When loving you is hurting me

When loving you is hurting me, I can soften to the situation at hand and allow it to tenderize my heart. Healthy, loving relationships require each person to be responsible for healthy boundaries, clear communication, and self-care.

action based on pure intention

Love is a verb, an action based on pure intention. In my nervous system wiring, part of how I learned to love is to take care of you. If you feel good, then my nervous system relaxes and I feel good. This learning did not get me where I wanted to go. This is a wee bit enmeshed and dare I say, unhealthy. Remember, healthy, loving relationships require each person to be responsible for healthy boundaries, clear communication, and self-care.

a kindness, unwelcome, is an unkindness

I’m growing ever more aware of my own tendency to rush in to “fix” people. Recognizing I can be okay even if you are not okay allows me to be more tender in the moment. A kindness, unwelcome, is an unkindness. You see, much of the time people don’t want to be “fixed.” Oftentimes they want to be seen and heard and sometimes held.

somehow responsible

My energetic field is rather attuned to what is going on around me. I sense it in my body. I can tell if someone is okay or not. My problem is I then conclude that I am somehow responsible for getting that person back to “ok-ness.”

Call me an empath, call me sensitive, call me what you will, I have come to think this quality I hold (and perhaps you do, too?) can be both a blessing and a curse. I would rather it be a blessing, so I do what needs to be done to maintain clear boundaries. I can enjoy tuning in without charging up and going into fix-it-mode.

even if my intentions are good

When loving you is hurting me, when I feel I am going down a spiral of negativity with you, I need to seriously wake up and change something. I speak out against abuse or mistreatment. I advocate for assertive and clear communication rather than passive aggressive and cloudy communication.

I once heard a story of someone so eager to help that she became an ambulance driver. Hyped up on the speed of helping, she ended up running over innocent pedestrians on her way to help. This begs the question, is doing what I am doing really helping? Is it hurting the other person and/or myself, even if my intentions are good?

ironically, everything is then okay

Quite simply, instead of rushing in with what I think is best, with what I think the other person needs, instead, I ask, How can I help? Truly I can simply ask. I can be present with another’s pain in a way that can be healing. When I no longer reject that person or his experience, AND I no longer reject myself and expect “ok-ness,” ironically, everything is then okay.