Make way for the path of least resistance by listening to yourself first. Too often many of us will miss that step. We forget that this our life and the one partnership we will ever have from the cradle to the grave is with ourselves. Yet, we often don’t treat ourselves with the trust, loyalty, and respect that we deserve. Instead, we insist that other people do and be what we aren’t doing and being for ourselves. This creates conflict both internally and externally. Neither are the path of least resistance.

Self-Awareness Only Comes When We Listen to Ourselves

We have to hear our own stories playing in our heads if we really want to understand the human in someone else. Otherwise we can blame them for what’s going on inside of us. When we do that, we are unconsciously creating drama. It’s impossible to listen to someone else with love when we’ve created separation from them within ourselves. Self-awareness is the only way to move through this without taking it out on other people.

The lack of self-awareness I observe is honestly incredible to me. It’s actually why I became a Self-Awareness Coach and wrote both of my books. If we aren’t willing to see our own patterns we won’t fix anything that isn’t working in our lives.

I’m not above this either. If I’m not willing to look at my patterns, I suffer. It’s just that simple. One of the best things my mom embedded into my brain early was, “I can’t make you feel anything.” I was thirteen when she first uttered those words to me, and they did not go over well.

It would be a long time before I realized I needed to understand the power of that statement to make any positive growth over my circumstances. Understanding this is what eventually gave me my power back.

I still have to remind myself when I’m reacting to my kids, partner, friends, politicians, or anyone else that I’m feeling angry, sad, annoyed, or even happy with. Pay attention to the way I phrased that. They didn’t make me feel anything. I feel the way I do, and I can do something to change any feelings I don’t like. That’s my power. I only have options to feel and do things differently if I put the power back into my own hands. That’s what self-awareness does, it gives us our power back.

I say this a lot in my writings, coaching, and speaking events, self-blame isn’t what I’m talking about here. The last thing I ever want anyone to do is to get in the cycle of self-blaming, because that’s self-abuse. That cycle led me to being verbally, emotionally, psychologically, and financially abused by someone else. I didn’t realize it at the time, but somewhere deep down, I believed I deserved it. I had learned very early not to blame someone else, but I took that as, “Everything is my fault.” That’s not self-awareness, that’s self-abuse.

Taking Accountability and Responsibility

Once we are open and willing to see ourselves clearly without self-abuse, we can take accountability and responsibility for what’s ours. I want to give you example. After I left the abusive relationship, I didn’t blame him, but I blamed the alcohol. I had learned enough not to self-blame for accepting the abuse for as long as I did, but I still wasn’t ready to take responsibility and accountability for the patterns that brought me to the relationship and the ones that kept me there. It was much easier to blame the alcohol.

I took almost of year working on building my self-worth before going into another pseudo-relationship with a man. I put out to the Universe that all I wanted was someone who didn’t drink or do drugs. Well…the Universe replied. He didn’t do drugs, but I got to see just how codependent I was. I didn’t know it was codependency at the time. He said he wanted to lead a better life, and I took it upon myself to show him exactly how to do that. Rachael to the rescue. I was in college at the time, so I even went as far as studying his mental health disorder. When he finally ended things with me, he said, “It’s like I’m your addiction.” He was right. My need to rescue men was my addiction.

Being with my abusive partner fed my addiction because he would be really nice for awhile with love-bombing. He put me on a giant pedestal. Then I would do one thing he considered wrong and he threw me off. He did everything he could to make me feel as small as possible. Then he would apologize and beg me not to leave him. He promised me over and over that he would never do that again and that he wanted to be a better man for me. That cycle just fed my addiction.

Do you remember what my college professor said? “We are as sick or as healthy as our partners.” That’s the moment I dove in and started reading books like Codependency No More by Melody Beattie and Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw. I listen to both these books on repeat for about three months. I was NOT going to repeat this pattern again.

The next step was having a love affair with myself. I became the partner to myself that I wanted to attract. I loved it so much I was happy to remain single, but we all know that’s exactly when the next person comes into our lives. To this day, it still remains the healthiest and happiest relationship I’ve ever had. We are going on eleven years. He shows me he loves me daily.

All of that couldn’t have happened if I didn’t listen to myself with love and change the patterns in my life that were keeping me in unhealthy relationships. All the steps I took helped me in all my relationships, not just the romantic one.

Our Relationships Reflect our Inner Worlds

If we need help finding our inner patterns keeping us stuck, we just need to look at our relationships. It’s not one size fits all here. Take me for example. My friendships with women are amazing. I’m blessed to have the greatest women friends. If someone isn’t a great friend, they fall away from my life pretty fast, and I’m very grateful for whatever they were there to teach me.

I worked through my issues with both my parents early in life, so by the time I was adult having kids, I had amazing relationships with both my parents and their partners. My dad and partner both died, but I still have wonderful relationships with my mom, stepdad, and my siblings. but they still are reflections of my good, bad, and ugly when I need to see how something is affecting my inner world.

My relationships with my kids, romantic partners, colleagues, kids’ friends’ parents, fellow students, churches, politics, pets, and so on have been some of my greatest teachers when it comes to how my reactions to them show me my strengths and my weaknesses.

Next time you have an intense reaction to someone or something, try looking in the mirror and saying, “I feel (fill in the blanks).” Think back to when you’ve felt this way before. Don’t make it about the person you are reacting to in the moment. Take ownership of your feelings. Take deep cleansing breaths while you do this. If you start crying, let it out. Don’t stop it. Think of it as cleansing your soul. You are pulling up stuck feelings in your body that are keeping you stuck. If you are familiar with EFT Tapping, it’s a great time to do that. That can actually help you embed new messages as these feelings move up and out.

Try to see the people you have complicated relationships with as teachers. Once you learn what you’re meant to learn from them, some of them will fade away from your life. It’s amazing how this happens. Once you are no longer reflecting back to them what they need to keep the chaos going, the relationship will change. I honestly LOVE how this happens.

How We Treat Ourselves will be Reflected Back to Us

The more we love, honor, and respect ourselves, the more we will attract that in the people around us.

The more we trust ourselves, the less we will put expectations on others to be who they are not. We will do right by us.

The more we speak kindly to ourselves, the less unkind words we will accept from others. They may say them, but we won’t take them in as true.

The more we love ourselves, the greater capacity we have to give and accept love to and from others.

The more we listen with love to ourselves, the more we are able to listen with love to others…even when we don’t agree with a word they are saying.

Listen to the Podcast

Remember you can listen to the Listening with Love Series on the From A Loving Place with Author Rachael Wolff Podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts. You can also catch up on the From A Loving Place YouTube channel.

Until next time, I wish you love, abundance, and peace.