What Is Holding You Back? Reclaim Your Worth, Your Love, Your Power

Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay 

I know what it is to be with someone who values me, and know what it is to be with someone who values only what I can do for them, and I know the difference; the heartbreaking, devastating difference.

“You were the only one who couldn’t see he didn’t value you hon” my friend said. “You are wrong” I told her “My heart broke every day”.

Being with someone so locked in their own pain, unaware even of their wound, projecting the pain back on me – always – is an absolute mind bender. I was brought up to be honest and to value honesty, and when someone blatantly lies, projects back their own poor behaviour directly at me and leaves me in no doubt as to their disdain it is shocking.

It is so shocking because it is said with such conviction that I begin to doubt myself. So many instances and in so many ways, all the while busy, so busy and distracted by life, too busy to have the space to step back and take proper note of it all and see what was actually happening – until I did.

So long as I was for him and not against him, so long as I fed his need to feel important then all was well in our world. I was his emotional regulation.

But don’t dare to crtitise, don’t dare to ask a simple, reasonable request. For anything that required any more was met with nothing less than non committal, often deflecting responses. That was at best. At worst it would be like standing in the direct line of staccato machine gun fire while all the oxygen was sucked from the room.

Though now and again, after a long time usually, an occasional request might be met, intermittent reward psychologists call it. It keeps the nervous system on alert the whole time, nerves become frayed and the rewards so few and far between it creates more desire than regular rewards ever can. It is cruel and dispassionate, a power play designed to keep its perpetrator feeling in control.

It is manipulation, not necessarily conscious, though the perpetrator is not unaware how appropriate their behaviour is, they just feel entitled to that which they take. What is wanted is positive attention and, like the toddler they once were, now dressed in an adult body and clothing, they rage and tantrum if their needs are not met and everything is your fault. Negative attention is better than no attention.

Really, I only asked him to clear up the cushions he’d scattered, or pack his own suitcase the next time we went away. That was the one that ended it, the “final straw”.

“He didn’t pack his own things?” my friend asked in awe. “I’ll tell you how that began, long ago” I responded. “When we met I wasn’t working and the first few times we went away, I would have packed while he was at work, just to be nice. He would have been grateful, and it would at first have been one of those things that was simply nice to do for someone.”

Then, it became not only an expectation but an entitlement. Proving how good I am, proving my value, as heartbreaking as it was, it was familiar. These were the fruits of my own wounds, and those had been there long before we met.

Yet on the inside a part of me knew, always knew, my worth. “You were born worthy” I hear Sarah Blondin’s voice. I know. Yet, child me did not get that memo. I understood I had to be good “or else”, to do as I was told. Oh I raged and protested at times like children do, but relatively little in comparison to what I felt on the inside.

I know. My children rage, I let them. I let them express all those big feelings in a world that wants to suppress their experiences and their feelings. They had lots of rage at times and when they were younger, they had the most awful meltdowns.

After being cooped up once in the car driving fast along a highway, back from a holiday, my daughter lost all control when she discovered the cake she hadn’t finished on our last stop was safely locked away in the back of the car, unable to be reached. Having no capacity for rational thought, and with me driving and unable to solidly be there for her, she was unable to regulate her emotions and threw her bottle of milk square between the seats in frustration; it hit the windscreen.

After a few miles I was able to pull off the highway and stop. Then I was able to go take my daughter in my arms and just hold her until she calmed.

My visiting parents, who had also been held hostage in the car during all this, were shocked. It was plain to my mum that this wasn’t a one off, my calm and steady approach told her this had happened before. She worried – genuinely I think – that if I didn’t take this in hand then I would soon have a grown teenager on my hands raging at me. My dad asked how I could stomach it.

As I’ve often quoted, in the words of Dr Gabor Maté “It is often not our children’s behaviour, but our inability to tolerate their negative responses that creates difficulties. The only thing the parent needs to gain control over is our own anxiety and lack of self control.”

My parents were anxious, little wonder, it was not a comfortable experience, and keen for me to discipline my child so that she would behave. That is what they had been taught, and that is what they taught me.

But I knew that “behaving” meant suppressing feelings. It meant that at the very time my child had gone into flight or fight mode – which is, in essence, our body signalling that it feels under threat – I would further threaten them. Me. Who is the one person in their whole world whose job it is to make them feel safe.

No. Let me correct that. My children have two parents, but I was the one in this case who had the day to day responsibility for my children, I was the one with whom they had and have a strong attachment bond.

So when I would feel my anxiety well up in response to some of my kids behaviours in those early years, just as Dr Gabor Maté had observed, I had to learn to calm my own nervous system first. It took a huge amount of emotional energy and focus.

And there I was, unsupported, dealing with children and with other adults who never learned healthy emotional regulation. Too many stuff it all down, others blow up and project it out.

To my friends, to others I worked with and who knew me in different arenas I was and am a strong, capable woman. I always knew this. Always. Even when I lived with someone who could not see my value nor would ever acknowledge it.

Even when faced with burn out from the conflicting demands of my career and very young children, or the regular awful meltdowns that carried on into those early school years having young kids with (at that time undiagnosed) dyslexic tendencies who struggled so much in the school system that they came home wiped and seeking emotional balance, or the hands on support to help their dad get set up and run his own business, or then the cruel depleting death of my mum.

I was the rock for everyone, and managed to manifest some rocks of my own, with kidney stones entering the landscape of my health.

And faced with all of this, amid entitlement and derision, I continued with a steely determination to figure out who I am beneath the suppressed emotions and dysfunctional beliefs. I rediscovered my inner knowing. I took the time while the children were at school to explore my passions:

• Becoming me, exploring the knowing versus the beliefs. Encouraging and coaching my kids to be an authentic expression of themselves and helping others (who want help) do the same
• Exploring the interconnectedness of everything and the clues that gives us in our lives about fulfilling our potential while simultaneously living symbiotically with everyone and everything
• Leveraging the power of intentionality, wonder and faith
• I love psychology, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology and other social and behavioural sciences. But I also love philosophy, the wisdom traditions, epigenetics, quantum physics, the science of consciousness and where these things converge with sacred science. In short I like to make sense of the natural world and also enjoy all the therapies rooted in observations of the natural world and wisdom passed down through the ages.
• Reading, writing, beach walks, walks in nature, time with friends

Small drops, tiny scoops, step by step. I’d study free content, read books, I was resourceful as I eked out time between my child care and domestic responsibilities. Never encouraged, always disparaged.

But my inner knowing grew. And, when at last he led me to therapy “to fix me”, I then became more aware of the dynamics not just within me but between us. I then started to track the lies, the hypocrisy, the spite and controlling behaviours. I began to stand on solid ground again rather than feeling caught in a flush system swirling around and around.

Yes I know what it is to be with someone who values me, and know what it is to be with someone who values only what I can do for them, and I know the difference; the heartbreaking, devastating difference.

There are so many chapters to this story, so many aspects to speak to, so much I could share and relate. But for now, the thing I have learned is that my heart did not break, it can hurt but it never can nor will break. My heart is full of love and, at worst, someone else trying to exert their will over me can obscure me from feeling that if I am unwise and look outside of myself for validation and love.

What a huge gift that is in a way. When kept from something, the will to find it and reclaim it grows stronger. The more it is denied, the stronger the desire becomes. We have seen this in many ways across society in the last two years.

So what are you being held back from and what can you do to reclaim your worth, your love, your power and the full potential of your life?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth, Clear the Fog of Trauma to See the Magnificence of Your Being, Be Compassionate and Curious to Live Your Best Life, What I Love About Being With Narcissistic People and How Do I Honour What I Believe and Care Less What You Think? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.