Beagling

Space time

Time for myself.... prioritising.... what was that I was saying about expressing needs? Do I just withdraw instead of expressing myself? I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Once again in my attempts to please everyone I hurt the one I love most and thus start to think my efforts are futile or at least so utterly not worth it. I take on everyone else's problems and I seem to get a recurrent illness... what is my body trying to tell me? I'm talking too much? I'm not expressing myself? Or maybe the least debilitating way for my body to tuck itself into bed and not talk to anyone. Do I need to shuffle through my suite of reactions one last time and see which are now obsolete? Do I assume they are all obsolete?

When is it time to let go?

I have seen many relationships fail, all around me. It seems so hard for people to communicate. Needs can't be fulfilled until they are expressed, in most cases anyway. It is unrealistic for most people to expect their partner to intuitively understand their needs. Maybe the understanding comes with time for some, or for a lucky few, it is instinctive, but that kind of instinct can't be relied on all the time. Being able to express your needs is an infinitely valuable skill to have, and most people don't or can't learn it from their parents. In the same way, being able to listen to someone's needs is equally important. Parental relationships seem to be layered with so many restrictions on what is appropriate for a child to experience, which adult emotions are appropriate for a child to observe. So many times a child is told to shush when it expresses how it is feeling. How confusing! Children told they shouldn't feel something - how can feelings be controlled? (As my partner is showing me, it is the reaction that is important.) Why is it so frightening to express how you feel and what you need?... to be cont...

Emotional Downloads

Some days are better than others or so the saying goes. Some days it is easy to cope with everyone's sadness, others it is not and I feel it all too much. From now on, if my loved ones' emotional downloads are not actually helping them then I'm not going to hear any more. Of course I love the drama but it is too distracting from the rest of my life, and isn't it an ancient Chinese curse if someone says to you, "May your life be interesting!" Life can be simple if you choose to be that way. Do they even realise that it affects me? Would I get calls in the middle of the day with people's problems and sadness if they knew that it stops my progress? I still feel compelled to help, obliged to help because I have insight, selfish if I don't share it. It must be so hard for a parent to let go of the child's hand and just let them take the first step on their own. How did I learn this lesson? My beautiful partner, of course, with so much to teach me. I saw how he felt when I passed on to him the downloads I accumulated during the course of a day. He became as miserable as I was. Well what's the point of that?!! Didn't help either of us. Of course he knows exactly how I'm feeling as soon as he hears my voice or sees my face, no need to make him feel that way too. He has no use for my loved ones' problems, nor does it help them for him to know the problems. My beautiful partner is an endless resource of happiness for me so I decided to let him be exactly that. Then he feels happy for cheering me up and giving me some perspective and release from the day's burdens, and I feel happy that he feels happy for making me happy... and thus another instance of the perfect total internal reflection that is the magic of our relationship.

Relationship Philosophy 1. If you have a task you would like completed and you have an end goal in mind, either: a) do it yourself, or b) explain your end goal to your partner for them to complete it. If the end goal is important to you and you have your partner complete the task, who is to blame if the outcome doesn't meet YOUR expectation and your partner didn't know what your expectation was? Why should you expect someone else to have identical standards and values to you? - thinking further.... is the outcome always important? (the "Don't Sweat The Small Stuff" philosophy). Don't abuse your partner through assigning a standard that could be met only by chance. It erodes trust, because your partner will not know if you have changed the standard after the task was underway, and creates tension because your partner will either try to please you and consistently fail (upsetting to both of you), or your partner will not try to please you which sows the seeds of doubt.... You need to rely on each other.

Questions, Questions, Questions

Learn from your relationship. It should not be a struggle, but an opportunity to relax and let go of exactly one half of the things that you otherwise would have to worry about if you were on your own. If you think your troubles have doubled rather than halved, then that is a choice you have made and you will have to relinquish it in the future. Feel light, not heavy!