Healthy Self-Love: The Foundation of Good Relationships
"You can't love anyone else until you love yourself. . ." Everyone knows this platitude. Accepting and loving yourself is a precondition to being in a healthy, reciprocal relationship. However, the oft-recited advice has it backwards: Before you can let yourself receive love from another, you must first accept and love yourself. If you're not capable of receiving love, you will attract and be attracted to others who will give you anything but love.
There are men and women who have no trouble chasing after quarry; "loving" people they idealize without rhyme or reason, only to have their feelings rejected. These are usually the same people who run in the opposite direction when they're offered real affection by another person. When they have a chance at a real relationship and love, they're uninterested for a variety of reasons.
If you believe the cliché, "You can't love anyone else until you love yourself," then there should be no pursuit of a love interest until you learn to love yourself. If you're attracted to others who can't love you in return, you'll begin a futile cycle of pursuit and distancing behaviors. Think of it as "mutually assured unhappiness."
This pattern of behavior typically reinforces your inner and oftentimes unacknowledged feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy. In other words, you seek intimacy and love from others who either can't tolerate or aren't capable of intimacy and love, which confirms your faulty beliefs about being undeserving or having to work for love.
The end result: When you're lucky enough to meet someone who sees your positive qualities (that you can't or won't see in yourself) and who offers you affection and acceptance; you push her or him away. You devise many reasons and excuses why the other person isn't "the one." Typical excuses include:
* The other person is nice, funny and smart, but there's some missing ephemeral quality you can't quite articulate.
* You're just not feeling "it."
* You only date a specific "type."
* He or she is "too nice."
* He or she is "boring." (This is usually because the thrill of having a corrective emotional experience with a personality who reminds you of mom, dad or some other early formative relationship is missing and you don't have to work for or prove yourself worthy of love).
* There's no "chemistry." (Mind you, the only "chemistry" you're likely to feel is with someone who isn't interested in you, has their own intimacy issues and keeps you at arm's length).
Buying into the above excuses are how many people end up in relationships that leave them feeling heartbroken, rejected and not good enough. These excuses enable you to reject people who are capable of love and who would accept you as you are.
Loving someone else is easy enough, especially since people who languish in this position tend to idealize those whom they "love"---at first. If you're caught in this pattern, you may tend to have an unrealistic, highly selective vision of the other person---until one of their flaws are exposed and then your "love" disappears as soon as you realize the other person isn't "perfect." Alternatively, if you're attracted to people who keep you at a distance, you probably tell yourself you need to "work harder" to win their love.
How do you begin to love and accept yourself?
1) You must acknowledge and wrestle with your inner daemons. Explore your faulty relationship beliefs, for example, the belief that you're unworthy or undeserving of love. Figure out where these beliefs come from, challenge them, lay them to rest and adopt healthier beliefs.
2) You must accept that you're not perfect, will never be perfect, but that doesn't make you unlovable and unworthy. "Perfection," if there is such a thing, has nothing to do with peace and wholeness. If you can't tolerate your own imperfections, you won't be able to tolerate them in another person. Others will always fall short and you will reject them. Alternatively, you will accept hurtful behavior from others because you're not "perfect" and on some level believe you deserve to be treated badly.
3) You must develop the ability to hold and sit with the discomfort and strangeness of the new and unfamiliar, such as being with a kind, loving person who accepts you warts and all. Being with a woman or man who is capable of returning love and values you---including your imperfect parts---will initially feel really strange and uncomfortable. At first, you might feel the urge to flee or push away. You need to ride out any feelings of discomfort until feeling good in a relationship feels normal and feeling bad feels strange and uncomfortable. It will be a big change from your previous relationships. Remember, if change felt the same as what you're accustomed to, it wouldn't be change.
4) You need to be able to tell the difference between forgivable imperfections and deal-breakers. For example, leaving the toilet seat up, talking too much or difficulty expressing emotions are forgivable "imperfections." Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable. Infidelity is also unforgivable for most people. Loving yourself also means creating boundaries and not accepting bad, hurtful, crazy and abusive treatment from others.
The fear of being loved is related to the fear of being "discovered;" of having your vulnerabilities and those aspects you don't like about yourself exposed to another person. This is fundamentally silly because we all have things we wish were different or better about ourselves. It's the fear that he or she won't love you if they find out how "horrible" you think you are. Sharing who you are and being accepted for who you are is what intimacy is all about.
Having a healthy and happy relationship begins with you loving, accepting and forgiving yourself. Once you cultivate love and acceptance of yourself and let go of old, counterproductive relationship beliefs, you'll be surprised how good being in a relationship can be.
Posted at 12:30 PM, February 08, 2010 by My Virtual Shrink | Category: Relationships
|
 |
|
|
Learn More Topics
This is the easiest, fastest, and best way to learn if this program is right for you.
The "My Virtual Shrink" Blog
Get insight into relationships, stress, My Virtual Shrink program and more.
|
|
Dr. Roger Gould
Author & Psychiatrist
Assoc. Prof. UCLA
Creator of MVS
Read Biography
|
Recent Posts
Categories
Being Your Best
Depression
Holiday Stress
Miscellaneous
Relationships
Taking Charge
Archive
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
|