Do I Make You Happy?

When your very happiness depends on something outside yourself (better boss, better lover, better home, better pay-packet), there's value in that frustration. Ask yourself why you might be giving away personal power in this transaction. Look at that. Look deeply into what your real need is and look deeply into what it is in you that feels unable to feed your own needs.

If we are struggling to cultivate joy and inner wellness, projection and discontentment will often follow. This discontentment is difficult to understand, even harder to disentangle from. Sometimes, in order to see our needs, we project them outward onto a person, place or thing and if that becomes a habit we aren't learning from, it can be debilitating for us and exhausting for the object of our projection.

Ask yourself:

When was the last time I blamed someone for something? When did I last get angry because he trashed the kitchen or got home late and wasted? Or, when did I last take it personally because she wasn't there when I got home from work or I saw her looking at another man?

I see this behaviour a lot in couples-work with clients. One blames another for not doing this or for messing up that. What's happening in reality (or, hidden under the surface) is the couple have become entangled or enmeshed in a story that isn't their own. I see too often a kind of 'passive oneness' in a relationship that isn't healthy. Sometimes, what we understand as compromise isn't healthy. Over a period of time we give ourselves over to another or, defer to another and become something we are not in our attempt to maintain the illusion of equilibrium.

Getting Comfortable with Uncomfortable

Do we avoid the chaos of disharmony with the ubiquitous "I didn't want to rock the boat"? Yes, is my experience and I wish I had a pound for every time I've heard this in a client session! When we don't know ourselves intimately or lack the conviction to stand truthfully in our power, we end up wanting to be seen and perceived in a certain way that's more pleasing to us; maybe in a way that makes us look 'nice' or 'solid' or 'good' but, what if in truth we are not? What if in truth we are poignant and argumentative - are we strong enough to bring that into a relationship or is it best to temper that back to keep the peace?

The 'uncomfortable' lies in an autonomous expression of SELF.

The tiger cub isn't concerned about what the photographer thinks of it. It is being truly authentic in its expression. If the photographer decides he doesn't like it, he is free to walk away.

I know it might sound counter intuitive, especially in a relationship, but hidden within our personal autonomy is our sense of conviction, unique personality, boundaries and limitations and most importantly, the confidence to stand up in all of that, however it makes others feel.

Try This - Go back to your last few relationships and re-imagine the first time you met; not the first date but the first ever meeting. Feel it, sense it and take a snapshot in your mind. Now go to the end of that relationship and do the same. Is there disparity between how you expressed yourself at the beginning and at the end? If there is would you describe the disparity as improvement of self or as dilution of self?

Equally, try the same for the one you're with. What was it that attracted you to your partner in the first place? Does it still attract you now? Has the original attraction waned or grown into something more? Is she/he the same now as they were at that first meeting?

Getting comfortable with uncomfortable is, I'm afraid, about speaking into the heart of your sometimes uncomfortable truth; it is about saying the thing you perceive you shouldn't say. It is about maturity, ownership and clarity.

If you've never asked yourself the question "What is it in me that seeks this thing?", look at that. If you see yourself and/or your partner in these words and want to do something proactive and 'uncomfortable', feel free to contact me.

With love - Chrissy x