Being in a new relationship is scary, I know.
We think we’re totally normal and sane when not in a relationship.
Intimacy brings out something so deep and buried we didn’t even know it was there.
You have to open your heart to this stranger. This person you feel like you know.
But you felt like you knew the last one. Three years later you found out that you didn’t.
So trust, slowly slowly.
Or all at once.
Whatever is your style.
The fact is you really don’t ever know anyone until you’ve been through the highs and the lows together.
Yes starting a new relationship can be scary.
Do you trust yourself?
I’ve been reflecting on the beginning of relationships and thinking about the crazy psycho woman within.
Women often talk to me about exactly this.
They say they don’t trust themselves.
They say they’ve been hurt badly before.
They now have a new wonderful man.
Everything is so great!
So why am I ruining it?
Why do I fear he’ll leave me?
Why am I always questioning if there’s something better?
What is happening?
Survival Instincts.
Imagine, you’re seeing a new guy and things are going really well, but he hasn’t locked in the next date and then he does and it’s over a week away.
How can he wait a whole week?!
Obviously he doesn’t really like me!!
Crazy girl wakes up.
How about we don’t see each other at all!!
Punishment.
Protection.
Your heart hardens.
What is happening?
The Survival Game.
I’ll leave you before you leave me.
I’ll leave you before I find out you don’t like me as much as I like you.
I’ll leave you and then you’ll love me.
So what do you do?
Be crazy girl. Say it. Storm off in a virtual huff?
Be sulky girl with “that’s fine” and in every other way not be fine.
Be repressed girl and not even let your feelings be important enough to feel.
Or be the Queen and say, “What?! You can wait that long? Why don’t we do something on Saturday?”
I know it can be a challenge to actually express how you feel.
These things that are actually not such huge deals become HUGE because we’re not used to speaking from the heart.
Why?
Because we have unresolved emotional pain and ways that we have learnt to be during childhood (mostly before the age of 7) that we have learnt from our parents, who learnt from their parents.
So basically we’re all fucked!
Ha! Just kidding. You are totally able to change this programming but you have to be prepared to be open and honest in your relationships and take full responsibility for your thoughts and your behaviour.
You have to be willing to look.
Some years ago I felt that changing these aspects of myself was like trying to fight with my DNA. It felt like that!!
I didn’t know how to change. I struggled. I put my barriers up. I threatened to leave – that was my learned way of being.
As a kid I thought running away from home was the ultimate solution to problems because I really didn’t know how to express my emotions. I cried often. Whinged. Became really good at being the victim.
But only in my most intimate relationship!!
Most people didn’t have the pleasure of seeing this side of me.
But as an adult, when the intimate relationship button was pushed, it triggered this part of me like nothing else ever did. I mean, I was also awesome at other times.
Aren’t we all?
Who’d want to stay with us otherwise?
But the unconscious pain prevented me from expressing my true thoughts and feelings. I didn’t know how to.
From our parents we learn, ‘If I’m real with you and express my feelings you won’t like me and might leave.’
So we learn survival patterns, which John E. Warren and Rita Reidel, in their book Emotional Power, identify as being the Saint, the Martyr, the Bully and the Clown, amongst others.
Maybe crazy psycho gets expressed.
All of these patterns prevent us from expressing out true emotions and being real.
“The pain of childhood traumas lies deep and it isn’t long before repressed memories erupt to the surface. The honeymoon period won’t last unless each partner is prepared to be emotionally honest and vulnerable, to change and grow.
Authentic relationships challenge people to expose their darkness as well as their light, where honesty becomes intimacy and rests at the heart of each successful relationship. Without acknowledging our deeper pain we struggle to resolve the issues that keep us bound to the past.”
John E. Warren and Rita Reidel
So How can we not be ruled by our 5-year old selves in relationships?
1. Be the observer to the thoughts in your head.
Just because that tape is playing, it doesn’t mean it’s real.
You don’t have to do what crazy psycho or sulky victim or jealous one tells you to do.
They are simply programmed thought patterns and the voice of your ego, ruled by fear – yes trying to protect you but terribly misguided.
Are you going to let a 5 year-old rule your relationship?
2. Recognize your patterns and childhood conditioning.
Examine what you learnt from your parents before you were too young to think logically.
3. Choose to express your emotions in a way that is emotionally mature.
And be careful who you go to for relationship advice!!
Friends are not always the best option when they too are operating from their wounded place.
One client I was coaching was going through a difficult break-up because her ex didn’t want to let her go and said exactly this.
Friends were telling her to just “cut him off” and block him, but in our coaching session she got clear on what she truly desired, to be firm while still coming from a place of love and she felt really good about it.
She didn’t compromise herself or cause unnecessary hurt. She was authentic and aligned with her truth.
Same at the Art of Queening workshop, one woman shared that her problem was that her husband took business calls during their sacred time together at dinner.
One of the other women said she should just start talking on her phone during dinner too and show him what it’s like.
Fighting fire with fire.
This is how I said to respond…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFB3F2cYjDA
Responding is key.
Yes there may be an angry reactive girl in your head who is great at showing you when something doesn’t feel right, but you don’t have to react from this place. She tells you something doesn’t feel right and then you respond.
This is some feedback I received after the workshop,
“I finally have a space (as you said) to be able to feel open and safe, even, or ESPECIALLY in situations that challenge me, knowing I can deal and keep safe. That simple simple tool you shared, in communicating needs! It’s so obvious, (looking at it now) I could forehead slap myself for ever feeling I had to defend myself fiercely. THANK YOU! .. watch this space… lol!”
– Leela
Oh so satisfying to hear when women get empowered and claim their Queenhood!!
What if your partner doesn’t respond to your emotionally mature self?
Oooh yes!!
What I have found is that people usually behave in the way we treat them and expect them to behave.
Like at the beginning of the relationship, when you see the best in the person, they are their best!!
So keep seeing the best in someone and believing in them and they will rise to the occasion.
I have also found that there are some people who only respond to the dysfunction.
If you are in a relationship and find this is the case, seek outside help for sure, like relationship counselling, and learn all the things you weren’t taught.
But in dating, you need to have your antennas tuned to recognizing the dysfunction and the ways you put up with it and bend to it.
If someone isn’t able to hear you when you communicate with maturity… do you want to be crazy bitch?
As women, compromising ourselves in relationships seems to be our biggest weakness!!
This is the number one reason women come to me to do the deep work to know and love themselves fully and to become Healthy + Powerfully Feminine.
A friend was just telling how her three best friends are all awesome women who are kicking arse at life and career but when it comes to men – they’re so crap! They go for the guy that treats them the worst! And then stay. Why are we like this? She asked.
Father issues, was my first response.
Later that day she said that her assistant hadn’t shown up for work the past couple of days but she wasn’t doing anything about it because she thought she was going through some problems.
That’s the reason right there why we are like that!!
Compassion. Empathy. The Martyr.
Not speaking up.
Any of this sound familiar?
Most people are simply operating from their wounds.
One wounded self wound up with another wounded self.
What I’ve found as a highly functioning female is that more guys were attracted to my dysfunction than to my health.
Now when I can discuss without blame – not everyone can receive that!
But that’s not the relationship I desire.
It’s not the relationship I’m creating.
Not with myself. Not with anyone else.
It’s important to wait and be at peace and happy with my life.
This is why I’m so passionate about helping women to create a fulfilling life for themselves.
Because otherwise we seek fulfillment in another person and then get hooked on the drama. We seek someone to take away the loneliness. We bend. Then break.
Instead, do the deep work with your subconscious mind and cultivate a high level of self-awareness.
Be the woman YOU love.
Be the witness.
Be the observer.
Be the Queen.
“You cannot belong to anyone else
until you belong to yourself.”
-Pearl Bailey
If you would love to BE the woman YOU love while creating your beautiful life, click here to find out HOW.
Create your Beautiful Life
“Doing Mireille’s course was like doing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy all over again but in a much more relaxed and “normal” environment.” – Yoru
I hope this article helped and inspired you. Please leave a comment and let me know!
And if you know someone this article on healthy relationships would interest, just forward this on or tag someone.
Wishing you a beautiful day and so much LOVE!!
From my wild and powerful heart to yours,
Mireille xxx
