Is This What Holds You Back?

 

Well hi there, I’m Maggie O’Connor a breakthrough MFT helping you reach your breakthrough moment. I’m here today because I need your help with something. Now what happened to you when I said that? Did you pull back a little bit? Did you lean in with curiosity? Most of us do pull back a little bit when we’re asked for help because we’re just wondering what’s it going to take from me; And even more of us hesitate before we ask for help ourselves. We say things like, oh I should be able to handle it on my own or it’s not that hard.

Well you make complete sense, Homo sapiens lived in caves for hundreds of thousands of years where the main goal was survival- who you trusted or showed vulnerability to could mean the difference between life and death. The instinct to protect, kept us alive for hundreds of thousands of years but, these days we don’t just want to survive we want to thrive. We want to be happy; We don’t just want to be breathing. But what happens when our survival systems sidetrack our happiness? What happens when that instinct to protect distances us from the people we want to be most close too.

In relationships today we want to grow with our partner, we want them to understand us for decades upon decades. Which is a far cry from living in caves and just needing your partner to make fire, hunt, gather, and not get eaten before dying at about thirty-five years old. In order to be truly known and understood we need to show that underbelly. We need to talk about what hurts us, scares us, and even inspires us; That’s vulnerable too. Most of us need help learning what activates our specific defense systems. What brings them online and makes it hard for us to do the thing we most want to do? We need to bring down our defenses to feel truly known and be happy. So I wonder where you would have learned to do that. Most of us need help- why wouldn’t you need help?

So most of us don’t go to the doctor at the first sign of a cold- most of  us don’t go to the mechanic at the first grumble of the engine- I mean that’s when I hope it just goes away but, I hear most consistently from couples that they wish that they had come in sooner because it didn’t have to hurt so bad for so long. So don’t wait till it’s completely unworkable. Take the bravest step of asking for help with your relationship. You’ll be so relieved when you make that first call! I’m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to break on through.