None of Us Wants to Be Abandoned...and how I want us to love more and deeper

Hey, you.

A client wrote to me recently and asked,

"Can you help me to want her less...care about her less...and love her less than I do so that I am not putting pressure on her to communicate with me or have to be intimate with me emotionally?

Is that realistic?"

I was really sick this week (and am still recovering; a wicked stomach virus and not COVID as far as I can tell) and stuck in bed contemplating...

Contemplating life, love, purpose...the kind of existential crisis only added to by the fact that I met the end of my relationship last month.

In these days before the start of spring, the darkness has a depth and a texture and coldness, like a heavy fog that won't materialize into drizzle.

I can see I'm connected to a formless ground of being, a vast and fertile emptiness that is the source and creation of everything that is both beautiful and scary.

A great environment for contemplation if you don't get lost in it.

I remember thinking, "That's not the kind of work I do; that's not the kind of support I offer."

I don't want to want less, care less, love less.

And I don't want you to either.

I am here for deeper connection.

More compassion.

More expression.

More safety.

I want to be able to hold the anger and grief around the loss of eight lives to a hate crime indulged in by white supremacist imperialism, racism, and the fetishization of Asian women in Atlanta, Georgia.

Next to that, I want to be able to hold the work and love of creating a society built on justice and liberation.

My specific work is in supporting your partner and you to hold two (and oftentimes more) conflicting things at the same time...

To experience freedom and the core of who you are with the love and support of your relationship...

Away from rigid roles, past trauma, and the effects of oppression.

This client who wrote me?

Their partner and them are not alone around experiencing the push-pull of avoidant/anxious attachment styles as conflicting coping mechanisms to the fear of abandonment.

They both don't want to be abandoned.

None of us do.

And our society and culture has abandoned us in the name of power over us.

Some of us deal by avoiding what's happening in the world and turning a blind eye.

Some of us deal with anxiety around how to help, how to love, what can be done.

We can also practice standing firmly—securely—in our values, in justice, in love.

Because it's not our fault we don't have the skills, role models, and capacity to show up to ourselves and to our partner in the ways we'd like.

It's not our fault we've been born into a culture and a system of oppression and power over instead of power with us.

And it is our responsibility to do something about it, to not perpetuate violence and hate, and not hand over a world to our children filled with more love and more justice.

It's about holding more than one—oftentimes conflicting—thing at the same time.

This weekend I invite you to hold out your hands with your palms facing up.

On one hand see your needs.

On the other hand see your partner's needs.

You don't have to choose one or the other.

You don't have to be at war.

You don't have to react.

There are your needs, there are their needs, and there are the needs of the relationship.

You are big and deep and loving enough to hold both.

Offering love,
Daniela

P.S. I'm here.

I invite you to hit reply and share with me what you're feeling around the brutal murder of eight Asian sex workers in Asian-owned businesses who were sought out by a white man who "had a bad day" and believed their lives were worth less and worthless next to his frustration and anger.

You're also welcome to email me and share what your needs are in your relationship right now and how they're being met...or not.