It is so powerful and unconscious, it takes decades and a great deal of work to see that what we do in relationships is to seek those that will wound us in the same way our childhoods did, over and over and over again.
Why the fuck would we do this?
That is how powerful the need is to heal. That is how immense the wound controls our lives. That is how much we need to heal that which we remain largely unconscious about...
None of us would ever, intentionally, say to a new love partner, “Hey I want you to hurt me in the same way I have been hurt before...can you please repeat all of that wounding?”
But we all do it over and over and over again, every single day.
Mr. Hollis aptly states: “It is truly frightening to realize how little one is conscious in the formation intimate relationship, how powerful is our programmed desire for what we have known. What is known, is what is sought, even if what is known is wounding.”
He goes on to say, “So it is that the Magical Other is loaded up with all the detritus of our psychic history. If there is an enemy that owns us, it is the power of that history, with its ability to usurp consciousness, warp perspective, contaminate choice and seek its own replication.”
And I am here to tell you that once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
And that is where I am.
Mr. Hollis further states, “what one finds is seldom a pretty picture.”
Um, yes. How true that is!
And that is exactly where I am. In this almost retrospective show of all my romantic choices and false starts and failures and messes. I have a very unlovely picture. Right now, all I can see is that all I have known, is all I sought.
Again, still...
FUCK!
For me, it is kind of like the realization of being an alcoholic. I mean, I drank every single day, fucking up my life in epic proportions but I never saw the connection. Hell, I didn’t even see the connection after 30 days of sobriety. I wasn’t convinced anyway. I still thought it was my dad’s fault, or HIS fault, or your fault. I was so married to it NOT being my fault, I could not see and accept that I was doing it to myself. And because of my biology and because I was who I was, I would always do this exact same thing. Forever.
Once I saw it, it was kind of like a tumbling back through time. I went back to the lead up to my drinking and could then see that there was no other course I could have taken. It was the only path that would have ever appealed to me. And then all of a sudden everything I did, made sense in a completely non-sensical way. It all added up to where I found myself. Barely sober, totally dysfunctional and a fucking disaster. And there was a strange comfort in walking it all the way through. It was like, “oh, I see, there was never any way I wasn’t ending up here. I am totally a drunk. And there was absolutely no way I could have ever avoided it. Makes total sense! Ok, guess I really do have to do this whole sobriety thing now if I want to have any kind of chance at a decent life!”
And so it was. I began a journey that continues on to this day.
And now, I am on another kind of journey. This one having the same revolutionary feeling. This one having that same “fuck if I wasn’t always going to end up here” feeling. But this one is coming way later in life. And that kind of smarts. I am standing at 54 in repose and review and see that while I know why I am where I am, I find myself wishing, quite desperately, that I could have found this out earlier. And even as I type that, I know that I could not.
It isn’t that this information is new. It isn’t. But ability to see it in a way that is capable of actually altering my behavior, is new. And revolutionary. And life altering. Just like getting sober. Once I saw my issue, there was no point in ever back tracking. Why? Because it would only lead me back to exactly where I was over and over and over again, while I was killing myself and the love of all those around me.
And so I am there again. This unlovely nugget of truth. This horrible realization that has the potential to kill me and heal me. It is totally up to me which way that goes.
But like sobriety, I know I have only one choice. And that is to do the work to change. I am not one that once I see it, I can live like that any longer. Actually that is wrong, it isn’t about the seeing it. I have seen this relational bullshit of mine for years. But now I can actually FEEL it. And once that happens, this pain travels from the safety of my head to the very vulnerable heart that beats in my chest, I have no other choice but to do the work because what I see and what I feel is just that unlovely that I want to eradicate it as soon as possible.
But also like sobriety, this is not an overnight matter. I cannot get 30 years in a day, and I am not going to change What is Known, being what is sought in a day either. Right now I am about three weeks into this change. Beginning with the ending of my last (please God make it be the last) relationship where I allowed what I have always known to be what I always seek.
And also like sobriety, it is done one day at a time. One mother fucking moment after another where I make a conscious choice NOT to select that which feels familiar. NOT to pick what is known. And after a life time of asking, repeatedly for that which will never work for me, it is difficult indeed to pause and wait for new requests to surface.
I did a mansbatical a few years ago. Took eight months off from men and dating (it was supposed to be a year but again that which is known, is sought) but that was not really for me. I was not dating at this whole flawed selection process. I was not really working on me, I was attempting to detox from myself while continuing all the internal dialogue that was only, very assuredly, going to get me back to exactly where I had been before. And that bore out. That is exactly what I did! I didn’t date at it for awhile, but then I jumped in worse than ever. I see that now.
Now, I am not not dating. I am taking some time for me. To improve my relationship with me. Clearly there is something very flawed within me that keeps selecting the people I do. Not just in romantic relationships, but in most of my relationships. And the time in my life seems to be a time where I am just not going to allow those kinds of people in my life anymore. And while the letting go of all that is known, is quite difficult and painful, so is living the way I was living. So I am committing to living without that particular kind of pain anymore. And giving myself some time to seek something else while actively avoiding all that is known.
Fuck, I have been there so many times, I can spot what is known from two miles out. Now I am hopefully going to get better at stopping it from coming ever closer once I have identified the known coming at me top speed. And the only way I know to do that is to slow everything down to a place where actual analysis can occur. And then attempt to remain willing to see that without some sort of great change in me, I will never, ever accept a change in someone else. If I do not become different, then I will always seek, allow, support and desire that which I have always known.
And it is ok to say, that I am finally fucking sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And this place is the place where all lasting change occurs for me. When I see myself and my patterns and issues clearly and lovingly. I could not do better before because I could not see it or feel it. But now, now I see it and feel it and am willing to withstand the pain, the longing and the revelations that are sure to come when I make space for them.
Again...
Still.
Sigh.
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