Healing Through Self-Love and Relationships
Relationships, especially romantic relationships, with other humans are often not as easy to navigate as our relationships with our pets. Whether you are single and navigating dating, or in a loving, committed relationship, it is important to remember to love yourself and do the work to make that happen. When we don’t love ourselves, it is difficult to truly give to others or to receive the love we deserve from our partners.
Recently, a young single patient recommended a podcast she had discovered on healing from heartbreak in which, Claire Burn, a life coach who specializes in healing from heartbreak and self-love, discusses her own heartbreak story and her self-help quest that led her to seek coaching and then become a life coach herself. In her vulnerable podcast, she provides many tools and references other healers including therapists, meditation teachers, and other life coaches. She discusses the importance of focusing on the relationship with ourselves and avoiding blaming others for treating us poorly. If we do not love ourselves, we cannot expect others to love us. She references Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is (outlined in this article) and subscribes to the doctrine, “Our thoughts create our results.”
In my practice, I explain the importance of this concept (thoughts creating results) with the people I see and often help them navigate through difficult break-ups or challenging relationships by focusing on doing their work and not expecting someone else to be someone that they are not. I can help the person in front of me change and respond to adversity better, but I cannot help their partners to change. The partner has to want to change and do their own work.
However, by understanding ourselves and how we operate in relationships, the relationship can improve, or if single, we can call in a more compatible partner. An important concept in romantic relationships is attachment. There are three main types of attachment: Secure, Anxious, and Avoidant. Understanding our working model is very helpful in navigating relationships. Whether or not we have a ‘secure’ working model, we can work to make ourselves more secure in relationships by better understanding and loving ourselves and becoming clear on what we want in a relationship. We can also learn to become more attracted to a person who is secure in relationships, rather than someone who might push us away. Dr. Amir Levine writes extensively on adult attachment, and the book Attached is worth reading if you’re interested in understanding this better.
During this pandemic, your relationship might be under more stress with family members working from home, the uncertainty of the future, and feeling like your partner’s or your perceived flaws are under a microscope. If you’re single, you may feel like dating is impossible because of social distancing sanctions. Try not to despair. This is a perfect time to really commit to the work on yourself that will make navigating relationships easier. Whatever modality you choose to pursue toward a path of self-love, you will begin to feel more confident and secure, which will serve you in any relationship you choose.