RELATIONSHIPS & SELF-WORTH [COACHING Q&A WITH BRYAN REEVES]

By Global Love Admin

[More info on free coaching Q&A at: www.GlobalLoveProject.com/free-coaching]

QUESTION [Jana]:

I’m in a relationship and having a crisis. My partner feels lonely and he is a great person and he shares his truth all the time even sharing how rotten and unstable I am; and I believe him and feel like I can’t express myself to him whatsoever, although that’s what he wants… me expressing full out as he even provokes me to get angry in which I don’t but then get angry after.

The question is how do I have a loving relationship this way when I feel like I’m in jail most of the time? And I know he means well. What can I do? Even writing this now I feel worthless and like the black sheep. Thank you.

RESPONSE [Bryan Reeves]:

Powerful question!

First, it’s really important to clarify something: “sharing his truth” is not the same as “vomiting his judgments all over you.”

Most people are completely confused about what it means to “share my truth.” (I explore this exact topic extensively in my book, “Tell The Truth, Let The Peace Fall Where It May.”). Most people think telling the truth means saying whatever is on my mind right now. That’s complete baloney. If most of us openly shared every single thought and judgment we have in the course of a day, we’d all either be dead or in prison by now, or just completely alone, because our everyday thoughts are routinely a tangle of fears and insecurities and fantasies and judgments and false conclusions (and occasionally some valid ones, too!) … we couldn’t stand to be around each other if we all simply spoke every “truth” that popped up out of our messy brains.

Here’s another important clarification: You can only stay with a man who repeatedly tells you how rotten you are so long as you believe yourself to be rotten.

I was in a relationship years ago with a woman who verbally abused me with all kinds of angry vitriol: “You’re disgusting! No one could possibly love you! You’re such a disappointment!” She said all those things and worse, and often. I know now that I only chose this woman (for 5 years) because I agreed with her. Hearing someone outside me say the worst things I believed about myself was a powerful way – and certainly painful! – to discover just how awful and insane was my own secret internal dialogue. The agony of hearing my lover say out loud to me what I had already been saying quietly to myself for years, I was able to wake up to the real truth of me: I’m actually NOT disgusting. I actually AM lovable.

As I really deepened in my awareness of my genuine value as a wondrous child of the universe, the way we related HAD to change if we were going to stay together. I just could no longer be in this conversation where so much dismissive language was being thrown around. Her stories about me no longer rang true inside me, so there was no more emotional charge in me.

It was as if she wanted to keep speaking baby-talk when I was finally ready to have an adult conversation. She could have chosen to join me in that adult conversation, but she kept choosing baby-talk. So our relationship ended.

So what can you do to have a loving relationship when you feel like you’re in jail most of the time?

Start loving the hell out of yourself!

I mean that literally: LOVE THAT INNER HELL RIGHT OUT OF YOU!

You are a wondrous child of the universe.

Don’t let your partner’s limited capacity to love affect how you feel and what you think about yourself. Just because he can’t love all of you doesn’t mean you are unlovable. Actually, the opposite is true.

Your authentic heart is so damn lovable that your only job is to never to shrink yourself just to fit inside someone else’s tiny ideas about love.

Your partner also didn’t come here to shrink himself and play small in love. He came here to learn how to open his heart, to expand his capacity to love and embrace ALL of life … which means all of YOU. He won’t always (or even often) be able to do that – no human being I’ve ever met, man or woman, can love THAT big ALL the time. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy of love.

You are absolutely worthy of love … and respect and appreciation … for ALL of you.

When you really get that about yourself, you couldn’t possibly stay with a man who doesn’t also get that. He’ll either have to rise to meet you in that place of authentic self-awareness, or he’ll simply go away and life will bring you a partner who can.

One more thing: As you learn to fully love and embrace yourself, you’ll also be able to fully love and embrace your partner.

Always remember, when he calls you rotten or unstable, he’s only projecting his inner turmoil and overwhelm onto you. No one ever showed him how to love. But now you can. Not by dismissing or shaming yourself, but by fully embracing all of you.

~ Bryan Reeves