Kim

 

 

 

 

 

What if you are stuck?

What if you are trapped?

What if this is your worst nightmare come true, to be trapped and stuck in a relationship?

What if this is the end of your life; of your world? The end of the freedom and independence you believed you had, and clearly never really had.

You never had freedom or independence cause you’re not financially independent. You did not create that stability and independence in your life, and you compromised for being in a relationship – and now you are in the aftermath of that compromise… devoid of all the things you did not put in the work to create.

 

And in a place in your life where the relationships is all you have for support, which shows you real humbleness. Because at the end of the day, relationships is all we have in this world. Yet it’s important to choose your relationships wisely because relationships influence our lives. And, you have not been choosing your relationships wisely. And now you’re perceiving yourself to be stuck in your current relationship. But you aren’t really…

 

You do have options and you do have the option to choose differently, which is a privilege and opportunity that not many people in this world have.  A chance to start over, and to choose your relationships wisely. And to be self-honest about what it is that you actually want for yourself. To stop overriding your common sense and your desires, in terms of what you know is good for you, in your attempt to please people and do what you believe might be best for others. To stop living your life for others.

 

And maybe it is ok to start over… even when you have a kid. Yes it’s a precarious situation but the idea or perception that you’re “stuck” is more a belief/idea that’s stuck in your mind. Something you’ve come to accept and believe, partly because of the unconscious stigmas around ‘divorce’, being a ‘single mom’ and how ‘society’ looks upon or has defined ‘separation’ and breaking up, especially when there’s a kid in the mix. There’s definitely belief systems around ‘staying/being together’ is good/better versus ‘breaking/splitting up’ is bad – and how people are praised for having been together and for ‘making it’ together for a long time, while the ‘breaking up’ is perceived as a failure. So it’s almost as if the point of ‘starting over’ in terms of relationships is discouraged by society on that unconscious level. Or, by yourself in and as your own unconscious mind which is projected and reflected within ‘society’.

 

So unconsciously you’ve been trying to hold on to your relationship due to some ‘shame’ and embarrassment you’ve associated with ‘relationships failing’, trying to avoid that stigma and judgment and assuming you ‘must be doing something good’ if you can make it in your relationship for this long. While it is clear that this relationship is not serving you and you would be much better off without it.

 

So you aren’t really ‘stuck’, although your current situation definitely is tricky and difficult and is going to be hard to navigate especially in terms of finding solutions. But just because its hard doesn’t mean you should compromise what you know is good for you or that you should give up on doing the thing that you know is actually best. That’s the trap that you kept falling into before; assuming it’s ok to compromise on what you know you actually want for all these reasons and justifications as to ‘why’ it’s probably better to keep compromising yourself for some relationship because you thought you had to keep pleasing people and believed that it’s normal to give up on the things that are best for you for other people.

 

‘Compromise’ is something you’ve been living in your life like a religion. A belief that compromise is a good thing and that ignoring what you know to be best is good as long as it makes other people happy. A religion of not listening to yourself in favor of the idea of pleasing others and a belief that existing in service of others is a good thing, and that to place yourself first is just selfishness and automatically makes you a bad person. As though existing as a servant to others will save the world – thinking and believing that if we all gave up our own desires and wants for others, then naturally everyone would get what they want and we can all live in peace.

 

But then the world becomes divided into those who don’t honor this belief and are therefore apparently “selfish”  and those that keep compromising themselves trying to balance out or compensate for this apparent ‘selfishness’, and there’s no natural or normal balance. So what would happen if we all became “selfish”? If we started to primarily listen to what we personally deem best for ourselves? Would it ‘leave behind’ others in our lives or would it more actually remind them to also place themselves first and live by their own common sense, and stop fooling themselves in the areas where they are also busy compromising themselves?

 

Maybe doing what we honestly see serves us best is not ‘bad’. Maybe what it is, is us honoring life and what is best for life. Even if it goes against what we believe is ‘good’ or “proper”, based on fear of unconscious stigma’s. Maybe selfishness is first and foremost a seed of honoring ourselves, as long as the act is not measurably an act of harm. Why shouldn’t we do what’s good for ourselves? Why shouldn’t we care about ourselves and what we like/want for ourselves and why is that something that needs to be diminished? Why should we be telling ourselves that we shouldn’t really want the things we genuinely want? Why not wish the best for ourselves, and for everyone else by extension? Why be shy about it?

 

Even if it means things need to change and you have to go through some trying and difficult times for a little bit. Maybe arranging and organizing your life according to your common sense and what you know is actually better is worth it. Maybe change is a good thing, even if it can get messy and difficult and disorganizes your life. Why are we so avoidant of change? Just cause change is messy and scary doesn’t mean it’s ‘bad’. We will find our way and find our footing and it’s better than keeping ourselves diminished for the sake of belief systems about what is ‘good’ or ‘best’ which at the end of the day don’t honor who we are. We shouldn’t be afraid to honor who we are and to create the necessary changes in our lives to make that happen. We should be courageous to face the changes necessary on the path to listening to ourselves and trust that we’ll be able to handle the changes and the trials and tribulations that come with change.