Episode 85: What Is Your Relationship With Yourself?

sSara (00:05)

Empowered people make informed decisions that lead to living a life without regret. This is Sara Khaki and Shawna Woods from Atlanta Divorce Law Group. And this is the Happily Ever After Divorce Podcast. Welcome to the Happily Ever After Divorce Podcast. I’m attorney Sara Khaki with Atlanta Divorce Law Group, and I’m joined by our very own managing partner, Shawna Woods. In this episode, we are going to discuss your relationship with yourself. And this came to me from

An event I was at in LA back in 2019 when I was fortunate enough to go to an Alison Armstrong workshop, what she calls a lux event. And she opened up her workshop with this powerful statement that hit me like a ton of bricks. And this is her exact quote. You will never let any relationship in your life be better than the relationship you have with yourself.

So Shawna, as my legal partner, as my buddy, as my co-conspirators and all things this podcast, what does that mean to you?

sShawna (01:20)

That’s very powerful. And when I hear that.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the saying that when you’re in the airplane and the airplanes going down, you need to put your oxygen mask on first before you help anyone else put theirs on. And really what that means to me is unless you are taking the time to really take care of the relationship that you have with yourself, that you cannot have a successful relationship with anyone else.

And I mean with anyone else, we’re talking your children, your significant other, your friends, your parents, your coworkers, yes, anyone. If you’re not first taking care of yourself. So I think that we have to step back and go, well, what does that mean, taking care of myself?

sSara (02:04)

You’re a co-worker.

You know, when I was thinking about this, I have my notes back from 2019 or 2020, I was right before COVID when I went to this event and I remember writing, you’ll never let anyone love you more or take better care of you than you are, you’re willing to take care of yourself and love yourself. So that’s why your relationship with yourself is the most important one.

Because your relationship with yourself is what teaches other people how to treat you, how to take care of you, how to nurture you, how to cherish you. But I think that we get it twisted because we look for the things that we don’t have in ourselves. We look for the areas where we feel insecure and we look for partner to fill those

Buckets up for us. And they may be able to for a little bit, but long term partnership that lasts a lifetime, or friendships that last a lifetime, don’t work that way. You have to be able to provide those things and receive those things from yourself and set the stage for other people around you.

To then be to say, this is how this per this is what relationship with this person looks like.

sShawna (03:49)

I think one of the most important things when talking about this is first of all identifying who you are and what your needs are. And that may sound very basic and perhaps if you grew up in a very loving family that was very supportive of you, you knew at an early age who you were and what your needs are. But for many people, didn’t. And for many people, they have to take a step back as an adult and identify themselves.

And what they need to be successful and just quite frankly what success means to them. It does mean different things to different people and I think the very first and we talked about this a little briefly before I think the very first thing you have to say are what are my core beliefs? When you start there, what are my core beliefs? Then you start, all right, what are my current challenges?

sSara (04:35)

Really.

sShawna (04:44)

And go from building on that, then what are my life goals? I do think it’s really important for people to take time to be by themselves. I know that I have been a very big proponent of at least once in your life, you need to go on a long trip away by yourself.

And experience another culture or experience another country, but do it by yourself because I think it’s one of the most self-reflecting things that you can do is to put yourself outside your comfort zone and concentrate on who you are and where you want to be in this world.

sSara (05:27)

You know Sean, we’ve talked before about setting boundaries and I think that there are those of us who work on learning how to set boundaries and then there’s those of us who naturally set boundaries and I think that people who naturally set boundaries just by how they are showing up just by their presence alone are most likely people who have a very strong and healthy relationship with themselves, meaning they’re very comfortable with themselves. They’re able to

Address their own values and needs with themselves and be a source of receiving of that for themselves and provide that for themselves and be able to do things like completely be on their own and go travel and be comfortable with that. Mean, we talked about four about the difference between being lonely versus alone. If you’re alone doesn’t necessarily mean you’re lonely if you’re very comfortable with yourself and

You have a positive relationship with yourself. You know, some of the things we see when somebody is in an unhappy relationship or in a marriage and they’re considering divorce, they’ll say things like, he just doesn’t cherish me or she just doesn’t make me feel loved. She doesn’t make me feel wanted or he doesn’t make me feel protected. He doesn’t make me feel cared for. He doesn’t make me feel safe. So

What are you doing? How’s your relationship with yourself? Are you somebody that makes yourself feel safe? Do you trust you? Do you cherish you? Do you value you? And once you have that fully on your own and those buckets are full from within, then I think you’re naturally, energetically only going to attract people that do the same.

For you and you’re able to give that to them. And I think it all goes back to the conversation of receiving, right? Are you able to receive love? Are you able to receive self-esteem? Are you able to receive confidence, safety? And your relationship with yourself is your training ground.

For being able to receive these things. You can’t look yourself in the mirror and receive love from yourself. You won’t be able to receive it from somebody else and no matter how much they give it to you and they don’t see anything change and it’s just an empty pot that keeps leaking, they’re gonna stop giving that.

sShawna (08:13)

I absolutely agree. Think one of the things that is a core to having a good relationship outside yourself is treating yourself exactly the way you want someone to treat you. If you want someone to be compassionate with you, then you damn well better be compassionate with yourself. If you want someone to value you, you need to be valuing yourself. And I don’t think that’s as easy as what we’re saying. It’s not an easy thing always to do.

We are the harshest critics of ourself. But you always have to take that step back and say, would I let somebody else talk to me this way? Would I let somebody else treat me this way? And if the answer is no, then why are you laying the groundwork for them to do that? And not that this is necessarily always tied back to a narcissist, but not taking care of yourself is kind of opening the door to a toxic relationship.

Where they’re coming in to give you something that they feel that you’re not giving yourself so that you they are now that integral part of you. There’s a lot of talk about love when you say I met my other half. I don’t think real lasting love is about meeting your other half. I think it’s about meeting your other whole.

sSara (09:29)

Wow, I love that. You should say that again.

sShawna (09:35)

See if I can say it exactly the way I said it. I don’t think meeting your other half is the real foundation of love. I think the real foundation of love is meeting your other whole. You are a whole person. You want to attract a whole person. So treating yourself the way you want someone else to treat you is the foundation for finding love.

sSara (10:02)

And so being a whole person means being able to provide for yourself and receive from yourself all of the things that you have that you value and find to be needs of yours. You one of the things you said that I loved is compassion. And I think a lot of people go through life feeling misunderstood and understanding comes from having compassion. You can’t understand something you don’t have compassion for.

And so if you don’t have compassion for yourself, then you’re probably going through life feeling misunderstood by other people because it’s a constant projection and reflection of what’s going on inside.

sShawna (10:45)

And I think that one of the biggest challenges when someone’s not feeling whole or they’re like, how do I start with this? Right. There are a lot of mindset books out there. There are a lot of mindset podcasts that I would challenge people to just start doing something simple for yourself every day, something nice for yourself every day that you didn’t earn, right. That’s not a call that is not a necessity. And it could be as simple as.

I don’t think I have time to take that long bath tonight. You’re going to make that time. It could be simple as I don’t really take the time to get up and exercise in the morning. You take that time. It’s about being nice to yourself. It is about whatever it is you’re needing and giving that to yourself. Because if you don’t, what you’re presenting out in the world is not your best self.

sSara (11:42)

You know, I’m going to give a very tactical trick to what you just explained on taking the time for yourself and you don’t necessarily even need to read a book, but you can check in with yourself. I do this every day. So I journal every day and I have a book called the five minute journal and I’ve been using it since 2018. My dearest cousin, Linda gave it to me. It’s been such a gift in my life. The reason I love this book, this journal method, and it’s just takes five minutes of your time, but it asks you.

This very specific question that I think builds up your relationship with yourself and it asks, what would make today great? And what I am very particular about when I, and you have to give it three things that would make today great. And I’m very particular about only writing three things that I’m in control of. So I don’t write three things that requires somebody else to do something or some sort of a hopeful miracle to happen.

Very simple things that only I’m in control of and only I can provide for me. So it might be taking the time to have a cup of tea and sit outside and get some fresh air with my tea. It might be getting some physical exercise. It might be, you know, taking a walk. It might be calling a friend that I haven’t spoken to in a while and just wanting to like make a reach out and let them know that, you know, hey, I’m thinking of you. These are little things that

They’re small, they’re not grandiose, but they are little things, three little things I do every day that builds upon my relationship with myself and fills my cup up so I can then pour into other people’s cups. And when I do those things, I can show up in a much stronger way for other people because I have nurtured my own give and receive relationship.

sShawna (13:31)

I think that’s excellent, Vysta.

sSara (13:33)

Thank you, Shawna.

sShawna (13:35)

Thank you.