Our relationships always adding something

Often due to some destructive past influences people in Counselling are often involved with people in their lives who are less than constructive for them.  What can happen is that we play out certain roles which we played perhaps for our parents in the past.  The idea is often discussed of 'replaying dramas' whereas in the past we were forced to abandon our authentic self in order to fit in with a dysfunctional family system and now continue to replay these same destructive patterns with others in our lives.

Our romantic relationships are identified as in particularly bringing up our deepest core issues.  Often we work in Counselling with what this situation is reminding me of from my past.  Often the same niggle we have with for example an overbearing and dominating partner can be traced back to our primary caregivers.  Healing this original wound can then provide a key foundation to becoming more assertive with our current partner and working towards a constructive way forward or perhaps finding a different relationship.

It is important to remember as adults that people in our lives should be adding something to our lives.  Playing the role of a support person for example is very positive in pockets but it is important to reflect back on ones boundaries and look at the role the other person is playing in their life and whether they are in fact adding something or just draining.  Friends should always add something and they should never be cruel.

A very simple boundary exercise to become more conscious can be simply to list people in our lives and write what we are and what we are not willing to do.  Getting this out there and making it clear and conscious can then help us to be more constructive.  If we are unable to act on these boundaries or for some reason feel obligated to be a certain way it is important to reflect on ourselves as to why this may be.

As adults we need to remember that the word 'should' is out.  Changing the word to 'could' and therefore looking at what we choose or choose not to do.

Fighting for your happiness

As part of my ongoing professional development I was reading a book written about abusive relationships.  Lisa E Scott has wrote two books.  One of which is about women overcoming the narcissistic male and another for men overcoming the narcissistic female.  There was a part which really stuck with me.  It said about the feeling of anger and using that constructively.   Anger can be misconstrued as being negative but provided it doesn't cross a barrier into abuse it is an empowering emotion which often clients are helped to access and feel in my therapy sessions.  Accessing anger can be great to enable people to recognise their own boundaries and where they end and where someone else begins and can learn to feel responsible for their own emotions rather than looking after the emotions of others.

In recovery from an abusive relationship people often have all kind of messy emotions but anger can be quite a common central one.  Anger over feeling they were used, not treated how they deserved, somehow used as a doormat.  Often it can be particularly difficult if there isn't a closure too.  When the partner or people around us simply were not the people we thought they were there is a gap created where we have an instinct where we want to get closure from the person and to understand why they treated us that way.   Often the truth is simply that the person never was the person we thought originally which can be a difficult thing to deal with.

This anger left over can become our fighting instinct as the book said to 'fight for our happiness'.  All this energy which went into trying to make the relationship work can now go into us.  We can recognise that we can put ourselves first (a revelation for many in therapy).  The grief of what was can be processed and this anger can go into our pursuits;  our new gym classes, building new relationships, our new business ventures, our active meditation practice.  Channelling anger into these things can be very empowering and knowing it is your energy now to use for you. 

Often people want revenge but this is typically fruitless as a goal and is again another acting out of the victim role rather than a pushing through into our authentic selves.  When feeling the need for revenge I find a healthy model of revenge can just be to feel your own happiness. Whatever happened in the past and whatever this person or people did, it didn't beat you.  You came through it and look at you now.