Excuse me. Can we talk?
And by “Can we talk” I mean… are you willing to listen to me? I have something to say. May I be heard?
Have you ever had that feeling? Of “longing” to be heard, really heard so badly but it doesn’t happen?
This is not one of those moments (although I had one recently), but I want to talk about those moments because they are important. For all of us.
Wanting to be heard is as natural as a sunrise.
But longing to be heard — that’s different. It’s a sign that there is a very old wound from way way wayyyyyy back in time that gets triggered, and I mean TRIGGERED, in a way that feels as if someone were ripping off a Bandaid and the scab with it.
It can make an otherwise sane and rational woman completely forget that other people’s wounds — other people’s pain — can make her pain invisible to them.
And if she’s not careful, it can make her lose her marbles.
A 6-year-old-style tantrum on a grown-ass woman is not becoming.
Of course.
But the worst thing you can do is wag your finger at your inner 6-year-old and scold her. That only serves to fuel her fear of being abandoned… again.
Instead, ask her: What do you need?
“I need you to see me.”
What else?
“I need you to take care of me.”
What else?
“Don’t leave me.”
And there it is. All of it. Were you listening?
There is a part of each of us, still, that wants to be EMBRACED in every possible way. We think, however, that we need other people to see us, take care of us, stay with us, when what we need FIRST is to give all that to ourselves.
That work? Embracing yourself first? That IS the work… that’s your ultimate purpose. I’m talking about the inner work we all need to do to heal those old and sometimes still angry wounds on which a healing salve was never applied.
Learn how to listen to your Self.
When people you love can’t hear you because their own pain is too loud, it can be very challenging to hear your Self (with a capital S)… the part of you that is wise and authentically “you.”
Your Self, with all its wisdom, will remind you that this is not binary: it’s not you or them. It’s not you vs. them.
It’s you and them.
You AND the people you love can heal “all the pains,” yours, theirs, each other’s.
It can be done. But it’s bloody hard. Emotional work is the hardest work we can ever do. It takes extraordinary commitment and an ability to withstand the emotional upheaval that is practically inevitable. It takes what I call “Extreme Self Love.”
And it starts with, “Can we talk?”
L xo
Want to learn “The Art of Extreme Self Love”? It starts HERE.
