Psychotherapy
Because our hearts are broken in the context of relationship, this is also where it is healed. In the rigorous process of allowing the self we formed in response to failures of love to give way to a more spontaneous, natural and vital self we reclaim the life we had to abandon to survive, along with the self that came to love, be loved, to create, and that was always up for a great adventure.
Together we will surface and dissolve old, negative beliefs about yourself, like “I’m bad”, “I don’t matter”, “I don’t belong”, “I’m too much”. These were never true, but we were set up to believe them and then try our best to fashion a life with these unconscious beliefs working against us. In response to the unbearable feelings associated with a deep but unconscious self-loathing, we compensate by curating a personality to protect us from the truth. This expression of self, as a compensation, is also not true. As we unbraid the weave of ego, a life that is a true expression of who we are comes back on line. Together, we will do whatever it takes to encourage you to turn toward yourself with tenderness and compassion.
Relationship Therapy
“The point of (intimate relationships) is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good relationship is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.” Rilke
The primary reason for being in a committed relationship is to get as close to each other as possible over the course of a lifetime, while honouring each other’s autonomy and sovereignty. But cultivating this kind of deep intimacy takes courage, consciousness, and daily practice. We fall in love and enjoy a period of deep connection. It’s as if the universe has conspired to bring us our soul mate. After some months we notice that our partner is not everything we imagined. Little things start to get on our nerves. Then bigger things. Then practically everything! The temptation is strong to try to change him/her, to be more like we expected him/her to be. But the more we try to change our beloved the more resentment surfaces in both of us (because this wishing the other was different cuts both ways). We may begin to despair that we’ve made a bad choice.
Sometimes we have and it’s time to exit, ideally with respect and as little drama as possible.
It’s also possible that this relational friction is the greatest opportunity for our own conscious evolution into a more refined capacity for intimacy. Each of us brings emotional wounds and entrenched patterns of behaviour trying to unconsciously get the love we didn’t get. We hope that our partner can finally make up for this deficit, and when s/he doesn’t a primal heartbreak surfaces, a heartbreak that may have more to do with the past than than the present. As we surface this old grief we free our partner from the burden of having to take responsibility for what happened in the past. We let them be without leaving them alone. We create the opportunity to return to the promise of love, but this time around, as two adults who are taking responsibility for the past.
As we each commit to becoming more sovereign individuals, which means not abandoning ourselves for the sake of love, or for anything, true intimacy (letting each other be without leaving each other alone) is possible.