It's fair to say that people usually get into intimate relationships for love and the need to connect and bond with another. Connecting like this comes with emotional risks, and yet it's a risk we continue to take again and again.
Apart from keeping the species going, intimate relationships can also satisfy our emotional need for connection and completeness. I'm not sure what "completeness" or "wholeness" means any more, when it's relative to something or someone else. It's certainly changed a lot for me over the years and I now seek connectedness from within first rather than without. For those couples who have managed to do both, they've cracked it in my opinion!
I have always been aware of a "void" inside of me since my teenage years, and of course I experimented with lots of external influences to try and fill that void. Finally I understand that it is only myself that can take care of my own emotional state. Everything else is only temporary. If my emotional bucket is feeling full, then I feel very specific feelings like: contentment, peacefulness and gratitude.
If I feel agitated, frustrated or angry, then my bucket is not so full and therefore I find myself in a weakened state. Being aware of the rise and fall of my emotional bucket allows me to strive to do something about it when I need to, and every effective manager knows that when we can measure something we can manage it. It's time we all became our own managers.
Some folk believe the only thing that can fill them up is the love and esteem of others, and their very "worth" depends on it. However, as adults, I believe we need to learn to fill up our own worth with the support of others and not rely on them. I can remember someone years ago telling me, "Carla, it's time to stand on your own two feet — you need to stop relying on everybody!"
What felt like a slap in the face at the time turned out to be something I needed to hear. Although I was very independent at the time in many ways, emotionally I still struggled but didn't realise I had choices. I do now. Emotionally growing up can come with sacrifices, and ones we won't recognise until we are challenged with them.
Taking the dive IN is the most unselfish thing I believe we can do for others. Yes, it gets really tricky when we keep bumping into people who abuse the privilege of our vulnerability, but it's all part of our learning.
If their agenda is to fill up their own bucket at our expense, then they will have to face the consequences of that.
This doesn't mean that we don't get to express our needs and stand up for our rights, quite the contrary.
It is through the expression of ourselves that not only we grow but others around us may as well. Whilst we provide emotional learning to our children, we are not responsible for grown ups' emotions, but we can and do contribute to them.
The best gift I believe we can give any one is the gift of our own self transformation and one which will be eternally unfolding.
Call me if you would like support with that.
Carla. www.facebook.com/1on1onone or www.carlascoachingforhealth.com