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Chatting with a friend about dating, I was struck by how much of our conversation applied to friendships, family and work environments.
“Don’t be with someone who triggers you into anger or insecurities,” I told her. “If they do that to you, then they do it to everyone. They’ll do that to your children, family and friends.”
“Well, 80% of guys are like that,” she said (there’s probably some truth in that number). “It doesn’t leave much room for meeting a nice guy, and I want to find love. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone.”
Is it worth that? Is it worth compromising your emotional and physical health to be with someone who keeps you stirred up and upset more than feeling supported and safe? That isn’t finding love, that is finding entertainment. It provides a distraction from things we don’t want to face. It helps us stay in denial because we are engulfed in solving the puzzle to make the relationship work when that puzzle piece doesn’t exist. That is it’s own form of addiction.
People who seek relationships are craving something deep and meaningful. It seems they feel that briefly while in someone’s arms. It is possible that the other is giving you that experience in exchange for immediate pleasure or that person is enjoying a similar space with you in that moment. You both let go of anger, fear, guilt, shame, whatever is standing in the way of you being healthy humans who nurture each other in a loving way. In those moments, maybe it is real and then it digresses back to a distance again that is soul sucking.
Two wounded people coming together have an opportunity to work on themselves and heal each other. The odds of being with someone who’s been wounded in some way is probably 100%. I’ve never known anyone for any length of time that isn’t dealing with some sort of shadowy something. Sometimes they know what it is and sometimes they can’t quite place their finger on it. Most of it stems from childhood and then we attract people or situations into our lives who reinforce our belief that the world is that way, that everyone is that way. We have to break our patterns of thinking, become discerning about the type of people we have in our close inner circle. If someone is harming you in some way, distance yourself from them. We have choices.
The choices we make now shape tomorrow and the rest of our lives. It’s important to be aware of who is being affected by the fallout of our decisions. It may ultimately affect the experiences your children have in this life who will develop similar patterns. It’s important to be lucid in every moment, to be conscious and aware of where our thoughts, beliefs and actions are taking us.
I know a lot of people who have a really wonderful inner circle of friends who are compassionate and support each other, many are in loving relationships. Of course, there are probably challenges, but no one is being irresponsible with the others’ emotions. No one is bullying others in their group. Such behaviors are incompatible in loving relationships.
If you are consistently attracting people who harm your spirit, then you need to work on yourself and ask why…??? What is it inside of me that needs to shift?
Bravo, Angi! Relationships are key to every challenge in life. It takes good relationships to solve civic problems, forge business deals, have fun socially, and build healthy fulfilling lives at home.
Are 80% of men really as troublesome in relationships as your friend alleges? That’s an interesting number. Many times I’ve heard a statistic quoted that 80% of the people who read fiction are women. If that’s true, it means only 20% are men. Maybe people who love books have some advantage in navigating relationships. As an avid reader and bookseller, I like to think so.
Perhaps it was a book that first prompted me to think of each individual person as the hub in a wheel, with our relationships like spokes radiating outward toward people, places, and other parts of the world. When our relationships are good, we are able to move forward with our lives. What you point out is that sometimes a particular spoke may be broken beyond repair, at least for a given time. If that happens, it can take a toll on all our other relationships.
When do we know we’ve reached that point of broken-ness? How do we keep trying, up until then? It does help to share stories — through conversation, books, and whatever other means we have of doing so. Fiction gives us the freedom to turn the wheels of our imagination in many directions, to investigate what might happen under varied circumstances. Of course, non-fiction helps too. Men tend to prefer non-fiction, yet women take the lead on that front as well (reading 60% of all non-fiction).
Whatever the truth, I’m grateful to be exploring it here with you. I enjoyed our first chat in the bookshop, when you sold me a great batch of gently-used metaphysical books. Glad we’re continuing the conversation here. Good words help expand and strengthen the circle!
Thank you! I’m not certain of the actual statistics for this. I’ve heard that if you add physical, sexual and critical abuse along with neglect, it’s about 80%. I believe that is probably true for men as well as women. There are difficult women as well as men in life, so though we were talking about men, it isn’t gender specific.
We need to consider that there aren’t a high percentage of people who will light our fire on a deep level and sometimes it only happens for one and not the other, which is frustrating. We can’t get too caught up in trying to make the other person get it when they don’t feel it. I personally love when women friends have said, he just isn’t there yet. He hasn’t learned to appreciate. That is probably the most damaging advice one could give another. If the connection isn’t there, thank God! someone is being honest. Too many people get together and one doesn’t feel it and then there is forever this emptiness, unfulfilled longing. I’d rather know.
Your analogy of spokes on a wheel is wonderful. Truly a broken spoke will weaken the wheel, disturb the ride if one can even still make a journey. All of our focus goes to that broken spot and the need to stop and repair it before we go on. It takes all of our focus and energy even though we have these perfectly strong spokes. If we get rid of the broken one, we make way for another strong spoke. If we try to function using the broken one, it will eventually break the rest of the spokes, which is what you said. I love that analogy.
As far as our broken-ness, we probably all have something that we guard, work on or struggle to understand about ourselves, to understand about our experience. Realizing our impact on other humans is important. Even if we are broken, we have the choice to be graceful in the world. Sometimes we falter. I say we, I know I have. Self reflection is the key to growth, to moving beyond a state where we are oblivious. We have probably all encountered the person who is a wrecking ball of destruction while viewing themselves as a victim.
Interesting about the stats of men and women reading in the different categories. Do you think any of that has to do with demands of jobs or life choices? I’m not being sexist, but curious if opportunity plays a role? It might have something to do with how children are raised and what parents think are important based on gender. This in itself is another interesting discussion.
Thank you for the opportunity to be having this conversation here. I’m looking forward to reading everyone else!
“Relationship” is such a powerful word. One of my favorites because we are constantly in it. It is the water we swim in, and we are aquatic. It can also be the water which drowns us. So yes, awareness, consciousness of the relationships we forge, intend, bring into our fields, is so important. I believe everything holds within it the seeds of knowledge or wisdom. All experiences. There are some we are happy to repeat, and those we are grateful to leave behind. All of them offer lessons and potential growth. It’s up to us to decipher their meaning. Osho once said, “Make all the mistakes you want, but make them once.” A feat i can’t say i’ve mastered, but i continue and remain hopeful. Thank you for this piece Angi, and honoring the power of consciousness and choice.
Hello Vinny, I love the water analogy too! I make lots of references to boats and water in life. “The water we swim in and the water that drowns us,” poetic and true.
I remember thinking years ago that I was moving forward when I made NEW mistakes! It was practically a circumstance worth toasting. I have learned something from every relationship regardless of the nature. We see ourselves reflected through other people and that is another interesting way of exploration. It is interesting to ask, especially when a relationship isn’t working what it is that we are gaining. There must be some attraction to it, something to learn or experience. Sometimes I think we may be or have been attracted to the devil we know how to navigate over the extremely wonderful people who are fresh new baffling territory.
Thank you for taking the time and sharing your thoughts.