Accountability

The aspects I want to share pertains to how I currently respond to the needs or neediness of another.

Still not fully comfortable with neediness, which expresses through a victim narrative or whiny tonality, I find myself struggling to calm myself and dig deeper for compassion, as I am triggered to reject and and turn away from the experience. Realizing that the desire to distance myself from the emotions and expressions of the other is no longer solely rooted in conditioning but also in service of a primal knowing. A knowing that engaging with and entertaining such energies feeds the victim/whiny aspects in me, which I no longer wish to feed or strengthen, to the contrary.

And as I take full accountability of reacting in a poorer way than I would like, I am acknowledging the need to use better tools and practice being with energies I am integrating without a feeling of or being ‘tainted’ ,aka ‘contaminated,’ by them. In reflecting deeper on that, I became aware that I already can do so in connections that have a certain emotional depth and fluidity. Pointing towards the relationship of feeling emotionally disconnect, resulting protectivity, and the fragility to such energies. An obvious relationship, but as so often, not something I was conscious of in the moment. This needs some repetition and deepening of knowing to ensure access to it when I feel insecure or triggered.

Choice

A more novel aspect to that is the spaciousness I have gained in how I want to respond to another’s need in the moment.

Until now my nature and conditioning didn’t even allow for a pause and reflection if I want to show up in the way the other needs or asks me whenever I saw or sensed they were in pain. It was as if pain disabled any thought of myself and put me into a self-sacrificing autopilot or trance state of giving my all. Now I am allowing self love to enter and transform this hereto unconscious layer of relating in me.
This trauma reflex is also why I had such a hard time understanding, and respecting, people who could turn a cold shoulder in the face of another’s moment of need or pain. I still see that as an unpalatable thing but the emotional charge has lessened dramatically thanks to this insight and spaciousness entering this contracted aspect of self.

Discernment

Faced with someone whose idea of support consisted of making myself into a receptacle (or ‘dumping ground’ as my protectors would call it) for their narratives and emotions without asking question for clarity nor commenting in any other way, allowed for another insight.

Something in me balked at their expectation, mind you this was not a request to me but an expectations dripping with judgement. Which is why I celebrate my resistance as an expression of progress in setting self loving boundaries.

Their expectation was reminiscent of something I observed and verbalized in my mid twenties about the dynamics of relating with men. I felt they used me as ’emotional landfill’ as they would come to me and dump their unresolved shit to then saunter off and enjoy their new-found lightness in pretty much total disregard of me. A lightness bought at the cost of my emotional balance and energy. Infuriatingly they remained ignorant of the fact that they have dumped their emotional shit on me, necessitating me to carry the weight of it as enabler of their avoidance. Yuck! Thankfully another murky pattern I have patiently worked my way out of. Which is why I did not show up in the way they wanted but in a way that was aligned with what I know to be healthy for me and caring for another.

I am expressing ever more clearly a resounding NO to subtle ways others (un)consciously try to avoid doing their work, non-consensually dumping their load, and abusing my willingness to support another. Even if someone is in pain, or pulls on my heart-strings I am no longer blind to the pattern of turning me into a complicit in their self-disempowerment and avoidance of taking full responsibility for themselves and their experience of life. I am putting an end to my part in this dysfunctional dynamic pattern. And I cannot express how happy it makes me to see the expansion of this transformative process.

It makes it worth having had the low vibe experience that allowed for these insights and reflections.

Sovereignty

If it really needs mentioning:
The final say on if and how I support someone lies with me. Even though I am inviting you to share your requests, and open to negotiating with you what and how I can offer – No one gets to decide how and where my energy is invested apart from Self, Spirit and myself.

Trying to manipulate your way to controlling my behavior and self expression will get you one thing only: The end of relating as I walk away.

I remain fully available to growth-oriented relating based on sovereignty, freedom, humor, playfulness, self knowledge, compassion, and love/consciousness. And when I speak of growth, I am using the term in a deeply spiritual definition of the willingness and capacity to face, acknowledge, love, and integrate one’s shadow and learn to do the same with the shadow of the other. I am fully aware that this is calling for the master class of relating, it takes a ton of courage, resilience, responsibility for self, self knowledge, and willingness to vulnerably and openly share your internal world to allow another know and feel you in your light and shadow. And I am fully willing to learn to fail better in this way of relating and learning with another, to deepen in awareness and discernment, to become better at repair and gentleness with self and other… to go through all highs and lows of this path as long as we meet on this ground.

This is my baseline for relating.

Meet me there or watch me move on to better aligned experiences and beings.

Photoart by Zac Cannon

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I prefer to get as much of these out of the way before deciding to explore the possibilities of deeper connection with someone than to deal with the drama of fallouts and annoyances further down the road. Every time I have not used these tools I have come to regret it later on. 

So here is a list of questions I compiled for my new relationship questionnaire today. My personal list is longer than this as there are individual questions relating to my preferences which I am not sharing here but this is an overview to give you an idea of it.

If you can approach creating and sharing your relationship questionnaire with a playful and honest spirit it can make not only for great conversations and insights into each others perceptions and inner worlds but also be very enriching. And if done well this will be an important part of building a solid foundation of honesty, transparency, intimacy, trust and love for your relationship.

The process of composing your questions and answers to them allows you to see your needs, wants and wishes black on white and gives you a deeper sense of clarity. It helps to go back to it whenever you experience or remember situations from past relationships that have been wonderful or challenging to keep expanding it. Once you have been at it for a couple of years and have grown and changed in the meantime, you will see where your needs and boundaries have shifted and what has gained in weight as other things have lost their meaning. Giving you a more tangible way of knowing your fluidity and growth.

These questionnaires are a pleasurable way I track my changes and shifts and a fun way of inviting others to meet on deeper levels of self reflection and co-creation. I hope this inspires you to venture into reflecting and maybe doing something like this for your benefit and other’s as well. It can be a great way of sparking reflections on the current state of your relationship with your partner and get you to playfully envision how you can grow and expand within the container of your relationship.

Whatever you choose to do with this, I wish you blessed and blissful relationships with self and others!

Relationship Questions

• What is your idea/vision/definition of a great relationship?
• How does a great relationship make you feel?
• What helps you to feel loved, appreciated, validated, respected, safe, free and any of the feelings you answered the previous question with?
• Are you willing to work on relationship issues with the help of others (coach, therapist, healer)?
• What is your vision for your life?
• What is your soul’s purpose in this incarnation?
• Do you practice any form of self work and if so how?
• How do you work with ego, shadow and darkness?
• What practices do you have to nourish your soul, heart, body and mind?
• How often do you practice these?
• What are your faults and woundings that have shown up in your relationships?
• What helps you find back to balance or equanimity in those moments?
• What do you want a partner to bring to the table?
• Which unmet needs would constitute a dealbreaker and reason to end a relationship?
• What are your non-negotiables about your life and where are you open to changes?
• Are there “best practices” or rituals you would like to bring to a new relationship?
• How enmeshed or independent do you want your relationships to be?
• How do you envision a shared life?
• How much alone time do you need?
• What are your primary love languages?
• What is your erotic blueprint?
• How do you feel about public displays of affection?
• What are your erotic and sexual preferences?
• Which functionalities does sex have for you?
• What turns you on and what turns you off?
• What do you want a partner to bring to your shared sex life?
• How open are you to experimenting and expanding your sexuality?

Photography: Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon by Annie Leibovitz, 1995

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“Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner’s love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother’s love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.” 

~ Bell Hooks 

You could change the gender and see the same and related coping mechanisms in way too many humans who are partly of wholly emotionally unavailable.

The wounds of rejection and abandonment by our primary caretakers profoundly shift our relationship with love in deeply subconscious and sometimes even conscious ways. Our definitions and ideas of love and relating are skewed and distorted by the experiences we had in our early childhood. The healing and transcendence of our unhelpful coping strategies and misperceptions can only happen in relationships just as the wounds happened in relationships, which of course is a challenge as we usually attract mostly people who will repeat our past experiences and not be wise companions for our healing journey as long as we live from subconscious patterns we blind ourselves to.

Even in making our woundings and patterns conscious we will be attracting those who will repeat our past dynamics and hurts with us, offering us a chance to find new and healthier responses to such occurrences. The degree to which we have developed self acceptance and self love and inner strength defines how much emotional resilience we will have in coping with situations and challenges taking us back to our core wounds.

I have encountered many men who play out complex or twisted unconscious coping games who are adamant that their relationships with their primary caretakers were nothing but loving and perfect. Often emotionally unavailable as they live in a disconnect from their emotions, though they might believe themselves to be connected to them. Those whose ego keeps them in the belief of all being fair and “normal” are the hardest people to be in relationships with, as you clearly see their drama play out while they remain decidedly blind and in denial. Many a conversation, tearful moments and sleepless nights of my life has been wasted on making sense of it of trying to find a way to help them see, make them understand. And yet almost all attempts were to no avail. It took me many years of self work to not allow such painful relationships to last and keep shredding my heart.

These days I leave these men the moment I realize that they are incapable of stepping into a meta level of reflecting on their own behaviors and words. And really who am I to change their survival strategies when they are not ready to let them go? Who am I to dictate their soul’s timing for healing?

I chose to honor our shared sovereignty, the rightness of our individual journeys and to love and honor myself, my needs and wants in relating by loving such beautiful but troubled souls from a distance. There is no denigration in accepting that we are incompatible and do not relate in ways that assure loving and joyful growth and expansion with each other.  I trust that both of us will find others better suited for our unique needs and trajectories.

Unfortunately some men choose to react in immature and unworthy ways as they frame my retreat in their ongoing narrative of unlovability, (ab)using me in their mental self harm rituals. Which truly saddens me but I no longer waste my precious lifetime on trying to change what is. I can see these patterns clearly because my ego has been doing the same often enough to teach me. See, there is no judgement just clear observations and definitely no mincing of words to protect fragile egos which limit and torture. 

I have my own patterns and failings in relating therefore I appreciate those who bring them to my awareness, and I point to the dysfunctional patterns I see if I care for someone and believe they are capable and willing to deal with those things. In my world it is seen as a gift of love to shine a light on these things. 

If you prefer to live in Lalaland and not be made aware of subconscious patters I will accept it but it will exclude you from being in my inner circle and world if you are new. In my world everything is about awareness, consciousness, respect, truth, honesty and growth – if you do not bring these to the table you have to keep it moving, simple.

Photography: Unknown

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Men. It is imperative that we respect a woman’s “No”.

Bow to it. Really really hear it.

And if her “No” brings us pain and discomfort, it is imperative that we own that pain, take full responsibility for it. That we give ourselves full permission to feel disappointed, rejected, sad, afraid, abandoned. That we own these uncomfortable feelings, and do not ‘take them out’ on her in our search for discharge and relief.

We acknowledge our own vulnerability. We breathe into the tender and fiery sensations in the belly, chest, throat.
We protect her from our rage and control and passive aggressiveness. We protect ourselves too.

When we are connected to ourselves, we will not judge or shame her for her feelings, needs, boundaries. We will not find ourselves trying to control her, persuade her, fix or advise or ‘heal’ her.

(Spiritual gurus, please take note!)

We will never, ever call her ‘afraid’ or ‘weak’ or ‘trapped in ego’.

We will deeply respect her God-given right to do and say what is best for her. To tell her raw truth. To want us to come closer, or to come no closer. To set limits. To say “this is not okay for me”.

It is imperative to listen. To listen without assumptions.

And we will, in turn, be respecting our own right to say no, to have boundaries, to protect ourselves, to value and trust and express our own feelings of safety and unsafety.

Boundaries do not shut others out – they help us connect, get to know each other, protect our vulnerability, build trust, and keep us safe.

We are all One, all the same, and yet we live in different worlds, and we are so different, and so we have to listen to each other. Boundaries help us navigate this gorgeous paradox.

Boundaries are love, in form.

I love it when people say “No” to me. It feels so honest. I love their freedom. Their autonomy. Their truth. As I love my own.

~ Jeff Foster

Art: Team Lab, Transcending Boundaries immersive installation

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