For those of you who struggle with the relationship anxiety spike, “I’m not in love enough with my partner”, I have a cure for you: Spring!
Okay, maybe it’s not the type of “cure” that our black-and-white minds would like to believe exists – that magic panacea that eradicates all doubt and sends us into an ecstatic upswirl of certainty – but Spring does carry some kind of magical potion that, when harnessed, helps us to find our own place of aliveness, which is at the root of the expectation that our partners are supposed to make us feel in love.
Here’s an excerpt from the recent Gathering Gold episode where Victoria and I gently explore many layers of the gifts and challenges of Spring, and the opportunity that Spring carries for healing this one aspect of relationship anxiety:
In the episode, I also share a poem that I wrote over twenty years ago in the early stages of my relationship with my husband, and when I read the poem during the recoding I was brought to tears. I introduced the poem:
“The poem speaks to this time of year, to things not yet born, to potential and possibility. This was years before we had children, when our whole marriage and life as parents was ahead of us. And there’s some pain when I read back on it now: the pain of knowing the challenges that were ahead of us; the loss of innocence when it was just he and I and we were in a bubble of more ease; this was before we moved to Denver, before he left his career behind in Los Angeles. We just had no idea how our collision of traumas would manifest. And we had no idea about the goodness, either: that our two sons were on the way; that I would grow my work in the world; that I would write two more books after the first one; that he would find his way into a new career; that he and I would have two more marriages all with each other. Spring speaks to this place of innocence and nascent possibility.”
Feeling quite emotional, I had to take a breath. And after I read the poem the full release of unexpected tears arrived, and I tried to make sense of them:
“I think what’s coming now is the… the extraordinary gift of Daev’s love. That he has never, ever stopped loving – and there have been so many hard times, but his love has been unwavering. And his seeing of me. I was just a spring chicken when we met! I was so young. And he saw… he just saw my soul, he saw me like nobody had ever seen me. He saw our babies. He saw what would end up being my work in the world. That innocence of young love. The innocence of that time in our life. It was spring, We were spring. And we’ve gone through so many seasons since then. And we’re in such a good place now. So to be at this spring and reflecting back on that spring twenty years ago…”
I hope you listen to the episode because the vulnerability that poured through my heart cannot be communicated in these words. The tears speak to the pain/goodness of this life, and it’s important to say here that relationship anxiety is, at a core, the vulnerable heart that senses into the enormous risk of committing to one person, a risk that will invariably include pain. Some part of us knows this, and that’s when the mind steps in to try to protect the heart by convincing you that your partner or the relationship itself isn’t “enough” in some ways. Loving is the biggest risk we take, and highly sensitive people know this.
If you’re with a good partner (and I’ve expounded on what I mean by “good” in multiple posts) but relationship anxiety is trying to convince you otherwise, hang on. It’s worth every ounce of hard work you pour into deactivating the potency of the fearful thoughts and convictions. Take the course. Join us for the live round. Do the inner work that will allow you to find enough spaciousness and clarity that you can say YES to your loving partner and create a beautiful life together. It will not be a perfect life; that does not exist. But it will be a shared life with someone who has your back and you have theirs. And this is worth more than gold.
Choose love. Choose YES. Choose to harness the healing potential of spring and allow yourself to toss a few layers of fear into the rushing waters. Choose your loving partner and do whatever it takes that allows you to make the choice. It’s one of the most important choices we can ever make, and it’s not one you will regret.
The next live round of Break Free From Relationship Anxiety starts on April 10th, 2022, and includes four group coaching calls with me. I look forward to meeting you there.
