Tiny Buddha

Tag: relationship

  • Meaningful Connection: The Gift And Challenge Of Being An HSP In Love

    Meaningful Connection: The Gift And Challenge Of Being An HSP In Love

    “You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.” ~Guy Finley

    I used to be married to a very kind man with similar values and goals in life. So why did we end up divorced?

    In one word? Communication.

    Like so many other highly sensitive people (HSPs) I thrived on meaningful, deep communication. I lived for it. I sought it out. And, when at ease, I was good at it.

    Unless he wasn’t. Which was often. When he was shut down, couldn’t articulate what was going on for him, or had nothing to say in response to my openhearted sharing, then I’d get weird in my communications.

    Unfortunately, as time went on in our marriage—and we invited more and more stress into our lives with kids and the building of a house—he became even more shut down emotionally and verbally.

    And when he did, I’d start complaining. Giving him the cold shoulder. Criticizing. I remember sitting on the couch with him after the kids were asleep trying to connect with him. He’d be so quiet, offering no satisfying answers to my questions about how he was feeling or what was going on for him. So I’d start saying things like, “Talking to you is like talking to a stone wall!”

    I know now this was all an unconscious attempt to get him to open up and be more of the champion connector and conversationalist I wanted him to be.

    But of course it always backfired, pushing us further apart. He’d get defensive or silent. So I’d try harder to get through to him with my tactics.

    Sometimes during such conversations, his eyes would begin to droop shut, as they do when he was starting to fall asleep. Then I’d say something like, “You can’t even stay awake to talk to me! You don’t even care about me or our relationship!!” Or, I’d huff and say, “Fine. Let’s just live here like roommates then!” and walk away.

    I felt chronically unfulfilled. He felt chronically unappreciated and rejected. Over time we just felt worn down, with no clear path back to feeling close again.

    If any of this sounds familiar, it may have something to do with the paradoxical nature of the trait of sensitivity.

    We sensitives deeply value connection and meaningful conversation. This is beautiful thing, and because of it we have the potential to gift the people we love—and ourselves—with a depth of love they’ve never before experienced! We are truly built for having deeply connected relationships. Please really hear that.

    Yet our trait can also sometimes contribute to trouble communicating and connecting with those we love. Once we recognize and understand the challenges we face, we can then go on to work on them so that we can create the connection we love.

    Here are six ways HSPs may have difficulty creating closeness and understanding in our relationships:

    1. When we HSPs are overwhelmed by strong emotions—which can be a common occurrence—we may have trouble expressing ourselves effectively, or listening well.

    Instead, we may freeze up and close down, which leads to keeping our feelings bottled up, and missing out on important or even good things being communicated by our partner. Or, we’ll let it all out in a verbal storm that stings our partner. Both eat away at the trust and understanding needed for love to thrive.

    2. When our communications go poorly or turn unpleasant, we feel it for hours.

    We may analyze and brood over what was said, or what wasn’t said, for days in our heads, even imagining problems that aren’t there for the other person. And then, we can’t help but interact and communicate from that hurt, resentment, frustration, or worry. This feeds more tension, distance, and ineffective, painful interactions. This cycle can go on and on, causing suffering for both partners.

    3. We pick up on subtle cues, tones, and body language from our partner—we read him or her—and often weave a whole story about what’s going on for them and what it means.

    We then may take it personally, and react strongly to it—before our partner even knows they’re feeling anything themselves! They can be totally mystified by why we are even upset, which triggers us even more.

    Adding to the complexity of this, what we perceive is going on for them may be true, or may not be.

    This can be a tricky thing about being an empathic creature. Sometimes we jump to conclusions, since we’re used to sensing what’s going on inside others. But most of us aren’t truly psychic, and believing we know more about someone else than they do may cause misunderstanding and hurt.

    4. We unconsciously may believe our partner should have the same level of empathy and ability to understand and care for others as we naturally do.

    This leads to feeling disappointed in our partner, and resentful of them not providing what we expect and want. Once again, we carry that into our interactions by either clamming up and withdrawing, complaining, and criticizing, or by being sarcastic.

    No partner enjoys this, so they’ll tend to react in ways that lead us to believe further that they should be more empathetic, more caring, and more understanding. Which only reinforces our disappointment!

    5. Since we are so sensitive and attuned to our environment, we may notice many subtle “wrong” things our partner does or says.

    Then we feel bothered, frustrated, and exasperated. And of course, this comes out in one shape or form. Even if we say nothing, it affects our partner, as communication is made up of not just our words, but also our tone of voice and body language. They may feel quite unappreciated, like my husband did.

    6. Since all too often in our lives it may have been brought to our attention that we are “different” from the “norm,” we may have underlying low self-worth.

    We may feel less than others and bad about ourselves. This leads to communication challenges across the board:

    • Reactivity and touchiness when our partner does anything that “proves” to us we aren’t lovable
    • Not asking for what we want because of fear of rejection, then resenting our partner for not providing what we want
    • Caring for others at the expense of ourselves because they are more “important” than us, or because we think we need their approval to feel better about ourselves

    Now, it’s in large part due to our strong love of genuine meaningful connection that we HSPs even have these struggles. For us, when something matters so much, it can take on a seriousness that creates so much pressure it actually makes that connection more elusive.

    Because when we feel it isn’t going well or meeting our standards, we may focus on how wrong it is. Which never makes things better in a love relationship. Take it from me. I had to learn this in the hardest of ways.

    But learn I did, and now I love helping others avoid making the same mistakes I did.

    So, if you see yourself in any of the above, please know you’re not stuck with these challenges. We sensitives are actually gifted with the ability to have the most connected, meaningful relationships possible, once we develop the skills to communicate powerfully. 

    Part of what got me there was really reflecting on what went wrong in my marriage the first time around. I got really honest with myself and investigated deeply.

    Then I owned up to my role in my pain and suffering in our marriage.

    I saw I had blamed my unhappiness on him. On his lack of ability to “connect” the way I liked. Since I thought my happiness depended on him doing what I wanted, I was helpless to be happy unless he did it. I essentially gave him all the power over my feelings and behavior. I gave up my own ability to create the loving interactions I deeply desired.

    I saw that I was only good at communication and connection when I felt comfortable and valuable. And relying on him to give me that sense of comfort and worth all the time didn’t work, since he didn’t have it in him every moment to give it.

    Once I saw that I decided to not allow anyone but myself to have that kind of power in my life. I committed to learning how to feel more valuable and at ease in my skin. I committed to learning everything I needed to in order to have the experiences I wanted and valued.

    Now, in my second marriage, I get it. If I want meaningful connection, I don’t need to badger my husband for it, or leave him. Instead, I get curious about how I can create more of what I want. I find ways to communicate and connect that actually work with my man.

    I ask him thought-provoking questions, find activities we can do, and explore new interests together (men tend to bond through activity, and I like to take advantage of this!). I treat him how I’d love to be treated, with consideration of his differences, appreciation for who he is, and openness about my desires (and also some caring restraint, so I’m not sharing every critical thought I have with him).

    Although it’s not my job to make him feel a certain way—and I don’t shy away from speaking an uncomfortable truth so he can understand what I’m going through—I know my actions do affect him. So I aim to communicate in ways that help him feel safe enough, valued enough, and loved enough to be more fully open, more fully himself.

    When I work to understand where’s he’s coming from, who he is, and how he interprets my tone of voice, the words I speak, and the actions I take, that’s leading by example. By doing so, I help create an environment of generosity and understanding, and a sense of being supportive allies in life together. Which is all I really want, anyway.

    Not only does this kind of self-awareness, self-ownership, and commitment to growth allow for the most loving, honest, and sweet connection with my man, it’s also proven to inspire him to grow, too. To become more self-aware, to take ownership of his less-than-ideal contributions to our relationship, and to work to be the best partner he can. Needless to say, we have a deeply loving marriage.

    And you can, too. By being brave enough to look compassionately at where you are contributing to disconnection in your relationship. By being willing to own up to your own shortcomings, and the places you need to grow. And by committing to doing what it takes to grow into the person your sensitive heart knows you can be, with a bit of learning and a sprinkle of effort.

    That’s one of the most empowering and rewarding things you can do for yourself. And for your loved ones, too.

  • You Don’t Need a “Perfect Relationship”

    You Don’t Need a “Perfect Relationship”

  • How to Stop Feeling Consumed by Your Fear of Being Alone

    How to Stop Feeling Consumed by Your Fear of Being Alone

    “Pain makes you stronger. Fear makes you braver. Heartbreak makes you wiser.” ~Unknown

    You wake up and check your phone, expecting a “good morning” text, but there’s nothing there. Going through your day, everything feels quieter, and there’s a gaping hole inside of you that nothing seems to fill. No matter what you do, you can’t seem to shake that relentless ache for the one person who consumes your mind.

    It’s an emptiness that makes you feel lost and scared.

    There’s nothing quite like a breakup to spark fears of being alone. It’s like a wave of dread that hits you once the breakup dust settles and you realize you no longer have a partner by your side. Anxiety hits, and you start to wonder if you’ll ever find anyone to love you again.

    It’s a fear that I became very familiar with while dating in my early twenties.

    I was a late bloomer when it came to relationships. I never had a high school sweetheart, or even a college one for that matter, and spent half of my twenties in frustratingly casual relationships.

    Those relationships would fizzle out almost as quickly as they began, and every time, I was left heartbroken, wondering if I’d be alone forever.

    What made it worse was that I would see my friends in happy, committed relationships and doubt that I would ever have that for myself. Spending most of my life single felt like a curse.

    Then, after countless short flings, I met someone who would eventually become my boyfriend. It was a moment I had been waiting for all those years, yet it wasn’t what I expected.

    I thought being in a relationship would bring me happiness and peace, but once I had the serious, committed relationship I had been yearning for, I realized I was only masking my loneliness under a false sense of security. Because being with someone who was not right for me felt equally lonely.

    So now that I’m single again after ending that five-year relationship, I have a new perspective on my feelings of loneliness and fear.

    While I don’t have all of the answers and everyone has different ways of coping, here are some things that helped me overcome my fear of being alone after a breakup.

    Lean on others for support.

    A breakup can feel a lot like losing your balance. The person you once relied on for support has been pulled out from under you, and it can be difficult to find your footing.

    Those feelings of loss only exacerbate the feelings of loneliness.

    However, if you look around, you’ll most likely find that there are people in your life who are just as supportive (if not more) as your ex-partner.

    After my breakup, the first people I turned to were my friends. They were my shoulder to cry on, and I could talk to them about anything and everything.

    Even though I wasn’t communicating with them as often as I should have during my last relationship, when that ended, they were right by my side without hesitation.

    Understand that being single doesn’t mean you’re alone.

    Almost everyone has at least one person they can turn to in times of need, so turn to friends, family, or whoever you feel comfortable opening up to so that you can vent, cry, yell, and express your emotions freely, without inhibition.

    If there’s no one in your life you can lean on, maybe this is a good time to work on building a support network outside of a romantic relationship by putting yourself in new situations and opening up to new friends. This way, being single won’t feel so scary because you’ll know you’re never truly alone.

    Embrace being single.

    Do you look at your breakup as just an ending or also a new beginning?

    If you view the change in your relationship status as a loss and nothing else, then, chances are, you also view being single as a negative, which allows your loneliness and sadness to get the better of you.

    Sure, you lost a partner, and the heartbreak that comes with it takes time to heal, but you can choose how you perceive the breakup and the experience of being single.

    So shift your perspective and focus on the positives by using this time as an opportunity to reconnect with yourself.

    During a relationship, many people end up mirroring a lot of their partners’ habits, likes, and dislikes, losing their sense of self in the process. It happens to the best of us.

    The end of a relationship is the perfect opportunity to reevaluate all of those interests and passions to see what is truly yours.

    Think about it: You no longer have to consider the thoughts, feelings, and needs of another person, which means you can finally focus on you and you alone.

    So embrace it.

    Having the time and space to focus on your own needs is extremely important for growth and happiness. That way, you can develop a stronger sense of who you are, which will help you find a partner who is a better fit in the future.

    Life’s ups and downs are all about perspective, and breakups are no different.

    Get out of your head.

    Oftentimes we overthink and overanalyze during times of stress and anxiety. It’s a vicious cycle that only perpetuates toxic thoughts and keeps us chained to the past. In order to move forward, you need to physically get moving.

    Immerse yourself in activities that pull you out of your mind so that you’re less apt to dwell. Find things to do that disrupt your negative thought patterns so that you’re not constantly falling into a pit of fear and sadness. Exercise, take up a new hobby, do something creative, start a new passion project—anything to get you engaged with the physical world.

    Focus on the world around you, practice gratitude, and be mindful of your thoughts and how they’re shaping your perspective of the world.

    While you can’t completely avoid the feelings of loneliness, particularly during those quiet moments late at night and early in the morning, moving your body and taking action can make the transition from relationship to single life that much easier.

    In turn, it will also ease those fears of being alone.

    Relearn how to do things alone.

    Having a partner in crime can be fun, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also have fun doing things alone.

    There’s a certain level of empowerment that comes from doing an activity by yourself. It takes confidence and forces you into independence, both of which many of us could use more of.

    So revisit old activities you used to only do with your partner and try doing them on your own. Find brand new activities to try out by yourself as well.

    After my breakup, I made an effort to do things I was too scared to do without a partner. I started with little things like going to restaurants by myself. Then I moved on to other activities like touring museums, relaxing on the beach, and visiting local sites in my city.

    The biggest activity I took part in was going on vacation by myself. I drove two hours away to spend a few days in a town I had never been to, which pushed me past my fears of tackling the unknown on my own.

    While all of these activities were terrifying at first, they taught me that I don’t need a partner to do the things I want to do. And it was empowering to know that I am capable of doing things by myself.

    At first, it may be a little scary to go it alone, but pay attention to how you feel after. You may not feel better after the first time you do it, but after regular practice, you may find that you feel stronger and more confident as a result.

    Practice self-care habits.

    Going through the pain of a breakup requires space to heal, so use this time for introspective self-care.

    Find practices and activities that add more peace and mindfulness to your daily life. You can do that through a meditation practice to clear your head and calm any anxiety you may be feeling, or you can start journaling and get your feelings down on paper.

    Other self-care habits include having a spa day, exercising, practicing healthy eating, and getting proper sleep.

    The point is to be a little selfish and focus on yourself and your needs. When you do the activities listed above, listen to what’s going on in your body and mind—thoughts, emotions, aches, pains, and all.

    It’s not easy, but facing your issues head-on will enable you to heal the wounds of the past so you don’t repeat damaging relationship patterns in the future.

    It’s Worth Waiting for the Right Person

    The last thing you want to do is enter into a new relationship simply because you’re scared of the alternative.

    Fear can lead to desperation, which can cloud your judgment and push you toward decisions you wouldn’t make in the right state of mind. It’s in moments of desperation that we end up choosing the wrong partner and settling for less than we deserve.

    It isn’t easy to embrace the single life when you’re afraid of being alone, but it’s all about perspective. Rather than allow your fears to back you into a corner and swallow you whole, challenge them by recognizing the opportunities in front of you.

    You just may realize that being alone isn’t so bad because it gives you a chance to explore yourself and put your best foot forward when you are actually ready for love.

    After all, is it not better to be single than to be driven by fear into the arms of the wrong person?

  • What to Do When Someone You Love is Struggling

    What to Do When Someone You Love is Struggling

    “Sometimes the easiest way to solve a problem is to stop participating in the problem.” ~ Jonathan Mead

    I don’t think I’m alone in having someone in my life whom I wish I could change. Someone I see struggling, who ignores or resents any lifesavers I send their way. I can clearly see how this person contributes to their own struggles, but they remain totally unaware of it. Sometimes, I want to shake some sense into this person; I think, “If only they would get their life together…”

    For many of us, this person is a relative: a sister, brother, parent, or child. For others, it’s a close friend or coworker. A lot of times, it’s someone we want in our lives, even if it’s painful to keep them there. No matter who it is, it certainly isn’t easy to see someone you care about struggle.

    Being in the presence of another’s pain used to provoke a deeply emotional response from me. And I know others feel the same. Sympathy and the desire to help someone in distress are naturally instinctual responses.

    According to Darwin, humans and animals alike take comfort in one another’s company, protecting one another and defending each other against threats.

    I get that. It makes total sense to me. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to see the people I care about happy. I did just about anything to try and change them; I read books and articles, reaching out for experts’ advice on how I could get them to see the light. In fact, I became one of those “experts” myself, and if I’m honest with myself, it’s because I was looking for a way to help the ones I love.

    You see, I didn’t just have one person in my life who was struggling. At one point, it seemed like the majority of my family members were having a tough time. That led me to feel desperate and helpless, unable to live my own life while sensing their pain.

    I always hung on to the hope that the people in my life would somehow change. That something I had overlooked would prove to be the magic bullet to help them live a good and fulfilling life.

    I kept buying more books, reading more articles, and encouraging them to go to therapy, whether they wanted to or not. I reasoned, pleaded, led interventions. Dreamed of my ideal relationships with them, imagined them happy and full of life. Yearned for their smiles and enthusiasm for life. Believed that I couldn’t be happy until they were.

    I made it my life mission to change others, becoming a therapist to help make changes in other people’s lives, fixing what was broken.

    Well, as you can imagine, that never worked. When you have people in your life whom it hurts to love, the only logical solution seems like trying to help them change. But I had to learn the long and hard way, by running into dead ends and facing many disappointments, that you can’t make other people change. You can’t make other people happy. And you can’t rescue another person.

    The only person you can change is yourself. So that’s what I did. I learned to manage my anxiety around other people’s discomfort. I decided that other people’s struggles and journeys were just that: their struggles and journeys. I stopped trying to be helpful and instead decided that I had a right to be happy.

    It’s so important to understand that you can’t make somebody change. You can inspire them to change. You can educate them toward change. You can support them in their change. But you can’t force them to change just so that you can feel more comfortable around them.

    Maybe that sounds like giving up. Maybe that even sounds a bit uncaring. However, I didn’t stop trying to be helpful to those struggling because I stopped loving them. I stopped because I saw it was not only not working, it was also contributing to their problems.

    When I made efforts to take on other people’s problems I would do too much. I relieved them for a moment of their pain; however, I wasn’t providing them with the space they needed to solve their own issues. If I kept jumping in to help them, they would keep relying on me, instead of themselves, which wouldn’t allow them to better deal with life’s many difficulties on their own.

    After years of doing the same things over and over again, with very little result, I decided it was time to change my approach. I was doing the very thing I wanted to see other people stop doing: I was contributing to my own problems. And it was time to stop doing that. It was time to be happy, not only for me, but for those that I cared about. It was time to be less helpful.

    Our efforts to be helpful might be based on good intentions, but those good intentions don’t always yield good results.

    By committing to learning what real help is, I came to understand that if I could manage my anxiety about other people’s problems and invest my time thinking about real solutions, I could change my responses and do something that was legitimately helpful.

    As the first step in this process, I began to define my true beliefs, values, and ideas about helping others.

    I’ve learned that in crisis situations, it’s best for me to calm myself down and respond as wisely as possible—when it’s needed and, of course, when it’s welcomed. The ability to manage my emotions in the highly anxious and emotional presence of another, especially a loved one in pain, is a lifelong mission of mine, because I truly believe it’s what will be helpful.

    If we can all manage ourselves in the face of other people’s problems, we can truly be present and accountable.

    On my journey to find out what it means to be truly helpful, I’ve found some tools I keep in my back pocket when the going gets tough.

    First, stay in touch.

    This isn’t easy to do in the presence of someone who’s very anxious and upset. Some people naturally create distance when anxiety is high. Thinking that you can’t help, or that the situation is too large, can lead you to run in the other direction.

    I try to stay in contact with people I care about, even if their problems are too big for me to solve or aren’t solvable at all, like having an illness. Staying in touch helps me manage myself around the big stuff I can’t solve, and learn to accept people as they are.

    Second, see the person past the problem.

    When I was walking around with a hammer, I was basically seeing everyone in my life as a nail. There was more to them than the issues they were facing, but I wasn’t relating to them as whole people. Now I look for other people’s strengths, and their ability to solve their own issues. People are more resilient than we tend to think.

    Third, respect others’ boundaries and ability to solve their own problems.

    Many people are vulnerable when they face life’s stressors, and some people look to others to solve their problems for them. These days, I try to respect other people enough to let them come up with their own answers.

    Determining how much to say or not say in each situation we face is not an exact science. I respect others’ boundaries by supporting their autonomy, being there for them but staying out of the way when my opinion isn’t needed. I make sure that any ideas for possible solutions come from them. I offer useful information without telling anyone what to do.

    Fourth, know your own limitations.

    It was humbling for me to find out how little control I have over the way others decide to live their lives. I changed my thought process from thinking I knew what’s best for my loved ones, to defining what I really could and couldn’t do; then my responses became clearer.

    I was able to be more open and honest about the reality of my own life and how available I could be for others. I learned the hard way that, most of the time, my limits of time and energy were reached before other people’s needs were met.

    Fifth, become more objective.

    Boy, is it hard to think objectively when it comes to our important relationships. In intense emotional situations, it’s easy to get pulled into it all and feel pressured to do something instead of taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture.

    With each situation I face, I work on getting more objective about it, reflecting on how I can remain calm and not feel the need to solve anything immediately.

    Remaining objective is about seeing the difference between reality and what you feel. So, for example, instead of thinking you need to break your best friend’s unhealthy relationship pattern because it hurts you to see her in the same painful situation over and over again, you might step back and recognize she’s making progress, even if it’s slow, and we all need to learn our own lessons in our own time.

    Sixth, work toward being open and honest.

    We all have a need to feel seen, heard, and understood. However, way too many people aren’t open and honest in their relationships. When we can be open about our vulnerabilities and share our own experiences, it can be healing and calming. We can let others know that we can relate to them. When we’re trying to solve and fix everything, we aren’t connecting with others at a deeper level. We’re acting as if we’re above them.

    —

    By making an effort to stop trying to be helpful, I saw many changes in my life. I no longer felt the pressure I once put on myself to be responsible for other people. I no longer made other people’s struggles about myself. And through all of that, I was able to foster better relationships with the people I care about—relationships based on reality, versus fantasies of who I wished they would be.

    What I describe here is my own personal experience. I share it as a way to get you thinking, but there’s no one-size-fits-all method for determining what real help is.

    The biggest lesson I learned in all of this is that I wasn’t helping anyone when I was swooping in trying to solve every problem without looking at the bigger picture. I understand now that when my “helping” is rooted in anxiety and an urge to smooth things over, it isn’t coming from a genuine place.

    I now know it’s okay to not have all of the answers; it’s okay to take my time to think things over; it’s okay to throw my hands up and say, “This situation really stinks right now, and it’s going to be hard for a while.”

    It’s okay for you to do all those things, too. Not every struggling person needs saving. Knowing that, and accepting it, might be the most helpful thing you can do.

  • I Thought It Was Love, But It Was Actually Abuse

    I Thought It Was Love, But It Was Actually Abuse

    “Alone doesn’t always mean lonely. Relationship doesn’t always mean happy. Being alone will never cause as much loneliness as being in the wrong relationship.” ~Unknown

    I don’t know if it’s the conditioning of Disney movies that makes every young girl dream of finding her Prince Charming, but that was my experience. My prince entered my life just like that, saving me from my boredom and taking me on a roller coaster of excitement. He assured me that our love was going to last forever, and the naivety of being sixteen made me believe him.

    It didn’t take long for his true colors to emerge; sadly, it took me longer to see them.

    I thought the control was over-protectiveness. I thought he cared when he told me what to wear, who I could associate with, and where I could go. The Neanderthal behavior must have touched something primitive in me, and I was overwhelmed with the urge to please.

    Quickly, I went from princess to property. He shouted at me, berated me, and mentally tortured me. And I thought I was being loved.

    To anyone who has never been in this situation, the words “run, Forest, run” might come to mind. However, we say this from an adult perspective, older and wiser. When you’ve been brainwashed since you were sixteen, it takes more than a quote from a movie to see sense.

    Everything became an argument. Every argument taught me to walk on eggshells. If I didn’t conform, he would ignore me. If I refused to listen, he would isolate me. If I cried, he would scream at me. If I had no emotion, he would play the victim.

    I thought I could make him better. I thought he would receive the love from me that he was lacking elsewhere and that this would make him change.

    I thought wrong.

    Nearly fifteen years later, I am the one who holds a lifetime worth of memories that I can’t forget, and I’ve had to recondition myself into believing that this is not my fault. No amount of “what ifs” can change a person’s innate morality. Mentally and emotionally healthy people do not try to make others feel unworthy of love and dress it up to be love.

    If you asked me to define love, I would tell you it is the ability to be unselfish. To be willing to put others first and sacrifice your needs and desires at times. More importantly, love needs to be reciprocated.

    But when I was with my ex, I felt as though I had to work hard to receive love. I needed to shut myself, my thoughts, and my feelings down and simply become a doormat, or else he’d emotionally abandon me.

    So, I tried that. I became a “yes” woman. I lost myself in the world of conformity, and it still wasn’t enough. He accused me of being unfeeling, emotionless, and devoid of passion. So, I changed again. I tried to become more like him. I would scream and shout to try and gain control, and then he called me manipulative and psychotic.

    I tried to combine the two. I tried to be religious. I tried to be a party-goer. I tried to be dominant. I tried to be submissive.

    Nothing worked.

    I cried, begged, and pleaded to be treated like a human. I asked for compassion but received cruelty. I asked for love and had to be satisfied with lust. I wanted hope but felt hopeless. Until I realized that I was asking for something that he was unable to give me.

    A narcissist is incapable of recognizing the needs of another. He/she cannot fathom that people have emotions, unless they are used as a method of control. They thrive on the idea that you believe in them and, rather than granting you equality, they manipulate you into believing that the scraps they throw you are the only ones you deserve.

    He told me countless times that he loved me, so why have I spent the last decade and a half repeatedly asking the same question, “Do you really love me?”

    If he loved me, how could he not understand my pain? How could he be okay with knowing I felt so low? How could he constantly betray me? Why couldn’t he make the same sacrifices as me? Why couldn’t he just be the person I first fell in love with?

    The answer to those questions is simple: The narcissist is a multi-faceted creature, a chameleon who adapts to your weaknesses and uses them to maintain a position of strength. Because of their personality disorder, they are lacking in the qualities that make you who you are.

    They are determined to keep you in a position of subordination because this feeds their need to feel superior, and when you fight to break out of that role, they leave.

    They show you good times to ensure that you feel indebted to them and to make you yearn for them once again. They make up and break up with you so often that you may find it hard to move on. If you do, you likely feel distrusting of people, making you an incomplete partner for a mentally and emotionally healthy human being.

    After a breakup, we often try to make ourselves whole by seeking another, the biggest mistake we could possibly make. Would you purchase an item with pieces missing?

    It’s a little crude to compare a human being to an object, but we cannot expect to ‘move on’ if we are seeking to replace the void left by a narcissist.

    Moving on shouldn’t mean jumping into a relationship with another human. It should mean taking responsibility for why we stayed in this unhealthy situation, recognizing what needs to be addressed and healed within ourselves, and moving on mentally from our trauma.

    My trauma originated from never knowing my father. I yearned for someone who would fulfill the role of a protector. At the beginning, my ex did. It didn’t matter how many times we argued, I knew that he would always fight in my corner, and that made me feel safe. Eventually, the cons outweighed the pros and I knew that I had to break free.

    Now that I’m on my own, I have days when I wake up and forget that I am no longer in this toxicity, I have days where I remember the good times, and I have days when I regret laying eyes on him. However, my days are no longer concerned with how I stand in relation to him.

    I wake up and wonder what I am going to do today. I actively pursue my dreams of being a writer, or I focus on other ways I can improve my life. I research my MARs (Masters by research) topic, I cook the food I like, I wear the clothes that I look good in. Small victories for some, milestones for a victim of narcissism.

    I pray, I meditate, I exercise, and I write. Most importantly, every day I heal. I take back a part of my life that I lost because I made the mistake of trusting the wrong person with my heart.

    I rebuild the relationships I lost when I gave in to his attempts to isolate me from my friends and family—because I didn’t want to argue and because I was ashamed that, for all my outward strength and intellect, I couldn’t find the courage to leave.

    I cut out the unhealthy influences from my life, and if I can’t, I distance myself from them. I refuse to regress to the lost teenage girl and instead, harness the energy of a strong, powerful, and determined woman. I refuse to conform to the idea that a woman is “past her sell by date” and reject the notions of commodifying humans.

    I also reconnect with who I am beyond my roles. I’m more than someone’s mother, daughter, niece, and grandchild. I am a writer. I am a creator. I am a dreamer.

    There is a difference between being alone and lonely. Sometimes we need to be alone to truly rediscover ourselves. The relationship between you and yourself is more important than any other.

  • Love Doesn’t Mean Being a Hero or Being Saved

    Love Doesn’t Mean Being a Hero or Being Saved

    Most of us grow up believing that one day a handsome prince or beautiful princess will come our way and lead us into a life of “happily ever after.” No one knows what’s going to happen, but we’re certain it will be magical. We spend our childhoods desperate to grow up so that our lives can finally start when we meet “the one.”

    The one who will make us happy. The one who will take all our cares away. The one who will love us, and only us, forever and ever.

    Finally, we will be wanted and desired. We will be happy and feel great. Now our lives truly begin.

    Only it doesn’t quite work out like that. I found out the hard way.

    The Reality of Relationships

    Relationships work well when two people take responsibility for taking care of themselves and their partner. Together they create a great life. They discuss what each of them wants to do and make plans on how they can make it happen. They support each other in achieving their couple goals as well as their individual goals.

    No one expects the other person to make anything happen for them while they do nothing.

    A healthy relationship requires two individuals who both give their best efforts to being the best and most loving version of themselves. This requires action with a sense of purpose and agency.

    The Notion of Romanticized Love

    The notion of love we grew up with is unhealthy. It portrays one partner—usually the female—as the victim that needs rescuing, while the other partner—usually the male—is the hero that saves the victim from tragedy or from herself.

    This model serves no one. It is an outdated fairy tale that instills unhealthy beliefs in us that don’t match the realities of human relationships.

    I grew up believing that I was lacking and had to wait for someone to give me worth and purpose. I believed that I had to earn someone’s love and that then, they would take care of me and provide me with a good life.

    At no point did I ask myself what kind of life I wanted. In my mind, this was up to whoever was going to choose me. I took a completely passive position in life. I didn’t need to have visions or make plans because why would I, if my life was going to be provided by someone else?

    Now, it might sound ridiculous to put it all like that, but it’s true, and not just for me. I see it over and over again in my private practice as a psychotherapist.

    We may say that we are fully functioning individuals who don’t want to be rescued, but this is not what is happening within the adult relationships we are actually experiencing.

    The Problem with Romanticized Love

    Countless men and women come to me feeling disappointed, sad, and angry. They played out the roles they were given perfectly, and it did not lead to “happily ever after.”

    Instead, there is relationship conflict, high drama, and painful disconnection. Eventually, there is nothing left but disappointment, bitterness, resentment, and hopelessness.

    “What is wrong with me?” or “What is wrong with my partner?” they ask, but I can’t answer those questions because it’s not the people that are at fault; it’s the roles they unconsciously play.

    Many of us do well when we’re single, but once we enter a relationship, we naturally drop into the roles of our unconscious relationship blueprint: the way we believe relationships work. And for most people this consists of either the role of the helpless victim or that of the enduring hero.

    Sadly, both roles are highly disempowering, disrespectful and, in essence, unloving. This means that a healthy relationship is impossible.

    The Unloving Roles of Romanticized Love

    When I saw myself as someone who had to wait for someone else to make my life worthwhile, I didn’t realize that I was disempowering myself. I didn’t realize that I believed something that was untrue. I never questioned it. I just acted it out, by waiting.

    I was miserable and far from able to create a happy and healthy life for myself. What can you learn from sitting around and waiting? I didn’t engage in life. I didn’t seek out opportunities and experiences that would have taught me new skills.

    I stopped myself from learning, developing, and growing by sitting around and waiting, because what if I was busy doing something else while “the one” came looking for me? Then I would have messed it all up! It just didn’t seem worth the risk.

    But also, I didn’t really have any ideas of my own. I followed my career plans, but apart from that there was not much going on in my life.

    Believing myself to be a person who would find her worth and happiness in someone else utterly disempowered me. I did not see it then, but I can see it now as clear as day.

    I also never realized just how much my expectations burdened my partners and how these expectations ultimately ended the relationships I had with them.

    The Fallen Hero

    I believe that my past partners wanted to be my hero. I believe they tried.

    I know I wanted to be good for them and earn their love. I know I tried.

    But life just doesn’t work that way. Relationships don’t. Love certainly doesn’t.

    But we don’t know what we don’t know. And I didn’t know that 1. I wasn’t incomplete or broken, and not in need of fixing and 2. no person can gain their worth or happiness by saving or fixing another person. I’m pretty sure you didn’t know it then either.

    We got the rules of love all wrong, and the roles we play made it impossible for us to connect and relate to our partners in healthy ways.

    You would not believe how many fallen heroes I see in my practice. The majority of them are men, but the victim and hero roles are not gender-specific. They depend on the dynamic each couple creates, and some couples take turns in being the victim and each other’s hero.

    When I sit with a fallen hero, I sense utter deflation. They have tried everything they can possibly think of. They have taken responsibility for things that weren’t their responsibility to start with. Very often, they neglected themselves in an attempt to make their partner happy, to stop them from complaining, to please them in whichever way they possibly could think of.

    They are exhausted. They feel utterly drained by all of their attempts to be the hero not only their partner wishes they were but also who they wish they were. They’re disappointed in themselves and they feel like a failure, while also secretly—and sometimes not so secretly—seething with resentment toward their “difficult-to-please” partner.

    I relate well to these clients because I have also taken on this role in some of my relationships. I have tried to be the best person I could possibly be for someone else.

    The person who tries to fix all of their problems. The person who will go above and beyond to help them get what they want. The person who won’t say no and who is friendly to everyone. The person who is available at any time and will do anything—whether they feel like it or not, whether it’s a reasonable request or not, whether it’s good for them or not.

    Because the thing with heroes is that their sense of worth comes from making others happy.

    And so often it actually seems to work, which is why we keep trying. But it’s a self-perpetuating problem that eventually eats you alive. It consumes you so much you completely neglect yourself. You become a slave to the hero conditioning. You become cocooned within your role while all your dreams and wishes and desires silently suffocate.

    And that is just sad and unloving.

    No man or woman should have that pressure put on them. No one should ever accept that burden. There is no room for these kinds of unrealistic expectations in healthy relationships.

    Our romantic partners are not our saviors.

    They are not meant to fix us.

    And after all, we don’t need fixing because we are not broken!

    But we will play these roles because that’s what we think love means. We play them until we know not to, until we understand that they can never work and that they will only ever lead to two things: losing ourselves and losing our relationships.

    Letting Go of Relationship-Hostile Beliefs

    It’s not our fault that we play these roles. These roles are incorporated in our relationship blueprint, which consists of mostly unconscious beliefs about relationship roles and rules. Roles and rules we observed as children. Roles and rules that have also been culturally reinforced for decades.

    But awareness and understanding spell an end to these unconscious beliefs and patterns. It doesn’t matter which roles we assumed or which dynamics we co-created. We do not victimize ourselves to anything anymore, not even our unconscious conditioning.

    Instead, we let go of what no longer serves us and learn new, healthy, and loving ways of connecting and relating to our partner.

    Change happens when we see how what we have been doing makes no sense.

    If I am not broken, then why would I want someone to fix me? How could they even do that?

    If I don’t need to earn my self-worth, then why I am people-pleasing? Why am I doing things for others they are perfectly capable of doing themselves?

    If I want a healthy relationship, then why am I doing things that are disempowering and disrespectful? How can I expect to create something healthy when the input is unhealthy?

    What we believe about love, relationships, and our roles in relationships is what makes us miserable and costs us our relationships.

    We need to find those beliefs within ourselves and realize that they are not and never have been true. At the very least, they are not helpful and keep us from getting the one thing we really want: a healthy and loving relationship.

    And so, if the problem lies within us, then so does the solution.

  • How to Fight Well in Your Relationship

    How to Fight Well in Your Relationship

    “Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” ~Rumi

    I had one of those really intense arguments with my partner recently, and it made me realize the importance of knowing how to fight well in a relationship.

    That might sound like an oxymoron, but there isn’t a relationship I know of where the couple doesn’t fall out at one point or another. Fights can make or break a relationship. That’s why it’s important you know how to fight well—because the success of any relationship isn’t based on how well you manage the good times but on how well you can deal with the bad.

    Basically, it’s about how well you can learn to fight.

    Learning to fight well is important because it can help bring up lots of hidden stuff that’s been lying dormant for years; it enables you to be really honest with each other, which helps you develop deeper levels of trust; and studies have shown that learning to fight well can even improve the intimacy in your relationship.

    But back to our fight.

    It all started when I was out at friend’s house and lost track of the time. My partner and I had agreed to spend some quality time together that evening, and when I noticed the time, my heart sank. I knew she would be upset as I made the difficult call home, and yep, I was right. She was livid. We then descended into a really uncomfortable argument of blame and counter blame, with a bit of defensiveness thrown in for good measure.

    Criticism and defensiveness are two of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, as highlighted by renowned relationship experts Drs. John and Julie Gottman. They noticed these two traits are highly correlated to relationships that lead to breakup and divorce.

    Whenever my partner and I would have our worst arguments these two traits would always be present, and this time was no different.

    That’s why becoming more aware of how you fight can help you avoid relationship Armageddon and instead increase the trust, safety, and love in your relationship. To help with this here are seven key steps to follow when you feel as if you’re descending into another one of those earth shattering fights:

    1. Upgrade your language.

    Some arguments can help grow the relationship and develop greater levels of trust and intimacy between both parties. Other arguments are the opposite; they create a hierarchy and a power struggle, which diminishes respect, trust, and love.

    If we rewind to the start of our arguments we can predict to some extent their “success” by the language that started them and whether it was “hard” or “soft.”

    Hard language starts with generic hyperbole like “You always…” or “Why do you never…” or “I knew that you would…” Soft language uses “I” statements and focuses on the actions that took place, how they made us feel, and what we want to happen.

    My partner’s language that day was very “hard.” She criticized me and I immediately became defensive as the original story in my head started to change in response to her accusations. The firm agreement I knew we’d made became a tentative expectation in my mind. My lateness was no longer my responsibility but my friend’s, who had been delayed preparing food. Bit by bit I retold the story of what had happened and made myself into a victim of my circumstances instead of the owner that I really was.

    The language used at the start of our exchange influenced my response and how the subsequent argument progressed.

    The Gottman Institute reported that they can predict with 94% accuracy how a discussion will end based on the language used to start it. The softer and kinder our words, the less defensive we become, meaning we are more open to taking responsibility and creating connection instead of disconnection.

    A key principle to help with this is to use language to complain but don’t blame.

    2. Create space.

    Luckily, I had a one-hour drive home to work out what had happened and to get some perspective following our argument. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was a crucial period because I used it to work through what had happened, and there’s no way we could have achieved such a good outcome without the time this gave us.

    I’ve learned that it’s wise to agree in advance to call a “timeout” or “press pause” before arguments begin. In the past I’ve attempted to call a timeout to create the space to calm down, but this has only made matters worse.

    My partner and I now have an agreement that if either of us needs to call a timeout in an argument the other will respect the request. It can be infuriating at the time, but arguing when you are in a low mood or heightened sense of emotion is never going to assist your dialogue. Therefore, it’s important to create space as much as you can.

     3. Safely express your emotions.

    On that drive home the first thing I did was shout and scream about what had happened. My inner child had a field day as I moaned and complained to my imaginary passengers about what she’d said and how wrong she was. It was fantastic, and a very cathartic way to clear the negative energy and emotions I was holding on to around the conversation.

    When we had the initial phone call I went into a stress response as my body became flooded with cortisol, and my heart rate went through the roof. Expressing my emotions and doing lots of deep breathing on the way home helped me flush the cortisol out of my body and return it to its original state. Without doing this I would have taken those negative emotions and feelings into the resumption of the fight on my return home.

    The intense emotions we have during a fight form a negative filter through which we see the relationship. There’s not much our partners can say that we won’t interpret the wrong way when we come from this place. That’s why it’s so important to clear the filter and express your emotions as best you can.

    It’s important to make sure that you find somewhere safe to do this, however. Doing it next to your partner won’t go down well, so get out of the house and find somewhere to express your emotions as cleanly and safely as possible so you don’t take it into your next fight,

    4. What if…?

    Once I’d let go of the emotions I started to calm down, and it was only then that I realized I could let go of the story I’d been telling myself. It was at this point I decided to tell myself a new story that started with “What if…”

    “What if she had a point?”

    “What if I wasn’t being honest with myself?”

    “What if I wasn’t taking responsibility for something?”

    This provided a new lens through which to see the situation. With my strong emotions now expressed it was like a fog had been lifted, and I could see the situation from a new vantage point. This new perspective allowed me to completely shift my thinking on what had happened and relinquish my grip on the version of events I had concocted to help deal with my partner’s “hard” response.

    5. Take responsibility.

    From that simple question I realized that there was plenty I could take responsibility for, that I was ignoring based on my initial triggered response. I was shocked because once I found one thing, I found another, and another. By the end, I could take responsibility for almost all of what happened.

    It would have been easier to take responsibility for either nothing (be stubborn) or everything (be a people-pleaser). But the more honest I was with myself, the more I could distinguish between what was mine and what was not.

    For example, we had made a clear agreement about what time I would get back. I knew the food was going to be late, so I could have explained to my friends and left without eating. I knew I didn’t have a watch, so I could have checked on the time from somewhere else.

    Previously I’d been telling myself the story that I needed in order to ensure I wasn’t in the wrong and to protect the scared little boy inside myself that was upset at being made to feel bad.

    This also helped me to realize what I was not prepared to take responsibility for. I was being accused of some things that weren’t right. In fights we easily turn critiques about our actions into criticisms of our character. So, for example, in this scenario I was late home because I didn’t prioritize my partner. This is a critique (and is true); however, a criticism would be that this action makes me a selfish person (not true).

    Taking ownership for what was mine helped me release responsibility for what was not. This helped me to feel much stronger and clearer in owning my part in the situation and how I communicated it to my partner, as a result.

    6. Respect your partner’s process.

    When I arrived home I was excited to share what I’d learned with my partner and imagined us having a great conversation about it. That didn’t happen because she was still really annoyed with me. I came through the door with this great insight and awareness about the argument and how and why I’d behaved as I had. However, I was met with stonewalling.

    I’d used the journey home to vent and express my feelings, so the emotions in me had subsided. However, my partner had been sat at home the whole time stewing and making matters bigger and badder in her head, so we were in very different places. She still needed to express those emotions and get them out of her system before she was able to communicate with me in a productive way, and I needed to create space for her to do that.

    That was really tough because I realized I was in one place (emotionally and physically expressed, and now ready to take responsibility for what was mine), whereas she was somewhere else (still emotional and not ready for a rational conversation).

    7. Create the “container.”

    Fights often get out of control when you are both full of emotion and expressing it from a place of fear. The most important thing missing in most fights is a safe space within which to share and be heard

    When my partner and I fight we often fight for space to be heard as much as we argue about whatever the fight appeared to be about. Most fights are secret battles for power in the relationship and not really about whatever started them.

    To fight well requires one of you to have enough presence, away from your emotions, to create a safe space (or the “container”) within which to have the conversation.

    Once my partner’s emotions had calmed I asked if she was okay to have a conversation about what had happened because I wanted to share with her some things I wanted to take responsibility for. She agreed, and we were then able to have that conversation where I took responsibility for what was mine and we discussed what was not for me to take.

    I found that leading and taking responsibility for what was mine made her more trusting in me, which added to the safety we’d developed in creating the “container.” This made her much more understanding and able to take responsibility for what was hers.

    It really helped me when she said the simple words “I was wrong to say you were selfish.” I felt validated, which helped further develop the trust we had for each other.

    She would never have been able to admit that if we’d not created the sufficient safety for us both to be honest with each other.

    —

    This certainly wasn’t an easy conversation, but it would never have been possible if we hadn’t taken steps to create some space to express our emotions, take responsibility for what was ours, and then create a safe environment within which to discuss it.

    I learned that it’s not what we fight about but how we fight that’s most important.

  • From the Spouse of a Narcissist: Here’s What You Need to Know

    From the Spouse of a Narcissist: Here’s What You Need to Know

    “You can recognize survivors of abuse by their courage. When silence is so very inviting, they step forward and share their truth so others know they aren’t alone.” ~Jeanne McElvaney, Healing Insights: Effects of Abuse for Adults Abused as Children 

    When I first met my husband, when he had just started medical school at a large university, I thought he was just insecure. I believed that he would grow out of his need to be the center of attention, receive constant validation, and appear correct and knowledgeable about everything.

    I believed he would become surer of himself and would develop the capacity to listen, love, and be empathetic.

    I humored him by listening to him talk, I tried to help boost his self-esteem by giving him compliments and asking him questions I already knew the answer to, and I expressed pride in his accomplishments.

    His lack of empathy was a concern, but he told me that this is how people in his culture are, and I believed him. I convinced myself that he would get to a place in his life where he would have space for me. I continued to love and support him despite how he treated me.

    As years passed, I began to think that he had Asperger’s. This explained why he lacked empathy and why he behaved the way he did, didn’t it? When I brought this up with him, he got angry and convinced me that I was the problem in our relationship. He even managed to convince our marriage counselor of this.

    I continued to support and listen to everything he had to say, although he rarely reciprocated. When I would bring this up as a concern, he would state that he knew how I would respond because I’m a liberal, and they always respond like X or think like Y.

    In social situations he would demean me and make fun of me, and then call me too sensitive and ask me why I couldn’t take a joke.

    He would justify his actions by saying he thought people would find it funny, even though he was insulting me. When I was firm about the fact that I would not tolerate this behavior, he went out of his way to ensure that I felt invisible. When I brought this up with him, he would tell me that I was boring.

    I was tolerant of this behavior because I grew up in an abusive home, so verbal abuse felt normal.

    I did so much work preparing for social gatherings in the hopes of hosting a fun evening with my friends, but it always ended the same way: with my husband being the center of attention and impeding others from talking and connecting.

    After these events, my friends would often feel hurt about something he said or did. I would bring this up with him, and he would play the victim and tell me that they didn’t have the right to an apology because of what they said or did to him.

    Many times my friends and family would tell me to leave him and would try and show me how his behavior was hurting me, but I wasn’t ready to see it. I didn’t believe them because he had convinced me that I deserved to be treated poorly.

    He burned bridges with my friends and family, and I found myself justifying his actions in an attempt to keep the peace. In order to save these relationships, I asked my friends and family if they felt comfortable around him, and if they didn’t, I would spend time with them when he wasn’t around. This hurt, but these relationships meant so much to me that I could not afford to lose them.

    Whenever I tried to assert boundaries, we would fight, and he’d blame me for trying to set boundaries that went across his. I started surrendering space to him and giving in, even though it hurt, because it felt better than fighting.

    I started to become used to not being seen, not being able to have boundaries, not being treated with dignity and respect. I became used to feeling shut down and drained.

    I looked forward to times he worked out of town so that I could get enough sleep, be alone with my thoughts, do what I needed to do for my health and well-being, and start to feel like myself again.

    The Realization

    One day as I was doing research for my PhD, I came across an article on personality. As I read about narcissistic personality disorder, it hit me like a wave of understanding. He does not have Asperger’s; he is a narcissist. This explains his lack of empathy, his inability to love people, and his inability to be present in situations.

    It explained why he has to be the center of attention—because he needs something called “narcissistic supply” to feel whole. Narcissistic supply can be thought of as a drug in the form of social admiration and attention.

    This explained why he always picked fights and/or tried to make me feel down on my birthday, my convocation, and other events that meant a lot to me. It explained why he would leave events that didn’t allow him to be the center of attention and sulk and go on and on about how bored he was.

    His NPD explains why he cannot be present with me and why he has to go on and on about anything and at the same time nothing. It also explains why trying to connect with him means putting on an invisibility cloak and giving him all my attention and energy.

    The more I read about NPD, the more I began to understand my husband. The literature indicates that people with NPD do not change and do not feel that they have a problem. Adults with NPD have been described as “children who are forever emotionally trapped.” Therapy is not often successful for people with NPD, if they are even willing to go.

    Spouses of people with NPD are encouraged to end the relationship as safely as they can. I know from my own experience that leaving is not always possible and is much more complex than the abuse itself.

    If you are like me, the thought of giving up on another person can be heartbreaking. Sometimes giving up on a relationship can feel like giving up on a part of yourself. So hope, empathy, and compassion propel the relationship onward.

    Also, the thought of being alone can be terrifying. If you’ve been in a relationship with a narcissist long enough, you need time to gain confidence and reclaim your self-esteem.

    If your relationship has been like mine, you have likely been told that you are incompetent, that you are incapable of caring for yourself, and maybe a part of you believes these lies. So don’t rush unless you are in physical danger. Then please, for your own safety, get out! Give yourself time and trust that you will know how to move your life forward.

    I have taken the advice of these authors and have created a life for myself away from my spouse. I engage in meaningful hobbies, have friendships outside the relationship, and take time for myself every day to meditate and recharge. I have stopped feeling guilty for excluding him from parts of my life. This is what I have to do, and I am reasonably happy.

    The more I read and learn about NPD, the more I start to grieve. I grieve for the person I thought he was and what I hoped he would become. I grieve for the relationship I longed for, a relationship with empathy, reciprocity, support, and shared space both physically and ideologically.

    Slowly, I have forgiven myself for enabling him, for giving him supply, and for subjecting my friends and family to his behavior, and I’ve stopped blaming myself for the issues in our relationship.

    Relationships involve more than one person, and both parties are responsible for what arises. Sadly, spouses of people with NPD often carry all the responsibility for the relationship.

    I have stopped telling him sensitive things about my life because he uses them to bring me down or as a source of narcissistic supply. I don’t owe him access to my innermost thoughts and feelings.

    Also, I am in the process of acknowledging the role my past played in this relationship.

    Growing up in a home with verbally abusive parents, I never learned to love or respect myself. Verbal abuse was a normal part of my daily life. As a result, I was conditioned to accept derogation, living without healthy boundaries, and being treated without dignity and respect. Because of my past, I was blind to abuse.

    The future will be different; it has to be. For the first time in our relationship of over fifteen years, I see my husband for who he really is, not who he has led me to believe he was.

    As I see him, I try to have empathy for him. I have learned that people with NPD feel empty inside when they are not seeking supply, and beneath the façade they try so desperately to protect is a person who feels insecure, a person who does not love themselves and is ashamed of who they really are, although they will never admit this to anyone, not even themselves.

    I don’t know what I want to do about the relationship, so I’m giving myself time and permission to reflect and grow. My downfall is that I don’t like to give up on people, but sometimes you need to give up on someone because, if you don’t, it means giving up on yourself.

    I can’t live my life on edge. I can’t be either invisible or demeaned and insulted on a daily basis, and I will not go on feeling sleep-deprived, shut down, and in a state of physical and psychological distress.

    For Anyone Who’s in a Relationship with a Narcissist

    Know it is not your fault.

    You are not too sensitive or needy. You have been told these things by a person who cannot feel deeply the way you do.

    Trust yourself.

    People may have told you to leave, but you need to trust yourself to know what is right for you, and when. In time, you will know.

    Educate yourself.

    Read books and articles on NPD; there are many helpful resources available, such as the Gray Rock method, which allows me to protect my time.

    Find support.

    Your friends and family might not understand what you are going through because narcissists often wear a mask, and the person they are in public can be very different from who they are behind closed doors.

    Seek out support from a therapist who has experience with narcissistic emotional abuse. This individual can provide you with coping strategies, education, and resources that will make your life a little better.

    If this isn’t an option for you, join a social media support group, such as the Facebook group Living with Narcissistic Emotional Abuse (where I am now an administrator). Facebook groups for spouses of narcissists continue to be a source of comfort to me because I have connected with people who understand my experience in a way that friends cannot.

    Keep a journal.

    Narcissists try to twist facts to make themselves look good or make you appear crazy. This is called gaslighting. In order to give yourself validation, keep a journal of events that happen. If you feel comfortable, show this to someone you trust who can validate these situations. This will help you regain confidence in your lived experiences of events.

    Be prepared.

    If you need to confront the narcissist, script what you are going to say first. Write it down, memorize it, and follow it exactly as you have written it. It can be useful to have someone you trust look it over because the narcissist will often try and accuse you of being abusive or unfair in order to suppress your ability to call them out on their behaviors.

    Get clear about your boundaries.

    This may take time. For me, it involved noticing what triggered me when I was with the narcissist. Know what you will and will not tolerate, as well as consequences for violating each boundary. For example, if the narcissist insults you at events, tell them that you will not invite them to join you the next time you go out.

    Do not allow yourself to become drained, and do not feel guilty for needing to take time away to recharge.

    It can take a large amount of energy to be with a narcissist, and you need to invest some of this energy in yourself and in your healthier relationships. Remember that you don’t owe anyone all your time and emotional energy. You aren’t selfish for taking time for you.

    Try to find something joyful in every day.

    Narcissists can be very negative people, and they can suck the joy out of your life. Try to do something you love every day. I go for a walk in nature or watch animal videos, as this reminds me about the joys of life. I also play with my cat.

    Control your own finances.

    Some narcissists try to control their spouses through money, and this can limit your ability to do things you need to do for yourself. Have some money saved and/or obtain a source of income that the narcissist does not know about.

    Be good to yourself.

    Don’t blame yourself for what you could not see before. This can take some of us years. Narcissists are good at wearing a mask. Just educate yourself, and you will peel off the mask and see the narcissists with new eyes.

    As the Spouse of a Narcissist

    As the spouse of a narcissist, I have someone who talks at me, not with me. Someone who needs me but does not respect me. A child who demands attention and has tantrums if he does not get it. A person who does not listen and does not feel what others feel, or understand how others are affected by his behaviors.

    As the spouse of a narcissist, I must walk alone through my struggles, silently feeling my pain while no one sees it, no one sees him.

    Nothing is mine or can be about me; he has to be the center of attention.

    In public, he wears a mask that no one can see through, but at home, the mask comes off and I am subjected to emotional abuse.

    As the spouse of a narcissist, I am the one with the problem—the one who is too sensitive, the one who cannot take a joke. I am the one who needs help, not him. He is not the problem; I am. I am because I see him for who he is, and I cannot pretend anymore, and that is a problem.

    As the spouse of a narcissist, I need to be strong and educate the people around me about narcissistic emotional abuse so that they might never fall prey and never feel my pain.

    As spouses of narcissists, we cannot keep silent because the pain of being with a narcissist can be prevented.

  • It’s Not “Failing” to Leave a Toxic, Abusive Marriage

    It’s Not “Failing” to Leave a Toxic, Abusive Marriage

    “Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for giving away your power. Forgive yourself for past behaviors. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself for being who you needed to be.” ~Audrey Kitching

    I have always been an extremely glass-half-full kind of person. I always see the best in everyone, and not only the best but also the unlimited beauty and potential. And my god, it’s glorious!!

    I met and fell in love with a charming man. I was on a trip to Alaska to visit a lifelong friend and met Mr. Wonderful at a gathering. He was attentive, charismatic, and made me feel like a queen. I was hooked. We were married four months later, and five months after that I had my second daughter.

    I didn’t see the red flags. Looking back, I ask myself how I could have been so naïve, so trusting, so blind. Slowly but surely, though, my world changed.

    First, it was little things, like coming out to check on me at night when I was breast pumping milk to see what “I was up to.” Then there was the name-calling and shaming if I wanted to dress up and go out with friends to a dinner. I wondered if other wives got called sluts too because they would wear a pretty shirt.

    There came a day when it became difficult to see the beauty in myself, and in him. Everything changed that day. And it never was able to return back to how it was before. The person that had vowed to love me, to cherish me, to protect me, and be there for me cut me to the core with words that will never be undone.

    “Nobody else will ever want you,” he sneered, his eyes filled with scorn and disgust. “A mother with kids from two different dads,” he chuckled to himself. “You are a slut, a whore, a sperm depository.”

    I curled up on the floor, in the fetal position, feeling as though he had stabbed me with a knife in the gut. I was sobbing, but I don’t remember hearing the sound.

    “Why are you saying this?” I gasped.

    “I read your journal,” he yelled, referring to an entry about my past lovers, as if that justified his cruelty.

    Stress does strange things to a person. I had recently broken out in painful boils on the left side of my torso and under my arms. They were excruciating. It hurt to lower my arm all the way down.

    “You are a fat, lazy, boil-infested bitch.”

    I remember at that moment shutting down. Going inward. A part of me disconnected in order to stay alive.

    Days turned into weeks. I felt myself dying inside a little more every day. I became withdrawn, and as time went on it took more and more energy to smile and pretend life was normal.

    Many friends didn’t understand. I remember them having shocked looks. “But I thought you were happily married,” one said, seemingly unable to comprehend the nightmare that had become my life.

    I gave up trying to talk about it, to explain. I felt it was my fault. Somehow I had attracted this, and perhaps somehow I could make him happy if I just did the right things and earned enough “Brownie points”—if, for example, I stayed home from social events and remained “on duty” with our baby all the time. Eventually I learned there were never Brownie points. Nothing seemed to make him pleased.

    One evening, he became angry with my older daughter, who was born blind in one eye, and called her a Cyclops. I remember wrapping one arm around my sobbing daughter while trying to bounce a baby on my hip. I was so exhausted from sleep deprivation and postpartum depression, it was all I could do to stay standing.

    I had never felt so alone, so isolated, so hopeless.

    I got the children settled to sleep, and I made a choice that night that I was finished.

    The next few days were a blur of his hateful and cruel remarks, as he knew I would not take him back; it was truly over. I knew I had to take a stand for myself, and if not me, for my children. They deserved better. I knew I did too, but I couldn’t see it at that time.

    It has been five years since we separated. I am resilient, and for that I am grateful.

    I am still an optimist, and I still see the beauty in everyone. I take a pause now, though, and I evaluate situations more carefully. My trust takes much more time to be earned now than it did eight years ago when I fell in love too fast, without knowing the real person behind the charming facade.

    Many people, including my parents, were disappointed in my failed marriage. Many sent prayers that it would be healed. For a long while, I felt like a failure.

    I have come to realize there is no shame in ‘failing’ in a marriage, especially if that marriage is toxic and harmful to your soul. I appreciate those thoughts and well-intended prayers, but at the end of the day, an abusive person who is not willing to self-reflect is not likely to change. The best thing to do at that point is to extricate yourself while you have the strength to do so.

    Recovering from trauma takes time. It has taken a lot of courage to look at my vulnerabilities and why I attracted such a relationship in the first place. This doesn’t mean I blamed myself. I just recognized that I had a strong need to feel loved and accepted, even if I was in an unhealthy situation, because I never felt loved and accepted as a child.

    It’s taken half a lifetime, but I’ve finally learned that everything I need is inside myself. I am complete on my own.

    Still, I have to work almost daily at forgiving, acting with grace, and ensuring that I am not compromising my needs or my right to be treated with dignity and respect in order to make him happy. I am still learning to stand my ground and expect respectful treatment when it comes to co-parenting.

    I will forever be grateful to the supportive network of family, friends, and a counselor who saw me through that incredibly rough time. A broken heart, shattered self-esteem, and deep postpartum depression did not disappear overnight.

    With the bravery it takes to self-reflect and learn from what appears to be a very unfortunate circumstance comes unparalleled growth. The self-forgiveness opens up opportunities for deeper self-love and self-compassion, and a much deeper understanding of my own humanness and how my past shaped me.

    But with time, self-love, self-forgiveness, and self-acceptance, I am a stronger and more empowered person today in spite of that experience. I am a phoenix, transformed by the fire. I will continue to see the beauty and unlimited potential in people, and I still choose to see the glass as half full. I do daily forgiveness work for myself and choose to move forward with love and grace, honoring my journey and my experience for what I have learned.

  • How to Break Painful Relationship Patterns

    How to Break Painful Relationship Patterns

    “Until you heal your past, your life patterns and relationships will continue to be the same; it’s just the faces that change.” ~Unknown

    First of all: honey, you are not broken. We are all works in process. There is nothing inherently wrong with you. We all end up in a loop here and there. Sometimes it’s because we haven’t healed pain from the past. And sometimes it’s because we’ve healed our pain but still hold on to past habits. When we do this, past habits will promote the replaying of past events and, therefore, the pain will return.

    This happens at a psychological and practical level. The type of beliefs we have about reality will shape the way we perceive it, react to it, and interpret it. This is a neurological reality that has been proven scientifically: the brain creates concepts and finds ways to validate them.

    This is the way prejudice is built, but is also the way you expect sweetness and tartness out of an apple.

    The moment you read the word “apple,” you already started generating the necessary enzymes to digest one and enjoy its flavor. You already started reacting to something that isn’t even here, based on the concepts (beliefs) the brain (mind) has constructed on it according to previous experiences.

    This is one of the many ways science has validated that “life is an illusion.” This is great news. It means we can choose, in a way, what kind of illusion to believe in and, consequently, co-create in our lives.

    Past experiences—especially our childhood experiences—inevitably shape this concept-system in the brain. They create what we refer to as a value system in the mind. These, in turn, determine our thinking habits. The thinking habits will define how we speak and act.

    In other words, the way we perceive apples will determine how we react to them or even the idea of them.

    If you believe that you should expect sweetness out of apples, you will seek apples that provide sweetness, and you will react by preparing to enjoy the sweetness, which will allow you to do so at a higher level than if your body didn’t salivate and prep your taste buds for it. By expecting sweetness, you get to experience it with heightened senses when you get it.

    This idea also applies to unpleasant concepts. This is also a neurological reality and was designed as a survival mechanism.

    Go get your ears pierced and you will see what I mean. When you get ears pierced the first one is barely perceivable. However, the next one hurts quite a bit. Why? Because the brain was expecting pain; therefore, it reacted to the second experience with a concept of pain.

    You think, “This will hurt,” and, therefore, you experience more pain. The tool is still the same. The pressure did not change. Reality is the same as with the first one; however, your brain constructs a concept of pain, so that’s what you get.

    Your earlobes will heal within six weeks. But when you expect unpleasantness out of other life experiences, that’s what you will repeatedly get. In order to produce change, we must let go of a value system that constructs realities of pain and difficulty. This truth is evident in relationship dynamics as well.

    The Loop: What We Think About Relationships Defines How We Experience Them

    I want to make a disclosure about what you are about to read: taking responsibility for your thinking habits and how those affect what you expect from relationships does not mean that anything is your “fault.” It also should not be used to justify abuse.

    Abuse is not justifiable. However, as a survivor of abuse, I can say from experience that it’s actually empowering to realize how much is in my power. I can change how I think, how I talk, how I perceive situations, and how I react to them. I can co-create my relationships.

    I happened to grow up in a culture of fear. I grew up thinking work had to be hard, people had to be in a bad mood when they got home, marriages are meant to be hard, and you should not expect the best, ever; you needed to expect the worst.

    I was married for almost eight years and got divorced a year ago. Since then, I’ve found myself making similar mistakes in the way I seek partners, and all of my relationships have ended up leaving me drained and resentful. But why? I was doing what I thought was supposed to be done: I was being of service in a relationship where one person needed to be saved and I could be their savior.

    There are so many memes out there with the phrase “You saved me” phrase on them. It’s supposed to be romantic! Well, that did not go so well for me. It bred unhealthy and unbalanced relationships, and an environment of codependence that led to pain for both people.

    So I went on a quest for my own healing and discovered why I was constantly trying to save the people I date (more on this later). Finally, I was ready to get out there again. But this time, there was no saving involved. Because I was ready for a healthy relationship. I was at peace.

    I went on a first date with a wonderful man I’d met on a dating app. Before leaving, I called a friend to share how excited I was. She suggested that I calm down, keep “low expectations,” and keep my guard up. I decided not to follow that advice. It comes from a place of good intentions, but it’s really a chain of fear.

    On a vibrational level, to act that way would not allow me to attract my highest good. On a practical level, it would set me up to not look for the best in this person, which would produce a reality where I would be unable to see it even if it hit me in the face.

    I went in there with the same attitude I approach everything currently: at peace. No negative or positive expectations. Just being in the present moment.

    I ended up having the best date of my entire life and building a deep connection with my now-partner.

    We cheat ourselves out of wonder if we tiptoe around in life afraid to get hurt. We must be strong and self-confident to allow ourselves to expect goodness. I did not get here right away. It does take practice to make progress. But it really doesn’t have to be considered an “impossible” in our brains.

    How to Hijack Your Way Out of the Loop and Start Flowing Upward!

    These are some of the things that helped me heal and rewire my brain before I finally downloaded the dating app, posted a cute picture of myself, and hoped only for the best.

    1. Observe your thoughts. What are they based on? Which beliefs no longer serve you?

    A tool that helped me greatly in this step was John Bradshaw’s book Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, which includes exercises to heal past experiences. This releases the brain to freely create new constructs and prevents us from staying on a loop.

    I was having trouble as an adult voicing my needs. I would be terrified and would be physically unable to communicate what I needed.

    During my work with myself I discovered that when I was four years old, I was so terrified of being physically and emotionally abused by my caregivers that when I was hungry, I would not dare voice that need. I have memories of hiding in a cabinet eating raw rice from a bag in order to feed myself without being a “bad girl” and bothering my caregivers.

    I recognized then that this was why I fell into a pattern of focusing on my partners’ needs and trying to save them: I was expecting that it would be painful if I voiced what I needed.

    So, I recognized the source of the problem, now what?

    2. Release the vibrational memory of emotional baggage.

    Once you recognize the roots it will be time to release their emotional baggage. That way you won’t be triggered by old stuff in your new relationship. In other words, you won’t fall into the same old patterns because you’re driven by emotions from the past.

    There are many ways to release emotional baggage, including meditation, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping, Mental Emotional Release (MER) therapy, and journaling. Explore, experiment, and find what works for you.

    I went to an Emotional Release Body Balance therapy specialist. It’s the best investment I’d ever made in my life.

    I also engaged in regular cleansing rituals with sage at home.

    Finally, I used release affirmations and prayers daily. One that especially worked for me was a Unity prayer that states: “I release from me all energies that are contrary to what I am creating for myself. I cut them off and release them to the Universe to transform into beneficial forms of energy. I now fill myself with love, peace, and perfect health.”

    Okay, I am no longer controlled by emotions from my painful past, what’s next?

    3. Learn new skills.

    This is the ongoing step. It requires our willingness to learn new skills. New thoughts. New ways of communicating, new brain constructs about relationships, and new ways of having faith in ourselves and others. In my case, this meant learn to voice my needs instead of stifling myself in fear.

    To accomplish this, I attended virtual classes. I enrolled in a communication workshop and practiced those skills. It was just like learning how to read: practice, review, assess, practice again. You will need support here. Someone to practice with. I do so with my best friend. We exchange notes and debrief with one another.

    The skills you need to learn will depend on what you ascertained about your beliefs and expectations and what pattern you fell into as a result of them. It doesn’t matter if you attend classes, read books, practice with friends, or join a support group. What matters is that you do something to learn and strengthen the skills that will help you break your pattern.

    But… why?!

    Now, why go through all this? Baby, ‘cause you are worth it! Plus, there is no magical soul mate in the Universe who will heal your low self-worth concepts and create positive expectations of healthy relationships in your brain.

    You either do the work you need to complete on yourself before you get out there, or you will be stuck in an ongoing loop of pain, with a list of exes that turn out the be the same dog with a different collar, calling them “toxic” instead of owning your own need for growth.

    I’m rooting for you. I bless your journey. The best is already within you. What you want in a partner is out there looking for you as well. May you find each other at the right time and may you have the skills to enjoy your union. Ashe!*

    *Ashe is a West African philosophical concept through which the Yoruba of Nigeria conceive the power to make things happen and produce change.

  • How to Stop Punishing Yourself for Your Breakup

    How to Stop Punishing Yourself for Your Breakup

    “The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.” ~Pema Chodron

    After you come out a meaningful relationship that you didn’t foresee ending, you begin to think about everything you did wrong.

    If you were not the one who wanted to the breakup, you may spend a lot of time blaming yourself and wondering about what you could have done differently.

    You might begin to believe you’re solely responsible for what went down and that you deserve to spend years in relationship purgatory by yourself, mourning the loss of the person you loved.

    You might take all the responsibility and blame as you spend months and years alone.

    You may tell yourself terrible things about yourself and what a monster you were in the relationship.

    Then you’ll probably feel guilty about everything you did and assume that the relationship ended only because of you.

    And you may feel ashamed, unworthy, and unlovable because the other person was so good and you weren’t.

    This kind of unhealthy thinking puts all the blame on you and removes all responsibility from your ex.

    Your ex moves on and maybe even finds love soon after, while you spend an inordinate amount of time reflecting, hurting, and punishing yourself for what you did.

    These are all things I experienced when my marriage ended.

    I was such a mess after the marriage, carrying a big brunt of the responsibility, blame, and guilt.

    I felt like I had committed a crime against my ex for how badly I’d treated her, how intensely we’d fought, and how dramatically the relationship had unraveled at the end.

    If I had been better, wiser, kinder, and more giving, I believed, we could have stayed together.

    These feelings and thoughts kept me hiding for years, replaying the events of the past. I mentally attacked myself and felt bad about myself for years afterward.

    I stayed home, locked myself up, and suffered silently, believing that no one would ever want me again and I was unworthy of loving or being loved.

    I didn’t think there was something wrong with her, the relationship, or both of us. I took the sole responsibility for everything that went wrong. I put all the blame squarely on myself.

    Everything I did, I magnified in my mind and scolded myself for. Everything she did, I excused, justified, or found ways to blame myself for.

    I later realized this was all a figment of my imagination, these self-harming thoughts. Sure, I had played a large role in the way this relationship had ended, but I wasn’t solely at fault.

    If you’re blaming yourself for everything and feeling guilty about a relationship gone wrong, I want to remind you of the following seven things so you can stop punishing yourself for the past.

    7 Ways to Stop Punishing Yourself for Your Breakup

    1. You were doing the best you could.

    If you knew better, you would have done better.

    You were acting on the tools you had at the time. You likely were not intentionally or purposefully sabotaging the relationship or your partner.

    We each do our best under the circumstances we’re in.

    If you had the ability to be more understanding, less critical, or more forgiving, you would have done that, but you couldn’t have at the time.

    At one point in my life, I thought that feelings were terrible, so I wasn’t willing to open up about how I felt about things with my ex. I thought stonewalling and shutting down were more effective at resolving issues than talking them out (trust me, they’re not).

    I also thought it was effective to threaten a breakup when things weren’t going right or casually suggest a divorce in the middle of an argument (it wasn’t).

    This wasn’t right or fair but it was the place that I was at in my life. If I had known a better way, I would have done that. If I had the skills to communicate better, I would have used them.

    You and I grow, develop, and improve as people and partners over time.

    The good news is that partner you were yesterday doesn’t have to be the partner you are in the future. I’m not the person of yesterday, and I am thankful for that.

    You can be better the next time around.

    2. You are not solely responsible for what happened.

    Remember, there are two people in a relationship. You did your part and your ex did theirs.

    You can’t take the blame and responsibility for both of you.

    It takes two people to dance, two people to make a relationship work, and two people to make a relationship come to an end.

    You may put your ex in a completely positive light and view all your actions with negativity and judgment. Try to see the situation more objectively. Give credit and blame equally to both of you. You and your ex contributed positively and negatively to the relationship.

    You can’t take 100% of the responsibility when you were only 50% of the partnership.

    3. You deserve the same forgiveness you’ve given to your ex.

    You deserved to give yourself as much of a break as you gave your former partner, if not more.

    You’ve likely been unusually harsh and critical of yourself, absorbing all the blame for what went wrong.

    You may be used to being hard on yourself because loved ones were hard on you when you were growing up, but instead of harshness and blame, choose compassion.

    You may have done things without knowing, unintentionally, and without trying to hurt your ex.

    You are a human, growing and making mistakes like all people do.

    Your past errors do not have to be life-long regrets.

    You can use the things that you did unconsciously as learning and growing tools to become a better version of yourself.

    4. Get more curious about what happened.

    Instead of blaming yourself, get curious about the experience you had with your ex and identify the root cause of what happened.

    I began to get curious about my upbringing, my past wounds, and why I showed up in the relationship the way I had.

    I gave myself a break when I got more curious about how I became the person I was in that relationship and why I behaved and communicated the way I did. Instead of blaming, I got help through counselors and friends to understand myself more.

    Become a student of your pain, suffering, and blame so you become wiser about yourself.

    You can’t do anything about the breakup, but in the aftermath, you can do the work to understand why you showed up how you did so you can do better in the future.

    You can find self-awareness and wisdom in the past. .

    5. Release comparisons and judgments.

    We’re taught from a young age to compare ourselves to others and to judge ourselves. These self-sabotaging habits are especially hurtful after a painful breakup.

    Comparing your life to your ex’s life and comparing yourself to friends who are in relationships won’t help you move on.

    Neither will judging yourself and putting yourself down for what happened in the relationship.

    Instead of comparing yourself to others, think of this as a path of growth.

    Compare yourself to yourself. Observe how you’re stronger, wiser, and smarter about relationships today than when you were in your past relationship.

    Also, flip self-judgment into gratitude. Instead of judging yourself harshly, be thankful for your development. Be thankful for the experiences that helped you evolve as a person and a partner.

    6. Affirm your worthiness for being who you are.

    You’re feeling as badly as you are about the previous relationship because it’s opening up wounds about your own worthiness.

    Instead of beating yourself up, can you cultivate and reaffirm your self-worth? Can you remind yourself that you’re more than your relationship and what happened with your ex?

    Regardless of what happened between the two of you, you are worthy for just being yourself.

    If you don’t believe that, then maybe your relationship was an opportunity to recognize the feelings of unworthiness you had before it even started.

    Once you see the wounds more clearly, you can begin working on them.

    You can remind yourself that you’ve brought so much good into the world, have been helpful to many people in your life, and you likely exude compassion and kindness to many.

    Remind yourself that you are more than the narrow shoebox of being a partner in a relationship.

    7. Take credit for the good that came out of this relationship.

    No, it wasn’t all perfect, and there are some things you can take responsibility for in your past relationship, but what can you take credit for?

    If you blame yourself for all the bad things, don’t you also have to take some credit for the good things that happened?

    What positives came out of this relationship?

    How did you grow as a person in your past relationship?

    How did you mature and become a better version of yourself?

    In my relationship, one positive thing that happened was that we both helped each other achieve our professional goals and advance in our careers. We also both recognized self-sabotaging patterns and behavior and went on to work on ourselves.

    Through our partnership, we exposed each other’s wounds, which enabled us to do the work to heal them. We could now show up better for ourselves, our loved ones, and future partners with more self-awareness and understanding.

    You too deserve just as much credit as the blame you’re assigning yourself.

    Reflect on the high roads you took in the relationship and, after it ended, the good you did. Think about how much both of your lives have improved, if they have, and whether you both came out as wiser, kinder, more open people.

    —

    You don’t have to punish yourself for the rest of your life and take all the blame for what happened. You don’t have to go about filled with guilt and shame for what you did to your ex.

    If you can see that you were doing the best you could, look at the many good things came out of the relationship, and see your past as an opportunity to grow, you’ll be able to release the heavy weight of your past and move forward with a wiser and more open heart.

  • How Casual Dating Opened My Heart to Love

    How Casual Dating Opened My Heart to Love

    “Hopping from one relationship to another is not the way to find love. Slow down and give love a chance to find you.” ~Unknown

    When I was younger, I was a serial monogamist.

    I did the math recently and it turns out that once I started dating, I didn’t spend more than two weeks single at any point.

    Then, after the end of my most serious relationship ever, I had a moment that changed everything.

    My boyfriend and I hadn’t even been together a whole year, but I really thought he was the one, my soul mate. We had so much in common. We seemed to see eye-to-eye on everything. But then a stupid fight about birthday candles somehow blew up and ended our relationship.

    I remember just standing behind the window the morning he left with a box of books under his arm. It was the end of October, and we’d just had the first snowfall of the year.

    I kept thinking about the last Christmas we’d spent together, how he’d taken me snowshoeing for the first time. Our breath crystallized in the evening air.

    Then I realized that that wasn’t actually him. That had actually been my previous partner before him. All my relationships had begun to blur together so I couldn’t tell where I ended and they began.

    The idea of going out there again, into the cold dating world, seemed impossible. Even if it worked out, wouldn’t it just end up the same way?

    I felt trapped.

    When you keep getting what you think you want and you’re still not happy, you have to start asking yourself, what am I doing?

    So instead of firing up Tinder, going to the bar, or texting someone, I made a different choice. I simply waited.

    I realized that what was creating problems in my relationships wasn’t the fact that I couldn’t find my perfect match. It was my attitude.

    I felt like I couldn’t be alone. I didn’t want to deal with life as a single woman. But the real problem was that I looked at life as a search for this idealized perfect partner that probably didn’t even exist.

    Embrace Strength Over Fear

    When I was jumping from relationship to relationship, I was making my decisions based on fear—I was trying to avoid pain rather than trying to embrace love.

    I sometimes wonder how many of my relationships were twisted toward jealousy, insecurity, and conflict. How many people did I date that were simply wrong for me out of a fear of being alone? 

    And how much time did I waste clinging to those men, as if they were my only hope for happiness, when I not only had the power to be happy on my own, I could easily find other people to date if I tried?

    Stop me if you’ve heard this one: There are plenty of fish in the sea. This is a cliché for a reason. There really are so many people out there that you could date a different person every week and never run out.

    That’s not to say that we need to jump from superficial relationship to relationship. It just means we don’t need to suffocate our relationships with fear because we can trust that we’re strong enough to be alone and we’ll always have options for relationships in the future.

    The Casual Dating Difference

    Casual dating was always something I had avoided like the plague, but when I thought about it, I wasn’t sure exactly why. It was one of those things that you put into the category “sounds like fun, but it’s not for me.”

    But after a few months of being intentionally single, I started to get lonely. I was proud of taking the time for myself, and I knew I didn’t want to dive back into a relationship just yet. Still, deep down, I know I thrive when I’m out in the world, meeting people, and getting to know them.

    I knew I wanted to get back out there, but I wanted things to be different.

    What Exactly Do I Mean by Casual Dating?

    One reason that monogamy is the norm is that it’s something we can all wrap our heads around. Casual dating is a lot more vague because it means different things to different people.

    I came at casual dating from a place of complete ignorance. Rather than being a drawback, this allowed me to create a definition of casual dating that worked for me.

    Basically what it comes down to, for me, is non-exclusive, ongoing relationships with one or more people. I’m all about communication, but I prefer seeing people face-to-face. This means no texting, check-ins, or endless social media interactions.

    I sometimes felt rude or callous putting these ground rules out to someone I’d just started seeing, but I place a lot of value in honesty, openness, and mutual respect. I found that, while this may have been a difficult conversation to have, it saved confusion and hurt feelings down the road.

    I made sure the people I was seeing understood that this probably wasn’t going to lead to a more traditional relationship because I still wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t playing hard to get so that they had the chance to win my heart. I was enjoying their company and getting to know them, without any pressure on how our relationship would evolve—or if it would at all.

    This actually enabled me to be more fully present with the people I was dating. By simply being open to new possibilities without clinging too tightly to any one person or relationship, you’re able to build something beautiful, moment by moment—whether this is with several people, only one, or even just yourself.

    Casual dating can be a path to self-discovery and lead to a deeper, more healthy relationship if you do eventually decide to commit to one person.

    The Casual Dating Checklist

    1. Have clear intentions.

    While many people choose casual dating to avoid having difficult conversations, this can lead to a negative experience for both parties. I advise you to be open with the people you’re seeing about what you’re looking for. This means figuring out what it is you want and what you have to offer another person rather that letting it go unsaid. First and foremost, this means being honest with yourself.

    2. Slow it down.

    Casual dating gets a bad wrap because some people think it’s synonymous with “sleeping around.” While there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re being safe and honest about your intentions, you can date casually without hopping right into bed.

    In fact, when you’re dating someone casually you tend to see them less frequently, so things can unfold more slowly and naturally than with traditional relationships.

    Beyond just sex, adopting a slower pace with casual dating can actually create a stronger and more real bond than strict monogamy. You’re less likely to get caught up in the “rush” of a new relationship and will instead be focused on actually getting to know them as a person.

    3. Explore your options.

    One of the biggest appeals of casual dating is the freedom it gives you to date outside of a narrow type. When we’re looking for someone to spend the rest of our life with, we tend to be less forgiving, accepting, and open to new experiences.

    With that in mind, make sure to date new and different people. Be open to invites and attention from people you’d normally steer clear of.

    4. Understand what you want and need.

    Casual dating is about finding out what you want through experimenting so you don’t have to have things all figured out going into it. But make sure you’re being fair to yourself in these encounters. Don’t settle for people who mistreat you. Just because it’s non-traditional, doesn’t make you any less worthy of respect.

    5. Know when things have run their course.

    Whatever the circumstances, it’s good practice to be clear and honest with the people you’re seeing. Instead of ghosting, tell them how you feel. A lot of the problems that come with casual dating are in how it blurs lines between dating, sex, and relationships. When in doubt, speak out and make your feelings clear. If you’re going to end it, do it without any ambiguity.

    And sometimes, things don’t have to end. I’m happy to say that, after a few years of keeping it casual, I’m back in a more traditional exclusive relationship.

    At first, he was just one of several people I was seeing. We spent more and more time together and before long, I realized I wasn’t interested in dating anyone else. I just wanted to get to know him and only him.

    While we are monogamous now, we did it by choice rather than obligation. This happened naturally and we both agreed upon it rather than it being simply the default.

    What we have feels more real than anything I’ve had in the past. And I know that if it ends, I’ll be able to move forward. While I love him, and I love what we have, it’s finally loving myself and my freedom that has allowed me to be happy.

  • How to Accept That It’s Time to Break Up

    How to Accept That It’s Time to Break Up

    “Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together.” ~Marilyn Monroe

    I knew it was over and yet I stayed.

    In my eyes, my relationship had run its course. I was fed up, tired, and emotionally drained, but I couldn’t get myself to pull the trigger. I didn’t know how to go through with it.

    Because this was my first serious relationship, everything was new to me, including breaking up. He was my first love. We lived together, built a life together, and now I was throwing a wrench into all of our bright plans for the future.

    After being with each other for over five years, our relationship had seen its ups and downs (as most relationships do). By that point, though, the honeymoon phase was a distant memory and our interactions with each other had devolved into petty fights, low blows, and toxic behavior.

    I was lost, confused, and unhappy, until finally it hit me:

    We weren’t right for each other.

    Simple as that.

    But still, I waited. For six months, in fact, until I reached a point when I couldn’t take it anymore.

    That day, I sat my boyfriend down and told him exactly how I felt and that I was done. Through protests and tears, he packed a bag and moved to his mom’s house until I could figure out a different living situation.

    The separation didn’t last long though.

    I thought I’d be relieved to finally go through with the breakup, but my boyfriend’s reaction made me second-guess myself. I’d assumed that he was as fed up as I was with our relationship and, when I realized he wasn’t, the doubt crept in and I was even more confused than before.

    So we tried again. This time, going to therapy with the hopes of working through our problems, but that didn’t work either.

    A few months later (nearly a year after I realized that I wanted to break up in the first place), my boyfriend and I finally ended things for good.

    I was left looking back at my relationship and wondering:

    How could I have put myself through that? Why did I stay as long as I did? What would I do differently if I were to do it again?

    Here’s what I wish I knew at the time.

    1. Accept your feelings as valid.

    It’s easy to get lost in your relationship and sacrifice your needs for the sake of your partner’s. That’s exactly what I did.

    Instead of listening to my feelings and breaking up with my boyfriend, as I should have done, I doubted myself. Even when every fiber of my being was telling me “it’s time,” I held back and made excuses.

    I was so worried my feelings could be wrong or temporary, and that I couldn’t trust myself. Could I be making a huge mistake I’d regret down the road?

    Then I would think about my boyfriend’s feelings—how I was causing him pain and making him suffer. So why wouldn’t it be better to stick it out for his sake?

    These anxious thoughts running through my head did nothing but keep me trapped in a cycle of fear, pain, anger, and frustration.

    The bottom line was that I was unhappy. And I knew, somewhere deep inside, this wasn’t going to change.

    After years of putting my feelings on the back burner, it was a hard reality to accept. But going through this process made me realize that I couldn’t stay in a relationship with someone I simply wasn’t happy with. It wasn’t fair to him or to me, and it left us both feeling miserable.

    Sometimes you have to be a little selfish and put yourself first, and ending a relationship is one of those circumstances.

    You also have to push through the fear that you may be making a mistake and trust that you truly do know what’s best for you. That doesn’t mean you’ll find someone else right away or you’ll never feel lonely when you’re single. It just means you know this particular relationship isn’t right for you, and it’s better to be with no one than the wrong one.

    It may be difficult, but, through my own personal experience, I’ve found that the initial feelings I had a year before my official breakup are how I feel to this day. If I had listened then, I would have saved myself a great deal of trouble.

    So if you’re struggling with the idea of a breakup, take a step back and focus on yourself. Be brutally honest with yourself and write down exactly how you feel without holding anything back.

    It can be scary to face the facts, but if the same feelings pop up time and time again, then it’s time to listen. Your gut is trying to tell you something.

    2. Focus on the now.

    When the bad times outweigh the good, something needs to change.

    My boyfriend and I shared a lot of good times together throughout the years. When we weren’t fighting about something, I thoroughly enjoyed his company and cherished the rare moments of peace we had together.

    Even though the good moments in my relationship were far and few between, I would cling to those moments to justify my staying. Just when I thought I’d had enough and felt clear about my decision to leave, I would remember those happier times and my mind would instantly become clouded.

    I idealized what our relationship once was instead of looking at it from the present circumstances. And the fact of the matter was that there wasn’t enough good to outweigh the bad.

    So I made the decision to focus on the now.

    Instead of allowing the past to creep in and fill me with doubt, I needed to face the facts and look at where my relationship was at that point in time. Doing so helped me pull away from my tendency to idealize the past and helped me move toward accepting the breakup for it what it was.

    If you find yourself in a similar situation, shift your focus to the present. Think about where your relationship is currently and how you feel about it in the moment.

    3. Create actionable plans for the future.

    Fear was my biggest enemy during my breakup. I was absolutely terrified of what the future had in store.

    Over the years, my boyfriend had become a crutch for me to rely on. We had developed an unhealthy level of codependency that was difficult for me to pull away from, mostly due to worries I had about being on my own and navigating life without a partner by my side.

    The uncertainty of the future, while exciting for some, left me frozen with terror.

    Will I be able to make it on my own? Will I be able to adapt? Where will I live? Will I ever find love again? Am I making a mistake?

    Questions like these ran through my mind on a loop, filling me with anxiety that left me feeling trapped.

    It wasn’t until I created a concrete plan that I was able to gain the confidence to finally take the necessary steps toward independence.

    To combat the overwhelming list of tasks involved in breaking up, I broke my massive to-do list down into smaller, actionable steps.

    For example, because I was living with my boyfriend at the time, I needed to find a new place to live. The first step was to figure out where I wanted to live and how much I wanted to spend. Then I needed to devote time to looking at listings and viewing apartments. Once I found a place, then I could shift my attention to packing and so on and so forth.

    Breaking tasks down into smaller steps allowed me to focus on one thing at a time, which, in turn, gave me the confidence to move from paralysis to action.

    So if you find that the thought of a breakup is too overwhelming, write everything you need to do down onto a piece of paper. Then break those tasks down into smaller steps so that it becomes less intimidating.

    —

    The road to accepting a breakup can be a long one. When worries, fears and doubts creep in, change can be that much more difficult. That’s when it’s important to look inward and focus on what’s happening inside of you.

    The moment I shifted my focus onto myself, I was able to overcome my hesitation and make a clear decision. And today, the only regret I have is that I didn’t do it sooner.

    Every relationship is different and everyone has their own path to discovering when it’s time for things to change. The key is to be able to tune in to that moment if and when the time comes.

    Once it’s over and the dust settles, you’ll realize that breaking up isn’t always so bad.

  • How to Heal a Broken Heart Using Mindful Self-Compassion

    How to Heal a Broken Heart Using Mindful Self-Compassion

    “It’s not your job to like me—it’s mine.” Byron Katie

    Why are breakups so painful? Whether we are the dumper or the dumpee, the range of emotions we feel is universal: devastation, sadness, and anger. Oh, and there’s the acute pain, as if your heart had been gouged from your chest, stabbed a dozen times with a butter knife, and booted to the curb.

    Am I right?

    Of course I am. I’ve been there. We all have. I intimately experienced a broken heart and its rippling effects when my partner and I ended our seven-year relationship. I admit that I was the architect of the break-up. I was mostly shut off, insecure, and jealous during the tenure of the relationship. Our breakup was sticky. It was messy. It was ugly…downright.

    As if the pain isn’t enough, we can’t sleep, we lose our appetite or eat like a cow, we stop bathing, we look homeless, and we watch YouTube playlists of How to Get Your Ex Back in Thirty days. Sad days.

    You see, a breakup is a loss. It’s a death of a relationship. It’s a death of an identity that was entangled with our ex partner. The stages of a breakup are similar to grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It’s no wonder we’re a mess when we split from an ex.

    The good news is that there is an antidote to our hot-messed-up heart: mindful self-compassion.

    What is Mindfulness?

    When I first came across the practice of mindfulness, I had a difficult time grasping it: to be aware on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment. Huh?

    What I found helpful was to understand its opposite: mindlessness.

    In the past I often turned to food to make myself feel better. During the breakup I gorged mindlessly, frequently finishing pints of ice cream and large bags of chips and popcorn without ever being present to the eating.

    For example, one particular day I was listening to music and a song came up that reminded me of my ex. Instantly, I became sad. This prompted me to grab a bag of popcorn and start eating. Next thing I knew the bag was almost empty. Then I muttered to myself, “I’m such a fat cow.”

    When our brain is on autopilot, we are not present in our experience of life. In the case of the popcorn, I had been mentally checked out, lost in my thoughts of my ex, as I nearly finished the bag. Then I chastised myself for it.

    Studies have shown that when our minds wander, we’re unhappy. When I look at my own life, I see that being mindless, not mindful has led to a lot of suffering in the forms of anger, shame, anxiety, and depression.

    The practice of mindfulness, then, is to pay attention, on purpose, to what we’re thinking, what we’re feeling (emotions and bodily sensations), and what is happening in our environment, without judging it.

    In other words, we are an engaged and impartial observer to what we’re experiencing in the present moment. We don’t use labels or preconceptions, and we don’t believe our thoughts or take them personally.

    How Can Mindfulness Mend a Broken Heart?

    A stressful event, such as a breakup, can cause our minds to explode. Often, we’re spinning on our thoughts and we don’t know how to stop it. There may be thoughts and feelings of rejection, regret, shame, and unworthiness, and a host of destructive beliefs.

    After my ex and I split, I had a lot of regret, and my thoughts involved punishing myself for how my actions had led to the undoing of the relationship. I replayed past events over and over in my head. I kept wishing that I could have done things differently.

    I thought I could have been more open, trusting, and loving. And I wished I hadn’t been so scared to share my vulnerability and fears, because if I had, perhaps that would have strengthened the relationship instead of weakened it.

    The breakup was excruciatingly painful, yet I felt it necessary to hurl more insults at myself.

    Fortunately, there are many forms of mindfulness that can help us get over a breakup and our ex. This is what I did to heal myself.

    Mindful Self-Compassion

    Self-criticism is very common. And in the context of a breakup, when we’re in pain, we tend to open the floodgates of self-berating thoughts. We are ruthless, and very good at it.

    We might think:

    • “I’m such a loser.”
    • “I’m fat and ugly.”
    • “I’m such an idiot for screwing things up.”
    • “I’ll never find someone as good as my ex.”
    • “My ex is dating and happy, and I’ll always be alone and miserable.
    • “I deserve to hurt.”

    When we believe these harsh thoughts it exacerbates our suffering.

    According to Kristen Neff, author of Self-Compassion – The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, self-criticism has a strong association with depression and dissatisfaction with life. And underneath our self-attacks are deep insecurities about our own personal worth and value.

    This was true for me. I had often discounted my talents and abilities because I had a core belief that I wasn’t good enough. And my breakup only further triggered my negative self-perception.

    Fortunately, mindful self-compassion can snap us out of our mindless self-judgment, and provide us comfort when we need it most.

    Being compassionate means recognizing that there is suffering, being moved by the suffering, leading us to alleviate it, and understanding that suffering is part of our shared human experience.

    The practice of mindful self-compassion is being aware of the self-critical thoughts that cause us pain, offering kindness and love to ourselves to allay it, and recognizing that we’re not alone—what we’re going through is part of life, and we all have imperfections.

    There are many self-compassion exercises, but this is one of my favorites:

    Self-Compassion Exercise: A Letter to Yourself

    1. Grab your journal or a piece of paper and pen, and write about the thoughts and feelings of inadequacy and insecurity you may have as a result of the breakup. Write about any emotions that arise—shame, regret, anger, or sadness.

    2. Think about a real or imaginary friend who is kind, gentle, compassionate, and unconditionally loving. This friend knows you intimately—what you’re going through, your life history, your strengths, your weaknesses, your thoughts of inadequacies and insecurities.

    3. From the viewpoint of your compassionate friend, write a letter to yourself. Using deep compassion and loving kindness, what would s/he say about your thoughts of inadequacy? How would s/he address the suffering that you’re experiencing as a result of your self-attack? How would s/he point out that you are only human and that we all have strengths and weaknesses?

    4. Once you finish writing the letter, put it down. Do something else like go for a walk or make a cup of tea.

    5. Pick up the letter and read it. Let the words of kindness and compassion penetrate your being. Receive the love, the tenderness, and the acceptance.

    The “aha” moment for me when I first did this exercise, in the context of my breakup, was that I was shocked at how harsh I had been toward myself. How had I allowed the self-attack when I would have considered the same behavior, if inflicted on others, unconscionable?

    As a result of the exercise, I recognized that I was hurting and I gave myself permission to receive kindness and love from myself instead of rebuke.

    The practice of self-compassion allowed me to hold space around my thoughts and feelings, and it created an expanded awareness of who I am—that, even if I’d made mistakes in my relationship, I am lovable, I have wonderful qualities, I am capable of a lot of things, I am resilient, and most importantly, I am enough. Further, it helped me realize that we are all connected through similar experiences, whether good or bad. We are never alone.

    Benefits of Mindful Self-Compassion

    Some of you may be thinking, why bother with this self-compassion thing, when I can just go to my best friend or mom and have a good cry with them and they’ll make me feel better? This is fine as well. It’s important to have a good support system.

    The thing is, when we learn how to be self-compassionate, we become our own source of love and happiness. We stop relying on the external to feel good about ourselves.

    To boot, there is evidence that the practice of self-compassion can make us more resilient, more joyful, more productive, and less depressed. I can attest to this, having come out of my rut happier, stronger, and more at peace. I also learned ways to offer myself love and kindness, which I can apply whenever I feel the slightest of discomfort.

    Some of the ways I give myself care are:

    When we experience a devastating event, we have a choice in how to respond. Some choose to get out of dodge mentally and deny their feelings through unhealthy coping mechanisms. Others take the route of self-punishment for their flaws and inadequacies.

    There is an alternative: mindful self-compassion. If you want to get over a broken heart, this practice should be at the top of your healing arsenal.

  • Knowing When to Let Go of Relationships: 3 Signs It’s Time to Move On

    Knowing When to Let Go of Relationships: 3 Signs It’s Time to Move On

    “Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.” ~Deborah Reber

    Thanks to the Internet, our lives are full of people. We’re connected literally all the time.

    And yet, despite our ceaseless connection, we feel disconnected.

    As the pace of life becomes ever more frenetic, we’re like charged atoms, bumping into each other more and more, pinballs in the machine. We come into contact (and conflict), but we don’t commune so much.

    As real relationships of depth and quality become harder-won in this busy new world, their value is more keenly felt. Simply put, in the words of Brené Brown, “Connection is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. It’s why we’re here.”

    As we fight to carve out space for these connections whose value has become so apparent, it’s natural that we cling to them more dearly.

    However, sadly, often the tight clinging to something is the sign that the time has come to let it go. With something as valuable as a relationship, how do we know when that time is? How do we know when it’s time to move on?

    I’ve unintentionally become an expert at moving on. Having lived in perhaps a dozen countries and had jobs with as many as 200 days of travel a year, I am keenly aware of the centrality of relationships. Living out of suitcase and having a rented apartment fully furnished by IKEA, they are all I have. They are my lifeblood. But sadly, I have also become far too practiced at needing to let them go.

    Traveling so much and relocating so often, my life has been enriched by the people I know. So many nights alone in my hotel room, I wasn’t alone. I was writing, speaking, and despite the physical distance, connecting with my dear friends.

    I’d arrange business trips or weekend travel so that I could meet them in some city somewhere in between. It was an effort that I would gladly expend, but I learned to see when that effort was no longer worth it, as difficult as that was to accept.

    Here are the three simple signs that tell me when it’s time to move on:

    1. When you need to plan and strategize how to present yourself

    As life moves forward, we change. Our jobs, our looks, our economic situation, our habits, our interests—everything changes all the time. It’s the one constant in life.

    As two peoples’ lives change simultaneously, gaps inevitably form between them. In a relationship that will stand the test of time, these gaps are bridged with each meeting. It’s the classic case of “We haven’t seen each other for five years, but when we met, it was like no time has passed!”

    However, there are times when, with each meeting, the gaps get wider, and soon they’re more like gulfs. In these cases, we often spend time before the meeting fretting about how to explain, obfuscate, conceal, or excuse. Shame has crept in, and we feel like we can’t be ourselves. We’re either embarrassed of who we’ve become, or we suspect the “new” us somehow will not be acceptable to the other person.

    I’ve put on too much weight—she’ll never like me this way. My career hasn’t taken the same trajectory as his. I got that divorce, while he has the same wife and now three kids. When the joy and anticipation you should feel when reuniting with someone is replaced by anxiety and inadequacy, that’s a really bad sign.

    Of course, it could be all in your head. You don’t give up on the first go. You should make an effort to “be real” and lay it out there that things have changed. You might find it was a lot of worry about nothing. However, if your fears are confirmed and your efforts repeatedly result in awkwardness and shame because the other person rejects this new you, then it’s probably time to move on.

    It’s important to understand that this is not a matter of blame. True love is knowing someone fully. It’s when two people become one but maintain their individual integrity. If you need to be someone else in order to get along, then you cannot be in a truly loving relationship.

    2. When the relationship drains more energy than it gives

    There is almost nothing more nourishing, refreshing, and perhaps even exhilarating than truly connecting with someone. All life is energy, and when someone opens up to you, they share their energy with you, and your share yours with them. Both parties are enriched.

    That laugh you share with your old friend who calls unexpectedly. The warm feeling in your stomach when he smiles at you. The rush you get when she tells you she feels the same way about you. That is all our life force.

    However, some relationships do just the opposite: they drain us. Our interactions with these people do not involve connection, but instead armoring up and deflection, and that requires energy.

    What does this look like? It’s the stressful gaming out of what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it in order to avoid conflict with that person. It’s the unease you feel when you learn that she’s going to be at that party. It’s the constant bickering with your boyfriend into which otherwise joyful occasions degenerate.

    How does this feel? After being with the person, you feel tired, relieved to be away, or annoyed. Beforehand, you may feel nervous, low-energy, or simply like you’re going through the motions or doing your duty.

    Two big caveats:

    First, if this was a relationship that you considered important to begin with, this does not mean you give up on the first bad vibes. Of course you try and try and try again to make things work, but at a certain point the act of pushing the square peg in the round hole becomes too much. It’s just too draining.

    A single negative interaction cannot be enough—in fact, an intense argument shows, if nothing else, that you care about what’s at stake in the relationship.

    Second, this is not a recipe for selfishness. Getting energy does not equate with being the recipient of another person’s affections and generosity. In fact, quite the opposite: anyone who has loved knows how much better it feels to give than to receive; it’s a cliché that happens to be completely true.

    And yet, if over time you are the only one giving, it starts to feel wrong. At some point you realize the person comes to you for help, not to share. A lasting relationship is inevitably one of mutual sharing and generosity. Anything else will start to wear.

    3. When you’re the only one making the effort

    I never thought I would need to face this topic, but today’s world of constant connecting without connection has given rise to a terrible new phenomenon—ghosting.

    Always having access to a connected device, people can easily just switch to some other form of distraction when there is any negativity (or even effort) associated with reaching out or responding to another person. As our reach expands, our time in each other’s physical presence shrinks, and hence it’s now possible to erase people from our digital lives.

    Now, it’s rare to be the recipient of a “hard” ghosting—to literally be blocked. To get to that point would involve a clear and unmistakable rupture in the relationship. However, “soft” ghosting—consistently not responding to messages in a timely manner or not at all, and opting for quick texts over thoughtful outreach and connection—this is something you’ve likely experienced.

    Responses to your outreach become fewer and further between, and at some point you realize that you’re basically out of contact.

    In these cases, the other person has either consciously chosen to focus on other things they deem more important, or they’ve gotten lost in the world of easy connecting. Or, they may simply have decided they no longer care to maintain the relationship and want to avoid the awkwardness of telling you.

    As I began to encounter these painful situations some years back, my first instinct was action and confrontation.

    I made an effort to increase my touchpoints with the person in question, invited him/her to dinners and other meetups if possible. When rebuffed (or more likely ignored), I got to a point where I directly conveyed my distress about where our relationship seemed to be heading and asked if he/she wanted to turn it around and what we could do the change the situation.

    Never once was this route successful. If someone is moving on with his or her life, and there’s no more space for you, no amount of guilting, cajoling, passive aggression, or begging is going to turn it around. That person needs to value your relationship above the alternatives that constantly compete with all our time each second of every day. He or she needs to want to keep you as an important part of his or her life.

    In these cases, the best you can do is reach out, but that outreach needs to taper off—pushing and insisting and pleading will only serve to create negative emotions and likely lead to conflict, or even worse, the person feeling the need to respond to you out of a sense of guilt or obligation. Your relationship lingers on and becomes more stilted and forced and loses its value.

    In fact, in any of these cases—when you feel like you can’t be yourself, the relationship becomes draining, or you’ve been ghosted—it’s difficult not to generate a lot of emotional or actual drama. It’s a sad situation involving someone who at least was once very important in your life. You naturally want to fight for it, and you should, to a point.

    But, like life itself, in relationships you have to learn to trust the flow. You can swim against the current for a little while, steer yourself this way and that, but in the end you cannot control the river. Instead of ratcheting up your response to the situation and effecting an emotional crescendo, do your best to reach out to your friend with honesty and compassion.

    There will come a time when you know it’s not worth it any more. You will feel the negative emotional vibration in the form of resentment, frustration, fear, hopelessness, etc. At that point, however, you risk tainting even the good memories of your time with that person with the bitterness of the breakup. Rather than gratitude for the time you had together, you feel loss. You rob yourself of the relationship you had.

    There is no way of knowing when to act, but in this case you’re not taking action, you’re letting go. The best way to know when to do that is to follow your instinct, and when your time being with and thinking about the person becomes a negative experience, that’s probably a good time.

    The other benefit of letting go rather than fighting is that you allow space for a reckoning if the other person decides to reengage. And though that’s unlikely based on my own experience, it could happen someday.

    After all, you rarely know the exact reasons and motivations for the other person’s behavior. Indeed, they’re often unknown even to the other person, and perhaps unknowable. So, one day you may find your phone ringing, and it’s your friend—people always retain the capacity to surprise you!

    And as hard as it might be to imagine, there may be a good reason for the person’s behavior. You never really know the suffering they’re feeling, but if they’re letting go of a dear friendship, the least you can say is they’re not thinking clearly. Some other suffering is taking hold, and it’s your friend’s loss. Don’t make it a terrible loss for yourself too by creating a drama.

    This is of course easier said than done, but if you stay conscious and draw on your compassion, you can do it.

    Recently, a dear friend of ten years ghosted me. She and I had been through it all: moving countries, marriages, deaths, international travel—all the major life milestones.

    A little over two years ago, she became more and more distant and less responsive. Not surprisingly, this coincided with her becoming much more active on social media and followed a period of tragedy in her life. I reached out repeatedly for about a year, but my efforts eventually led to total silence, and I let go. I haven’t heard from her in a year and a half.

    The moment I knew it was time to let go was when I was tempted to write her something passive-aggressive. At that point I realized I was experiencing the relationship with negativity, which would inevitably come through in my communication with her.

    I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt, but more futile efforts would have hurt even more and put a possible future reconciliation at risk. I also needed to have the compassion to understand that she had recently gone through a tragic time, and undoubtedly that had an impact on her thinking, feelings, and behavior. I hope she’s alright and remain open to the possibility that one day she might come knocking on my virtual door.

    But the truth was clear—it was time to let go.

  • Before You Send That Message to Your Ex, Consider This

    Before You Send That Message to Your Ex, Consider This

    “If the hurt comes so will the happiness. Be patient.” ~Rupi Kaur

    What if I said instead of messaging our ex, we had a different choice, a choice that will be even more fulfilling than acting on the urge to share whatever we’re feeling right now?

    It’s been over a year since I last spoke with my ex. While I’ve thought about him and missed him, I’ve known that getting in contact wasn’t the right thing, and so I haven’t taken any action to reconnect.

    For the past few weeks, however, my thoughts have been seeping in, focusing on the good times, the fun times, and how, when we were at our best, he made me feel like the most important person in the world.

    What’s been different this time is that these romanticized thoughts have coincided with a period in my life when I’ve been having a difficult time, and with that, my willpower to abstain from reaching out has been weaker.

    Recently I felt a knot in my stomach, an overwhelming urge, like I couldn’t get through another moment without speaking with him. My chest tight, heart thumping, unable to relax, tears flooding, a messy anxious feeling that needs him.

    In my moment of weakness I took to notes on my phone to write everything I wanted to say. I imagined how he’d be there for me and give me the love and support I’ve been craving. Tears flowed as I typed, the anxious pit in my stomach now at bursting point waiting for me to send the message to become relaxed once more.

    But what if our need for connection is leading us to the wrong places? What if we are seeking the familiar, but it’s actually chaos, dysfunction, and drama—not something positive or healthy?

    Within our brains are neurotransmitters called dopamine, which act as messengers communicating reward, motivation, and body regulation. What’s interesting is that dopamine is not only released from pleasurable experiences—say for example love, hugs, and kisses—but also when we’re trying to get out of a difficult experience. So, that feel-good chemical is not only released during the good times, but can also be released during the bad.

    Growing up with alcoholism in my family, violent outbursts and drama were a regular occurrence. It’s only in hindsight that I’ve realized I’ve been drawn to relationships full of extreme highs and lows, the exact replicas of chaotic times of my past. I’m not a scientist, but I’d guess that I’ve been reaping the benefits of a whole lot of dopamine during those roller coaster relationships, like my mind is addicted to drama!

    As I sat thinking about the text message I wanted to send, my mind raced with anxiety and questions. What would his response be? Would I even receive one at all? Would he say loving, supportive words like during our good times? Or would he be annoyed that I’d made contact? Ruminating, ruminating, ruminating, the what if’s, is this the right thing?

    In one moment of clarity (and luckily before hitting send), with the guidance of my therapist, I took a step back from the situation to see what was really going on. My brain, now hardwired for drama, was seeking a hit, the perfect distraction from feeling the sadness of what’s currently going on in my life. Dealing with the anxiety and drama of making contact with my ex felt a lot easier than just sitting with my emotions.

    Being in this state, I gave myself permission; I could still send the message, but on one condition: I had to wait as long as I could, at least overnight and if possible a few days. Then, if I still wanted to send it that would be completely okay because I’d be doing it out of choice rather than impulse.

    Using the time wisely, I spoke to someone trusted, who I could rely upon. They didn’t offer advice; they just sat and listened to everything I had to say about what I was going through.

    Slowly, the anxiety dissipated and that bursting pit in my stomach subsided. And I cried. That big ball of emotion I’d been stuffing inside was finally released. Even more beneficial, I didn’t have any of the worry about how he would react or be with me, which allowed me to concentrate on fully feeling.

    The next morning, filled with clarity, I chose not to press send. While I had the perfect vision of what I had hoped to get from contact with my ex, I knew I couldn’t control his response.

    I also realized that making contact would have only been a short term ‘fix’, and when the initial feeling of anticipation subsided, I would be left feeling the exact amount of pain that had led me there in the first place.

    You might not be addicted to drama as I was, but there’s a good chance that your desire to text your ex is really an attempt to stop feeling whatever uncomfortable emotions you might be feeling—sadness, disappointment, or maybe fear of what’s down the road.

    Texting your ex might seem to help temporarily, but those feelings will still be there after you hit send. And you may even feel worse if they don’t respond, or don’t respond how you hoped they would.

    There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to what we should do. But we need to give ourselves the opportunity to act out of choice rather than impulse, or as I nearly did, due to a need for to drama to distract me.

    In the time we take to make our decision, we can do what we need to make ourselves feel nurtured, and if necessary reach out to a trusted person who we know will 100% have our backs. After that, it might be a lot easier to make the healthier choice.

    Be kind to yourself.

  • How to Avoid Petty Fights and Get What You Need in Your Relationship

    How to Avoid Petty Fights and Get What You Need in Your Relationship

    “It’s never overreacting to ask for what you want and need.” ~Amy Poehler

    It was yet another stupid argument that escalated from nothing to a hundred miles an hour in seconds. I’d been there so many times before, entrenched in warfare with us both preparing our defenses and priming our attacks.

    The intense emotions of the moment always took over, denying me the opportunity that hindsight would later afford me. Huge issues were, upon reflection, only minor disagreements about who had said what about the cooking, or where something had been left in the bathroom.

    On this occasion, once again we were both 100% committed to our side of the argument, when I stopped and thought:

    “This is crazy. What am I missing? There must be another way.”

    In that moment I had an insight that revolutionized my relationship and how I relate with my partner. But before I explain, let’s rewind a little.

    In the beginning, our relationship was pretty typical. Things started off great because we were really curious about each other. There wasn’t much judgment, as we always gave each other the benefit of the doubt, and with a lot of goodwill between us, we always knew we had each other’s best interests at heart.

    The adrenaline was pumping and the dopamine flowing, as we were in hormonal ecstasy with the excitement of exploring unchartered territory, something that made us so interesting to each other.

    After the honeymoon period, though, things started to become a bit routine. We started assuming things about each other, thinking we knew the other’s responses and desires because, after all, we’d been together a while now. I would always think, “I know you.” Only I didn’t know her anywhere near as well as I thought I did, and because of that assumption things started to go sour.

    This happened because we were not consciously aware of our own core needs, or each other’s. As a result, we couldn’t meet those needs for ourselves or communicate them in a way that empowered each other to meet them. So instead, we created unconscious strategies to get our needs met, like nagging and manipulation, which led to blurred boundaries and resentments.

    Eventually we became co-dependent, as we felt as if we each needed the other to keep us happy and satisfied. We knew we weren’t getting along as we once did, but we had no idea why. Now I know.

    We all have core needs, and they drive most of our behaviors, whether we realize it or not. By core needs I mean elements like safety, connection, autonomy, peace, meaning, and love.

    When we aren’t consciously aware of our core needs it’s often because we’ve become too distracted by other egoic needs, like the need for success, wealth, control, and dominance. Our core needs then become misunderstood and miscommunicated, which leads to us meeting our partner’s needs under duress or not at all.

    Here’s a simple example from my life to explain.

    Around a year ago my partner and I were having some minor ructions in our relationship. Nothing major, just some low-level tremors. I’m sure you know the type.

    I’d moved into her house a few months earlier, and we were still navigating the “how things are done around here” phase of the relationship, as I saw it. One of the areas of frustration for me was that she was always asking me to do things she could quite easily do herself, like taking out the trash.

    I’d do this, but kept thinking it would be easier if she did it herself whenever she noticed instead of always asking me. It triggered a lot of stuff in me, and I didn’t handle it well. I’d either fly off the handle and lash out, saying something I’d later regret, or I’d repress my emotions and go passive-aggressive, pretending everything was fine as my blood silently boiled.

    On this occasion, though, I stopped and slowed down. I became curious about why this was so important to her, and we had a conversation that changed everything for me.

    For my partner, I wasn’t just taking the trash out. I was meeting her need to feel safe and protected, and ultimately, loved. When she asked me to take out the trash, it wasn’t because she was being lazy. It was because, for one reason or another, this met those needs for her.

    The problem was, she’d never shared that this was about more than taking out the trash, so I interpreted her words through the lens of my life experiences and childhood memories, and it annoyed the hell out of me. But when I learned about the core need I was meeting for her, I totally understood it. Now I love putting the trash out, and I never thought I’d ever say that.

    When we continued to explore this I realized it went beyond the trash. I protect her and make her feel safe in many areas of our lives, which in turn makes her feel loved and cared for. Other things that met the same need for her were:

    • Securing the house before bed
    • Checking the car before long journeys
    • Standing on the outside of the path
    • Looking after our dog

    It’s worth noting here that we must also be able to meet our own needs. This isn’t about solely depending on someone else to make us feel how we want to feel.

    If we put the responsibility of meeting all our needs in someone else’s hands, we’ll never feel whole, strong, independent, or in control of our happiness and contentment. We’ll likely end up using unconscious strategies, like nagging or manipulation, to get our needs met, as my partner and I did. And we’ll also become increasingly needy and controlling.

    The key is to create a balance between honoring own needs and communicating with our partner when there’s a need they can meet, if they’re willing and able.

    We must also be aware that sometimes our needs might clash. For example, you and your partner might both have a need to feel safe and may look to each other to meet that need in the same exact way. In these situations it’s crucial that you become aware of this and discuss it together to find compromises that support you both.

    The important thing is that you understand what’s driving each of you so can set the stage for open communication and loving compromise instead of getting caught up in the same petty arguments over and over again.

    This can be harder than you may think. Oftentimes we don’t realize that our partner’s frustrating, demanding requests are actually badly communicated unmet needs, and we also don’t realize our own motivations.

    How can we dig a little deeper to get to the root of the issues? Here’s a simple exercise I learned from Harville Hendrix to help you and your partner understand, communicate, and meet each other’s needs:

    Step 1: Put aside some time and create a peaceful, intimate space for you and your partner.

    Turn off your cell phones, put the kids to bed, if you have any, and take a moment to create a safe and relaxing space between you both.

    Step 2: Get two pieces of paper so you can each write the answers to these three questions:

    • What do you need from your partner to help you feel loved and cared for that they currently do?
    • What do you need from your partner to help you feel loved and cared for that they’ve stopped doing?
    • What do you need from your partner to help you feel loved and cared for that they’ve never done before?

    Once you have completed writing out your list, highlight the ones that are most important to you.

    Step 3: Now swap your sheet with your partner.

    Take a look at their list and get curious about them. Ask questions to better understand the needs behind each one.

    For example, it may not seem particularly important to you to give each other a play-by-play of your day right after work. But this might meet your partner’s need to feel connected to you and express their emotions.

    Once you peel back the layers, you’ll be better able to create compromises if need be. So if you require space right after work to decompress, you could suggest discussing each other’s day over dinner, instead, so you both get your needs met.

    Step 4: Get clear on what you can and can’t do—and commit.

    Note on each other’s lists which things you are prepared to do for each other and which you are not. Then share this with each other and commit to doing one thing on each other’s list every day for two weeks.

    Step 5: Communicate throughout the process.

    Whenever your partner does one of your requests thank them for it and tell them how you feel as a result. This is important because you will both become more committed to this exercise when you understand the impact you are making for each other.

    —

    I’ve done this exercise with my partner, and it was a simple and moving experience. You will find that your partner’s needs are not always what you think they are, and the simple things that might seem inconsequential to you are the ones that mean the most to them.

  • If You Can’t Share Your Feeling, Standards, and Expectations

    If You Can’t Share Your Feeling, Standards, and Expectations

  • Beyond Sorry: A Better Way to Handle Conflict in Your Relationship

    Beyond Sorry: A Better Way to Handle Conflict in Your Relationship

    “Sorry isn’t always enough. Sometimes you actually have to change.” ~Unknown

    When I was young I was like every other kid, always in and out of trouble. I pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in order to see what I could get away with. When I pushed, I’d often keep on pushing until someone said “stop.”

    During my childhood I heard lots of:

    “STOP!!” 

    Quickly followed by:

    “Say you’re sorry.”

    Say those two magical words, “I’m sorry,” and all the pain will go away. Then I’ll be back in the good books and can go play with my friends again.

    During this time I received another strong message that many children hear. It’s the one that says some of your feelings are not a good thing. That’s because I was told:

    Don’t look sad.

    Don’t cry.

    Don’t be scared.

    This led to me feel guilt and even shame about the expression of certain feelings. As a result, over time I was less able to acknowledge feelings in myself and others. These two elements, when combined years later, went on to cause real problems for me. This is because I was now in front of an angry partner and I went back to what I learned as a child.

    I repressed my feelings, tried to look sad, and said “I’m sorry.”

    This time, however, I wasn’t speaking to my parents. It was my partner who was very sensitive to the fact that the words alone weren’t enough.

    My apology now created more harm than good, and I didn’t have a clue what to do about it. My relationships suffered for years, as we would both regress back to childhood archetypal patterns of behavior. This is where we’d indulge in hierarchical relationships, playing out childhood habits with the husband/wife dynamic expressed as mother/son or father/daughter. This killed the trust and intimacy in our relationship, and was a fast track to either breakup, or long-term dissatisfaction and resentment.

    In one particularly fractious relationship I remember always saying sorry because I thought it was what my partner wanted me to say. I knew that she thought she was right, and therefore I must be wrong. We didn’t have the skills to navigate ourselves to a mutually agreeable resolution, so the shortcut to a life of harmony was for me to accept that I was wrong.

    Based on what I learned as a child, saying sorry was the natural response. It seemed to be by far the easiest way to resolve our differences, but it didn’t work. The hierarchy this created ultimately ended that relationship, as I failed to communicate with my partner on the equal footing we both needed for it to work.

    How I’d learned to behave all those years ago clearly wasn’t working, and I desperately needed an alternative to manage the difficult conversations I was now having in my relationships.

    As I moved from relationship to relationship I managed to work through this and developed new skills that helped me grow and heal the wounds from my past. These new skills required me to access the very emotions I was encouraged to repress when I was young and helped me create the connection, trust, and safety my relationship craved.

    Assuming you’re in a non-abusive, healthy relationship, there is an alternative, and is something I now practice almost every day. Here are four steps you can follow the next time you find yourself about to utter the dreaded words “I’m sorry”:

    Step 1: Slow down, acknowledge what’s happened, and take responsibility for your part in it.

    In any relationship there is 200% responsibility to be split 50/50 between both people. Problems happen when the split isn’t equal and people either take too little responsibility (i.e.: the victim) or too much (i.e.: the co-dependent).

    Developing an honest, open, trusting relationship starts with ensuring you take 100% responsibility for what is yours to take, and no more. By doing this you can create a clear line between what is yours and what is not. This then empowers your partner to do the same.

    A while back I noticed how my relationship had become strained, and I felt as if I was either saying “I’m sorry” to my partner, or she was expecting me to. I had been trying to resolve the problems we were having by looking outside of myself and blaming my partner; so I decided to turn things 180 degrees. I looked at myself, got honest, took responsibility, and I told my partner.

    I told her that I had noticed things were strained and I was committed to doing something about it. I explained that I had been projecting lots of beliefs on to her about her not being good enough. These were beliefs I held about myself, and it wasn’t fair to project these on to her. I apologized for doing that and said I was taking my judgments back and owning them.

    Taking responsibility in our lives is key to developing positive relationships of trust and intimacy where there was previously victimhood and blame. Even when you think others haven’t noticed your victimhood, they have. People notice when you are projecting onto them, and they can feel the difference when you stand powerfully in your truth and take full responsibility for your actions.

    Step 2: Describe your feelings regarding what happened. Speak honestly and share what comes up for you.

    Feelings can be used as weapons in relationships in order to apportion blame, such as claims like:

    “You made me feel like this.”

    But when we connect to our own feelings, take responsibility for what we feel, and honestly communicate them to others, we provide a platform for connection. From this place of vulnerability we stop being like teflon, with everything sliding off us, and instead become sticky and able to create bonds and connection with our partners.

    When I took responsibility for the problems in my relationship I shared how I felt. I explained how I was embarrassed about how I’d behaved. I shared how I was scared what she might think of me for being so honest, and I was sad that I hadn’t managed to open up about it sooner.

    Think of the times in your life when you really bonded with your friends or partner. This happens during times of high emotion, both the good and bad. It’s easy to bond and create connection during periods of high emotion and good mood. It takes a lot more to use more difficult emotions to create deep connection. However, it’s these emotions and the vulnerability that we bring to them, where the deepest connections are made.

    Step 3: Empathize by sharing what feelings and emotions they must have felt in response to what happened.

    When we say “I’m sorry” it encourages us to access the situation from our perspective and via our feelings and emotions. In order for our words to be heard we need to demonstrate that we truly understand our partner’s world and not just our own. For that, we need empathy.

    Empathy is a difficult skill because it requires us to recognize the uncomfortable feelings our partner is feeling. It also requires us to access those feelings within ourselves, and then reflect them back to our partner. Lack of empathy is a symptom of us not wanting, or able, to be vulnerable to others’ difficulties because of the way their feelings will make us feel. That’s why it’s important for us to get more familiar with the full range of our emotions, and not just the “good” ones.

    Here are two quick tips to help you to develop more empathy. Firstly, start with the sentence string “I imagine…” This is because it encourages you to enter your partner’s world for a moment. It encourages you to get out of your point of view and see things with fresh eyes. For example: “I imagine you must be feeling really angry and sad about what happened.”

    Secondly, notice your tendency to blame and judge. Judgment is the antithesis of empathy and should be avoided at all costs.

    Step 4: Validate your partner by telling them that what they have shared makes logical sense to you, and why.

    For reasons I am yet to fathom, we are guilt- and shame-creating machines. We love to make ourselves feel bad about what we do and create doubt about what we feel. That’s why being validated for what we feel is so important.

    The reality is we don’t have any choice about what we feel. Something happens and our body, mind, and soul respond in a certain way that’s beyond our control. We can’t select the positive emotions we want to feel in response to what’s happened and avoid the ones we dislike.

    Deep down we judge ourselves for whether our response is right/wrong or good/bad. So being told that our response makes complete sense helps us feel accepted and seen. To be told why it makes sense is like the cherry on top of the cake. It helps us feel as if someone really understands us and sees us for who we really are and how we really feel.

    —

    The intention behind saying “I’m sorry” is focused on yourself. Its primary intention is to get a quick resolution to the problem, and move on. However, the intention behind this alternative approach above is focused on your partner. This time the primary intention is to demonstrate that you understand them and to own your part in what happened.

    Apologizing and clearing resentments are two of the most important skills you can learn in a relationship. No one taught us how to do this, so instead we can regress to childhood habits in order to navigate these delicate areas. As I look back to when I started applying these changes in my relationship I’m amazed what a powerful impact it had on me and my partner.

    Coming from this new place felt freeing and very powerful. Instead of apologizing and feeling lesser or smaller, I stood taller like some weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

    The impact it had on my partner was huge. She now felt seen, understood, prioritized, and safe. She trusted me again in a much deeper way than before. That’s because when we take responsibility and apologize in this deeper way it frees us of our burdens and makes us feel more authentic and real, as a result. This can help us to use conflict in our relationship to actually improve and deepen connection and that’s a skill we could all do with.

  • How Mindfulness Is Saving My Relationship

    How Mindfulness Is Saving My Relationship

    “Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

    I started meditating and practicing mindfulness more seriously several years ago incorporating it in to my daily routine, initially to help with my anxiety. My practice certainly helped me by leaps and bounds in overcoming my anxiety, but an unexpected side effect has been the impact it’s having on my marriage.

    We’ve not been married long, and as many couples before us have experienced, getting accustomed to this new dynamic can be at times… difficult.

    Learning to communicate and compromise isn’t always a smooth ride. He cares about being on time (or early), I care about not being rushed. I like the kitchen cleaned after dinner, he couldn’t care less. He gets stressed when he doesn’t know the schedule in advance, I feel stressed when I feel boxed into a plan.

    So we argued. And got mad at each other. And created these expectations for each other that we definitely didn’t always meet.

    But slowly I started to notice a change. It began with a change in me, my stress level, my tendency to blame, my expectations of him. I found myself more understanding, better able to let go of things that didn’t go my way, and better at communicating when an argument bubbled up between us.

    Then my husband started to change too. He’d noticed the changes in me and saw how much better I felt and how much easier communication was with me, and he started mimicking what he saw me do.

    He wasn’t letting things bother him as much. In a situation where we would have had an ugly argument, he was now starting the conversation from a place of curiosity instead of finger pointing. But the biggest thing that I noticed from him was how he was willing and able to reflect on how he was feeling and dig into why he felt the way he did whereas in the past he would have become angry at me for making him feel that way.

    What is Mindfulness?

    Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment on purpose and without judgment. This can be done in day-to-day activities like driving, eating, and in conversation. It can also be practiced as formal meditation.

    This simple practice can transform our relationship with our thoughts, give us new perspectives on life and even our own behaviors, and free us from the hold that our emotions can have on us when we identify with them.

    Here are changes I’ve seen in myself from practicing mindfulness that have led to improving my marriage.

    I’m happier.

    Stress is a salty mistress with eight in ten adults suffering daily. And anxiety is pervasive in our society, affecting roughly forty million Americans (including me for thirty-ish years). Practicing mindfulness is a time-tested and scientifically proven method of dealing with and overcoming the hold of stress and anxiety.

    When we’re stressed, feeling down or angry, we’re on the lookout for anything to prove that life is stressful or crappy, or that we’re right and others are wrong. We notice the things that bother us like dishes left on the counter, a car driving too slowly in traffic, or the way your spouse asks what’s for dinner.

    And when we’re happy, we do the same—look for things to prove why life is great. You notice the nice things, the birds chirping, that your spouse gets up without complaint on Tuesday mornings to take out the trash. It’s also easier to be more compassionate and forgiving from a happy place.

    The less-stressed and no longer anxiety-ridden me is a much better wife and partner. From a happier place, I’m not only much more pleasant to be around, but things don’t tend to bother me as much.

    I’m a better listener.

    As a person with ADD, I’ve always found listening intently in conversations to be a difficult task. The mind wanders to other topics making it difficult to be fully present, take in what the other person is saying, and retain the information for later.

    My mindfulness practice has drastically improved my ability to pay attention. It’s like brain training, building the ‘muscle’ that helps direct our attention at will.

    I’m better able to fully listen to my husband when he’s sharing with me without always thinking of what I’m going to say next or what I need to do later. He feels heard, and we feel more connected to each other as a result.  

    I’m much more aware of how I’m feeling.

    Not to say that I’m happy 24/7—I don’t think that’s possible, nor would I want that. We have a rainbow of emotions, and there are good reasons to feel them even for a brief moment.

    The act of paying attention on purpose trains the brain to notice what we’re feeling. We’re so used to just feeling our feelings, and if they’re not pleasant we either try to run from them, numb them, or lash out.

    It’s more productive and much less stressful to look at our emotions with curiosity. Label them. Then ask questions. “Ah, I’m feeling irritated. What’s that about? What’s another way of looking at this? How can I change this situation or cope with it?”

    I’m also better able to catch myself before emotions spike high. Once emotions hit their peak in an argument, the horse had already left the stable. It’s tough, if not damn near impossible to reel it back in once you’ve reached the crest of pissed off-ness.

    At this point, your brain and body are in fight-or-flight mode where it’s impossible to access critical thinking skills and takes about twenty minutes to calm enough to think clearly to make sound, logical decisions.

    Granted, those high negative emotions are drastically fewer and further between for me now with years of mindfulness practice under my belt. However, I’m only human and once in a great while I can feel those emotions rising.

    Being more aware of how I feel has helped me resolve difficult or frustrating feelings internally and avoid arguments with my husband.

    I’m much more aware of how my husband is feeling.

    Mindfulness practice increases your ability to be present, and thus not be distracted by thoughts. As a result, you become more insightful, a better listener, and more observant.

    This results in higher levels of emotional intelligence because you are able to see things from another person’s point of view to facilitate better communication. It becomes a powerful tool that makes you more effective in understanding other people, as well as contexts and situations.

    When my husband seems upset, I’m better now at putting his behavior into context and empathizing with his emotions. For example, an angry outburst from him directed at me because we should have left five minutes ago, I can see is actually his frustration stemming from a lack of control over something he values—which is punctuality.

    I don’t get upset in return anymore. Instead, I empathize with him because I better understand what is causing his emotions and don’t take them personally.

    I’m able to forgive more quickly.

    Pobody’s nerfect. Mindfulness teaches us to forgive ourselves and others as we are paying attention to the present moment non-judgmentally.

    Using mindfulness techniques, a person is able to let go of or forget about the past and not dwell on what the future can be.

    Mindfulness can be highly beneficial because we are able to let go of unrealistic or materialistic thoughts and just exist in the moment.

    It can be used to accept the feelings of sadness, anger, irritation, or betrayal that you have and to move on from them. Your path to a freer you, begins with knowing what is hurting you the most.

    Cultivating a greater capacity for forgiveness has brought me to a place in my relationships where I don’t hold grudges or dig up the past in arguments.

    I’m aware of the stories I’m telling myself.

    When something doesn’t go our way, it’s so easy to identify with the story we’re telling ourselves and label it as the whole truth.

    Mindfulness has shown me the difference between me and my thoughts. They are not one in the same. Thoughts are ideas passing through our minds like clouds in the sky. They are fleeting. They change with context.

    Because of mindfulness, when I’m upset I can more easily identify the story I’m telling myself that is making me upset.

    For example, I was hurt after my husband didn’t get up and greet me enthusiastically when I came home from a week-long business trip. He stayed sitting on the couch absorbed with what he was doing.

    I was upset and went upstairs to fume. Then I realized I was telling myself a story that my husband doesn’t care about me or love me enough. I know that isn’t true. There are a number of reasons why he didn’t get up.

    When I came back downstairs he could tell I was still a bit upset, so he asked me about it. I said, “The story I’m telling myself is that you didn’t miss me because you didn’t get up when I came home. I know it’s not true, but I’m still feeling a little upset because I would have liked it if you gave me a big hug.”

    He apologized and said he’d wanted to wait until I was settled to love on me. He was much more receptive to “the story I’m telling myself” than he would have been had I started in on him about what he’d done wrong. And I felt better when I stopped jumping to the wrong conclusion and allowed him to share his side while avoiding confrontation.

    A few weeks later he calmly told me he was upset about something and started the conversation with “the story I’m telling myself is…”

    That’s when I knew our relationship was improving because of mindfulness.

    Being able to objectively look at my thoughts and feelings allows me to reframe any situation and gives me the space to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively.

    —

    If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience it’s that self-love and striving for self-improvement can have a ripple effect through your life affecting those around you for the better. The better me I can become—less stressed, more compassionate, healthier, happier—the better wife, friend, daughter, and coach I can be.