Saturday, February 23, 2013

Polar Opposites


I have often wondered why it is that otherwise strong, kind, generous, smart, wonderful women and men get sucked into relationships with abusive partners, or partners who are needy, narcissistic, arrogant, or mean.  Obviously, I am not the only person who wonders this, as there are a huge number of self-help books devoted to the topic.  But after a long conversation I had with one of my clients the other day, as well as my growing understanding of Polarity, I finally came to an "energetic" understanding of the mechanism, and what we can do to overcome the tragic mismatch. 

We often hear it said, and see it to be true, that opposites attract.  Think fair and dark; extrovert and introvert; tall and short; May-December; thin and not-thin; James Carville and Mary Matalin.  I believe that we seek to balance ourselves, or rather our perception of ourselves, by our choice of  friends and partners.  
Our energetic boundary is a semi-permeable membrane.  Some things go through easily in one direction, but not so easily in the other.  For people with a strong natural tendency to be care-givers, it is much easier to give care, affection, and love than it is to receive it.  In fact, they (we) are notoriously difficult to compliment (as most compliments are deflected) or to buy presents for (because we feel that we don't deserve them).  I do not know if this aspect of high care-giving potential arises from or gives rise to a low sense of self-esteem, but somehow they seem somehow intermeshed and probably self-reinforcing.  I call this type of person a strong emitter.  They may be highly empathic but not know it.  This is the person who always volunteers to take in strays of all sorts, donates a lot to charity, and will pitch in to help a neighbor, a friend, or a complete stranger.  They have a high vibrational level.

kirlian photography from inspiringhealth.net


Then there are other people who give out very little of themselves, but are always ready to receive.  They are like a vaccuum for money, resources, gifts, time, feelings, energy, and even office supplies.  No matter what or how much you give, it is never quite enough.  They are always wanting more.  These are the people that appear to be doing little but can never spare the time to help you out.  They are the ones that make you tired to be around, even if you can't pinpoint the reason why.  Their lives would be perfect "if only…"
While some people call them "energetic vampires", I prefer to think of them as a black hole.  The 'vampires' take an active role in their predation of your time and energy, but the black-hole people seem to be unaware of this effect they have.  They just know that they are not happy within themselves and must fill their needs externally.  Their vibrational level is much lower than the emitter.




So what happens when the strong emitter meets the black hole?  At first it feels like each has met a soul mate.  They seem to fill each others' needs so perfectly.  THEY ARE POLAR OPPOSITES.  This chemistry of attraction can last for years, but inevitably, the emitter gets completely drained or burned out, while the black hole is still unsatisfied.  Much like stars, they will orbit around each other in a death spiral until one or the other figures it out (or dies).   The relationship is not always a romantic one either :  friends and office-mates frequently play out the dynamic.

This phenomenon goes by many names in our pop-psychology culture:  addict/enabler;  dependent/co-dependent; abuser/victim.  And the truth is that the behavior can be so subtle that neither person recognizes it for what it is, but as the years go on, it becomes not only entrenched but more extreme.  The power dynamic becomes terribly unequal.  Ultimately the relationship will end, either due to a drifting apart or an active break by one of the parties.  Sometimes the end will come violently, as the abuser/black-hole acts out his or her frustration and dissatisfaction with fists or weapons. I think more often it comes in the form of verbal abuse, which is more insidious, much less obvious to an outsider, and psychologically every bit as damaging to the victim.
The thing is, it can be truly difficult to recognize the black holes for who they are.  They can be very charming, flattering, and seductive, especially to a person who has a poor self-image and diffuse boundaries.  The idea of helping a fellow human can also be a powerful seducer for the emitting person.

The trouble is that we are stuck until we WAKE UP and become aware of our own energies as well as those of other people.  THE ONLY WAY TO BREAK THE PATTERN IS TO BECOME AWARE.  Our true love comes both from within, and from the Universe.  And if we are fortunate, we might find a partner that is on our same wavelength, our same vibrational level.  And then we don't just double our powers: our powers and energies grow exponentially.  Then our lesson becomes not how to give, but how to receive, how to accept, how to allow -- and thus be in service to Spirit as our energetic flow increases ever more.



Monday, February 18, 2013

To my daughter and son in law, on their wedding day


Some advice from someone who has been there and back, and has the battle scars to prove it.



Every person has their own story, how they view and judge themselves, and that can change from day to day, sometimes even minute to minute.  We  build up stories too, about our friends, our parents, children, and partners -- and the longer we know someone, the more entrenched that story can become, until all we know is that story of how we imagine the other person to be, and we lose sight of who the real person is.  

So pay attention, I tell you.  
Drop the pretense of familiarity, and see who your partner is in every single moment.    
Give each other room to grow, to evolve, to fail, to get up again, and to be human.  
Give yourself permission to change your own story.

Resist the rush to judgement and blame when you are angry or disappointed, and instead look within to tease out and understand your own feelings.   Be brutally honest with yourself, and be compassionate with this person who shares your life.

Be present with yourself, and with your lover.  
Understand that no one person can be everything to another, that you both need friends and activities of your own to enrich yourselves.  When you have that, then you can bring that richness home and share your own delight with your mate.  And your mate can be happy for you, and with you, and be proud of your accomplishments.
Learn new things.  They keep you interesting.  

Talk to each other-- not just about the bills, and who turned the toilet paper the wrong damned way, but about music and art and literature, what to plant in the garden this year, and did you see that the hyacinth shoots are coming up already?  And talk about the deep things.  Be open and vulnerable with each other.  You can choose to avoid intimacy, and you will live … ok.  But you can also choose the deeper path, and go through those times when you think your heart will just break, and learn that you are stronger than you ever thought, and learn also that the world does not actually explode even if you have to say something very difficult.   It is risky, yes, but worth it.

Be a safe refuge for each other.  Remember why you have chosen, today, to walk together.  Lighten each other's load, pull on the same yoke in the same direction, enjoy the ride, laugh a lot.   And most importantly, be kind to each other.  Act from a place of love and not from fear.  Fear leads to jealousy, possessiveness, and a constricted world that gets ever smaller.  Love is expansion, and growth, and tolerance, and encouragement.  

Be love.


February 18, 2013

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy Valentine's Day to YOURSELF


This year, on the 13th of February, my partner and I went down to Truth or Consequences, NM, for a soak in a marvelous hot spring "wet room".  There is something profoundly regenerative in the mineral waters, as well as the reassuringly grounding stone and wood of the room itself.

the Blackstone wet room


It got me thinking about self care.  

In my practice as a therapist, one of the characteristics in how I approach my clients is that I allow myself to be energetically open to them (while still protecting myself), so that everything that I am, all my life experiences, are available to them to relate to me as a human being.  In this way, we can find points of commonality that allow us to work well together.  It is a process of communication, trust, and vulnerability.  After all, a client who places her or himself on my table is vulnerable and must trust me as well.  My open heart is my channel for helping that person do their own work.



But sometimes, life deals you hard blows.  One of the most difficult things for me in the last year was letting my youngest daughter go off to California for college.  (My older two daughters are nearby, and it didn't hurt so much as they grew up and left.)  It is truly for me a heart-breaking experience that I still have a hard time talking about without tearing up.  Also in the last year, my best friend's husband died, and she became suicidal with grief.  In her struggles, I could only stand by and offer support.  I cannot solve her sadness, nor would I want to interrupt her grieving process, but again, it has been a profoundly hard thing to do to just hold space for her and not step in.


In order to cope with daily life, as we all must, I found myself hardening up.  I closed off my own grief and found myself once again with the same kind of pain that I had near the end of my marriage.  I suffered painful somatic torments in my own body because I felt that I could not allow myself to express my sorrows openly.    Another practitioner told me my body felt as if someone had poured concrete down my spine. I did not want to feel the pain, so I just stopped myself from feeling all together.   And the key thing is that I actually knew it.  I felt it.  I was aware of it, and yet I still did nothing to fully take care of myself.


In the waters yesterday, I felt that I needed to meditate on this problem.  As I floated and sank with the rhythm of my breath, I thought about allowing myself to be supported and nurtured.  Instinctively, my partner came over to me and held my feet in his hands, and gently massaged them, taking his time over each part, working up into my legs.  It was an unsolicited act of kindness and love.   I felt the urge to cry, and finally was able to permit some of the pent up tears to flow out.  I allowed myself to trust this man deeply, in a way that I had not done so before (because there had been little enough trust in any of my previous romantic relationships).  In accepting this unconditional care from him, I also enabled a deepening in the relationship.  I allowed myself to be open and vulnerable again.  I gave myself permission to trust, to feel hurt, to feel love…. just to feel.  I trust that the Universe will take care of me, and know that it is alright to feel all these human emotions.  It is a part of being a human being, fully alive and in this body.

So my Valentine's message to you, my readers, is to love yourself.  Allow someone else to love you too, even though it may be very difficult to permit yourself that vulnerability and openness.  Trust that there are people who can love without expectation, who can love unconditionally, who will support and nurture you, who can act with compassion.  Be compassionate and gentle with yourself.  Life is full of rocks and thorns and hard uncomfortable things in our paths -- we owe it to ourselves to treat ourselves and others with kindness and love.