Relationships are one of the biggest areas of life where you can lose yourself.
There is often an unconscious push-and-pull dynamic within relationships, contributing to a loss of self.
As humans, we are constantly evolving, shifting, changing and adapting. It is a natural process that happens. Choosing to be conscious amplifies the awareness of our evolution, but it happens to us all.
Our environment influences us. The relationships we choose impact us. Where we source our pleasure, and enjoyment contributes to it. The things we are interested in, passionate about, dislike or feel uncomfortable about, all influence our evolution. How we see, feel and know ourselves and our choices, all contribute to how we evolve.
Humans evolve consciously or unconsciously. When we engage in relationships with others our evolution is influenced by others. None of us are the same, and so relationships require effort, adaptability, flexibility and compromise. Our culture, the community we play, work and live in, and the rules of engagement dictated by our society also influence our relationships.
All of these external factors influence our relationships with others, and our relationship with self. They impact our growth and how we change, shift, adapt and evolve. Our relationships with friends, family, colleagues and intimate partners are heavily influenced.
Our personal relationships are mirrors of self-reflection that show us who we are. Who we invest our time and energy with and how we show up in that relationship, tells us a lot about ourselves. How they show up also shows us a lot.
Often we will focus on the other person, regardless of who they are, and we’ll adapt and change our way of being to meet them where we perceive them to be at. We alter our energy to match theirs, change our behaviours to match theirs, and alter our style to compliment theirs.
It doesn’t matter the type of relationship it is, we respond to the frequency of the person.
Have you ever met someone and instantly felt unsure, uncomfortable and hesitant? Without knowing why. That is your frequency clashing with theirs. It is a misalignment of energy between you. As humans, we tend to make judgments and assumptions when we feel the discomfort. It’s not often we only acknowledge what we feel and move away. Not everyone is for us and that is OK. Forcing a person on us, or us onto them, when our energy fields repel each other isn’t healthy or necessary.
Our family relationships can be an area where do this a lot. I mean, they’re family, right? Wrong – they are individuals with their energy, signature and soul. They have their path to walk and we just happened to be a part of that, and they’re part of ours. Just because they’re family does not mean our energy frequencies align.
I spent over 4 decades self-sacrificing myself to please my family. I bent, shifted, jumped hurdles and went against my feelings because I wanted to make my family love and accept me.
- I mean, they’re my family, right?
- Family is meant to love you, protect you, nurture you and accept you, right?
- My culture tells me that’s how it’s meant to be, right?
- So, there must be something wrong with me if they don’t, right?
- I must fix myself, change how and who I am so they will love me, right?
Wrong.
Energy does not lie. It is what it is and it doesn’t change because we ignore it and push ourselves onto others because our conditioning tells us it’s meant to be a certain way. The energy speaks without any influences.
Energy is an internal guidance system that signals what is right and wrong for us. When you listen to your energy, your conscious awareness increases. Your energy guides you to deeper self-awareness and knowing. Your energy brings you wisdom and leads you on your path of evolution as a soul in human form.
When you force yourself in relationships, you ignore your energy and allow the logical mind to navigate. This is how the push-and-pull dynamics come into our relationships. We will push ourselves onto someone even when our energy says “No”. We will push someone to do something we want for them or from them. Our intentions may be good, but in pushing we’re interfering with their energy and neglecting our own. We’re controlling our energy and pushing it onto others.
The opposite of pushing is pulling. In pushing our energy onto others we are also trying to pull them towards us. We push them to do, believe and say things we believe are good for them. We put all our focus and energy into correcting what we perceive is their energy imbalance, because we can feel the energy and it makes us uncomfortable. Again, our intention might be good, but our focus is on the other person and not ourselves.
The closer the relationship with the person, the easier it is and the more frequently we do it. We want the best for the person, right? We want their support, approval, love and encouragement right? So we’re only doing it for their benefit and what we want from them for our relationship, right?
Wrong.
In focusing on the other person, we are ignoring ourselves and this is how we lose ourselves in relationships. When we put our attention on the other person and push-and-pull them towards what we feel is the best for them, we avoid looking at ourselves. Our priority and focus becomes about them, what they’re doing or not, how their impacting us good or bad, what changes they need to make to do better, be better, show up better.
Relationships and life are not meant to be push-and-pull.
Push-and-pull drains our energy, enthusiasm, motivation and flow. By placing our focus on the energy of our relationships doesn’t create flow within ourselves or in our relationships.
When your energy flows, it clears and cleans. Without effort, it guides and supports us. When we flow, we do not become stuck in the challenges we face. Flow within us creates inner peace and free expression. It deepens our understanding of self.
How a person responds to our energy is beyond our control. That is true regardless of the type of relationship. Often, we can ignore or intentionally overlook, the challenges in our relationships because we don’t want to upset the flow. We want to keep the peace, relationship and familiarity it gives us. If we don’t, then we create change and with all change comes discomfort.
So instead, we get into the push-and-pull dynamic.
Our evolution does not come from staying in the same place, it comes from flowing with our energy and allowing ourselves to feel, express and listen to what it’s telling us.
We all feel each other’s energy. When we listen within and keep our focus within, those whose energy resonates with ours will always be magnetised to us. We do not need to force it to be by pushing and pulling.
It is difficult to listen to our energy sometimes, particularly with those we love the most. All the external influences around us can disrupt our focus. There are many ways we can refocus, but none more important than turning inward and listening to what your energy is telling you.
The easy way out of our discomfort is to put the blame on others or to sacrifice our dreams to maintain harmony in our relationship. I look at the friendships I’ve had, intimate relationships I’ve been in, and my work and family dynamics, and I can see where I have pushed and pulled. I can see where I’ve allowed myself to be pushed and pulled. The extent of this pattern in my life is wild!
Self-sacrifice has been my response, so I was lovable. The approval of others that I sought, caused me to disapprove of myself. This self-love thing is bloody hard work sometimes. It’s been my focus for a few years now, but boy do I screw it up at times.
Change is difficult. Evolution, as the Caterpillar so beautifully shows us, is a challenging experience. Like Caterpillar, we can transform ourselves, but there are external factors that see our journey and impact it in good and bad ways, e.g. the butterfly emerges and the bird swoops.
We can’t control the actions of others, but we can control our response, and that is an internal journey of trusting the flow of energy and deep inner listening along the way.
