Sunday, January 15, 2017

Getting and Being Real in an Upside Down World

"Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Sad as it is, I must leave you."
 ~ Quote from The Princess Who Believed in Fairy Tales

So much emotional pain could be averted if people truly thought through what they wanted before starting a relationship with the wrong person. Many clients come in asking why they have spent literally years trying to make lukewarm relationships work. Equally confusing is the phenomena of people pulling "disappearing acts" or "ghosting" after getting intimately involved with others. People tell me that they want closure and not open-ended unrest after intimate relations with essentially strangers in their lives. So, let's talk about this.

In the beginning.....
We, as human beings, are the sum total of what we saw as behavior growing up from our parents, and society. Period. Times have indeed changed, and we can argue that we need daycare and things are most certainly expensive but what a child sees at a young age they will emulate. If they see arguing, alcoholism, abuse, both physical or emotional, then that will be what they consider love. Lack of commitment, absentee parents, and a society that skews right from wrong leads to misery. The first place to begin is with what you observed as a child. How did your family show love? Were you given "things" or were you encouraged to perform given your God given strengths. Was love withheld unless you did what was expected of you? How was money treated? Was is a commodity to be used to create joy and security, or was it made into a God to be only saved and counted, and used to control others? All of this matters when picking out a partner in life. Why? How we order our world depends on how it was explained to us as children through the actions of the adults who were most instructive in our lives as we were growing up. It pains me to see a child screaming "mommy" in a store as the mother is texting on her cell phone, or mindlessly talking to some other adult not understanding that the message she is sending to her child is "you don't matter." How you feel doesn't matter, what you think doesn't matter, and I simply don't care as your mother is what that child is hearing. We then wonder why this same child will grow up to be abusive towards a partner who is "crying to be heard." Childhood matters, parenting matters, right and wrong matters.

Enter adulthood.....
Hooking up, sexting, friends with benefits. Sounds fabulous right. No responsibility and all the thrills. Until reality strikes and we have feelings toward the other person. Why can't I be like other people my clients exclaim? What people, I reply, aliens? What kind of people think that sex without emotion is truly possible? When we don't get real with ourselves about what will constitute good choices in our lives we make mistakes. Sometimes big ones. I often like to quote The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. She talks about what constitutes becoming REAL. Read Below.

          "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" 

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." 



The phrase "not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real" is key. Do you want a real love? or a fake love? Do you want to be Played with? A love that hides behind words that have no real meaning, or one that endures a lifetime? Get REAL folks! It is the ONLY way to happiness. Up is not down, right is not wrong, money does not buy happiness, and actions speak louder than words. Talk is cheap. If your childhood left much to be healed, and you are struggling to know what love really is swear off these Fake relationships. Put requirements on what you expect and deserve in a relationship. Walk away when you are not getting what you need. Love does not have to be hard, and it does not have to hurt. If that is what you saw as a child, then the internal narrative in flawed and it is time to "hit the reset" button and GET REAL. No one will love you the way that YOU LOVE YOU. Speak your truth, stand up for what is right and just no matter the consequence. Live in the Light. No Answer is an answer. No change is an answer. No closure means walk away and is closure in and of itself. Do unto others as they would do unto you is a nice fairy tale and a great "playbook" if everyone were playing by the same rules! See people for who they are, not who you want them to be. I promise you, if you GET REAL, it will bring you joy. 
~In the Light~ Karen