Okay,so I am here writing instead of catching up on much needed sleep to help me gain a little clarity, and process some feelings. While I have been doing the work internally of really looking at the places inside of my beliefs and thinking that have affected me negatively and that I have been avoiding (because those events were hard enough the first time around) I have also been replacing fear with clearer ideas of what I do want in my life. I have accepted into my life too often people and circumstances that led to me giving too much, and having to stuff my own needs in order to fulfill this idea of who I should be. For me the issue has been this thinking that I will get my needs met from someone after I help them figure out they can trust me, they are loved, they are great, they will be okay etc. etc. . This has lead to bringing people into my life who never had the intention of dropping their guard, opening up, expressing how they really feel, being willing to accept responsibility for their own hurtful behaviors and who on some level always saw me as the enemy. My response has always been to try and prove my true intentions even more and give them clarity through my own communication and actions. This has never brought anyone to a place where they saw me more clearly or dropped the stance where I was no longer trying to take something from them in some way, that they did not have to defend themselves from me anymore.
I realized over the last few weeks I do not have the power to help someone in this way, not by failing to have my own needs met or stuffing who I am to suit their clouded views. The idea that I could heal a relationship or person or situation in this way goes back to a messy childhood with people who were deeply wounded. I carried this behavior and way of interacting with others automatically. It never occurred to me there was any other way of approaching a situation where I cared for someone and they met me with a level of disconnect and defensiveness. What is clear to me now is that yes it is important for me to show up with empathy and compassion and being willing to express how I feel but it is not helpful to anyone for me to prod and coddle and try and surreptitiously heal someone by avoiding the fact that their behavior is hurtful. I don't really help them by not letting them see or have consequences for their choices or behaviors, it prevents them from seeing the natural consequences of being unwilling to deal with their own issues surrounding relationships. It also keeps me in relationships where I get little if any fulfillment emotionally, where I am not seen or appreciated and the kind of reciprocity I need I will never get. The vision I have for a relationship is founded on the belief that the connection is seen as being worthy of dealing with our own shit as it comes up because love has its rewards, not one of me carrying the load of getting us there.
Gaining this understanding has been important, and putting it into action has proved challenging. We do a thing for long enough that those grooves in our responses become automatic and changing has to be done through being actively aware whenever we are dealing with situations that bring those issues up. For me it will be some what of an uphill battle, I have carried this pattern around for a freaking long ass time and the underlying cause is a multifaceted and deeper issue.
After having come to this idea I turned my attention on what it is I do want. With so much of my focus on what I was bringing into the life of someone else not a lot of energy was being given to what would actually bring me happiness. What would love look like to me? Love is respect, honesty, trust, communication and willingness to heal where needed yes... But how does that translate into behaviors? How does that manifest say through how I have shown up in someone's life? It would be transparency about who I am or am not dating or talking to. It would be availability with my time and my focus on them. It would be driving an hour one way to have coffee or water for 45 minutes just to have a few moments with them. It would be asking to open their life up via social media, contact info. It would be talking about my past even if I am afraid it is too complicated, or messy and might make them judge me or run the hell away. It is late night emails because I am thinking about them or early morning ones. It is checking in to see how they are, not "Hey how are you?" but "Are you okay? " It is sharing my other relationships with them and telling those people about them. It is compassion for their challenges and support when they are wavering in their focus or when they are questioning themselves. It is calls just to hear their voice, chicken soup when they are sick and notes about how much I love them. It is smiling when I think about them or anticipating the next moment together when we are apart. It is expressing clearly how I feel about them and why I feel that way. It is admitting when I made a mistake and being willing to say "I am sorry." and " How can I fix this? " It is wanting to do the things that make me happy with them because I hope it will make them happy too, they make me happy, and my favorite things with a favorite person is the best thing life has to offer. It is holding hands, saying I love you and making plans for the future.
Love, relationships of any kind where both people are happy and feel safe enough not to have to protect themselves from the other person requires the emotions, the thoughts and the actions that fall in line with those feelings. Behaviors that contradict those feelings, having communications that contradict those feelings, and feeding our own thoughts which contradicts those feelings will cause the decay of the relationship. What I need is someone willing to face the places in themselves that keep them from being connected on all these levels to the goal of the relationship working. That isn't easy for any of us. Love has had its pitfalls, disappointments and terrible traumas for all of us in some way. The only way to have the love you really want to give and receive is to be open to facing the darker aspects of our own experience so we can stop running from the pain. I was never expecting someone to show up with a billion dollars, a perfect body, chiseled features,a fancy car or an impressive careeer. What I wanted was someone genuine, honest and willing to open the door to their life, their mind, their heart and their soul.
I realized over the last few weeks I do not have the power to help someone in this way, not by failing to have my own needs met or stuffing who I am to suit their clouded views. The idea that I could heal a relationship or person or situation in this way goes back to a messy childhood with people who were deeply wounded. I carried this behavior and way of interacting with others automatically. It never occurred to me there was any other way of approaching a situation where I cared for someone and they met me with a level of disconnect and defensiveness. What is clear to me now is that yes it is important for me to show up with empathy and compassion and being willing to express how I feel but it is not helpful to anyone for me to prod and coddle and try and surreptitiously heal someone by avoiding the fact that their behavior is hurtful. I don't really help them by not letting them see or have consequences for their choices or behaviors, it prevents them from seeing the natural consequences of being unwilling to deal with their own issues surrounding relationships. It also keeps me in relationships where I get little if any fulfillment emotionally, where I am not seen or appreciated and the kind of reciprocity I need I will never get. The vision I have for a relationship is founded on the belief that the connection is seen as being worthy of dealing with our own shit as it comes up because love has its rewards, not one of me carrying the load of getting us there.
Gaining this understanding has been important, and putting it into action has proved challenging. We do a thing for long enough that those grooves in our responses become automatic and changing has to be done through being actively aware whenever we are dealing with situations that bring those issues up. For me it will be some what of an uphill battle, I have carried this pattern around for a freaking long ass time and the underlying cause is a multifaceted and deeper issue.
After having come to this idea I turned my attention on what it is I do want. With so much of my focus on what I was bringing into the life of someone else not a lot of energy was being given to what would actually bring me happiness. What would love look like to me? Love is respect, honesty, trust, communication and willingness to heal where needed yes... But how does that translate into behaviors? How does that manifest say through how I have shown up in someone's life? It would be transparency about who I am or am not dating or talking to. It would be availability with my time and my focus on them. It would be driving an hour one way to have coffee or water for 45 minutes just to have a few moments with them. It would be asking to open their life up via social media, contact info. It would be talking about my past even if I am afraid it is too complicated, or messy and might make them judge me or run the hell away. It is late night emails because I am thinking about them or early morning ones. It is checking in to see how they are, not "Hey how are you?" but "Are you okay? " It is sharing my other relationships with them and telling those people about them. It is compassion for their challenges and support when they are wavering in their focus or when they are questioning themselves. It is calls just to hear their voice, chicken soup when they are sick and notes about how much I love them. It is smiling when I think about them or anticipating the next moment together when we are apart. It is expressing clearly how I feel about them and why I feel that way. It is admitting when I made a mistake and being willing to say "I am sorry." and " How can I fix this? " It is wanting to do the things that make me happy with them because I hope it will make them happy too, they make me happy, and my favorite things with a favorite person is the best thing life has to offer. It is holding hands, saying I love you and making plans for the future.
Love, relationships of any kind where both people are happy and feel safe enough not to have to protect themselves from the other person requires the emotions, the thoughts and the actions that fall in line with those feelings. Behaviors that contradict those feelings, having communications that contradict those feelings, and feeding our own thoughts which contradicts those feelings will cause the decay of the relationship. What I need is someone willing to face the places in themselves that keep them from being connected on all these levels to the goal of the relationship working. That isn't easy for any of us. Love has had its pitfalls, disappointments and terrible traumas for all of us in some way. The only way to have the love you really want to give and receive is to be open to facing the darker aspects of our own experience so we can stop running from the pain. I was never expecting someone to show up with a billion dollars, a perfect body, chiseled features,a fancy car or an impressive careeer. What I wanted was someone genuine, honest and willing to open the door to their life, their mind, their heart and their soul.
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