You know what it’s like to be in a relationship where the other person is hot one minute, cold the next. It doesn’t feel that warm or fuzzy, does it? When they’re not ‘committing’ to you…

Well, this is often how people are with themselves. They have this on-again off-again relationship. One minute they’re supporting themselves full out – doing all their self-care practises and speaking kindly of themselves –  the next they’re bombarded with a fireworks display of negative thoughts, turning to a bottle of wine – or 3 – to numb out the pain.

Today on I Love Me The Podcast, we’ll explore what it means to commit to your relationship with you. And why doing so, is in your very best interests!

 

First thing’s first, we need to establish that you have a relationship with yourself.

Yes, you are in relationship with YOU.

And the quality of this relationship with yourself will be evident, because it will show up in how you feel emotionally and physically, it will show up in the relationships you have with others, and it will show up in your finances and career.

So the stronger your relationship with yourself, the healthier the other areas of your life will be.

Now chances are, you may have been focusing your attention outward, trying to climb the corporate ladder without looking after you.

Trying to make someone else happy, at the expense of making yourself happy.

Trying to solve a health issue physically, without taking the time to sit with the emotions behind the sickness.

What’s important to understand here, is that until YOU become your central focus, then all of these other areas will suffer.

Or not be as joyous and expansive as they could be.

Because those other areas are extensions of your relationship with YOU.

Your relationship with you is the foundation upon which everything else in your life sits.

Just think about it, if you’re not looking after yourself and you’re stressed out, then your health will suffer, and you’ll be more snappy or impatient with those around you…

If you don’t value yourself or feel unworthy, this usually translates into money issues..

You need to come first, and when you do put yourself first – when you commit to your relationship with you – naturally, this will flow out into those other life areas.

So this is where we need to change our focus, and make the prime focus of life, developing a healthy relationship with self.

And then, committing to that relationship.

So let’s get super clear on what it means to ‘commit’ to something…

According to the Oxford Dictionary, commitment is the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause or activity.

In our case, of committing to our relationship with ourself, we are dedicating our energy towards ourself.

So commitment in this sense, is a full dedication to self.

It’s doing what you say you’re going to do.

It’s about putting yourself first, saying Yes to yourself, even if that means saying No to someone else.

It’s about loving yourself regardless of what’s going on…

It’s about making time for yourself, to just be, to journal, to meditate, to connect with yourself.

It’s about consciously choosing loving kind thoughts, as opposed to letting the negative soundtrack play-on uninterrupted.

It’s about being willing to enter a relationship with yourself.

It’s about knowing the importance of that relationship.

And thus, investing time and energy in that relationship.

But ultimately…

It’s about staying true to yourself.

Listening to that inner voice of the heart, as opposed to that often controlling or negative voice of the mind.

It’s about being willing to love yourself through your darkest moments, and know you are so very worthy of that love.

And even if you don’t feel worthy of that love just yet, because this whole self-love thing is still new to you, it’s about deciding to love yourself and hold yourself, despite feeling down on yourself.

When we commit to ourself, we make a promise to ourself to give up the ‘exit strategy’.

Your exit strategy may be to avoid painful situations or uncomfortable feelings, by drinking or turning on the television.

Or maybe it’s to get super busy so you don’t have time to sit with yourself and feel yourself.

I’ll share more about the importance of feeling ourself in a future episode, because sitting with our feelings – being with our feelings – is a huge part of self-love.

Now we are human and sometimes we do trip up, and abandon our relationship with ourself.

It happens.

And it you haven’t stayed on track perfectly, that’s ok.

What does matter, is that you decide to re-commit to yourself.

As soon as you notice that you’ve walked out on yourself, you re-commit.

You recommit to stay with yourself.

To show up for yourself.

And maybe on this self-love journey you’ll need to recommit to yourself on a weekly or daily basis.

Or maybe on a moment by moment basis.

And you know what, that’s ok.

Because self-love is a journey.

When I first start working with a new client, we set a goal, to help them work out what they want to achieve in our time together.

What is the transformation they’re after.

And then…

I ask them how committed they are to achieving that goal.

That vision.

Why do I ask this question?

Because, it doesn’t matter how powerful my processes are, or what I bring to our sessions, if the person is not 100% fully committed to the self-love journey, then they won’t get that result.

And they won’t get that result, because they need to be so committed, that when things get tough, they’re willing to stick with it.

Because whenever we decide to create change in our life, whenever we start taking steps towards a different reality for ourselves, at some point resistance will kick in.

And it’s this resistance – where things start to feel hard, or we get too busy to focus on what we’re creating – this is the thing that brings us unstuck.

Last week I went into more detail about why this resistance kicks in… and how it leads to self-sabotage.

You can listen to that episode here.

So if you missed that one, it’s a really good episode to help you navigate the ‘resistance stage’ that always follows a commitment to something new.

But what’s important to understand is that your commitment to yourself…

Your commitment to doing whatever it takes to create the change your’e after…

That is the magic that makes anything possible.

And without it, then you’re going to be hard pressed to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve in life.

So the question you want to ask yourself is:

Am I wiling to commit to loving myself?

Ask it now…

Am I wiling to commit to loving myself?

If you got a No, then you want to ask yourself:

Why am I not willing to commit to loving myself?

And maybe spend some time journalling or meditating on why you feel you cannot commit to yourself right now.

We will commit to the things that feel important to us at the time.

So if committing to loving yourself doesn’t feel important to you – maybe not as important as other things in your life – then you need to explore what cultivating a committed relationship with yourself will actually give you.

You need to find the ‘carrot’ so to speak.

You need to feel inspired about this new relationship and what is has to offer you.

And maybe, it’s the knowing that the other important things in your life, that have been alluding you ’til now, will be more available to you, if you develop your relationship with you.

For me, I committed fully to my relationship with myself, after years of romantic relationship doozies with other people.

I finally realised that I was the common dominator in all those relationships, and so I set out on the path of developing a healthy relationship with me.

Instead of dating or being in an intimate relationship with someone else, I committed to my relationship with me.

Within 6 months of entering into relationship with myself, I met my now husband.

And this happened, because in dating myself – focusing on me – I was able to change my beliefs around commitment.

In committing to myself, I was able to easily attract in a guy who would commit to me.

Which shows how being willing to cultivate your relationship with self, is the path to creating the other things you want in your life.

And this has been the case in many different areas of my life.

For instance, when I was diagnosed as being the stage before cancer, I took three months to really care for my body in a new way, and explore the emotions behind that illness, using the tools I now teach in my online school.

I got really vulnerable with myself.

And I was able to heal that condition, so I didn’t need surgery.

When we are willing to commit to loving ourself, and we have tools to really go deep into that relationship with ourself, we can heal all sorts of problems in our life.

I experience this first-hand in my own life, and through my clients who apply what I teach.

Now what I will say, is this…

When you first begin the journey of self-love, how you feel about yourself is likely to fluctuate on any given day.

That’s normal.

But with practise, and a willingness to get naked with yourself and be authentic, then you’ll find that your self-love starts to become a solid foundation in your life.

Yet, in order for that to happen, loving yourself needs to be made a priority.

Just as we make time for that hot new guy on the scene when we first start dating, so too do we need to do this for our self, and then maintain that commitment to self.

Just like when we have a fitness regime, if we workout regularly, our body stays in shape.

But if we take a few weeks off, those muscles start to lose tone.

It’s the same with self-love.

Our love-muscles grow weak, and it can be harder to rely on that solid sense of self, if we haven’t been making time for nurturing our relationship with self.

Like I said…

Falling off the self-love band-wagon is inevitable.

It happens.

And you know what, that’s ok!

All you need to do, is get right back on there.

Forget the beat-up.

That’s not self-loving.

Just re-commit.

And then re-commit again and again, and eventually self-love will become a lifestyle choice, a way of being with yourself.

And if it starts to feel like a chore, all this recommitting…

Find the fun in what you’re doing.

Be more playful with it.

Because hey, the goal is self-love…

So smile at yourself.

Be grateful that you’re getting in there and committing to yourself.

For committing to yourself is the ultimate act of self-love.

If you loved what I had to share today, please do leave a short review or rating, and don’t forget to subscribe to the show, so you can listen to all the episodes as they’re released.

Next week, we’ll be exploring how to date oneself.

Because if there’s one way to commit to your relationship with you, it’s to take yourself on regular dates.

For me, this was a game-changer in my whole self-love aptitude.

So I can’t wait to share how dating myself full out for six months, completely transformed my relationship with me.