Your Relationship With Yourself Informs Every Other Relationship You Have

We spend a lot of time trying to understand other people.

Why did they do that?

Why do they behave that way?

Why can't they communicate?

Why won't they change?

Why do they keep treating me this way?

Sometimes that's even what brings us to this work in the first place.

We're trying to understand them.

But inevitably, if we're willing to stay curious long enough, the attention starts turning inward.

And that's not a bad thing.

Because the more we learn about ourselves, and the more we embrace ourselves, the more a healed relationship with ourselves begins to inform how we move in the world with other people.

Attachment Is Also About How You Relate to Yourself

We tend to think about attachment as something that happens between us and other people.

But attachment refers to how we relate to others and ourselves.

Our early relational experiences create an unconscious blueprint in the nervous system that can influence:

How we relate to ourselves.

How we relate to other people.

How we communicate.

How we handle conflict.

How we seek intimacy.

And those blueprints can continue informing our experiences throughout our lifespan.

So if we're only examining who we're choosing, how they're behaving, or what's happening between us and somebody else, we're missing an important part of the relationship.

What's happening between you and you?

Pay Attention to What Happens to Your Relationship With Yourself

When you're afraid someone will leave you, what happens to your relationship with yourself?

Do you abandon what you need to maintain the connection?

When somebody is upset with you, do you immediately assume you've done something wrong?

When you want something that somebody else doesn't want, whose preference becomes more important?

When your body tells you no, do you listen to it?

When you're hurt, do you allow yourself to acknowledge that hurt—or immediately start explaining why the other person didn't mean it?

When you make a decision someone doesn't understand, can you remain connected to yourself while they disagree?

These questions aren't really about the other person.

They're about whether you remain in relationship with yourself while you're in relationship with them.

Self-Abandonment Can Happen Quietly

Self-abandonment doesn't always look dramatic.

Sometimes it's saying yes when you want to say no.

Sometimes it's overriding what your body is telling you.

Sometimes it's minimizing something that hurt because acknowledging it might require you to make a difficult decision.

Sometimes it's making another person's feelings more important than your own.

Sometimes it's convincing yourself that you don't need what you actually need because the person you're with can't provide it.

And sometimes you've done these things for so long that they don't even register as abandoning yourself.

They just feel normal.

That's why awareness matters.

A lot of our relationship experiences are operating outside of our conscious awareness until we start bringing them to the surface.

We can't make different choices around something we haven't recognized yet.

Understanding Yourself Creates More Agency

This is why I don't believe the inner work is optional.

Without understanding what's happening internally, unconscious drives can continue dictating our choices while we feel as though we don't have much say in our own lives.

We move on autopilot.

We respond before we've had an opportunity to ask ourselves what we actually want.

We live according to values we may never have consciously chosen.

We accommodate needs while remaining disconnected from our own.

And then we wonder why we don't feel anchored in ourselves.

The goal isn't to become so self-focused that you stop caring about other people.

It's to stop disappearing from your own relationships.

To know what you need.

To know what you value.

To notice what you're feeling.

To pay attention to what your body is communicating.

And to remain connected to those things even while you're connected to somebody else.

Because learning to relate differently isn't only about finding healthier people.

It's also about developing a healthier relationship with the one person who will be present in every relationship you ever have:

You.