I saw the pain in his eyes and almost said: “I love you. You are perfect. Don’t go, stay with me.” He felt that we should be together. He gave me his love, his confidence, his care. He made me feel like the most beautiful, sexy and interesting woman on the planet. And it was lovely. But I didn’t feel the same way.
For most people it is very hard to be truthful about what they desire, need and don’t want. This is especially true when we are afraid our desires will hurt someone we care about. We are afraid to see other peoples pain, we don’t like to think of ourselves as someone who hurts another person and we are scared that we won’t be loved or liked. But to live an intimate, connected and truthful life, demands of us to be honest. And that will sometimes cause pain to ourselves and others.
Seeing the pain we cause
We are so uncomfortable with seeing the pain we cause other people, that we prefer to lie, to stay in relationships we don’t want to be in, to do things we don’t want to do. But by doing this we cause so much more pain than if we would be honest.
Unprocessed pain
We don’t want to see the pain we cause other people, because it touches upon our own unprocessed pain. If we would process our own pain better, then we could just be with the pain of other people. One on the greatest gifts we can give someone is to allow them to feel their pain in our company and just be a witness to it.
We are scared of the intensity of our own pain, because we have never learned how to feel it in a safe and loving way. We suppress our pain until we don’t feel anything anymore or until we burst, but then we suppress it as fast as possible again.
Image of ourselves
We also don’t want to see the pain we cause other people because it interferes with the image we like to see of ourselves as good, kind, loving people. We have been taught that hurting someone is bad and you shouldn’t. And we are scared that if we are truthful and in that hurtful, we won’t be loved or liked anymore.
Avoid unneccesary pain
I am not saying that we should just go around hurting the people around us. Not at all. We should try to avoid causing unneccesary pain. But I do think, that in relationships, especially in romantic relationships, you will always do, feel or say things that hurt the other person. We cannot be ourselves, have our own desires, thoughts and needs without them sometimes clashing with our loved ones.
Don’t insult yourself or the other
We stay in relationships way too long because we are scared of saying the truth and hurting our partner. When dating, people prefer to ghost than to honestly tell the other person they are no longer interested. To me, this is an insult to the other person and it’s an insult to yourself.
People always feel something is going on. They know when you feel less attraction, less love, less desire. They feel it when you create distance. So not saying anything is not protecting them. It’s treating them as less than what they are. You devalue them and by that you devalue yourself.
To live a true life
By being honest with someone you save them from pain, insecurity, self doubt and a life not lived truthfully. You gift them the possibility for a life with someone who desires and loves them.
To not listen to your thoughts, needs and desires, to not bring them into the world is not living a true life. To be honest to yourself, true to your needs, thoughts and desires is to be true to you. Don’t settle for less. You deserve this life.
My approach
Being honest with other people, starts with being honest to yourself. To be honest to yourself, you need to know yourself. To know yourself you need to reflect on other peoples responses to you, on your actions and on your feelings. I believe we need to start with our feelings.
When you cannot feel what you want, give yourself the time to feel it. Sometimes it is hard to feel when other people are around, sometimes it is hard to feel because we are scared of feeling.
It helps to close your eyes, feel your body. Where do you feel tension, or relaxation?
When you first start listening to your body, you might not feel anything. But this is training. You can create awareness around your feelings by purposely focusing on your body in moments of indecision. Don’t give up if you don’t notice anything. Just keep inviting yourself to feel.
To strengthen the connection between your body and your mind it can help to say out loud what you feel and where you feel it. So you might say: I feel a pressure on my chest, it feels heavy and when I focus on it, the pressure moves up to my throat and it makes it hard to speak. It is quite still and cold.
As you do this, you will know how to interpret this feeling. You will know if it means that you need to tell the person you are with, that you do not want them to touch you.
You will see, that when you start following your feeling, it becomes easier and easier to know the truth of yourself.
Do you want to live a true life?
