Are you enough for him?
Hint: the answer is absolutely yes. But here’s why you may not always feel this way…
Recently, I wrote a piece about Intimacy Burnout that really hit a chord with many of you.
I can’t say I’m surprised that the topic of Intimacy Burnout resonates.
We (women) are in constant motion and because we build our world around those we love; we often give to-the-point of burning out.
But I was surprised at the depth and number of women who feel this way.
Here are a few comments I received:
“Wow, you really nailed it… I’m tired of being tired.
Thank you for sharing this. It helped me see I’m not alone.”
“I feel like you must have psychic vision – or a camera in my house!! LOL…
This is exactly how I feel!“
Do you feel that way too?
If so, wanna know why?
Because the truth might sting a little…
The truth, darling one, is that we don’t feel worthy enough to just “be.”
And that’s the work we are doing this month in the Unbuttoned Membership. We are learning to feel “worthy” to drop the doing and just “be.”
“Being” over “doing” requires a depth of understanding that we are still worthy even if we don’t wash those dishes in the sink, or pick up our precious little one’s perfect costume for the play, or have sex on command, or, or, or…
Even if it doesn’t settle well with those we’ve trained to believe that we can do it all – ALL. THE. TIME. Even if it feels like we’re letting them down or they’re angry or annoyed or suggesting in a not so subtle, passive-aggressive ways that we aren’t keeping up to our end of the relationship bargain. You know what I’m talking about here...
When we feel worthy of receiving love, just for who we are, we don’t have a hard time saying no. We drop the appearance of “having it all together”, in favor of receiving.
But, again, I get it. Doing is easier than being, believe it or not.
That voice (aka monkey mind) in our head that creates doubt and uncertainty never sleeps. We wake up with self-doubt, going over an endless list of to dos, wondering how we will get it done, secretly believing that if we don’t something bad will happen.
We, again, in my experience, have a fantasy that if we just give and give and give…. He’ll see it. He’ll give back… we will earn the love we want.
Uh, nope, not how it happens. Anytime we find ourselves giving or doing beyond the place of contentment or satisfaction, we get to look underneath that. What is our motivation? What is our intention? What are we hoping to get back, feel?
Because if it is a feeling of love, that comes from us. That comes from seeing ourselves clearly and lovingly - first.
Love is not all romance and juicy togetherness. That is why I am so committed to sharing this message with women and supporting them to move away from an image of what love should look like, or feel like based on something outside of them.
The truth is – love is always a choice. And choices always come with a price. We get to choose at every moment, every juncture, every argument, every low point – whether we want to Love.
Do you choose love?
Love is messy. Relationships are work. Love, in the real world is:
Longer than a Nicholas Sparks movie.
Can’t be replayed when the scene doesn’t go according to script.
An act of courage, humility, grace and choice.
Knowing that we can’t demand our money back if we don’t like the way it ends.
In short – loving, and allowing ourselves to be loved, is the biggest gamble we ever take.
And I, for one, choose to take that gamble every single day of the year. Why? Because love makes us feel good.
If you are single and looking for “Mr. Right” you know the price you are paying now.
It is that secret wondering “what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I find a nice guy that wants to share life with me?” – Monkey mind at work again. Give him a banana and tell him there is nothing wrong with you – because there isn’t, Lovely.
The biggest price we pay is when we are in a relationship that isn’t working and we’re hanging in limbo.
This is sheer purgatory. If we are too afraid to leave, too afraid to show up authentically, and completely resistant to choosing to love him, it sets off chemical reactions in our brain that program us to always be on high alert. It is a devastating cocktail that bounces us between feel-good hormones when we think we can make it work and fight, flight or freeze… on those days we just can’t stand it one more minute.
That on-again-off-again thought never allows us to let go and be. We don’t feel safe to be authentically sad or angry or need support; and we are too afraid if we choose to love him, he will think everything is fine, when it isn’t.
The cost for having one foot in a relationship and one foot out, is like walking on a tightrope.
The solution to shifting to a place where we understand love is always a choice we make – for ourselves – requires us to believe that no matter what is going on outside of us, we are wonderfully and fearfully created... the sheer fact that we are here, now, breathing, makes us worthy of love. And that is an inside job.
The journey to truly, fully embracing that we get to choose to love, takes us through some murky territory. We pass through the wounding of self-judgment, regret, doubt, anger, blame, guilt and shame. All those icky emotions that prompted us to create protective masks in the first place.
To stop walking the tightrope, we get to be ok with falling off, not getting it right, being messy, not looking good, being ok with how we feel and knowing that how we feel always comes from us. It isn’t his fault, or responsibility.
One of the best ways to begin that journey is to measure - right now - how worthy we feel. And there is a simple way to do that; by noticing how well (or not well, as the case may be) we receive.
Here’s what I mean –
Ask yourself how you felt the last time you did something “nice” or “generous”
or heaven forbid, “self-sacrificing” and didn’t receive what you imagined?
What did you feel?
Did you shrug it off and tell yourself that you did what you did because it felt good doing it?
Or did you feel unseen, unappreciated, unloved?
Because here is the dirty little secret no one wants to admit – if we are “doing” for any reason, other than how it makes us feel, we are “pleasing.”
We are seeking external validation that we are worthy of being loved. Pleasing leads to us feeling fragile rather than empowered because it is contingent on someone else. And even if they do, truly love us, it doesn’t mean they will show us in the way we need or want.
We get to feel worthy first - not arrogant or audacious. Self worthiness expands our heart, creates greater compassion, less reactivity, patience, kindness. When we feel worthy of being loved, we are empowered to offer ourselves grace, which spills out onto everyone around us.
If you are feeling fragile or you find an undercurrent of anger, frustration or bitterness running through your love life, it just means it’s time for a pause.
Breathe…
When you come up for air, I’ll be here.
So, if you are ready – by that I mean brave, bold and willing to look at anything that isn’t what you want it to be…. Or that is getting in the way of you feeling worthy of receiving the love you dream of, then you are ready to join us.
And that is my invitation – join us.
Because I already know you are enough. I know that nothing about you needs to change...
You just need to be loved, right where you are… just as you are!