The Three Relationships That Shape Your Life
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When we think about relationships, we often assume they're external dynamics. Folks come to coaching to improve their relationships at work and at home—as partners, parents, and family. They feel that if only they could improve those relationships through better communication, boundary setting, and other strategies, they'd reach a higher level of life satisfaction.
They're not wrong. How we navigate the relationships in our lives is perhaps one of the greatest life skills we can develop. But deep and lasting happiness—the kind that doesn't bounce up and down like a yo-yo based on external circumstances—depends on a different kind of relationship.
Our relationship with our Selves. Capital Self.
And here's where it gets complicated. If only there were one Self, it would be so much easier to manage. But in truth, there are three selves each one of us needs to build a strong and healthy relationship with.
Our Past Self, Present Self, and Future Self.
All real. All important. And all require different skills and tools to bring out the best in each.
Let's start with the Past Self.
My Past Self is the hardest one to cultivate a healthy relationship with, because she's a bit delusional. She loves to tell me what I did wrong and how I should have acted instead. She has the memory of a hamster—three seconds—unless it's something negative, in which case she remembers it for absolutely EVER. She's always younger, more beautiful, and more energetic than my Present Self, though when I was actually there, she never acknowledged any of that. Mostly, she tortures me with images of a stronger, faster me, as if her only job in the world is to make me feel bad.
It's easy to hate my Past Self, or to let her dominate me. But that's where relationship skills come in. Forgiveness. Empathy. Unconditional love. And believe me, these are skills that can be mastered—not just emotions that "happen" to us.
One of the most freeing ideas I've come across is this: most of what we call regret is really just forgetting. We forget that every past decision we now second-guess was a trade-off at the time—and that, faced with the same choices again, we'd usually make the same one. There's a whole post coming on that idea, because it deserves one.
The second relationship is with my Present Self—and she requires a whole other skill set. My Present Self needs what parenting experts call Authoritative Parenting: high expectations balanced with warmth and open communication. In practice, that means I take care of myself in every way—physically, emotionally, cognitively—and I stay in constant, real-time conversation with myself. How do you feel about this? What do you need, even if it's not what you want?
Most of us don't slow down to check in like this—and then we deal with the regrets and admonishments our Present Self telegraphs back to us once she becomes the Past Self. When I hold my Present Self responsible for her decisions with a firm hand, I quiet the chatter of my Past Self and lighten the load on my Future Self.
Speaking of…
My Future Self is the most fun of the three relationships. But it wasn't always like that. For years, I parented my Present Self the permissive way—the kind that lets the kid do whatever feels good in the moment and leaves someone else to clean up. And my Future Self hated me for it.
It was my Coach, almost two decades ago now, who woke me up to that dysfunctional relationship. When he asked me to describe my Future Self, I had no idea. A housekeeper, maybe—someone constantly cleaning up the mess left behind by my Present Self? A deeply permissive parent who doesn’t know how to say no to their kid and raises a spoiled person? Or someone with an empty bank account, because my Present Self kept making withdrawals without ever checking the balance? Mostly, she was a blur.
And here's the thing. If your Future Self is a blur, that means you don't know where you want to go. In the wise words of Yogi Berra, "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else." I often did end up someplace else—and maybe that was fun in my twenties, but not so much in my forties and beyond.
So now I treat my Future Self like a queen, and I've trained my Present Self to serve her. Instead of borrowing from her, as I used to, I think about what I can do today to make her life easier and more beautiful tomorrow. It's so much fun to serve the Queen.
And that, in the end, is the work. Forgiving my Past Self, parenting my Present Self, and revering my Future Self—three relationships, three skill sets, all of them mine to tend. The happiness that doesn't yo-yo with circumstances doesn't come from out there. It comes from finally being on good terms with all three.
Here's where we're headed. Over the next three posts, I'm going to take you into each of these relationships, one at a time—the forgiveness work of the Past Self, the firm and loving parenting of the Present Self, and the reverence and visioning of the Future Self. We'll start where I did: with the one who's hardest to love.
Before then, sit with one question:
Which of your three Selves have you been neglecting?
Send me a message on the website or DM me—I read every response, and your answer will shape what I write next.
