It’s been a wonderful, raw,
challenging few days here at home.
More illuminations about how we, in
our relationship, often have complimentary wounds which can serve as platforms
for growth and healing once we get skilled at noticing their potential and not
getting perpetually sucked into mutual resistance, fighting and pain loops.
This week the old wounds of Raisa
feeling that ‘the man’ is not meeting her fully, not there for her, not
available, triggered much pain and complaint, a deep sense of mistrust which
was expressed verbally and in a strong energetic resistance like a wall between
us.
Ironically, or maybe perfectly, when
she expressed this, it triggered my own deep wounds of feeling unappreciated,
feeling like I’m not being loved for who I simply am, that somehow I’m not
delivering what’s needed by just being me and that I am ‘a failure’,
‘redundant’ or even ‘a bad boy’.
This hurt so much that instead of
seeing through her words and defense strategies into her pain, I instead, as
usual, started defending my position, persuading her that this was not true,
that our relationship was not as fundamentally flawed as she was saying, and
that I AM available and loving and I even complained and expressed upset that
‘I’m not being seen for who I am’ or ‘appreciated for the gifts and love I
bring’.
I argued that I AM available and
that it was her who was ‘leaving’.
This is an age old loop.
My reaction to her makes her feel
even LESS felt and seen, and more lonely than she was before, so we endlessly
talk and process and separate even more into alienation and loneliness.
This is how the mirror can create a
vicious circle of pain. Does this sound familiar?
I’m excited to report that this week
we’ve gone beyond this exhausting pattern – just a few times, but it feels
revolutionary.
The challenge for me is to not
believe the literal content of what she says.
To not defend it or make her
words ‘about me’.
Even though they impact me greatly
because I have such deep wounds around being rejected or criticized by ‘the
woman’ (my Mother?) for ‘not being enough’ or ‘not what’s wanted here’, I have
to let those waves pass through me, feel them, and then look deeper, see behind
her complaint into her pain.
I need to stop believing her words and
realize that what she’s saying, even though it feels ‘true’ to her in that
moment, is really her mind’s strategy to not feel her deeper trauma and
vulnerability of desperately wanting to be held in that moment as her old wound
discharges some pain.
Something raw is moving in her, and
she needs me to hold her, love her, above all, and simply be present with her,
despite all her ‘pushing away’.
This takes a lot of presence,
breath, and steadfastness.
The last thing I want to do in that
moment when I am feeling so unfairly treated, so painfully rejected, is to love
her, hold her or comfort her.
But this is what is asked of me, as
a man, on a deeper level.
To breathe through the self-pity and
the urge to escape and to go to her, dissolve through her illusory wall, and
wrap my arms around her, communicating with touch, with my whole body, that
love is here.
Presence is here. I am here.
By some miracle, this week, we have
managed to do this a few times and the response has been beautiful.
She has melted into tears, into
soft, yielding sobs of accepting love.
We are re-writing our deep beliefs
every time we dissolve through the surface ‘version’ of complaint and pain and
connect deeper to what she is really asking for, which is to be met and held in
this moment.
Yesterday we repeated this cycle of
penetrating through the rejection and lonely resistance three times before
lunch and we were both high with the realizations and potential to shift this
pattern now in our relationship.
Every time we broke through, an
immense amount of sexual energy was released.
We have been melting into so much
lovemaking, creativity, gentle holding, a profound level of peace has returned
as we’ve realized – the very thing that was dividing us and hurting us is the
door to our mutual healing and re-writing of our old beliefs and patterns.
The wound is the key if we can only
be skilful and present enough to dissolve through the surface story that arises
to hide our deeper vulnerability and pain.
In this way I get to dissolve my old
wounded beliefs around ‘not being enough’ and she gets to dissolve her wounds
of ‘the man isn’t available’.
The reward is that we both get the
intimacy and presence we need.
The
conflict we were experiencing was actually a signpost to healing.
The battle is the map to peace when
we dare to read it the right way.
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