Our Relationships with Ourselves and Others:
How they're related, levels of understanding
I love working with women because we have such capacity for love and compassion. Though, we know first hand that frequently this is lost when it comes to ourselves. We all have heard women speak words about themselves that they would never say to another human, and have heard women make many excuses for abusive, manipulative or selfish acts taken towards them.
I have made it my business to understand how we come to believe such hurtful and negative thoughts about ourselves, and have found that it nearly always begins in those relationships which aim to break us down. I personally found it difficult to comprehend that those people who worked so hard to make me feel small, where either not doing so intentionally or had little control over their actions. Bullies take action and move on the offensive when they start to feel unworthy, incapable, or unloved themselves. When the threat, or reality, of rejection appears they turn to prey on those who are smaller, or less outspoken, in order to build themselves up.
Through my work I have found that these injustices and falsehoods, placed on us as children, weave so deeply into the subconscious that they become our own thought patterns. They become our own beliefs that we cary into young adulthood and adulthood. As we walk through the stages of life we shed voices, though it is often those that are quietest and most deeply engrained that take the longest to move past.
As we shed these false and harmful believes about ourselves we are able to open the pathway for true self acceptance and love. We are able to more openly accept our value and realize the blessing that we are.
To embark on the journey of improving your relationships with others and yourself takes a real commitment to mindfulness, and to assessing your needs in a new and honest sense. We use emotions to guide us through next steps and take action.
Below I outline a few relationship based actions that you maybe be working towards, working through currently, or have worked through in the past. Keep in mind that these can take shape differently for everyone. We can work together to discover the path best suited for you to open your divine knowing and capacity for love.
I have made it my business to understand how we come to believe such hurtful and negative thoughts about ourselves, and have found that it nearly always begins in those relationships which aim to break us down. I personally found it difficult to comprehend that those people who worked so hard to make me feel small, where either not doing so intentionally or had little control over their actions. Bullies take action and move on the offensive when they start to feel unworthy, incapable, or unloved themselves. When the threat, or reality, of rejection appears they turn to prey on those who are smaller, or less outspoken, in order to build themselves up.
Through my work I have found that these injustices and falsehoods, placed on us as children, weave so deeply into the subconscious that they become our own thought patterns. They become our own beliefs that we cary into young adulthood and adulthood. As we walk through the stages of life we shed voices, though it is often those that are quietest and most deeply engrained that take the longest to move past.
As we shed these false and harmful believes about ourselves we are able to open the pathway for true self acceptance and love. We are able to more openly accept our value and realize the blessing that we are.
To embark on the journey of improving your relationships with others and yourself takes a real commitment to mindfulness, and to assessing your needs in a new and honest sense. We use emotions to guide us through next steps and take action.
Below I outline a few relationship based actions that you maybe be working towards, working through currently, or have worked through in the past. Keep in mind that these can take shape differently for everyone. We can work together to discover the path best suited for you to open your divine knowing and capacity for love.
ACCEPTANCE
To see yourself or another, in true form and acknowledge flaws or mistakes accepting them as reality. Anger, sadness or other emotions may often be attached to this, but the intention is to acknowledge and accept. Very important is the distinction between accepting, and tolerating or enabling.
All we have control over is our own reaction to our own or others actions. Notice your reactions beyond the initial flair. When we are able to view a situation in this clean way, we are more capable of finding the source. Allowing us to learn what our own and others needs are.
COMMUNICATION
As we start to recognize the true needs of ourselves and others, we can communicate more effectively and directly. Communication tactics like passive aggressive communication, aggressive communication and sarcasm, can only lead to more frustration and resentment. This includes the way that we speak to ourselves. When we can acknowledge the needs of ourselves and others, and speak to them directly and nonviolently we will actually begin to hear each other. For more on Nonviolent Communication see the YouTube video at the bottom of this page.
BOUNDARIES
Once we have effectively communicated our needs - and acknowledged and/or addressed the needs of others - we have to assess our own capacity to meet the needs of the other, as well as their capacity to meet ours. In a healthy relationship, with two willing partners, compromise and understanding can be reached. However, we all need to evaluate our own level of safety in any given relationship, whether that be emotionally or physically. If your needs have been repeatedly communicated and you have evaluated that you are not safe, boundaries need to be established.
FORGIVENESS
This is tough. What is crucial to remember is that the decision to forgive someone is not always made because you believe they are deserving of it. But holding on to resentment will only hurt you. Let's first clarify that forgiveness really can only be reached when the source of harm has been removed (aka, boundaries have been put in place, or the activity has changed). This is can be a very long and personal journey, but is well worth it.
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
In English we don't have different words to describe the different levels and kinds of love that exist. For these reasons, we will call it unconditional love, an overwhelming, all encompassing notion of acceptance as well as genuine desire for wellbeing. To see yourself and others with Unconditional Love is to fully accept and acknowledge that each of us is living to our full capacity and genuinely doing our best with what we are given.