I grew up with a very angry mother who would attack me out of the blue. As a highly sensitive only child, the fear and heartbreak of being treated so unlovingly was unbearable. So rather than feel the hurt, I numbed it out by learning to stay in my head rather than being present in my body, and by focusing on caretaking others’ feelings. The only way I could survive was to not know that I was being so hurt.
I had so deeply shut out knowing about my own pain that when I had children, I thought nothing about yelling at them. One day, as I was yelling at my son Josh, who was about 2 ½, he looked up at me with tears running down his cheeks and said, “Mommy, when you yell at me, I feel like I’m gonna die.” Continue reading When You Feel Hurt By Your Partner
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. but in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis
I am grateful that a friend sent me the above quote, as it wonderfully states a vitally important subject that we all need to struggle with – to love or not to love.
We hear so often, “Don’t take it personally.” What does this really mean? The answer is NOT simple!
Let’s say that you are in a great mood, feeling loving and expansive, and someone – either someone close to you or a stranger like a clerk in a store – is withdrawn or attacking. Continue reading When Should You Take It Personally?
Marcus grew up the eldest of three, with a highly critical mother and an absent father. Marcus’s mother frequently told him or implied that he was too stupid to take care of himself – that he would be nothing without her. She programmed him to believe that she was his only source of love and safety, but that she wouldn’t give him the love he so desperately needed until he proved himself worthy of it by doing things “right”. She taught him to be confused between love and approval, and to be constantly trying to control getting love and avoiding the pain of rejection. Marcus was deeply addicted to self-judgment as a way of trying to have control over getting himself to do things right. Continue reading The Crazymaking Trap: Proving Your Worth Over and Over
“Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” – Stephen Covey
How often have you heard yourself say:
“I just want someone to understand me.”
“I just want to be heard.”
“I feel invisible.”
“I just want to be seen.”
I know what it feels like to not be understood, heard, or seen, as I spent most of the first 45 years of my life feeling invisible.
It feels terrible.
By that time I had learned to do what Stephen Covey recommends. I was very good at understanding others, but I still didn’t feel understood by them. Continue reading “I Just Want to be Understood.”
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