4 Habits to Improve Your Relationship with Yourself

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on 4 Habits to Improve My Relationship with Myself. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Until you have a good relationship with yourself, you may be unaware of what you like and what you want. If you're on autopilot all the time, doing what you think other people want you to do, then you may not really even know what you like or what you want. You may be unable to communicate to others about your thoughts, wants and needs. Well, guess what? If you don't know what you like or what you want, then it's going to be really hard to communicate that. And if you expect others to read your mind, you're setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment. You may be highly critical of mistakes if you don't have a good relationship with yourself. We all make mistakes. And when you have a good relationship with yourself, you're able to look at those mistakes as learning opportunities and also recognize what contributed to those mistakes so you don't make them in the future. If you don't have a good relationship with yourself, you may be anxious, always anticipating that inner critic to rear its ugly head and start shooting you to death. And many times, if you don't have a good relationship with yourself, you're willing to be treated poorly, whether you know it or not. You may agree to or. Or allow people to treat you in ways that you really shouldn't be treated because you want to be loved, you want to be connected, you want to be with other people because you don't love yourself. So you feel very disconnected and very lonely. So the first habit. Mindfulness. I know. Big surprise. On a daily basis, preferably more than once a day, notice how you're feeling and your thoughts, wants and needs. You know, if you check in with yourself and you say, you know what I feel? Great. Let's go. Wonderful. Be gone. If you check in with yourself and you say, I'm not feeling it, then think about it. Why not? And how can you address it? Instead of ignoring it and just saying, well, oh, well, and putting one foot in front of the other, stop and say, if I'm not feeling it, how can I address it? How can I be compassionate with myself? Why am I not feeling it? Am I exhausted? All right, well, what can I do about that? Do I dislike what I'm getting ready to have to do? Whether it's go to work or go to a meeting or go to the gym or clean litter boxes, whatever it is. Why do you. Why do you dislike it? And can you make it more palatable somehow. How can you make it less unpleasant? Or are you not feeling it today because you've got distress about something else? It has nothing to do with what you're getting ready to do. It's the fact that you're distracted because your kid is sick or your dog is sick or the bills are due or whatever it is. So there's a lot of different reasons. You may not be feeling it, but in order to start feeling better, you need to know what those reasons are and fake make a plan to address them. When you notice how you're feeling and your thoughts, wants and needs, it's important to validate that as accurate. This is how I feel in this moment right now. I. I may not know why yet, I'll get to that. But this is how I'm feeling. You're acknowledging it. You're not saying, okay, let's embrace this and dwell in it until the cows come home. You're just validating this is how you feel. And not telling yourself you should feel differently or you shouldn't feel this way. You're saying is what it is. And then you respond and reflect on the day and plan for tomorrow. What are you going to do again and what do you want to do differently? So it's important to be mindful at the beginning of the day and again, preferably throughout. But then at the end of the day, after you have gone through these things, reflect and say, okay, all the ways that I responded. Is that how I want to respond in the future or do I want to make some changes? Can I learn from today? Habit number two is compassion. Give yourself a break. Every day is not going to be an a day. And not every attempt you make at something is going to be a success. It's just the way life is. So stop yourself and being so damn critical. Yes, I know I swore. I don't know how to get it across to people any better than this. But stop. Stop being so self critical. Because all that does is make you feel self conscious, make you feel less capable and drain your energy. You're doing the best you can with the tools you have right now. Remember that. Validate that. Validate yourself and say, I am doing the best I can at this moment. And then encourage yourself, what do I need to do in order to move forward? In order to do better? I'm doing the best I can right now. What do I need to do to improve the next moment? Help us continue to make practical tools available to everybody by supporting the channel. You can donate any amount@docsnipes.com donate. You can donate on cash app at Doc Snipes. You can become a member of the YouTube channel and get perks@doc snipes.com join purchase a super thanks on any video that's helpful or even earn CEUs if you're a counselor who happens to be in need of continuing education@allce.com so habit number three encouragement. Focus on what you are doing right. When you make a critical statement, balance it with an accepting statement. Now, yes, we're going to make mistakes. We don't want to ignore those and only focus on what we're doing right. But it's important to get a a vision of the entire picture, not just focus on what we're doing wrong. As humans, we tend to focus on the wrongs instead of the rights. We need to focus on the wrongs in addition to the rights. So focus on what you're doing right and it will take some time to train your brain to do that when you make a mistake. Okay, fine, you made a mistake. We'll deal with it. Look at all the things that you did right as well. Balance it out so it doesn't start getting too heavy on that one side when there's actually a bunch of good stuff over here. When things go wrong, reflect on your strengths, supports and resources. You have to get through it. Yeah, things may suck right now. Whatever this is that went wrong may not be easily fixable right now. Or it may be. But if it's not, okay, encourage yourself. How are you going to get through it? What supports and resources do you have that you can call upon? You're not required. Even though this is about improving your relationship with yourself, you're not required to do everything by yourself. Sometimes part of being in a good relationship with self is knowing when you need to ask for support, when you need to ask for help or encouragement from others. And number four, Love yourself. And I didn't really know how to put this, but the love languages is one of the ways that we learn or notice or I'm not sure what word I'm looking for here, that other people truly care about us. So use that your love language to communicate with yourself. Oh, there's a concept. Quality time. If that's your love language, great. Do something that you like to like with yourself every day. It doesn't have to be hours and hours and hours. It can be 15 minutes. But do something you like every day. Acts of service. Do something nice for yourself, preferably every day. You know, draw yourself A bath or every once in a while maybe you can go out to eat instead of cooking. You know, that's an act of service. Let somebody else cook for you, whatever it is. That can be another way to show love for yourself. Doing acts of service, touch, get a massage or snuggle with. And I put dot, dot, dot, because it could be another human, it could be your critters, whatever it is. But if touch is your love language, then consider how you can integrate that to help yourself feel connected, to release that oxytocin. Words of affirmation. If that's your love language, then make sure that you are focusing on the things that you do right and using those words of encouragement and affirmation for yourself. Every day, remind yourself that you're awesome. And finally, gifts. If this is your love language, you can give yourself gifts. It doesn't have to be something big, you know, you don't want to get yourself big gifts every single day, but every once in a while, treat yourself to something or save up money. Every day, give yourself the gift of a little bit of money that goes into that jar that is going to add up so you can get that big gift eventually. But loving yourself, spending some of your time and energy on you to recognize you, to validate you, not only helps you feel connected to yourself and fulfilled and more aware of your thoughts, wants and needs, but it shows other people how you deserve to be treated. When you're disconnected from yourself, it is so much easier to get run down or feel disconnected from what? Well, everything. If you're just on autopilot, putting one foot in front of the other, you may miss life as it goes by. You may feel like you know something sneaks up and hits you from out of the blue. You get sick or you have a relapse from out of the blue because you were not connected with yourself. You were. You hadn't created an awareness of you. Improving your relationship with yourself really comes down to creating a secure attachment. And we've talked about this so many times, knowing that you will be there for you. Again, I'm not saying that you're expected to do this all by yourself, but until you are there for you, then, and you know what your thoughts, wants and needs are, other people aren't going to be very effective at helping you. You need to know what you need and then you can communicate it to them. There's a thought, so consistent mindfulness of your thoughts, wants and needs. Responding to those thoughts, wants and needs in a compassionate and encouraging way. Paying attention to yourself. Not just responding when there's a problem, but actually spending quality time with yourself, whatever that looks like for you each day, validating how you feel as how you feel. It's not right, it's not wrong, it just is. And then providing yourself when it with encouragement to improve the next moment and the safety of knowing that you're okay. You are lovable for who you are, even when you make mistakes, even when you're not perfect. You could sort of say, do for yourself what you want others to do for you.