To have fulfilling relationships with anyone else we need to first develop a loving relationship with self. It’s the foundation for any type of love we have with others. Without the ability to love ourselves we feel emptiness or self hate which leads to needing feelgoods such as food, alcohol and other drugs or addictive processes like work, gambling, love and sex. To develop healthy self love we list our strengths and weaknesses, because that raises our self awareness – education is 50% of achieving the outcome we want. Then we list what we want out of life and what we definitely don’t want. Try it and see.
Yvonne was a pleasant person who
made friends easily but she was
extremely overweight from using
food to medicate her resentments
at times she appeared “sickly sweet”
and so apologetic that it seemed
she was even apologising for breathing
that is codependent behaviour and
can only lead to unhappiness
as she got into recovery from codependency
she developed her relationship with herself
in listing her strengths and weaknesses
as well as her wants and needs in life
her self esteem was strengthened and
in time her relationships with others
became more fulfilling
eventually she lost a lot of weight because
she didn’t need to self medicate with food
elisa_hiding_pose, photo by Elisabeth Fuchs, Vienna Austria
2 responses to Relationship with self
Hi Maranda, Seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes makes it easy to love yourself – so why is it so hard for you to get in touch with how lovable you are by using the exercise I mentioned. Perhaps you need professional help to learn to love yourself in real life. Again I intend to write a post about your comment, so look out for it.
Nice theory… How can you start “loving yourself” in real life, I wonder?
Relationship with self 1 Trackbacks / Pingbacks
Self love or codependence » Affie Adagio Life Coach, Family Therapist, Marriage Celebrant, Trainer Comment on Relationship with self (May 2nd, 2007 at 22:25)
[...] with self. In other words, the choice is self love or codependence. A comment from Maranda on my post about having a relationship with self shows how difficult it is for some to conceptualise this – [...]
Leave a reply to Relationship with self