5 Hard Truths About Relationships.
Some hard truths about understanding triggers, establishing safety, and our capacity for empathy in relatinoships.
The older I get, the more I learn to live with nuance.
I have started to recognize my tendency to see people as either ors, when in reality we all carry wounds and frameworks that influence our actions in spite of our feelings.
I have often interpreted people’s behaviors in polarities: if they do XYZ it must mean this, if they don’t do XYZ it must mean that. I draw meaning with little context and create stories to fill in the gaps when I don’t have all the information.
I’m learning that I also have my own wounds and frameworks, and that just because I care about someone doesn’t mean I am always going to act from a place of love. I often still operate from fear, and I’m working on ways to reduce the scarcity I feel in life so I can come from a place of seeing all parts of people with less judgment, less criticism, and more understanding.
Still, I know what I’m capable of holding and I am learning to honor where I’m at. I am also learning to honor where others are and believing that everyone around me is doing the best they have with what they know.
My hope for myself, and you, is to start witnessing my relationships (to self and others) as opportunities for growth rather than attachments. If I am completely reliant on another to thrive, I’ll always be searching for something outside of myself. If I am completely reliant on myself, I’ll never let others in and feel the gifts of being loved on.
Life is one big long course in being human, and I hope to remain a student until my last moments here. As such, this post will likely seem silly and trivial to me in years to come, and that’s ok. For now, these are the lessons I’m grateful to have learned and share with you today.
People who love you want you to thrive.
Learn to recognize the difference between someone minimizing your pain and someone celebrating your joy. Someone who celebrates your wellness or joy after a period of sorrow is more likely than not, happy that you’re feeling better. Someone who chooses to see your joy as a sign that your sorrow wasn’t real likely has a minimal understanding of mental health and may have their own work to do.
This is not mutually exclusive: you can love someone and not act like you want them to do well. You can want someone to do well and not love them. The questions we need to ask are more about what we have capacity for, what makes us feel safe, and how much empathy we can hold for people’s wounds while we love them.
If you are unhappy when the people in your life are happy, you might need to ask yourself what their joy is triggering in you. Unfairness? Feeling left out? Abandonment? Understand your own insecurities so you can cheer on the people in your life from love instead of holding them back from fear. Your behavior matters too.
If you are unhappy when the people in your life are happy, you might need to ask yourself what their joy is triggering in you. Unfairness? Feeling left out? Abandonment? Understand your own insecurities so you can cheer on the people in your life from love instead of holding them back from fear. Your behavior matters too.
If someone constantly competes with your joy or success, ask yourself if you have the emotional capacity to hold their insecurities and the possibility that you will feel under-appreciated until they do the inner work. There is no right or wrong, and, you get to decide what feels safe and right for you.
This might be hard, but you need to ask yourself if you believe you deserve good things, too. Because at the end of the day, one of those people has to be you.
I hope this found you when you needed it.
All my messy love,
Rachel
Rachel Havekost is the bestselling author of “Where the River Flows,” “Write to Heal,” and “The Inner Child Journal.” Rachel has single-handedly built an online social media presence with a combined 300k+ individuals devoted to de-stigmatizing mental health. She uses her writing and social platforms to share her wisdom and experience from 19 years of therapy for her eating disorder recovery, suicidal depression, anxiety, trauma, and divorce.
To read the full story of my eating disorder and experience with depression and suicide, read my memoir “Where the River Flows.”
For more written work, guided journals, and education, head to www.rachelhavekost.com