A lesson from a “strong” single woman: Why working on yourself may not always work out….

For most of the last twenty years I have been an avid exponent of “self-development”- I’ve shouted, danced, sang, re-birthed, vision-quested, joined dozens of work-shops, had endless hours of therapy and cried oceans of tears. And yes, I’ve reaped the benefits- I feel more confident in myself, I am able to establish healthy boundaries and have little problem with communicating when a problem arises with someone. However I’ve been single for the majority of my adult life. That is a very hard thing for me to admit to but it’s the truth and I’m writing this article in the hopes of shining a light into what I’ve recently discovered in the hopes that it may help others too.

My early experience with relationships was with the classic “bad boy” let’s called him Derek. Derek was older than me, good looking, arrogant, charming and treated me horribly. And I lapped it up. With the 20/20 of hindsight it’s so easy to see- my sense of my self-worth was non-existent and he mirrored this back to me. At the time I remember the huge rushes of adrenaline when I was with him that I thought was “love” but I now see this as my body going into a state of high alert.

Dr Harville Hendrix explains this best in his book “Getting the love you want” with his Imago relationship theory:

“Our unconscious need is to have our feelings of aliveness and wholeness restored by someone who reminds us of our caretakers. In other words, we look for someone with the same deficits of care and attention that hurt us in the first place”

Basically we fall for people who remind us of some of the qualities of our primary caretakers, often the opposite sex parent; and so we attempt to get from them what we never received from our parent- the love, approval and validation that was often missing. However it is likely that the person that we fall for also contains the very same wounds and defences that were present in our caretaker and so we fall back into our original patterns of not getting our fundamental needs met. And so the cycle continues.

Luckily for me I was able to step outside of this cycle by becoming heavily involved with a personal development organisation called “More to Life”. Within its teaching I learned to find my own strengths and establish healthy boundaries, saying “No” became a source of pleasure rather than fear and I could finally develop a more loving relationship with myself.

However what I can now see, again with the benefit of that wonderful hindsight, was that I was rather too keen to become “strong” to be “independent” for this took away the fear of dependency, the fear of being suffocated within a relationship, the fear of being rejected and abandoned. Again it’s important to note that none of this was felt on a conscious level, on a conscious level I was only aware of my huge yearning to be in a loving relationship and the immense feelings of sadness and grief to not have this in my life.

I replaced a lack of self worth with a now over inflated need to look after myself. If someone didn’t give me what I wanted, I’d tell them- after all wasn’t this what I’d been taught? To look after myself and voice my needs rather than keep them hidden? I went from being timid to being dominating and wondered why my partners didn’t appreciate my new found voice.

What I didn’t realise was that underneath all of my desire for relationship, for connection, for intimacy existed an even deeper and unconscious terror of these very same things. My early life experience had been difficult, sent to live with my Finnish Grandmother at 3 years old, at the age when secure attachments are formed, I had very ambivalent feelings about being connected to people. My experience had shown me that at any moment people could leave and that feeling was horrible. Better not open up and risk that horror.

There is much written about this phenomenon within the psychology of attachment. Attachment theory looks at the early life connections formed between a baby and her primary caregiver, usually her Mother and the life-long patterns that this primary relationship will foster. When a child feels safe and that she is attuned to, i.e. her needs are acknowledged and fairly consistently met then secure attachment follows and subsequent relationships are relatively easily maintained. If however a child does not have her needs met or are met in an inconsistent manner then insecure attachment follows, often with a life-long pattern of both needing and fearing relationship.

It has been a long journey for me to finally admit to this truth. My cloak of strength and independence has offered me much pseudo-confidence over the years and it’s a frightening proposition to relinquish its protection and admit to the fears that lurk underneath its surface. However it’s also true that what I deeply long for- true intimacy and connection can never be achieved when I’m unable to be intimate with myself and with my own fears.

Another important lesson I take with me is that self-exploration is a continual process of unfolding and excavating. The human psyche is incredibly complex, ever shifting and not to be easily pinned down. The requisite tools needed are a willingness to let go of any pre-existing beliefs and to bring true curiosity to my present moment reality. “What’s really going on for me?” “What am I refusing to see/acknowledge?” “If I was counselling a friend with the same situation as my own what would I say to her?”

So I write this article to any of you confounded by both a deep longing for relationship and a seeming inability to achieve it. Maybe, just maybe you’re actually really scared of what relationship may bring and hopefully I’ve given you enough of an insight to actually peer and look more closely into your hidden fears.

As Jung so wisely writes, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

Image: This Long Road I Travel by Welsh Dragon