Life Is A Journey Not A Destination

I woke up today tired. Perhaps it’s the Wednesday blues or perhaps it’s the fact that I can’t turn the TV off at night. The last couple of days I dedicated to watching season 1 of Bridgerton. A friend of mine had recommended it to me and so I indulged myself by watching it. The relationship between Daphne and Simon proves to be one wrapped up in toxicity and love and in the end, they grow to understand one another differently. They change and are willing to hear the other and work towards love and resolution. Maybe it’s the age-old love story and maybe it is not but what it had me considering is that no matter how toxic two people can be together growth is possible if both are willing to work towards healing themselves. We are a naïve species; we fall for parlor tricks and what outwardly appears to be this mind-blowing connection but when the going gets tough not even the passion ignited can save you. People aren’t willing to do the work needed to grow a relationship. They get stuck in old patterns and belief systems and essentially keep doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result. It’s insanity. And yet people thrive on this. It’s the greatest hamster wheel, love. It is this cycle of two people meet one another, they connect, they date, they may marry may not, they get complacent, and here is where it can go left or right, they either make changes and level up each time growth happens or they don’t and they stay and are miserable or they leave to do the same thing over and over somewhere else.

This may sound cynical and perhaps it is. Yet it is the pattern I see most often. Sure, there are happy couples out there. Many in fact. People that have spent more than half their lives together and have gotten there by being flexible and knowing that each year, each milestone with their partner is as a result of change that has happened between them, a willingness to level up. Those that are still in unhappy circumstances live there due to finances, beliefs about divorce, or the alternative which is staying because leaving is too scary and they don’t want to start over again. All valid reasons for someone to stay in something that either makes them happy or not. I am not one to judge. I reflect back on myself just three years ago and I was not my best self. In fact, I didn’t know myself really. I made excuses for my behavior and I relied heavily on the external validation of others to make it through the day. I felt depleted when I felt a rejection and I internalized a lot of my emotions and feelings which presented themselves to the world as anger and lack of approachability. Very few saw below the surface and past that but the ones that did, have stayed and I have grown and in the end the relationships have grown stronger as well. Do we have setbacks and disagreements? Of course, we are human but we also are able to grow from experiences and that is what keeps things moving in the right direction.

Punishment, abandonment, anger, self-righteousness are not ways in which to resolve conflict. At least not ways that I am able to tolerate. I have learned that about myself in these recent months nor am I responsible for the emotional regulation of another person. No matter how much I love you, no matter how much I can see below the reactivity, my nervous system cannot tolerate that. So much of my therapy recently has been in the evaluation of myself and what areas I still need to improve upon. When triggered I still struggle with expressing my needs and that is something that I continuously work on. I can excuse myself from a situation by proclaiming my need and tending to myself. It still amazes me that I can take care of myself without relying on someone else. I have grown to enjoy my alone time. In fact, I prefer it. I value the human connections that I have, what I don’t need is to compromise myself in the name of that connection. I have had to learn to soothe myself, satisfy myself, and attend to my needs and as a result I don’t show up in the world desperate for something that I can do for myself. The moment will come eventually when my time is spent in self-growth and nurturing a relationship but right now it is a journey with no destination. That alone has changed how I see life 100%. Outcomes and the manipulation of outcomes is no way to live. Life has to happen organically. People show up best when the environment is safe and supportive and that is a lesson that took me some time to understand. Safety and supporting safety are truly a foundational need of any relationship. When emotional safety isn’t present there is a major roadblock to the ability for one to connect with another person from a calm and regulated place. The relationship can’t work without safety.

My mind was reminded yesterday of how my healing journey and my passion for reading began. I had completely forgotten what the setting off point of this experience has been. I have spent so much time attributing it to a person and in fact it was a person that catapulted me into this life long journey of self-reflection, introspection and hard fucking work of self-improvement. But the book that started it all was Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity by Kerry Cohen. A book not many would ever know unless they knew my referral source, and come to find out many do. That book began the journey. It is what began my inward reflection which unleashed the most vulnerable sides of myself. I learned so much about myself when that book was loaned to me and I began to read it. So much content was relevant while other parts of it not but it was that book that began the journey that I am still on today. This story may not be unique, I may share it with many others but this version is mine and for that I am grateful.