30 days of self-love: when I’m harmful

This weekend, I experienced one of the hardest times for me to love myself: when my behavior has harmed another person, created dis-ease in another person, caused another person pain. In the past, I haven’t had relationships where there was even the capacity and space to have communication where someone else could share with me when my behavior was negatively impacting them. I’m grateful to have that in my relationships now. And also, despite all my recent intense experiences with feedback, it was still really hard for me to hear that communication. Not just because I had hurt someone I love, but because I already was aware of this particular behavior pattern and how it shows up across my life. It’s something I am actively trying to change and that change is happening more slowly than I’d like.

To be more specific, I’ll share one of the behavior patterns that arose: helplessness. Trying half-heartedly to figure something out, and when any challenge presents itself, giving up and asking my partner to take care of it. “I can’t do this! It’s too hard!” It’s a codependent, self-defeating behavior, and in some way, I feel that it’s a way to get attention. And honestly, it’s a way to not have to do the hard work to figure something out. Sometimes I simply don’t feel like doing it, and I’m being selfish.

Having that brought to my attention brought me to up in my head and to two places at once – back to my childhood to understand where these behaviors may originate, and to self-defeating narratives (“You’re lazy, you’re not a good partner, you’re not resilient, you don’t have patience to figure things out, you don’t have a curious enough mindset, you don’t have a growth mindset, this is why you shouldn’t be in a relationship). While it is important to be curious and does help me understand myself to ask questions like, where would it have benefitted me to be helpless, to rely on someone else to do things, it is certainly not truthful or helpful to engage in the above narratives.

I let the feelings come. The narratives. I let myself feel shut down. I let my mind wander back to my childhood and connect with the times I got attention from being helpless. I remembered other ways I would get attention, like antagonizing my brother until he lashed out at me and I got to be a victim. I let myself feel those moments and let myself cry. I am lucky to have a partner who doesn’t hold onto my feelings but holds space for me to move through that.

My self-love has senses in these situations. It sounds like Melissa, you are still lovable, you are resilient, you are loving, you are kind. It looks like literally shaking my body, shaking stuck energy off like a dog, moving through my response like an animal does naturally. It feels like big breaths in and out.

Self-love is an interruption. It is a choice. It is an action, deciding to close the distance between me and my partner when my reaction is to isolate and run away, and hug him instead.