Relationship With Self

It was during a discussion I was having with my coaching colleagues on people’s relationships with themselves that I realised that such a view is flawed. We were reading a beautiful poem written by unknown author that read in part: “It is rewarding to find someone you like, but it is essential to like yourself...It is a delight to discover people who are worthy of respect, admiration and love. But it is vital to believe yourself as deserving of these things.”

Love your neighbour as...
It reminded of a well known Bible verse that says: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour...” But right then that verse took on new meaning and depth because, although I had read it many times before, the significance of the second part of this it never quite registered in my mind until that day. This is partly because it is tucked away right at the end of the verse in two words: “...as thyself.”

Wait a minute, I thought; God says to love your neighbour as you love yourself? So if you love yourself only a little, you will love your neighbour only a little. If you love yourself a lot, you will love your neighbour to the same degree. That was like a light bulb going on in my head.

You see, I had held the impression that somehow loving yourself is wrong. After all the usual teaching, particularly in religious circles, is that we are to do away with the self and only be concerned with the well being of others. The usual teaching is that we “smash the ego” and put other people before ourselves.

Self-love Vs selfishness
It is important to distinguish between self love and selfishness. Self-love is a genuine caring for ourselves, whereas selfishness is a morbid preoccupation with ourselves. Self love is what enables a genuine concern and caring for other people because how you look at yourself will determine, to a large part, the way you treat other people.

But apart from just treating other people well and getting along with others there are many reasons why you should love yourself. The way you view and treat yourself determines how much you believe in yourself, how much time and energy you invest in your future, how you spend your time, who you spend it with, how well you look after yourself and a whole list of other things that have a direct bearing on your future success or failure. It is crucial to your dreams that you love yourself.

Self-acceptance is key
The first step in loving yourself is always self-acceptance. Realise that there is no such thing as a perfect person. Stop looking for perfection in yourself before you can be happy with yourself. Take stock of your strengths as well as your weaknesses. Celebrate the good things and decide to do something about the bad things. Take it one step at a time too and realise that no matter how good you become, you will never be perfect. But you can be a much better person as everyone else can. Accept yourself for who you are and learn to love yourself for who you are as a person.

As you gain a deeper self-acceptance you will also begin to understand yourself better physically mentally and spiritually. Once you are comfortable with yourself as a human being the task of exploring your beliefs, habits and attitudes is not as threatening as it would first seem. Instead it becomes a journey into knowing yourself better and making positive change in areas where you need to. With this comes greater self-control. With greater self control comes maturity.

Maturity and forgivess
Maturity requires that you forgive yourself for your past mistakes and misdeeds. One thing that holds people back and prevents them from loving themselves is a lack of forgiveness. We have all done things at some point in our lives that we are not proud of and that bring us shame and guilt. Give up that desire to punish yourself for the past. Make amends if you must to those people that you hurt. Sometimes all that is needed is a simple “I’m sorry.”

Forgiving yourself for the “bad” things that you have done is important because only then can you forgive others. If you are harsh on yourself the likelihood is that you will be just as harsh on others. But if you realise that you make mistakes it will be all the more easier to realise that others make mistakes too and need your forgiveness.

The same goes for all the other things that come with self love. Accepting yourself the way you are will cause you to accept others the way they are. Understanding yourself better will enable you to understand others better. Changing your own negative aspects will enable you to appreciate that others can change too.

The true meaning of love
In thinking about what love truly is I would urge you to consider these words that describe love: patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, not boastful, not envious, not easily provoked, not easily angered, truthful, hopeful and believing. You must cultivate and be all these things to yourself first. Only then can you be all these things to others. Only then will you allow others to be all these things to you.

I will end in the closing words of that beautiful poem my colleagues and I were reading: “For all the people you will know in a lifetime you are the only one you will never leave or lose. To the questions in your life, you are the answer. To the problems in your life you are the only solution.”