Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you are in a relationship, you start to behave in ways that aren't in your best interest or your relationship's best interest?
Alongside the perceptions, behaviors, strategies, and coping mechanisms we employ to re-establish a"safety" emotional state are often the most common issues in most relationships.(In my opinion )Many times we take the back seat in our human interactions and unconsciously give our fears, beliefs and past experiences the power of decision.
Feeling unsafe can make even the most loving person behave in narcissistic ways....Because we seek safety, our adult relationships are emotionally unhealthy:
We have a difficult time considering the emotional needs of others and feel like no one considers ours either
We see emotions and feelings as weakness
We fail to develop true intimacy with one another
We dismiss each other’s emotions
We tell other people how they should and shouldn’t feel
We call people who display emotions sensitive
We disapprove of each other’s feelings
Think about a relationship you have with a partner, parent, sibling, friend...... Have you ever found yourself acting in ways that are not true to who you are when you're around them?
Maybe you feel like you have to put up walls to protect yourself from getting hurt?
Maybe you become overly critical or you withdraw and stop communicating & you just can’t explain it? You might even start to act in ways that are completely out of character for you.
If you answered yes to any of those questions then your perception of unsafe has triggered an automated process where the aspects of your personality that are designed to keep you safe, take over. (These aspects are very self-centered) We start to behave in ways that are self-preserving but often detrimental to the other person we are in a relationship with. In other words, they start to turn the relationship into a zero-sum game....And this creates a relationship downward spiral. So..... The question we ask is how do you stop it? The good news is that through practice of shadow work and self awareness, you can begin to spot and resolve these patterns within you so you can save your relationships and heal the underlying issues.
ask yourself:
In what areas of life do you tend to expect others to conform to your beliefs?
What scares you the most about allowing others to have their own beliefs in the above areas ?
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