Most of us in the world today
have had the experience of some kind of conditional love.
This process starts with the process of socialization in childhood.
We learn that if we are a certain way,
or if we do a certain thing
we either get rejected, or we get approved of.
When this happens we learn that
the things we want so dearly,
things like acceptance,
things like understanding,
things like closeness, belonging
and our needs being met,
are conditional.
Disclaimer (pause to read):
The “No Matter What” Pattern In Relationships
If we are traumatized in some way
by this conditionality,
then we develop the strong desire for an unconditionality.
We develop this strong desire
for the things that we need and want.
Things like acceptance,
things like approval,
things like being valued,
things like being loved,
things like our needs being met,
being completely unconditional.
Being given to us no matter what.
No matter what we are,
no matter what we do,
no matter what happens.
And no matter how we stay the same or change.
To heal is to experience the opposite.
This means that people who have suffered as a result of
certain aspects of themselves
not being accepted, included,
wanted, valued, appreciated, or loved,
heal by experiencing those things;
Being appreciated, included, wanted, valued and loved.
But people with this kind of trauma
often swing the pendulum from conditionality,
all the way to unconditionality.
And as with any dramatic pendulum swing
there is dysfunctionality that exists
at either end of this spectrum.
Therefore, when we start to demand unconditionality
we open the door wide for dysfunction.
For example,
we may create relationships where our expectation
is that the other person has no expectations of us
and puts no pressure on us whatsoever in the relationship.
Or, we might get into a relationship
with somebody who's genuinely incompatible,
but refuse to look at that incompatibility,
and instead,
try to make them change whatever is incompatible
so that they will like something
that they currently, do to their incompatibility,
will not like about us.
Basically, we try to get somebody who doesn't want something
to change their mind and want it instead.
Or, somebody who doesn't value something
to change their mind and value it instead.
Or, we try to create relationships
where we set up the dynamic
where no matter what we do,
we expect the other person to feel good towards us
and to appreciate us.
And I mean, no matter what we do and don't do.
And this can escalate all the way to straight up abuse.
It can escalate all the way into a pattern
where you actually only feel loved
when the other person takes pain for your sake.
How unconditional.
The expectation of unconditionality
can lead you down a very very dark road in relationships.
To understand this in a more in-depth way,
you can watch my videos titled:
The Truth and The Myth of Unconditional Love
and
The "Suffer So I Can Feel Loved" Relationship Dynamic
We can sum up this desire to be accepted,
to be valued, to be wanted, to be appreciated
and whatever else,
down to:
"I want to be loved, no matter what".
What we mean when we say:
"I want to be loved, no matter what",
is really:
"I want to be wanted, no matter what".
And when this is the case,
you have to ask yourself a very important question;
Two, actually:
"What is the "me" that I need people to want?"
and:
"What about me do I need someone to want?"
This is the question we need to ask ourselves
if we hope to heal from conditionality.
What this question will reveal
is the aspect or the part of you that was rejected,
the part of you that was not valued,
the part of you whose needs were not met,
the part of you that was disapproved of,
Right?
the part of you that was pushed away,
the part of you that is so desperate
for this "no matter what".
And from there,
you can go about the process of integrating and healing
that aspect of you.
So that you can kind of grasp more how this goes,
I've got a couple examples for you:
#1.
Beau grew up in a very large family
on a working farm.
Beau's parents conceived their children
with the literal mindset
that their children would be helping hands on the farm.
That's why they continued having children,
because they wanted more help on the farm.
So what did this do for Beau?
It set up a dynamic where bo feels like
what he "is"
has no value.
It's only what he does that has value.
Now, in his adult life
he keeps finding himself in relationships with women
where he's completely convinced
that the only reason they value him at all
is because of what he does for them.
Beau is terrified that if he stops doing things
for these women in his life, that they will leave.
Okay, so what this does is it sets up a dynamic
where Beau bait and switches women.
He enters into relationships with women
on the foot of:
"I'm gonna do everything, everything for you".
He fixes anything in their house that needs fixing,
he takes care of anything they need done,
he spends the initial part of the relationship
being completely active and in service to her needs
even before she has to ask.
But then...
When these women commit to him,
suddenly, he starts to become worried:
"What if the only reason that she's with me
is because of what I'm doing for her?".
When this happens the pain of his own childhood
comes to the surface
and he begins to test women.
When he does this,
he picks something that he routinely does for her
and he just doesn't do it.
Now, when she reacts negatively
what Beau makes this mean is
"My worst fears are confirmed,
the only reason that she's with me is because of what I do."
And it's at this point that he goes into full-on protest behavior.
And it's as if he has switched personalities.
All of a sudden Beau who was an active man,
becomes a passive man.
He stops doing things for the women.
And inevitably, after months of conflict
they leave him, feeling duped
and he feels abandoned and unloved
and like all women are just users.
In reality, women decide to be in a relationship with Beau
because he is so active.
They decide to be in a relationship with Beau
because they think this is not just what he does, it's who he is.
He's a man who they can respect,
he's a man who takes ownership and contains a woman
and meet her needs.
Oh yeah, most women will sign up for that.
That's the man that they signed up for.
So, when Beau goes into his protest behavior
and turns into a completely different man
the kind of man who's sitting on the couch
the kind of man who's brooding in silence,
the kind of man who
lets the kitchen sink drip for days on end,
they're like:
"What the hell happened to me? I just got completely duped."
And why do they leave?
because this is not what they signed up for.
When Beau is asked the question:
"what is it about you that you need other people to want?"
his answer is: "Me the way I am."
But who is Beau the way that Beau is?
Is Beau what he does?
Is he his talents?
Is he his weaknesses?
Is he what he wants?
Is he how he behaves?
Is he how he feels?
Is he what he thinks?
Is he what he says?
Is he his actions?
Is he his needs?
Is he only one of these things or all of them?
What is it about who he is
that he needs other people to want?
When Beau thinks hard about this
he realizes that what he really wants
is for a woman to love his company.
When he thinks about giving a woman company
he realizes that the image he has in his mind
is them doing a lot of joint leisure activities together and talking.
He wants to be valued for his company
doing leisure activities together and for his insights.
This is the real pain.
His parents had no interest in just his company.
None of his family members did.
They sure as hell don't care about his insights
when what they have to do is put food on the table
and work the farm.
And there was no time for leisure activities.
Seeing this, Beau is able to see
that he actually enters into relationships
on the wrong foot.
He's advertising something different
than what he actually wants to provide in a relationship.
And he definitely is advertising the part of him
that he really doesn't need a person to love
and he's hiding the part of him he does need loved.
As a result of this realization, he says:
"Wait a minute,
there's no way I'm gonna find a compatible woman
to what I'm actually wanting somebody to like me for,
if that's not the foot I'm entering into relationships on.
It's like me going to a used car salesman,
asking him for one car, and he gives me a completely different car
and then being angry that I'm angry.
haha now I feel guilty."
Now, Beau behaves in a way that indicates to women
that he loves leisure time and quality time.
He engages in deep conversation with women
rather than fixing her kitchen sink,
he invites women to leisure activities like watching a movie,
rather than offering to help her in some way.
Beau has now been in a three-year relationship.
In that relationship,
what the both of them agree upon
is that they care about and prioritize quality time together
in leisure activities
above pretty much anything else.
As a result, Beau is not only happy,
but he feels more loved
than he ever has in his life.
#2.
Charlotte grew up in a culture
that expects little girls and women
to "keep sweet".
When charlotte was anything but sweet,
she was immediately reprimanded.
As a result, she had to suppress deny and disown
her negative emotions,
especially her anger.
The thing is is that when you suppress your anger
oftentimes, it doesn't completely go away
you're just hiding it from the world.
So, Charlotte spent the better part of her life
feeling like something was seriously bad and wrong with her
because she couldn't just be
like all the other women in her culture and her society
that seemed to just be easy going
and happy no matter what happened.
Charlotte keeps ending up in relationships
with people in the workplace
and in her family still
and friends
and romantic partners
that have a big issue with negativity.
They won't tolerate it within her at all.
When Charlotte is asked the question
what is the "you" that you need other people to want?
Or, what is it about you that you need other people to want?
Charlotte realizes it is the real truth of how she feels
in any given moment
that she needs other people to want.
Charlotte decides that she is still
in resistance to her own emotional truth.
Because charlotte realizes
that she's actually in resistance
to her own emotional truth
or her personal truth in any given moment,
she decides that she's gonna do parts work.
Specifically, she does it with the part of her
that knows and can express
how she feels in any given moment,
and the part of her to the opposite,
that doesn't want her to know or express
how she feels.
That's the protector.
That's the one that's keeping her safe.
As a result of this parts work,
she was able to get both parts on board with this:
#1.
Always knowing what her personal truth is,
but, #2.
Expressing that truth in a way that's still considerate
of other people's feelings.
Both parts said yes to that.
In order to find people
who would want the truth of how she feels,
Charlotte signed up for an acting class
that promised to help aspiring actors
to tap into their own emotional depth.
In that class she made friends with Jane.
Charlotte and Jane are now roommates.
Charlotte feels safe with Jane,
because Jane always tells Charlotte
exactly how she feels.
There's never any guesswork.
And Jane encourages Charlotte to get mad and to cry
and tell the unsavory truth.
As a result, charlotte's relationship with her own personal truth is healing.
She's becoming much more authentic as a person
and she feels more lovable.
As a little side note,
it's important to know that when we get into relationships
we usually do so on a false foot.
Because this process of socialization
tells us that we're not gonna be loved
if we put a certain aspect of ourselves forward,
then we hide it
when we go into relationships in the future,
because we want them to like us, we want them to love us,
we want them to want us, right?
The thing is, is that
It's like a bait and switch, right?
When we walk into that relationship
hiding the full truth of ourselves
and then later at some point it will come forward...
The person on the other side is like:
"Wait a minute, that's not what the hell I signed up for,
I signed up for the opposite of that".
And then we're like: "Aaah!"
And the trauma happens all over again.
For this reason it is so important
if you want this sensation of unconditionality,
which really is compatibility,
it's so important to put your authentic foot forward.
Put the aspects of you that you want people to
need and want forward.
I know that takes a hell of a lot of risk, though.
it's scary as hell,
especially when you've been trained and programmed
that nobody's gonna like that,
to put that forward on the table.
But I can tell you,
there are people to love everything.
The "what"
in the "no matter what"
relationships we are seeking
is actually a very specific "what".
It's a specific thing or multiple specific things
that we need someone to want and value.
By figuring out what that specific thing is
we can improve our own relationships with that thing
and then we can go about finding conscious and direct ways
for that thing to be accepted, included, wanted, valued,
appreciated and loved.
When we do this, we need to be really conscious
of going to the right people
and to the right places
in order to actually get that need met.
Right? We can't ask for acceptance
somewhere we're obviously gonna get rejected.
So, using our previous example,
once Charlotte figured out
that the part of her that she needed to have be wanted by others
was her personal truth,
her emotional truth in any given moment
even if it's negative,
and if she had walked into her parents southern country club
she would have been re-traumatized.
Not the right place.
To understand more about this,
you can watch my video titled:
The Value Realization
(A Realization That Can Completely Change Your Self-Worth)
We should not be seeking
to be loved or wanted no matter what.
Not in the way we mean it when we say it that way.
What we should be seeking is compatible relationships.
To understand more about this in depth
you can watch my video titled:
Incompatibility (A Harsh Reality In Relationships)
And part of this compatibility
is about becoming aware of specifically what it is about us
that we want to have be wanted.
From there, our job is to find people
who do want that.
People who genuinely can accept,
include,
appreciate,
want and love that.
Have a good week.
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I wanna thank you personally
for the bravery that you have to step into awareness.
I'll see you in the next video.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte @tanyaduarte