In my recent article "Ten Steps To An Ideal Relationship" I mentioned that Step 2 had to do with nurturing your own self esteem, self confidence and self worth.

Too many individuals neglect themselves and thus wind up feeling very needy. This neediness then lures them into the unconscious belief that a relationship will help fill such needs. This is a recipe for disaster as it sets up unstable and often abusive co-dependent relationships that lead no where.

You see it is necessary to be and feel like a whole and complete person "before" you enter into a relationship rather than expecting that the relationship will help make you complete.

Most people however have this erroneous philosophy. For instance how many times have you heard statements like "You complete me"?

Well that last statement has built into it the implicit belief that "Without you I'm deficient". That is the same way as saying in a less ingratiating way "I'm needy"!

So if that is what you inherently believe about yourself what do you think that does to your feelings of self esteem, self confidence and self worth? The answer is more that obvious isn't it?

To nurture one's self in these areas means to become aware of releasing all those negative beliefs that you have been programmed and conditioned by as a result of having lived your life so far.

Most negative beliefs about one's self are rooted and justified by the negative experiences they have had.

For instance if one has been abused as a child they may feel and therefore believe themselves to be: unlovable, bad, unacceptable, defective, responsible for others pain and so on.

Carrying all of this stuff on board makes one feel worthless, inadequate and terrible about one's self. Additionally it leaves them with a deep sense of emptiness that needs to be filled.

That emptiness is the result of having turned against themselves in such a way that they can no longer feel love for themselves. They therefore look to others to love them, to validate them and therefore make them feel good about themselves, complete, worthy and self confident.

In other words they try to get the "need" filled through their relationship.

This is not only unwise as it leads to unhealthy codependency it is also dishonest and exploitative.

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