Do you frequently find that you need time to yourself? Do you identify yourself as somebody who really needs and likes alone time? Technically, we're a social species.
Our species survival depended upon being next to each other, connection. Technically, connection is a top human need. So how can it be that you feel better when you're alone?
How can it be that you need so much space? or when you need space, this never includes your family dog. .
. or your cat. .
. or plants. .
. but they're living. .
. and your pets need you. But you're not really turning around to your family dog saying: "Look, I just need space and time to myself right now!
" So what's the variable? Why it's about. .
. people? I'm gonna tel you today something that most people will find controversial, at face value.
It's that if you identify as somebody that likes your alone time and needs a lot of space, it means that you're struggling with inauthenticity. The difference between your dog and a person, is that you feel like you can completely be in alignment with your unique desires, needs, perspectives, feelings, thoughts and do whatever you wanna do when you're with your dog, and you don't feel like you can do any of that with a person. There's a big incongruence between your internal self and your external self when you're around people.
This leads to both pressure and exhaustion. It is hard to act differently than you feel. It is hard to do what you don't wanna do.
It is hard to tailor every word and action to the response you want to get from them. Enmeshment trauma is a difficult thing and very, very common for the human species. Now, let's think about enmeshment trauma.
It's basically, nobody listening to boundaries. So here's how enmeshment trauma goes: in households when one adult or more refuses to see a child as his or her own person, and instead regards them as an extension of themselves, the child is not allowed to have their own desires, needs, perspectives, feelings or thoughts. There were consequences for that.
In order to maintain the secure connection they needed with this adult, they have to lose their sense of themselves. They have to forfeit their autonomy. Therefore their desire to develop a sense of self is as strong for them as the desire for merging is, for people who have suffered from abandonment trauma.
If you have suffered enmeshmennt trauma, wether you notice it or not, when somebody enters the room, you instantly feel like you have to abandon yourself to cater to their needs, their wants, their wishes. You have to make yourself into something that pleases them. You'll try to create connection with them by anticipating the reaction they will have to anything you say or do, so that you can only do and say what will get you a positive reaction and avoid doing and saying things that get you a negative reaction.
You will immediately loose your authenticity for the sake of connection. It's like walking on broken glass. The tension and the pressure you feel as a result of not being able to be natural will be immediate.
Here's a thing, it doesn't matter whether that person is somebody who can actually welcome the totality of you, including your boundaries, or not. You just automatically go into this reaction whenever you're around a person. Basically, an easy way of saying this is that other people are a trigger for you to not be yourself.
Now, if you're paying attention, the way that you feel around people is absolutely terrifying. It's like suddenly, the minute that another person steps into your vincinity you start to loose yourself. All of a sudden you lose touch with what you need and what you want, and what you actually think, and what your inner truth is, and what you.
. . need?
You're just sort of: "OK, now I'm bleeding into everything. " So the only way to get a sense of yourself back, is to push them away. When you're away from other people, meaning you've pushed them away now or you've run away and now you're alone, now you can't actually attune to somebody, and so in that moment you have access to what you need, you can feel what you want, you can figure out what your internal truth is, you can feel yourself.
Now let's be honest, those of you who are like this, who suffered enmeshment trauma and so you lose yourself the second you're around other people, it sucks! Because you're kind of torn: because a part of you really does need connection and part of you wishes you didn't need it at all, because the price for connection for you is to lose yourself. Now to give you the view of the flip side, people who are in a relationships with you, they really suffer.
The reason is, they feel pushed away by you. Why do they feel this way? Because they're right!
To get a sense of self, you are pushing them away, chronically, impulsively, just so that you can feel yourself. So usually people let themselves be pushed away more than a few times, and then, it starts to corrode their own self-esteem. Continually being pushed away, and so they leave you, and so you say: "See?
If I can't be exactly what other people want me to be, they just leave, so, I have to abandon myself even further", and so this cycle goes on and on. When you are unconscious of this dynamic, it is only through that friction of defiance and rebellion to another person that you have a sense of yourself as an individual and this, in fact, feels safer to you. It does not feel safe to lose yourself, because losing yourself in this sense is not the same as becoming one.
Instead, it's becoming the other person while they're not becoming you. So it feels like you're being consumed by them or absorbed by them and losing your free will. So you constantly vacillate between pushing people away and needing them.
Relationships do not feel safe to you if you are too close. So this is what relationships end up feeling like: You can't let somebody too close, and if they get too close, you have to push them away, but if they go away then you chase. And so, I actually call this: "the rubber band syndrome" in relationships.
Because it's like the two people are constantly doing this, only allowing for this much space between them and never letting that space fully close because of that terror of consumption. Here's the bottom line: pushing people away is not a good thing especially if you're pushing away people you love. It hurts them and ultimately, you as well.
It's a reaction you have to a threat. That threat is absorption. Being alone can be a good tool to use to get in touch with yourself, but remember, that it's a tool.
It is not actually necessary for a physical human. Do you feel the resistance you've just had to that statement? That should tell you something about yourself.
Now, I'm gonna make a revolutionary statement here: Because of the way that a physical human is designed, if you could be completely authentic around other people, you wouldn't actually need space to yourself. ~ Laughter ~ You don't have to take my word for it. Go try it out.
That's why some people are so much easier for you to just be around no matter what, and other people aren't. But. .
. that's the reality of the human species. The single most difficult thing for people to learn is: "I can have myself, and have you too" If you struggle with this issue of authenticity in relationships or feeling like relationships erase your entire identity, the first thing that you need to do and commit to is to work on personal boundaries.
When people have a poor sense of boundaries, when you say "boundary", what they're thinking of is a fence, right? It's something that prevents you from doing what I don't want you to do. That's not really what boundaries are about.
Boundaries are about anything that represents a "no" to you and also anything that represents a "yes" to you. So let's say that someone says: "I like vanilla ice-cream", that's actually a boundary. That's them defining who they uniquely are.
Now, if I was with this person and I said: "I like chocolate ice-cream", that would also be a boundary. It's something defines what's unique about me. My unique desires, my unique needs.
Now, if I said: "Oh, that's interesting, I love vanilla, too", It's still a boundary. It doesn't matter whether we agree on a personal preference, the personal preference is still uniquely ours. A boundary is an imaginary line that uniquely defines your personal happiness, you personal feelings, your personal thoughts, your personal integrity, your personal desires, your personal needs and therefore, most importantly, your personal truth from the rest of the Universe.
Defining your personal boundaries means you have to get in touch with what those things are and to start to live your life in alignment with that. Even when you're with other people. There will be boundary conflicts in relationships.
If you're authentic, there will be times where somebody looks and says: "Wait, that's totally against what I want and need". That's fine! Because now, we can have a conversation about a needs conflict.
~ Laughter ~ You don't have to abandon yourself instantaneously. In other words, it's a time for conflict resolution. It is not a time for either of you to simply give up your boundaries for the sake of remaining connected to each other.
To understand more about boundaries, watch my video titles: Personal Boundaries vs. Oneness (How to Develop Healthy Boundaries) Obviously, throughout this video I've been talking to you about the fact that if you identify yourself as someone who needs space, you are struggling with inauthenticity. So.
. . Become authentic.
If you wanna understand how to do this, you can watch my video on YouTube that is titled: How To Be Authentic Commit to authenticity regardless of whether you are in the room with another person or not. If you let this happen, what will happen is a natural sifting process. Yeah, if you've been inauthentic, chances are you're surrounded by people who are in love with the mask and not really the real you.
So there will be a process where some people are like: "Nah, peace out, I was here for the mask, not really for the real you" However, the Universe doesn't like open spaces. It loves to fill them in. And so what will happen when those people gravitate away from you is that the place that they occupied now becomes occupied by people who can actually love you for your authentic and real self.
Now, here's the thing, when these people come into your life you will not need space from them. You will so free. .
. just as free as you do around your family dog. Because you can be completely yourself around them.
There is no pressure and a loss of self. And not really as much of a terror of being consumed by someone else. Here's the reality: unless you're willing to show somebody who you really are, that means what's real about you, what you really think, how really feel, what you really want, your genuine desires, your thoughts, all of these things.
. . Emotions.
. . than nobody can reach the core of you.
They're just talking to the mask, and so nobody can really love you for who you are. And what you want is connection. Connection with who you really are.
So be brave enough to take this step. Have a good week.
