by O. M. Grey
I know my intense fear of abandonment is irrational. It’s embarrassing, really; but it doesn’t change the fact that it is my greatest fear. It doesn’t change the panic that arises when that is triggered.
Discover your SO’s deepest fears and share yours with them as well. This will create a deep bond of trust between you. Baring your soul to your beloved(s) is the most powerful way to create intimacy. You are showing them that you trust them not to mock you or laugh at you or think your fears are silly, because they are not silly. They are very real. There is no such thing as “it’s all in your head,” because to the one feeling those fears, that is their reality. When you embark on a romantic relationship, you take partial responsibility for your beloved’s heart. Don’t take that responsibility lightly.
CREATE A SAFE SPACE
You must create a space in which you and your SO feel safe to talk with each other without judgment. Your SO might hold their feelings inside because of their fears. This is a recipe for disaster. Feelings bottled up and pushed down fester there. The ultimate result of this practice is to wake up one morning next to a stranger or to hear the dreaded words “I’m leaving. This is over, and it has been over for me for a long time.” It sounds like it comes from nowhere, out of the blue; but it doesn’t. It has built up over weeks, months, or even years.
Work at creating that safe space in which you and your SO can talk openly…
COMMUNICATION IS KEY
You must talk and talk and talk with your SO. It can never be too much, although that can also bring up insecurities and feelings of being “needy.” If your SO is showing signs of neediness, then it’s because they feel you pulling away and they are trying to hold on. You may not think you are pulling away, but they do. This is what’s important. Find the root of their fears and what you can do about it. It’s normally a very small daily loving gesture that will help them feel more secure until trust can be built or rebuilt. Remember, a lapse in that daily gesture, even for a few days, can bring up those fears all over again. Isn’t a few moments a day worth saving your special relationship?
Learn how to not only say what you feel but ensure that your beloved heard what you really said and what you really meant. We all have emotional triggers stemming back from childhood. We all have insecurities, especially when it comes to romance because we feel particularly vulnerable in these situations. You may say “I need some time to think,” and you may mean you need a few hours to clear your head, but your SO might hear “I’m trying to get away from you.” Those aren’t the words you said, but those are the words they heard.
Take extra care to ensure that what you said is actually what they heard. The same goes for you. If your SO says something that activates an emotional trigger, and you will know because it will hurt or make your angry or some other strong emotion, then say that. “When you said _____, I heard _____. Is this what you meant?”
Allow them to clarify. And then you clarify what you’re feeling/thinking as well. Leave anger out of it. This is a loving, safe space, and anger has no place here. If you or your SO feels angry, remember that anger is a reaction of fear. Find that fear and soothe it.
As you’re rebuilding a relationship, take the time to say things in great detail. Don’t assume they can read your mind. They can’t. Even if you’ve been together for years or decades, your SO cannot read your mind. Say what you mean. Mean what you say, then act in a manner that backs up your words.
For example, say instead: “I need a few hours to clear my head and get my thoughts straight, but then I will come back and we can talk some more. I love you, and I will come back.”
Then do that, which brings us to…
BUILDING TRUST
Trust is likely the most important part of any relationship. Building trust is quite simple, really. We are all familiar with the old cliche “Actions speak louder than words,” and that is true; however, words have their own power and are very important as well.
The way to build trust is to say you’re going to do something and then do it. Over and over again. If you have lost trust in your relationship, it might take awhile to regain it, especially if you have the ability to say pretty things and then not do them. You must do them. This is the key.
Set a reminder on your phone if you are absentminded or busy. Just be true to your word. This is the greatest indication of integrity. Say what you mean/feel. Do what you say.
Let us remember the Four Agreements*:
Be impeccable with your word
Always do your best
Don’t make assumptions
Don’t take anything personally
No matter how bad you think it is in your broken relationship, it’s not too late. The staying power of love is profound. Never underestimate the strength of a small, loving gesture. Pick up the phone. Send a text. Apologize. Apologize again. Take your lover into your arms, if not physically then metaphorically. Open up. Share your fears. Tell them how you feel.
Reach out today. You will be so glad you did.
Love is too precious to just let it fade away.
Healing Yourself
Over 15 million people in the United States alone suffer from depression. (http://www.depressionstatistics.org/) Often along with this distressing illness come other issues like anxiety and panic disorders, excessive thoughts of death or suicide, and self-harming behaviors that range from physical self-harm to eating disorders to substance abuse.
Although I’ve spoken in previous posts about being there for your significant other (SO) and helping soothe their fears, ultimately our own emotional state is our own responsibility. A supportive and understanding SO can only do so much. If you are unwilling to help yourself, then no one else can help you either. Find the courage to look deep within yourself and discover your own issues and how those might be affecting your relationships.
When I’m in intense emotional pain, I often listen to Eckhart Tolle read his fantastic book A New Earth. This almost always relieves some of my agitation. I struggle with a crippling emotional disorder that sometimes gets the better of me, especially during times of hormonal or chemical imbalance, or during times of heavy stress. My husband, the most understanding and support man I’ve ever known, will stop everything else if necessary to help me through it, and I sometimes lean on him too much before I find my own footing again. But ultimately I must stant on my own or else I become a burden to myself, and I feel like a burden to my husband, although he constantly reassures me that I am not. He is a saint.
Back to my point, we all need some guidance and grounding from time to time, and if you or your SO struggle with depression or another mental disorder, then it can be more challenging for you and your relationship. It can also be more rewarding, as such issues only serve to bring the two of you closer together.
Tolle talks about something he calls the “pain body,” and his explanation of it as a construct of the ego is quite profound. When we are in the grips of our “pain body,” we may say or do things that we wouldn’t do under normal circumstances. We all have this “pain body,” although some people’s “pain body” is more dense than others. I call this state of mind my crazy space. When I’m in the grips of the crazy space, or “pain body,” it is like I am on a drug. I see the world differently, as if through a haze. I make irrational decisions. Once I am on the other side again, this becomes very clear, and I’m usually terribly embarrassed about it. Everyone has times like this, when stress or hormones or brain chemicals make you angry or irrational, and it is important to understand your SO’s crazy space, as well as your own, and learn how to deal with it. It is always temporary. Supporting your So through this will only serve to strengthen your relationship and bring you closer together. Plus, when your SO is in their crazy space, they are not thinking clearly. If you are able to remain calm and objective, you can help them out of it. You can lovingly remind them that it is just temporary and it will pass. You can remind them to breathe or meditate or exercise or listen to Tolle
or whatever it is that helps them through it.
Their love will deepen for you because of your patience and understanding, and yours, in turn, will deepen for them.
In order to do this and be there in this way for your spouse, you must ensure that you, too, are emotionally healthy and aware. If you can remain in a place of peace when your SO is suffering, then you will not get triggered into your own crazy space, something that happens far too often and results in arguing and saying hurtful things you don’t really mean.
As I’ve said before, relationships are hard work. The idea of finding someone without “emotional baggage” is a fantasy. Everyone has emotional baggage. We start accumulating it when we are just a child, before we even reach 2-years-old. At this age, our brains are like a sponge. Although a 2-year-old is hardly able to speak, they are absorbing everything that goes on around them. They are looking to their parents and forming ideas about relationships. If they fight, the child thinks that’s normal. If they don’t fight but feel hostile towards each other, the child senses that as well.
Everyone has issues to varying degrees, and it is essential to acknowledge this and learn to work through it for your own health, your SO’s health, your children’s health, and the health of your family/relationship. Aren’t they worth it? Aren’t you worth it?
You may also try things like Tai Chi; daily walks to clear your head; exercises to bring you in the present moment, the only time that ever exists; and these things to find peace within. After all, it is what we’re all looking for, and we are not going to find it outside ourselves.
Many people say something like this: “When I get that promotion, book deal, break,
“In the stillness of presence, you can sense the formless essence of yourself and in the other, as one. Knowing the oneness of yourself and the other is true love, true care, true compassion.” ~Eckhart Tolle
Read more articles on relationships on O. M. Grey’s Blog
Caught in the Cogs.
http://omgrey.wordpress.com
Recommended & Cited Books
Chapman, Gary. The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts. Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 2004.
*Ruiz, Don Miguel. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, A Toltec Wisdom Book. San Rafael: Amber-Allen Publishing, 2001.
Ruiz, Don Miguel. The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship, A Toltec Wisdom Book. San Rafael: Amber-Allen Publishing, 1999.
Ryan, Christopher, Ph.D. and Cacilda Jetha, M.D. Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. New York: Harper, 2010.
Tolle, Eckhart. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. New Yorth: Penguin, 2008.
Excerpt from Avalon Revisited
Excerpt from Avalon Revisited
Excerpt from Avalon Revisited
“I was to be the King of England.”
Before I died.
Of course, I didn’t say the latter aloud. Not yet. That would give too much away too soon. No need to cause alarm yet. After all, I did enjoy watching the looks on their faces when I tell them I was to be king. It was true, of course, but they never believed it.
“King,” she said with a twinkle of humor in her eye. Her perfectly lined lips curled up slightly in one corner. She was taking the bait. She was amused, but more importantly, she was intrigued.
In a candlelit library we sat together on a white French Provincial sofa, a little too close for polite company, but then, I wasn’t polite company.
“You. Were to be king.” It wasn’t a question. It was merely a statement of complete disbelief. After all, I did look like a quite young, but the truth was much more complicated than that. Wasn’t it always?
I smiled and moved in closer, sliding slowly along the silk cushions towards her. She watched me close the distance between us and smiled a little wider, despite herself. I leaned in as if for a kiss, but instead brushed my nose softly along her jawline. “I was.” I breathed the words into her ear, letting my lips graze the pearl dangling from her earlobe. This one looked even more delicious than she smelled. That was a rarity. Especially for a woman her age. Normally, these middle-aged women had let their looks go. But not this one. She was still quite the beauty in her gown of deep scarlet, lined with black lace. The collar was wide, stretching from shoulder to shoulder, allowing me complete access to her neck, save for a choker: three strings of pearls clamped tight around her throat with a cameo adorning its center. She had a tiny hat embellished with an even tinier sailboat, pearls, and black lace, all perched purposefully crooked on top of her perfectly coiffed hair. Each copper curl shone in the candlelight, and I was entranced. She smelled of freshly picked heather on a warm Scottish evening. I wanted to roll and play in that heather. I wanted to pluck the blooms from its stems. I wanted to bury my nose in that heather and breathe in its luxurious scent.
I wanted her. But I kept my head and didn’t move too fast, lest I would’ve given myself away.
She didn’t recoil at my closeness, but rather seemed humored by it.
“You can’t be a day over twenty, lad, and you were to be king? Do tell, whatever happened to joust you from the royal line?” The dark lady turned her head cooly away from me and sipped the wine held by her black satin gloved hand. I softly traced my fingers along the hairline at the nape of her neck, and I saw her suppress a shiver. Good. She turned back and slightly leaned into me, playing my game.
The candlelight emphasized the smile lines around her eyes. She was forty if she was a day, and she felt flattered by the attentions of a younger man. Especially when said attention was offered by one as handsome and charming as I, at least, seemed. Her husband was nearly thirty years her senior, so she welcomed passion.
“I’m a little older than twenty,” I said as I brushed my lips up the curve of her delicate ear, exhaling warm air as I did so. I felt her shudder beneath my touch. She didn’t even try to conceal it. We both knew where this was heading.
I had her now. She was not only intrigued; she was open to being seduced. Obvious, really, since she thought I was joking about being king, as Victoria had been on the throne for well over sixty years, but she didn’t scoff at the game. She reveled in it. She likely hadn’t felt the thrill of seduction in well over a decade or two. However the kind of seduction she had in mind was quite different than what I had planned for her tonight.
The music played loudly in the adjoining room as the rest of the gala attendees danced or spoke to each other in raised voices, competing with the music. Still, it wasn’t so loud that they wouldn’t hear a scream, even back in this dimly lit library. No. Had to continue to move slowly.
The smell of musty books filled the air, and I was reminded of my father. Always reading. Always urging Henry and I to read and learn. We had had private tutors who taught us foreign languages and told stories of faraway lands. We learned about history and philosophy and theology and mathematics. It was all essential for our destiny. Me, future king, and Henry being groomed to be Archbishop. He had said we were the future of the kingdom. Well, he was half right. Henry had been the future, but now he was just the past.
“I died,” I sighed an answer to her question then nuzzled my cold nose in the nape of her warm, pulsing neck. Not yet.
She didn’t recoil at this dark disclosure, as she likely thought it was all part of this decadent game. Rather, she welcomed the soft kisses I placed on her neck. She shivered at the touch of my cold lips but moved in closer still. She was ready. Dare I say even earnest. She didn’t stop my hand exploring her thigh hidden beneath layers of satin. A soft moan escaped her lips, and I knew I had her. I continued teasing this dark lady, drawing out her desire. She caught her breath as I traced my tongue up the side of her throat to her white earlobe, circling around the pearl drop that hu
ng delicately from it.
Then something across the room caught my eye. In the pale candlelight, an image on the far wall mocked me. A corpulent man stared back at me with black eyes. His gold doublet and fur-trimmed coat framed the fleshy jowls that held a smirking mouth. A replica of a painting, for even the sumptuous hosts of this opulent gala couldn’t afford the original Holbein. This painting I knew far too well. I had been forced to look at this likeness for centuries, and it always made me think about the road not taken, as if I had had a choice in the matter. Feelings similar to but not quite nostalgia filled my mind and ached in my chest. Perhaps it was more like sentimentality. If my heart still beat, it would be the rhythm to a sad song. But that’s part of my lament: my hollow chest. Every time I see that blasted painting of my fat, arrogant brother, I’d think, that should have been me.