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coming out of a fear or insecurity you have about yourself. Think about it: If someone says something about you that you know isn’t true, then it’s not really a problem. You are hurt by what people say or do only when something rings true.
    Let me use a simple and obvious example. Let’s say you’re six-feet-two-inches tall. By most standards, you’re considered a tall person. Let’s say that at a party a friend calls you “Shorty.” Now, there’s no reason for you to take offense, and you probably wouldn’t. In fact, other people would look at your friend oddly because she was saying something that was obviously not true about you. You aren’t particularly offended because you are confident inside yourself that what was said wasn’t true.
    But let’s say that at the same party, your friend calls you “Skyscraper.” Now this bothers you. Why? Perhaps because you’re insecure about being too tall. What she said pushes a button inside you. You’re thinking, It might be true. I’m too tall. I’m faulty as a person.
    At that point, you assume your friend was doing you wrong, was making fun of you. Yet, for all you know, maybe she was saying it as friendly teasing, or even perhaps she (being on the short side) admired you for being taller. And yes, it’s possible she was being mean. But even then, the real problem isn’t really what she said. The problem is how you see yourself. You reacted to what she said based on some inner fear of not being normal or feeling somehow defective. How many times in relationships are you blinded by what others say? You’re offended by someone else, and that, then, becomes a relationship problem. Instead, you need to take a look at yourself, clearly and objectively. You need to point the camera at yourself through the right lens.
    Note that I’m not saying that the problem here is that you are too tall. You may not be. Many times the statement that offends us isn’t true at all. The problem is how we react to what others do or say. Any accurate snapshot of a relationship problem never focuses just on the other person—the picture must also include you.
    You can probably see the third DNA strand—you are made to take responsibility for yourself—weaving itself through this discussion. When you violate that DNA and blame other people, you are placing the responsibility for the relationship problems on them. Only when you recognize your own responsibility will you begin to find a way out of the problem. I call this the Power of One, and because it is so important, I’ll discuss it fully in chapter 4.
    You Have a Relationship with Yourself
Does it surprise you to think about having a relationship with yourself? Somehow this simple relationship truth escapes so many of us so much of the time. But this understanding is critical to successful relationships.
    Part of your resistance to paying attention to your relationship to yourself may be that it sounds, well, self-centered. And it is to some extent. But as with all relationships, it’s all about balance. It is unhealthy to be too focused on your relationship to yourself; it can lead to what psychologists call narcissism. However, it is just as unhealthy to belittle, dismiss, or ignore yourself.
    Do you have a healthy, dynamic relationship with yourself? Are you on good terms? Do you think of yourself as important? Do you like yourself? Do you accept yourself? Do you forgive yourself? Do you take care of yourself?
    One of the things I see so clearly in the people who come for counseling is the difference between people who don’t have a healthy relationship with themselves and those who do.
    One of the women is Mary, who is dealing with alcoholism. It’s quite a struggle. Besides the problem of her dependency on alcohol, her addiction affects all the relationships in her life. She has become distant from her husband and neglectful of her children. She has good days when she is more communicative, but other days she drops