is that we are being forced to change.
Learning to love yourself will completely change the relationships that you have with others. Have you ever wondered why you keep allowing someone to be in your life even though they hurt you time and time again? Why do you forgive them only to be let down a short time later? You make excuses for their behaviors or threats but you never follow through, you may even blame yourself for why they hurt you.
What’s at the root of this is lack of self love. Relationships you have with other are a partial reflection of how you see yourself. I have encounter women who constantly complain about their friends, family member or spouse and when I ask “Well why do you continue to allow them to do these things to you?”
I often get the same response, “I don’t know?” This bothers me thus making me probe deeper into the relationship asking more questions. It becomes very apparent to me that the more you allow someone to mistreat you the more they will push the limits and continue to do so. Learning to love yourself is not an overnight process, it takes time and work. The first step in this process is taking a long hard look at who you are and what changes or alters you have been forces to make just to maintain certain relationships. I’ve spent many months discovering my feelings, evaluating what I’ve had changed to please someone else or what I had given up and sacrificed and to be honest I was disgusted with the shell of a person I had become! It wasn’t me but instead it was bits and pieces of characteristics that others wanted me to be.
Look through an old photo album, scrap book or high school journal to jog your memory and fall back in love with your true self!
