What Can You Do To Nurture Your Relationship With Yourself?

In this session, we contemplate the relationship we have with ourselves, discussing the metaphysical/spiritual relationship between the self, the mind, the body, and the thing observing it all. We also discuss the concepts of self-care and the need to be selfish in order to be able to best help others.

This track is taken from my course, ‘Awaken To Your Highest Calling’, available now via my profile.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session.

I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself comfortable.

You can close down the eyes if you wish and take a deep slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

In a moment I'm going to share with you a question to contemplate and then we'll just sit in silence for a minute and let it percolate.

Then we'll talk about that question and see where the discussion leads us.

This question and indeed all of the questions in this course are designed to be a catalyst for change,

A prompt that will help you to reframe your thinking,

Help you to consider new possibilities and approaches and to usher in a state of being that is more attuned with your highest calling.

I invite you to approach the question with an attitude of extreme openness,

One where,

For the duration of the session,

You welcome in and accept any and all responses that arise.

There are no right or wrong answers,

No good or bad thoughts and nothing for you to run from or move towards.

Just be open to whatever arises,

For what it is,

In this moment,

Without judgment or filter.

By doing so,

You'll be opening yourself to the deepest and truest expression of wisdom and intuition available to you.

So let's take a moment to sit with today's question.

What could you do today to nurture your relationship with yourself?

What could you do today to nurture your relationship with yourself?

So this question,

What could you do today to nurture your relationship with yourself,

Implies a couple of things.

The metaphysical application,

The sort of spiritual application,

Implies that you and yourself are different things.

You're over here,

Yourself is over there,

And there's a relationship to be gained in that interaction,

In that space.

You're sort of working together.

And depending on how you look at psychology,

There is some truth to this.

You are you.

You are the thing operating the machine,

The little voice in the head,

The central executive.

But then,

Irrationalities and emotions and physical pains and obligations and other things just arise that this sort of ego space,

This central executive,

This Atman has to deal with.

And you have to know who and what you are,

And you have to make a world,

Your little world that you've got access to,

Best suited for who and what you are.

I'm learning more and more about myself every day,

And discovering that I need certain things.

Certain rituals and routines help me.

Certain things are off-putting.

But the thing that's making these discoveries sort of feels separate to the thing that is being discovered about.

It's like the thing that is doing the discovery is a higher or more detached or more mindful version of me.

Now,

Ultimately,

These are all interconnected.

It's all an aspect of who and what I am.

But the part of you that gets to choose in this moment,

The part of you that can focus,

The part of you that sort of is in control,

That's the part of you that needs to make and foster and nurture the relationship with your totality.

So it is this wiser,

More empathetic,

More self-aware part that we're speaking to that is going to do the nurturing.

So sit in and as that space,

And just consider what you can do for yourself.

This question implies that there's a relationship to be had with you and yourself,

And I fully agree with it.

The thoughts that you think,

Or that you allow yourself to think,

The food that you put into your body,

The exercise that you give or don't give yourself,

The health care,

The time and space and silence,

All of these things are aspects of a relationship.

I saw a meme,

I'll say,

That sort of suggested that you should,

Quote,

Treat yourself like a dog.

And the joke was this,

That we tend to look after our pets better than we look after ourselves.

And if you've got a pet and they get sick,

You take them straight to the vet and you give them the medicine and you do whatever needs to be done because you love this family member.

And they're not even a person,

They're an animal.

But when it comes to your own health,

You put off the checkups,

You don't feed yourself right,

You don't take yourself for a daily walk,

You don't exercise.

Basically,

You treat yourself worse than you treat the dog.

And I thought that was quite telling because objectively speaking,

You would argue that you are more important than your pet.

But based on practice,

A lot of people put that pet first.

A lot of people will ensure that the pet has what it needs and is living a good life before they put themselves in that space.

They're not really nurturing that relationship.

So I ask you,

What can you do to nurture your relationship with yourself?

What can you do today to nurture the relationship with yourself?

Is there something that you need?

This is going into that sort of self-care.

Self-care isn't just eating the cake.

It isn't just doing things that feel good.

It can be.

But I look at self-care as a way to stop yourself falling off the mental cliff into the abyss in the moment,

But also ensuring that you have safety rails between you and the cliff.

Taking it out of the analogy into real life,

That means that you are establishing the daily habits,

You are doing the routines,

You are putting things into place to ensure that you are safe moving forward,

That you are indeed thriving moving forward.

That might mean that you are implementing a daily meditation practice,

Exercising daily,

Ensuring that you see the doctors and the therapists,

Making time for friends and family,

And maybe pushing some people away that aren't as good for your mental state.

This is all self-care.

Ensuring that you're regulated,

All of these things.

Are you doing that?

Are you taking time to just sit and be and relax?

Maybe your problem isn't that you're not doing the self-care,

But you just sort of go,

Go,

Go,

And you're not relaxing enough.

Can you do something today that is just relaxing?

A warm bath,

A shower,

A walk in nature,

Nature bathing,

Forest bathing,

Sitting in the sun,

A warm heat pack on your belly sort of thing.

What can you do to nurture that relationship,

To give yourself some comfort?

Or perhaps your problem is that you don't push enough.

Perhaps you need a little bit more of some firm love,

Some encouragement that is motivational.

Do a little bit more.

Take that extra step.

Mow the lawn,

Do the dishes,

Vacuum,

Clean.

Your relationship with yourself should be of prime importance.

More important than any other relationship to your parents,

To your kids,

To your family,

To your friends,

To your work.

You,

To yourself,

Is the closest relationship.

You,

To yourself,

Is the closest relationship you will ever have.

You are in your mind and your body forever.

This is it.

You know,

So foster that relationship.

A good relationship involves listening and talking.

It's a communication back and forwards.

What is your body trying to tell you?

What is your mind trying to tell you?

Are you giving yourself that space to talk?

Are you listening or are you forcing?

In my home gym,

I have a set of rules up that help me and my children to best operate in the space.

And one of those rules,

More like guidelines,

Principles,

Is listen to your body.

Listen to your body.

As in,

If you're doing some weights,

If you're exercising and your body is telling you,

Oh,

This doesn't feel good,

Stop.

Stop and listen to your body.

Make sure you're doing the correct form.

Make sure that you've warmed up.

Make sure that you're not injured.

Make sure that you're not sick.

Listen to your body because in that way you'll get the best workout and you won't get injured.

Or at least you're reducing those chances,

Right?

So extending that to everything,

What can you do today to nurture your relationship with yourself?

What do you need?

Do you need rest?

Do you need exercise?

Do you need peace?

Do you need to talk to someone?

Do you need to write?

What do you need right now in this moment?

What do you need over time?

Can you give it to yourself?

What are you craving?

The final thing I want to suggest on this topic is that it can be very easy to push back and not want to nurture yourself.

You feel selfish.

Now I'm going to address this as its own session in this course,

But briefly,

If you're in a bad state,

If you are not optimal,

If you have not,

You know,

Quote unquote,

Been selfish enough to get yourself to that good place,

You're not going to be the best partner,

Child,

Parent,

Friend,

Worker,

As you could be.

If you are selfish in a way that gets you to an optimal level of performance for other people,

Then it's not really selfishness.

And,

You know,

As a subsession of this,

That idea of it being selfish or it being narcissistic or whatever sort of thing you're putting over the top of that is an inner story that may or may not be based in reality.

It could be a story overlaid on top of just your inner feelings here.

Nurturing yourself is not selfish.

It's necessary.

It's necessary for life.

So I just want to ask you,

What could you do today to nurture your relationship with yourself?

What could you do today to nurture your relationship with yourself?

So well done.

This brings us to the end of the session.

At the bottom of your screen,

You'll see the option to view the classroom or to ask a question.

Before moving on,

I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights,

To read the answers from other students,

And to hear my replies.

Remember to start your responses by restating the question,

Or in this case,

Relationship,

So we know which one you're referring to.

This is an opportunity for deep learning,

Further introspection and insight,

So please don't miss out.

I look forward to seeing you in the next session.

This session was taken from the course,

Awaken to Your Highest Calling.

It's out now and available on Insight Timer via my profile.

Check it out.