FAIR IN RELATIONSHIPS

Fairness feels peaceful and safe.

“I’m so happy. I have a date and I actually feel confident and excited about it. I wouldn’t have felt this way three years ago.”

Meet Abigail. Abigail and I started working together two and a half years ago. This was the first date she’d gone on since I’d met her. She was raised by emotionally unavailable parents. Her story is riddled with unfair moments—things a child needed but didn’t get. Words spoken and deeds done to a helpless little girl that would leave the empaths among us crestfallen.

Learning that what happened to her was indeed unfair validated Abigail and facilitated her descent into what James Hollis calls the swamplands of the soul—despair, doubt, shame, anger—the places we fear to tread but realize we won’t run freely until we walk through the muck.

Courageously, Abigail wandered through her past to understand that the way she was treated contributed to her self-concept and fueled her behavior, which to date meant out-sourcing all her needs.

Out-sourcing is a term I use with my clients to describe when we are looking to another rather than within to fulfill our needs. It’s when we need the boss to tell us we’ve done a great job. Or, the sales lady to say how incredible the dress fits us. Or, the partner to make us feel happy. We out-source when we don’t have the confidence that we’ll find what we need within, likely because someone a long time ago convinced us that we don’t have what we need within. That is false.

You have the capacity within yourself to create all that you need.

When we look to another to fulfill our needs, we give up our stability, our security, our strengths. Abigail out-sourced because her psyche was convinced that not only was she flawed, but only another person could make her feel better. This is a natural reaction for a child, no longer for an adult, but it’s easy to be stuck feeling those unresolved childhood wounds. A “performer” and “people pleaser” showed up and shoved Abigail’s true self into the basement in order to survive the instability of her childhood.

Self-reflection eventually shed those protective out-sourcing roles as Abigail validated the feelings associated with what happened to her, paving the way for her to discover, and sometimes create, her true self. Now she is dating on her terms. As someone who can communicate not from fear, anger or anxiety, but from authenticity, she can finally feel joy and a sense of belonging when with another.

Many of us have felt injustice at the hands of those who were supposed to care for us, and may still writhe in unconscious turmoil as a result. We become critical of our partners, angry at the world, anxious about a job interview. We separate from our true self. Unfair experiences are often the unconscious culprit to our unhappiness. But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.

But you want to know how Abigail’s date went, don’t you?

At the end of a completely relaxing evening, Abigail, for the first time in her life, felt seen and accepted for exactly who she chooses to be. Gone are the days of desperately needing validation from others. She validates herself. Gone are the days of out-sourcing. She in-sources.

Abigail has created a story that is far bigger and better than what happened to her. She has decided who she chooses to be at work, in public and in relationships. She is thriving on her own island of competence and self-acceptance.