“To thine own self be true” ~Shakespeare

 

Know yourself, Be yourself and Love yourself fully!

That’s a tall order! We’ve heard this many times yet how do we do this? It’s easier to understand intellectually that until we live this way, we will not be coming from our genius in those relationship that matter the most. Living this way however is still not the norm for most adults.

 

We live in a world that is often tugging at us to conform and be anything but ourselves. Just look at the beauty industry and advertising that assumes we want what others want and we begin to understand the complexity of being true to ourselves, knowing what we really desire, and loving ourselves as we are. Yet it is doable because we do know how, we’ve just “forgotten.”

 

As babies and very young children we felt joy and love coming from inside us much of the time. Then we began to experience others and their disapproval of us and we shifted from love to fear. The programming begins early and is played out in all our relationships until we begin to wake up and remember who we truly are.

 

When we get into meaningful and intimate relationships we often forget, giving up our power, opinions and voice to be loved, or seizing power and control attempting to change the other person. In some way, we expect our partner to carry the responsibility of loving us the way we want to be loved. This is a child’s way of being loved. By putting the responsibility on our partner to love us we neglect our own self-love.

 

According to Don Miguel Ruiz, in The Mastery of Love, we create a big denial system that blinds us from seeing the truth of who we are.  We wear a social mask because it’s too painful to see ourselves or let others see us. We put up barriers for protection but those barriers actually restrict our own freedom. They create emotional wounds and poisons we project onto others. In order to “see” again it is essential to fully and completely embrace the “all” of who we are; the shadow side included.  This begins an empowering journey indeed.  This requires that we know ourselves well before we can change something we see in ourselves as “undesirable.”

 

A major part of becoming more successful in relationships requires an increase in emotional intelligence because it is our emotions that help to form connections with another. Partners will not naturally operate at the same level of emotional intelligence. These differences don’t necessarily have to be barriers. It is more important that we are willing to learn more about ourselves, and how we are in relationships.

 

As we grow to know ourselves better we become wiser and more capable of understanding the big picture. That is, in order to love someone else completely we ourselves must be whole and love. This is when we no longer need to have our partner love us. It becomes a choice based in desire and not one based in need, as it was in childhood. When we realize this kind of love we are whole and we don’t need the relationship to feel love.

This is when we choose our relationship from moment to moment, day to day because we love ourselves so deeply and desire to share this love with our chosen partner. We no longer stay in relationships that are so-so out of a need for security. We find security within. We begin thriving…..

This is using your true GENIUS for a loving, empowered relationship.  Way to Go!!

 

To Loving Yourself Fully,

 

Valerie

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P.S. If you would like more support in applying these principles, give us a call.  In between our speaking and coaching engagements, we carve out a few individualized sessions each month. Schedule your appointment here.