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If it hurts, it's not love – How to break your chain-of-pain
Bella Enahoro
It's not unusual for me to miss a couple of meals during the day as I move from one meeting on one side of town to the other. I'm actually consciously working on taking lunch breaks during the day no matter what! It's getting better but I'm not there yet. My impetus for keeping at it is increased as I watch myself hurtle through the supermarket in the evening throwing almost anything into my grocery basket, even though I know it'll make me feel pretty crummy after I've eaten it. These days I'm less and less tolerant of feeling 'off'.
We're often cautioned not to shop for food when we're hungry. Why? Because we tend to buy any old thing just to feed the hunger and it's usually food that has no satisfaction value, is nutrition-less, if not downright bad for us and after we've consumed it, leaves us feeling crummy. Shop on a full stomach. We tend to be choosier for those of us fortunate to be able to choose.
It's not unusual to get into a relationship when we're lonely, bored, scared to fend for ourselves, aren't accustomed to being alone, or just plain don't like our own company. We meet someone, or set our sights on someone or default into a relationship with someone and in so doing, change how we feel. The loneliness is abated - momentarily; the boredom lifts - for now; the fear of being alone dissolves - until we realise that just because we're with someone doesn't mean they're 'with' us and if we don't like our own company, as Marianne Williamson asks 'why would anyone else?' But here we are in a relationship feeling better than we did before it – we're in love - we tell ourselves and our friends.
What is it we think we're in love with? Our partner or potential partner or how they make us feel? For many of us, that's one and the same thing but it's an important distinction to become aware of. Does being around them make us feel good about ourselves? And if so, is it really their job to make us feel good about ourselves?
We certainly don't want a partner who makes us feel bad about ourselves. However if our partner is in charge of managing how we feel, then we can end up controlling them in an attempt to make sure they keep doing and being what makes us feel good. We try so hard to hang on to how they make us feel that we end up strangling them.
On the other side of the coin, those of us who've assumed the task of managing how our partners feel about themselves, can create the situation of making sure we are the only thing that makes them feel good about themselves. Seeing all other sources of good feeling as a threat to our exalted position.
Then the covert tug of war begins and, in many instances, becomes overt as we get into the 'pull and push' of relating to another as a way of not only feeling good about ourselves but also taking the edge of emotions we don't like experiencing.
If a relationship is the antidote to boredom, loneliness, fear - all emotions that reside within us and so can only be changed from inside us – then we have set ourselves up for a chain-of-pain by looking outside us for the antidote. A chain-of-pain which many of us assume is the norm in relationships. It may be how we normally experience relationships but does have to continue to be so?
What if we shopped on a full stomach and we were already happy, joyful people before getting into a relationship? Imagine that! We could let our partners be themselves, in all the shades and tones of their character and just enjoy them being who they are. This doesn't of course mean we should put up with detrimental behaviour but we are in a much better place to address what ails the relationship when it's not about 'I'm not okay unless you are a certain way'. Usually a way dictated by us.
What if we learned to be okay, whatever way they choose to be? Then we could be choosier in the first place, we could enter into relationships where we would be sharing the joy we already generate within us, not demanding that our partners contort themselves to create it for us. Maybe we could then enjoy relationships that work, thrive and grow.
Copyright ©Bella Enahoro Feb 2011
For more articles go to more.
We're often cautioned not to shop for food when we're hungry. Why? Because we tend to buy any old thing just to feed the hunger and it's usually food that has no satisfaction value, is nutrition-less, if not downright bad for us and after we've consumed it, leaves us feeling crummy. Shop on a full stomach. We tend to be choosier for those of us fortunate to be able to choose.
It's not unusual to get into a relationship when we're lonely, bored, scared to fend for ourselves, aren't accustomed to being alone, or just plain don't like our own company. We meet someone, or set our sights on someone or default into a relationship with someone and in so doing, change how we feel. The loneliness is abated - momentarily; the boredom lifts - for now; the fear of being alone dissolves - until we realise that just because we're with someone doesn't mean they're 'with' us and if we don't like our own company, as Marianne Williamson asks 'why would anyone else?' But here we are in a relationship feeling better than we did before it – we're in love - we tell ourselves and our friends.
What is it we think we're in love with? Our partner or potential partner or how they make us feel? For many of us, that's one and the same thing but it's an important distinction to become aware of. Does being around them make us feel good about ourselves? And if so, is it really their job to make us feel good about ourselves?
We certainly don't want a partner who makes us feel bad about ourselves. However if our partner is in charge of managing how we feel, then we can end up controlling them in an attempt to make sure they keep doing and being what makes us feel good. We try so hard to hang on to how they make us feel that we end up strangling them.
On the other side of the coin, those of us who've assumed the task of managing how our partners feel about themselves, can create the situation of making sure we are the only thing that makes them feel good about themselves. Seeing all other sources of good feeling as a threat to our exalted position.
Then the covert tug of war begins and, in many instances, becomes overt as we get into the 'pull and push' of relating to another as a way of not only feeling good about ourselves but also taking the edge of emotions we don't like experiencing.
If a relationship is the antidote to boredom, loneliness, fear - all emotions that reside within us and so can only be changed from inside us – then we have set ourselves up for a chain-of-pain by looking outside us for the antidote. A chain-of-pain which many of us assume is the norm in relationships. It may be how we normally experience relationships but does have to continue to be so?
What if we shopped on a full stomach and we were already happy, joyful people before getting into a relationship? Imagine that! We could let our partners be themselves, in all the shades and tones of their character and just enjoy them being who they are. This doesn't of course mean we should put up with detrimental behaviour but we are in a much better place to address what ails the relationship when it's not about 'I'm not okay unless you are a certain way'. Usually a way dictated by us.
What if we learned to be okay, whatever way they choose to be? Then we could be choosier in the first place, we could enter into relationships where we would be sharing the joy we already generate within us, not demanding that our partners contort themselves to create it for us. Maybe we could then enjoy relationships that work, thrive and grow.
Copyright ©Bella Enahoro Feb 2011
For more articles go to more.
