When people show up in our lives and a bond is formed is changes things for us. For one thing, there is this whole human being we could not have even imagined the complexity of, all the nuances and quirks that are a unique mixture only existing in them. For another, one moment our world does not have them in it and in the next... Boom, there they are. It can be a good thing or a bad thing from the perspective of how dealing with them makes us feel too. Do they bring in positivity or negativity, acceptance or judgement? Regardless of what they are bringing with them most times though we find our selves being reactive. They do or say something that triggers a memory from our past or a woundig we have yet to heal comes rushing up and then things spiral. The spiral, even if only in our minds, just invites more reactivity. It invites more knee jerk responses instead of taking a moment and thinking about how we want to respond. Response vs. reaction sometimes is the key to get us to shifting a situation from a downward spiral into something better.
Inviting our relationships, especially when they make us reactive, to be a catalyst for a change in how we are perceiving things can help us. It can help us find not only who we really are, but the relationships we actually feel great in. If we look at the "why" of our own reactivity to someone (wether it is fear of being too open, fear of being unseen, fear of being judged, etc.) it allows us to bring in new experiences into our lives. A little introspection goes a long way really.
So for me, for example, I showed up in relationships from a place of feeling like if I was who I was when no one was looking, I would still go unseen by the person and therefore would feel rejected. Rejection, well, honestly it sucks! All of us have at one point in life showed up without filters (even if it was when you were a kid) and got knocked around by life. We may have then associated showing up in this way as necessarily meaning we were going to get hurt. Those two things were never necessarily connected but that is a topic to think about later. I had a series of relationships that were not (with a capital N) fulfilling. I also was going around hiding who I was with pretty much everyone. And when I was faced a few months ago with continuing that cycle or dropping my guard and opening up I chose to take a leap of faith. That relationship and the resulting leap was a catalyst for a profound change.
The change a relationship can have is our looking at the purpose of life, and finding meaning beyond competition/defensiveness in relation to the world around us. It can be a catalyst for intreospection. We can look at why we have the approach of avoiding being vulnerable, open, honest, and loving with others (romantic or otherwise). Are we doing it because we are afraid of being hurt or showing our scars? We can begin to see we are limiting our experience in relationships to avoidance and also their experience of who we really are. If we are all about avoiding we are not necessarily giving our attention and therefore experiencing what could be beyond being afraid; like connecting to someone on a genuine and real level without the need for filters. And if we show up without those filters the people we connect with are allowed to love us exactly as we are, we know that, and can therefore trust their love. We no longer feel like, "Well, they don't really know everything... so those pretty words don't really mean anything."
If you learn to embrace the catalyst instead of just being reactive you have an opportunity to become more authentic within the architecture of a relationship. You can open the door to feeling more fulfilled through this self reflection because we see what it is we have really been doing. If we can see the pitfalls acting in avoidance of being hurt necessarily bring to us in our interactions we can begin to no longer be driven by fear as a guiding force of how we show up. The edict in the experience of relating to (having relationships with) others becomes more about expressing who you are so you CAN be seen and therefore appreciated. It is no longer about hiding, holding back, and hoping they will reach around your walls. We no longer need someone who will finally find us behind all our reasons we can't be loved, and have them take us in their arms, holding on for dear life. If we engage with people from a place of more awareness as to what is driving us and act out of a more hopeful place the doors open and the walls come down by themselves.
Use the opportunities, the relationships (gifts from the universe mind you), as a stepping stone instead of a stumbling block. Use what has happened, is happening as a rung to where you WANT to go. See the posibility available in what is going on.
Besides, even if you show up fully naked in who you are, without shielding yourself from heartbreak and you do get heartbroken... Did you really lose? Or did you learn?
Inviting our relationships, especially when they make us reactive, to be a catalyst for a change in how we are perceiving things can help us. It can help us find not only who we really are, but the relationships we actually feel great in. If we look at the "why" of our own reactivity to someone (wether it is fear of being too open, fear of being unseen, fear of being judged, etc.) it allows us to bring in new experiences into our lives. A little introspection goes a long way really.
So for me, for example, I showed up in relationships from a place of feeling like if I was who I was when no one was looking, I would still go unseen by the person and therefore would feel rejected. Rejection, well, honestly it sucks! All of us have at one point in life showed up without filters (even if it was when you were a kid) and got knocked around by life. We may have then associated showing up in this way as necessarily meaning we were going to get hurt. Those two things were never necessarily connected but that is a topic to think about later. I had a series of relationships that were not (with a capital N) fulfilling. I also was going around hiding who I was with pretty much everyone. And when I was faced a few months ago with continuing that cycle or dropping my guard and opening up I chose to take a leap of faith. That relationship and the resulting leap was a catalyst for a profound change.
The change a relationship can have is our looking at the purpose of life, and finding meaning beyond competition/defensiveness in relation to the world around us. It can be a catalyst for intreospection. We can look at why we have the approach of avoiding being vulnerable, open, honest, and loving with others (romantic or otherwise). Are we doing it because we are afraid of being hurt or showing our scars? We can begin to see we are limiting our experience in relationships to avoidance and also their experience of who we really are. If we are all about avoiding we are not necessarily giving our attention and therefore experiencing what could be beyond being afraid; like connecting to someone on a genuine and real level without the need for filters. And if we show up without those filters the people we connect with are allowed to love us exactly as we are, we know that, and can therefore trust their love. We no longer feel like, "Well, they don't really know everything... so those pretty words don't really mean anything."
If you learn to embrace the catalyst instead of just being reactive you have an opportunity to become more authentic within the architecture of a relationship. You can open the door to feeling more fulfilled through this self reflection because we see what it is we have really been doing. If we can see the pitfalls acting in avoidance of being hurt necessarily bring to us in our interactions we can begin to no longer be driven by fear as a guiding force of how we show up. The edict in the experience of relating to (having relationships with) others becomes more about expressing who you are so you CAN be seen and therefore appreciated. It is no longer about hiding, holding back, and hoping they will reach around your walls. We no longer need someone who will finally find us behind all our reasons we can't be loved, and have them take us in their arms, holding on for dear life. If we engage with people from a place of more awareness as to what is driving us and act out of a more hopeful place the doors open and the walls come down by themselves.
Use the opportunities, the relationships (gifts from the universe mind you), as a stepping stone instead of a stumbling block. Use what has happened, is happening as a rung to where you WANT to go. See the posibility available in what is going on.
Besides, even if you show up fully naked in who you are, without shielding yourself from heartbreak and you do get heartbroken... Did you really lose? Or did you learn?
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