“someone who allows you to rest” is the relationship dynamic of all time
A parent who welcomes you back home after things have fallen apart. A best friend whose voice alone can make you relax. A spouse who convinces you to stay in bed an extra hour and leave the dishes for later. A stranger who sees you tired and gives up their seat on the train.
Augh. The humanity of it
—nat-20s
🎨 grim_b
Something beautiful happens when you stop waiting to be chosen and instead choose yourself. When you love yourself first. When you can be alone with the shape of yourself. When you stop running away from your truth.
The right people start to show up. The right opportunities suddenly align. All the hustling you were doing, trying to make yourself more worthy, stops feeling right, and instead you get into the flow of life. And everything you thought you’d have to earn and strive for seems to come a lot more easily.
When you choose you, everything and everyone has to rise to that level. And all the good things you thought you’d have to force arrive in perfect timing.
Yes, you need to show up. Yes, you need to work. But, it’ll be with the right people, the right opportunities, and the kind of life that lights you up from the inside. Because you are lit up from the inside.
✍️ Jamie Varon 💫
🎨 Morgan Davidson
“Some people survive and talk about it. Some people survive and go silent. Some people survive and create. Everyone deals with unimaginable pain in their own way, and everyone is entitled to that, without judgement. So the next time you look at someone’s life covetously, remember…you may not want to endure what they are enduring right now, at this moment, whilst they sit so quietly before you, looking like a calm ocean on a sunny day. Remember how vast the ocean’s boundaries are. Whilst somewhere the water is calm, in another place in the very same ocean, there is a colossal storm.”
Why You Need to Date Someone Who Scares You
“If she doesn’t scare the hell out of you a little, she’s not the one.”
At first glance, this meme might seem to be implying that you need to only date emotionally unstable people. But if you sit with it for a moment, it takes on a whole other (and more important) layer of meaning.
As much as mainstream media would prefer you to think otherwise, the best relationships are not all sunshine and roses.
Relationships are the ultimate vehicle for self-growth… and the best kind of love that you can engage in is the confronting kind. The kind where your partner acts as a mirror to you and they lovingly help pull all of your demons out of you over time. They act as a catalyst for positive growth.
They’ll point a flashlight into every corner of your dark mental attic, and illuminate all of the things that you try to hide from the world. And they will illuminate it with love, patience, and compassion.
Just when you expect them to run away (after having found out about your deepest, darkest secrets), they’ll tell you that they love you even more now that they know more about you.
Intimacy is about truly letting someone see you. It’s also anxiety producing for the vast majority of people. Letting someone really know you, and really see you, can be terrifying.
You are laying your heart in their hands and saying to them “Please be gentle with this.”
And if they’re the right one for you, they will reply back (verbally or non-verbally) “I wouldn’t dream of ever being anything else to you.”
When I first started dating again after an emotionally traumatic breakup, I was hesitant to let anyone get close to me. I engaged in surface level relationships because I feared the anxiety that intimacy produced for me. Even ‘admitting’ that I’d had a difficult day was enough to make my heart race.
In my emotional closure I didn’t think I would ever be able to open up to someone ever again.
Until one fateful day when I met someone who shook up my world entirely.
Her eyes penetrated through me. There was no hiding around her. She never had to say it out loud, but I knew that she saw me.
My ego’s first self-protective instinct was to run away and revert back to my old unproductive habits. Run away before she finds out all of the messy things about your past. Push her away before she has a chance to see past your self-deceptions. Avoid any contact with her in case she might make you feel big, scary emotions again.
My ego resisted her every step of the way. I told myself she wasn’t my usual type. I tried to hide behind things like “She’s too young/inexperienced/small town/etc. for me.” But it was all bullshit. Every thought that tried to keep me away from her was just my ego’s sad excuse to stay closed down emotionally. It was a defence mechanism and I knew it.
When I really started to show up and tell her how I was feeling (namely, scared shitless to even be around her) she received it with grace and compassion. Because even before I had verbalized it, she knew. She already saw me.
As terrifying as intimacy can be, the process of holding up our demons in the light is deeply therapeutic. Shame cannot continue to exist or thrive in the loving context of a close intimate relationship.
Was I fixed forever for having her met her? No. It’s a process like everything else. I had to repeatedly breathe into the deeper layers of anxiety as I let myself be seen more and more by her.
But I’ll be eternally grateful that I did meet her. Because her scaring the hell out of me was my ticket to a positive transformation that I never could have anticipated.
So if you’re at a place in your life where you are starting to see someone who challenges you, confronts you, and scares you on some level, take stock of whether or not you think they might be a force for positive change in your life.
Don’t date someone who scares you because they are controlling, angry, violent, or abusive in any way. That’s the bad kind of fear and it’s an unhealthy relationship to engage in.
But date someone who scares you because they encourage you to face all of the things you’ve tried to suppress for so long.
Date someone who lovingly pushes you to become more who you are at your core as a person.
Date someone who nudges you outside of your comfort zone regularly and helps you level up in life.
It might just be the best thing you ever did for yourself.
The best loves are the ones that drag out all of your emotional demons.
( ✍️ Jordon Gray )
Art : Josephine Wall
“If you cant self-regulate your emotions, your relationships will be chaos.
If you cant co-regulate with your partner, your inner world will be chaos.
Healthy relationships require learning both skills, not just relying on one.
Co-regulation requires a certain degree of Self-regulation. If you are not able to work through the more intense feelings around frustration, anger and resentment before turning to your partner, you may not experience co-regulation, and instead you will simply trigger each other – the opposite of co-regulation.
Also, co-regulation is not about using “I feel” statements to cover over the resentment or anger underneath the words. It starts with working with what you’re feeling in a way that leads to constructive, collaborative and emotionally safe dialogue.
Talking about what’s happening inside you – in a way that feels emotionally safe to the other person. This is the importance and power of effective self-regulation.
Co-regulation then becomes easeful, which also contributes to deeper self-regulation, and a positive ripple effect is formed in the relationship with the foundation of emotional safety for everyone involved. This is the beginning of deeper, more soulful and nourishing forms of intimacy.
When it comes to relationships between Men & Women, I’ve seen people telling women that a “real” man will be able to “hold space” for a woman regardless of how she speaks to him. This is just leading women into a fantasy version of relationships. Men respond to Women, just as Women respond to Men. If he brings his unprocessed anger to you, that impacts you. If you bring criticism and blame to him, that impacts him. It’s not because he’s not a ‘real man’, it’s because he’s not a robot.
It’s time to let go of those wounded teachings around relationships, and discover the art of true intimacy.
Everyone, no matter gender, benefits from learning more effective forms of self-regulation, co-regulation and a more collaborative style of communication that supports both.”
— Serdar Hararovich
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Maybe right now your journey isn’t about love.
Maybe right now your journey is about you.
Maybe this is the season you are being challenged to be your own savior, to be your own safe place. Maybe right now you are being reminded — that the people who walked away were only ever leading you back to yourself, were only ever leading you here.
And here, you are okay on your own.
Here, you are rebuilding.
Here, you are adapting, and mending, and reclaiming all of the pieces you let them walk away with.
Here, you are being kinder to your soul, you are giving yourself the same kind of love you have always given to others.
Here, you are not rushing your heart, you are not depending on another human being to fix it. Instead, here, you are doing that on your own.
Here, you are healing.
– Bianca Sparacino
“One of the most difficult goodbyes occurs when we love a person and, at the same time, we see that it is not possible to build a healthy relationship by their side. It is a moment of deep introspection, where the heart and mind are debating between staying or leaving.
Well, staying would imply continuing to wait for changes that do not arrive, tolerating actions that hurt us, accepting the slightest effort, losing ourselves in the attempt not to lose it. Sometimes, hope ties us to unsustainable situations. We cling to the idea that things will improve, but the reality is that it doesn’t always happen that way. Courage is in recognizing when it’s time to let go and let go.
We know that leaving will hurt; but it will be the route that will lead us to heal. The pain of farewell is inevitable, but it is also the first step towards healing. By moving away from what hurts us, we allow our wounds to heal. It is an act of self-love and self-care.
Instead, staying alone will continue to open the wound more and more. Remaining in a toxic or unsatisfactory relationship prolongs the suffering. Every day we spend in that situation, the wound deepens. It’s like we’re tearing an open wound over and over again.
Sometimes you choose to leave, not for lack of love for that person, but for your self-love that moves you to take care of yourself. And with love you leave. The decision to leave is not an act of lack of love for the other person, but an act of love for oneself. That is to say: “I love myself enough not to allow myself to continue suffering.” And in that self-love, we find the strength to say goodbye, be in PEACE and move forward.
Remember that every farewell is an opportunity to grow, learn and transform yourself. Sometimes, the greatest act of love is to let go of what no longer nourishes us, to give space to new experiences.”
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He mentions the varied treatments that I am aware of that are healthy .
Regulate your diet !
