Recently I was having a conversation with someone about how hard it is to leave a relationship. They were talking about how there never seems to be the right time or the right moment to leave. She was trying to find a way to leave this relationship without hurting the other person. It had been a long journey to arrive at the space where she realized she had done all she could and given all she had to make it work, but that this relationship had served its purpose in her life. She had learned so many valuable lessons, but the growth they had enabled each other to do was now taking them in completely different directions. She was staying in this relationship out of fear and not out of love. As she saw breaking up, it was about how she had failed. It seems like this is how most people feel when a relationship ends; there is a focus on what did I do wrong. However, when we shift the perspective and begin to give thanks for the gifts that have come through this relationship, the growth we have experienced, and the blessings we have received, it becomes easier to give thanks and let go because we are focused on the positive.
The one relationship in our lives we cannot break up with, however, is with ourselves. We may not always like ourselves and there may even be times that we do not love ourselves, but we cannot break up with ourselves. However, we can break up with the beliefs that we no longer want to be in a relationship with. We can break up with the negative self-talk and thoughts that float through our brains. We can break up with the fears of walking into the fullness of who we were created to be. We can break up with all that which is preventing us from evolving and growing in our life.
We can break up with aspects of ourselves, but we cannot break up with our selves. So, maybe starting today we need to be intentional about investing time and energy each day in creating a new and loving relationship with ourselves. Maybe we need to remember to tell ourselves how amazing we are, how much we love ourselves unconditionally. Maybe we need to remember to tell ourselves that we are worthy of being loved. Maybe we need to treat ourselves in the loving and respectful way we want the person of our dreams to treat us.
Valentine’s Day is not far away, so what are you going to do to celebrate your love for yourself. What are you going to do in your life so that you can be like Patti Labelle and sing I’m in Love[1]? Building a loving, long lasting, and healthy relationship with yourself does not happen over night. As LaBelle says, you have to decide to take it slow. We have to learn to listen to the wise and loving voice within ourselves that tells us how we are the ones who will fill our life with the joy we have dreamed of experiencing in our life.
What if we were honest with ourselves about our feelings? What if we released the fears and opened our heart to ourselves? What if we remembered that we are the one who has the power to erase the pain from our lives? When we realize that we cannot break up with ourselves, we have to make a choice. We choose to stay in a relationship with ourselves, which involves self-inflicted suffering, or we choose to develop a relationship with self that is based on unconditional love. What are you going to choose to do in your relationship with you?
[1] http://www.metrolyrics.com/im-in-love-lyrics-patti-labelle.html