Whoops— I weaponized my pain 😬

I love her and yet I wanted to see her suffer.

I used to feel a lot more shame about these unexpected awarenesses that bubble to the surface. I used to fear that nobody would want to hire a relationship coach who wants to see his girlfriend suffer, for example. That my income would suffer. That I wouldn’t be able to pay rent if people knew the underworld of my subconscious.

But this time around, as I was navigating triggers in my long distance relationship, I was humbled more than anything. I’m humbled by the reminder that I am part of this human collective. That my subconscious is part of the collective conscious. As someone who does 18 sessions a week, I understand that the desire to see a beloved suffer is a collective shadow. It’s part of scarcity programming. More on that soon.

But who would I be if I, too, wasn’t impacted by the collective subconscious? Who would I be if I were holding space for people’s same shadows, telling them it’s ok, that we can work with it, that it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person, it just means the collective conditioning is coming to the surface? How could I properly guide others along a path I had not, myself, walked? 

I don’t wanna be on a pedestal– the perfectly healed relationship coach who people come to for healing. People come to me because I’m compassionate and relatable. I’m in the soup with them. And I’ve been in consistent practice for years. 

As long as my unconscious desire to see my beloved suffer is there, I’d much rather bring it to the surface so I can work with it rather than let it drive my relationship into the ground. 

Nowadays, it’s normal to relate to your beloveds from a place of scarcity. You’re inundated with manufactured scarcity everyday. As Earth leaves the era of War and enters into an era of Love, it’s completely natural for the old ways to rise to the surface. They’re ready to be cleared out. To be transformed. Because Earth herself is transforming. And who are you if not an extension of Earth?

The more you can alchemize scarcity programming into abundance, the more you relate from the heart. And the more you relate from the heart, the more satisfied you feel in your connections. Plus, what you practice on the micro scale sets the pattern for the whole system. So your evolution is part of Earth’s evolution. It’s community service if you think about it ;)

So why in the hell was I wanting to see my sweetie suffer? 

Simply put– I felt scared.

I was insecure and grasping for safety.

You see, fear will save your life. And then there’s times when you’re not in a life threatening situation, in which case fear can lead you astray. The survival response to fear is to exert control. But, I do not want to be relating to my girlfriend from a 1st chakra survival response. 

In this case my nervous system detected long distance as a threat. “What if long distance destroys our relationship?”

But the reality was that I could not control the physical distance between us. We would have to wait a few months before we could finally live in the same town.

And because the distance could not be immediately controlled, my nervous system continued feeling threatened. Without my conscious awareness, it sought safety by reaching for something that was within control. From there arose a desire to see her suffer.

I wanted to see her suffer because I was suffering through the distance. My body ached with longing each time I would see her pixelated face without being able to reach through the screen and touch her. 

I resisted the pain of the present moment by rushing towards the future. But within the rushing, my grief did not have space to express itself. I was hyper focused on planning the logistics of reuniting – eliminating the threat.

This was one of those moments where I remembered that pain is evitable, but suffering is optional. When I was unwilling to feel the tension and the longing, I was creating suffering on top of the pain I was feeling. When I’m closing my heart to feeling pain, suffering calls me back into balance, begging me to make space for my heart. I couldn’t fix the pain with my logic mind for as much as I tried. 

I was afraid my suffering would destroy our dynamic. I couldn’t seem to shake my grumpiness, my poutiness, any time we connected. Fear had me asking, “Is she gonna get sick of me and never wanna talk to me again? Is she gonna lose interest? Is long distance gonna break our relationship?”

But then I remembered – “Wait a minute. We can do hard things. We’ve done so many hard things before. And they’ve brought us closer together each time. So why would this be any different?”

Well, the difference in this case is that I wasn’t surrendering myself to the difficulty of the situation. In past experiences together, I had fully surrendered myself to challenging moments we faced. Moments where jealousy got triggered. Moments of misunderstanding, of hurt. The reason those challenging moments brought us closer together was because we were able to stay on the same team through it all, through the pain and the fear. We weren’t trying to “fix” the feelings. We were simply feeling them together. Riding the waves as they crashed and crested.

The truth is— as long as you’re in a human body, pain and fear will inevitably come up. That’s what your soul signed up for when you chose to incarnate into an Earthly body– the full range of human emotions. If you don’t wanna experience the full range of Earthly emotions, there are other planets where you can experience much less. But you chose this.

The difference in this long distance situation is that I was feeling the urge to weaponize my pain against my lover. 

I would never do this consciously because I’m devoted to love. I don’t actually want to see my lover suffer. 

I unconsciously internalized the war culture of the times.

Collective Shadow

Living in a world where war is normalized is part of a scarcity paradigm. And as long as you’re living in a collective paradigm of scarcity, your nervous system is gonna be on edge to some degree. An environment where war is the norm threatens everyone’s safety, regardless of your privilege. 

War isn’t safe, and war norms aren’t safe either. You’d be surprised how many war norms unconsciously show up in your most intimate relationships – but that’s a conversation for another day.

For now, let’s look at one of the war norms that show up in relationships. In this instance, the war norm was to weaponize my pain.

The scarcity programming sought to control the threat of our relationship ending by seeing her suffer just as much as I was. The scarcity narrative was, “if she’s suffering just as much as you, then she’ll take quicker action to be near you. And if there’s no more long distance, there’s no more threat.”

But the reality was that we were both doing everything we could. Some things were just simply out of our control. The real threat to our relationship was not the distance, but the urge to control. The urge to weaponize my fears– my pain– against my lover.

Think about it– if both of us were suffering through long distance, wouldn’t that make us both less emotionally resilient? Wouldn't it be more likely that we would burn out? 

from Scarcity to Abundance

I was humbled and grateful to become consciously aware of how I was coping with fear. When you notice scarcity behaviors that sabotage relationships you can ask yourself, “what would my next step be if I were coming from a place of abundance?”

When I tune into abundance, I focus on what I’m grateful for, rather than what’s lacking. I’m so grateful to be dating someone who can stay grounded and secure amidst the pain of physical separation. She’s gifted me so much compassion and space for me to grapple with my shadows. Her secure attachment with herself has been such an anchor for me and our dynamic. It invited me to address what was insecure within myself. 

In an abundance paradigm, I wouldn’t try to solve the pain away through planning logistics. I wouldn’t be rushing towards an escape. I would accept what is out of my control, rather than struggling against it. I would live less from my head, and more from my heart. 

I realized that if I were to come from my heart, I would give myself space to grieve. For grief is love. Grieving is appreciating what is no longer available. In this case it was physical touch. 

Part of an abundance paradigm is meeting fear with courage. The courage to grieve. The courage to feel the full range of my emotions and all the discomfort that brings. The courage to ask for the space to grieve amidst the fear that she might feel rejected if I take care of my needs. The fear that my boundaries might destabilize the relationship. 

And so I told her:

“Hey babe, you know what? I miss you so much and I never wanna stop talking with you, but I’m noticing I’m feeling so sad every time we talk. And I don’t want our interactions to be dominated by my grumpiness. I’m gonna be a little less available while I give myself space to grieve.”

And you know what?

Literally the next day I felt LOADS better. 

Not that grieving is a one and done process. I will continue to grieve in small, consistent doses. But when my grief had no space because I was in urgency and resistance, it came oozing out anyway. But without relating to it lovingly, I would just unconsciously dump it all over my girlfriend.

How can I express love towards someone when I’m not loving myself? When I’m not tending to my inner world? When I’m neglecting my heart?

When I realized this urge to see my girlfriend suffer, I realized something was out of balance within me and that I needed to divest from war norms. 

I don’t have control over unconscious programming and how it shows up, but I do get to choose how I respond to it. Awareness creates choice. And so rather than shaming myself for belonging to a collective where war is the norm–where scarcity is the norm–I’m so deeply grateful to be able to see clearly and choose clearly.

the Courage to Love

Surrendering to fear is an act of courage. Being a disciple of love (someone who’s devoted to love) means practicing the courage to love. It means noticing fear & control over and over again, and choosing the courage to love over and over again. The courage to loosen the grip. The courage to feel vulnerably from the heart.

It’s choosing to trust that – even if my boundary felt threatening to my girlfriend’s nervous system – that we can do hard things. That our dynamic can recover. That she can recover. 

There is no secure attachment in a relationship dynamic without secure attachment with yourself first. 

Can I let go of fear and trust that my girlfriend can develop secure attachment with herself? Can I give her space to let her process unfold?

And can I do the same for me?

Can I give myself space amidst the fear of separating? Can I consent to the pain of grief as an expression of love?

Yes I fucking can! Cuz I can do hard things.

Cuz I’m devoted to love.

Because peace on Earth starts with me.