My Needs versus Yours

What is grabbing my attention this week is the inner struggle between myself and my connectedness to all else. Put in a different way, it’s about my own needs versus my relationship needs.

On the face of it, these two things often feel in opposition. After all, that is what the journey to me has been all about. My starting point, like most, was enmeshed in the expectations placed upon me in my early childhood years. These were the years in which I learned that what I felt, believed or wanted often wasn’t as important as what other people wanted of or for me.

That early entanglement is undeniably still with me, though to a much lesser extent than when I started the journey to figure out who the real me is. Instead of being completely identified with the encumbered version, I now observe with interest what things trigger me and use the information to unwrap yet another layer of something false.

This week I read some words that took me back to that early inner tussle with life as I emerged into adulthood. Then, as now, my biggest lessons were always to be found in those closet relationships I had.

You may know I’ve been drinking in several novels by Belinda Alexandra lately, and what a joy it has been to find such kindred spirits in the fictional characters. The latest one was no exception, it was like the very echoes of my own struggles within old relationships:

“If you are lonely with me now, neither marriage nor children will help. You are asking me to fix something only you can solve.”

“Perhaps I didn’t believe anyone would be faithful to me unless they were tied to me in some way.”

“Although our beautiful life together came to an unanticipated end, you have left me with an invaluable gift; the gift to be myself...Without this heartbreak between us I may never have discovered that desire.”

“I need more time, I’m just starting to grow into the real me, and I like her. I want to fill her empty spaces myself. I want to be free of shackles and insecurities.”

“I had yearned to belong to someone then because I hadn’t known how to belong to myself.”

As I wrote about a couple of years ago in Great Relationships Happen When You Put You First  I have come a long way since those early, needy relationships. Nowadays I look upon any issues as a chance for me to get to know myself even better and a chance to look at where I’m still buying into early conditioning.

But putting myself first doesn’t mean I win and you lose, it means I’m looking for the win win. For example, right now I’m in the midst of an extended period of social time. With kids at home over the long summer holidays, and family visiting, instead of my usual regular spaces of solitude I’m rarely on my own.

Today, after driving some distance to bring my youngest child home from a stay with her grandparents, I would have liked to have taken a nap. I could have, but it was my dad’s birthday, and spending some time with him also felt important. So I opted for the win win in that, and we went to the beach for a walk. I allowed nature to sooth my weary nervous system while we chatted and wandered along the ocean, the waves working their usual magic.

It’s always an interesting and testing time of year for me. I am finding that, as each year passes, I am coming to know myself better and be more comfortable in dropping the vestiges of that angry, defensive, insecure person I once was in favour of embracing a new way of being.

I think perhaps there was a point, early in the journey to recover a sense of my authenticity, that I had a strong desire and need to withdraw from my relationships and be utterly covetous of my own company in order to gain some perspective and clarity. However, now I’m able to function much more comfortably within my relationships without losing sight of who I am.

There are still times when I drop into the me versus you mode, but I quickly become the observer and start to notice instead what there is for me to learn when I’m getting triggered. In Belinda Alexander’s terms, I’ve come a long was in learning how to belong to myself and – in doing so – am now valuing my connection to everything else in an entirely different way.

Instead of that needy, insecure person, I am now seeing that your needs and mine must be a perfect match or life would not bring us together in this moment. That does not mean that our needs are necessarily harmonious, they may in fact be mutually unharmonious in order to push each of us to resolve our inner struggles.

Versus can mean against, or in opposition, and that is how I used to view my relationships when there were conflicting needs. But now I have come to see that a different definition of the word versus, meaning in contrast to, is much more helpful in order to gain a valuable perspective on my connection to everything and everyone else.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How Can I Create a Better World?, Be an Evolutionary (Rather Than a Revolutionary), Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear, and Let Anger Be Your Teacher While Learning to Become Its Master. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.