Self-Respect in Relationships
Our responsibility in relationships with others is to honor our values and principles and to communicate clearly and respectfully. If it seems someone is upset with us, our responsibility is to check in with ourselves as to whether we can identify something we did/said that compromised our values and principles in this relationship, and if we can’t identify any such action within 10 seconds of introspection, we must trust that our intention was good and that any action on our part that “hurt” someone else was either nothing to do with us at all or an unconscious oversight on our part, i.e. an accident, a mistake, and we must forgive ourselves and are entitled to forgiveness from others.
A healthy interdependent person will offer empathy and compassion, trusting themselves to set clear boundaries about what they need and thus be able to communicate clearly and respectfully about what isn’t feeling okay to them without shame, blame, or rejection.
Values, principles and best intention = Integrity = Peace
Posted in: CEDRIC Centre
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Following on the theme of approaching conversations with people, this week I want to invite you to consider a new way of thinking about issues that are sensitive or have the potential to impact your relationship with someone.
In my 17 years of freedom from emotional eating I have come from being a very scared, extremely doubtful, negative, all-or-nothing, insecure little person (who thought she was absolutely the fattest, ugliest person on the planet and that everyone else thought so too) to become the person I am today. I’m certainly not issue-free or any where near perfect as my friends and family will happily attest, but open, loving, happy, optimistic, confident and secure, able to know that, while I may screw up, drop the ball, or hurt someone’s feelings, I am not bad or unworthy of love, rather I am always deserving of dignity and respect from myself and from others.