I’ve been working on this post for a while but thought now would be the perfect time to finish it off considering what’s currently happening in the world. Many of us are practicing self-isolation and social distancing for 14 days and whether you’re fortunate enough to be able to do it with your loved ones, or are having to go it alone, for many of us having to spend time with ourselves for 14 days straight with limited external distractions can be overwhelming and uncomfortable.
Our lives have become so busy and full of things; commitments, responsibilities, social events, social media, Netflix – everything it seems, except quiet time with ourselves. So many people don’t know how to be alone and so self-isolation can bring up a lot of anxiety and uncomfortable emotions. Maybe so much so that you abandon your responsibility of social-distancing to avoid being with yourself. Although I love being alone and am so comfortable in my own space, I’ve never been stuck at home by myself for 14 days straight and so it’s going to be a transformative time for all of us.
Most of us grow up learning to rely and depend on other people to make us happy and keep us satisfied in life. We learn to depend on our parents for guidance and support. We learn to rely on our friends for advice and to pick us up when we’re down. We learn to expect our partners to make us happy and meet all of our needs. What most of us don’t learn however, is that the only person we should ever really need is ourselves.
What I mean is that we truly need to learn how to make ourselves feel happy, secure, loved and supported without expecting it from an external source. We put so much effort and energy into our relationships with others in the hope that we will get what we need from them, but the truth is that we should be able to be content in our relationship with ourselves, and the joy and love we receive from others should be a beautiful addition to our life and not something we rely on for our happiness.
Here are some of the huge lessons I’ve learned about the importance of our relationships with ourselves:
- You are the only one who will ever truly be yours
We come into this world alone, and we will one day all die alone. Yes, we are surrounded by love and have beautiful, satisfying relationships with others, but you are the only one walking your journey. Others are free to come and go in our lives as they please, but the only one who will always be around is you. No matter what crisis occurs, YOU will be there to get through it. No matter how your heart breaks, YOU will be there to pick yourself up. Through all of life’s beautiful moments, YOU will be there to celebrate them. You are yours, and you are the only one who can never leave you. The better the relationship you have with yourself, the more you will be able to comfort, support and help yourself through all of life’s ups and downs.
2. Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for all other relationships
What you can’t provide for yourself you seek from others. The way you treat yourself sets a standard for how you treat others. If you are constantly neglecting your own needs, beating yourself up, judging yourself and only seeing the negative in the person you are, how are you supposed to be able to support and love others unconditionally? And if you can’t love yourself through thick and thin how do you expect someone else to? If you have a healthy, positive relationship with yourself and are loving yourself properly, first of all, you wont have unrealistic expectations of other people (ie. You won’t be expecting them to love you in a way that you can’t even love yourself), and secondly, you will be more inclined to treat people with more love and compassion because that’s the way you treat yourself.
I’ve spent a significant amount of years in serious relationships and it took me a long time to realize how to be emotionally independent whilst having a partner in my life. The relationship you have with your partner, best friend etc. is built on the foundation of the relationship you have with yourself. If you haven’t done the work to get your internal relationship right, then your external relationships are going to filled with expectation, turbulence, anxiety, pressure and a lack of boundaries as you continue to seek from them what you should be giving to yourself.
3.You know yourself best
Often times we get upset with people who love us “wrong”. Maybe they say things we don’t want to hear, they aren’t as supportive as we would like, they don’t do the things we need to help us feel better. Everyone is just doing the best they can, and you are the only one who knows you inside and out. In any given moment, only you know exactly what you need. It is your responsibility to do that for yourself, because the way you feel is nobody else’s responsibility. It’s amazing to have people who love you that put in the effort and energy to try make you feel supported and uplift you – but it is not something you should ever expect or need. You and you alone have the power to help yourself, and that is vitally important to embrace because if you can do the things you know need to be done, you can step back and appreciate the efforts of the people in your life and not depend on them for your well-being.
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