How to return to yourself in relationships: Therapist shares tips
From setting boundaries to making time for passion, here are a few ways to return to ourselves.
Often in relationships, we push ourselves to be a secondary priority for ourselves. When we start to make our partner and their happiness a priority for ourselves, we lose out on our goals, ambitions, and worse, our individuality. The decisions of our lives revolve around the decisions of the other person. That’s why when the relationship gets over, we feel lost, and we do not know how to get back to normal life. Addressing this, Therapist Sadaf Siddiqi wrote, "Hard truth: You are the common denominator in all of the relationships in your life. How you view yourself and feel in your body set the stage for how you connect with others. What are the patterns that come up for you often?"
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Sadaf further noted down a few ways by which we can return to ourselves in a relationship. They are, as follows:
Firm boundaries: We always know when something does not feel right and healthy for us. However, we often forget to keep firm boundaries from those things. Soon it becomes a pattern of being in an unhealthy lifestyle to stop doing that, we need to know when something does not feel right, and we need to address them sternly.
Stop convincing others to choose us: When we start to find ways for convincing people to choose us over and over again, we hand them control of our lives. This can quickly get toxic in less time.
Not sacrificing our needs: On of the first instinct when we start to compromise with others is to let go of the needs and wants we have. To stop doing the same, we need to understand our preferences and set clear boundaries so that we do not end up taking ourselves for granted.
Make time for passions: No matter which phase of life we are in, we need to make time for things that make us happy. Be it gardening, or singing or dancing or doing something else, we should make time for our passion, for they will help us feel young and satisfied with ourselves.