There seems to be a lot of disrespect in the world these days. One of the reasons is that many people lack respect for themselves. This could be rooted in many things, most likely involving incidents or patterns from childhood. Maybe your parents treated you badly, neglected you or you felt you had to do without. Or maybe it was the opposite and your parents spoiled you, catering to your every whim and giving you everything you ever wanted.
At some point in your life, it no longer matters why you are the way you are. What is important is to make a shift that creates a more supportive foundation at your core. You can do that by understanding that others will treat you the way you believe you deserve to be treated, by focusing on how you treat yourself first and by deepening your level of understanding of yourself through increased awareness of who you are at your core.
The way you treat yourself shows others what you believe you deserve and they will follow suit. When you do things that demonstrate disrespect for yourself, others will see that you don't believe you deserve respect and they will not bother to give it to you themselves. If you treat yourself with respect by doing things like standing up for what you believe in, living with integrity and being honest, others will see that you believe you deserve to be treated with respect and usually they will act accordingly.
You've probably heard the analogy about using the oxygen mask on an airplane. During the emergency overview, they instruct you to secure your own oxygen mask first, then help children place their masks on. The reason for that is so you can be sure that you are in the best condition to assist others. This concept carries through everything in life. You are only going to be able to help others if you have first taken care of yourself. By the same token, you are only going to be able to effectively show others respect, if you first show yourself respect.
You might believe that you show yourself plenty of respect and that you don't do things to disrespect yourself at all. That's probably not as true as you think it is. Even the most enlightened people tend to disrespect themselves at some time, in some way. Objective awareness can be difficult. There are some things we just don't want to see, so you have to do some digging to see how you really treat yourself.
First, be open to the possibility that you are not as respectful of yourself as you think you are. Then do some simple awareness exercises. Make a list of all the ways you treat yourself with respect. Pay attention to how difficult it is to come up with items for that list. If it's easy and you're being honest, you probably are pretty respectful of yourself. If you find it more difficult, you might not be very respectful of yourself. Now, make another list of the ways you treat yourself with disrespect. Think again about how easy or how difficult it was to make the list. Of course, you'll want to look at the specific items on both lists and those items will also increase your awareness of how you treat yourself.
Once you're aware, you can start to do something about each item. Usually simple awareness is a huge step toward making changes. Obviously you wouldn't be able to change anything until you know about it. Now that you have become more aware, you can start to make changes, take care of respecting yourself first so you can be more easily able to show respect for others and to show others that you deserve respect so they will be more likely to treat you with the same.
Jen Kunkel
Extraordinary Life & Business Designer
Connect For Success
http://www.jenkunkel.com
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