Teen Sexual Health

Teen Workshop Modules

Healthy Relationships Begin With You! - Overview | Setting The Stage | Understanding And Loving Yourself Is Key | Getting Comfortable With Yourself | Taking Yourself Into A Relationship

Relationships II: Understanding And Loving Yourself Is Key

Estimated Time: 10 minutes

Resources:

• Understanding and Loving Yourself is Key Activity

Procedure:

• Explain that one of the first steps to figuring out how to manage these two forces in a healthy way is to understand, be comfortable with, and love yourself, including your values, spiritual and cultural beliefs, personal interests, etc. This increases your ability to step outside of your desire to be in a relationship and consider whether what's going on in the relationship is healthy for you and your partner. The more comfortable and loving you are with yourself, the easier it is to be in a relationship with someone else without compromising your health.
• Share the following:
  Imagine that you have a magical kitchen that contains everything you need and want in whatever quantity you want it. You never have to worry about what to eat or if there will be enough. Everything you want is just there. Because you don't have any worries about having enough, you can give your food away freely to others. You can share and not worry about what they may give you in return.
  Now, say someone arrives at your door with a pizza one day and says: "Hey, I'll give you this pizza-and I'll bring you another one every day-if you promise that you'll always do what I want you to.
• Ask the following:
  • What would you say to this person?
  • Would you agree to these conditions?
  • How does having your own magical kitchen affect your choice?
  • How might your choice be different if you didn't have a magical kitchen and hadn't eaten in several days?
  • How does this relate to relationships?
  • If someone had their own magical kitchen, how might it affect the ways they deal with the discomfort created by the tension between being an individual and together in relationship?
• Imagine that a relationship is represented by a straight line. In an ideal situation each person brings 50% to the relationship and meets in the middle. That means that each partner whole-heartedly fulfills 50% of the effort, communication, love, trust, etc. that makes a relationship healthy. It does not mean weighing out what the other person has given, trying to get them to give more, or going into the parts of the relationship one's partner is responsible for.
  What does 100% of 50% look like?

To: Getting Comfortable With Yourself >