Twenty years ago, my mother in law came to our house to help us settle in to our first home.
She brought a pre-loved comforter from her home linen-closet and laid it on our bed.
Never mind that it was from some brand's 🌴Tropical Series🏝 - I hated it for other reasons.
I stood watching from the doorway to our bedroom, six months pregnant and seething.
Objectively, here was nothing hateful about the situation.
Perhaps it was a bit assumptive on her part to place the bedding down, but not cruel.
And yet, I was pure quiet rage.😖
Oh, no, I didn't express my feelings out loud.
I just pulled the comforter off the bed after she left and replaced it with something else.
Real badass, right?
Not so much.
Just like everyone else, there are many, many, many days when I want more control over my circumstances and other people. (I have two teenagers at home!)
A decade ago, I knew nothing about my own needs.
Accommodating, performing, fixing and pleasing -- those were the strategies I used as child to whittle a little corner of emotional safety and control in my home.
But controlling others with "good" behavior is a manipulation of sorts.
When I felt hurt or helpless or angry, I searched for a way out of the feeling by performing okay-ness with the ubiquitous, "I'm Fine!" "It's Fine!" "I'll take care of it".
If our behavior is confusing to ourselves, imagine what it must be like for other people!
Reality is often painful; Controlling other people's experience in order to manage feeling fear and anxiety creates disconnection.
Why am I sharing this now?
Because I need your support as much as you might need mine during the holidays.
We are all in recovery in some way.
My husband used alcohol as an attempt to mitigate the enormous pain of deep wounds from his own past.
I used my pleasing "nature" to avoid the pain of disconnection that I feared the most.
They caught up with us both.
We aren't here forever my loves, we know this.
This week, my partner is grieving two mentors that passed away, a client lost her mother, another a beloved dog, a friend lost her father. 💙
And that's just news from my little speck in the world.My husband's birthday is on Christmas.
I've had a lot of practice letting go of wanting more control, especially during the holidays. 🎄I
've made some pretty brave choices and set some stellar 💫 boundaries to honor how I feel and what I need, as a result.
It's a process, though.
I default to old patterns sometimes ... okay, more than occasionally. 🤷🏽♀️
That's when I get real curious.
What the hell is going on in here? Is a thought I have a lot.
When you are under stress, what can you do differently to honors your experience and create (self) connection first?
Comments