4 Reasons Why Your Relationships Change After Self-Love | Relationship Advice for Women by Mat Boggs

The doorway to the relationship that we want is actually governed by how much self-love we experience and have created for ourselves. But I know what you're thinking. Matt, I love myself. I've done amazing work on myself. But the truth is, how do we know? How do we know to what degree we love ourselves and whether or not that door is actually open wide and creates an amazing relationship and creates amazing connections with others or not? This was one of the major hurdles or obstacles that I had to overcome in order to find the love of my life, in order to create the relationships that I really get to enjoy today was this journey of self-love and how do you do it. So today, we're gonna look at four reasons your relationship improves because of self-love. And really, this is the four things that occur. When you've got self-love, you're gonna see these happen in all of your relationships and we're gonna look at it by, well, what's the opposite of that? What is the evidence, the sneaky hidden evidence that shows maybe you don't have quite as much self-love as you think you do and there's a beautiful opportunity to grow? So let's dive in. The first thing that happens in your relationships when you've got a beautiful level of self-love anchored is that others feel drawn to you. Others feel uplifted by you. What's the opposite of that? What's the sign that's going on internally that you might not have as much self-love as you want is to notice your judgment of others. Like just generally speaking, how judgy are you when you're seeing someone in line at Starbucks and they're taking a long time to order their drink? Are you thinking, God, what an idiot? Why can't they just know what they want? Or when you see somebody's outfit, is your first instinct to praise the outfit? Is your first instinct to criticize the outfit or to criticize their body? Maybe somebody doesn't have a body that's perfect. What's your first thought in those moments? I gave this example earlier where we're driving and we're at an exit. We're waiting in the exit line. There's a long line of cars and it's that one car that bypasses the line and tries to squeeze their way in and you just get livid and you're like, oh my gosh, what a selfish jerk. Well, here's the deal. There are no private thoughts. What does that mean? That means that we think that what we're thinking is just in our minds, but in actuality, every thought that you think is energy that streaks out and other people can feel it. Have you ever been sitting out on maybe a cafe and you're looking at somebody and they can feel that they're being watched and they turn and they look? There's all these scientific studies that show that where your attention goes, energy flows, that people literally are picking up on this. How hard we judge others is a direct reflection of us judging ourselves hard, not allowing ourselves to make a mistake. Wearing an outfit and looking at all the places in us that isn't perfect or pudgy or squishy or the things that we don't like. There was a perfect example of this. I've worked very, very hard at this and I'm not perfect. My aim is to be more accepting of others. My aim is to be loving of others. My aim is to see the best in others because when I can do that, then I can draw out the best in others. It helps draw people closer to me. It helps create the relationships that I want. I was at In-N-Out Burger this last weekend with my son, Bryson. He's seven years old and he really wanted a milkshake. We don't get milkshakes often and this was a special daddy-son weekend. And so I'm like, yeah, man, let's get a milkshake. And so he's sitting there, he's got his burger, he's got a milkshake, and he's just loving life at this moment. And he gets up and he comes over and starts kind of talking to me, standing up, and he's got his milkshake in his hands and his milkshake slips out of his hands and splashes all over the floor, this giant pile of vanilla milkshake. And I'm like, oh man, and lip starts to quiver and big alligator tears start to stream by. And I'm like, Bryson, we all make mistakes, but it's all good. We'll get this cleaned up and we'll get you another milkshake. And he's just got tears coming down. This really nice, maybe 17-year-old girl comes by. She's working at In-N-Out and she's been working on the table. She was like, oh my gosh, let me go get a mop. I'll help you guys clean it up. I'm like, oh, thank you so much. Cause like, it was a big mess everywhere. And she comes back with this mop and like no bucket of water, just the mop. And she plops it right in the middle of the milkshake and just starts like smearing it all over the floor. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know if that's going to work. And I know like the old version of me would have judged her as like, dude, this girl doesn't know what she's doing. Like she's making such a bigger mess and like kind of judge that moment. And right then her boss comes over and is like, oh yeah, you know, did you bring the bucket from the back that's got all the water? She's like, no, I didn't know how to do that. And he's like, let me go get it. And he brings it out and he's showing her how to mop up this milkshake. And I had a really interesting experience because I could literally see both sides of myself come out in that moment. The old version of me was wanting to think like, dude, how dumb is this girl? She doesn't know how to clean up a milkshake like this and this and that. And immediately I paused that and I was like, no, this is this girl probably her first job. She's like 16, 17. She's never cleaned up a milkshake spilled on the floor before. Like we've all had moments where we're going to do something for the first time and we're going to get it wrong and someone's going to mentor us and someone's going to help us get it right. And so I was sending her this, just a wave of appreciation and gratitude for her willingness to work, for her willingness to learn, for her willingness to be uncomfortable in a brand new scenario in public where we're all there and she's like figuring it out. And I was like, you go girl. My whole energy felt better with that perspective. As life would have it, a few days later, I'm at home after this camping trip with my son and I've got a protein shake in my hands at the counter. I tried to pick it up and it slipped out of my hands and splashed all over the floor, all over the bar stool. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And right then, little Bryson stands next to me and goes, dad, it's okay. We all make mistakes. And I took a deep breath. I looked at him, I said, thank you, son. And we do, we all make mistakes. Put a little mop out with the bucket, cleaned it up and was so grateful that I had given Bryson the grace of we all make mistakes because it helped me give myself the grace that when I make a mistake and when we've got that kind of grace in our lives, giving ourselves acceptance, then other people feel accepted, they feel lifted up and they want to be around us. The second result that you experience when you've got a high degree of self-love is that you get less triggered by others. You get less triggered by the person who cuts in line. You get less triggered by the person who cuts you off in traffic. You get less triggered by others, not because what they're doing doesn't bother you. You may not agree with it, you may not like it, but it doesn't send you into this emotional flood where you get reactive. You're able to create space and then choose how you want to respond in that moment. Like we all have people that do things that trigger us in particular ways. Like it might be for you, the person who brags about how awesome they are and how good they are and they're trying to prop themselves up. If we're not careful, if we get triggered in that, our natural response is gonna be to bring them back down to size. Like show them, no, no, no, like you're good, but you're not that good. Like be realistic about this and try to put them in their place. Or you might be the person who you get triggered by the individual who's mousy and shy and they don't advocate for themselves. They don't speak up for themselves and it just drives you nuts. And you're like, just speak up, just advocate, like just show up for yourself. Or someone who doesn't, who shrinks when opportunity comes, like they don't seize the opportunity that can really be good for them and it just drives you crazy, right? Whatever it is, know this, the irritation that we have for someone else is almost always connected to an unhealed or unloved place in our own selves. And so when we love that place in ourselves, we can acknowledge what's happening and the behavior is maybe not something that we align with, but we can respond from a place of love versus getting reactive. And there's all kinds of times when we get reactive, we're like, oh, that's a signal that I need to do some more self-love in this moment so I can respond in a way that lifts this other person up. My wife gave me a good example of this when she went out to eat with her friend and my wife paid for the bill, left the tip and the waiter came to her as they were leaving and said, oh, excuse me, but you didn't give me a big enough tip. And my wife was like, excuse me? And they said, yeah, you didn't give me a big enough tip. My boss is gonna ask what I did wrong because this tip is so low. My wife was like, I had so much judgment of this woman in this moment, how dare you come and ask me for a bigger tip? She was like, I was so triggered by that. And ultimately, I was so proud of her because it was connected to the part of her that resists advocating for herself when it's uncomfortable, advocating for herself with somebody that she doesn't know and standing her ground. And she said, I was so glad that in that moment, I took a look and said, I appreciate you advocating for yourself and I stand by this tip. And so I'm wishing you a great day. Noticing the triggering that was trying to happen, but anchoring in her own value and then having that conversation was a beautiful move forward that comes from a place of loving herself and valuing herself and not being triggered by the other person's behavior. The third result that happens in a relationship when we really love ourselves is that you build deep, authentic connection because you can share how you really feel. You're not worried about being rejected. You're not worried about people seeing you as not enough. You're not worried about getting made fun of because you own your feelings, you own your experience and you know you're good enough just as you are. When you are self-loving, you're not holding back out of that fear of being rejected. When I was first learning this process of self-love and really from the desire of wanting more connection, I had attended this seminar and this event. If you've watched my videos, you've heard me tell this story before because it was such a life-changing story where in this game of interaction with men and women, the women were asked to vote on the men of who they would want to be stranded on a deserted island with. We all got our votes and then we were asked to stand in a line from the guy who got the most yes votes down to the guy who got the most no votes and I was standing second to last with the most no votes. Why? Ultimately, it was because I was judgy and they could feel that energy even though I wasn't verbalizing that. Ultimately, I wasn't loving myself. I wasn't accepting myself. All of it came from this lack of self-acceptance and I wasn't willing to be transparent and open and vulnerable and share what was real for me through those first four days. I was kind of like wanting to look good and I've got all the answers and all of that and so I got voted second to last. Well, when I went home, I had a friend of mine who was running a youth group with me. Her name is Aga. She wanted to hear how this event was and I was terrified to tell her about the results of the island game because there was a part of me that was fearing that, oh, she's gonna see me as less than, she's gonna feel like I've kind of put on this looking good program for our friendship, she's gonna reject me and I was terrified of being rejected and so we sat down and I'm telling her about all the other things that happened at the event and she was like, well, what was one of your biggest breakthroughs? And it was this experience of the island game and so I was so scared, but I had made a commitment to show up authentically out of that week. I couldn't even look at her in the eyes in this stage of my development. I was literally just looking down and I was telling her about this experience and how much shame I felt and how embarrassed I was but what a major breakthrough that was and how I wanted to make a new commitment to show up even more honestly, authentically and when I looked up, she had tears streaming down her face and she says, Matt, I've never felt closer to you than in this moment right now. I like, I feel so connected to you. Thank you for telling me this and she gave me a big hug and it blew my mind that this was the kind of connection that I was wanting with friends and with people in my life and it took the courage to be super open and super vulnerable and when we are with people who are safe, who will hold our hearts in a sacred space, not just any random person but in really great relationships, when we love ourselves, we're actually able to be more open and more vulnerable and what does that do? That actually creates a fertile environment, a wide open door for the other person to know that it's safe to be open and vulnerable and it allows the two of you to go so deep in your connection with one another and the fourth thing that happens because of a high degree of self-love in a relationship is that you become a love multiplier versus a love drain. See, a lack of self-love comes from having this hole in our heart and what people do is they try to fill up this hole using one of two strategies. Strategy number one is they try to make other people wrong so that they can feel right. They make other people less than so that they can feel superior and this never works. This never fills that hole. The second thing that they do is they seek validation, is they try to seek praise, they try to pump themselves up and get you to validate them and get you to see how awesome they are and they're seeking that validation from the outside in and that never fills up this hole. It becomes a bottomless pit to those two strategies. No amount of outside validation can fill this hole up and so when you are critical or you're corrective to others that drains the connection, that is a love drain. There's a great visual example that you can use in your relationships to help you keep perspective and it's called the connection pyramid and if you notice how a pyramid, the base is real big, the top is small and if the amount of correction or criticism is the base and the connection and praise is the top, what you wanna do is you wanna flip it. You want the amount of connection and praise to be the base and the amount of criticism or correction to be the top and that creates a great relationship. On the other hand, if you notice that you're seeking validation, you can flip it on its head and instead of seeking validation, give celebration and the irony is when you become a love multiplier because the connection is really big and you're giving celebration versus seeking validation, then you become a love multiplier versus a love drain. All of this is way easier, way more natural, way more fluid when we do the work to love ourselves and that is not a ethereal, random, vague thing to try to accomplish. There's a very specific set of actions that help us build self-love and so what I've done is I've created a free tool for you, a free gift. It's a meditation and a guidebook that gives you these exact practices to help build the love inside yourself so that you can swing the door open wide to love so that people naturally wanna be around you. They naturally feel uplifted by you. You no longer get triggered by other people's behaviors. You're able to respond from a place of really great self-esteem and really great relationship building and that you become a love multiplier in your life. If you would love this free gift, I'm gonna put the link in the description below. It's called the Self-Love Activation Kit, a gift from me to you. I hope it helps open the door to your heart even more and help you create the relationships that you absolutely love. I appreciate you. Here is to your amazing love life. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see ya soon. (?)