Relationships
How your circle expands or shrinks you
Hello dear one,
Happy New Month!
Heads up, today’s post may feel like a long read and it has exercises at the end. Please follow through, you will be better for it.
This is one of the most romanticised months of the year. February is often framed as the month of love. And while romantic relationships matter, love is bigger than romance alone. As adults, if we reduce love to only who we’re dating or married to, we miss something important.
So over the next few weeks on Adulting Together, we’ll be widening the lens. We’ll talk about relationships beyond romance.
The people we keep around us.
The work of becoming a person of value.
How we choose friends and partners.
And how all of this quietly shapes how we live, lead, work, and love as adults.
But before we talk about relationships with others, we need to start somewhere most of us avoid. The relationship we have with ourselves. It’s one of the most neglected relationship categories, yet it influences every other relationship we enter.
So let’s start simple.
If you were to rate the relationship you have with yourself on a scale of 1–10 (10 being the healthiest, 1 being the weakest), what number comes to mind?
Now sit with that number and ask yourself a few honest questions:
Do I actually enjoy spending time alone with myself, or do I constantly need noise, work, or people to distract me?
Do I speak to myself with kindness, or am I my harshest critic?
Do I trust myself to follow through on the promises I make to myself?
Am I clear about my values, boundaries, and non-negotiables, or do I keep bending them to please others?
What parts of myself am I proud of, and what parts have I been avoiding?
Strong relationships don’t start with finding the right person. They start with you and I becoming grounded, self-aware, and emotionally honest.
This week, I want you to be intentional about getting to know you. Set aside 15–20 minutes, three times this week, to reflect honestly on your relationship with yourself using the questions in the categories below.
No phone. No multitasking. Just you and your thoughts.
If journaling helps, write. If a nice gospel playlist helps, have one. What matters is that you show up.
Exercise 1: The Self-Relationship Check-In
Do this once this week.
Answer these questions honestly:
What number did I give my relationship with myself (1–10), and why?
What moments in my life right now are strengthening my relationship with myself?
What habits, thoughts, or patterns are weakening it?
If my best friend treated themselves the way I treat myself, what advice would I give them?
Write without editing yourself.
Exercise 2: Observe Your Inner Voice
Practice this daily for 5 minutes.
Pay attention to how you talk to yourself during the day.
At the end of each day, ask:
What did I criticise myself for today?
What did I encourage myself about?
Was my inner voice more harsh or more kind?
Then rewrite one negative thought you noticed into a more truthful and compassionate one.
Exercise 3: Keep One Small Promise to Yourself
Choose one for the week.
Pick one small promise you know you can keep.
Examples:
Going to bed 30 minutes earlier
Taking a 10-minute walk / Exercise for 30mins
Study my Bible and pray every morning and night.
Saying no to one unnecessary commitment
Drinking more water
Journaling for 5 minutes
At the end of the week, reflect:
How did it feel to keep that promise?
What did it teach me about trust with myself?
When you keep your promises to yourself we grow our ability to trust ourselves more.
As we move through this month, my hope is that we don’t rush past ourselves in the name of productivity, relationships, or keeping up appearances.
Adulting has a way of teaching us how to show up for everyone else while slowly disconnecting us from ourselves. But wholeness doesn’t start with doing more. It starts with paying attention.
Paying attention to how we speak to ourselves.
To what we tolerate.
To what we need but keep postponing.
This month is an invitation to slow down and be honest. To choose self awareness over autopilot. To remember that the relationship you have with yourself should not be ignored as it’s the foundation everything else is built on.
We’ll keep unpacking this together in the weeks ahead.
Until then, be gentle with yourself. Keep choosing better, and keep showing up.
I love you and I am rooting for you.
We’re learning how to adult—together. 💛