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The Fear of Losing Yourself in a Relationship

The Fear of Losing Yourself in a Relationship

Ever feel like you have to sacrifice who you are in order to get or keep a relationship?

Well, this is one of the most frequent and hardest things people struggle with in an intimate relationship.  “How so I be myself and get the connection I want?”

Think about it this way…

When you were young, you perceived that certain parts of you were not welcome, so you learned that you had to trade in, or hide, those parts of yourself in order to get love or avoid getting hurt. And while this was a brilliant strategy then, if you don’t ultimately learn another way and reclaim those disowned parts, the fear of losing yourself in a relationship will continue to haunt and overwhelm you.

Every human being has been trained in some way to be inauthentic in order to get or kep connection. It’s the most common human injury, and it happened in relationship (I teach about this concept in all of my courses). Since it felt like there wasn’t a choice then, as adults this gets played out, repeated over and over, in our romantic relationships. If you’re not willing to bring who you really are to your relationship, this can take a toll and cause a lot of suffering and frustration over time.

So instead of abandoning yourself to get love, learn to use the container of your relationship as an incredible opportunity to heal this perceived split, to rewire your experience and have both – be your authentic self AND foster a deep connection with your partner, or future partner.

Listen to Ellen and me share our thoughts on this perspective rooted in our own personal journey together.

You can watch the full video and podcast here.

Get onto this folks!

This is SOOOO healing.

This is what a love relationship is about. In fact, it’s being in a mutually collaborative relationship that can actually help you cultivate a deeper sense of your own sovereignty as an individual. How? By using the strength of the relationship for your own personal expression, a renewable resource of energy that supports you to do what you want to do in the world. It’s true! It’s that potent and that possible.

When both people are as committed to attending to the relationship as they are to their own sovereignty, what grows individually and together becomes infinitely more authentic and connected. Who doesn’t want that?

For a fuller slice of this perspective, join Ellen and Jayson in person at the Embracing Conflict Live Weekend Intensive where you’ll learn about the interpersonal neurobiology of this perspective, find out how to do this, and get to hear more about their relationship story. Register by February 4th, 2018.

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Photo credit: Jonathan Pendleton, Unsplash

Lame Advice: Be Happy With Yourself First, Before A Relationship

Lame Advice: Be Happy With Yourself First, Before A Relationship

You’ve heard it over and over, again and again: 

“You have to love yourself before someone else will love you…” or 

“Only when you can fully accept yourself will another person be able to…” or 

“After I’m happy with myself, then I’ll be ready for a romantic relationship…”

And it’s simply NOT true! In fact, it’s total bullshit. Here’s why:

You can watch the full video here and listen to the podcast. to find out more.

While it’s important to like who we are, so that others can like us, it’s unrealistic to love ourselves in order for another person to love us.

In fact, we humans only learn how to like or love ourselves through relationship. A baby doesn’t come into the world loving itself. It learns and becomes a self through attachment with another human being. 

So, reaching the mountain top of self-love is a fantasy! This common new age myth will set you up to be forever single because you’re a work in progress for the rest of your life. There is no summit to self-love. Self-love is an evolving process for the rest of your life. How? Because anytime you are triggered by another human being, that is the exact spot you are not loving yourself. That’s why you’re so triggered! 

Everyone has challenges with self-love – everyone. And anyone who doesn’t or says they don’t is likely fooling themselves, in denial, or unconscious to this reality. Relationships actually help you see where you lack self-love so that you can work on it. That’s part of the whole idea and the point.

So the person who you choose to be in an intimate, loving relationship with actually shows you (indirectly of course) how to love yourself – reflecting the places you can’t clearly see. 

The “love yourself first” message is a setup, even though it’s been perpetuated in new age psychology circles for years. It (falsely) suggests that there’s a finish line or some attainable goal you have to meet before you’re worthy to receive love – or be in a relationship – and that once you reach that goal, or get in that relationship, you’re done. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You do not need to reach a certain point before deserving to be loved or cared for. Every version and part of you deserves to be loved.

If we all waited until we felt proficient at self-love or being “happy” before entering into a romantic relationship, we’d be alone forever. Because everyone has wounds and disowned parts that they’re never going to be totally okay with, and it’s actually through relationship where another person loving you can be a huge boon to revealing and healing those parts.

Relationship actually moves self-love faster along its path because it confronts the places you don’t love yourself or care about yourself or doubt yourself or have disowned in yourself.

This is not to say that you don’t want to address your issues or the stuff that comes up around self-worth BEFORE you get into a new relationship. By all means, attend to those places in yourself. As long as you remember that self-love is a continuum not a fixed state. It’s totally natural that sometimes you will feel more lovable than others or more challenged than others. So you can relax, knowing that it’s a journey and a practice, learning to ride the waves as they come, and eventually embrace the vast ocean that is you.

So please, don’t subscribe to this tired advice of getting to “happy” before being in a relationship. You’re worthy of love right now.

 

Learn more about how relationships really work by joining The Relationship School’s® next Deep Psychology of Intimate Relationships class, and send an email to [email protected] to schedule time to talk with one of our Student Growth Liaisons. Classes start soon! OR just download our Relationship Scorecard and see how well, or poorly, you do relationship. 

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Photo credit: Ashim D’Silva, Unsplash

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