How to Have a Healthy Relationship With Yourself

Internal security comes from a well-anchored sense of our worth and a capability for self-compassion

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Regardless of what else we have going for us, life is difficult to enjoy if we do not feel at peace with ourselves. As psychological studies clearly document, our chances of happiness are dramatically lower if we do not have an accepting and trusting attitude toward ourselves.

What exactly does a healthy relationship with oneself look like? What kind of a self is most conducive to happiness? And is it possible to cultivate such a self? Let’s look at what the science of psychology has to say about these fascinating questions.

A Healthy Sense of Self

When it comes to a healthy relationship with the self, psychologists agree on certain qualities that characterize it. One is a capacity for viewing, and a willingness to view, oneself accurately. This means that a person with a healthy sense of self can tolerate an honest look at themself. Their self-perception is not heavily distorted through the lens of their ego’s desires and fears. They can see themself for who they are and calmly accept both their strengths and their weaknesses—neither endlessly bragging about their strengths, nor beating themselves up for their weaknesses. They have neither an exaggeratedly high nor exaggeratedly low sense of self-importance.

A healthy sense of self is also characterized by low levels of self-focus and self-preoccupation. We all need to turn inward from time to time to function effectively in the world (e.g., “What do I want for dinner?”) and to live a good life (e.g., “What kind of a job best fits me?”). That said, many of us likely think about ourselves beyond what is necessary and beneficial. This is unfortunate, because too much attention turned toward the self—whether negative or positive—has been repeatedly shown to be detrimental to well-being. A high level of self-focus is a hallmark of psychological disorders as diverse as social anxiety disorder, anorexia nervosa, narcissistic personality disorder, and paranoid delusional disorder. Researchers have also linked “I-talk”—the frequent use of the first-person pronouns “I” and “me”—to greater levels of negative emotionality.

A certain degree of self-forgetfulness, then, is desirable for happiness. We want our focus to be mostly directed outside the self—to others and the rest of life. High levels of other-focus means being more attuned to the needs and desires of others. While we all need to consider our own interests, doing so exclusively and at the expense of others is not a pathway to happiness. Selfishness, it turns out, is not self-serving. Research finds that people who constantly strive to benefit themselves without regard for the well-being of others have poorer relationships, poorer psychological well-being, and even poorer physical health.

A more effective happiness strategy is what some psychologists refer to as “otherishness”; people who are more generous, compassionate, and altruistic systematically report that they are happier. Longitudinal and experimental studies show that activities such as spending money on others, donating, and volunteering lead to greater well-being. Thus, the kind of self most conducive to happiness is one capable of connecting to others, and one giving of itself.

Finally, a healthy sense of self is characterized by a firmly grounded, non-fragile sense of self-worth. Holding positive views of oneself—believing that we are worthy of love and respect, and able to cope with life—is a basic psychological need and a prerequisite of happiness. People with low self-esteem have a more negative outlook on life and experience almost every negative emotion more frequently. Various psychological problems including anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, and psychosomatic symptoms are also more common among people with low self-esteem.

Although high self-esteem unequivocally feels good and is linked to numerous positive life outcomes, not all forms of high self-esteem are healthy. Specifically, high but fragile self-esteem is associated with heightened vulnerability and reactivity to perceived threats. People with fragile self-esteem continuously require external validation of their self-worth and respond to criticism and failure defensively, or even aggressively. Fragile self-esteem is often accompanied by a strong need to feel superior to others.

People with a non-fragile sense of self-worth, in contrast, do not need to outdo others to feel good about themselves. Their self-esteem is more stable and less contingent on boosts or threats to their sense of self. They do not feel a need to constantly prove themselves, nor do they overreact to self-threats. Since their happiness is not kept hostage by the achievements and satisfactions of the ego, their mood fluctuates less.

Internal Security

When we behold the qualities that make a self more conducive to happiness, we observe a common root from which they all spring, and that is a deep sense of internal security. We need to feel fundamentally secure to be able to tolerate an honest look at ourselves, turn our focus to others instead, and be generous with them. We also need to have a well-anchored sense of self-worth and not fall into the traps of either self-aggrandizement or self-denigration.

It is not an anomaly or character flaw for any of us to feel insecure in the inherently uncertain and fragile universe that we find ourselves in, and the degree to which we feel internally secure is shaped by various factors over which we have no control, such as genetic influences, family history, and the broader culture.

Given all this, it’s not surprising that the kind of deep security that underlies a healthy sense of self is not easy to come by. At the same time, we can do things to create greater internal security and thereby greater well-being. One of them, which lately is receiving justified scientific and popular attention, is to cultivate self-compassion.

Self-Compassion

Self-compassion can be briefly defined as being kind to ourselves when we suffer. Many of us live with a harsh critic in our minds who can cause a lot of suffering with their constant judging and rebuking. The inner critic’s bullying gets especially worse when we feel inadequate or ashamed. Its cruel words, like, “You are not good enough,” “You’ll never amount to anything,” or, “You are not worthy to be loved,” may make us feel like our worst enemy lives right between our ears. Self-compassion is precisely what we need in such moments, as it is about being a friend to ourselves instead of an enemy.

To practice self-compassion, we first need to notice whenever the harsh inner critic gets hold of our mind. Developing the skill of mindfulness is greatly beneficial for this. Mindfulness allows us to not only notice the judgmental voice, but also to react to it in a curious and understanding manner instead of fighting with it. If we do that, we may come to appreciate that this voice is trying to help and protect us, albeit in a completely misguided and ineffective way. Instead of listening to this voice, we can imagine what the most loving, accepting, and wise person we know would say to us in this moment, and choose to listen to that instead. This voice may also remind us that we are not alone in our suffering. Whatever difficulty we are going through, others have gone through similar difficulties in the past, they are currently going through them, or they will do so in the future.

Studies find that self-compassion can act as an important source of resilience, self-confidence, and motivation. It can help us to feel more secure inside, planting the seeds for a healthier, more comfortable, more accepting relationship with ourselves. This inevitably blossoms into better relationships with others, a better relationship with life, and, ultimately, greater happiness.

This article was first published in Radiant Life Magazine.