By the time I got to my first esoteric session I was completely worn out. I had a 2yr old son that I had chosen to do attachment parenting with; I was still breastfeeding, believing that this was the best way to parent. I was married to a man that worked around the clock, leaving me to the child rearing and housework. I worked very hard to be the best housewife ‘by the book’ and took my wifely duties very seriously. I based my self-worth on how my house looked, how good dinner tasted, and how cared for in the temporal sense my family was.
It was a constant cycle of exhaustion and loneliness, one that I was to discover was of my very own making.
I sat in my car one day and could not stop crying: for the first time in my life I was ready to ask for support and not keep trying to do it on my own. I made a phone call to a suggested ‘counsellor’ and made a booking.
I came into my first Esoteric Massage (and there were many with this particular practitioner) feeling very shy and unsure of what to disclose. From the very first session this practitioner showed no judgement, only a holding of love that I had never felt before.
My common theme throughout my many sessions was on my relationship with my husband. For me it was about pointing out all the things I found hard about the relationship – things he was doing that I was finding challenging. The practitioner in her incredible way always brought it back to me and my responsibility in the relationship. Throughout the sessions I was to discover an emptiness that dwelled within which had nothing to do with my husband but everything to do with me and my commitment to true love, life and truth.
She also had an amazing way to gently guide me to where the true issue lies, and from this point helped peel back the many layers that I had placed on top.
Never once with my many complaints about my husband did she suggest I should leave the relationship, she only ever guided me to go deeper in love for myself and take responsibility for the part I played in the relationship. This was done by showing me where true responsibility begins.
There was a definite pattern in my sessions and that was one of building more love for me. My practitioner offered space for me to feel that I could love myself first and from this point I would know my next move.
I would leave the session with much to consider, which opened up a whole new way of viewing life. I started to view life from inside me first, instead of my usual outside first. Seeing that what was happening within was affecting what was happening on the outer, I started to question why I allowed certain actions from others and discovered how much I didn’t honour myself as much as I honoured other people.
Another revelation came that I was living as ‘the perfect martyr,’ making myself busy, caring for others with no time left for me. I was basing my actions on what I perceived others wanted from me instead of allowing my actions to come from me. My very worth was based on what I perceived another thought of me. By choosing to live this way I conveniently had no self-love for me and could avoid the depth of my sadness.
Once this revelation was felt, I began to see that it was I who was putting the pressure on myself to be the perfect martyr, not my husband (which I had blamed him for). I see now how I was using this pressure to make my life seem a lot harder than it was. You could say I always viewed life with the ‘grass being greener on the other side.’ Discovering the game of martyr opened up the possibility that all along it was me who was creating my so-called many issues and that it was me who could walk out of them.
With this new acceptance that it was me who held the key to my own self-created prison, I entered a major turning point in my life. Now I am continuously discovering ways to keep the doors unlocked, and if one is locked, I know the key lies within me.
By Anonymous
Further Reading:
What is a Relationship with Myself?
Dishonouring Choices, Self-Worth and Their Impact on Everyday Life
Relationship Ripples
547 Comments
We can use any regular event, such as a session with a counsellor or therapist but equally so a particular lesson at school, meeting a specific person or small activity like get ready as a ‘check in’ for how we are and marker of how our life is being lived. How do we feel in ourself each time it comes around?
I find this so helpful to understand behaviour, because that route of blaming others is a very easy pattern to follow, then we don’t have to take responsibility for ourselves when it’s another’s fault. I have certainly followed that route in the past, but nothing ever changes with it, because we are not looking at our relationship with ourselves.. that is what we can work with and then change happens.
So many would relate to this, “Another revelation came that I was living as ‘the perfect martyr,’ making myself busy, caring for others with no time left for me.”, I sure can. I played the martyr because so many around me lived that as well and it was a way of relating. Like, to be a wife and Mother this is how it’s done, and you always need to have issues with your partner, someone to blame and something to make the whole process that much harder. Seeing that we create this and looking at why is such a healing and blessing for everyone.
I love the simplicity of this blog and it also reminds me to slow down and take the pressure off. I have had such hidden yet great expectations of myself that I have often reacted to. Time to come back to feeling my way from the inside out and stay with me every step of the way….let go of trying, even on the most subtle level of being anything else but who I am in essence.
The true key to healing is the key that lies within where also resides the lock for the key. “Now I am continuously discovering ways to keep the doors unlocked, and if one is locked, I know the key lies within me.”
The deeper we go within, the more open we can be with all we meet.
Anonymous, I love your honesty with this; ‘Discovering the game of martyr opened up the possibility that all along it was me who was creating my so-called many issues and that it was me who could walk out of them.’ This feels very empowering.
This is so powerful. Taking back responsibility is the most empowering step we can take in our lives, the heavens celebrate with us.
The impact of lacking self-worth is devastating and infiltrates everything in our lives. We come to the world needy and this is a total set up for dysfunction. Building self worth from the inside out is with a lifetime’s attention if that is what it takes…
The more I trust myself and build a relationship with my true self the more solid I feel and able to hold steady when life tries to roll me a curved ball.
“Another revelation came that I was living as ‘the perfect martyr,’ making myself busy, caring for others with no time left for me” – yes, it’s amazing what we carry in life as our trophy, leaving the true trophy [love] on the shelf accumulating thick amounts of dust.
It is crazy as women how we make ourselves less and struggle to fit into all these pictures and beliefs that are impossible to meet. No wonder exhaustion and anxiety is on the increase, as we are constantly working against ourselves and ignoring the signals our body is telling us. Building a foundation of love is simple and yet very powerful as it offers us a true way forward that brings more quality and richness to ourselves, relationships, workplace, community and family.
We get busy doing other things we have no need to do, numbing out our feeelings as if to say ‘sorry evolution I have no time for you – could you come back another lifetime?’. This overwhelm is comforting though on the surface seems very stressful.
When I’m busy too busy the first thing that goes is the decency of human relationships (because we have first let go of our relationship with evolution) and this is not something I would like to choose to forgo. So busyness is something I have to look at ever so often to not compromise the space to be myself with others.
The relationship we have with ourselves is the foundation we have for all other relationships going forward. It is such an important area of development for us to continue to develop and grow with. Practitioners can absolutely support us to appreciate and feel the depth of our own intimate relationships.
What I am discovering is that for most of us we are empty of love for ourselves and in this emptiness we look outside of ourselves to fill our emptiness. This is a huge illusion that we have all allowed ourselves to be distracted by. A big lesson I have learnt in life is that if I do not love myself then I cannot love another. I was told this years ago and didn’t believe it at the time but I now feel this as a truth in my body. At first it was hugely uncomfortable to feel this void within myself, it was something I had obviously been avoiding for lifetimes. Now it’s in my face as if where I’m feeling my emptiness its becoming my best friend because if I can feel my emptiness then I need to work at deepening my self love and then discovering what that means and applying it.
Whatever happens to us in our life everything flows from our relationship with ourself. Nothing can substitute this in any way.
Knowing to love ourselves first, and from this point we will know our next move, is very inspiring.
When we make love our true foundation then we offer another nothing less in return.
“Now I am continuously discovering ways to keep the doors unlocked, and if one is locked, I know the key lies within me.” How beautifully supportive is this … there is no blame but loving responsibility for our life lived.
‘My practitioner offered space for me to feel that I could love myself first and from this point I would know my next move.’ This is so true as the more we love ourselves the easier it is to honour what is true because anything that is not with love starts to stand out and expose itself to be dealt with.
What is a relationship with myself? For my understanding of myself changes daily. I get used to a ‘yes this is me feeling’ and there’s a shift and I realise that it’s more than that. A constant re-learning of who I am.
As teenagers many of us believe that the rebelliousness and aloofness or whatever we’re using to cope with what is going on in our homes and schools and in the community, is who we are. We can hold onto that image of ourselves for dear life and defend it with such might. It takes ourselves or someone who loves us to see through the protection to who we truly are inside, to see that we have created an illusion from our hurts and then we can start to uncover or re-connect to who we really are.
It is rare to hear someone say this ‘Building a Relationship with Myself’ and some of us may scratch our heads and say how do you do that? For me, I realised if I didn’t build a strong relationship with myself, all my other relationships would be affected. Our society and upbringing tend not to teach us how to build a strong and solid relationship with ourselves, therefore how are we going to achieve this in all our other relationships?
And so we go deeper and deeper, into the unending well of the love within us.
How many of us I wonder are able to ask for help and support, feeling instead that we have to suck life up and get on with it. I know I found it very hard to ask for support feeling I had to be the mother and the father for my child as I had made the decision to leave the relationship. I actually didn’t know how to ask for help incase people thought I couldn’t cope and too be honest at times I found it very hard. When support was offered I found it incredibly difficult to accept. There were so many ideals and beliefs standing in the way.
The woman in the picture above shows beautifully the joy that occurs when we build a loving relationship with ourselves.
Building relationships with ourselves is not a concept that is on our radar. We tend to look to others to fill the gap and therein lies all our relationship problems.
I agree Rachel and this is not on our radar because it is rare to see people develop their relationship the other way around, by starting first with themselves. We often see people doing the opposite and it hasn’t worked but we tend not to question it because we see everyone else doing the same thing.
How many of us live in that martyrdom energy blaming others for the unhappy lives we create for ourselves when we can do just as you have done here anon and turn it all around by being truly honest with ourselves.
Anonymous, this is great; ‘ The practitioner in her incredible way always brought it back to me and my responsibility in the relationship.’ I can feel how so often we blame our parents, husbands, friends for what we see as failings in our relationships, rather than looking at how we are and taking responsibility. I am learning that it feels really empowering and evolving to take responsibility instead of blaming others.
A relationship with myself is also a relationship with God within me and the Universe that is within my particles – that’s some love affair.
Building a realtionship with ourselves never stops. It is a constant work in progress, and one that needs fine tuning on a daily basis if it to truly flourish and evolve.
I agree with you Sandra and we often leave ourselves til last but really it has to be the other way round for things to truly change. For example, when we deeply love and cherish ourselves it is then very easy to deeply love and cherish others, it is common sense that is not so common at the moment.
That whole martyr energy is quite common amongst women and we think we are so good and right when in it, but really it is a very imposing and controlling form of bullying. So great for us and everyone when we drop that!
It is so true when we go into control we disempower another and harden our own bodies and nobody benefits.
I agree Nicola… it is indeed imposing and controlling to the point of bullying – and self-righteous.
Being a victim is a choice and we can easily unchoose it too. The world will not fall down because of that, but Living without this ideal is a whole new experience.