11 months ago I couldn’t cry.
I can still hear myself saying, “I feel like I need to cry but no tears will come.” Geoff & I joke about it now, but it was a real thing for the first two months we knew each other. Hello, suppression of emotions.
As I was leaving the house this morning, eyes still slightly puffy from tears I had shed 30 min before, I shot him a text that said, “Hey, remember when I never cried? hah.”
You know what they say, “Careful what you wish for.”
Because our reality now, is that I cry a lot. We both do. And we celebrate it on the regular. Cheers for tears! (We don’t really say that, but I might start now that I’ve written it here).
When the emotions behind tears are handled with care, tears are intimacy generators.
In the most recent iteration of my work, people come to me searching for amazing relationships—in all areas of their lives, personal and work. The first step? Being able to have uncomfortable conversations. Sort of like publically talking about crying on the internet; we have to be willing to share our truth, otherwise, we’ll shell up like a tearless turtle.
I desperately want to normalize that a great relationship isn’t one without conflict, tears, and challenges to work through. If it were, that would mean we weren’t bringing our whole self to the relationship.
Each of us carries our past experiences forward and until we become aware of how they shape our daily reactions, we will continue to act from old patterns. This is often what brings the most pain in relationships.
It’s also the thing many people want to deny.
But pain is not something to run from, it’s something to turn towards. It’s a signal.
It’s an opportunity for growth and healing and ultimately, it’s a path to more joy. When we shove it under the surface, it ends up running our lives. When we bring it to light, we take our power back and begin to create a life of magic. ✨
When we allow ourselves to be human, recognizing that we are worthy of love for simply being (a lesson that has been painful and messy for me to learn), we allow our full range of authentic expression to shine through.
I have no interest in being half of myself in a relationship and I would never wish that on anyone else. There is a hellish kind of suffering in the abnegation of our truest self.
So what makes a great relationship then?
While there are many answers to this question, great relationships make it a point to prioritize conscious awareness and curiosity.
The other person isn’t someone to meet all your needs and fulfill all your life’s fantasies. That would be boring.
It also won’t go all that well if we try to quell all your anxieties by exerting control over the relationship/other person at every turn.
Instead, great relationships prioritize curiosity and conscious awareness. The greatest gift I can give a partner/another person is to be ever curious about them.
Why do they think the way they do? What is this event bringing up for them? What did that remind you of in your past? These are the types of questions that resolve conflict with care and allow for expansive joy to enter the equation.
Curiosity leads to growth in a way control never will.
Better yet, I can get curious about myself. Why did that phrase impact me that way? Which part of me feels like they’re being ignored? Why am I reacting this way?
Because then we get to be two people trying their best on the daily to be two wholes. (All messiness welcome and included, of which there is much).
xx,
Alyssa
P.S. My follow-up text to Geoff was “Good news. I’m flawed, Which means I’m not a robot and you are, in fact, in love with a real-life human.”
P.P.S. My orchid bloomed!