Learning to be on Your Own Side - A Therapist’s Guide to Building a Resilient Self-Relationship

In my counselling psychotherapy practice, I often hear people talk about how they relate to others—partners, parents, children, friends. But when I gently ask, “And what is your relationship with yourself like?”, the room often grows quiet.

Some people look down, unsure.

Others laugh nervously.

A few say, “I’ve never even thought about that.”

Your relationship with yourself shapes everything: your mental health, your stress levels, your boundaries, your resilience, your capacity for love, and the way you face life’s challenges. It is the foundation beneath all healing—whether you’re seeking trauma therapy, anxiety counselling, relationship support, or simply trying to feel more grounded in your everyday life.

A self-relationship is not something you’re born knowing how to cultivate. It is something you build, rebuild, and relearn over the course of your life.

Below is an expanded exploration of what that process can look like.

Accepting Your Humanity

A woman came into counselling after a difficult conflict with her teenage daughter. She said, “I should know better. I’m the adult here. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”

She wasn’t angry about the moment—she was angry at herself for being human.

We explored what it meant to simply acknowledge:“I reacted because I was overwhelmed. That is human.”

Her shoulders dropped. Her voice softened. She realized that the expectation wasn’t perfection, but presence.

This is often the first step in psychotherapy: Accepting that being human includes mistakes, vulnerabilities, blind spots, and learning curves.

Not one of these makes you unworthy.They make you real.

Developing Honest Self-Connection

One of my clients, a busy professional in his forties, started therapy because he felt “numb and disconnected.” In our second session, I asked him to pause and notice what was happening inside his body. He looked startled.

“No one has ever asked me that,” he said.

He closed his eyes for a moment.“I feel… tired,” he whispered.

Just tired. Nothing profound. Yet it was the first time he’d checked in with himself in years.

Self-connection isn’t dramatic. It’s a series of small moments where you ask:

• What am I thinking right now?

• What am I feeling emotionally?

• What sensations are showing up in my body?

  
  

These simple mindfulness-based therapy practices can dramatically increase emotional regulation and reduce anxiety symptoms.

Asking Yourself What You Need

A woman in trauma counselling once described feeling constantly irritable. After slowing down, she realized irritation was actually masking exhaustion. Her body had been quietly asking for rest for years, but she pushed through—because that’s what she learned growing up.

When she finally began honouring her needs—drinking water before headaches came, napping when she felt depleted, saying “no” when her body whispered enough—her entire nervous system changed.

Self-trust grows from meeting your needs consistently, even in small ways.

Needs might look like:

• Rest

• Nourishment

• Boundaries

• Reassurance

• Time alone

• Safe connection

• Movement

• Stillness

When you listen to your needs, you rebuild a relationship with yourself that feels reliable.

Acknowledging Your Strengths and Tender Spots

In therapy, I often ask clients to name a strength. Many struggle. They find it easier to list flaws.

One client, a young man navigating anxiety, paused for a long time when I asked what strengths he saw in himself. Finally he said, “I guess… I’m still trying.”

Trying is a strength.Resilience hides in the smallest corners.

Seeing your strengths is not vanity. It is clarity.Similarly, noticing your tender spots is not weakness. It is awareness.In psychotherapy, this awareness becomes the roadmap for growth:Where you need support.Where you need practice.Where you need patience.

Approaching Your Struggles With Compassion

A woman dealing with chronic self-criticism once told me, “If I spoke to my friends the way I speak to myself, I’d have no friends left.”

This is common. Many people use harshness as motivation, not realizing it actually increases anxiety and avoidance.

Self-compassion therapy teaches something different:

Softness supports growth far more effectively than self-attack.

A simple phrase can shift an entire day:

“I’m having a hard moment. I can be gentle with myself while I figure this out.”

Over time, these moments accumulate and become a new inner voice—steadier, kinder, and deeply healing.

Working With Your Inner Critic

One client referred to their inner critic as “The Drill Sergeant.”Another called hers “The Teacher.”A teenager once called his “The Troll in My Brain.”

Naming the inner critic helps give you space from it.

In therapy, we explore:

• Whose voice does it resemble?

• How old is it?

• What does it believe it’s protecting?

• Does it still deserve authority in your life?

  
  

Your inner critic often formed during childhood or past trauma. It was once a survival strategy.But now, compassion and curiosity work better than fear and self-judgment.

Allowing Vulnerability and Asking for Help

A man in his fifties came to therapy after decades of “handling everything myself.” After a particularly hard week, he admitted, “I don’t know how to ask for help.”

I told him, “That sentence is asking for help.”

Vulnerability opens the door to healing.You don’t have to fall apart to ask for support. You just need to be honest.

When you allow others to show up for you—friends, partners, counsellors—you break the cycle of isolation and build healthier attachment patterns.

Caring for Your Physical Self

Mental health therapy often begins with the basics:

• Sleep

• Hydration

• Movement

• Routine

• Nourishment

A woman with panic attacks once apologized for not having walked outside for weeks. We worked on a simple ritual: stepping outside each morning, even for 30 seconds

She came back weeks later and said, “I don’t feel great, but I feel more… here.”

Caring for the body is not separate from caring for the mind. They move as one system.

Maintaining Supportive Social Connections

Healing happens in relationships.

A teenager in counselling once said, “I feel safest with my aunt. I don’t know why.”That “why” mattered less than the truth of the connection.

Safe people:

• Regulate our nervous systems

• Reflect back our strengths

• Offer grounding when we’re overwhelmed

• Support accountability

• Provide emotional nourishment

Even though your self-relationship is internal, it is shaped in part by the people who surround you.

Practicing Daily Acts of Self-Respect

Self-respect is not a feeling.It’s a practice.

A client who struggled with boundaries once said, “Every time I say no, I feel like I’ve betrayed someone.” Over months, she began saying small no’s—low-stakes no’s—to build the muscle.

Self-respect looked like:

• Going to bed when she was tired

• Leaving a conversation that felt draining

• Eating when she was hungry

• Not responding to texts immediately

• Choosing friendships that felt reciprocal

Every small act is a deposit in your self-trust bank.

A Story of the Two Inner Voices

Here’s an example I often use in counselling:

Imagine you’re having a stressful day. You drop something, miss a deadline, or forget an appointment.

Two voices appear:

Harsh Voice:“You messed up again. Get it together.”

Healthy Self-Relationship Voice:“That was a lot. It makes sense you’re overwhelmed. What would help right now?”

Both voices witness the same reality.Only one deepens shame – the emotion that shuts us down.The other opens a path forward.

Developing that healthier voice is one of the most transformative outcomes of psychotherapy.

Final Thoughts

Your relationship with yourself is not fixed. It is something you can deepen, soften, and rebuild throughout your life—whether you’re navigating anxiety, burnout, trauma healing, identity questions, or the complexities of adulthood.

A more compassionate self-relationship doesn’t remove challenges, but it changes the way you hold them. It makes you steadier, clearer, and more supported as you move through the world.

If you’re curious about strengthening this inner foundation, therapy can be an empowering place to start. You deserve a relationship with yourself that feels safe, kind, and rooted in understanding.