149. How to Stay Yourself at the Beginning of a Relationship?

How to Stay Yourself at the Beginning of a Relationship?

You have the impression of being totally different when you’re in a relationship. Or you don’t recognize yourself when you’re in a couple, and at the same time you can’t feel the moment when you “switch” and start wearing a mask, or when you overadapt to please the other person. You often realize it afterwards. You have the impression of putting enormous pressure on yourself and no longer being yourself. This episode aims to help you identify when you deviate from yourself and give you some first pointers to stay true to yourself in a relationship.

❤️ Watch my webinar on how to finally be happy in Love!

Identify Your “Must-Be” Beliefs Beforehand

A very simple exercise to spot your possible deviations is to ask yourself the question “What must I be in a relationship for it to work?”: do I need to be sexy, not annoying, easygoing, funny, in a good mood, intelligent, cultured…. Make this list without holding back, because it will help you identify the masks you might adopt in a relationship:
  • If you wrote the word sexy. Do you tend to dress in a sexier way (more than usual) before your dates to please your crush?
  • If you wrote the word not annoying. Do you tend to always say yes to what your crush proposes even if it’s not what you’d really like to do?
  • If you wrote in a good mood. Do you tend to hide how you really feel when you arrive at your date?
Next, ask yourself “How would you act in these situations if you stayed 100% true to yourself?” This will allow you to more easily correct course when you catch yourself adopting a mask you don’t want to wear in a relationship.

Identify the State of Your Nervous System

Another way to observe the moment when you’re no longer yourself, or when you switch, is simply to identify the state of your nervous system.

Because if you’re in a state of insecurity that’s significant enough, you’re already in survival mode and you will necessarily adopt a protection mechanism.

Returning to your state of security through your body will allow you to be in the state where you can decide, and where you manage to be yourself in a relationship. For more on how to achieve this, I invite you to listen to episode 122 on how I regulate my emotions or episode 145 on how to stop putting pressure on myself.

See the Long-Term Consequences of Not Being Yourself

Showing an optimized version of yourself can only guarantee you short-term success in your relationship. Why? Because the other person falls in love with a version of you that you’re not. Because you suffer in the long term from being a version of yourself that you’re not. Ultimately, it’s a losing proposition for both of you. To help you commit to staying yourself, take time to realize all the negative consequences this mask can have on your relationship in the long term. For example:
  • If you had written sexy. Do you really want to be with someone who only values that, or who accepts a version of you that’s sometimes sexy and sometimes in loungewear with messy hair?
  • If you had written not annoying. Do you really want to be with someone who doesn’t accept your no’s, who complains when you disagree, and do you want to be able to disagree in your relationship?
  • If you had written in a good mood. Do you want to suppress your emotions or not be able to be vulnerable in your relationship?
If you don’t want these negative consequences, you need to stay yourself to check whether it’s possible to be, and remain, that way in this relationship.

You’re Repeating What You Learned in Childhood

Wearing masks to be loved is typically a protection mechanism you adopted in childhood to be loved by your parents.

If you want to know more about the subject, I invite you to watch my free webinar “How to Free Yourself from the Love Patterns that Prevent You from Being Happy in Love?”

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And if you feel that these masks weigh on you and are hard to remove, at that point the program Opening up to love is made for you. You can take the option Day of the past option, a day of Somatic Deprogramming: a mind-body practice designed to deprogram the nervous system’s automatic responses and reprogram new relational reflexes.

Opening up to love

Sandy Kaufmann

is a somatic therapist and coach, based in Switzerland. She is the author of two books published by Éditions Eyrolles and has accompanied more than 600 people. She is the creator of the Somatic Deprogramming method and hosts the podcast “

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