Concentrating On Yourself. Do you know what you want in life? Do you know how to get it? Often when I ask my clients what they want, they say they don’t know. I’m not surprised to hear this because I’ve been in their shoes, thinking that same way. When couples come in wanting to know how to make their relationship better I tell them to stop concentrating on one another and concentrate on “self.”
Concentrating on yourself develops your “me.” Without a good sense of me, you may not be able to find the “we” that best suits you. The world is full of all kinds of people we can love, but not all align well with your “me.” In looking for the right partner you have to be the right partner. Healthy couples consists of two independent people living in an interdependent relationship. A happy me makes for a happy we. My newly launched book, entitled, Happy Me Happy We: Six Steps To Know Yourself So You Know What You Want In A Relationship, helps you understand that key relationship conflicts stem from one partner not knowing what he or she wants and not knowing how to get it, much less knowing how to ask for it. That realization is the basis for the book.
Most of us don’t know how to “do” relationships. Everything we know about relationships, we learned from our parents. Unfortunately, they also learned about relationships from their parents. It’s a deadly trap that’s no one’s fault. Our parents can’t help that their relationship skills, good or bad, and their resulting marriage were passed down from their own parents. Because we are products of our childhood, it’s imperative we identify and resolve personal issues that affect all our relationships, not just our romantic ones. In order to do that we have to know what it is we want and be assertive enough to get it.
When you make decisions for yourself based on what you want and not what someone else wants for you, you develop a good sense of self. Personal awareness helps you concentrate on yourself. Personal awareness is all about knowing and understanding yourself. Concentrating on yourself enables you to know what you want and what you don’t want. With that knowledge, you can make good decisions about whom you want as a partner and who you want to be as a partner.
For more information on developing a sense of self through concentrating on yourself contact me at CouplesCounselorSanDiego.com or call me at (858) 735-1139