Vineeto: what agenda do ‘you’ have to nurture him above and beyond fellowship regard? What benefit do you gain from “feeling connected” so much so that you are willing to worry about it/about him and are only happy when he is happy?
Sonya: So I’ve been thinking about this and I think the answer is that for me as a woman, part of my ‘super power’ is the nurture. It’s how ‘I’ can relate to people. When I was younger it was being nurtured and now as I am getting older it is to do the nurturing. It places me in society, if I am nurturing I’m a ‘good’ woman, so ‘I’ have a vested interest in keeping the nurture around, it makes ‘me’ feel safe to be considered a ‘good’ woman to society. On the flipside, if ‘I’ am not nurturing, I’m cold, a bitch, etc… Although by ‘normal’ standards I’m not a overtly nurturing person and most people wouldn’t describe me as nurturing, and yet no one has described me as cold or a bitch either. So this knee jerk reaction of fear that without nurture I’m going to be an evil robot is silly. It’s the same concern that came up when questioning love. It’s not an either or, it’s the third alternative.
I think the reason why I also want to keep ‘feeling connected’ is so I’m not solely responsible for my own happiness. So, I can rely on Kuba if I am happy or not, If he’s upset, then I subsequently get upset and can easily blame him for me being upset. It’s getting easier to grab it by the throat and look at it now when the feeling comes up. It’s the fear of standing on my own two feet and being accountable for my own happiness, without ‘feeling connected’ who can I blame when I am being upset?
Hi Sonya,
You found some excellent reasons why you so far shied away from giving up “‘feeling connected’”, and also that you found them not really compelling. It seems the one closest to home is the last one – “who can I blame when I am being upset?”
Who indeed, when you give this pattern up, can you blame? Then the responsibility, and the capacity, to change is in your hands and in your hands alone and, as Ian so excellently explained how to do it on another issue (link), this is eminently doable. You will also find it is very enjoyable to be in charge of your own feelings (rather than believe someone else did it to you) and therefore you are in charge of how you feel – excellent, of course.
Vineeto: So, since you already found out for yourself, by experience, that a love relationship is inferior to a partnership based on appreciation and enjoyment, why would you want to pretend it is otherwise just to belong to a group of women with whom you have nothing in common with?
Sonya: I had my best friend visit me over the weekend, she knows I don’t prioritise love and she can experientially see that I still care for here and have not become an evil robot. I’m frank with her about actualism whenever she asks and I really enjoy spending time with her. She is someone apart from Kuba whom I’m not scared to be transparent with. Yet there is still a bit of ‘sisterhood’ that I am not quite letting go of yet, I know I don’t love her, she knows that as well and accepts that care and consideration is a priority for me over love for her. And with each little step of progress that I make I am taking a step away from sisterhood and into something much more substantial, that isn’t the ‘doom and gloom’ or the spiritual ‘mystery’ of being a ‘woman’ or ‘womanhood’. It is relating that is more than that. I don’t see the benefit of staying in the ‘sisterhood’ with its flipside, it isn’t ‘safe’ and it isn’t reliable. And I know that I won’t be an evil robot without it. It also doesn’t mean that I have to never interact with my female friends. (link)
This sounds encouraging that your belief of the overall structure of “‘sisterhood’” and related loyalty is slowing losing its credibility and is less compelling than before to follow its associated beliefs. You are also discovering that you can replace those beliefs with genuine care and consideration and enjoy each other’s company even more.
Isn’t it remarkable what beneficial results attentiveness and sincere contemplation can bring about.
Cheers Vineeto