“The greatest gift you can ever give another person is your own happiness”.—-Esther Abraham-Hicks

On this day of Love, I’d like to speak a bit about relationships. Not just relationships of the flower and chocolate variety, but, most importantly, our relationship to ourselves. Our relationship to ourselves has such a powerful impact on all our other relationships that, I believe, it is the most important one to nurture. We have this myth of the soulmate who comes along and fits us and fills all the voids we feel within ourselves. While I certainly believe in soulmates (not just romantically), I do not believe they come to fix within us what is “broken”. Once we find this person, we’ll never feel insecure, lonely, or whatever personal gremlins we struggle with now. 

This is such a dangerous notion. When we buy into this, even if we find someone to fit the criteria, we will eventually feel our insecurities, feel lonely, feel sad, and we wonder what is wrong with this other person. We figure, well guess that’s not really my soulmate and we look for someone else to get our fix from. This notion floats around in a society where more marriages end than make it. So maybe it’s time to rethink our beliefs on relationships.

As the old adage says “Until you love yourself, you can never really love someone else”. I believe this is generally true. Of course, you can love a person, but there’s is this undercurrent of neediness, of relying on the person to make you feel beautiful/worthy/strong/etc. In order to be in true relationship with someone without that undercurrent, we need to be in true relationship with ourselves. We HAVE to be able to own our own power to see our beauty/worth/strength. It is my belief that we already hold within us everything. We have beauty and ugliness, we have strength and weakness, we have value. It is up to us to remember that. 

Of course, I am not saying it’s impossible to be in a good relationship until we’re totally free of all insecurities (does that ever even happen?). What I am saying is that in or out of relationships, we need to remember that it is our responsibility to be happy. It’s frankly unfair to give such a heavy load to another person. This is something I am still practicing. I still struggle all the time with neediness in my relationship so I’m right there with you! But when I can step back and allow my partner to be just that, a partner to support me in my growth, our relationship is light, fulfilling, and so loving. 

So whether you are in a romantic relationship or not, I urge you today to practice being in deeper relationship with yourself. Whatever that means to you. Practice being the only one you need so when you are in relationship with someone, you can give them the gift of your own happiness. Honor yourself in all that you are capable of, the light and the shadow, and honor all those you come into contact with today. 

Happy Love Day!