Where's the Line?

When you find yourself struggling between giving to your partner and being true to yourself, it's a warning sign that your relationship might be heading towards a downward cycle of sacrifice and resentment rather than a thriving sense of interdependence and mutual respect.

There is much to consider and reflect on in this situation.  For now, let's consider two things:

1) Requests and how they change into demands over time and impact your ability to be true to yourself

2) In being true to yourself, let's examine a simple way to discern what's right for you using mindfulness and body awareness.  

First, let's take a look at the nature of requests of the partner who is asking you to give more.  The most important part of any request is that the person making it recognizes and respects your freedom of choice.  This means that your partner only asks for the gift that is freely given.  If you say no to a request she or he is willing to get curious about your no, enter negotiation, and/or look for other ways to meet his or her need.

This sounds simple, but, especially in intimate relationship, unconscious patterns of reactivity show up in the form of beliefs about what you should or shouldn't do as a partner.  Rigid expectations manifest as demands and criticism.  If your partner is caught in this, s/he is not able to make a true request.  S/he will attempt to make you responsible for his or her needs, by finding fault with you when you don't show up in just the right way, exploding in anger, and/or attempting to send you on guilt trips.  In addition, s/he will deny responsibility to meet needs in other ways or refuse to negotiate so that things work equally well for both of you.  Often there is a lack of empathy or curiosity about your experience.

If you are dating someone who is doing this, you might be baffled about how you could have fallen in love and enjoy this person so much.  These behaviors might have snuck up on you.  Expressions of criticism and anger may have been subtle at first, leaving you feeling a little disoriented or unsure of yourself.  In your excitement about all the good things happening, you might have brushed these experiences off, hoping they would go away or were just a fluke.

If you find yourself questioning your sense acceptance or worth and perceive that your partner's needs are in competition with your own, then the impact of criticism, anger, demands, and guilt tripping is beginning to outweigh the hope and excitement you once had.  Your emotional resourcefulness is likely low.  It's a good time to spend time with supportive and nourishing others and check in with boundaries.  

Whether you want to set boundaries with your partner or simply create a sense of mutuality in your relationship, it's helpful to be clear about what it means to be true to yourself.  There's all sorts of way you can fool yourself about what's right, and what's right for you.  You can drive yourself crazy with endless standards, comparisons, and ideas about how things should or shouldn't be.  When it comes to discerning what it means to be true to yourself, thinking a lot about it isn't necessarily helpful.  Your body, on the other hand, tells the truth in a straightforward way.

Learning to check in with your body is one of the best gifts you can give yourself.  You can create greater access to this source of truth by doing intentional experiments.  Take a few minutes to sit still and become mindful of body sensations.  Then, think about doing something that you already know isn't right for you and notice how your body responds.  You will likely notice one or more of these responses; tightening in your stomach, chest, or throat, the beginning of a headache, a sense of nausea or stomach pain, a general sense of contraction or imbalance, and a sense of feeling distant from your center.

Do the same experiment again only this time imagine doing something you already know is right for you.  You will likely notice one or more of these responses;  a relaxation in your stomach, chest, or throat, a sense of clarity or solidness, a sense of alignment from the center up through your crown and down through your perineum, and a basic sense of expansion.  

Checking in with your body and felt sense of expansion and contraction is not the same as identifying emotions.  When you are being true to yourself, all these responses listed above can occur at the same time as fear and anxiety or any other other emotion that might come up when you are challenging yourself.  Emotions often arise from a misperception of threat.  Smaller parts of you may be in reaction while a bigger you has a sense of solidness about doing what's true for you despite your own reactivity.

When your partner is asking you to give more and you feel your body tighten, pause, ask for time to consider the request.  If it is a true request and not a demand, your partner will wait for your response.  In your reflection, continue to focus on your body sensations.  This practice alone may yield insight about how this request is asking you to be untrue to yourself.  Otherwise, continue to focus on your body and ask yourself the question, "What's truly right for me in this situation?  OR What do I need before I can consider this request?"  After asking the question return to just noticing your body.  Something will arise all by itself in the form of sensations, images, impulses, words, memories, or a shift in energy.  As each new experience arises stay with it, not thinking or analyzing, just holding your attention there and noticing the next experience.

In summary, there is no line between being true to yourself and giving to your partner.  There is only being true to yourself.  When you give to your partner out of fear of doing something to push him or her away, out of obligation, to win love and approval, or out of fear of anger, you plant seeds for a toxic relationship.  When you are grounded in your own authenticity; wise discernment about healthy boundaries and generosity of heart flows naturally.  Your own mindfulness practice along with surrounding yourself with empathic others that actively welcome your authenticity is essential in remaining true to yourself.

Practice

Take a moment now to come to stillness for one full inhale and one full exhale.  At the end of the breath cycle drop your attention into your body. Notice if there is a basic sense of contraction or a basic sense of expansion.  To continue to cultivate body wisdom, do this simple practice as many times in a day as you can.

LaChelle Lowe Charde

Loving again

Love Again After the Narcissist = Equals = Loving Yourself First

by Lucy Wright

Loving someone who doesn’t love you back, who is only capable of loving themselves… is like waiting for a ship at the airport.

One of the happiest moments of life is letting go what you can’t change. Let. It. Go. Easier said than done when you’ve devoted yourself to, and tried so hard to love the self-absorbed.

When I was finally out of the marriage – and starting to discover who I was again – I asked my counselor how I would “not do it again.” How would I not find, not be attracted to, and not end up with, ever-ever-ever again, another Narcissist. Would I know the red flags? Being with a Narcissist was all I knew. My father. My NEx. How would I “not do it again.”
“You have to love yourself first” is what I heard.
What? Who? Me? Love Me?
I didn’t understand.

I had been a shell for so long. To remember who I was, I had to forget what he spent so many years telling me to be; what he spent so many years telling me who to be.
I was curious about “moving on” after the ExN, but I made a pact with myself to remain solo – just me, myself and I – for at least six months post getting out of my abusive relationship and having my divorce finalized.

Inwardly I knew I wasn’t ready to date. I was scared of the very thought of even trying to go out and meet a man for a cup of coffee and attempt to carry on any sort of thought-provoking, intelligent conversation. Who was I? What did I like to do? What were my goals? Where did I like to travel? After being told the answers to all of these questions for so long – you are this, we do this, we like to go here but not there – I couldn’t even answer these simple questions for myself, let alone think I might sound interesting to someone else.

Before the relationship with the ExN began, and even during the first few years we were together, I was social. I had confidence. I had a lot of friends. I was smart. I enjoyed reading and keeping up with world events. I kept myself in shape and I enjoyed wearing pink. I felt good.
I smiled.
Throughout the years I was married to N-him, I lost all of that. I had no friends, no confidence, and had to ask for validation and permission before making even the most simple, seemingly obvious decision.
He went to the gym. I stayed home with the kids.
I rarely left the house.
I wore dark sunglasses.
I never smiled.
……………………………
I knew I needed to learn to be Me again. But… who was Me?
……………………………
Fast forward six months when I finally took the leap to go for that cup of coffee. With a man.
I struggled, a lot, but I ended up learning about myself. And eventually I had some fun.
I was slowly figuring out who I was again. It took a long time initially, and the learning is still a work in progress. To this day, so many years later, I continue to struggle, at times, with who I am, who I was before, how I changed so drastically with N-him in order to survive, and how all of that affects me even to this day. Difficulty making decisions? What did I do wrong? Why doesn’t he understand what I’m trying to say? Why do I have so little self-esteem sometimes — still?
I took time to start learning to be me again. I am still learning.
………………………………
I have learned to love myself again after life with a Narcissist But I continue to have “triggers” from my past that cause me to doubt myself sometimes even now.
Bless my current husband for being patient with me. And understanding. Many times I don’t even know what is going to set me off – why I start crying, or what is said that revives some memory in my brain from the past, and causes my walls to go up so quickly.
Real men love you for who you are. They know your baggage, and they still love you anyway. They are caring, gentle and kind. They do not judge. They will never hurt you. They treat you with respect. And by standing by your side, through thick and thin, good and bad, better and worse, you, a survivor of domestic abuse, can finally begin to understand what it means to have trust in someone again… to love someone again.
I am a different person from who I was when abuse was my norm. I want my kids to know that there is no abuse in true, unconditional love.
<3
Learn to love yourself first.
Then find your ship – not the one at the airport – and determine your course forward.
Have some fun.
And when you are ready to…
Trust in Love again with someone else.