Relationship Hell

Relationships.  I know.  The word itself brings up so many emotions it’s like a waterfall looking for a cliff.  We all probably know, that most of the valuable work we can do to heal childhood wounds, we learn while digging into the often-tumultuous trenches of a love relationship.

Even if we think, “I was so attracted to his physique and that deadly smile,” the truth is he was probably able to trigger a sensitive spot that made you want to jump out of your skin and not in a good way. “Why do I always pick people who make me feel crazy, out of control, insecure, jealous or some other grab bag of horror?”  This happens because attraction is just a trick, like a mirage in the desert. We may think we’re looking at a juice stand while we claw our way across a parched cracked earth, but in reality we are being drawn intuitively and magnetically toward some unknown, yet familiar force disguised as love.  This person’s initially hidden qualities usually challenge us, and force us to work through unhealed childhood wounds.

As excruciatingly painful, as devastatingly mind bogglingly emotionally debilitating a break-up can be (and that’s not even the really hard ones) we still manage to one-day fall in love again. How else are we going to work through all the rest of our stuff?    

We all want to be in a healthy relationship.  Most of us want to pair bond.  We want someone to love, someone to grow old with.   Someone to come home to.   Usually, we want all that from the same person.  It makes us feel good.  We can say, like in the film Jerry Maguire, “You complete me.”  And hopefully not the less desirable version, “You deplete me.”  

So how do we become relationship ready?  When are we self-actualized enough to get in a relationship to become self-actualized?  It sounds like a paradox, although it isn’t.   We have a tremendous amount of prep work to accomplish before entering into our first or even yet another relationship.  It not only helps insure a brighter outcome it might secure a more amiable dissolution of possessions should the relationship dissolve.

Core work.  I’m not referring to your abdominal muscles.  But why not look at those for a minute.  Just briefly though, because it seems like no one likes focusing on abs.  Oh sure, we love checking out a great set of abs.  Hot, right? But it seems almost impossible to attain that six-pack visual.  It’s mostly diet and genetics, not even an effect of the exercise, so why spend all the effort, right?  Well, because unless our core is strong, we can’t even exercise properly.  Your core brings stability to your back and the rest of your body.  Everything depends on your core work.

This is perfectly analogous to the importance of strengthening the core of your mental wellbeing.  I have to know who I am and be secure and grounded in that safety, or some relationship or affair can come along and strip my foundation out from under me.  

I’m sure we’ve all had that experience, right.  “Well, he’s not perfect for me but he sure is sexy and I know what it’s going to be.  I don’t really want anything right now so why not just have fun with him.  Smash cut; three months later you’re trying to break into his house with your Citibank card and some DW40, while simultaneously praying to be released from this heinously demonic and obsessive relationship.”

The point is, we cannot avoid doing the inner psychological work to heal old wounds, process past grief and strengthen our connection to our individual wholeness. Once we have that connection established we can truly have a deep meaningful connection to another without losing our anchor. This is the basis of attracting and sustaining real intimacy with another person.