How to Have Healthy Relationships (part 3): Yourself

Let’s start with an exercise – open your phone camera and flip the image so you can see yourself. Got it? Now ask yourself these questions: How is my relationship with the person I’m looking at? How well do I get along with myself? How do I feel about me?

Dating friends recently asked me about the keys to a healthy, long-term relationship. Since then, I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned in twenty-seven years of marriage to my wife Lisa. Beyond that, what have I learned in forty-nine years of deep connections with family and friends? To help clarify my thinking, I’ve been doing a series of blog posts here at Becoming Yourself. The first key I talked about was intentionality (read that post here), and the second was about expectations (read that post here).

The phone exercise was an introduction to this week’s key:

To have healthy relationships with OTHERS, you need a healthy relationship with YOURSELF

We know this intuitively, right? Most of us have been in or observed enough relationships to know that without positive self-worth and a clear sense of identity from both people, relationships tend to go badly. Without these anchors, an unhealthy codependancy and “clingyness” sets in. When we aren’t comfortable in our own skin, we always want a friend or our partner around because we don’t like being alone or we expect a relationship to solve our problems. While someone else can help you, bring out the best in you, and make life more fulfilling, they can’t fix you. Only you, and I would add God, can do that.

Some of this is personality driven. I’m an introvert, and I love to be alone with my own thoughts. Extroverts naturally enjoy being around other people much of the time. But regardless of your personality type, I think there’s a core issue of relationship to self that we all need to face. If we’re not okay with the person in the mirror, we’re going to have a really hard time being in healthy, long-term relationships. Why? Because the best thing you can bring to a relationship is a healthy you.

So how do you have a healthy relationship with yourself? I could recommend positive self-talk, concentrating on what you’re good at and the nice things people say about you, helping others and doing good in the world, etc.. Those are all wonderful things that will help you feel better about yourself, but I don’t think they address the core issue. When it comes to a positive relationship with yourself, I believe the most important thing is this:

IDENTITY

Who do you really think you are? If in your heart you believe you’re bad, spoiled, broken, a mistake, unworthy, stupid, or unlovable, then no amount of pep talking in the mirror is going to change that. But if deep down, you believe you’re wonderful, worthwhile, beautiful, wanted, cherished, prized, and loved, that’s going to radically impact your sense of self.

So how do you have the later view instead of the former? My best advice is to anchor your identity in something bigger than yourself that won’t move or shift or fail. For me, that’s God. I believe I was created to be in relationship with Her/Him (God is beyond gender binaries). That God desires to know me. That I’m more than a cosmic accident of time + matter + energy + chance. I build my sense of identity on a foundation that says no matter what I do or what happens in this life, I’m God’s child and always will be. That makes me feel really good about who I am, which enables me to give myself fully to others.

I know that for some of you, the God thing is a non-starter. I get it. We’ve all had different experiences and have different views on God and spirituality. That said, I think we all have the same core questions and issues to face, and one of the biggest is “Who am I?” You don’t have to base your identity on God, but you do have to base it on something. Make sure whatever you choose is big enough, strong enough, and unshakable enough to survive the storms of life. Careers, money, abilities, goals, activities, and other people are all great, but they’re also impermanent. Who will you be when they’re gone? How you choose to answer the question of identity will have a major impact on your relationship with yourself and in turn, your ability to have healthy, long-term relationships with others (for more on finding your identity, see my post here).

So how are you getting along with that person in the mirror? What do you ultimately believe about yourself? What will you choose as the foundation of your identity? Answer those questions well, and you’ll hold another key to deep, lasting relationships. And you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

This post was originally published February 23, 2019.