Relationships Are an Invitation 

Through the mirror of a relationship we discover where we’re imprisoned. 

Listen: the truth is already operating in how you behave, how you treat people, and how you oscillate around bullshit. If you’re thinking, how is that even possible? It’s because, regardless of whether you’ve had a conversation with a partner, family member, or friend to bring that truth to the surface and name it, it’s already there, and it’s already steering your experiences. 

In the meantime, all of the adaptive strategies are working to avoid the truth, to avoid facing pain and suffering. When so many people are walking around wearing masks and acting like everything is fine, it takes work to go against those narratives. There was a meme floating around about how the black sheep of the family eventually becomes the GOAT, the Greatest of All Time. I love that, but it’s not that you’re the black sheep of the family – it’s that you’re part of the family that’s inviting us to turn toward inherited trauma and adaptive strategies in order to address it.

You want beautiful relationships, right? Right! Many of us feel like we need to go out and find someone else to transform our life and our relationships, but beautiful relationships start with discovering who you are and what matters to you and then constructing relationships from that, from who you are. If you want to transform your life, transform your self. If you want presence from a partner, you’ve gotta be present with yourself. 

There’s another misconception that we need to be someone else in order to attract a partner, but if you misrepresent who you are in a relationship, you’ll never feel fully loved. Stop pretending to like shit that you don’t actually like. Stop pretending to give a fuck about things you don’t give a fuck about. Stop pretending you don’t care about things you actually, truly care about. Stop pretending. Letting go of the act is where our liberation starts. 

It is through the mirror of a relationship that you can discover where you’re imprisoned. It’s in the instances where your partner, friend, or family member gives you feedback where you have an invitation to grow. Maybe they say, “I don’t see you, I don’t hear you, I miss you, you’re not great at communicating, you get kind of defensive, sometimes you’re an asshole,” and if your reaction is to get rid of that person because you don’t like their feedback, then you’re missing an opportunity. If you distance yourself from anyone who tries to tell you a difficult truth, you might never learn how to sit in that discomfort and grow from it. Love and relationships are our greatest invitations. It’s up to us to accept them.