Heart art from the incomparable (Ithaca local!) ALiCE MuHLBACK. (Alice made my logo!)

get free of 3 painful patterns in relating

Attachment, frustration, rejection: 3 simple and super-recognizable relational patterns. It’s so helpful to see how they’re operative—because, simply put, they take us away from love.
 
Note that we all have all three patterns, with one predominant. They work together: you have to be attached to something in order to be frustrated that it’s not in place and then reject what you don’t want.
 
This may seem more heady than my last deeply heart-based Love Overhaul post, but I promise there’s some gorgeous wow-juice in here. I’ve laid it out with simple clarity (not saying you’re slow or thick, oh, NOT-Molasses One; I know your life is full). And this may look long, but it has lots of skimmable bullet points.
 
I’ve illustrated each pattern below with simple “I” sentences. Scan for the phrases that resonate (uh, and maybe feel cringey). I invite you to watch first for your own relational patterns, then later consider how you’ve been on the receiving end of those of others.
 
As you read, remember there’s nothing to judge: this is just what we human beings do. We’re just trying to get our needs met because we don’t trust that’s always happening anyway. We don’t trust that life will show us how. We don’t trust that we’ll be okay if we don’t grab the reins from others (or use more subtle tactics to manage them). So read with compassion and kindness to yourself.
 
Attachment
What could I be attached to that would keep me from purer forms of love?

• I want you to see me a certain way. (Here, hold this image of me.)
• I want you to approve of me. Think relentlessly well of me.
• I want you to respond to my charms.
• I want you to notice I’m tap-dancing for you. And doing that with
  • great skill
  • total ease
  • my own certain je-ne-sais-quoi
• I want you to give me what I want from you.
• I want you to compliment and praise me.
• I want you when I want you.
• I want you to be a certain way. (Hold that pose! I love it when you’re [cute smart strong dignified down-to-earth artistic mysterious hilarious warm attentive ethical lively alive])
• I expect you to stay a certain way. (I love you just the way you are.)
• I want you to stick around.
• I want you to be there for me in a certain way.
• I want you to make me comfortable. (I can cheerfully, constantly direct you in that. And not so cheerfully, as needed.)
• Hey, let’s play the hot-cold game. I can get you where I want you to go.
• I want you not to rock my boat. Don’t rock the boat of the relationship we’ve built. (I like the leak-proof, solid structure.)
• I’m going to keep referring mentally or conversationally to what you or we used to be. (That was real. This is not.)
• I will not engage with you as you are now or be in the relationship as it is now. (Aw, come on, let’s go back in time.)
• I’ve got some clear outcomes in mind and I will keep angling for those.
• I will do anything to hold on to
  • (my image of) you
  • my own Identity that you support me to keep
  • my concept of U-and-I-dentity.
• I believe in who we are (or could be) together.
• Let’s hang in there. Let’s keep trying. Let’s make this work.
• I must have you. I believe I can’t be happy without you. I may not be able to live without you.

 
Frustration
How do I cultivate or demonstrate frustration, thus staving off the purer forms of love?

• I don’t like this. (Grrrrrrr.)
• This isn’t going the way it should. (I know what makes sense. Not this.)
• This is not right, good, efficient, appropriate, productive.
• This irritates or irks me. (Ick. Irk. Grrrrrrr.)
• This disappoints me. You disappoint me.
• You’re not behaving in a way you should.
• I’m going to fix you. Hey, this for your own good. This is for us.
• I know what you need to change in yourself.
• I object to the timing in your growth trajectory.
• If you’re in right, good, and true relationship with me, you’ll align with how I want to fix you. Or fix us. (Or both.)
• You’re not being real about what’s going on, so I’m going to goad you and push you to be real.
• I pick fights or stir up intensity to counter what is or isn’t happening.
• I build a wall of jealousy between us because of things you have or achieve or because anyone or anything not-me has your attention.
• I may seek to make you feel jealous. (You asked for it.)
• Hmm, this isn’t coming from you in my color or flavor. I don’t trust your motives or delivery here, so I’ll categorically disregard all you’re saying or offering here.
• This is boring. I need this whole scene to rev up.
• Bored. I need you to step up your game for my entertainment. (Come on, look alive. Surprise me.)
• You’re not [funny fun sparky sexy sweet savvy smart serious confident competent cool charming chill glad glam good] enough.
• I’m not fully here because I don’t like what’s happening here. (Excuse my brisk exit.)
• I won’t drop in with you because of my own anxiety and discontent. (Hey, so, nothing personal, I’m just gonna check out mentally or conversationally, check my phone, check for the next infusion of interesting or intense.)
• I want better, more, something new, something else.

 
Rejection
How many ways could I feel or wield rejection to keep myself from purer forms of love?

• Any attention you direct elsewhere, I chalk up as rejection of me.
• When you want to be alone or with others, I believe you’re rejecting me.
• I fixate on how you don’t appreciate me, never mind adore me. (You don’t even really see me.)
• I can’t help but notice you (still) don’t lavish love on me the way I want it lavished.
• When you don’t meet my needs or wants in the way or timing I want you to, I reject you.
• I may set up the above by making my requests at the worst possible times. (See? Confirmed: you’re NOT there for me.)
• I will not receive. I will reject (I may not even notice) what you give me or do for me.
• I won’t see or remember that you ever give to me or do for me.
• I won’t believe that you want to give to me or do for me.
• I will not take what you have to give: I’m the giving one. (I’m the fucking Giving Tree.)
• I will not leave you to work it out; I won’t listen to your ideas: I’m the one who gets it; I’m the one equipped to figure this out.
• I will not leave you to take care of it: Look, I actually know what to do. I’ll do it right.
• I will take over or drive this project: I’m the strong, decisive, active one. (It all falls on me anyway.)
• I reject my needs and wants or fail to see them at all, and that will affect how I relate to you.
  • I may focus on your needs instead of mine (and hold you hostage for how much I do for you).
  • I may not see or respond to your needs.
  • I may push you and your needs aside to force some agenda that makes sense to me. (Don’t worry, it’s for the good of all.)
• I punish you when what you do doesn’t suit me or align with my attachment.
• I turn my gaze away from you.
• I withhold any number of things (time, touch, sex, sweetness, attention, affection, gift-giving, sharing my stuff or skills, pitching in to support projects or events or even daily maintenance in our shared world, listening, speaking kind or loving words, praise, noticing or responding to things you do, say, or are).
• I may disconnect from you or sever ties completely. (I may not explain. Fuck you. Pay attention next time.)

PAUSE. Allow an integrating breath to go fully in and fully out. You can stop here and just notice and take in the ongoing story of attachment, frustration, and rejection in human (your) relating. Or read on (or come back later) to get more clarity on moving beyond them.
 
Countering these relational patterns
I’ll give you a bunch of helpful bullet points, then I’ll give you the big, most important thing, the one thing to focus on if nothing else. (Spoiler alert: It’s about presence. Boils down to NOW.)

• At the risk of repeating myself, judge nothing related to these patterns: just human stuff that you, as a human being, will face—so better to accept that. (Note that it really doesn’t even make sense to be horrified by any of it.)
• Work on releasing and countering your judgments of the other. (The Work of Byron Katie is great for that. So is my simple inquiry shortcut laid out and given as a pdf worksheet here.)
• Release others to their path, their journey, their ways, their choices, their timing for their own growth and development. It helps me to come back to this phrase: “I release you to your life, and I release myself to mine.” That gets me squarely back in my business.
• Work on simply course-correcting when you catch yourself in attachment, frustration, or rejection. (If you’re not judging it, you can course-correct much more swiftly.) Note that you don’t have to know exactly what to do to course-correct. Do you see one thing to do to aim roughly for what feels better? Do that.
• Simply soothe yourself sometimes instead of trying to figure things out (never mind talk or duke it out with another when you’re all riled up!).
• Know and practice the difference between the good kind of moving away from another (to draw a needed boundary for self-care, to sort yourself out, to come to calm and clarity before further discussion) versus the punitive, disconnecting, mean-spirited, self-sabotaging kind.
• Choose to focus more often on what you love about others, yourself, life, this moment.

About NOW as key once again
Speaking of this moment, NOW can be understood as the great solution, the foil to the relational patterns, if you’re clear on the difference between relationship and relatedness. I learned this from Jessica Dibb and Russ Hudson, two brilliant teachers of the Enneagram.

Relationship is about structures, agreements, and expectations.
Relatedness is about active, dynamic, live, in-the-moment relating with another. You’re relating with who they are right now as who you are right now.

Once again, now is your best friend. Now contains all you need in every realm of life, and certainly to express, experience, and act upon love. (It occurs to me all human relationships are love-based—even in our professional lives, even in quick exchanges with a cashier: we’re always emitting, receiving, exchanging love.) Actual relatedness requires being present right now to what’s actually happening, what’s being said, what’s being felt.

I like to think of my progeny in terms of the current version of them. There have been so many versions over the years, so I get to keep falling in love with who they are now. We can apply this to anyone, and bring it to now: the beloved before you isn’t simply a current version as in this year’s version or this era’s; this is the current version right now, in this very moment. There has been and will be no other moment like it.

We support one another’s becoming and our endless potential to transcend false identity by simply allowing one another to be as we are right now and drop in for that. Drop in with curiosity, awe, amazement, the sense of what a privilege it is to witness and partake of this moment, to participate in it fully, to discover someone you love all over again, to discover yourself again in the process. Does it get any better than that?

I invite you to the freest love you have access to at any given moment. Breathing consciously into presence, you can witness and shift out of attachment, frustration, and rejection.

If you’d like a simple, beautiful love credo (which got more responses than anything I’ve written perhaps ever), see my post Love Overhaul.

Love and blessings, Jaya

Join me if you will in a new vision of love for 2019. As you read this to try it on, put many faces & kinds of relationships to the word BELOVED. I invite you to stretch yourself in love, stretch your ideas around love, stretch into new behaviors in love. I invite you to a love overhaul for 2019—a grand experiment, if you will.

 
My aim, which I may grope toward gracelessly & will only achieve imperfectly, is to love as purely as I’m able at any given moment. I love myself at least enough to let love be pure perfection in the imperfect ways I give and receive it as I evolve. I love others by appreciating and accepting the gorgeously imperfect love with which they grace me. I am willing to grapple with, to keep meeting, what challenges me in the realms of love.
     Toward the beloved, I seek to be in a state of ongoing discovery (awe, curiosity, joy!), instead of holding to all I’ve decided so far about who they are (and worse, letting that become an accruing list of here-we-go-again grievances). My love gets to allow their becoming, and to acknowledge the journey that they’re on beyond me and sometimes (I am wowed by this privilege daily) with or near me.
     I allow the journey of the beloved to follow its own timeline, not the one I would draw up—as if I had such drafting skills!—and not the one my impatience or discomfort would demand. When I require others to make me comfortable or to pander to my fears or to fix what’s unhealed inside me, I have stepped out of love. I accept this. I must and I will step out of love; others must and they will, too. It’s madness to expect anything else. I aim to witness with no judgment when either of us slips off-track—or to witness the judgment of self or other, and start there, soothe that first. I aim to simply call myself back to love.
     My ongoing intention is swift course-correction back to love. I am in love with this very intention!
     Maybe I don’t instantly feel love in such course-correcting moments. I know there’s no problem. Sometimes simply reversing the direction of my focus is all that’s needed to get me back to love (and eventually the feelings always follow): I shift the focus away from changing, correcting, instructing the beloved (even with the innocent motive to help them get me!) and bring the focus inward instead, toward soothing and perhaps better understanding myself. (The conversations with the other can follow, from a more grounded and kinder place.)
     If something in my interactions with the beloved pushes a button or rubs up against a raw, unhealed place inside me, I am not shocked or dismayed; I do not believe something has gone wrong. I do seek to soothe myself. I do deconstruct the old, wrong decisions I made about myself or about love or about the way life works. I will bring love to myself first. I will love the beloved so much that I will take care of myself first, so great is my clarity that my well-being is no one else’s job and that my purest love comes from a place of self-love, of wholeness within myself. (I also allow my self-love and wholeness to be works in progress, dynamic entities or energies that wax and wane.)
     I understand that it happens, in love connections of all kinds, in both directions, that buttons are pushed, core wounds are triggered, pain arises. It is not the job of love to prevent this. It is not a failure of love when this occurs. In fact, it’s the opposite at play: the job of love is to expose what needs to heal, so the hand of love will brush against every available bruise without meaning to, without trying.
     When it’s my button pushed or my pain prodded, I well know the tendency  to make that about the wrongs of the other: what they do wrong, how they don’t show up for me, the maddening way they phrase it, the way they’ve done this before and have failed to hear what I said about the impact on me. I aim to make it about me instead, my greater self-understanding, my healing and evolution, my expansion into greater love.
     I aim to hear in my own mind and speech anything that resembles: Correct yourself faster for me, see what you can’t yet see because I insist that you see it for me, do the impossible to please me and make me feel loved, be who you are not—so I can relax. I know how to course-correct. I can come back to I release you to your life; I release myself to mine. I can and will come back to love, even if all that means at first is feeling the pain, soothing myself, loving the beloved for a moment from afar, as best I can, coming close again with nothing understood or just a fragment of wavering light to tender.
     I will sing with Iris Dement, Just because I’m hurting, that don’t mean that you’ve done something wrong. I am willing to apply that going in both directions. People hurt on planet Earth. People hurt in human relationships. Sometimes I hurt in mine; sometimes the beloved hurts in relationship to me. Still, I’m willing to love.
     I love myself so much that I’m willing to let the beloved be mad at me or disappointed in me without believing there’s something wrong with me. In those moments, I go after my pain to soothe it​--I do not go after the beloved to see who they want me to be now. I go after love to embody it. I don't go after the beloved when I’m unclear with myself. I will not abandon myself. I will not think I’m bad or wrong when their pain is called forth, when their buttons have been pushed (as they must be; as they will be).
     I am willing to hear them talk when they’re ready and to listen carefully, to listen with love. This does not mean that I rush to fix their reactions—never mind seek to prevent them! I allow the beloved to be in their process. I invite them back to connection, to communication, and to love in right timing. I may get that timing wrong. I’m willing.
     I am willing to listen to the beloved and I am willing to look at myself, but I am not willing to think that I’m wrong just because another thinks I am. I will always feel compassion when my phrasing or timing—or whatever—came in the wrong package for them and brought up their pain. I am sincerely sorry when my reactivity or wrong interpretation or personality tendencies got played out in a way that was hurtful to the beloved, and I want to make it right however I may be able to do so.
     But I cannot be sorry that their stuff comes up with me: it must, it will, and I trust they’re equipped to meet it; I trust we’re both equipped to find love again together. I will not be sorry when my stuff comes up with them: it must, it will, and I trust I’m equipped to meet it; I trust we’re both equipped to find love again together.

Love & blessings, Jaya