Question

Catherine asked us this question: “How can I continue to strive to regard myself as worthy of unconditional love in a relationship, just as I am?”

She asked this because, in her words, “I have been in two long-term relationships that ended with me feeling used and taken for granted. I came out of them thinking that I must be doing something that gives the impression I am not worth making an effort for — that I am perceived as the one who meets needs without requiring any reciprocal effort to meet mine as well”

There are many ways we could answer this question, but we would like to address how  Catherine (or anyone for that matter) can start treating herself like she’s worthy of unconditional love.

Artwork by Rita Loyd

Which might cause you to ask, “Easy to say, but how can I do that”?

You can start with these three beginner’s steps to practicing self-love. By applying these self-love techniques you will automatically start treating yourself as the valuable being that you inherently are.

What are You Thinking About?

Step One: Explore your thinking.

Whether you’re aware of it or not, it’s the thoughts you think that generate the way you feel about yourself. The way you feel about yourself influences the actions you take. And your actions generate everything you create in your life.

Most of us have been raised in cultures that teach us to focus on what’s happening outside of ourselves as being responsible for creating the situations in our lives. “If only they wouldn’t…” “If only it hadn’t…” “If only you would…”  “It wasn’t me. It’s two other guys…”

When you primarily focus on what’s going on “out there” it’s very challenging to really know what’s going on “in here”–to know yourself, and to understand what’s most important to you.

So, if something happens “out there” that you don’t enjoy, and all you know to do is try and change those external circumstance, you’re bound to feel bad. Why? Because without first changing your internal reactions it is much harder to effectively change your external circumstances. Or, as Einstein put it:

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”

That is why we suggest you start the practice of exploring your internal thoughts as the first step to treating yourself as worthy of unconditional love. You will know which thoughts are important to explore by using your feelings as an alarm.

The next time you feel uncomfortable in any way, try to identify what you were thinking about just before you started feeling uncomfortable. Then use the next step to change this level of thinking.

Identify Your Personal Core Values–Who You are at a Deep Level

Step Two: Identify what’s most important to you.

The quickest way to start giving yourself unconditional love is to get to know yourself well enough that you can appreciate who you are–even when you don’t like how you feel.

Shakespeare said it best when he wrote, “To thine own self be true.”

Discovering what’s most important to you–what you most deeply value–is the best way we know to discover who you truly are.

These personal values are sometimes well hidden inside your every day feelings. The stronger your feelings–the more important the value is that they express.

In step one you identified what you were thinking about just before you started feeling uncomfortable. Now that you’ve interrupted the thought, ask yourself questions such as: “What is so important to me in this situation that I feel so strongly about?” “What is missing for me that is so important?”

For example, underneath a sense of deep sadness, you might discover caring and consideration are very important to you, and those things are missing in the situation at hand. Hidden within confusion could be a strong desire for understanding. Beneath frustration, you could discover that you want to be more effective.

When you can get under your feelings to what’s deeply important to you—you will start to notice wonderful qualities about yourself. So rather then being stuck in the negative thoughts and the feelings they generate,  you can discover “thine own self”–a valuable person you can easily learn to love.

Knowing YOU is Loving YOU

Step Three: Get to know your best friend.

Although at times you may feel very sad, frustrated or lonely, once you learn to stop yourself the very moment you begin feeling uncomfortable, and then identify what’s most important to you beneath your feelings, you’ll find that you can always be there for YOU. You can listen to what’s important to you. You can figure out ways to get more of whatever you deeply value that is missing in your life.

Using these self-love techniques you are guaranteed to find the best friend you’ve ever had and will be well on your way to mastering the art of self-love and acceptance.

Never Settle for Less Again

Now we’d like to get back to the other thing Catherine said: “I have been in two long-term relationships that ended with me feeling used and taken for granted. I came out of them thinking that I must do something that gives the impression I am not worth making an effort for – that I am perceived as the one who meets needs without requiring any reciprocal effort to meet mine as well.”

Loving and accepting yourself is the first step to creating unconditional love in all your relationships. This will make it much easier to experience the mutual respect and consideration you desire.  With practice at interrupting negative thoughts, and then discovering what you really want, you’ll gain the confidence to ask  for what you want and know that you’re worth getting it.

To Get What You Need You Have to Know What You Value

Do you ever find yourself unsure of what you “need” in a situation or what would be the “best” thing to do? Would you like more confidence that the decisions you make are not sowing the seeds of regret? If so, you may be intrigued by our response to this question from our community: “What’s the difference between values and needs?” This is our attempt at a very brief education about core human values and a look at how to develop what we call your Values Intelligence, or V-IQ.

Values Intelligence

Let’s start by defining what we mean by core human values.

The word value originates from the Latin word “valere“, which means “be strong, be well, be of value,” and is also the root of the word “valiant.”

We define human values as:

What’s most deeply important to a person, without reference to specific people, places, actions or times.

Human values are the landmarks that guide a person’s choices so their actions are in harmony with what is most meaningful to them. They are what a person finds most important or motivating at the deepest level.

Examples of Core Human Values

To be clear about this. here’s a very brief list of things we would describe as basic human values.

Again, this is a very brief list of examples of core values. Your most important personal values may exclude some that are on this list, and may include many others which don’t appear here.

You may notice that things such as: air, food, water, shelter, etc. are not on this list. That’s because these are not what we would call exclusively “human values.” These fall more in the category of things that are valuable for sustaining life in whatever form.

The important thing to pay attention to when reviewing this list is the last part of our definition. You’ll notice that each of the words in the values list describes something “without reference to specific people, places, actions or times.” If they did, we would call these “strategies” rather than “values.”

This distinction plays an important role in answering the next question.

What’s the Difference Between Values and Needs?

By definition, a need is: a lack of something useful, required, or desired. Therefore, if we don’t consider something useful, required, or desired, we can never be in need of it. As a corollary to this, we cannot “need” something unless it is lacking.

In short: you can’t need it if you don’t value it or if you’ve already got it.

There are a few benefits from shifting our understanding of these words in these ways. One is that by using these definitions we naturally turn our attention to what we value that’s missing in a situation, rather than dwelling on what is lacking that we “need.” This turns our attention from what we don’t have to what we want, which is a much more powerful perspective for identifying our options.

Second, we all know how quickly someone can become “one to avoid” if they always express themselves in terms of their needs. Have you ever heard someone describe someone else by saying, “They’re just too needy!”

But expressing what we want in terms of what we value allows others to relate to us in terms they can identify with. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone reacting negatively to someone “valuing” everything in the examples of values listed above. You’ll probably never hear someone say, “They’re just too valuey!”

The Importance of Knowing What You Value

Everything we’ve covered so far was intended to bring us to this point. We can now take a look at the critical importance of being able to identify your own, personal core values, which is this.

If you misidentify what you value, it’s likely you’ll misidentify what you need, which makes it likely that you’ll develop strategies that will satisfy neither what you need nor what you value.

This is why we believe it’s so important that people begin to develop their Values Intelligence, or V-IQ. We understand this as your ability to:

1. Know what you value
2. Identify what you value that’s missing in a situation
3. Develop concrete, actionable strategies to begin experiencing what you value
4. Take only actions that are in harmony with your values
5. Measure your success by whether you’re experiencing more of what you value

In this process, identifying your personal values is the first step in knowing the most valiant actions you can take in any situation. In fact, we’ve found no better way for a person to begin experiencing a truly “valuable life” than developing their V-IQ.

If you’re new to our work you may be interested in knowing that we offer a free values exercise worksheet.

This is designed so you can use it in any situation or relationship in your life to determine what you value most–the first characteristic of values intelligence.

If you’re interested in developing the other four aspects, subscribe to this blog, read our articles, or visit our store. Helping people with their “values education” is a core part of what we do.

Re-Establishing Trust in Your Relationship

(The following is Part 2 of our response to a question we received. To the best of our ability we removed all personally identifying information and have made the situation as generic as possible.)

We assume you have read part one of this response in the previous blog post. We also hope you have taken the opportunity to read the article we suggested near the end of that post. Part one concluded with the importance of establishing trust in your ability to take care yourself in this kind of situation, whether or not you choose to stay with your spouse.

If you choose to move forward in the relationship, then it will be important to establish more openness and honesty with your spouse. It can be quite challenging to reestablish trust with the spouse who has lied about something as important as drug use, and overcoming these issues can take quite a while. So we recommend you only undertake this journey if you trust your ability to take care of yourself along the way.

But, no matter how much you trust yourself, you cannot reestablish trust with your spouse on your own. Your spouse has to want this too. As the saying goes: It takes two to tango. It will take cooperation from both of you to get your relationship back on track.

We have an article that offers advice about how to establish this kind of [tag-tec]cooperation[tag-tec]. And most importantly, it does it in a way that can free you from judgment, blame, fear, and shame that you and your spouse may feel toward each other in this situation.

Following the steps in this article can help you start to reestablish the trust has been lost. It will help you figure out what each of you wants from your relationship and what each of you are willing to do to resolve your current relationship troubles. The title of the article is: 5 Keys for Creating Genuine Cooperation in All Your Relationships

You can the process described in this article to come to agreement about what you want to create in your relationship together, and then make specific agreements to work together to create it. Practicing genuine cooperation is the best way we know to build trust in relationship.

Getting Help for the Journey Ahead

If you both agree that you want to work together to resolve these trust issues and improve your relationship, then we suggest you seek the support of someone with relationship counseling skills that you trust. This help can be very important in keeping you on track as make progress regaining the trust you’ve lost in your relationship.

You may be able to find someone with these skills by asking your friends, coworkers, or your spiritual counselors to suggest someone they trust. You may already know someone who is fair, impartial, and has the wisdom to provide the guidance you need. But regardless of how you choose to find them, we strongly suggest that you get this support.

Whatever you choose to do next, we hope you are able to do it with compassion for yourself and for your spouse.

We hope this has helped in some small way. We would enjoy hearing from you if it has.

Committed to supporting your happiness,

Beth and Neill

My Spouse Lied to Me About Using Drugs – Now What?

(The following is Part 1 of our response to a question we received. To the best of our ability we removed all personally identifying information and have made the situation as generic as possible.)

We understand that it has been quite a shock for you to discover your spouse had lied to you about being in recovery. We hope the following suggestions may help you get “unstuck” from the confusion you are experiencing and help you choose what would be best for you to do next.

The first thing we suggest you do in this situation is to practice the following two understandings. But by “understanding” we don’t mean that you will agree with the behavior, give up on what is important to you, or resign yourself to the situation.

We simply hope you will experience some relief by practicing these two understandings. This relief will come partly from an increase in your ability to be compassionate with yourself and your spouse, partly from the clarity you’ll gain from knowing which actions you may want to take next, and partly by helping you restore trust in your relationship.

Understanding Number One – We Do the Best We Can

The first understand we find important to practice in situations like this is: People are always doing the best they can to have what is important to them. Always!

Before you were married, when you asked if your spouse had a drug problem, they gave you an answer they believed would meet most of their needs in the best way possible. There must have been something that was so important to them that they were willing to lie to you to protect it.

We guess they were protecting their relationship with you. They must have been painfully aware that any other answer than “Yes, I am drug free and in recovery”, would probably have resulted in losing their relationship with you. So in their mind they were faced with losing you or lying. And saving the relationship with you was more important than telling the truth.

Unfortunately, it seems that their lie was not very effective in the long run. Now that you’ve discovered it, they seem in danger of losing the relationship anyway. But, again, it was the best your spouse could do to protect what was important to them in that moment.

This same understanding is also true about their use of drugs.

There is some need your spouse is meeting by using drugs that they have not been able to meet in any other way. We predict that they will be unable to stop using drugs until they discover the need that using drugs satisfies, and then figure out another way to satisfy that need without it costing them so much–such as losing relationships with people they love.

From your message it’s obvious you love your spouse. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be in such pain about this discovery. Helping them discover a less costly way to meet ALL their needs may be the most loving thing you could possibly do for them. But your willingness to help your spouse at this point in the relationship relies on the next understanding.

Understanding Number Two – Trust is “In Here”, Not “Out There”

One thing we’ve learned on our journey of personal growth and spiritual development is that how we are moment by moment is governed by what’s going on inside of us, not what’s going on outside of us.

We could feel joyful as we walk on a beautiful beach, during a gorgeous sunset, hand in hand with the one we love. But our joy is not caused by the beach or by the sunset. And it is not caused by the person holding our hand.

Our joy is springs from the fact that each of these things deeply satisfies something that we cherish. If we did not care about the aesthetics of our surroundings or about being in a relationship, this situation would not produce joy in us.

In the same way, the trust we feel is not created by what is going on “out there.” We believe trust actually comes from knowing we have the ability to take care of ourselves: to feel safe and in control of our well-being no matter what is going on in our surroundings. It’s hard to feel trusting if we don’t think we can take care of ourselves.

In this sense, the trust you think you lost in your spouse was actually your loss of trust that you can take care of yourself in your relationship with them. After all, how can you really take care of yourself when you cannot rely on the information they give you?

But I’ve never met a person who claimed that they had never lied. So it’s a safe bet that people have lied to you your whole life, and probably will continue to do so. You probably already know this. And in spite of this, you have done a pretty good job taking care of yourself, even though people sometimes lie to you.

Trust Yourself

In your situation, whether you choose to leave your spouse or not, we suggest that trusting yourself is the first kind of trust you need to establish.

Are you able to take care of yourself? Can you do what it takes to live a happy life even though your spouse has lied to you?

Establishing trust in your ability to take care of yourself is important whether or not you choose to stay with your spouse.

But what if you still want to stay in the relationship and you find that you don’t really have that kind of trust in yourself?  Then you can use this situation as an opportunity to learn better ways of taking care of yourself as you work through these problems.

For support in this process you may find value in our article titled: Lying – Why It Happens and How You Can Regain Trust as you Rebuild Your Relationships

As you improve your ability to trust yourself, you can begin to focus all of your attention on resolving these issues and moving forward in your relationship. Trusting yourself gives you confidence that you will be okay in the process.

In our next blog post we will discuss ways to reestablish trust in your relationship, and how to use a very specific process for creating genuine cooperation as a way to do this.

Until then, we hope this has helped in some small way. Please let us know if it has. And feel free to post a comment below if you would like us to clarify anything we have offered here.

Committed to supporting your happiness,

Beth and Neill

But what does that mean?

Every self help guru will tell you to “love yourself” or practice “self-love” first before you can love others. Do you even really know what those terms mean? Perhaps sometimes you think you do, but how often at the very same time you don’t seem to like yourself much. Do you wonder how you can love what you don’t like?

Regardless of how you currently feel about yourself, continue reading and discover how to love yourself in ways that will bring much more happiness and satisfaction into your life.

Relationships should be filled with fun, closeness, caring, and happiness, right? We think so and we know that when you focus on these qualities you will experience much more of them in your relationships. But first, you must be able to see them in yourself. Whether you are single, married, or divorced, all your relationships will be improved when you truly know and love yourself for who you really are.

We will address three important steps that you can take to move toward self-love and mastering the art of happiness.

Step one: Examine how you think. So much of what we feel about ourselves is determined by what we think about our lives in general. From the time we are small children, our parents raise us to focus on “right” and “wrong.” This can lead to thinking that you might be “wrong” or there is something “wrong” with you. Examine your thoughts carefully. You can do this when you use your emotions as a warning. Each time you feel discomfort of any kind, do your best to discover what you were thinking just before you started feeling that way.

Step two: Find out what is most important to you. You will be amazed at the changes you can make in your life once you discover what is most important to you. By focusing your attention on the important things, you will quickly turn your life around and get closer to not only self-love, but authentic happiness. Often the things that are most important are hidden deep beneath our everyday negative feelings. After you have completed the first step and examined how you think, you can begin to take the next step and uncover your values. Identifying how you think and then identifying what is most important can help you channel your energies effectively toward making your life better.

Feelings of sadness, confusion, or anger are just covering up values that are missing in a situation. When you are feeling sad confused or angry it’s almost impossible to practice self-love. Identifying your undiscovered values can help you notice amazing parts of you that you can easily like and then learn to love.

For instance, beneath sadness, there is probably some sort of regret about losing hope in a dream. Underneath confusion is a desire for understanding. Within anger, there might be a need for caring.

Step three: When you truly know yourself, you’re never alone. Any time you find yourself lonely or feeling sorry for yourself, know that you can be your own best friend by remembering to stop, identifying what you value underneath your feelings, and take time to appreciate yourself–you are an amazing human being that values beautiful things. So start practicing these self-love techniques and get on your way to mastering the true art of happiness today.

Until next time…

With love,
Beth and Neill