I’ve had a lot of signs recently pointing me towards writing about one or another of the title subjects. I got an absolute OUTPOUR of support on the mental health entry, so I think maybe I have your attention, and I’m starting to feel more confident in this search for my voice #selflove.
The biggest part my journey into self love and self confidence started roughly one year ago, in coming to terms with the fact that the relationship i was in was not only Not serving me, but I was at war with myself daily: whatever I needed, or felt naturally drawn to, was a source of contention in my relationship. I began to recognize after leaving, that despite having good communication skills in general, and strong and healthy friendships across many walks of life, in most of my relationships with significant others, that has not been the case. I attribute this to the much more intimate nature of the relationship with your significant other, the societal demands of the relationship, and my own type A personality/internal pressures. From a new learned perspective, I can think back on each season of my life and thank the friends and boyfriends who I was able to share that season with. I no longer feel anger, resentment, or sadness from the rejection or failure that caused the relationship to end. I still love that person deeply, and am so grateful that he or she was in my life for those days/months/years. I was able to share in making those memories, and share in life together, for however long or brief it was…… and way better, I no longer feel guilt for having left, or for staying as long as I did. I learned so much from each relationship, and I wouldn’t be on this spiritual journey now and moving forward the way that I am had anything gone differently. Gratitude you guys, be thankful. It will change your life.
When I think about NOT loving myself being a real factor in my failed past relationships, I have to also recognize that there is no way I could love anyone enough to make them love themselves, as much as I want to just SHAKE the shit out of you ‘til you love yourself, I understand that’s not how this works. I used to plague my mind with negative self-talk amidst the turmoil, and during each of the breakups: things aren’t that bad, every relationship is like this….. At least he doesn’t hit you or cheat on you, it could be worse….. If you were just home more, you wouldn’t fight so much (other substitutions: …..could give him more energy/didn’t work so hard/could stop being late all the time/could keep the apartment tidy, etc.). I am sad to think of my loneliness in each of those partnerships – I wasn’t being honest with myself, or any of the boyfriends, about what my real needs were, and so it’s no wonder that none of my efforts ever amounted to anything changing. I would eventually try to communicate, but it was too little too late. After building an arsenal of reasons to resent one another, no amount of “it makes me feel ___ when you ___; I would feel a lot better if you ___ and we could ___” would be able to fix the brokenness. My ability to learn to effectively communicate in year 2 or 3 was significantly less helpful than if I had begun within the first 3-6 months.
You can recognize a toxic relationship from some of these stipulations I’m mentioning, though this list is not nearly all-inclusive. You don’t feel good enough, constantly down on yourself or being talked down to, manipulated. You feel extremely isolated, both from your partner, and other people close to you because you aren’t able to be honest with anyone outside the relationship about what’s happening in this huge part of your life. For me, I was ashamed of how I was allowing myself to be treated, so I hid it from my friends and family. You feel like can’t be yourself, and that you’re walking on eggshells to keep the relationship intact; having to ask permission for everything you do, and no matter what you do to prevent it, there’s still a fight. If you are unsure of whether you’re in a toxic relationship, then it is possible you are not in one, but I have to tell you: it seems like when you’re in a HEALTHY relationship, you know, at the very least, with certainty, that it is not toxic. I am single AF right now, so I am definitely not an expert on relationships, but there seems to be a lot of grey area here between Horribly Unhealthy/Toxic Relationships and Healthy ones, so maybe start to check out some resources I’ll list below, and having some really vulnerable conversations with yourself and with your partner, until they start taking you seriously. Your needs are valid, and you don’t deserve to be ignored.
It’s a pretty crazy thing to be seeing relationships all over the world, healthy and unhealthy ones. To also be at an age where I’m now seeing friends and loved ones going through separation and divorce. I care deeply for these people and love them immensely, which is why they’re talking to me about these very intimate subjects; I don’t want them to be in pain, but I also want them to know that I can see THEY KNOW what is best for them (“I know, that you know, that I know..”). And that it’s really hard to tell someone “Hey I don’t know if you know this, but literally everyone except you sees that you’re in an unhealthy relationship.” Love is blind, and hearing the truth sucks when you aren’t ready for it…. but going with the theme of honesty and facing your feelings, this needs to be part of the conversation. When we trust ourselves, and the intentions of those around us, we no longer resent people for telling us the truth. Thank you to my girlfriends who showed me through their healthy relationships that mine wasn’t right, instead of making me feel more insecure about something I was already so hurt by.
If you’re reading this and you are in a toxic relationship, my intention is not to make you feel badly or feel judged – I hope to empower you, but I want to do it in an extremely aggressive way, because you have to start to get aggressive with yourself when you’re ready to make the change, or you’ll continue to make excuses for your partner and justify the behaviors. I also want to let you know that a lot of people struggle with this; you are not alone. There are also clearly a lot of unhealthy relationships when you look at our divorce rate (even if they aren’t all toxic). I think we are rushing into relationships to save us from loneliness, when what we should be rushing to is saving ourselves first and figuring out what it is that we will need in a partner. But we are so goddamn tribal – our most basic need as a human is to connect with another – which is why a deep sense of belonging is so imperative to our happiness. We find someone that gives us a little attention, and it feels suddenly like we have a purpose. With a secure partner though, you can feel like you have a purpose that is LIFE, and not JUST your partner. If half or more of your day revolves around thinking about whether or not your partner will be upset with your choice, or how you’re going to talk to him or her about a decision you have to make, etc., then your sole purpose IS your partner, and that’s not healthy. The goal is to be two whole people, living together harmoniously with common goals, interests, respect, and mutual support… not two half people.
Now, with a greater sense of self-awareness and hopefulness for my future relationships, I believe that there are some pillars of love from which I will draw whenever the universe decides it’s time for me to settle down again. “Love is: Trust, respect, kindness and affection. Love cannot withstand: shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, or the withholding of affection — love can only survive these wounds if they are acknowledged, talked about, and rare, because they damage the roots from which love grow.” These pillars of love were established partly by Bell Hooks in Communion: the Female Search for Love, and more succinctly labeled in (you guessed it!) Brene Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability. I don’t believe that I’ve had ALL 4 pillars at the beginning of a single one of my relationships, and I think some of the “Cannot Withstand” list was present in several relationships, right out the gates. Read Amir Levine’s Attached where he discusses the ways in which one or both partners being Secure in their attachment style allows for both parties to be autonomous individuals, dependent on one another only for love and support, but with those tools, each person is able to conquer their own individual goals with the secure knowledge that their partner has their back, no matter what the outcome. Good communication of intimacy needs is paramount to this. Figure out your attachment style, and your partners’: the fantastic news is that once you know your attachment style, you can learn to be more secure, and therefore you will suck less as a significant other. Here’s a 7-minute video that breaks down the attachment styles — I cannot recommend this book highly enough. When I read it (re: listened on audio) a few weeks after breaking up with my ex, I had wished I’d heard about it two years earlier, because maybe I could have fixed us before we were so long gone, but way more importantly, the book takes the blame off of either of you. It explains just how different humans can be in their attachment and intimacy styles, and the ways in which we are drawn to people of opposing styles. Please take a moment to watch the video, then keep reading (then get the book Attached and totally read that too). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23ePqRkOKtg&t=120s
Dating in 2018-19. If you have been single for any extended period of time (a year or more), and have been actively dating, looking for dates, and on dating apps for months on end, then here is your invitation to STOP (or if you’re in NY, to STAHP). In a previous article, Self-Love & Kindness, and briefly above, I talked about Brene Brown’s theory that you can only love another person as much as you love yourself. If you have been dating for a year straight, or even just 3 months consecutively, and haven’t found anything even remotely similar to a relationship, then what harm would stopping dating do? Stop dating for a couple of months, and try and figure out a little bit about yourself. What makes you happy, what lights a fire inside you, what are your hobbies, what if you were able to give yourself more self love and self care? You won’t miss anything on Hinge. The universe will send you your human when you’re ready – so it’s possible that you aren’t ready for him or her. You’ll grow a love and appreciation for yourself, and find that you have a lot more time on your hands to do things that bring joy to your life. Who knows, maybe you’ll find the ONE, doing the same activity as you, and have way more in common with him or her than someone you may have met online.
I’m working my two little Au Pair kids on patience right now, the lesson that lasts a lifetime (though having more luck with the 6 year old than with the 3). Then I saw a post about Active Waiting, vs. losing-your-mind waiting (@daniellelaporte). Patience is a virtue!! I touched on this in the Mental Health entry – you really have got to slow down if you want to be honest with yourself about your feelings, your goals, your fears. I think that many times we come out of a break up thinking we are going to die alone – if we don’t find someone soon, we never will.. We think that our window of opportunity (or fertility, or youth, or twenties, thirties, etc.) is dwindling….. Then out of fear, we decide to settle for the next human that shows up at our doorstep, someone that really is not worthy of our love. Active waiting is when you are waiting, while being active; actively participating in life! The alternative will wear you down – the alternative waiting is based in scarcity and fear. The losing-your-mind-waiting, and scarcity waiting, says that impoverished people become more poor because they aren’t able to see the bigger picture; they need to fulfil their immediate needs (food, water, household supplies), and therefore disregard their long term needs (paying bills, other budgeting needs). Through the scarcity theory, according to a Harvard professor of economics and a psychology professor at Princeton (as stated in the Hidden Brain podcast: Tunnel Vision), we can see that the same goes for loneliness. Your immediate need: boyfriend/girlfriend, and sex. Your long term need: true sense of love, belonging, and intimacy. It turns out, when you are desperate for friends or for love, you think about it obsessively; when an opportunity presents itself to make a friend or meet a new partner, you can’t engage as well as you normally would have if your brain hadn’t been so consumed by “the thing that you lack” (which is why people who are terribly awkward, sometimes deter you from further or future conversation, because they are so excited by being part of the interaction in the first place). I don’t think you’re doing that on your dates, but, consider how often you think about dating, or your dates, or your dating profile. You may be a date-aholic…. and having nothing to show for it. Be patient in love and learn to trust your gut. Be honest with your social circle of trustworthy/good character-judge-friends about the good and the bad – in my experience, the red flags I saw in the first three months have, across the board, turned out to be the same reasons we broke up… two to five years later (SMH – trust yourself)! After you read Attached, you’ll be able to train yourself to have the hard conversations with a new fling, and decide if he or she is worth keeping around, and capable of fulfilling your intimacy needs.
OKAY – so you’ve taken a break from dating. After a few months hiatus, get back on the dating apps, and this time, go all in. You will have taken time off, you will have maybe traveled, or gone rock-climbing, started a side business, started exercising, learned how to cook or make beer at home – all kinds of cool shit for your dating resume. You’ll have learned about yourself, and you’ll have engaged people along your journey that you may otherwise have never met. This time, suggest date options that are NOT drinks or appetizer based. Go on a picnic, go bowling, go for a walk, go for ice cream, explore a neighborhood you’ve never been to. Say YES to every date offer that doesn’t sound creepy, or out of your realm of “could be fun,” and go in with a rejuvenated spirit and way better energy. The main reason I think this is an effective technique, (besides that I would encourage you to get comfortable in your discomfort of being alone and sitting with yourself!!) is because I believe the desire to find love in another person comes in waves. I think when you are looking for love for months or years on end, you’re looking for it out of comfortability and normalcy, not because you’re even necessarily interested in dating at that time. The second reason I think this tactic will work, is because it worked for me. I went on as many dates as I could in the two weeks I decided to try this “experiment” a few months after moving out of my exes place. I was open and honest with each suitor (lol, finally…. I am Jasmine) if they asked about other guys, and I was my totally awesome self on each date. The first date, my first date in 5+ years, was nauseatingly, painfully difficult. But it felt so good to be getting back out there. I texted my girlfriends that night joking saying I was in love; my friend, and at the time, dating Guru, told me to get back on Hinge and set a date with someone else for the following day. I thought she was a crazy idiot, but I did it. I went on another date. This one was significantly less painful. In fact, it was kind of fun. No kiss, no sparks, no future second date, but I had gotten better… literally overnight. By the end of the first week, I was a first date pro, and by the end of the 2nd week, three guys had gotten 2nd dates, and I was the Hinge champion of the world. (Sorry mom and dad.) I had only been kissed by ONE, I was going on dates that were fun and inexpensive, I was paying for my half (unless they absolutely insisted and I didn’t feel like they would try and make me feel like I owed them something), communicating clearly, and setting boundaries. Practice, my friends. Practice makes improvement. Your dating skills will be next level if you take some time off and reevaluate yourself and your brain space before your next date. Another week or two later, I met a guy that I became really quickly interested in, and I cancelled on a plethora of other Hinge people in order to get to know this guy (now endearingly named Nick the Dick by one of my Army besties). Nick and I had seriously intimate conversations before week 1 was up, and he’s the guy I referred to in my first entry for ghosting me suddenly; I can sincerely thank him too, because I never would have taken my Eurotrip if I’d been dating him for a whole month already when I decided to quit my job. I assume I was too much for him (though my reasoning at the time was “he must have gotten back with an ex” because how in the WORLD could it have been me who pushed him away?! with my aggressively effective communication and spoken outright intimacy needs after knowing him for three weeks?!)..
We must seek happiness because it is within our control to achieve it, just like physical and mental well-being. We can make the choice every day to be kinder, more active, more authentic and present in our conversations and relationships. I want to blame myself for those toxic relationships because I hid the incessant fighting from my family and close friends because I was so ashamed. None of my exes were terrible. They weren’t inherently bad people, we were just bad together. I wanted others to believe that everything was perfect so that hopefully I would grow to believe it too. I remember having conversations with myself in the shower, or crying in the guest room, or on my drive home from work “no relationship is perfect. This is a normal amount of fighting, and a normal amount of work to have to put in. You’re going to get engaged soon and he’ll be a good husband and a great father and you’ll be okay.” Once I got through the initial bout of self-hate and blame, I started to face myself. I can now blame myself without feeling shame, and I can blame myself and grow from it. PLEASE LEAVE IF YOU’RE IN SOMETHING TOXIC. My favorite quote from Levine is about the break up: “It’s better to endure the sharp pain, however sharp, and however long, than the dull act of unconsciousness that lasts the rest of your life.” Everybody says life is too short, but my mom says that life is long…. And I believe her. Life is too long to be unhappy. You deserve to be able to be your real true self, and be really, truly happy. Casual dating is making this harder, because people are looking for instant gratification and not necessarily a real connection, but I promise you, if you are having true and authentic, honest conversations on those dates (and it gets easier each time you do! And you have nothing to lose because they are strangers you met on a dating site!), you will open up dating doors you never knew existed. I really think this is the trick. Take some time to think about what I’m saying… Don’t be afraid to leave your shitty relationship because starting over is scary. Don’t be afraid to improve your not-shitty relationship, because vulnerable conversations are hard! Don’t be afraid of dating, and don’t be afraid to stop dating. Whatever you’re doing, if a change needs to happen, start making tiny adjustments towards change. If what you’re doing is awesome, you probably have some friends who are in shitty relationships… tell them to read this blog, follow my ‘Gram, and to love themselves.
Alright, my intent was to talk a lot more about healthy relationships (LOL but I have almost no experience in them), being a third wheel, and more discussion of the importance of cross-gender friendships, but I guess I just had too much to say on toxicity, so, next time.
Just know that I’m rooting for you – you don’t have to change anything right now, or ever, but I want you to be yourself, and your happiest, and your best self! So if you can grow with effective communication and your partner is receptive to your growth and development and the positive changes in your relationship as a result, then grow together, and better things, and stay. But if you don’t see that outcome as a possibility, be aware of it, and don’t be afraid of the world. Because the world is a beautiful place and there are millions of people out there…. probably half would love to meet you, hear your story, talk with you and engage.
If your friends, family, social circle knew how deep your pain was, they wouldn’t want you staying with him or her just because you’re afraid of being alone or because of your fear of time passing. The time will pass whether you are happy or not. Choose happy. There are so many wonderful things and people in the world that you are blocking your own access to by seeing things in a negative light and by refusing to love yourself. It’s hard to give love and compassion to yourself when you’re in it because you feel so undeserving of a healthy love. Next time you have a wave of self love and empowerment, try to look within and think of an activity that brings you joy… drawing, playing an instrument, singing, reading. These actions are considered play, and they will bring you to a higher place of compassion, wholeheartedness, and self worth. You’ll begin to see things differently because you’ll be doing things that make you happy and whole inside… I hope that it can bring you some peace. Love you, thanks for reading, and go spread some love.
Where my themes and thoughts stemmed from this week:
Scarcity Theory ~ Podcast – Hidden Brain: Tunnel Vision
Attachment Theory ~ Attached by Amir Levine
Attachment Styles explained ~ Youtube Vid – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23ePqRkOKtg
What Love Needs to Survive ~ Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown
What Love Needs (cont.) ~ Communion: The Female Search for Love by Bell Hooks
Need for Belonging & Trust within Human Relations ~ The Little Book of Lykke by Meik Wiking
