#97 Meeting Yourself

Read the full episode transcript

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hi everyone! Welcome back to Your Favorite You.

This episode was inspired by a conversation I had this morning with one of my besties. It’s also something I have been sharing and noodling on and getting curious with my clients about… The short of today’s convo with my friend is that she was wishing that she could have a deeper relationship with her sibling. She was lamenting that she always felt like their conversations were superficial and that her sibling does a lot of posturing and pretending when they spend time together. I lovingly reminded her that in order to have a deep relationship with someone, you have to have a deep relationship with yourself AND the person you are in relationship with  needs to have a deep relationship with themself. People can only meet us to the level at which they have met and gotten to know themselves.

Many of my clients come to me after years of not spending time with themselves and their thoughts, feeling like they no longer know themselves or what they want in life. This makes sense because we are socialized as women to put ourselves on the back burner, if we even have ourselves on the stovetop at all!

When we don’t really know ourselves or have a deep relationship with ourselves, superficial relationships with others become the norm. They feel safe and they feel comfortable. So, no need to beat yourself up if you feel like you have several acquaintances who know who you are and you know who they are, but neither of you really KNOWS the other. You might have many many people that you call friends, but you may have no one you can call at 2am with your deepest darkest fears and know that you can count on them to pick up.

As my clients and I begin to work together, and they begin to really KNOW themselves again on a deep level, they start to yearn for deeper relationships, deeper conversations, smaller groups of people at a gathering… they yearn to take things way beyond the superficial. And, in fact, superficial settings and superficial conversations become almost painful to participate in.

So, back to my friend. She has done a lot of work getting to know herself in recent years. Her sibling, not so much. My friend isn’t wrong for wanting to have a deeper relationship with her sibling. And her sibling isn’t wrong for not being able to have a deeper relationship with my friend. My friend has some choices to make. She can either tell herself that she can’t have any relationship with her sibling until her sibling gets to know him or herself… which may never happen, by the way. Or, she can meet her sibling where he or she is at. My friend knows HOW to do superficial relationships. She has done them before. She can do this with her sibling. AND, she can seek out deeper relationships with OTHER people. As a reminder, just because you are related to someone doesn’t mean that they need to be in your innermost circle. That is some societal shit that we can let go of right now, if we have not already. The other thing my friend could do is to try over and over again to have a deep relationship with someone who is not capable of having one… And tell herself that she is wrong for wanting to have a deep relationship and that her sibling is wrong for not being able to have one, for not getting to know him or herself. This third scenario will lead to the most suffering for my friend, in my experience.

So, how do I suggest to have deep relationships with other people, if you are wanting one…

First, you have to develop a deep relationship with yourself.

What does this mean? To me, this means you get to know what you want in your life.  What do I like? What don’t I like? Why?  You reassess your values and see if the way you are living is in line with your values or if it is not. If you are not in alignment, you work your way there. 

You see all of your feelings as necessary and purposeful, and you allow yourself to feel them and you attend to yourself when you are having big feelings.

You let go of what isn’t working in your life to make way for more of what you want.

You decide to get curious and to explore the limits of your comfort zone.

So, if you do these things you will deepen your relationship with yourself. 

Then, you start to spend more time with people who have deep relationships with themselves and see how that feels.

You notice when you are participating in superficial conversations and interactions. If this is with a person that you would like to explore a deeper relationship with, you have to be willing to go first and be vulnerable and ask questions or share things about yourself that go beyond the superficial. You see who can handle it and who can’t.

There might be a fair amount of rejection in this feeling out of new relationships. There likely will be some people who are not ready for you and who either reject you altogether, or keep bringing the conversation back to the superficial level.

The way to survive this is to remind yourself that this is not a problem. This person who is rejecting you likely cannot meet you at the deeper level, for whatever reason. Again, not your problem, and not their fault. Reminding yourself that deeper relationships are not superior to superficial ones - each of them serves their purpose. You may choose to keep superficial relationships with several people in your life. That is not a problem either. Superficial relationships are not inherently bad ones, and of course, at times they are appropriate and often even preferred. It’s healthy to know who you can count on for deeper connection and who you can go to when you don’t want or feel the need to go too deep.

One caveat I would like to add is that deep relationships often require clear communication and the ability to set and keep boundaries, which is another topic we often delve into in my coaching containers.

It might be difficult for you to imagine right now because you have been living for some time with many friends - very few of whom know the real you. You might wonder what you will possibly do if you stop filling your days with many superficial friendships if you decide to go for deeper relationships. You might be worried that it will be too lonely. One of the things that I reassure my clients about when they have these concerns is that in getting to know themselves at a deeper level, they likely will be surprised how much they enjoy spending time with themselves. Once you know yourself, and you have uncovered all your beautiful facets to yourself and also unhidden the less than gorgeous ones, you become less afraid to continue to deepen your relationship with yourself, and one of the things you might enjoy most is the solitude that comes. Loving all the bits of yourself, even the ones you thought you might never love, comes with a sense of calm and certainty, that no matter what, you are going to be ok. Then you get comfy with you and you start showing the real you… the one you have always wondered if it was safe to show and still have other people love you… and you see that the people who really matter to you love you no matter what. Warts and all.

The freedom that becomes available to you after you do all of this work is unimaginable. Talk about having no fucks to give… LOL… It’s amazing!

One of my clients and I were discussing this - and with her permission, I am sharing her thoughts about this topic. She admits that when she did not really have a deep relationship with herself, she would often doubt herself and in her situation, that led her to be willing to ‘accept crumbs’ from other people. She tolerated the crumbs her ex-husband was willing to give her in their relationship. When she believed she deserved only crumbs from him, this rippled out and she thought she deserved crumbs from everyone else. See, she was giving herself and her relationship with herself only crumbs, so of course she only deserved crumbs from everyone else. Now that she has deepened her relationship with herself, instead of relying on self-doubt to run the show, she is increasing her relationship with self-trust. Now that she is practicing trusting herself, having her own back, listening for and listening to her own intuition, she finds herself surrounded by so much love and support from others. She supports herself first, and then of course, the people who love her want to help support her, too. She says, “I don’t have to withdraw and hide anymore. My connections are more authentic and more loving.” She is more authentic and loving with herself, and naturally, her connections with others feel that way, too!

So, just a reminder… The depth and authenticity you're able to bring to your relationships with others is a direct reflection of the depth and authenticity of your relationship with yourself.

While this work is simple, it often is not easy. Of course, I would love to offer you the tools, guidance and support you might need as you embark upon this journey to becoming a favorite version of yourself. Of course, coaching with me one on one will help support you in this work, AND coaching with me and other women who are looking to deepen their relationships with themselves in a group setting can definitely help support you in this venture. If you are listening to this in the present, our next group starts in just a few weeks - on August 21, 2024 and if you are listening in the future, chances are another group will be opening soon! I would love to have you there are you attempt to meet yourself, to deepen your relationship with yourself, and to potentially deepen your relationships with other people.

OK - thanks for listening, everyone! See you next week!

Wait, don't go!

If you are listening to this before August 11th, 2024 I have an invitation for you. I'm hosting an open house question and answer session for you on Sunday, August 11th at 7 p.m. Eastern.

This is a time where you can come and meet me on Zoom, ask any questions you have related to coaching, and I will answer them for you live at the open house.

Maybe you're not sure if coaching is for you. Maybe you're worried that your problems are either too big or too small. Maybe you are afraid that if you start looking into your thoughts and feelings that your life will get worse instead of getting better. Maybe you just wanna interact with me and see if we're a good fit together. Maybe you've just been waiting for me to open up the next coaching group and you just want the details.

You might have already tried self-help books and seminars, traditional therapy, time management courses, yoga and meditation, leadership and empowerment workshops. Let me show you how coaching is different from everything you've already tried. I will answer your questions at the open house.

Of course, you can have different thoughts and questions than the ones I offered before. After all of your questions have been answered, I will share all of the details about the new group starting on Wednesday, August 21st at 1:00 PM Eastern.

Please come live, bring a friend if you're so inclined. If you have already been my client or you are currently my client, of course you're invited too.

Okay, you don't have to wait a whole week to hear from me. I will see you on Zoom on Sunday, August 11th at 7:00 PM Eastern.

Bye!