WRITE NOW THERAPY!

If you’re not your best self right now, don’t expect your relationships to be their best either. In fact, when you aren’t your best, you are likely to be drawn into a relationship that feeds into you whatever you are struggling with. If you are caught up in an addiction or if you are lacking self-confidence or feeling like you need something to fulfill your life or any other internal issue you are struggling through, you are likely to connect with someone in a relationship that fills a void you should be able to fulfil yourself. Co-dependency grows out of our own unhealthfulness which then becomes a cycle that is hard for us to break. We end up being in the same type of broken relationship over and over again. Someone who is a caretaker or feels the need to fix someone is actually asking to have someone fix or take care of them.

Sound like anyone you know?

In order for us to get the best out of our relationships we need to ensure we are our best. If you’re not your best right now, you can’t expect your relationship to be its best. Don’t blame the other person or persons in the relationship until you have fixed what your issues are. When we’ve worked through our issues and know better who we really are, we are more than likely to look at our relationships as what we are bringing to the table and not what the other person is bringing us.

ARE YOU REALLY AT YOUR BEST RIGHT NOW?

Hold on a minute. Before you get wrapped up in the idea that you are already giving everything in the relationship and you are a caretaker and there is no time for yourself because you are taking care of everyone else, you’re wrong. You may be doing the best you can with what you have. But are you doing what you are doing and honestly giving without needing something in return? If you have expectations for the other person in your relationship(s) to reciprocate the same or similar back to you, you’re not really being your best self in that relationship.

Think about it. Do you give always expecting something back in return? If you’re quick to say no, ask yourself, is what you get back the idea of being you’re on the higher ground because they don’t give back? Or do you feel like you are the victim or the martyr in the relationship because all you do is give and get nothing back? Maybe you get back the idea that you never get what you want or need and all you do is give. Does that sting a little?

You know where that comes from, right? It comes from the fact that you are not your best self. You aren’t ensuring you are taking care of yourself or getting the self-care you need. The only person responsible for fulfilling your needs is you! That missing element of taking care of yourself before someone else is what what puts your relationship out of balance and you are left feeling unfulfilled. I’m sorry to say that is on you.

ARE YOU TAKING CARE OF YOU?

If you don’t take care of yourself how can you expect anyone else to take care of you? If you don’t know how to do that, neither will they. “Well, they should just know what I need.” Why? You don’t acknowledge yourself or your own needs. Why should they? “So everything is my fault?” When it comes to you and your life and your needs – yes. This is your fault.

Too often people in relationships work to change their partner or the other person or people in their lives because they want what they want and what they really want is what they need to be giving to themselves.

You are the only person responsible for your life. YOLO (you only life once) and its your life.

IF YOUR RELATIONSHIP ISN’T WORKING FOR YOU – YOU ARE THE PROBLEM

If your relationship(s) are not what you want them to be or what you need, you need to start working on your own things and fix those first. Stop trying to fix the other person. You can’t control them as much as you would like (you may already know that).

So what is it you need to do to make sure you are your best self?

Ask yourself these questions?

• What am I trying to get out of someone else to fulfill in me? Am I looking for them to love me a certain way? Am I looking for them to do something for me? What are my expectations of them?
• Now ask yourself the same things but ask it about yourself? What do I need to do myself to feel fulfilled? In what way should I be loving myself? What expectation of myself should I have for myself?
• Here are some more questions to ask of yourself; What am I doing every day to take care of myself? What are my self-care routines? What are the things I should be doing to make myself feel better?
• What things in my past am I hanging onto in a way that will not allow me to move forward? What things in my past are still unprocessed? What things have I not dealt with that need to be?
• What happened in my past that I am expecting someone right now to fulfill in me? What pain or hurt do I carry that I am expecting someone else to take care of for me?
• What am I suffering from right now? What am I grieving over? What loss or setback am I dealing with?

LET’S WORK ON THIS

I suggest you grab a piece of paper and a pen and starting answering these questions for yourself. In order for you to move forward you need to start looking at yourself. These questions will help you dive into what you are right now. Until you have worked through what you have going on, you can’t expect any of your relationships to be fill your void.

In fact, you should not be so reliant on a relationship to fulfill you. You need to be able to be self-sufficient in yourself to be in a good relationship.

Remember things ebb and flow in life so there will be times where you will have it all together but there will also be times when you need to pull it together and figure it out. Losses and setbacks in life can easily trigger a path we go down that we don’t want. Working through those things in our life that is setting us back is critical.

Before you analyze your relationship(s) with other people, take a look at yourself. If you are not your best self, taking care of yourself, or capable of fulfilling your own needs, how can you expect someone else to fill that void for you? Truth is you shouldn’t. You need to start looking at yourself and working to ensure you are your best self now.

The truth is your relationship will get better the more you work on yourself. When we shed the expectations we put on other people and handle them ourselves, it lightens the load on our relationship. Thus making the relationship better. The better we feel about ourselves, the better our relationships will be.