For most of my life, I didn’t even recognize healthy and unhealthy connection as distinct possibilities. Like a fish unaware of the water it’s swimming in, I understood relationships through the only environment I’d ever known. I had learned distorted
I can’t help but laugh in disbelief as I recall my initial encounter of Japan. I seriously took the bowing personally. Not joking. I was 22, and not an all an adult. My understanding of respect, deference, and what people
I’ve been reading about relationships—attachment, avoidance, conflict, repair, deflection, ego, intimacy. And I am noting things that feel true to me. Not rules. Not credentials I suddenly possess. Just observations about the habits and behaviors that seem to accompany loving
Somewhere along the way, a practice took hold: metabolizing what other people believed, said, or did as information about me rather than data about them. Today, that data gets classified more appropriately. It may hurt deeply and alter what a
I’ve been thinking about my ability to participate safely in relationships which are non-essential and technically intended as sources of safe, healthy connection. Some discord is guaranteed. But sustained and avoided discord is too much for my nervous system. I
Sheesh. How many more times will I have to navigate this particular circuit before I have learned everything I can from it? The turth is in the pattern, not the explanation. It almost feels as though I have been given
A year ago I ended a relationship that I had initially believed was the love of my life. I still kind of feel that way, even though being love bombed is technically not love. It is still my only experience