relationship work
Most of us want to improve the relationships we have with our important people. Often (always?) there is a mix of joy and frustration with people we love, or the people we interact with on a regular basis. Sometimes there is more of frustration than joy but we are not able to easily change the situation.
Enter self-work. Working on relationships means working on yourself. There is no substitute for this.
Not to say this is something we are automatically drawn to; it can mean taking a big gulp and stepping in to the work, then taking a step back to regulate before moving forward again. Back and forth, titration. Until slowly we build up our tolerance for deeper awareness and healing.
It’s a step by step process. Some steps are huge, others are small and timid. We often need help to take the steps. The goal is to be attending to our own wounds and not projecting our own pains onto others. We need to not naval gaze in this, but we work towards being aware of how we show up, what our body is saying to us at any given moment, what our emotions and reactions are bringing up for us, so that we can press into the defenses that we normally put up in order to soften them and create more room for the relationships that we want to draw near.
I believe that we are designed as social creatures. We need other people in our lives. And relationships take a lot of work. We frequently need to admit we have made mistakes and failed. We need to praise and encourage our dear ones, and have compassion and openness towards those we meet. All of this takes practice and intention. We start with compassion for ourselves because we failed or were hurt. We are where we are now because of our life story up to now. But we are not defined only by that story. We can begin to make changes that lead in a new direction.
Seeing ourselves in a new light can lead to seeing others in new ways. Perhaps they didn’t mean what you thought they meant. Maybe their annoying habit comes from a history that you don’t know about. Compassion towards their possible story and compassion towards yourself for why you react to them; a softening as self-awareness grows, and you attempt to view them in a new light; these are all possible.