ERP 059: Risk Love To Be True To Oneself
Welcome to The Empowered Relationship Podcast, helping you turn relationship challenges into opportunities and setting you up for relationship success. Your host, Dr. Jessica Higgins, is a licensed psychologist and relationship coach who shares valuable tips, tools and resources for you to dramatically improve your relationship.
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Hi, thank you for joining me today. I, as always, am so grateful to be spending this time with you, talking about one of my favorite topics – relationship and love.
Today here in Santa Barbara it is overcast and rainy, and it’s just this kind of cozy, more snuggly morning, and I’m just feeling this sense of tenderness today, particularly because I’m answering listener’s questions, I’m really feeling the heart of what they’re saying, and I’m also experiencing my own relationship challenge, which I’ll tell you a little bit later in the show today. But just as this kind of experience in the relationship, like the weather, sometimes we’re going to have cloudy, rainy, more inner-focused days where it feels a little sad, or more melancholy, while other days are bright, the sun is shining and the weather is just beautiful.
So there’s going to be ups and downs. I talked about in my last podcast, that marriage and a long-lasting relationship is going to involve some level of challenge. Today I’m going to be answering two listener’s questions, and they’re related, that’s why I’m putting them together, and also both of them have been so patient in my responding to their questions.
Before we get started though, I wanted to just share with you – a few people have reached out and just again really appreciated the podcast. Thank you so much for your input, and I really appreciate just your acknowledging positives of this show.
Also a listener, Gosia Meyer, with Gosia Meyer Jewelry sent me a beautiful necklace, her infinity necklace. It’s an infinity sign, and it’s a handcrafted silver necklace with this symbol, and I think it’s such a beautiful piece of work. I looked on her website, you can hop online and see all the necklaces and bracelets and earring, it’s all really beautiful.
I just love the piece that she’s sent me, because I do believe that the infinity sign represents and is symbolic of so many things in love – infinite love, this higher level of love that’s forever available to us. Also, just two people who are choosing over and over and over again to engage in a relationship and what they’re creating together. The flow of that – also in one of my podcasts I talked about a woman, I’ll put her name on the show notes as well, she did a dissertation on both intimacy and autonomy, meaning closeness and separateness in a relationship, and how they’re both very important. What she found was the intersect, meaning the place that we initiate closeness or we initiate separateness is usually the point of biggest conflict in a relationship.
So if you’re thinking about your relationship, that your own individual wellness is important, and that sometimes means your personal hobbies, your career, your health or whatever is important to you individually, and then also that your partner and the relationship and the closeness and the bond is equally as important, so if you’re initiating some time alone, maybe to go work out or meditate or whatever you do to fill your cup, and your partner’s wanting to be close to you, that can feel like a conflict. Or, if you’re wanting to initiate closeness and your partner is not available, or is doing something individually, and isn’t the same thing but just reverse, then it’s going to feel difficult. So with this information we can evolve our relationship to be aware that these moments of initiating closeness or initiating separateness are sensitive.
There are a lot of reasons why this is true. The first one that comes to mind is our attachment needs, and that’s where we feel secure in our connection. So if our partner is wanting to be alone and we’re wanting to be close, that could feel a little threatening. If you’re interested in learning more about attachment, you can find a podcast that I did on attachment needs, it’s called Save Your Relationship by Knowing Your Attachment Needs. I’ll put the link to that podcast on today’s show notes.
Today’s podcast is episode 59, and you can find the show notes for this podcast episode on my website, which is drjessicahiggins.com, click on Podcast and you can find the most recent episode there at the top.
Again, thank you Gosia for your beautiful necklace. I am privileged and honored to wear it, and every time I wear it I just feel your appreciation and I feel a sense of community with all of your, it really represents the show. If you’re curious and want to look at a photo that I took of this necklace or check out her website, you can find the link on today’s episode show notes. Again, you can find that on my website, which is drjessicahiggins.com.
Today’s podcast episode again is 59 and it’s titled Risk Love to be True to Oneself. So what I’m gonna do is I’m going to answer two listener’s questions, and the way that I’m going to do this is I’m going to read the first question and I’m going to offer some thoughts and some tips and some things to consider. Then I’m going to read the second question and offer some feedback as well, and then I’m going to offer some general points that apply to both of these questions, because at the heart I feel like they’re very similar.
Okay, so the first question comes from Joe:
“How or what might you be able to recommend for my current situation? I am a 45-year-old man who is dating a 41- year-old woman who has been married 2 previous times. I have lived the single life and am ready for a change. One of her children is still a child. Her biggest concern is where my career path is leading me…. I changed career direction a couple years ago and has not produced visible improvement in my life financially. I don’t want to lose her because of that. She has asked that I find something and has given somewhat of a deadline on our future together. I know we have a connection and she has voiced that as well. My biggest feeling I currently have is Fear – fear of losing her when I know, and I know she knows we have a connection.”
Joe, thank you for reaching out and I really love your question. The first thing I want to say is I just hear your desire for relationship and partnership, and really longing and yearning for that. You’ve been single and you’ve kind of lived that life, and now you’re really ready for partnership, it sounds like.
The other thing that stands out to me is I guess just asking you what really prompted your career change? Was it something that you are really passionate it and wanted to create something in your life that had a lot of meaning for you or that’s really connected to a purpose in your life? Or did you see an opportunity and were you thinking this is a viable way to make money and have a good opportunity in your career.
So I guess my first question to you would be what is it that your career path currently is providing you? Why I’m asking you to consider this questions – it’s so important to know what your highest values are, and it sounds like you’re really trying to prioritize your relationship, but I want to encourage you to still prioritize what’s meaningful to you, and what’s a priority for you. Because if you sacrifice what’s most important to you to try to please her, that foundation is not sustainable because you’re sacrificing something that’s very authentic to you and is a part of who you are, and that’s not going to go away. You want to foster and create a relationship that supports who you are, as well as who your partner is; you want to come together and create a relationship that honors both of you, so it does pose the question “What are your higher values? What’s really important to you, and also what’s important to her?” Is she looking for a relationship where she can be provided for, feel a sense of security?
These are sometimes not easy questions to ask yourself, but I do think it’s important because if we don’t ask ourselves and really check in and really notice what’s true and what’s real, it can be easy to fall back on assumptions, expectations and even a sense of co-dependency, where we are trying to put our best foot forward so much so that we’re hiding ourselves, we’re concealing ourselves in the effort to prioritize the relationship. But when we do that, we’re taking away what’s most important, which is our true, authentic self. Because you want her to be in love with you, not just the crafted version of who you are.
I want to encourage you to think that the goal is actually not to just partner with her, like land the relationship, so to speak. You do want to be with her, it does sound like you really like her, you feel a connection and you see the potential for what you guys can create together, and that is beautiful and inspiring. Again, I want to encourage you to stay connected with who you are and what’s important, so that you can create a relationship that supports real loving. You don’t want to have masks on, you want to really love each other authentically and fully, and that does take a different approach, because the larger point here is that you’ll make decisions based on what’s important to you, what you’re wanting to create, rather than fear.
One of the things that stood out to me is that you’re saying “My biggest feeling is that I currently have a lot of fear around losing her”, and this is so honest and I appreciate your vulnerability in saying that, because it’s exactly true that when we’re being honest and revealing what’s sometimes really vulnerable, there is a risk involved; we’re risking, they might not like it, they might not want to be with us. It’s a scary, scary place to be, where if you’re really doing your work to be aware and honest about how you’re feeling and you’re uncertain about how your partner’s going to receive that – as I’m saying, it’s a risk – but it also requires some surrendering.
We can’t control and we don’t know what’s going to happen. This is true whether or not you’re dating, you’re married, whatever level your relationship – when we’re being really honest and real, and we’re concerned or nervous or scared about how our partner is going to respond to us, there’s some level of rocking the boat, and there’s some unknown there. It’s almost requiring us to really surrender and let go, and that can feel like a certain level – I know for myself, I feel some grief; it feels like I’m letting go of my attachment to trying to control, and it’s kind of humbling. I have to be open, it can break my heart open that I’m feeling vulnerable, I’m feeling scared and I’m being open and honest and revealing, and I have no idea if they’re going to receive me.
I can say the times that I have done this, where I have been really honest even when it didn’t feel pretty, maybe saying the thing that I was shy to say or didn’t feel proud to say, but was what was real, and it felt like a risk, it felt like I was maybe rocking the boat, and it required me to let go and surrender and not know. Even in the not knowing, I can say that I have felt some level of grace, because I’m showing up for myself. I’m being with what is true and honest, and now that I can look back in 20/20 vision, I can say the amount of growth and transformation that has come from that has been absolutely worth the risk and the tenderness and the vulnerability.
On another note Joe, I want to say that if the woman that you’re dating is really emphasizing her need for security, she probably has an idea of how to get that need met, which is for you to earn a certain level of money. Well, there are other ways for you guys to work together to prioritize security. So all of my encouragement for you to be really honest and real about what’s true for you and what’s of high value to you, I also definitely want you to consider and support her need, because you want to be attentive to that as well, if you guys are going to have a relationship; you want to create space for her need to get met. So that could look like you each being individually clear on what your needs are, and what you want in the relationship. And if you can do that and be open to the ‘how?’, you might see possibilities emerge. So if she has the need for security and you have the need for work/life balance, then you guys can look together, “Okay, how do we create a relationship that’s secure and also balanced?” Then it opens up the possibilities around how that can get fulfilled, so it doesn’t just by virtue require you to be the provider.
This is just an example. I have no idea what your needs are and what her needs are, I’m making this up. But you get an example of what I’m talking about.
One last point I want to make to this question is how constricted people get in fear. So if she’s feeling some level of fear and you’re feeling some level of fear, then the tendency is to want to get tight and restrict and control, in an attempt to protect. But what happens is we’re taking all of our resources to protect ourselves, rather than working together proactively to create what we’re wanting.
The second listener’s question for today – she would like to remain anonymous, and she says:
“Hi I am 55 years old, divorced for four years. I’m in relationship and it’s pretty serious and I’m not sure at this point when to tell him that I had a gastric bypass surgery. Only a couple of friends know that I had the surgery about eight years ago, but I am now committed to living a more authentic life and I feel like I need to tell him at some point. We are talking about the relationship progressing to the next level. He retires at the end of the year and he might be moving across the country to live with me. I am feeling like I need to tell him, I am just not sure when. Do we wait until we are talking about marriage, until we are pretty sure that we’re going to be together or do I just do it now? I guess I feel like I should do it now because if he can’t accept that or is judgmental about my past, I’d like to know sooner rather than later.”
Again, I just thank you for your courage to seek support and just getting reassurance around taking this risk. I can feel how much you guys care about each other and how committed you guys are to each other. And I love your impulse, you said several times, “I feel like I need to tell him”, and so I would encourage being in the practice of revealing.
In 2004 I was doing a tremendous amount of soul-searching, particularly around my relationship at the time. Now, if anybody has listened to my podcast or heard my personal story around what got me into this field, you’ve heard a little bit more about this experience in my life, of really feeling so perplexed; it was a lot of turmoil, I’m really considering breaking up, and I had thought that this person was the one, so to speak. So it was completely heartbreaking.
One of the books that I was reading at the time was Conscious Loving by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks, and there were so many things in this book that had a profound impact on me. One of the main learning I got from this book was how to speak the uncomfortable truth. This is the truth that I don’t, like I said earlier, is pretty, or maybe the thing that I actually feel embarrassed about or I’m not proud of, and how this keeps me in the flow or keeps any of us in the flow of openness, authenticity, creativity and the real aliveness of relationship, because when we hide, we put on a mask or we constrict or conceal certain parts of ourselves, thinking that it’s not loveable or not acceptable, then we’re removing ourselves, we’re taking away some of our energy, and we are assuming and projecting about the other person that they can’t handle it or they’re not going to like us. So we’re kind of controlling the relationship, and this is creating a real difficult dynamic. It’s not allowing for the real full flow of connection.
Fast forward to 2006, I am now on a hike, dating my now husband, who I had been friends with for about 7-8 months, and we have this real rich foundation of friendship, so our romance was in my mind really dynamic and really beautiful. But I’ll tell you, all along, even from day one, I had been practicing speaking this uncomfortable truth, saying the thing that felt a little funny or awkward to reveal, to be really honest about who I was and what I was experiencing and what I was feeling. So I had a real commitment to this practice, even just in friendship. I didn’t know that we would be dating and really saw him as a friend, but I cared about the authenticity of relationship, and I wanted to practice and wanted to be in my integrity of this practice.
Fast forward, it’s now spring, March-April of 2006 and we’re dating; we have been dating for like a month, and we would sometimes go hiking in the Foothills. So we lived in Palo Alto of the San Francisco Bay Area, and we would often go South, go hiking in the Foothills, and we really enjoyed that. So this one particular late spring day, I just remember, it’s just the perfect day. The sun was glistening through the trees, the aroma of the fresh grass and the spring flowers, it was such a magical day. It was just beautiful, we were enjoying our conversation, we enjoyed this beautiful hike, and I remember we were coming down from the hike, we were hand in hand, and we were talking about something, and whatever our conversation lead to, it crossed over something that sparked in me something that me reminded me of something I had experienced in high-school.
Something that I wasn’t sure he would be okay with, and I wasn’t sure if he would have issue with, or judge me or have acceptance around. It was something that was really difficult for me to experience, so I felt my gut drop, and I felt my throat constrict, and I knew that I had to tell him. And I knew that I wasn’t sure if this would be a deal-breaker. I wasn’t sure if he would still want to be with me. And I remember leaning up against – we were kind of on this foot bridge across this creek, and I felt my heart thumping. I was like “I don’t know….” I knew I had to tell him, because I was really committed to my work and I knew that I wanted an authentic, really growthful, conscious relationship.
I didn’t want the old stuff, I wanted a real, truthful bond of something that felt incredible, and I wanted to do the work and do my part. So I’m standing, I’m leaning up against this bridge, my heart is thumping, my stomach’s in knots, and I’m like “I have to tell you something.” So he stopped and he’s looking at me, and just really attentive. I said what I needed to say, and he just embraced me. He just was accepting, and loving. That could not have been the outcome, it could have been a different outcome, but sometimes the thing that we’re saying that feels so ugly, or feels so not okay, is really just not okay for ourselves, but when we can really reveal and show our inners to our loved one, and they can just feel our vulnerability, most people want to lean into that, they have regard for that, they have respect for that. They want to love and accept the part that feels unlovable.
Some people do have deal-breakers, but most of the time when we can be vulnerable and really speak the thing that feels so not okay… We’re testing the water, we’re deepening the level of intimacy, we’re risking love, but to gain a deeper love. We’re risking more of the level… Almost like we’ve been at level 2 and we’re risking the lower level for the higher level of love, if you will; kind of upping the level of love. And it requires work, it requires growth.
In conscious loving, they talk about committing over and over again to this practice of revealing your true self, your true feelings and letting that be your guide. We’re going to mess up, we’re going to have moments where we recognize that we’re trying to hide a certain feeling, constricting and hiding, maybe feeling angry, and at any point you have a choice to take a breath, notice and reveal. This is where the transformation happens, this is where the real connection happens.
There are so many important learnings from this Conscious Loving book. I will put the link to this book on the show notes of this episode, so if you’re interested you can check out that book. It was written in the late ’90s, but I think it’s a classic. I think it’s got some important relationship principles.
Another one that they talk about is taking real, a hundred percent responsibility for your experience. So this could feel like perhaps you’re the victim, like you’re not doing anything wrong and things are going bad, and things are not going well. And are you blaming your partner? They’re inviting a hundred percent responsibility for your experience. So this is really asking yourself “How am I contributing to this experience/issue? What is it that I’m doing that’s contributing to this happening?” And again, even if on face value it feels like you’re doing nothing wrong, they still want and encourage your taking a hundred percent responsibility.
I believe in this practice but I’ll tell you, when I was writing the notes for this podcast episode, and I just shared earlier that my husband and I are in a little bit of a thing right now, I was like “Okay, here’s another opportunity for me to work with”, and it’s humbling. I tell you guys over and over again that I practice everything that I teach, so I’m in a growth opportunity right now with my husband and we’re still not resolved. I don’t know how much I’ll go into it, but basically we’re playing in a coed league – beach volleyball league – and we started on Tuesday. We have played some of the people that are in the league above us, so we’re playing in a league that’s one step below the highest, and I think that – I can only speculate, but I think that my husband expected that we were just going to do great in our league.
It turns out we were playing some really good players and we were not winning. My husband, I think if you’ve listened to my podcast in the past you’ve heard me talk about when my husband and I, as a team, play a very good team, a competitive team and they’re beating us, my husband can get pretty intense. He wants to win, he’s pretty competitive and his emotions come out on the court. Now, if you’ve listened to my last podcast, you’ve heard me talk about how I wish that there were games or certain initiatives for couples to experience challenge, so that they can work it out, and that that’s really informative, really telling. Well, my husband and I are doing a version of this, we’re playing a sport together and the way that we’re relating to each other, we’re having difficulty and it’s really posing great material for us to work with.
So when I’m on the court with him and he’s getting really intense, and sometimes I feel like he’s getting on me a little bit, I kind of get a little constricted and I kind of try to just stay to myself, and it’s hard because you’re playing on a team together and you don’t want to be divided. But when I was asking myself, “How am I contributing to this issue? – my husband calls this his ‘baditude’, where he gets intense and he’s kind of frustrated and he’s not very happy, and he can get a little blamy, so what am I doing to contribute to this issue?” was my question, and I was like “I’m doing nothing!”
But then I sat with the question. Gay and Katie talk about really staying in the curiosity, staying in the wondering. Like, if you just say “No, I’m not doing anything wrong”, then you cut it off there. There’s not digging, there’s no real exploration. But if I stay with the question of how am I contributing to this issue – well it’s not resolved yet, so I think there’s still a lot to be learned in this dynamic with my husband, but I can tell you that I was aware that even though I’m not outwardly doing anything, I’m not participating in the same level of intensity, I’m not outwardly getting on him in return, I internally am judging him. Internally, I am blaming him; I’m getting right in the ring with him, he’s just doing it outwardly, and internally I’m doing it. So I’m completely participating with him in that blame game. And where is that getting us? Nowhere. It’s dividing us, it’s putting us against each other, and who knows, there might be some real sensitivities going on. Like I said, there’s a lot to be learned here, but it’s not going to come from blaming each other.
A lot of people will say that blame is a form of defense. We’re hurting inside and we don’t want to face it, we don’t want to feel it, it’s too painful, it’s too vulnerable, so we want to blame outside of ourselves. In relationship, long-lasting relationship, there are going to be opportunities over and over and over again to reveal yourself more fully and honestly, to open up and be available for deeper levels of connection. In both of these questions I feel that there is this sense of fear of revealing yourself fully and being afraid that it’s not going to be loveable, and that there’s a risk of losing your significant other. So I just want to encourage you to just pay attention, notice what’s true for you in the moment, describe your inner world the best you can, just describing what’s true for you. Just like “I am scared to say this, I don’t know if you’re going to like it. I’m afraid you’re going to reject me” or “I have something I want you to know, but I don’t know if you’re going to like it.” Again, this is a continual practice of revealing yourself and being available for deeper levels of connection and intimacy; higher levels of loving, conscious loving.
Thank you again to both of these listeners for posing these questions and reaching out for support. I know that all of us have benefitted from these questions, and can find ourselves and relate to this risk of rocking the boat and not knowing how your partner is going to respond, for the interest of growth and deeper levels of intimacy.
If you have any questions or want me to answer a question in a future podcast episode, you can reach me on my website drjessicahiggins.com, click on Contact and you can find all the ways to reach me there. Also, if you’re interested in any of the things I’ve mentioned in this episode you can look at the show notes, and you can find that on my website as well by clicking Podcast, finding the most recent episode there at the top, and then you can find all the links mentioned at the bottom of the show notes.
Until next time, I hope you take great care.
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