234: Self-Differentiation: How to Stop Losing Yourself in Relationships

Do you ever feel like you've lost yourself? Or maybe you've noticed that you sometimes change little things about yourself depending on who it is that you're with in the moment.

And maybe it's something really simple, like changing what it is that you wear or how you speak or the jokes that you laugh at.

Or maybe it's something a little bit bigger, like changing your values or ignoring your boundaries around certain people.

Or maybe it's about keeping your opinions to yourself because you're afraid that somebody else, they might not like what it is that you have to say.

Especially during times of stress or conflict, it can be really easy to lose sight of who it is that you are and lose sight of what actually matters to you.

Many of us have been conditioned to prioritize other people's comfort, to not rock the boat, to keep the peace, to adjust ourselves to whatever it is that other people want from us in order to make other people happy.

And sometimes that works.

We're able to avoid the uncomfortable conversation.

We're able to prevent a disagreement.

And we get to feel included for that moment.

But over time, then something else starts to happen.

We start to feel disconnected from ourselves, and we might not even know what it is that we want anymore because we've become so used to asking everybody else what it is that they want.

And that's what we're going to be talking about today, is the idea of self-differentiation, which is essentially the idea that, "Okay, how can I remain connected to myself as I'm working to still connect with other people?" Because the truth is that you can love somebody without agreeing with everything that they say.

[laughs] You can care about somebody's feelings without making their feelings your personal responsibility, and you can be willing to compromise with other people without always be the one to give something up.

Today, we're going to be looking at four ways that we tend to abandon ourselves in a relationship, as well as four tools to help us to stand in our own power, even when somebody else, they might not like what it is that we're doing.