Developing a Sense of Self to Strengthen Relationships

I have been thinking a lot lately about relationships. I don't mean romantic relationships exclusively. I am referring to relationships as a whole: friendly, romantic, familial and so on. When I scroll through Facebook, or listen to people passing by on campus, at church, or at the grocery store, I listen to all kinds of complaints about people they are in various forms of relationships with. And as I listen, I also see other cues: I see a lack of confidence in self. They seem so afraid to move forward boldly in their own lives - to take a stand and create their own future. Their sense of self is slight. And I believe that this is at the core of why their relationships suffer.

I am not being critical. I have compassion for these individuals. I also realize that I am somewhere on this road of self-discovery as well. In fact, I believe that there really is no end to that journey. We talk about adolescence and young adulthood being the time for people to "find out who they are", but I don't think we ever stop developing and learning about ourselves. At least, the successful person never does. 

While I am not being critical, I do think that it is something that needs attention - and we don't give it enough attention. We cannot have effective, long-lasting relationships if we do not understand ourselves and understand and utilize our own strengths and potential. 

If we do not understand who we are in a relationship, we can't stand strong in it - we cannot guide and direct ourselves as we ought, and so relationships change us too much. Maintaining relationships is difficult, and those that do not begin with a strong sense of self are almost guaranteed not to last and be happy.

I am not saying that if we have a sense of self every relationships will last. I am saying however, that when we have a strong sense of self, we know which relationships are worth fighting for and which ones are not. Just as importantly, we know how to fight for them and why we do.

So here is my recommendation: find out who you are, what you want and what you can do with your life. Continue to discover and create yourself. Let's build our relationships based on who we create ourselves to be, not on what we want others to give us.