Rather by chance I heard a song with the title “The Greatest Love of All” by Whitney Houston some weeks ago, which I did not hear anymore since my teenage years. I usually do not pay attention to lyrics all that much but I remembered reflecting on this one years ago. But I couldn’t do much with it at the time. For those who don’t know the song, in short, Miss Houston tells us that the greatest love of all is about learning to love yourself. 

Now, the choice of words and music might not be completely to my personal liking, but that’s not the point now. My point here is that there definitely is something like a relationship with yourself, exactly with the same possible dynamics as a relationship with any other person, in any possible degree.

I want to take this analogy a bit further. A little experiment.

I can listen or not to other people, I can listen or not to myself. I can respect other people or not, I can respect myself or not. I can make other people miserable or happy, I can do that to myself. I can choose to be mean or kind to other people, likewise to myself. I can reproach other people for making mistakes, I can do so towards myself. You get the point, and you can take the analogy as far as you like. Try it out. Do this at home. I think it stands every test.

So I thought: if this is the case then how can I take this knowledge a step further and make the best use of it? In other words, what do I know about good relationships with other people, or bad ones for that matter, the take that knowledge and apply it to my relationship with myself.

Let’s start with a trading relation. The trader principle surely reminds us of business relationships. It’s about a fair trading of values. Usually work for money, but it’s more then that. I think that trust and respect are at least as essential in any trading relationship. Also think of investments. As you make an investment (in terms of money, time and effort) you’d expect something of value to you in return, right?

So, as ‘distant’ as it seems, is this principle of value for value applicable the my relationship with myself? I think it does.

Surely, respect and trust in yourself are essential if you want to make the best of your relation to yourself. It might become a tough ride otherwise all the way to your final days. But what does it mean really if all this is not to remain about throwing in some good slogans. 

When I respect my partner I give him the space to decide on his own for the part he is involved. If I trust him I’m not going to doubt every move he makes. I am not going to question every detail he creates and decides upon. Likewise, I do not intimidate him with threats or fear and put negative pressure on him, in order to feel stronger or something of that sort. When a problem arises I do not immediately think that he is trying to rip me off or being plain lazy. I would choose for at least the benefit of the doubt. Also, if I make investments and dedicate my precious time to his benefit, I could count on a benefit as a return for myself, otherwise who makes me do it?

If you re-read the part above and roughly replace ‘partner’ with ‘myself’ and ‘he’ with ‘I’ you get the picture of what I am after. I’m sure other things still could be added.

Now love is still a higher level of relationships. More then respect love is about admiration. More then liking somebody, love is about seeing your highest values in someone else. So without further ado: think about what you admire in yourself. Think about what high values you recognize in yourself. It might feel uneasy to you, to say that you admire things in yourself, but I’m sure that when you are really honest you know what you admire in yourself. You know what makes you proud. I have discovered I admire much more in myself the I admitted before. I tell you, that makes the collaboration with myself easier and life so much lighter.

More: when someone you love has a problem how do you react? And then: how do you react to yourself if you have a problem? Do you listen? Do you look the other way? Do you ignore it or fake it doesn’t exist? Or perhaps you would not do that with someone you love? You might want to listen and try to solve a problem or at least to put it into perspective, right?

These are just a few points -and not all I’m sure -that came up thinking about the subject. What is clear to me is this: you better trust yourself, you better invest a lot of time into yourself to learn, to improve skills, to deepen insights, to listen to your thoughts and feelings, to expand your possibilities and so on. It’s time worth investing and the ‘net-profit’ is guaranteed. I’m convinced about it and found that out along the way.

There is one fault in the analogy however: You can dump your lover, change your trading partner, but you better get the best out of the relationship with yourself, the choice is yours. And it’s an obvious choice too.

So when you take out the sugar and fat, turn the song into a ‘diet version’ it becomes a lot easier to digest mentally.

Miss Houston: right on.. and thank you.