Nurturing Your Most Important Relationship
The One with Yourself
May 28, 2007
By Dr. Helene Brenner, Ph.D
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Relationships make up a huge part of women’s lives. Whether it concerns partners, parents, children, friends or colleagues, most women spend a large portion of their time and energy thinking about and taking care of relationships.
But what about your relationship with yourself? That’s a relationship, too. Do you take care of that relationship as well? How is that relationship going?
Of course, most of us have heard that we “should” be more accepting and forgiving of ourselves. The trouble is, rarely does anybody ever explain how to do this. Another problem is that deep down we believe that if we actually did treat ourselves in a kinder, friendlier, more accepting way, we would really go to pot — that we’d spend the rest of our lives watching trashy TV shows while eating boxes of Godiva chocolate.
As a psychologist who has worked with more than a thousand women over the past 15 years, I haven’t found that to be true. In fact, I’ve found that the boot-camp approach of ordering ourselves to straighten up and fly right almost never results in lasting, positive changes. Harsh judgments and criticisms — whether from other people or yourself — result only in hurt feelings, defensiveness and stress (and the urge for more chocolate!). The best way both to feel better and to make the changes you want is to give yourself the encouragement, caring and support that you probably already give the people you love.
Here are some ideas on how to nurture your relationship with the person you live with all the time — the one who looks back at you from the mirror.
YOUR LARGER SELF
To begin with, there’s more to you than the “self” you are usually in touch with. Normal life is full of highs and lows and ups and downs. But you’ve been growing and developing for decades. You’ve known better and worse times, and you are far more than any temporary state of being. Even a period of low mood or depression that has lasted for weeks or months is not the real “you,” any more than a spell of wet weather means that the sun has ceased to exist.
It’s this larger “you” — what I call the Larger Self — that can extend a caring and compassionate hand to help with the daily struggles you may be going through. When you notice that you are attacking yourself, cataloguing your flaws and thinking thoughts like “How can I be so stupid?” or “What’s wrong with me?” switch to this larger perspective of yourself and say things like “I’m doing the best I can,” “I’ve really come a long way,” “I’m not bad, I’m just going through a hard time right now, and I’ll get through it.” Going easy on yourself — being gentle to (rather than hard on) yourself — reduces the release of stress hormones and helps you regain your balance and move forward when the going gets tough.
SELF-LISTENING IS KEY
Every meaningful relationship depends on listening. Listening is to a relationship what oxygen is to a flame. Good listening — truly hearing, understanding and accepting what the other person says and feels — makes a relationship, and the people within it, shine brighter. Without it, the relationship grows weak, flickers and dies.
In the same way, your relationship with yourself depends on truly listening to and hearing yourself — paying attention to what you think, feel and want, and believing that it is at least as important as the feelings and desires of all the other people in your life.
Most of us spend a great deal of time denying or dismissing our thoughts, feelings and desires. Think of the times when you tell yourself that you “shouldn’t” feel the way you do, or that it “doesn’t matter” what you think and feel because “it won’t change anything anyway.” At those moments you are dismissing and denying yourself.
The way to listen to yourself is to acknowledge and validate your feelings and desires. Acknowledging means taking a step back and accepting what you think and feel, or accepting what you want, exactly the way it is, without judgment. And when you validate yourself, you tell yourself that you have the right to your thoughts, feelings and desires — that they are right and true for you.
Of course, you may not be able to easily get what you want. But the more you pay respectful attention to your feelings and desires, the stronger you’ll become in standing up for what you feel and want in your life.
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO BLOOM?
Part of any good relationship is getting to know and respect the other person’s needs and preferences, rather than rejecting them and wishing they were different. Yet too often, women ignore or overlook their own needs and preferences. They put themselves into situations that are all wrong for them, and then they get angry with themselves for being miserable! The more you create a daily life that is in harmony with your own nature, the happier you will be.
Each of us is unique, with a unique combination of needs and preferences. In the plant world, every species is designed to thrive in its own particular environment. An African violet, for example, has very specific requirements for sun, water and temperature. In fact, whenever you buy any plant from a greenhouse, it comes with a tag telling you exactly what that plant needs to bloom. I say, write your own plant tag about what you need to bloom. Why should your needs be less specific than a plant’s?
BEFRIEND YOUR WEAKNESSES
All of us have aspects of ourselves that we don’t think are good. We tend to divide ourselves into “good” and “bad” parts, and think that we should reward what is good in us and ignore or punish what is bad. Yet each part of us has a reason for being there and has a story to tell. Every part of us has strengths that contribute to the whole.
Think of the parts of yourself that you don’t like as parts that have been left out in the cold. Chances are they received very little love and care from anyone in your entire life. They therefore deserve the most kindness and compassion! Who knows what might happen if you treated your weaknesses and flaws with a little kindness and attention instead of harsh judgment. They might get better. They might even turn into strengths.
LOVE WHAT’S IMPERFECT
We live in a society that surrounds us with images of perfection. Turn on a television or open a magazine and all you see are perfectly beautiful people living in perfectly beautiful houses. You can easily get the impression that somewhere in America are all these people who’ve figured out how to live much better lives than yours.
But the older I get, the more I realize that nobody is perfect, no relationship is perfect and life — no matter how smart you are — often doesn’t work out quite the way you planned. This is just the nature of life. While striving to improve yourself, remember that, ultimately, the best relationship to have with yourself is the same one you have with a dear friend: Remember that the good qualities in you, whatever they are, far outweigh your flaws.
DR. Helene Brenner, Ph.D, a nationally known expert on the psychology of women, is the author of I Know I’m in There Somewhere: A Woman’s Guide to Finding Her Inner Voice and Living a Life of Authenticity (Gotham Books, 2003). She offers individual therapy and Inner Voice Coaching by
phone or in person at her Frederick, MD, office.
Dr. Brenner has been featured in Self and Body and Soul magazines and on the Montel Williams show, and has given speeches, seminars and workshops across the country at such venues as the Omega Institute, the Learning Annex and the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Contact her at 301-695-5858 or at hel...@helenebrenner.com Also visit her website at www.helenebrenner.com.
