$\large\texttt{A love letter to self-compassion}$
The other day I talked to my friend who moved to a small caribbean island for a few months and to figure out if her new crush is something that is meant to stay.
After being in a long-lasting relationship and later marriage, that included several ups and downs, several house moves and job changes, relationship breaks, joint and separate households, house pets that came and left - her partner suggested one day that both may consider having an open marriage. They grew very close over the years and the marriage turned slowly into a very close friendship. Despite the long relationship, some hurtful aspects remained for both.
She asked for time to think about his suggestion. In parallel she had health issues that increased during the winter time and booked a flight to a remote island.
Well, long story short - she fell in love
with a new person in during her stay. She realised that she’s not the open marriage type at all.
Flew back and presented her husband with a fait accompli. Much to his shock she also told him that she will go back to figure out if this is a relationship she wants to stay in.
Shortly after she traveled back to the Caribbean. A few month in we talked about her new life and I noticed something peculiar.
She faced new, but also similar challenges with her new partner. The challenges made her doubt her ability to handle conflicts.
also read The 5 love languages
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I must say, she’s a conflict solving oriented person and knows how to handle different views in a positive way.
But this time, she got challenged in a completely new way.
Listening to her I recognised analogies with my travels. It's about living in a new culture that confronts you with a different way of living, thinking and feeling.
You are suddenly dealing with humans that have a different set of “imprints” of socialisation.
E.g. how things are handled, rituals and structures in communication, how a woman has to act, what is considered womanly and how men separate from it (and vice-versa).
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Firstly you don’t realise it's a matter of socialisation;
you notice friction.
Friction in communication or friction in how you see yourself, but people don’t treat you the same way (that you’re used to). They perceive you through their cultural lens.
Travelling to yourself
Travelling, and in particular living for a longer period at the same place, will expose you (ruthlessly) to these differences. The problem is, we are all hardly ever aware of these social imprints and patterns.
Of course, you can anticipate it on a mental and thinking level. But being there, trying to become a part of a new village, is a completely different level. It gets emotional, it gets visceral and it gets physical - because the “local” imprints are working on you.
Some of them create friction with your own ones.
Only by removing yourself from your familiar culture and diving into a new one, you will experience the differences. Relying soley on your familiar patterns doesn't work as smooth anymore.
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Now imagine an additional layer of being challenged, starting a new relationship. You will experience the relationship friction of getting to know a new person and their story. A story that partly is colored by the culture they lived in and one you are trying to figure out.
Your assumptions and social “imprints” don’t work as comfortable as you're used to.
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And now we arrive on a third level. Where we ask the question "what remains"? What stayed the same? With time you will notice something peculiar. Most likely troubling ...
You will notice patterns that stayed the same.
E.g. you notice you feel hurt the same way, have same inner troubles and following them, the same inner dialog that tries to explain you what went wrong.
Some things the new human says, acts on, silent expressions - cause the same insecure feelings. And you'll try to solve these insecurities with the same approach as you used to.
You have now two options,
Go back home to the safe haven and immerse again in the familiar cultural socialisation soup or you stay. You stay because you want to go beyond that pain and insecurity. You stay because you want to find out why you still get hurt the same way. Why it still hurts the same f*@! intense way?!
If you stay, you get to figure out:
Who are you anyway?
If you have patience for yourself and give you the love of enduring your pain with compassion, you will get beyond your patterns. The ones you haven’t had the chance to identify yet. The ones that are so deeply rooted in your being, you unconsciously assumed they were your DNA.
I’ve had many experiences like these, but through my dear friend I realised that they’re quite universal.
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Let me share with you my way of solving it.
Whatever pain I faced in the past; I stayed with me, myself and I.
I sustained the pain until it faded. I figuratively put a finger in my emotional wounds and kept the pressure.
I did Yoga with my pain
A term that I coined, after noticing the similarity between the ebbing away of muscle pain when holding a Yoga pose for some time.
I didn’t swerve, I didn’t hide or escape. With all my compassion I stayed with my pain.
I owned my pain
By staying, by keeping the finger at it, the pain faded - much like in Hatha Yoga. It faded because that pain wanted to be seen. Wanted to be integrated into my conscious being.
By staying with me I lifted that part from the shadow into the light.
Discovering new rooms within yourself
So, travelling and immersing into a new culture comes with a gift of getting to know yourself on a much deeper level. And you have the gift of choosing it - or not.
It requires courage to compassionately stay with your pain.
As travelling comes with the gift of getting to understand yourself on a much deeper level; so does when being in a relationship.
both are great mirrors - stay compassionate with both
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Natascha Buck is a Notion Strategist for the German speaking markets.
She is also the creator of the Notion Wedding Planner template that guides couples finding their love signature for their wedding - regardless what culture or family dictates.
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—— Last update February 10, 2021 11:34 AM (GMT+1)
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