rachelpaz

Early on in my marriage, I could sense that something was different about my relationship with my husband. It felt like other couples had something different that we didn’t have, and I couldn’t really put my finger on it.

Yes, I loved this man. Yes, we shared a lot between us. But most of what was shared between us was on the surface, or just below – how we liked to spend our time, what we thought about, the overlap in what we wanted for our lives.

Other couples I knew would describe feelings of real, genuine emotional closeness with their partners. But I didn’t get it. I couldn’t relate. Like, I didn’t even realize what they were talking about. (Can you say emotionally stunted?)

Intimacy. Lots of people use it as a word to imply sex, but it involves so much more. Loosely translated, I’d call it the thing that happens when someone shares the depths of who they are and what they feel (and it is received).

What they feel? 

One of the things I can see now is that I spent most of my childhood and much of my early adulthood not actually acknowledging my feelings. Yes, I knew feelings were a thing, and I’m sure I had them. But I paid zero attention to them.

So, I had them, but didn’t really feel them.

I guess that’s how my limited-capacity for intimacy came about in a nutshell. I just wasn’t paying attention to how I felt, nor did I understand how doing so would enhance my life. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

The good, the bad, the ugly.

In fact, it wasn’t until my thirties that my feelings started to become important. Having a baby and a marriage that was struggling caused pain in my body that I couldn’t ignore. What was the pain? All of my stuffed emotions.

But there were some emotions that were still off limits. I got really good at happy, excited, sad and frustrated, but was still rather terrible at shame, guilt, and anger.

It wasn’t until somebody asked about the darker parts of myself, the parts that I wasn’t proud of and kept hidden away until I realized that I even had these emotions or things I didn’t want people to see about me.

My answer of, “Oh, I don’t think there are any,” in the cheeriest voice you can imagine was less than convincing. The look on that person’s face was all I needed to know instantly what I had just said was a complete lie.

It’s really easy to show the light, the fun, the playful, the flirty, the sexy, the happy go lucky parts of ourselves. It is much, much, much, much more challenging to show the want, the need, the desperation, the shame, the guilt, the fear, the hurt, and the vulnerability associated with the parts of ourselves that don’t feel worthy of love.

In the exploration of those parts – in the absence of judgement – you get to come to terms with telling the truth about who you are, and knowing that the truth of who you are includes all those things. Learning to love those places anyway is where we find real beauty and grace.

The gifts of acknowledging all that you are.  

When you look at something for long enough without judging it, you learn to love it. You notice the intricacies of it and develop appreciation for it. When you bring those hidden parts of you up into the light to be examined, you can find the love for them there.

You learn to be in full acceptance of who you are. Imagine not knowing how to breathe and then finally taking your first deep breath – it’s like this. Acceptance of who you are doesn’t mean perfect, only that you find patience with what is right now.

When you are in full acceptance of who you are, you can stop working so hard to be accepted by others, because you don’t require it. You get to slow down, do less, and rest in the full truth of knowing you are enough.

You show people that it’s safe, valuable, and worthy to be in full acceptance of who you are, and in turn, offer them the opportunity to do the same. People will trust you, share with you, open up to you.

And that is where intimacy comes from. This is where the relationships that fully serve both partners are born.

 

You know the drill. You find a great potential mate, you totally hit it off, and you happily head down the path of being in a relationship. At first, it’s fun, but then it starts to feel like a drag. When you start to feel like you can’t have both the life you love and a great partner in it, it’s a good time to look at whether this one belief is holding you back.

Do you believe that a relationship can be created so that both partners can have what they want most of the time?

Modern society is obsessed with winning and losing. While it’s not ideal for connection and relationships, we see it played out constantly in the real world. This paradigm originates from beliefs around scarcity – the idea that in order to have what you want, it will be depriving someone else from what they want.

Sounds simple enough to say, “Oh yeah, of course I don’t want my relationship to be like that.” But the truth is, it shows up subtly in many places.

Even if these arrangements work perfectly well, and serve both partners, through a lens of scarcity, they can appear to be a win/lose situation:

• You cook dinner while he reads on the couch.
• You’re making the money while he’s being creative.
• You want to go on vacation, but your partner can only join you for part of the time.

When does scarcity show up?

Scarcity rears its head when you are depleted, tired, and you needs aren’t being met (either by your partner or on your own). And even though these states may be temporary, the habits that are borne from them can be lasting if you’re not aware of them.

Deep down, you know that when you get what you want or your partner gets what they want, you both win. However, in moments of feeling tired and depleted, there are a few things that get in the way:

• Acting like your partner doesn’t want you to have your needs met (or thinking that you getting your needs met require them to sacrifice.)
• Getting scared you can’t have your needs met.
• Having your feelings hurt because you take it personally.
• Feeling like you don’t deserve to have your needs met.

What happens when you act from scarcity in relationships?

Resentment builds. You start tallying all the wins and losses and comparing whether it’s your turn to get what you want or your partner’s.

Ultimately, love doesn’t flow freely because you become more focused on give and take in a controlled and even manner than what the generative thing for the relationship is at the moment.

When you approach a person you love as the enemy who is always trying to pull one over on you, it doesn’t allow you to let their love in because you’ll feel defensive. Additionally, there is no way you can feel good about meeting their needs, supporting them, or even considering that the thing they want is the thing you want, too.

Read to ditch scarcity? Practice this regularly. 

It’s an old idea from improv comedy. Incorporate the “Yes, and…”

Have you ever watched two kids make up a game? One starts with an idea, “Let’s go play in the tree house!” The other child adds to it, “We’ll be unicorns in the treehouse!” They keep building on the yeses to find a game where they both get to have the experience they want to have, together.

Mix together your ideas with your partner’s: old ones, new ones, tame ones, crazy ones. Ask for what you want, make offers to your partner to give them what they want, and encourage your partner to do the same. When it’s not quite right, counter-ask and counter-offer. Keep saying yes and adding to it to keep finding the place where you get to have the experience you want to have, together.

And, above all, remind yourself that your relationship is at it’s best when you both win.

So, you maybe already know that I’m living with my parents temporarily.

Yeah, you totally read that right. I have so many comments that I have no comment.

And despite it being really, really challenging, there have been a few gifts that have risen out of it. I’m going to share one with you today.

The gift that keeps on giving.

My mom has zero boundaries. This results in her expecting other people to take care of her because she’s not willing to draw a line to take care of herself. My range of offenses is wide, from not filling up the coffee pot with water to keeping her from making that around the world trip she’s always wanted to go on.

When one of these events occurs (which is often just a thought that passes through her mind, no visible event has actually taken place), she gets super huffy and resentful. At some point I’ll ask her what’s wrong (because the tension becomes unbearable). And then she unleashes the Kraken.

And you can likely hear the tone of judgement I have about this, right?

Judgey McJudgerson

The level of disdain I have for this kind of behavior is off the charts – for two reasons.

First, because as I mentioned, most of the times she feels stepped on have happened in her mind and no one else knows about them! Seems like a simple fix would be to speak them out loud, right?

The second reason is that it’s not my job to make her happy. It is not my job to spend my energy making sure she is getting her needs met, or guessing what they might be. (Gah, I can feel my blood pressure going up right this moment.) And I get super frustrated that she thinks it is.

Plus, being judgey allows me to be super self-righteous about how I’ve got this all handled in my life own life. I would never behave like this.

Wait. Oh shit. Like mother, like daughter. 

Surely you’ve heard that the things we judge most harshly in others are the things that we dislike/carry shame for about ourselves?

Cue all the times in the last couple of months that I’ve been hit over the head with feeling like other people were causing my momentary misery/unhappiness/etc. I’ve been getting the crash course in needing stronger boundaries. And, the gift is that seeing it in my mom made it much easier to see in myself.

Turns out, I’m pretty good with basic boundaries. Time. Energy. Attention. Priorities. Putting myself first in general.

The ones I’m needing practice in? The little things that people do where my feelings get hurt, and finding enough of a pattern there to create a boundary.

The remedy for finding and drawing boundaries.

All boundary violations (when someone has crossed the line of what is acceptable to you, or what you’re willing to do) begin with a feeling. I usually feel it as a heaviness in my gut or a tightness in my chest.

My body is typically the first place I feel that something is off, before my mind can wrap around what it is.

When you notice a feeling like that in your body, ask yourself, what feels off? See if you can identify the thing it feels like someone is doing to you that you don’t have any control over.

I had this happen to me just yesterday. I was feeling “off” with some tightness in my chest over the fact that a guy in my life had taken longer-than-usual to respond to a text where I was looking for some information around potential plans that we were making.

Get curious.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was off, so instead of making assumptions about him blowing me off, being lazy, or not caring that his delay was impacting me, I asked.

I said, “Hey I’m noticing I’m bumping up against a need or boundary I have…wondering I can ask you a couple questions to see if I can understand it better/articulate it clearly?”

He agreed. So I asked what was usually going on for him when it took so long to get back to me. After I received his response, I asked myself a few more questions around why this bothered me, and what I was really needing here.

Ask yourself what you need and share it.

I shared something like this with him:

The lapse in time when I presume you’ve seen my text has me feel disconnected.

It feels much better to me when you say things like, “I’m busy with other things now and can’t answer this until tomorrow,” or “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out and let you know,” or even, “Yeah, I want to, but I don’t know when.”

I think I want to feel that I’m being received/acknowledged. I also want to feel like my communications are valid, worthy, and not “too much to deal with.”

Hearing some kind of acknowledgement from you, even if not a solid plan, would provide that for me.

Success!

In this particular case, he was on board and agreed that he was up for meeting my request. But the point isn’t that I got him to say yes, it’s that I figured out a thing I need to keep myself “safe.” Not physically safe in this case, mind you, but emotionally safe.

What if he hadn’t agreed?

This is where the boundaries come into play. I’m not willing to feel unsafe emotionally, and I am armed with information about one thing that has me feel that way. If I can’t have that need met for me, I have a choice.

I can stay in it and suffer – blame him for not doing it right – or I can remove myself from the situation.

Having boundaries broken results in consequences.

Once we’ve identified what the boundary is, the other challenging piece is to stay accountable to yourself for it.

What’s the consequence if this man had decided that he couldn’t support my need for acknowledging receipt of my communication? Relationship done? No communication? (I honestly hadn’t played it out that far because I hadn’t suspected it would be an issue, but I knew that a consequence – or action, if you want to feel less punitive about it – would be necessary if this didn’t work for him.

Your turn. Practice it. 

In the comments below, share the last interpersonal interaction you had that felt off.

• Recall the feeling you had in your body.
• What else did you need to get clear about what was going on? (This is a good place to be generous with people and their intentions being good.)
• Then ask yourself what you need to feel safe.

I’m looking forward to hearing your comments and helping you find a boundary that fits.