Want a Relationship? Have one with yourself first

Posted by:  Bri
Sunday, March 29th 2009.

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Have you ever spoken to a psychic who told you it wasn't time for a relationship?  "You need to work on yourself first."  I have (yes, even we advisors need the help of someone other than ourselves sometimes).

Sometimes it made perfect sense.  I knew I wasn't in a balanced state.  Other times, I didn't get it.  I thought, "I've worked on myself so much.  I'm happy.  What else can there be?"

For a while, my problem was that I "needed" someone else to feel worthwhile. I had so many achievements, talents and skills to be proud of, but I never felt happy because I didn't have a love interest.  This, I find, is the main problem facing many of my clients.  At the time, most people hear it, but they don't digest it.  I know I never did.

Then for about 2 years, I did have a love interest (and best friend).  I spent most of my waking moments with him, and he was everything I thought about, and everything I lived for.  When he had to leave town, and cut ties, for personal and health reasons, we were both devastated.  For a moment there, I asked myself, "What do I have here to live for?"

So, how did I turn it around?  And what do I always FEEL for other people who need to turn it around? (Advice I never took for myself.)  Find out what you're living for.

Despite the importance of love and relationships with others, the relationship with oneself is most important.  How do you love yourself?  You ask what career goals, health goals, educational goals you have for yourself and you start making those your only and top priorities for a while.  You eat, sleep and breathe them.  That is, just until you can train yourself to cut out this "need" for another person.

Slow and steadily you find that you're really darn happy.  The friends you have made along the way are those involved in your priorities, so they're valuable.  And, last but not least, suddenly, when you are asked why you're not dating, you realize that it's cause you don't really care right now.  You have other fish to fry.

It's precisely at this moment that you find the man or woman of your dreams.  Ever been told you find them when you're not looking?  It's true.  You aren't looking, because you're so wrapped up in your life.  When you find them, you make them well aware of who you are, and that they must be respectful and supportive of your priorities.  Automatically, you weed out the bad ones, and when the right one comes, he/she is REALLY right.

So, when you're advisor responds to your love question with "You need to work on yourself," don't bypass it with, "But what do you think of So-And-So?"  Hang up, ask yourself what he/she could have possibly meant, and figure out what YOU are living for.