Our relationships are here to help wake us up to who we are.
I believe that relationships act as our mirrors, reflecting some parts of ourselves that we have lost connection to.
Some people come into our lives specifically to ignite our process of self-remembering.
For that reason, I believe that we need many different relationships, as every new person brings to our awareness a new dimension of our hidden nature.
However, most of us in committed relationships tend to censor our curiosity, suppress any attractions to other people, and often stifle the urge to get to know someone better.
You know why?
We are afraid of our feeling nature.
All we know is extremes: either repress all feelings or feel helpless with them.
Few of us understand that when you repress some feelings you repress them all.
An alternative would be to learn how to live with feelings, understand how to process them and let them color our lives, not wreak havoc.
Some people come to our lives specifically to ignite our process of self-remembering.
In childhood, our needs for physical survival and safety get attached to love. Love and nurturance always came from someone else.
As adults, we continue looking for love to come from someone else, which is at the source of our suffering: we can’t seem to get what we need from people.
I believe as adults we are challenged to become our own source of love: self-nurturing, self-validating, self-caring.
The way I see it, our relationships are here to show us where we are along that path of learning to validate and care for ourselves.
So relationships actually help reveal to us what it is that we need, and the fact that we are not doing or giving it to ourselves.
When we operate in relationships from a state of the inner child, we perceive everything that is happening as about me and because of me.
My sense of starvation for love and exclusive attention was so strong that I could not tolerate it when anything took my husband’s attention away from me, including work and siblings.
It reawakened my childhood memory of disempowerment and suspicion – when my father seemed to always prefer other people – that I was not worthy of love.
Of course, the memory was not conscious, but implicit: I did not recall it cognitively, but relived it emotionally every time, thinking that the suffering was caused by my husband’s neglect of my needs.
It took a few decades to understand that as a sovereign adult, I am responsible for the care of my needs, including attention. When I stopped neglecting myself it became natural to give space to my partner to take care of his needs.
Honest communication is key.
And requires courage and ownership of our sovereignty.
Our emotional reactions within relationships awaken us to the implicit relating patterns within us.
What we are actually reacting to has less to do with the person in front of us and more with the fact that they evoke a familiar template from our childhood experiences, an emotional imprint that is activated through the current dynamic.
Most of our relationships are recreations of our childhood dynamics, founded on the same assumptions, expectations, and unwritten rules.
As children, we had our needs for love and attention filled by other people, the caregivers in our lives.
Since then, we have held on to this idea that love is something we get from others.
Depending on our attachment history—how well and consistently our caregivers were able to respond to our needs—we seek for love to be delivered in a particular way.
Through further cultural imprint, we learn that love is received and given via various love languages, which we must know and master.
There is a whole coded dance around the “delivery” of love as we try to ensure that we can “get” it in the specific way that we crave it.
Did you notice how no matter what love language your partner may use, that emptiness inside can never get quenched?
The love we think we want from others does not come from them.
That something we seek is connection—a safe space where we can finally take off our masks and be ourselves, where our own vulnerability is reflected back to us through the admiring eyes of another.
We want to be reassured that we are lovable and worthy, regardless of how imperfect we think we are.
It gets complicated when we seek acceptance from others before we’ve worked on accepting ourselves.
The love we think we want from others does not come from them.
Love is an energy rising due to something that correlates to our attachment wounds.
The Future of Relating is Embodied.
Relating post-trauma and from religious and patriarchal conditioning means we relate from the mind.
That means we attach to an image of what life and relationships are supposed to look like, often inherited and not necessarily reflect our own values.
Such relating leaves no room for receiving moment-to-moment sensory information about life and the people in it.
The discrepancy between our idealized images and reality is the source of much of our suffering.
The future of relating – the way I see it – is healing trauma, so we can reconnect to the safety of our bodies, learning to source love from within, knowing sensual pleasure.
Then we can come into relationships fully sourced, open to give and receive.
How have I changed since I had my six sessions with Galina?
I have changed in so many aspects that it is difficult for me to put them into words.
The most significant aspect is the change in my assertiveness and in expressing myself.
I used to be a spectator of my life: my energy turns inwards and sometimes can be taken as
a sign of passivity. Which for sure some times in the past happened. To be drowned was
easier than taking steps or my responsibilities. I would blame myself afterward, for not
having the courage to manifest my thoughts or opinions.
Now I take responsibility, I can express in a nonviolent way my meanings and most
importantly, I am an observer of myself and my process.
In the past I would just swim into my emotions, I would feel wrong for feeling in that or this
way, I would feel like I don’t belong and wouldn’t feel understood.
Through Galina’s coaching to reparent myself, of being my own authority, once I have a low
moment, it takes very little effort to recognize the pattern, to see where it comes from and my
response to it. I learned to not judge it and to feel without being lost in it.
In my relationships with others, I can be really present and manifest in my authenticity. I
don’t feel anymore like I need to play a part in order to be accepted: my conversations with
my friends have become deeper, a stronger connection has developed, I can feel and create
a safe space with them and manifesting as I am. In the past I was the listener, now I am
actively participating in the conversation. Some friendships have grown stronger and some
new connections have been created.
Once I discovered my true nature, it became impossible to stand in situations or
environments where my values are not met: in the past I would stay and swallow bad
feelings until my body would become ill. Now I can proudly set my boundaries and not see
them as being selfish.
I wish all of us could experience being our own most important authority, and I will gladly
recommend Galina for those who are ready to start the process and welcome magic in
life.
~Valentina