Monday 3 August, 2009Caught in The Cycle

Have you ever found yourself in a relationship and for reasons that you don’t understand, it seems that you have less feelings than the other person has for you? Yet they are kind to you, have done nothing really wrong towards you and really, you don’t want to lose them, so you stay?

It is my opinion that one of the most challenging aspects of any relationship is paying attention to our inner feelings. That radar within us tells us more in feelings and whispered stirrings than we recognize in words. Learning to pay attention to what these stirrings are saying to us is a lesson in self-respect and one that many people put aside or ignore and never should this be so.

Discovering that not having the same feelings for the person we are with as they have for us is a painful and distressing awareness-particularly when you can’t put your finger on why or what has changed your heart or mind towards this feeling.  But you know something’s wrong and if you are like most people, you stay because you can’t figure yourself out.

You start to think: “What is wrong with me? Here love is staring me in the face and I’m pulling away. For some reason, I don’t want it but I do want it..”.and you go back and forth, agonizing inwardly. Your partner doesn’t know what is wrong though they sense you’re pulling away; and you start feeling like you’re a bad person because really, you do care about this person a lot.

Before you make decisions about what to do, it’s now time to think about your doubts in depth.

Some may be grounded in some very real signs and things that our partner is doing or saying: don’t ignore these findings.  Other times, parts of ourselves that we thought we’d put away or dealt with come floating back to the surface, reminding us that these deep inner thoughts and feelings aren’t going to go away just because we’re “in a relationship.” Relationships are often looked at as a “save me”: it’s anxiety-provoking and confusing to discover that when you finally have a relationship in your life, that you start seeing that its going to take more than this relationship to make you feel better in your life. If this is a cycle that you often find yourself in, to break it you must confront yourself gently but honestly about what and how you’re feeling. You must learn to start validating your own feelings.

Relationships are not cure-alls. No person is God. If you’re waiting to live life until someone comes along, you are only living half a life. To believe that you will only come alive again when someone loves you is to put an enormous amount of pressure on the person you are with (or waiting for), as well as shortchanging yourself.  It’s time to stop the blame and start learning about ourselves. Let’s become loving and stop waiting to be loved.