How To Transform Your Relationship With Yourself

How To Transform Your Relationship With Yourself

How we see the world and interpret the actions of others depends on our relationship with our self. To change your relationships with others, you’ve got to change your relationship with yourself.

Why do we feel unhappy or unfulfilled in our relationships? Why do we complain, judge others or blame them for our problems? Usually, it’s because we feel that way about our self.

Our relationships and life experiences are a reflection of our inner world. How we see the world and interpret the actions of others depends on our relationship with our self.

To change your relationships with others, you’ve got to change your relationship with yourself.

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Own your feelings

Accept that you alone are responsible for the way you think and feel. No one can make you feel that way. Own responsibility for allowing yourself to feel the way you do.

Be self-aware

Step back and observe yourself from a distance. How do you react to people and situations? Are you reacting unconsciously from the “wounded child” or responding in a calm, compassionate manner? When you’re conscious and aware of your feelings in a situation, you have the power to respond, rather than react.

Be authentic

Be true to yourself. There’s no need to put on a mask or a persona for someone else. You are perfect, whole and complete the way you are.

Love yourself unconditionally

Accept yourself for who you are, the parts you like, the parts you don’t. You’re part of divine creation. When you know and believe that, you will love and accept yourself the way you are.

Never belittle yourself

Never put yourself down or disrespect yourself. Don’t allow anyone else to treat you in a way that you don’t approve of. Never accept less than what you deserve – from yourself or anyone else.

Take care of yourself first

Remember the airline stewardess telling you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping the person next to you? You can’t take care of someone else, your family, or your kids, if you don’t take care of yourself first. Make yourself and your health a priority and do what it takes to get well, in every way.

Get in touch with your Higher Self

Your intuition is your Higher Self, the self that knows without knowing, sees without seeing. It is this self that will guide you towards your higher purpose. Any time you spend in meditation, prayer or solitude, cultivating your relationship with your higher self, will be time well spent.

Learn to connect with yourself at a deeper level, find your purpose, and understand your role in the universe. It will transform your relationship with yourself, and with everyone in your life.

© Priya Florence Shah

Addiction – The Hole In Your Soul

During the course of my spiritual growth, I realized that most people are addicts, in one way or another. And that addiction is not a physical or a psychological disease, but a disconnection from Source Energy and from our Higher Selves.

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When we’re disconnected from our higher selves (the source of love and higher emotions), we must look for something outside of ourselves to fill that hole in our soul. This attachment or craving (not desire, as is popularly believed) is noted, in Buddhism, as the cause of suffering.

And so we turn to people, relationships, sex, food, alcohol, drugs, meditation, prayer, caffeine, cigarettes, television, music, work, exercise, shopping, gambling, internet usage, pornography and other ways to bliss out, just so that we don’t have to face the fact that we’ve disconnected from our life path and from the purpose that we came here to fulfil.

That’s why all programs for recovery from addiction, like the 12-step program, mandate a reconnection with a Higher Power as essential for recovery.

But, you might say, almost all of the things I’ve listed above (barring TV, internet, pornography and stimulants) are necessary for existence. So how do you know when something becomes an addiction?

The easiest way to know this is to CHECK YOUR INTENTIONS. Be honest with yourself about why you believe you need it. If TV is merely a distraction, if you use food only to nourish your body, if you turn to people and relationships solely to stay connected, you are most likely not addicted to these things.

Another way to test if you’re addicted to something is to GO WITHOUT IT. If you can easily do without it for a while, especially under stressful circumstances, you are most likely not addicted.

But if you compulsively do any of the following – overeat, get drunk, smoke, gamble, take drugs, cling to relationships and people, exercise too much, watch too much porn or do anything to bliss out – you may be using it to fill that hole in your soul, to mask your disconnection from the true nature of your being.

If that’s so, then you need to rediscover your life purpose and reconnect with Source, by doing the psychological and spiritual work you need to become whole again. Some of the attitudes that helped me heal my own codependence are:

Self-awareness: Becoming an observer of my emotions and reactions.

Self-love: Knowing that I am worthy of love, that it has to come from within me. Learning how to develop high self-esteem and stronger boundaries.

Self-acceptance: Learning to accept my flaws and forgive myself for my mistakes.

Detachment: Detaching from a situation so I can respond appropriately.

Overcoming my fears: Learning to act from Love (Higher Self) rather than Fear (Ego).

© Priya Florence Shah