I stumbled upon this wonderful writing by Morgan Wade last night. I was so sleepy that I saved it to come back and read again this morning, and I’m so glad I did. It”s beautiful and it hits so close to home for me. it reiterates what I’ve been telling myself for some time now- get out of your own way and open yourself to all the good things in your life . ❤️
We were parked in front of a P.F. Chang’s, lit by the pale blue lights of the dash. He squeezed my hand while I let it wash over me: “It’s like there’s a hole in your cup,” he said, “Like I’m pouring and pouring all I have into it, but it’s never going to be enough.”
He said the thing that was so true it burned clear down to the raw pink insides of me. I don’t think I would have let anyone else say anything so face-punchingly true. But him? Eyes big and longing, wet with hope. He’d named something so true it rang out, like striking a tuning fork, and everything in and around me started to sing in that same pitch of deep, unquenchable need. So what could I do?
I heaved deep sobs, hot tears streaming down my face like electric eels. “I’m sorry,” I wept. “I’m so sorry.” And he pet my head, and kissed at my tears. “No sorry,” he said. “Just let me love you. Believe it.”
I love relationships because they’re so close to the meat; they bleed you, show you the color of your rich, human blood. In a relationship, the longing for love and acceptance is so primal that it brings us face to face to the tangled wall of crossed wires that keeps us from interpreting Love’s signals and signs in the way we really hope will feel good.
Sometimes it means we’re speaking such a deeply confused language that recognizing vital, healthy love is virtually impossible — and we instead invite losers, parasites and / or expert manipulators into our beds. Other times, it means recognizing the true love that’s sleeping beside us every night is hard; we’re constantly messing with the switchboard to see if we heard it right, tweaking things a little and then wondering why our lover sounds like Morpheus down a dark alley.
It’s hard work to figure out which is true: Am I missing the signs that this person is a walking red flag — or am I sleep-walking while sticking red flags in the path and calling them warning signs?
I really believe the only way to know where you stand and if you’re in real danger — or just making it up — is to know the shape of the hole you want filled, and to know when YOU’RE the one tugging at the makeshift plug at the bottom of your cup.
If the shape of your longing is familiar enough, you’ll know it. Pay attention; the feeling will be familiar across multiple facets of your life, and it will have the same tinge, same taste: that metallic something that leaves us thirsty, never quite soothed.
If you’re never satisfied with your partnership — if he or she is always guilty of not loving you quite enough — then it’s likely you’re also feeling that way about your work, money, family, and any other vital relationships in your life.
The feeling of “Not Enough” might be real; it can be a genius indicator that you need to get bigger, ask for more, or tolerate more bliss in your life. And it can also be true that you haven’t asked one of the most important questions:
What would it be like to feel deserving of the love, attention, prosperity and worthiness you’re trying to elicit from these vital areas of your life?
I believe in common denominators, and I believe that WE are the most reliable, consistent common denominator in our lives; wherever there is a pattern in our relationships, there is also us, helping to re-live and create it, so that we might heal from it.
We don’t all have the same patterns. I have a client who truly believes she’s constantly being taken advantage of, and that the people who love her most are actually TRYING to hurt her — her pattern means she’s constantly finding (because she’s constantly looking for) proof that this is the case. Hidden behind that protective fire wall of blame is a woman with impossibly high standards who doesn’t recognize her own pattern of freezing out / pushing away her partner and the people who are trying to love her, be honest with her and invite her into her extraordinary capacity to feel.
I have another client whose pattern is to date utterly loserly men who are often younger than her, with their proverbial shit all over the place. Her pattern is getting herself all woo’d by the excitement and electricity of these connections early on, but then ultimately becoming their mother, trying to teach them how to adult and be grown ass people. She (like a lot of women trying to call their men into their best selves) is occupying the space she wishes her man would take up, but HE CAN’T, because she’s there, babysitting it and trying to burp it out of him. Behind this pattern is deep roots in a fear that A) not being in control will kill her, B) she’s not worthy of someone who doesn’t need her to save them; C) she’d have to grow up, too, D) she’d have to give herself permission to want what she really wants: the love and steadiness of a man who sees through her initial aloofness, and will take up the masculine space she’s used to trying to control.
My point is: your pattern is not my pattern or her pattern or theirs — it’s yours. It’s the shape of the hole YOU want filled. It’s the drama you will recreate over and over again until you steady yourself and stop trying to chase shiny surface-level issues to keep yourself (and your partner) busy and not looking at the really deep stuff: there is a need you never got met, and you don’t know how to meet it for yourself (yet), so you can’t possibly know how to ask for what you REALLY need, and your partner will be chasing shiny things with you until one of you cuts to the chase, points at the hole in the bottom of your cup and, with compassion, agrees to begin there, tenderly molding earth into the shape of absence until it holds, and both are filled.
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