I used to really envy people who didn’t give a shit about what other people thought. The kinds of people who just said what they said and did what they did… without even taking pause! How the hell do they do that?
I envied these types of people because I wanted to not care about other people’s feelings. My fear of people’s reactions and thoughts shaped so much of who I was. I thought the answer to this people-pleasing was to not feel… boy did I have it wrong.
Do you relate to this?
In my relationship journey, I went from anxiously attached to avoidantly attached after some deep betrayals in relationships… so that tracks. From too open, to too closed. I shut my heart off for so many years because I didn’t know how to love and not get hurt. I didn’t know how to open my heart and not lose myself.
I didn’t realize that hurting is part of loving. I wrote years ago that to love someone is to simultaneously feel what it would be like to lose them. Holding that possibility is the price of admission to great love. We grieve the loss of our lover as we go deeper… We’re essentially always saying, “I’m agreeing to hold this loss as I hold this love.”
Unless we have unresolved wounds.
When our wounds have not been attended to they steer our life… or more accurately, we unconsciously steer our life to avoid confronting and rubbing against them. Defensiveness, criticism, shutting down…. All these are responses to protect our hearts. Sabotaging, cheating, running away, dating unavailable people… the list goes on and on for the brilliant ways in which we avoid confronting the depths of our hearts.
Because as I said, what lives next door to love is loss.
When you recognize what I’m saying, it’s time to confront what is unconfronted. It’s time to get intentional about who you truly want to be and how you want to shape your life.
Most of us operate in the space of either caring too much about what people think or not caring at all… but the answer to either way of being is not to become its opposite… the answer is to give the right fucks about the right things. It’s learning about ourselves, what we value, and what kind of life and love we want to create.
In the Create The Love Community, we’re going all in on how to get clear on who you are, what you want, and how to create that.
Head here to join the waitlist.
Much love,
Mark
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