Written by: Jana Morton, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
“I am sorry, I will cry today. I need to let it out. He wants to break up with me. I feel it.” That is how our session began. The client of mine, Elle, is 36 years old, a career woman, bright, intelligent, fun, outgoing, and ready to settle in with a kind, loving man she has been seeing for over a year.
Today she sounds anxious, hopeless, and full of doubt, and I can’t see the spark she used to have. A completely broken woman is sobbing in front of me.
“It is ok to cry. Let the emotions out. You are in a safe place.” I handed her a box of tissues. When you are ready, tell me what has been going on since our last session.” I encouraged her.
Then she began to speak about how she had just moved in with him and didn’t feel comfortable in his place.
That sometimes he has plans for a weekend and doesn’t include her, how he is often tired after work and wants to watch tv and unwind while completely ignoring her presence in his space, how he didn’t introduce her to his family yet, which she finds suspicious.
How she organizes her time and schedule around him, but he is not doing the same for her. After work, he sometimes goes out with his friends rather than be with her. The list goes on.
I was curious about the energy between them now ‒ compared to the vibrant, loving, and fun energy when they began dating.
“Well, it is kind of stuck, tense, and not fun.” She replied.
“What exactly is making it stuck, tense, and not fun?” I asked.
She paused for a while, searching for an answer. Her body sank deeper into the chair. She began to cry again.
When Elle was eight years old, her parents divorced. She adored her dad, but he was not very present. She was often alone in her childhood, unsupported and unseen, with a deep sense of sadness inside. No matter how much she cried, it never changed anything, so she learned to toughen up and not show her emotions.
She grew into a very self-sufficient woman that is proud of not needing anyone. She rarely asks for support or asks in ways that others can’t hear. She may drop hints, gently imply, or ask in ways that make others run away, showing up as whiny, demanding, or even throwing a tantrum. When she is sad, she isolates herself. She doesn’t speak about what she feels or needs and is in fact, disconnected from her true feelings and needs.
When she isolates herself, in her head, she creates the worst-case scenarios, where people she loves always leave ‒ and there is nothing she can do to prevent that, just like in her childhood when her dad left.
This exact pattern started to take over her relationship now. She began to find evidence that her partner wanted to leave everywhere.
With the first assumption we make, with the first unresolved conflict that keeps festering inside us, with the first unspoken worry we have in our relationship … we create the stuckness, tenseness, and not fun atmosphere.
That is how powerful we are.
Once we can see our part clearly, we can change the course of our relationship and bring the fun, love, and excitement back.
My client could see how she started to show up in her relationship as the eight years old girl, whiny, tense, sad, not needing anyone on the outside, yet screaming to be seen on the inside. She is unable to speak about what she really feels and needs—being frustrated and angry, blaming her partner for her assumptions.
It is much easier to blame others, yet if we allow ourselves to look deeper into what is really true and how we contribute to the dynamics of our relationships, that is where we find the gold.
We explored the possibility for my client to have a first, honest conversation with her partner, where she shows up authentically, with all her worries and doubts, and where she allows herself to be vulnerable and share what is really going on inside of her.
Scary! Way out of her comfort zone.
But here is the thing ‒ if your life depended on having this honest, vulnerable conversation, you’d just have it, right?
Her life doesn’t depend on it, but her relationship certainly does.
Deep connection, love, and intimacy can only be created when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and let others into our inner world.
Jana Morton, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Jana Morton is a conscious relationship / conscious uncoupling coach, trained and mentored by the relationship expert Katherine Woodward Thomas, M.A., MFT and holds a Brain-based professional coach certification.
She collaborates with Hakkini ‒ a virtual well-being platform that caters to individual mental and emotional needs in the Middle East and beyond and L.E.A. Growing people ‒ HR consulting, training, mentoring, and coaching organization.
Jana is an empath with deep listening skills, strong intuition, and a genuine interest in people’s love stories and relationship struggles. She is passionate about helping her clients overcome their challenges and limiting beliefs so they can transform their relationships and live and love with more ease and joy.
Jana was struggling with unhealthy dynamics inside her own marriage. That is how she found Katherine Woodward Thomas’s methodology, which completely changed her life. She was able to liberate herself from a victimized perspective and transform into a self-actualized and self-responsible woman and partner. She now helps others to understand the mostly unconsciously created toxic dynamics in their relationships and guides them towards ones that are happy, healthy, and thriving.
