How do you know if you have a healthy relationship with yourself?

As with all relationships, trust is the foundation for a healthy relationship with yourself.

Here were my symptoms of not really trusting myself:

• asking everyone and their mother for opinions and advice when I had a decision to make

• breaking little "promises" to myself - ie getting up at a certain time (snooze), only eating 3 cookies at the Christmas party (I mean, 4 is basically the same thing)

• catastrophizing about how the results of my decisions were going to turn out because I didn't trust myself not to beat myself up SO hard if it wasn't great

• going along with things and then later going "wait what? UGH so resentful and thought of 3 reasons this is a terrible idea"

• always listened to a podcast or music when I was trying to do tasks because my brain was not so much a nice place to live and the negative emotions generated by my habitual thinking patterns would distract me from getting anything done

So on the flipside, signs of a healthy level of self-trust are...

• Able to make decisions without asking around

• Keeping promises to myself/following through on "plans" -- PS also knowing which plans are just straight up unrealistic and being more honest with myself!

• Knowing I'll just deal with the consequences of my decisions without beating myself up because I know I can handle negative emotions and be ok

• Able to inconvenience people ✨if needed to be ok✨ by pointing out flaws in a plan or just saying no

• Accessing my critical thinking and creativity instead of my self-judgment and worry in moments of quiet

Obviously this is a spectrum and no one is perfect at all of them all the time, but I do find they're mostly skills that can be learned and like riding a bike, if you fall off or leave it be for awhile, if you get started again you're good to go!

Come develop these skills in the Gifty Gathering because they'll serve you in so many situations :)