(#1) Stripped down, Real & Raw : Finding the rest of yourself
Friday, November 7, 2014 • 12:43 AM • 0 comments
I
used to think that I know myself pretty well. That I knew all there was to know
about the essence of who I am. Anthea Peter = Extroverted XX-chromosomed human being,
possesses an outgoing people-person nature who enjoys & greatly values a
good quality conversation. Subsists on caffeine on a day-to-day basis and is
predominantly inclined to the arts, creativity & self-expression…exudes a
sort of niceness and bubbliness that would convince you that she is incapable
of hurting a soul (but actually has an anger & irritability complex, with a
high tendency to display it passive-aggressively). I know what I like, what I
hate, how I would react in certain situations, my flaws & insecurities, my
issues, my strengths & good qualities, etc…etc… Yeah I would think I know
myself pretty well.
Until
I got into a relationship.
You
see, being in a relationship kind of catapults you into an entirely unknown and
uncharted field of self-discovery that is yet to be explored – and I wish
someone told me this, because it can hurt like a bloody bitch. It catapults you
into this foreign territory so aggressively without warning that you fall into it head-first
with your face planted onto the ground. Woah,
didn’t see that coming I’m not sure I signed up for this, you might say to
yourself. Amidst being tangled in a densely complicated web of thoughts (I swear
to you these things gets you overthinking on friggin’ OVERDRIVE) whilst being
overcome with so much emotion you might say… good heavens! There is so much I do not know about myself my identity
is at stake THIS IS TOO MUCH TO PROCESS SOMEBODY PLEASE MAKE IT STOP PLEASE LET
ME BREATHE. In this whole new world suddenly I am seeing and encountering
parts of myself I have never, in my life, seen and encountered before.
This
is the power of emotional intimacy. It opens up this thing called “The Field of
Intimacy” where you become in touch with the experiences of love you had as a
child in your adult love relationship. Except that you wouldn’t know, at least
at first…and unless you do some really, super deep reflecting and
soul-searching, and connect the patterns of your relationship to your past
childhood experiences. Our relationship with our parents and how we were
brought up, I hate to say this, really does affect how we behave in our
romantic relationships. Since, of course after all, our very first encounter of
love, is with our parents. If you had a secure relationship with your parents,
then great! But if you have had to deal with abuse (physical/verbal) and/or abandonment as a
child… then this is where it can get really tricky (you can learn more about
The Field of Intimacy on Psychology Today by clicking this).
I
have always been single, almost all my life. And in fact, single is all I
really know how to be. I entered my first real relationship at the age of 23,
and it has been about a year now since the start of my relationship with Roger.
As time goes by I feel that it becomes more and more apparent that the cold hard truth is… I really don’t know how to be in a
relationship. At least in a mature one. It’s easy to be in love when you
are caught up in the euphoric infatuation phase, everything is so effortless
when you’re sitting atop cloud 9. But when the fiery passion inevitably mellows
down it takes work, continual effort and a mature kind of love to keep the
relationship going.
All your flaws start to show, all these conflicts happen... through these you discover a lot of things about yourself. Hence you come to a
realization that… you are broken. you are so broken. And you think to yourself…gawddamn!
there is truly a lot you have to work on in order to be a better person not
only for yourself, but for your partner and the quality of your relationship. But the beauty of it is you have the choice of turning that brokenness into something beautiful.
I
have learned that there are some deep-rooted hurts that I have not been healed
of and it greatly affects the way I behave in my relationship. It is extremely
uncomfortable to come face-to-face with it and to do something about it. It
hurts. It hurts so much. But it is necessary. For growth, for resilience, for
the betterment of you who are, for trying to be the best version of yourself
you could possibly be.
As cliché as this may sound it does take a certain kind
of pain to break-free, but it is a good kind of pain. For a lack of a good
analogy imagine yourself being glued against a surface. (please don't ask why you got glued there in the first place LOL). This surface holds you
back from being free. This glue has dried up and you really are just so friggin’
stuck there. You want to un-glue yourself but you know it would rip all your
skin off hahahaha and it would hurt too much so you stay, stuck to that
surface, just to avoid that pain…but then you are miserable. Because you are
stuck there and you can’t move forward.
You
want to move forward? You need to bear the pain of breaking free.
It’s
been hard. It’s been really, really hard. I’ve been trying to work on things,
like being more self-compassionate as a lack of self-compassion has caused me
to subconsciously believe that I am unworthy of love…[note: why I lack
self-compassion is a whole entire story on its own]. As a result it kind
of makes me a sorta needy girlfriend who tends to feel rejected way too easily
(and being a hypersensitive person by innate nature DOES NOT HELP AT ALL). I
also subconsciously + instinctively look to my boyfriend to assure me of my
worth – which is actually very unhealthy. And quite destructive. You
cannot tie your worth to another human being. That is too much pressure
to put on a person. This behaviour of tying your worth to another person (whether
or not you realize you are doing it. Some of us don’t realize) only results in
disappointment and even more hurt….because humans are essentially flawed it is
impossible for a person to show up 100% of the time, even though they sincerely
try to the best of their ability. This causes a general unhappiness in the
relationship.
So
I am working on all this. I have adopted the belief that if you want things to change or improve you have to 'be the change you want to see' and improve yourself first. And I really am trying so hard. The toughest battles are
indeed in situations where it would cause me to automatically react by feeling rejected
and unloved, a classic example would be when I perceive that my boyfriend would
rather hang out with his friends than me [keyword: perceive. does not
necessarily mean it is the truth] or when he doesn’t reply my texts straight
away [causes me to perceive that he is avoiding me or isn't interested in me], or when he doesn’t ask how I
am feeling [causes me to perceive that he doesn’t care about
me].
I know. Crazy right? Hahahaha. All this, believe it or not, stems from a lack of self-love.
I
find myself being slightly impatient with my progress, I just wish all these issues
would go away overnight so I don’t have to deal with the discomfort of the struggle...it
feels a lot like swimming against strong currents (not that I have actually
swam against currents before hahaha but you can imagine it I’m sure). The point
here is, great things take time. Healing takes time. Growth takes time.
Excellence in anything requires effort, patience and time.
Back
when I was single I used to be deathly afraid that if I were to enter into a
relationship, I would get so consumed into it that I would lose myself and I
wouldn’t know who I am anymore. But actually the opposite is true; in a
relationship you actually find and discover the rest of yourself.
It’s
a gobsmacking insight I tell you.
So this I owe to my
most beloved boyfriend Roger. There is no way I would’ve known any of this
without you. And if I don’t know any of this there is no way I would ascertain
what very specific parts of myself that need healing and growth. So even though
it hurts like a maderpaker (hahahaha),
it is what I need to push forward. For this I am grateful.
-Anthea ❤
