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.
This is the story of my client that has been trapped in the “I am alone” story for a long time.
At the beginning of this year, a beautiful, kind, successful, and highly accomplished woman came to me, completely heartbroken after another failed relationship. “I am going to turn 40 this year, and I want to have a family! I don’t have time to waste with another wrong person. What do I do? I am hopeless.” She confessed.
After going through her relationship history, we were able to name a pattern which was repeating itself. She was attracted to men that were very charming, fun to hang out with and unable to create a deeper connection with her.
She was also able to see that she had been ignoring a lot of red flags at the beginning of each relationship, hoping “things” would change over time. The more she invested in the relationship, the more frustrated she became about certain qualities of her partner. Needless to say, “things” did not change as she hoped for. The more frustrated she was, the less fun it became for her partners, and after some time, they ended the relationship. Same story, again and again.
I was wondering what conclusions she made about the men based on her experience.
She said “Men can’t be trusted.”
When we touched on her childhood, she remembered her mum used to tell her: “You can never show men how much you like them, they can’t be trusted.”
This belief was imprinted in her and as a result of this, she was attracting untrustworthy men and ended up alone.
The big breakthrough for my client happened when she was able to see how she was the source of her own experience with men.
She wanted a partner that would be able to create a deeper connection with her. Someone she could rely on, and would be there for her and make her feel special. At the same time, she wanted to show up as an incredibly self-sufficient woman that didn’t need anyone.
She rarely asked for support.
She could see that she stayed way too long in relationships that she somehow knew had no future.
She often isolated herself when she was sad. She avoided conflict with her intimate partners because she was worried, they would leave her if she showed up vulnerable.
When she got angry with her partner, she would give him the silent treatment, unable to express why she was angry.
She had very weak boundaries.
“Wow”, she said. “I had no idea that my behavior was pushing my partners away from me. I thought that’s what men want, a low-maintenance, self-sufficient woman that doesn’t need much.”
The truth is, that only immature men would date a woman that has no needs.
My client was very much disconnected from her own needs. She didn’t even know she could have needs in a relationship.
Yet, mature love looks like equally sharing and caring for each other’s needs.
Throughout our work together, we focused on different ways of how to show up more authentically with people and create the desired deeper connection with them.
We needed to renegotiate the old agreement she made with herself that “Men can’t be trusted” so she could allow herself to let someone in.
What happened was that the type of men she was previously so attracted to, completely changed. Now she was looking for someone that could truly be there for her, someone she could open up to, someone to feel safe with.
She needed to learn to authentically share her feelings and needs, so the others could find their way into her world.
She needed to learn to ask for support and be open to receive it from others.
She needed to learn how to be loyal to herself first and foremost.
She needed to take the risk of telling the truth about those things that she was uncomfortable with and upset by… and leave the relationship if she was treated badly, or if her partner failed to adjust his behaviour appropriately.
It was an 8-month long journey for her, stepping out of her comfort zone and developing new skills and capacities, to be able to thrive in a relationship that is deep, healthy, loving and caring.
As she said, “If I only knew that I was the one sabotaging the possibility of having a loving and caring relationship. I used to blame my partners and didn’t see my part clearly.”
Today, she is working on creating a mutually caring and loving relationship with a lovely man she met during our work together.
Now she knows that a happy, healthy and deeply caring relationship is not something we attract, it is something we create. It takes intention and effort. It takes deep understanding of who we are and what we need.
To be able to attract the One – you need to become the One.
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.
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