The Best Thing to Say to Someone Who Won’t Try to Understand You

“True love is born from understanding.” ~Buddha

I believe one of our strongest desires in life is to feel understood.

We want to know that people see our good intentions and not only get where we’re coming from but get us.

We want to know they see us. They recognize the thoughts, feelings, and struggles that underlie our choices, and they not only empathize but maybe even relate. And maybe they’d do the same thing if they were in our shoes.

Maybe, if they’d been where we’ve been, if they’d seen what we’ve seen, they’d stand right where we are now, in the same circumstances, with the same beliefs, making the same choices.

Underneath all these maybes is the desire to feel validated.

We’re social creatures, and we thrive when we feel a sense of belonging. That requires a certain sense of safety, which hinges upon feeling valued and accepted. But those feelings don’t always come easily.

There was a time when one of my relationships felt incredibly unsafe. I never felt understood or validated, and worse, I often got the sense the other person didn’t care to understand me.

When you’re the one withholding the comfort of understanding, it can imbue you with a sense of power. And it also creates a sense of separation, which, for some, feels safer than closeness.

This person often assumed the worst of me—that I was selfish and weak—and interpreted things I did through this lens.

They would belittle my beliefs and opinions, as if they warranted neither consideration nor respect.

And they would even make fun of me when I tried to share my thoughts and feelings, minimizing not only my perspective but also my personhood. Like I had no value. Like I wasn’t worth hearing out. Like I didn’t deserve respect.

It hurts.

It hurts to feel like someone doesn’t care to see where you’re coming from or hear what you have to say.

It hurts to feel like someone is more committed to misunderstanding you than developing any sense of common ground.

It hurts to feel invalidated.

We often take that pain and churn into anger. Or at least that’s what I did.

I fought. I screamed. I cried. I tried to force them to see my basic goodness and view the world from my vantage point.

I tried to impose my will upon them—the will to be valued and heard—regardless of whether they were willing or capable of giving me those courtesies. And I caused myself a lot of pain, all the while justifying this madness with an indignant sense of righteousness.

Because people should try to understand. People should treat each other with respect. People should be kind and loving and open. Because that would make the world feel safe.

But here’s the thing I’ve learned: Should is always a trap. Things will never be exactly as we think they should be, and resisting this only causes us pain.

But more importantly, there’s something more empowering than trying to force other people to be who we think they should be—and that’s being that person ourselves.

In this case, I realized, that meant understanding the person who wouldn’t or maybe couldn’t understand me.

Remember what I wrote about separation feeling safer for some than closeness?

This was actually a huge insight for me. That perhaps when someone seems unwilling to embrace me with understanding, it’s more that they’re unable to let me in, for reasons I might not ever know.

I actually did a lot digging to try to understand what would make someone—and specifically, this someone—closed off to understanding. What pain could have hardened their heart so dramatically? As often happens when you dig, I found a lot to explain it.

I found unresolved traumas that likely led to deep feelings of shame and vulnerability—which likely cemented into a need to always be and appear strong. Impenetrable. And when you’re impenetrable, not much can get in. Not new ideas, and definitely not attempts at deep connection. Which is really sad when you think about it.

Sure, it hurts to feel someone doesn’t understand you. But can you imagine the pain of rarely understanding anyone because letting someone into your heart actually hurts? Can you imagine living life so guarded, so scared, constantly hiding—and possibly without even realizing it?

I’ve come to believe that when someone won’t make any effort to understand us, this is usually what it comes down to: deep pain that’s blocking them from love.

They might be shut down to everyone. Or specific ideas that trigger something from their past. Or maybe we, ourselves, are the trigger.

Maybe we remind them of something they want to forget. Maybe our very presence forces them to come face to face with something they’d rather avoid.

I remember reading an article once about the contentious relationship women often have with their mothers-in-law. The author used, as an example, a mother-in-law who always complained about her daughter-in-law’s couch and then wrote, “You never know. She may have been raped on a couch that looked just like yours.”

This hit me hard. The thought that everyone has secret pains, sequestered in shame, that often manifest in hurtful behaviors.

I know I’ve been there before. Though I’m not proud to admit it, I’ve shut people out or shut them down because they’ve triggered something painful in me. Knowing this, I understand how pain can bring out the worst in us.

Considering this doesn’t justify disrespect or mistreatment of any kind. It doesn’t condone abuse. But if we really want understanding, maybe the key is to choose understanding.

Maybe the secret is to broaden our perspective beyond what would make us feel safe in a moment so we can do our part to help create a greater sense of safety for everyone we encounter.

Maybe by choosing to offer understanding, we can influence the people around us to heal their pains so they can one day open their heart a little wider. When they’re ready. When they feel safe.

So what’s the best thing to say to someone who doesn’t understand you? I think it’s, “I understand that you can’t understand.”

I think it’s accepting the other person where they are, even if you have no idea where they’ve come from or what’s driving them.

Because even if we don’t know the specifics, we can know there’s some explanation—some complex web of past events and psychological factors that make them who and how they are.

This isn’t easy to do.

It often requires us to create boundaries, whether that means avoiding specific conversations or even creating physical distance in that relationship.

It requires us to pause and connect with our deepest intentions before reacting impulsively, defensively, in anger.

And it also requires us to mourn and let go of the relationship we hoped to have, knowing we’re offering the kind of compassion and consideration to someone else that they may never be able to give us back.

I take comfort in knowing this is the higher road, not because I feel superior on higher ground but because it’s less painful there—for me and for everyone I encounter in my life.

When I choose to be the change I wish to see, it’s less important to me that everyone else sees me, values me, gets me, and understands my good intentions—because I do. Because I know I am coming from a place of love, kindness, and integrity.

And this is a strong foundation for navigating a world full of hurt people who aren’t ready or able to love.

**If this resonated with you, I invite you to check out my new Founder Friday: Letters from Lori newsletter for stories and insights from me that don’t appear on the blog. If you’d like to try it, you can get your first month free here. Your subscription also helps support Tiny Buddha and keep the site going. 

See more posts

About Lori Deschene

Lori Deschene is the founder of Tiny Buddha. She started the site after struggling with depression, bulimia, c-PTSD, and toxic shame so she could recycle her former pain into something useful and inspire others to do the same. You can find her books, including Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal and Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal, here and learn more about her eCourse, Recreate Your Life Story, if you’re ready to transform your life and become the person you want to be.

Web | Twitter | Facebook | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

from Tiny Buddha https://ift.tt/uWri2DJ

Sometimes Love Needs to Move

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.” ~Wendell Berry

I was watching television one night when something on the screen made me set everything aside and go still. It was a scene where the main character, a man who loved his daughter dearly, couldn’t change what was happening to her. So, he went out into the wilderness as a kind of prayer.

I put the remote down and didn’t pick it back up. Not because what the man did was foreign to me, but because it was familiar deep in my bones. I’ve been doing something like that my whole life without ever having a name for it.

The first time was in my twenties. I had just met the woman I was going to marry and who I’m still married to today. She lived in an apartment off the Sawgrass Expressway, maybe seven or eight miles from where I lived at the time.

I could’ve driven. I had a car. But I wanted to see her, and that day something in me needed to travel on foot.

I trekked up University Drive and just kept going, past the strip malls and the traffic lights and out onto the side of the highway. By the time I got to her door, my legs were tired and my shirt was soaked. But I was happy.

I’d pushed myself to endure on the way there. She deserved that. Somewhere along the way I’d learned that tenderness often needs to move through the body before it can reach another person.

My parents live about five miles away, and I’ve covered that ground on foot more times than I can say. Walking, step after step, past the corners and yards where I grew up does something to my state of being. By the time I get there, I’m fully present and appreciative of the gift it is to see them.

Sometimes the person I’m moving toward is my son, who’s worn the number five in sports since he was too small to explain why. When I found out that Brooks Robinson, a Hall of Fame third baseman I admired for both his talent and kindness, had worn that number too, I walked several miles to the baseball card store and back. I wanted my son to know that his number had been worn by someone worth looking up to, and it felt right to make a journey of it.

Once, when I was carrying more stress from work than I knew what to do with, I hiked fourteen miles to the beach. I didn’t tell anyone. I just kept going until the street ended, the ocean was in front of me, and the tension had fallen off my shoulders.

That’s what these long walks have always been for me. A way of transferring something from the inside to the outside. A way of saying, with my whole body, that this challenge, person, or moment matters enough to be honored.

A few years ago, my daughter was going through a hard time. My wife and I tried everything we could think of to support her. But I was left sitting with that helpless feeling every parent knows, the one where you would trade places with your child if you could.

Sometimes all you can do is love someone from a distance and hope it reaches them somehow. I’d done everything else I could think of and come up empty. So I laced up my sneakers and headed west.

I moved past the bus stops and plazas, past the vacant lots where the city starts to thin out, past the point where the sidewalks end and the land becomes something wilder. It was cold for South Florida, probably in the low forties, but I kept going. I went until the last gas station was behind me and there was nothing ahead but open space.

I stopped at the fence that marks the beginning of the Everglades. The sawgrass stretched all the way to the horizon, and the sky was endless. Nothing out there knew my name or cared what I was worried about.

My feet ached. My lungs had worked hard. I had exhausted myself to get there.

Standing at the edge of that wilderness, I let myself want her to be okay in the most raw, undefended way I could manage. I stood there a long time. Then I turned around and made my way home.

When I got back, the temperature had dropped into the thirties. I went to the backyard and got in the pool, and the cold hit me like a wall. I stayed in that water and thought about her the whole time.

It was a small act and maybe a foolish one. But it felt like the truest thing I could do.

I don’t know if any of it helped her, though she’s doing better now. I won’t pretend the road or the cold water had anything to do with that. But I think I understand now what I’ve been doing out there all these years.

When love gets deep enough, it builds up inside you, and it needs to move. Some people talk to friends, some write, and some hold on tight until things get better. I pour myself out in the direction of the ones I love until I’m spent.

I’ve learned that no matter how much we want to, we can’t always change things for those we hold dear. Something about accepting that takes time and distance. Walking is how I work through what I can’t resolve so I can be more fully available and grounded for the ones I care about.

I guess the scene on television that night touched me so deeply because I’d been doing what that man did long before I saw him do it on the screen. Neither of us had a better option, and neither of us needed one. He went out into the wilderness for his daughter, and I walked to the edge of the Everglades for mine.

We don’t always have the answers, but we have the love, and we find ways to keep expressing it anyway.

I think that might be the most human thing there is.

See more posts

About Daniel H. Shapiro

Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is keynote speaker, author, and mentor. He is passionate about human connection and the stories we carry with us. For more information about his book, The 5 Practices of the Caring Mentor, or his mentoring and speaking services, check out yourinherentgoodness.com.

Web | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

from Tiny Buddha https://ift.tt/dOMmbKN

The 7 Types of Overthinking That Drain Your Energy

Many years ago, I clearly remember celebrating a strange victory. I had only spent one day overthinking a problem.

I was triggered by the end of another situationship. I could feel them pulling away. Something had changed, but I didn’t have the answers. I was stuck in that painful limbo space.

For that day, I had done what I always did. I replayed conversations in my head, searched for hidden meanings, imagined different scenarios, and mentally rehearsed what I would say if I could turn back time. I checked my phone more times than I could count and searched YouTube for answers. By the end of the day, I was mentally exhausted, yet as usual, no closer to an answer.

What made this time feel like a victory was that the spiral lasted only one day. That might sound like a long time, but for me, I knew it was progress. My normal pattern was spending a week or more consumed by a single problem (or a single person).

I remember thinking, “If I can reduce it to one day, surely I can reduce it to even less.”      That inner knowing ended up changing everything. And as it turns out, I could.

Potential rejection, ambiguous people, mistakes, and uncertainty were my biggest triggers. Whenever they showed up, I would spiral and find myself completely consumed by my thoughts, meaning I often felt anxious, distressed, and desperate for answers.

Although somehow, on the outside, I really did seem like a confident friend and colleague that had it together.

To cope, I would try to fix the problem in my head, talk about it endlessly with certain people, research and check things non-stop, and analyze the situation from every perspective imaginable. No matter how much thinking I did, I rarely felt any better.

Eventually, after losing myself too many times and doing a fair bit of soul searching, I became aware of my mental habits and the impact they were having on me. I knew something needed to change. I was able to step back enough to see that I was spending too much time in my own head and that it was becoming a problem.      I branded myself a professional overthinker.

Recognizing your overthinking is a win. It means you’ve moved from being on autopilot and trapped inside your head  to being aware of this all-consuming habit.

That said, in my experience, so many people that openly call themselves professional overthinkers don’t feel able to stop a spiral.

A crucial part of overcoming overthinking is recognizing the specific overthinking styles you fall into.

Overthinking styles are the different ways that overthinking shows up. They’re not about the exact content of your thoughts but the pattern your mind follows when it gets stuck.

Here are seven styles of overthinking. Which one or two do you relate to the most?

Worry

Your mind quickly jumps ahead to all the things that might go wrong in the future. You’re not only imagining problems and worst-case scenarios, but you’re also planning and trying to prepare or prevent them, and this is most often related to ‘what if’ hypothetical scenarios.

Helpful question: Is this a real problem I need to deal with right now or a hypothetical worry my mind is trying to prepare for?

Rumination

This is when your mind keeps going back over and over the past. You recall things that upset you or try to make sense of things that have gone on. You replay conversations, decisions, or mistakes, trying to figure things out. In this case you are analyzing what you should have said or done differently and why things went the way they did.

Helpful question: Am I learning something new, or am I replaying the same information again?

Threat Monitoring

You’ll know this is happening when you feel yourself on high alert. This is you if you’re someone that scans your internal or external world for something being wrong. Instead of relaxing into situations, you’re always watching for signs of danger, rejection, or things going off track, even in normal everyday moments.

Internally, you notice every sensation or mood and think something bad is happening, or externally, you’re looking for signs and red flags.

Helpful reminder: Just because my mind is looking for a threat doesn’t mean there is one.

Fix-It Mode

This one disguises itself as positive (and at times, it can be). It’s when you feel like you have to solve your thoughts or feelings straight away, as if you’re a problem that needs fixing.

You don’t just sit with uncertainty. You start analyzing it from every angle, convincing yourself of different explanations, weighing up all the alternatives, and trying to “think your way” into the right answer.

It can even turn into overthinking self-help itself, where you endlessly try to figure out the perfect mindset or solution butstill end up giving your attention to the trigger instead of actually feeling better or moving forward.

Helpful question: What if I didn’t need to solve this right now?

Self-Criticism

We are our own worst critic. This is when you give yourself a hard time, put yourself down, and dismiss your own value. Instead of just noticing a mistake, change, or issue, your mind starts judging you for it, telling you that you should have done better, or that something is wrong with you because of it, and it is usually relentless.

Helpful question: If a friend were in my position, would I speak to them this way?

Self-Focused Attention

This is an interesting one and for me has strong crossovers with threat monitoring. It is essentially becoming very self-conscious.

This style is when your attention turns inward too much. Instead of being present in the current moment, you become overly aware of yourself—how you’re coming across, what you’re saying, or how you’re being perceived by others.

You might wonder whether you’re sounding intelligent enough, whether you’re being awkward, whether you’re talking too much, or whether the other person likes you. In social situations, it can feel like you’re constantly watching yourself through the eyes of others.

Helpful action: Gently redirect your attention outward toward the present moment and environment.

Intrusive Thoughts

This style includes thoughts, images, urges, or mental scenarios that seem to pop into your mind out of nowhere. They can be strange, uncomfortable, embarrassing, or even disturbing. One moment you’re getting on with your day, and the next your mind throws an intrusive thought at you.

Intrusive thoughts are a normal part of being human. Almost everyone experiences them from time to time. However, some people have an intrusive thought, find it odd, and move on. Others get hooked by it and that’s when the overthinking takes over.

Helpful reminder: A thought is not a fact or a reflection of who I am.

As you read through the seven styles, you may recognize yourself in one, several, or all of them. That’s completely normal. There is no simple right/wrong, and there is certainly no good/bad. The goal here is never to perfectly categorize your overthinking. Instead, it is to use this as a tool to understand the patterns your mind tends to fall into or move between.

I truly believe that once you can recognize your overthinking style, you can begin to step out of it or at least respond to it in a more helpful way by finding the right strategies and interventions for that specific pattern.

Next time you find yourself in a spiral, pull this list up and ask: What style of overthinking is this? That question alone is often enough to interrupt the mental loop and bring you back to yourself and the moment. That moment of recognition might seem small, but it’s often the first real step out of autopilot and back into control of your own mind.

I used to celebrate only spending a day overthinking one situation. Now it usually doesn’t even last that long. The main difference is that I can notice it much earlier and recognize it for what it is: a familiar overthinking style rather than something I need to solve or fix.

See more posts

About Carly Ann

Carly Ann is an online psychotherapist & podcast host specialisng in self-esteem. She works with people who appear happy but struggle with self-doubt, anxiety, and repeating patterns in relationships or social situations. Carly Ann helps people understand the deeper roots of their problems, break unhelpful cycles, and build a steadier sense of confidence and self-respect. She is passionate about sharing the tools and insights many of us were never taught. Website / Instagram / Podcast: Lessons in Self-Worth

Web | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

from Tiny Buddha https://ift.tt/E2QuomY

Why You’re Drawn to the Wrong People (And It Feels Like Love)

“The heart that’s been through the most can sometimes mistake chaos for connection.” ~Unknown

I remember the exact moment I knew something was wrong.

We had been talking for three weeks. Every conversation left me either floating or deflated, never just… okay. Either he said something that made me feel like the most understood person on earth or he went quiet for two days, and I spent those two days mentally replaying everything I’d said, looking for what I’d done wrong.

And yet, when he came back, I felt relief. That rush of “he’s back, everything is fine” was so intense it almost felt like joy.

I told my friend, “I’ve never felt this kind of chemistry with anyone.”

She looked at me carefully and said, “Are you sure that’s chemistry?”

I didn’t understand what she meant then. I do now.

The Feeling We Mistake for Love

Here’s something nobody tells you about toxic attraction: it doesn’t feel toxic. It feels electric.

That constant checking of your phone. The high when they text. The anxiety when they don’t. The way your whole nervous system seems to revolve around one person.

We call it chemistry. We call it passion. We say things like “I’ve never felt this way before,” and we mean it completely.

But here’s the truth that changed everything for me: intensity is not the same as intimacy. And chemistry is not always a sign that someone is good for you. Sometimes it’s a sign that something familiar is being triggered in you.

Something old. Something unhealed.

Why Chaos Can Feel Like Home

For a long time, I thought I was just unlucky in love. I kept meeting emotionally unavailable men, men who ran hot and cold, men who made me feel wonderful and invisible in the same week.

I thought the problem was them.

Then one day, sitting with a journal I’d started keeping, I wrote down a question I’d been avoiding: What do all these relationships have in common?

The answer made me sit back in my chair.

Me.

Not because I was broken or bad at love. But because somewhere along the way, I had learned that love looked like this. That love came with uncertainty. That love required me to prove myself, to wait, to earn the warmth.

When you grow up around emotional inconsistency—a parent who is loving one day and cold the next, a home where affection is unpredictable—your nervous system learns to read that pattern as normal. As familiar. As safe, even when it isn’t.

So when you meet someone calm, steady, and straightforwardly kind, something in you whispers, “This is boring. There’s no spark.”

And when you meet someone who makes your heart race with uncertainty? Your body says. “This is it. This is love.”

It isn’t love. It’s recognition. Your nervous system found something that rhymes with your earliest experiences and lit up like coming home.

The Signs I Explained Away

When I look back now, the signs were there from the beginning.

The first time he canceled last minute, I told myself he was busy.

The first time he said something cutting and then laughed it off, I told myself I was too sensitive.

The first time he disappeared for three days without explanation and came back like nothing happened, I was just so relieved he came back that I never questioned the disappearing.

I had a hundred explanations. A thousand small justifications. My friends would raise an eyebrow, and I would defend him before they even finished their sentence.

Because here’s the thing about confusing chemistry: it doesn’t just make you feel things. It makes you think in a particular way. It makes you hypervigilant, always trying to decode, always trying to predict, always trying to be the perfect version of yourself so the warmth will stay.

You become so focused on them that you stop paying attention to you.

To the knot in your stomach that showed up on the third date.

To the voice in the back of your head saying something is off.

To the version of yourself that was slowly, quietly going quiet.

One evening he said something dismissive about something I cared deeply about. It was small, the kind of thing that’s hard to explain to someone else. But I felt it land in my chest.

And I watched myself smile and change the subject.

Later, driving home, I thought about that moment. The way I had swallowed what I felt so naturally, so automatically. The way I hadn’t even hesitated.

When did this become something I just do?

That question cracked something open in me.

I realized I had been so busy chasing the highs of this connection that I hadn’t noticed what it was costing me. My voice. My instincts. My trust in myself.

The chemistry wasn’t bringing out the best in me. It was slowly teaching me to disappear.

What Healthy Feels Like (And Why It Scared Me)

After that relationship ended—and it took longer to end than I’d like to admit—I met someone who was just… kind. Consistently. Calmly. Without games.

My first reaction was suspicion.

Why is he so steady? What’s he hiding? Where’s the tension, the electricity, the push and pull?

I almost walked away from something genuinely good because it didn’t match the pattern my nervous system had learned to chase.

That’s when I understood it fully: I wasn’t looking for love. I was looking for the feeling of love as I had always known it. And what I had always known was anxious, uncertain, and conditional.

Healthy love doesn’t feel like a drug. It feels like being able to breathe.

It took me a while to stop waiting for the drama. To let steady feel exciting. To trust that the absence of chaos wasn’t a red flag; it was the whole point.

What This Means for You

If you’ve ever said, “I just don’t feel that spark with the nice ones,” I want you to hear this gently but clearly: that spark you’re chasing might not be a sign of love. It might be a sign of a wound that’s still running the show.

That doesn’t make you broken. It makes you human. It makes you someone whose heart learned to survive in a certain kind of environment and now needs to gently learn something new.

Here’s where to start:

Notice the pattern.

The next time you feel that addictive pull toward someone, pause. Ask yourself: is this excitement, or is this anxiety with a good story on top?

Get curious about your history.

The relationships that shaped your earliest ideas about love, were they safe? Were they consistent? What did you learn love felt like?

Stop trusting intensity as a measure of compatibility.

The most important relationships in your life should feel safe, not just exciting.

Learn what your nervous system is actually telling you.

Sometimes that “boring” feeling is your body relaxing. And your body relaxing is a very, very good sign.

And if you recognize yourself in this story—in the chasing, the explaining away, the chemistry that felt so real but left you so drained—know that the pattern can be broken.

It doesn’t require you to give up on passion or depth or real, alive connection.

It just requires you to understand why you’ve been drawn to what you’ve been drawn to.

Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you can’t unsee it, you finally get to choose differently.

That shift—from chasing chemistry to understanding it—is exactly where healing begins. And it starts with one honest question: what if the love I’ve been searching for was never supposed to feel this hard?

See more posts

About Melany Essentials

Melany Essentials shares insights from her own journey through toxic relationships and the lessons she learned about self-worth, patterns, and love. Through her experience, she created a FREE guide, to help readers uncover hidden emotional patterns, reflect deeply, and take their first steps toward healthier, more fulfilling love. You can download it here: Why You Keep Attracting TOXIC Partners and How to STOP. For questions or feedback, you can reach her at: melany@melanyessentials.com

Web | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

from Tiny Buddha https://ift.tt/7rhSdvq

Why I Stopped Expecting People to Love Me Like I Love Them

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.” ~William Shakespeare

I turned forty this year. And I am only now figuring out something I wish someone had told me at twenty.

Most of my pain—the kind that sat in my chest for days, the kind that made me replay conversations at 2 a.m., the kind that made me wonder what was wrong with me—was not really coming from other people.

It was coming from what I expected them to do.

I know. That is not an easy thing to hear. It wasn’t easy for me either.

My Mother Never Knew She Taught Me This

Growing up, I watched my mother get hurt a lot. Someone would say something careless, and she would go quiet for days. A small betrayal would leave her devastated for weeks.

As a child, I used to sit with that and think, “Why are WE the ones suffering? Those people clearly don’t care. So why does it hurt us so much?”

I thought I had figured it out. I told myself I would be different. I would not let people affect me the way they affected her.

But here is the thing about the emotional patterns we grow up around—we don’t choose them. They just quietly become part of how we see the world. And by the time I was an adult, I had inherited exactly what I was trying to avoid.

I expected too much from people. And when they couldn’t give it, I hurt the same way she did.

I just didn’t see it for a very long time.

The Silent Contract I Wrote All by Myself

In college, I was the genuine one. No drama, no fake smiling, no saying one thing and meaning another. I showed up for people.

I listened. I helped. I actually cared, and I didn’t hide it.

And somewhere deep down, I believed that all of this would come back to me. Not because anyone promised it would. Just because it seemed fair, right?

I watched other girls, the charming ones, the ones who knew exactly what to say and how to laugh at the right moment, build big social circles without much effort. And I sat there being real and honest and completely genuine, and I had maybe two people who actually called me.

It stung more than I ever admitted.

Looking back, I can see what was happening. I had this invisible contract in my head:

If I am kind, people should include me.

If I am real with them, they should value me.

If I care, they should care back.

Nobody had agreed to this. I wrote it alone. But when people didn’t follow it, I felt genuinely betrayed—like they had broken a promise they never actually made.

Marriage Didn’t Fix It—It Just Made It Clearer

I went into marriage thinking, “Okay, I am older now, more mature, I understand people better. Surely this is where sincerity actually pays off.”

I did everything I thought a good partner was supposed to do. I gave without keeping score. I didn’t make demands. I was loyal, I was present, I was patient.

But I started noticing something that I really didn’t want to see. Some people are very good at looking like they love you. They say the right words, they act the part—but underneath, they are mostly thinking about themselves.

And because I always assumed that people were as sincere as I was, I was usually the last to figure this out.

Every time it happened, the same old question would come up: Why do I always give more than I get? Why does caring this much leave me feeling so alone?

For a long time, my answer was people are just selfish.

But that was the easy answer. The real one took much longer to find.

The Thing I Really Didn’t Want to Admit

Okay. This is the hard part.

People were not actually failing me. People were just being who they were.

I was the one who kept expecting them to be someone else.

I expected emotional honesty from people who had never learned how to be emotionally honest. I expected loyalty from people who just didn’t think about relationships the way I did. I expected depth from people who were honestly fine living on the surface—and that was just who they were.

And when they couldn’t give me what I expected, I turned it into a wound. Then I blamed them for the wound.

I wasn’t just reacting to what was actually happening. I was reacting to the story I had written in my head about how things should go. And when real life didn’t match that story, it felt like a loss—even though no one had promised me anything.

That was the moment things started to shift for me.

The Real Reason Why People Disappoint Us

Most people who disappoint us are not sitting around thinking about how to let us down. They are just living their lives, operating from whatever emotional capacity they have, shaped by their own history and wounds.

Some people love loudly. Some show love by just showing up quietly and never saying much. Some people will give you their last rupee but cannot sit with your feelings for five minutes.

Some people are warm with everyone but close to no one.

None of that makes them bad. It just makes them different from you.

The problem starts when we decide that our way of loving is the standard. That if someone doesn’t match it, they are doing something wrong. That is where the suffering lives—in that gap between how we think people should behave and who they actually are.

People are not mirrors. They will not always reflect back what you give them. And once I really accepted that, something in me genuinely relaxed.

Five Things That Have Helped Me Heal 

I don’t want to just describe the problem. I want to tell you what has made a difference for me, practically, day to day.

1. Say the thing out loud instead of hoping they’ll figure it out.

Most of my expectations were completely silent. I never told anyone what I needed. I just assumed they should know and then felt hurt when they didn’t.

Now, when I need something, I try to actually say it. It feels uncomfortable at first. But it works so much better than waiting and quietly building resentment.

2. Get curious instead of getting hurt.

When someone disappoints me, I’ve started asking myself, “What is their relationship with this?” Someone who can’t give warmth usually never received much of it. Someone who pulls away when things get emotional probably learned early on that emotions weren’t safe.

Understanding this doesn’t mean I accept mistreatment. It just means I stop taking their limitations personally.

3. Stop counting.

I used to keep track, without meaning to, of everything I had given and how little had come back. That invisible scoreboard was exhausting.

Real connection doesn’t work like a ledger. If I am giving because I want something in return, I am not really giving—I am making a deal. Now I try to give because it feels right to give.

And if a relationship consistently leaves me feeling empty, I take that as information.

4. Let disappointment tell you something useful.

Every time something has hurt me badly, there has eventually been something to learn from it. A boundary I hadn’t set. A need I was looking for in the wrong place. A pattern I kept repeating.

Disappointment is not punishment. It is usually pointing at something real.

5. Protect your peace before you need to, not after.

I used to only pull back after I was already hurt. Now I try to pay attention earlier—am I bending myself into shapes to keep this person comfortable? Am I hoping someone will give me something they have shown me, repeatedly, they cannot give?

I try to catch it before it costs me.

What My Life Looks Like Now

I want to be clear, I have not arrived anywhere. I still feel things deeply. I still get hurt.

But it looks different now.

Now, when I feel that old ache—thinking, “Why don’t they care? Why am I never enough?”—I can catch it faster. I can ask myself, “Wait, what am I expecting here? Did I actually say what I needed? Is this person even capable of giving me this?”

Sometimes I let people be exactly who they are without needing them to be different.

Sometimes I choose to step back from a relationship, not with anger, just with clarity.

Sometimes I sit with the quiet truth that not everyone will love me the way I love them—and I don’t fall apart over it the way I used to.

I still care. I don’t want to stop caring. Caring is who I am.

But I am learning to care without tying my peace to the outcome.

If This Sounds Familiar

If you are someone who feels too much, gives too much, and has spent years wondering why sincerity doesn’t seem to protect you from pain, I understand.

You are not too sensitive. You are not asking for too much. You are not broken.

You just believed something that a lot of good-hearted people believe: that if you love people well, they will love you back the same way.

Sometimes they do. But not always. And that is one of the genuinely painful parts of being human.

The thing that has helped me most is this: my peace does not have to depend on what other people do.

I can be warm, I can be real, I can keep caring—and still refuse to hand my inner life over to someone else’s limitations.

That is what forty years eventually taught me. And honestly, I think it might be the most important thing I know.

See more posts

About Jyoti Yadav

Jyoti Yadav writes about simple living, minimalism, and finding clarity in a world that often encourages excess. Her life journey reflects experiences that many readers can relate to, making her writing genuine, practical, and deeply personal. Through her articles, she shares real-life insights that help readers navigatge a complicated world with greater ease, purpose, and peace of mind. You can explore more of her work at jyotisimplelife.com.

Web | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

from Tiny Buddha https://ift.tt/Kco9gWt

How a Toxic Workplace Made Me Doubt Myself

 

I used to think I was just bad at coping with stress.

Every Sunday evening, I felt anxious about the week ahead. My chest would tighten when certain emails appeared in my inbox. Before meetings, I’d rehearse what I wanted to say over and over, trying to avoid saying the wrong thing.

At the time, I blamed myself.

I told myself I needed to be tougher, calmer, better, more resilient. Everyone else seemed to be managing, so I assumed the problem must be me.

What I didn’t understand then was how deeply a toxic workplace can affect your sense of self.

From the outside, everything looked fine. The organization was respected. The leadership team was ‘successful’ and admired. The person at the center of most of my stress was charismatic, confident, and highly regarded by others.

That made it even harder to trust my own experience.

There was no obvious bullying. No shouting. No dramatic incidents I could point to and say, “This is why I’m struggling.” Instead, it was a slow accumulation of smaller things.

Conversations that left me feeling strangely ashamed. Criticism disguised as ‘advice.’ Moments where I’d walk away confused, wondering whether I’d misunderstood what had just happened.

Sometimes I was praised warmly. Other times I was ignored or subtly undermined. Team dynamics left me feeling paranoid and excluded. The inconsistency kept me constantly trying to prove myself.

So I worked harder.

I became more careful, more accommodating, more self-critical. I thought if I communicated perfectly and performed well enough, things would improve.

But they didn’t.

Eventually, I realized I had started losing trust in myself. I second-guessed simple decisions. I apologized constantly. I became emotionally exhausted from monitoring other people’s moods and trying to avoid conflict.

Then one day in a team meeting I remember having a moment where I realized my work environment replicated my home environment growing up. Different people of course, but the same characters. The charismatic boss being the narcissist, surrounded by ‘enablers’—all keen to minimize, justify, or excuse the toxic behavior. In that moment I saw it for what it was—narcissistic abuse in the workplace.

Looking back now, I can see how unhealthy environments often condition us to disconnect from our own instincts. We become so focused on keeping the peace, pleasing others, or avoiding criticism or even focused on our ambitions that we stop noticing what our mind and body are trying to tell us.

Mine had been trying to tell me for a long time.

The turning point came when a friend asked me, “Do you actually feel safe there?”

I remember feeling surprised by the question because I had never thought about emotional safety at work before. I assumed professionalism meant tolerating discomfort. Pushing through. Adapting.

But deep down, I knew the answer.

No, I didn’t feel safe.

Not physically, but psychologically.

I didn’t feel able to speak openly without consequences. I didn’t feel comfortable making mistakes. I didn’t feel calm, grounded, or secure in myself anymore. Everybody competed for the approval of the boss, which I can see in hindsight was used strategically.

Admitting that was painful, but it was also the beginning of something important.

For the first time, I stopped seeing my anxiety as personal failure and started recognizing it as information.

My body was responding to an environment that constantly kept me in self-doubt.

Healing didn’t happen overnight. It took time to rebuild confidence and reconnect with my own voice again. But slowly, I stopped minimizing what I had experienced.

And I stopped blaming myself for being affected by it.

I think many people are carrying workplace experiences they haven’t fully acknowledged because the harm doesn’t always look dramatic from the outside. Sometimes it simply looks like slowly becoming smaller, quieter, and more uncertain of yourself. Professional experience should increase confidence… not diminish it.

After I left, I felt almost instant relief, and a sense of my confidence and self-trust quickly returned. It renewed the sense that it wasn’t me or my fault. I was having an understandable response to being in a toxic situation, full of toxic, narcissistic dynamics.

And the experience only helped inform my understanding and ability to recognize this later on, speaking to others who feel the same at work. It’s not uncommon that we find ourselves in ‘familiar dynamics’—even at work. But what feels familiar is not necessarily healthy.

If you recognize yourself in this, I hope you know this:

You are not weak for being affected by an unhealthy environment.

We all, as humans, are deeply impacted by the spaces and relationships we spend our lives in. And sometimes the first step toward healing is simply allowing yourself to tell the truth about what those spaces or situations have done to you.

See more posts

About Dr. Sarah Davies

Dr. Sarah Davies is a chartered counseling psychologist and trauma therapist based in London, UK. She is author of three practical self-help guides for recovery to narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships; How to Leave A Narcissist… For Good, Raised By Narcissists and Narcissists At Work. For more information, you can view her website at drsarahdavies.com.

Web | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

from Tiny Buddha https://ift.tt/sx7jotr

Overcoming Codependency: Breaking the Cycle of Unhealthy Relationships

“A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” ~Melody Beattie

From a young age, I felt insecure in my own skin. I was a highly sensitive child and, subsequently, struggled with low self-worth for most of my life.

Although I had many friends and a good family, I consistently looked for approval outside of myself. I grew up believing that the opinions of others were the only accurate representations of my core worth.

As a teenager, I witnessed the crumbling and eventual demise of my parents’ marriage. During these years, I felt a lot like an island.

I was often plagued with a dark, mysterious unhappiness. The standard teenage growing pains conglomerated with the trauma of losing my familial identity. In a desperate attempt to counter these negative feelings, I sought the approval of others; when it was not provided, I felt like a failure.

I was caught up in a vicious cycle of seeking outside confirmation that I was good enough.

At school, I adopted the role of boy-crazy-funny-girl. I wanted to be adored and nurtured and cherished.

I kept a list of all the cute boys at my school and spent hours daydreaming about a blissful, fairy tale love.

I consistently focused on seeking happiness outside of myself. This habitual practice, over time, led to an inability to be content unless something or someone was providing validation. Most of the time, I felt like I was not good enough.

This falsely instilled belief led me into a decade-long struggle with codependency.

The first codependent relationship I was involved in began when I was nineteen. He was ten years older than I was, and, unbeknownst to me at the time, a cocaine addict.

Our routine was unhealthy and unproductive. We would spend our weekends drinking and gambling at a local pool hall. More often than not, I spent my entire weekly paycheck by the end of Saturday night.

He belittled me, called me names, and consistently criticized my appearance and weight. He compared me to his previous girlfriends. I began to see myself as an incomplete person, one who was in need of major repairs and upgrades. I was so emotionally fragile that the wind could’ve knocked me over.

In a frantic effort to self-preserve, I adopted several fear-based behaviors. I became obsessed with him. I was controlling and jealous. I needed to know everything about his past. I wanted desperately for him to accept me.

Over the ten months we spent together, I neglected my body and mind. My weight dropped a staggering thirty pounds. I was completely disconnected from my family and friends. I developed severe anxiety and suffered crippling panic attacks. I knew something had to change, so I gathered the courage and left him behind.

I thought that I was rid of this unhealthy and unsatisfying lifestyle, but the bad habits carried into my next two relationships.

I spent four years with a person that I loved very much; however, his alcohol dependency brought all of my insecurities and controlling behavior back into play.

We spent four years flip-flopping between wonderful loving moments and horrific physical fights that left us both numb and depressed.

When this relationship ended, I sought comfort in yet another unavailable partner, one that could not provide me with the stability that I so badly needed.

Such is the nature of the codependent person. We seek out what is familiar to us, but not necessarily what is good for us.

After logging close to a decade-worth of codependent hours, I finally faced myself. I knew that if I didn’t make significant changes, I would be forever trapped in a life that was unconducive to my spiritual and emotional growth.

In a scene eerily similar to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love bathroom breakdown, I faced the music. I got myself a small apartment and started my recovery.

The first few days spent alone were absolutely torturous. I cried and cried. I had trouble doing basic tasks, like walking my dog or getting groceries. I had completely turned inward, nurturing my turmoil like an old friend. Anxiety-ridden and lonely, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked for help.

The first step I took was ordering Melody Beattie’s book Codependent No More. This is probably the most significant self-improvement book I have ever read. I felt a weight being lifted as I read, page by page.

Finally, I was able to understand all of the behaviors, feelings, and emotions I had struggled with for so long. I was a textbook case, my highlighter affirmed as I completed the “codependency checklist.” Perhaps some of these questions will speak to you, as well.

• Do you feel responsible for other people—their feelings, thoughts, actions, choices, wants, needs, well-being, and destiny?
• Do you feel compelled to help people solve their problems or try to take care of their feelings?
• Do you find it easier to feel and express anger about injustices done to others than about injustices done to you?
• Do you feel safest and most comfortable when you are giving to others?
• Do you feel insecure and guilty when someone gives to you?
• Do you feel empty, bored, and worthless if you don’t have someone else to take care of, a problem to solve, or a crisis to deal with?
• Are you often unable to stop talking, thinking, and worrying about other people and their problems?
• Do you lose interest in your own life when you are in love?
• Do you stay in relationships that don’t work and tolerate abuse in order to keep people loving you?
• Do you leave bad relationships only to form new ones that don’t work, either?

(You can read more about the habits and patterns of codependent people here.)

After acknowledging my codependency, I connected with an online support group for family members of addicts/alcoholics. This gave me a platform to share my story, without judgment, and little by little, I healed my aching heart.

The most significant things I learned on this journey are:

1. Without change, nothing changes.

This is such a simple yet profound truth. It’s reminiscent of Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The cycle of codependency can only be overcome by establishing and nurturing a super-loving relationship with yourself. Otherwise, you will continually find yourself in unhealthy, codependent relationships.

2. We can’t control others, and it is not our job to do so.

Over the years, I was constantly trying to control and micromanage other people’s behavior in an effort to escape my own negative feelings.

I chose partners with alcohol and drug dependencies. Often, I chose angry and avoidant men. By focusing on what was wrong with them, I could ignore what was empty and unfulfilled in me.

I thought, naively, that this would give me a feeling of stability. In fact, it did the opposite. Surrendering the need to control other people provides us the necessary space to connect with ourselves.

3. Love and obsessions are not the same.

I falsely believed for many years that love and obsession were one and the same. I gave so much of myself to my partners, naively thinking that this was the road to happiness.

I’ve learned that healthy love requires both partners to have unique, individual identities outside of the romantic relationship. Time alone, with friends, and to work on personal projects allows you to really connect when you are together, without feeling suffocated. We build trust when we afford ourselves and our partners some breathing room.

For many years I neglected my own needs. I now prioritize personal time to do individual activities: reading, writing, walking, reflecting. I started to heal once I learned to incorporate self-love rituals into my life. One of my favorite things to do is spend the evening in a warm bubble bath, light some candles, and listen to Alan Watts lectures.

4. Life is not an emergency.

This is a biggie! I consistently lived in a high-stress vortex—terrified of people, abandonment, and life itself.

I worried so much about all of the things that were outside of my control—often, other people. I realize now that life is meant to be enjoyed and savored. Good and bad things will happen, but with a centered and balanced heart, we can get over any obstacles.

The key to balance, for me, is to live fully in every moment, accepting life for what it is. Even when I’m feeling down, I know that the Universe has my back and everything in life is unfolding as it should.

If you don’t hold this belief, it might help to remember that you have your own back, and you can handle whatever is coming. When you trust in yourself and focus on yourself instead of others, it’s much easier to enjoy life and stop living in fear.

—

I have assembled a group of super-hero coaches and teachers that have helped me significantly over the years in my quest for self-improvement. I have loving support and encouragement from so many sources. It’s my dream to be able to give some of that back to the world. I hope I have done that with this post.

See more posts

About Ariane Michaud

When not devouring every foreign film she can get her hands on, Ariane loves snuggling with her pug and running tirelessly down the road towards self-fulfillment. Though she is excessively organized, she is spontaneous when it comes to love.

More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

from Tiny Buddha https://ift.tt/MoebNtJ

The Problem with Being the Easy One

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.” ~François de La Rochefoucauld

“So, in your relationship, do your partner’s needs always dictate how things go?”

My therapist looked at me quizzically after I’d just shared with him that our dinner plans had suddenly changed the night before because my partner was tired from a long day at work, and I just went along with what he needed.

He had initiated a night out, I had dressed up and prepared for a restaurant meal, and when I arrived at his place, he was exhausted and decided he wanted to stay in and defrost something instead. In the moment I said, “I don’t mind—happy to do whatever you want,” and I meant it. I genuinely, completely meant it.

Except that later, as I recounted the story sitting in the therapy chair and on the other side of my therapist’s question, I noticed myself defending him and defending my position. Being a therapist myself, I know that when I defend anything, something is amiss.

As I sat with myself, I realized that the truth was the last thing I wanted that night was a defrosted meal.

I have been a fawner for most of my life, though I didn’t always have that word for it. I just thought I was easy-going, flexible, accommodating, and deeply attuned to the people around me.

I’ve always thought my flexibility was a virtue and the sensitivity I had to others was a gift, and in many ways that’s true. They make for great skills as a therapist.

What I could not yet see was that underneath those qualities, woven so deeply into my personality that they had become almost indistinguishable from who I believed myself to be, were patterns of self-abandonment so subtle and so refined over decades that they no longer felt like patterns at all. They just felt like me.

That is partly why fawning can be so difficult to recognize. It doesn’t feel like trauma. It feels like being thoughtful, accommodating, emotionally intelligent, and deeply attuned to the people around you.

You are praised for it. You become the easy one, the loving one, the person who keeps everything harmonious and connected.

It can genuinely feel good to be needed in this way, and when you get the external validation for it as well, it becomes a reinforcing loop that keeps you loved externally. But eventually the body and your relationships begin carrying the cost of everything the personality has learned not to feel.

The larger and more visible expressions of the pattern become easier to catch over time. You build awareness, feel them showing up in your body before they take hold, and learn to respond differently.

But the subtle ones… they very sneakily become part of your identity. Built into the way you view yourself and the way you do life. The super easy, completely convincing way I would say, “I don’t mind, you choose,” and I believed it and commended myself for it. After all, I was flexible.

Which makes sense, really, because fawning is ultimately about one thing, the terror of disconnection.

In intimate relationships especially, where the connection is your anchor of safety, rupture can be felt as genuine terror.

The fear is that if I am too much, not enough, or inconveniently myself… you will leave, and I will be alone. So I lean in, read your temperature, and adjust myself accordingly, attune and give you what you need, because as long as I do that, the connection holds.

From the outside, fawning looks like consent. But the body is always saying no.

As a fawner, my sense of safety lives entirely outside of my own body, in the temperature of yours. As a result, I become extraordinarily skilled at reading that temperature. I know, before you have even said a word, whether you are okay or not okay, present or absent, open or closed, and I shape myself accordingly. We are master shapeshifters.

Who do I need to be so that I can keep this safe?

That question hums beneath the surface of so many interactions, so subtly and for so long, that I stop hearing it and just become who I need to be.

And in order to bring all of that attention to you, I have to leave myself. I have to override my own body, my own feelings, instincts, and needs, and I do it so automatically and completely that after long enough it no longer registers as a choice. This is just me.

Until, of course, a life event comes along and rattles the cage.

To be clear, fawning is not a pattern I want to demonize. It is an incredibly intelligent safety strategy; it is the nervous system finding a pathway toward safety through connection and accommodation when fighting, leaving, or shutting down does not feel possible.

The issue is not the response itself, but when it becomes so chronic and so embedded that we lose contact with who we actually are beneath it.

The cost of this disconnection always comes. Often with a disconnection with the body. We cannot unconsciously fawn and also be connected to our physiology at the same time.

It also comes with a sense of resentment that builds in the background, without a clear place to pin it because you were never allowed to have it in the first place.

Maybe with a relationship that feels close but somehow isn’t, because you are performing inside it rather than living inside it. Maybe it comes as the persistent sense that people don’t really know you, understand you, or appreciate you. Feeling unseen, unheard, and unvalued is commonplace. Maybe the cost is in your health. After decades of suppressing who you are, the body begins screaming with symptoms you can no longer ignore.

Underneath all of the accommodation, there is a part of you that is always waiting. 

Maybe if I just do enough, you will finally see me.

Maybe if I give you what you need, you will be who I need you to be.

Maybe if I am very, very good, you will then be good to me.

The hope that someone will finally see you, finally reciprocate, finally show up the way you keep showing up for them, is the very thing that keeps the pattern alive and breathing.

Hope, for a fawner, keeps you waiting and waiting for something to finally change. It is what keeps the loop open.

And the moment connection wavers or breaks, when silence or distance shows up or uncertainty settles between two people mid-conflict, we can find ourselves suddenly adrift. I have felt it so many times, that feeling of swimming in open water with no ground beneath me, not knowing what I am feeling, where I am, or what comes next, reaching for something, anything, to hold me in place.

In those moments, the mind gets very, very busy. If the thing that was keeping me anchored—the warmth of the connection, the felt sense of being okay in your eyes—is suddenly gone, the mind will clutch, grasp, and reach for anything and everything.

Sometimes it goes to fixing. Sometimes to a fantasy of a different life, a different future, a different partner. Sometimes to fault-finding, building a very convincing case for why I am better off without them. And when you look closely at all of it, you begin to see the same impulse moving through each one—the nervous system reaching for any lever that might restore a sense of control or safety.

It is a beautiful, exhausting illusion. A cognitive loop that keeps you activated and stressed and distanced from yourself.

What we actually need to feel in those moments is the groundlessness itself. This is the gateway.

The unsteady ground is the passage to our own inner ground. To feel the loss of connection, the emptiness and aloneness that arrives in its absence as something that can be survived, something that does not have to be immediately fixed or fled from or explained away. And to discover that in this groundlessness and in this aloneness, you are not only still here, but you are in fact at home. That something inside you that holds strong, even when the external anchor is gone.

It is only from here that anything real becomes possible. Including the thing that frightens most fawners more than the disconnection itself.

Speaking.

When we try to speak up, the terror can genuinely be visceral. Something in the body contracts and shuts down, the voice gets crackly or disappears completely, the mouth goes dry and the body can be shaky. All because the nervous system has learned over a very long time that conflict, rejection, and criticism are all deeply unsafe. And it is not going to let you forget that, no matter how many times you tell yourself that was then and things are different now.

The body continues to protect you the only way it has ever known how.

Breaking this pattern is ultimately about learning to feel again.

Underneath the performance and all the years of shaping yourself to the needs of others, there is a whole emotional world that has been waiting.

In so many people I work with, we meet a well of fear that was never allowed to be felt, stores of anger that had nowhere to go and got stuffed down, depths of grief for all that was lost or never possible, and a tenderness toward yourself that perhaps nobody ever modelled for you.

Coming back to yourself means growing the capacity to feel all of it—slowly and at a pace that feels safe, in the body and in the presence of someone safe enough to hold it.

We hurt in relationships, and we heal in relationships.

If you are someone who fawns, please do not be hard on yourself. This pattern is woven into your identity, your relationships, and the way you move through the world. The threat your nervous system feels when you consider speaking up, disappointing someone, or risking a loss is very, very real.

It is a deeply embodied survival response, shaped by everything—culture, gender, religion, family systems—and it asks for patience and compassion, not self-criticism. Whatever the origin of your particular flavor of fawning, it made enormous sense given the world you were navigating. It kept you safe.

So be kind to yourself. Be genuinely, tenderly kind.

The pathway out is not to hold tighter. It is to learn to be with the open water. To cultivate, slowly and with enormous patience, an internal ground so rooted and so genuinely yours that the uncertainty outside loses its power to undo you.

It took me years, a deeply embodied practice, a great deal of time in my own company, therapeutic relationships where I was held safely enough to try something different, and an intimate relationship where both of us have named our patterns and agreed to hold space for each other to move through them. Where I can practice saying the thing I would once have swallowed whole and be met with understanding rather than reaction.

What made all of this possible was safety. Inside myself, inside the therapy room, and inside my intimate relationship.

And what I know to be true is that when you build enough inner ground, when you are genuinely not afraid of being alone, not afraid of conflict or rupture or someone’s disappointment, something profound shifts. Life begins to rearrange itself around the truth of you. What needs to go goes. What is truly meant for you stays. And you finally land in yourself.

There will almost certainly be losses. People who needed your smallness and silence will struggle with your changing, but that disintegration is the pattern breaking. And what becomes possible on the other side—the relationships, the life, and the version of yourself that is actually, truly, fully you—is worth every uncomfortable moment of getting there.

See more posts

About Maraya Rodostianos

Maraya is an integrative somatic therapist offering in-person sessions in Melbourne and online worldwide. Blending modern neuroscience on trauma and the nervous system with psychotherapeutic tools and ancient wisdom traditions, she takes a holistic approach that integrates mind, body, spirit, and the nervous system. She works at the intersection of trauma, authenticity, embodied spirituality, and well-being, guiding clients to release what blocks them from living as their most authentic, whole, and embodied selves.
 You can find her at http://marayarae.com. Facebook / Substack / Instagram

Web | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

from Tiny Buddha https://ift.tt/XV9YDNE