Your Primary Relationship
‘Having a relationship with yourself.’ It might land a bit awkward, however it is the best way to describe this foundational relationship. In the simplest of terms it means being able to understand your emotions and what to do with them, know how to communicate them to someone else, understand how you learn, both strengths and weaknesses, and know what you value, and most importantly, to live in alignment with those values.
On a deeper level, it is to be able to tune in to your inner workings, your metabolic systems, and be responsive to yourself. This blog’s foundation is to strengthen and deepen your relationship with yourself. Once you have done that, all the other relationships in your life will flow easier.
Author Dr. Amir Levin , professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, and author of the book entitled ‘Attached’, defines a secure relationship as; ‘When people are able to be consistent, available, responsive, reliable, and predictable.’ He is referencing the qualities of a secure relationship with someone else but they are an ideal self check list for how we relate to ourselves. Do we treat ourselves in these ways?
Many of us spend a lot of time considering what we want in our relationships with others. Maybe we want someone who is supportive, trustworthy, attuned with our feelings and needs. Perhaps someone who is generous, health-minded, creative, adventurous, emotionally intelligent, and stable. Do we relate to ourselves in these ways? Doesn’t make much sense to ask these things of someone else if we are not yet able to consistently provide them to ourselves.
‘Let’s not confuse the topic of self secure with self awareness. Self awareness is knowing your strengths and your weaknesses, not necessarily what you do with them. Self awareness is being aware of your bodily sensations but not necessarily how you respond to them. Often when I ask clients to journal about their strengths, it is either a list of things they are good at doing for others or a list of talents. You can have skills and talents and still be insecure. Being self secure is honoring all of what makes you, you’. S.A.W.
In the Beginning
I wish the first lesson all babies heard was to trust themselves. For them to realize, without a doubt, that being self secure is foundational for all the other relationships they will have in their lives. I wish all babies had care givers who showed them this by example, modeling it for them. But that is not the reality for most and so we seek it out now in adulthood.
Your relationship with yourself is founded in early childhood experiences with care givers and how they responded to you, modeled for you, and the messages they sent you. We had zero control over those experiences. But we have total control over them now.
Babies have beginners mind. They don’t compare, they don’t judge, they don’t compete. They can easily be present with themselves without barriers.
It’s much harder work as adults. We are stuck in the ways that we talk to ourselves, about ourselves. We compare ourselves to others, now more than ever, with intense comparative with exposure to social media. And maybe we are just jaded and negative because of painful things that have happened to us.
Making Change
Self security is the most powerful therapy goal. It is training season and we are in training to improve the relationship with ourselves. Just like any other relationship, it has seasons of growth and evolution and seasons of hibernation and dormancy, sometimes regression. How you ’treat yourself’ is what we are talking about here.
Here is a thinking (or journal) prompt, based on Dr. Levin’s key points of a secure relationship. Give it a try and see what you come up with.
1. Am I consistent to myself? How and in what ways?
2. Am I available to myself? How and in what ways?
3. Am I responsive to myself? How and in what ways?
4. Am I reliable to myself? How and in what ways?
5. Am I predictable to my self? How and in what ways?
It’s wonderful to hear so much modern talk about ‘focus on yourself and not others’ messages. My clients sometimes struggle with the concept because it feels selfish to them. Particularly women who grew up in a family where the mother was expected to do most of the care-taking of everyone, meanwhile neglecting herself. I’ve had a number of young female clients sadly reflect on their mother’s poor metabolic health and unhappiness from years of neglecting her own individuality and body.
Focusing on yourself doesn’t mean to ignore everyone else who matter to you. On the contrary, if you are strong and healthy and living with purpose, imagine the good care you can give to others? As a therapist, a mother, and a daughter to elder parents, I thrive on my value of being healthy and strong for myself and in turn, for them. Thriving. Not just surviving.
The first thing I ask a client is to describe how they prepare for sleep, how they sleep, and how they feel when they wake up. I believe sleep is the foundation of all human functioning. Negative moods due to poor sleep can easily be misdiagnosed as mental health disorders. Let’s not make that mistake. More on sleep in the next blog post.
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