Love Yourself and Improve Your Relationships!
This week I saw Eve Ensler's extrodinary one-woman show "Good Body" and I wanted to share a nugget of what I took away from the experience and how it relates to our relationships. According to Eve, we need to stop the self-hatred that many of us feel, especially in America, so that we can focus on doing what we are here to do to make the world a better place.
I started thinking about how self-hatred can sabotage relationships and actually suck the life out of them. In fact, we're doing a teleseminar series that will give people ideas on how to put life back into their relationship--"Keeping the Spark Alive in your Relationship or Marriage and How to Get the Spark Back if it seems to have faded" starting February 2.
So how does self-hatred affect your relationships, especially with an intimate partner?
If you hate yourself, nothing your partner does is ever enough. In fact, nothing anyone in your life does or says will ever convince you of your worth and that you are loved. When you hate yourself, you create distance, separation and disconnection with the people who are in your life and who love you. You end up shoving away the very thing you want and need--love.
How can you stop hating yourself?
1. If someone gives you a compliment, simply say "thank you." Stop yourself from putting any qualifier on it like--"I just bought this dress at a thrift store and it's nothing much" or "Yeah, my hair might look okay today but yesterday I was a mess!"
2. Give yourself permission to receive. So many of us, especially women, have learned somewhere along their path that their self-worth is tied to what they do for other people. If someone wants to do something nice for you--like pay for your dinner--let them. A friend of mine, actually she is my yoga teacher and I was her high school English teacher, gifted me with a ticket to see the performance of the "Good Body." What a wonderful treat and I got to practice receiving!
3. Whenever you start to criticize yourself, stop yourself and replace that thought or word with a loving one. This takes practice and it's done one moment at a time, so start now. Have you read Marsaru Emoto's "Messages from Water"? If you haven't, it's an eye-opener about how harmful, hateful words can truly harm us.
These are just a few ideas that came to me this morning. I welcome your thoughts!
Love, Susie Collins
