Well it never rains but it pours, especially when the Universe is trying to teach me a lesson. This year has been an intense look at my friendships, where I think things are okay and then have received a stark wake up call to point out things are not quite as I feel.
But today was interesting, a friend who was struggling with me, mentioned something I hadn’t really heard (or listened to?) before. She said I wasn’t vulnerable enough, I was too strong and strident in my opinions, not raw enough.
I feel raw inside. I feel like I absorb the energy of others so much that I am battered and bruised and hauling myself off the floor on a regular basis. But perhaps I don’t show it.
Then this afternoon I remembered a contract I made with myself as a teenager. My mother and I were in a terrible place together, communication was slim and often toxic and I can recall, so clearly, committing to not letting my mother see when I was stung by her words.
‘She will not know how much she hurts me, I will not give her that power over me.’
Has that contract with my mother, over 30 years ago, stayed with me all this time? Has that part that I shut down, the instinctive response of pain expression, been giving people a different impression of me than I feel inside?
I’ve always been fascinated by people whose faces don’t fully portray their emotions, I find myself staring at them, observing the disconnect between word and expression. Am I one of those? I have to confess I’ve often felt the opposite, that I wished my non verbal communication wouldn’t betray me in the way I sense, but maybe that’s all tied up together. And there again maybe I’ve become good at verbalising my feelings after all these years of personal growth and learning, but when I express my sadness with words, I’m still holding back the emotion so no one can read my heart.
Heart to heart….. the very best form of communication and one I pride myself on, but maybe not when I feel the need to protect myself, maybe not when I risk feeling hurt.
I don’t know how easy it is to write a new contract for myself, especially when I haven’t really been aware of its dominance these decades gone. But I guess I’m going to try…..
First published on social media on 9th December 2022