When I first opened my 5 year relationship 4 years ago I wasn’t my best self.
I went from this very stable, easeful, monogamous relationship with a partner who had a very secure attachment style to dating person after person who had avoidant attachment style, which happens to be my attachment counter part (Check this out for more on attachment styles).
I flung myself into relationships and let all of my insecure, unruly, uncared-for, disconnected pieces run amuck without any idea of how to truly care for myself.
I wanted what I wanted, I trampled over boundaries, I let myself get swept away in ungrounded passion, I was often triggered, anxious and grasping for something I could never get from anyone else.
I got tangled in a web of my own making as I desperately tried to translate the passion I felt into something sustainable. Instead I just felt triggered and anxious most of the time.
Needless to say it was a bit rough. Over and over I repeated the same damn patterns. It was exhausting and frustrating.
Then I took a long ass break from dating and dove deeper into myself than I’ve ever went and began to actually to understand and heal the trauma that was causing me to show up this way.
There’s always a reason at the root. We can try to “fix” the surface all we want. We can mitigate and manage and move and breath but without going to the root it will often stay an itch that can’t quite be scratched.
Between therapy and the somatic sexual healing I’ve been working with over the past year as I’ve trained to become a Tantric sex coach I’ve been able to care for myself more effectively than ever before.
This means that I no longer have to resource my needs out to others as desperately as I did before.
But what I’m noticing is that I’m still really hard on myself for all of the times I acted the fool. Even though I know it was simply an attempt to heal and feel safe.
Still I’m not fully trusting myself. Afraid I will slip back into old patterns that almost sacrificed my amazing relationship and really myself.
Healing is tricky like that. Because there’s not really an end point. There’s not a moment when we will say alright, I’m all done with this healing business, I’m fixed. I’m no longer broken.
Because we were never broken and we don’t need to be fixed. In fact our nervous systems are working exactly as they should in an attempt to keep us safe.
Instead healing is a constant evolution. A dance. A journey. A curiosity. A showing up again and again. It can be messy and awkward and painful and inspiring and hopeful and full of life.
I believe it gets easier. I believe we can show up differently. I believe through healing we can truly thrive.
We don’t need to hyper vigilant all the time. We can soften. We can forgive ourselves. We can keep showing up for ourselves.
It’s a process and it can be a challenging one to navigate.
This is healing and I believe we are truly worthy of it.