Your Most Important Relationship

Contrary to popular belief, putting yourself first is not selfish. The relationship that you have with yourself is the most important relationship you will ever have in life. While friends may come and go, you are with you forever.

No matter what type of family you were born into, it doesn't take much to sow the seeds of doubt and suffer from self-esteem issues. Even people with the most loving of parents and financially stable homes experience bouts of insecurity. When you were young, you no doubt, looked up to your parents as though they were infallible. They didn't just house, feed, and clothe you, they loved you and lauded every achievement.

This often creates a natural feeling of inferiority. If you were lucky, you had parents or caregivers that helped you work through those types of feelings so that you came out the other side confident in friendships, relationships, and in your career and personal life. Not everyone is so lucky, and in all honesty, even parents who intend well can add to feelings of inferiority. Often, the messages we are sent are confusing to us at the time and don't soothe us in the way that parents intend them to.

How we are raised has a lot to do with who we become as adults, our younger years help form our personalities, likes, dislikes, and fuel our confidence (or lack thereof). All of that fuels how you see yourself.

If you were failed in your youth there's a good chance you will harbor those feelings of inferiority, whether they are based in truth or not. For others, though, they may go in the opposite direction building an air of superiority as a means of protection against hurt. The end result is always the same – a feeling of being different, lonely, and struggling to fit in with others.

Regardless of the cause or your feelings on the matter – you are wrong. You are strong, you are capable, and you are worth it. Until you learn to love yourself you will struggle to build honest and open relationships with others, whether it's a romantic one or just platonic. There is a distinct difference between self-deprecating and just downright bullying yourself.

Your life's happiness truly hinges on your relationship with you. It impacts your happiness, your success, your relationships, and just about every other facet of your life.

By learning to accept that you are important and building a safe and loving relationship with yourself you will find self-confidence, you will watch as your relationships start to improve, you will become more productive, you will understand the importance of prioritizing, you will feel happier, and you will know that self-care is everything.