Sometimes coming up with an appropriate title is the most difficult part of creating a blog post. How do you encapsulate something relatively complex in maybe 10 words or so?
This afternoon I found myself thinking about the whole concept of love, acknowledgement, feeling "seen," approval and various other things we experience.
Most people like to engage in the blame game and when something goes wrong they look outwards for reasons to finger point. Sometimes that is —indeed — the appropriate thing to do because the reasons for whatever took place in your life seriously lies at the feet of somebody else's actions.
But there are always two sides to every story.
I have watched some of my friends over the years who have tried to get approval from people who have no approval to give, and to feel acknowledged by people who are far too self-involved to acknowledge anybody but themselves, and to feel loved by somebody who is incapable of sharing and showing love.
Undeniably, there is something amiss with people who are not capable of expressing such things but there's also something amiss with ourselves if we find ourselves in a position where we're always chasing after people who can't give us what we want.
As one of my therapists said many many years ago "you're not really helping yourself if you continue to buy oranges when what you really want is apple juice!"
In other words we can't keep buying and squeezing oranges to get the juice out and then be disappointed because we're not having apple juice. Perhaps that's a bit of an awkward metaphor but I think you get my picture. I can't actually claim ownership of it as it originated with the late Dr. Wayne Dyer.
The underlying lessons typically come in the form of many layers of our psyche, like an onion. On the surface we might look at it and admit "well, yes I'm making unhealthy choices," but then you have to look at the why you're making unhealthy choices.
Are you just part of the repetition compulsion? Or are you choosing to be friends and lovers with people who are not capable of giving you what you want because you don't fully believe that you actually deserve to have the things you say you want? Alternately, have you failed to do anything to make yourself attractive to the sort of person who could actually give you what you want?
As always, even this can be a two way street. I remember back during my university days, there were a number of young women I wanted to date who had little interest in me mostly because I was highly self-sufficient and they didn't know what to do in the company of somebody who didn't actually need them to be their substitute mother. In other words, I didn't fit their metric.
Life and relationships can be very confusing. On one hand we're told that we shouldn't compromise or settle for less than we want, on the other hand we're told that no relationship can exist without compromise. So which is it?
Small wonder people end up feeling messed up in the head! Or simply giving up on getting what they want in life... and love.
I believe most of us just want to feel like we are truly being seen by those closest to us... as we actually are.
Regardless, it's a vast and complex part of the human experience.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Friday!
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Created at 2025.04.25 01:24 PDT
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