Self-Love When You're In A Relationship

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Wild Freewell podcast.

Today I am here to talk to you about self-love for when you're in a relationship.

And if you're single,

There is another episode of the podcast that I would encourage you to dive into.

It's called self-love for when you're single.

Clever,

I know.

My marketing is outstanding.

But anyways,

One thing I will say before I start talking about the episode specifically in terms of relationships is that if you are in a relationship and you are not clear on your values,

You do not feel like you have a good understanding or really a solid foundation within yourself of who you are,

What your vibe is,

What your values are,

You know,

Kind of what you stand for in the world and where you're going,

I would encourage you,

Even if you're in a relationship,

To go back and listen to that episode before you dive into this one because I do think that it's really,

Really useful.

That being said,

Maybe not even before,

Also after because there's other aspects,

Like other things that you're gonna get from this episode than from the last one.

But it could be really,

Really useful if you do feel like there's a little bit of a disconnect between,

Between you and yourself,

I suppose.

If you feel like you're not necessarily really connected with yourself,

That episode is really based on connecting with yourself and,

And diving deeper into who you are and what you want,

Okay?

So that's my little asterisk.

Let's dive in.

So,

Um,

The first thing that I would,

Would say about self-love for when you're in a relationship is that it's so fundamental to remember who you were at the start of your relationship.

When you first met your partner,

Um,

What did you do?

Like who were you when you first started dating?

Like how did you spend your time?

What were you focused on?

What hobbies did you have?

What habits did you have?

How did you take care of yourself?

Because you probably had more time,

Right,

To dedicate to just yourself.

Potentially,

That's not always true.

We may be talking to people who are,

Um,

Single but they've left a relationship.

Maybe they have children.

Maybe you have a dog like I do or you have other responsibilities.

Who knows,

Right?

So maybe you didn't have more time before,

But in theory,

Relationships take,

You know,

A certain amount of effort and focus and,

And whatever.

And so there's a chance that when we're single,

We have a little bit more time to focus just on ourselves.

And there's also this discussion of not necessarily having to run everything through your partner,

Right?

Like if you want to go out for dinner,

You can just go out for dinner.

I mean,

You're,

You might be going out for dinner with friends,

In which case you're still running it through,

But whatever.

Um,

But like,

You're not having this conversation of like,

Well,

No,

What do you want?

Well,

No,

What do you want?

And it's like back and forth.

My partner do this and I do this all the time,

Honestly.

And I'm just like,

For the love of God,

I'm asking you,

Like,

Because I want to know,

What do you want?

Just you,

What do you want?

And then I will tell you what I want,

Just I want,

But I'm curious to know what you want.

Um,

So if you're like us,

Then I feel you.

Um,

But yeah,

Like who were you when you first started dating?

Because that's the person that your partner fell in love with in the first place.

And something that,

Uh,

Tony Robbins says,

I think is,

I honestly don't know if there could be a truer truth than these words I'm about to share with you,

But he says,

If we behaved in our relationships,

The way we behaved at the beginning,

There would be no end.

And I just think mind blown because that is like the truest of all truths.

Because when you're at the beginning of a relationship,

You're always putting your best foot forward and you're much more like,

You know,

Potentially accommodating or you're much more easy going.

And you're so excited about this person.

And like,

You're looking at all the good aspects of them.

And if we continued to look at the good aspects of them,

Then our relationships would never end,

Right?

It's when we get kind of focused and tripped up on those things.

But that's an episode for another time,

Because what we're talking about here is how to show up in a relationship with self-love,

Right?

From a space of self-love.

But the reason why that quote is important is because if you're not connected to or embodying some parts,

At least,

Because we shift and we evolve and things change.

It depends on how long you've been in a relationship for as well.

But if you're not embodying some parts of that version of you from when you first got together,

There is potentially a disconnect between you and you,

Not you and your partner also,

But most importantly,

You and you,

Right?

Because maybe you've lost sight a little bit about who you were when you first started dating and who that person was in the sense of like,

What goals did they have?

Where were their priorities?

How were they focusing their time and spending their time?

How were they moving towards their goals?

What were their goals?

Were they different than the goals that you have now?

Was there a period of time where you somehow let go of the things that you used to want?

Maybe because you now want something new.

Maybe the goals shifted and that's okay and that's a good thing in some cases,

Right?

Maybe you met your partner and they opened up something in you and now all of a sudden you want something different.

In the previous episode,

I talk a little bit about where I was at in terms of marriage and children when I first met my partner and I would say that before I met him,

I was on a path of probably not wanting kids and when I met him and he had mentioned how important having a family was,

I was open to the idea because having a family with this person looked potentially obviously because it hasn't happened and it hasn't happened yet and so it's like all hypothetical at this point but it looked and felt much more freeing.

It looked and felt much more stable,

Much more comfortable,

Much more,

Oh how do I say this?

Like I know the word in Italian and I don't know it in English,

How frustrating.

Like it really felt like something that would bring us together and like really like be something so satisfying to do together.

In my previous relationship,

When I thought about having children,

I just like it was for me a full-on no because I was already in a position where I felt like I was raising my partner which p.

S.

Not a healthy place to be so if you're in that situation,

Potentially there's some things to reflect on but I definitely felt like I was raising my partner and the idea of having children with somebody who I felt was not fully grown was just a hell no for me.

Like that was not an option because inviting children into that space would have meant a lot more emotional work for me.

I would have been doing 90% of the raising of those children and I would have been in a position where I wasn't fully supported by my partner.

Like I didn't feel fully supported.

It's irrelevant whether he was supporting me or not because I don't want to like give blame to him because he didn't do anything wrong but we were genuinely extremely mismatched in this way and so just the fact that I felt like I was raising him which is on me and not on him because I feel that way and he didn't do anything okay um but like that and the fact that I felt like I would have been raising our kids alone for me was like just a huge no and so the idea of having children then was a no but my goal shifted when I met my partner and I felt like I finally had a support system and a partner and I wasn't going to be facing these challenges alone.

Actually I feel like the opposite.

I actually feel like my partner would contribute a lot to that situation and it makes the whole idea a lot more like palatable,

A lot more like beautiful,

A lot more um exciting so there's a lot of really good things that can come from that.

So just really making sure that you are in a space where like you are connected with the version of you that you were before and the goals that you had and you're allowing your goals to shift because as I just explained they most likely will right because you invite the energy of someone else into your life and then things begin to shift and evolve and change and that's okay even if you were on your own your goals would shift and change and evolve so it's not it's not something that's like specific to a relationship as you change and evolve over time it's normal that your goals do and so as you change and evolve within the confines or the context of this relationship it's normal that your goals evolve as well but being connected to bits and pieces of who you were when you first started dating is one of the things that is going to keep you feeling really whole and really complete within this relationship right okay because that's one of the other things that we need to remember we need to remember to prioritize time alone even within the relationship because what that space does and I mean alone alone and also like doing things with like your friends your hobbies and your your kind of stuff right because what that does is like the space is actually a breeding ground for connection because it gives you new things to discuss when you get together you know you you have more to bring to the table you have new experiences new visions something that changed your outlook and you can say hey I was talking to so and so and you know she said something to me today and it made me it really made me think or you can say you know I was journaling or I was reading this book and like you know I watched this documentary or I did whatever it was that I was doing while I was alone and it you know it really brought this up for me and like I'm wondering what you think and it gives you something to discuss and it brings a sort of wholeness and fullness to your relationship that's really really powerful and then the other side of that of course is that if you're taking time alone it's also important to give your partner space as well because each partner as I said before needs to be whole and complete on their own we do not buy into the Jerry Maguire you complete me version of love because that is very very likely to breed codependency and that is not a vibe that we are here for obviously we're not looking to kind of mesh into this you know this kind of unhealthy circumstance where potentially you are feeling trapped because you can't make a decision without your partner and lord almighty have I been there I have 100% been there where I was so kind of beaten down by the circumstances that I was in and my self-esteem was very very low at the time and so I wasn't able to I didn't feel like I was capable of making a decision on my own and so I was constantly running all decisions big or small through my partner and that can be really really really unhealthy there is something to be said and there's an asterisk to this point which is I am somebody who needs to talk things through with people in any case and I am also in terms of going back to this idea of values I am also somebody who values transparency in a relationship especially in terms of finances so if I am going to make an investment in something I am going big or small doesn't make a difference to me I am going to talk about that with my partner first and I would expect and appreciate that my partner does the same with me okay so in this case the the line between my natural way of moving in the world and codependency is kind of fine but codependency in that case for me was definitely that I was running every decision through my partner I wasn't able to make a decision on my own of like what I wanted I was just kind of constantly deferring this also goes beyond compromise okay it is another it is another thing altogether though I will also say that I think there is a time and a place for compromise and if you are constantly compromising and constantly giving in then it probably has a lot more to do with you not being firm on your values and not being aware of what it is that you actually want from yourself from your life and from your relationship and so that would be something to get clear on and again I will refer you back to the relationship for single people because that's where I would encourage people to get started okay so going kind of off this it's this idea of like who are you outside of your relationship because it's sometimes hard at especially when you've been in a relationship for a long time or if you like me function better in a relationship this is something I've always known about myself and that my astrology and human design and all the good things have like actually confirmed to me because like I've gotten one of my friends who's a human design reader used to give me shit all the time about like being like you know being more for the relationship than being single and like a lot of my friends have said this to me over the year like you know you need to heal on your own and you need to do this and you need to do that there's been a lot of advice that was not particularly helpful in my opinion and then my friend read my chart and she's like oh yeah it actually says here that you function best in relationships I'm like I know I've been telling you that I'm somebody who thrives I genuinely thrive in a relationship it makes me it gives me a space to feel that feels really safe and secure and I am able to be more of me in that situation when the relationship is healthy okay that's like a side note if the relationship is unhealthy then that's a whole other ball of wax but if the relationship is healthy I am able to do so much more I feel like from within the context of relationship than I might be able to do on my own which is really strange but it's kind of part of the way that I show up in the world but it's really important to still view yourself as a relationship as an individual outside of the relationship sorry because sometimes when you're in a relationship for a long time you kind of become this like amalgamous we where you just like constantly refer to yourself as like a we like oh we have plans oh we're busy or whatever and I would yeah I mean we tend to give away and or lose a little bit of our own identity when we're in a relationship I think this is natural when you're with somebody for a really long time but it is something to be mindful of because we need to remind ourselves of and reconnect often with the things that make us us it goes back to that first comment like who were you when when you first started dating your partner right because I think that's like literally one of the biggest things about self-love is if you can still find time and space within the relationship to do the things that you did when you were on your own then that is going to be so freeing and it is going to give you so much like space and also confidence within the relationship and that space freedom and confidence is going to feed it is going to literally fuel the relationship and then there's like a million cliches that we could talk about you know like absence makes the heart grow fonder so when you're taking time to do your things and you're you know taking time with friends or you're doing things on your own then when you come back together with your partner you know it's like kind of like refreshing and it's really good I am not that person I am not somebody who like absence does not make my heart grow fonder I am the opposite and I am like out of sight out of mind when like when it's terrible I understand how bad that sounds and like it's not particularly pleasant to live in that situation either but like 10 I tend to be like I get more distant from people the longer they're away from me so there has to be points of connection for me along the way in order to maintain that distance this is more true in like a romantic relationship than with a friendship but it's still true like the farther away that I am from people the harder it is for me to feel connected to them and I don't really know why but I've been like this forever um and like we could really dive into like there could be an astrological reason I could look into my family and see examples of this like in my dad and in my grandfather like there's a lot of we could be like something I picked up along the way um but yeah but anyways it doesn't it doesn't really matter the point of this is just really to remember like who you are how you function and things that make you you and that made you you before you got into this space right because if you're not able to really take the time to connect with yourself you're going to have a lot less to offer and like there's actually another episode of the podcast that's going to be coming out in a couple of weeks I recorded things in uh the wrong order the wrong order but in a different way this time but um that's that's going to talk more about this about this idea of like really like showing up for yourself and taking care of yourself and when you do that you're just so much better positioned to show up for others and to really give from like a wholesome and loving place and that episode coming out in a couple of weeks is really going to dive into that as well so yeah it's just I think that this episode the main point here is about really reconnecting with yourself if you want to love yourself within a relationship it is about taking care of yourself it is about showing up for yourself yes but it is about remembering I think that is like the fundamental part of it who are you and who were you when you first started dating not because we want to take a step back that's not the idea at all but what fundamental parts of you have you potentially become disconnected from along the path of building a life with somebody because it's normal it's really normal like that things again shift and change and so in that shifting and changing potentially you've forgotten but it's still a part of you or still something that you feel connected to or still something that makes you happy right and so really being mindful of doing those things like for me I've I last year was very difficult for us and so that we were we were struggling through a lot of like things personally I was in the midst of transitioning I had just moved into the town where my partner is from you know he was still going to school he was working there were problems with his job he was trying to figure everything out and he was doing it very very much on his own which was a colossal pain in the ass and not what I would recommend for anybody but because of him doing it on his own he kind of isolated himself a little bit from me and then I in turn feeling that kind of pull back pulled back myself right and just began to kind of trying to self-protect and so on and so forth and in that time as I became more and more isolated I became isolated not only from my partner but I actually really became isolated from myself as well and I let go of a lot of the things that I do that helped me be me because I felt like I had suffered a drop in energy and I just didn't have the energetic resources to show up for myself the way that I wanted to and so as we've like gotten to a healthier place I've been I've been able to pick some of those things back up and like it's not dependent on my relationship I had tried and I continued to do those things just more sporadically before things got better using them also as a tool to help make things better between us and just to feel better on my own obviously but like for a time I was really struggling to take time for myself in the morning to really like do the things I need to do I always do stretching in the morning I like to meditate in the morning these are the things that help me people like it helps me go about the world without being an unpleasant individual because I have taken care of myself first so doing those things you know sometimes in the winter I like to have lemon water that helps me connect deeper with my body taking time to journal before I start my work day and stuff like that if I if I want to if I feel like there's something I need to reflect on and it took me a little bit of time because of the transition because of the personal problems that we were having and so on and so forth to really bring that into our relationship but let me tell you when I reconnected with that aspect of myself sorry and when I like made it so I was really prioritizing myself and prioritizing the things I did unquestionably before we started dating like I was 100% showing up for my morning routine when we first started dating I had just started doing kundalini and I had been at that point doing it like every day straight for three months so I was like in I was in better shape I was like mentally more stable from that point of view and so like letting things letting those things go like that was obviously not great for me but it was also a part of just the transition of things and trying to get set up in a new routine and trying to like create our lives together and create our lives in a situation that was not exactly fertile ground I'm going to be totally honest with you there were so many things happening at once during that period that it was very difficult to focus on just one thing everything kind of just became this interconnected jumble because life happens right life is life and it's gonna life so it got in the way and it got both of us frankly off our paths like he wasn't exercising as often as he used to I wasn't exercising properly we weren't really taking care of ourselves we had like kind of let go and kind of kept on with some habits like it was just kind of this mishmash of just not really being fully clear on anything because of the circumstances and because of the energy and the time that we had available to us and not prioritizing things enough like that's not to blame the situation we could have done more we could there's always room for improvement but in that kid in that situation I think it was part of the lesson that we were learning and now we realize like how fundamental it is and I make it sound I think worse than it is and I should clarify because like I have been doing like yoga stretching and this kind of thing for like I think I'm on like a streak of like 200 and some odd days like so I never gave up like I didn't give up everything it was just a matter of finding a way to bring that aspect of me and my routine into this new situation new house new environment new new timeline because my partner works different hours than what I was working before and I have moved some of my hours to match up better with his so that also shifted the way that I had time in the morning and so on and so forth so lots of things to kind of take into consideration but when I take the time to reconnect with the things I was doing before I met him like we're in such a healthier place and vice versa when he does the things that he needs to do that make him feel like him like he's in a better place to show up as a partner as a better partner for me so just it's a win-win-win right and and we just need to remember that we we are individuals first and we are always going to be the most important thing and if we can show up for ourselves first we're going to be able to show up so much better for other people and in showing up for ourselves first we also teach people how we wish to be treated so there's a lot to unpack in this I'm going to stop here because I feel like I'm rambling now I really hope that this episode served you I hope that you have a really joyful loving and connected relationship and I hope though most of all that you maintain that you nourish and nurture that relationship with yourself first because it all always starts with you you are the biggest piece of the puzzle and you deserve your own love and attention so if you liked this episode please rate comment review all of that good stuff subscribe send it to a friend if you feel like it could be useful if you would like to submit a topic for a podcast episode please reach out to me you can reach me via email or on like social media or whatever works best for you and yeah I would just love to hear from you and love to create content that specifically serves you so if you've got an idea please feel free to send it to me otherwise have an amazing weekend and I will see you on the next episode of the podcast ciao