My man teaches me a lot just by being irrevocably himself. And some of those rubs are agitating, because ack…

Why can’t all my relationship trauma just disintegrate when I clear and resolve a few things? 😆🤨

This last few days I’ve been working through the difference between acknowledging that someone adds so much comfort, peace, presence, love, stability and devotion that it liberates you to be your absolutely most expanded self….

And NEEDING THEM in order for that to be true. Aka not being able to be that without them.

One of them is an exquisite experience.
One of them creates a dependency.

I was feeling guilty about working so much this last week. It was designed that way, but I didn’t take into account that it was rare time Oscar had off, and I wasn’t around to spend time with him.

I didn’t plan that incredibly well and he missed me.

But instead of just acknowledging I didn’t plan that well and share that I missed him too, I went down a guilt & shame spiral about it. I made myself wrong for it. I apologized and was punishing towards myself.

And that made him angry.

Because he would never, ever judge or question me for doing something sovereign: in this case, my sacred work.

AND he was allowed to have his feelings about it.

When I fell briefly into a guilt & shame hole about it, it did a variety of things simultaneously:

- Dishonored his right to feel his feelings AND honor my sovereignty since he is a dynamic being and can hold both
- Put him into a position where he either had to pull away from me to not get caught up in the drama of the shame spiral, or rescue me. And we have an agreement not to rescue each other.

The last thing he wanted to do when he already missed me was pull away, but it was that or dishonor both of us by rescuing me.

Either way, it completely invalidated his commitment to treat me as a sovereign being and his emotional experience at missing me.

Instead of being partners, I hijacked the moment. By going into my story about it, I made the moment about me instead of about us.

For a long time, I thought being a “good partner” meant minimizing impact - anticipating disappointment, apologizing preemptively, softening myself so no one ever had to feel too much.

But that isn’t attunement (being with what’s actually happening, without trying to manage or minimize it).

It’s control disguised as care, through the covert means of emotion, rather than just facing the situation directly.

Real interdependence asks something braver: the capacity to stay present, loving, and self-held even when someone I care about feels disappointed. Without making that disappointment mean I’ve done something wrong or need to disappear parts of myself to keep the bond intact.

It is tricky for me learning where sovereignty and dependency divide, and how slippery it can be when I’m not fully in my center.

He wants to be my rock but not my foundation.

He loves that his support makes me feel so much stronger and freer, but he doesn’t want me to be dependent on his presence in order for me to do my mission at the very highest capacity.

He wants to nurture and lead me, but not be solely responsible for leading me.

It is mostly aptly expressed in dance. When I am leaning too heavily on him in life, it shows up on the dance floor.

He will dead stop. Get me back in my literal center of gravity, and say “Don’t lean on me so much. You need to be able to hold yourself. If you don’t, you’re going to pull us both over”

His clarity and guidance are ironing out so much of my previous wrinkles in relationships.

It’s beautiful and embarrassing (don’t coddle me on this, I’m allowed to be embarrassed)

It’s an ongoing learning, and I just wanted to share this in case you are also struggling to walk this line. 💜