Handling Relationships When You Feel Like a Hot Mess

You know … we are fed a myth growing up about love and relationships that is so full of shit. It really does do us all a big disservice and sets us up for failure.

This notion is that ‘Once you get into relationships all of your fears, worries, problems will go away.’

I’m here to tell you that is NOT the case!

Often times, those individual fears, worries, problems will become highlighted in relationship. YES. Highlighted!

All of that work you did to get to a place of zen and self acceptance and groundedness as a single person is great … AND when compared to being in relationship, it was the prerequisite work. That was boot camp and now you are on the battle field.

Don’t get me wrong, you NEED to do that self work, otherwise you won’t survive. You DO become stronger as a result. You realize who you are and what you want in a solid way.

It is way easier to stay afloat when the tides rise when you have off loaded all of that baggage you have been carrying around forever.

So continue to do the work of self care and self love and self inquiry. it is imperative to know what you want and need in any given moment because ultimately you are the one that will need to communicate that to your partner and in a lot of cases give it to yourself.

Relationships, however, are a whole new playground. Your stuff is going to bump up against another person and at times, THEIR stuff, which puts it right back in your face so that you can deal with it.

If you didn’t know, relationships by their very nature are designed to help you heal all of the childhood wounds and traumas you experienced, as well as learn to love and trust in an unconditional way.

This goes for any type of relationship (friends, families, colleagues) but when you are as intimately tied to a human being as you are when you are romantic with them, those opportunities are three times as present and powerful.

One way I like to look at it that gives me comfort (thanks to one of my ‘adopted’ moms) is that your emotions may not have felt safe enough to come out before, but now that you are experiencing a deeper level of trust in your relationship, so are your emotions.

They can actually rise to the surface and be expressed in a way that they never were before.

Only way out is through. You’ve gotta feel the feels. There is no other way around it.

I’m going to fill you in on a little secret: I have been wanting to absolutely thrash around lately. Just lock myself in my room, put up sound proof barriers on the walls and scream and throw shit around until I wear myself out.

It’s been so hard to admit this but I have been feeling jealous as all hell. And I don’t know what to do with any of it because I have never experienced this before. I have usually been the cool, calm and collected one in the relationship and totally cool with my boyfriend’s friend girls and exes.

I can logically understand or decipher that these are his friends, he loves me like he has never loved anyone before, he obviously split up with his ex because they were not good for each other … but emotionally I want to fly off the handle. I burn up. I want to vomit. I want to scream at the top of my lungs and tell him to STOP IT!

This leads me to question whether what we are doing with an open relationship is the ‘right’ thing to do and if he would be better off being free and exploring his sexuality (as I did myself a few years back, that he has never gotten a chance to do).

Not to mention, my money stuff has reared its ugly head in an even uglier way. Which makes me want to isolate even more.

I want to run away, be alone, reassure myself that I don’t deserve love because who would even want me when I can’t get my shit together, don’t know what the hell I am doing or am an emotional mess.

Down I go, down the rabbit hole, my mess getting hotter and hotter, going down deeper and deeper, feeling more and more confused and alone and hurt.

Honestly, all you can do in these moments is BREATHE and FEEL. You are being triggered and your body is going into overload.

You don’t want to hold it back but you don’t want to stay stuck in it either. Feel your feels and then breath yourself back to the present moment. When we are triggered like what happens is we fast track to the past, to the time we were hurt.

Feel your feels and breath back to now.

Last but not least, communicate and get support.

Talk to your partner. Talk to a friend. Talk to a therapist, coach, counselor. Keeping it inside is what will keep it stuck. Feeling your feels helps to begin to get it out, but communicating about it, speaking it aloud, takes away the charge.

Recently I was expressing to my boyfriend that this jealousy is really throwing me for a loop and I am confused. He asks me to tell him about it and I immediately resist. I tell him that I don’t want to say things I will regret …. inside I am scared of seeming crazy or irrational or even worse, hurting him.

Yet he has done enough self work that I know he won’t take things personally and can put his stuff aside for a moment to hear me. So I told him how I was feeling in such a way that he could feel it too.

And you know what? I felt better.

I’m not saying I’m all healed or anything but I am taking the steps to work through whatever is coming up for me. We are all perfectly imperfect human beings and beautifully flawed.

Again, this is why it is imperative we do the work before, during and after being in relationship. Basically do the work, love and care for yourself, take responsibility for your feelings and healing always!

Our past experiences and our journeys to now are what make us unique.  We’ve ALL got stuff to work through and heal, trust me. The fact that you are wanting to actually explore being human and alive and loving is magnificent in and of itself.

There is no shame in what we are feeling and there is no shame in getting support around it.

Love heals after all.

Feature Image Credit: Flickr/JustCallMe_Bethy_

 

P.S. I know I was able to meet and be with a man who could hold me in this way because I HAD done my work. And I was clear on the kind of person I wanted and needed to be with. As a result we are in the most amazing relationship. I met him while I was out and about doing my thing, loving me and being the strong, whole, powerful woman I am. I want that for you too … to heal, to grow, to be empowered, inspired and clear in your vision of your dream relationship.

So how about you make a weekend for yourself and come to one of our Love Magic Retreats?

Whether you are in a relationship or not, this retreat will help transform you and your heart. We do coaching, hypnotherapy, Reiki, pull tarot cards, burn shit, do rituals, heal, laugh, cry, get clarity, become inspired and remember who we are as women so we can effortlessly have the love we have always dreamed of. Check out more info on the Retreats here!

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