“Much of what we experience in a relationship is happening only in our imagination,”
— David Hawkins, from the book Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender
Stay stuck inside your anxious imagination and you start living out the reality of your nightmarish fears if you have any.
Example:
You think your husband’s cheating on you and don’t say anything about it because you dismiss your fears as silly or nonsensical?
Yet some part of you still worries.
So you are mean and difficult to live with.
You’re hostile and critical of him.
Like when you had a dream he did something really horrible and you are angry with him in the morning.
Same thing: It’s only happening in your mind.
Your anger, frustration, irritation and terror underneath all push him away.
And pretty soon that fine looking woman at work who is nice to him starts getting his attention…?
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’m not advocating infidelity.
I AM advocating awareness.
Self-awareness.
Because without it, we’d all be spinning in the same circular loops of self-relationship-sabotage within our relationship, winding up further and further apart from the person who was once our dream come true.
Oh wait, is that why you’re reading this?
Maybe you’re caught in one of these lethal circular patterns.
Maybe you’re drowning in it, like spinning down a drain, feeling invisible, and hopeless, and certain that he doesn’t care.
What NOT to do is let you OR your relationship slip down the drain.
If your relationship is to end, let it at least be for the right reason.
I think they call that “conscious uncoupling” these days…
Sadly, too many relationships end for the wrong reasons. Or remain in a state of mediocrity and live on.
Kind of like unconscious coupling.
Because of nightmares that have been lived out in your head and not communicated or tested against any sort of reality.
Get out of your imagination and throw yourself at your partner if you care even a little bit.
Ask.
Muster the strength to care an ounce.
“It’s not hard to push a person away. The real work is to draw him close and uplift him.”
— Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
I know it can be scary to put yourself out there, like ripping your heart out of your chest and handing it to him, bleeding and beating, leading you breathless and terrified.
But it’s the only way to connection. Which is what you so desperately crave.
You have to lean into the pain.
You have to allow it.
I promise it won’t kill you.
But you have to take a risk, to actually allow the depths of your feelings to surface, so your partner can see them.
It might be easier to hide behind pursed lips and a seemingly tolerable and livable mediocrity that the rest of the world seems to get by with…
Not you.
THAT livable mediocrity is what will kill you.
Show up in a different way, show him a different side, get raw, real and vulnerable, and you might be surprised with what you see.
If the pattern’s been spiraling for some time now, one attempt at this conversation isn’t going to cut it. And that can make it harder to put yourself out there again.
Get some help if you need to.
Schedule a call with me or find a couples therapist in your area here: http://iceeft.com.
Whatever you do, don’t give up for the wrong reasons.
Our relationships can be our teachers, if you don’t learn the lesson with your partner, you’ll have to learn it with the next one.
Cheers to thriving in business & love,
Leave a Reply