How Ignoring your Intuition can Lead to Dysfunctional Relationships
If we grew up in dysfunctional families, we tend to go out into the world and find ourselves attracted to what we’ve known, which is typically chaos, abuse, neglect, energy draining vampires, immaturity, reactivity, and/or we recreate and become what we’re familiar with. To have functional relationships as an adult, we must be willing to acknowledge, face, and ultimately own the dysfunctional reactions, thoughts, and behaviors we have learned along the way. This is the first step in moving away from whatever dysfunction we may have soaked up.
Dating culture in America is often one-sided, in which people search for someone generically their version of ‘healthy.’ This is a much more common sentiment than, ‘Hey, I’m really working on myself so that I can be the greatest partner I can be for someone else. I want to grow into someone I would want to date and/or partner with.’ This is how we change our attraction system to more of what will work for us instead of what we have always known.
Our egos attract us to external things with the hope to fix ourselves, to make us all better, or to be the thing that finally makes our lives ok. This is a powerless and helpless way to move through the world. Our power is in owning our internal personal development and a dedication to healing ourselves internally, which ultimately heals our people picker.
When I met my first husband, I had a ‘bumper car’ dating mentality--the idea that we randomly bump into each other and we have chemistry so we should try to make a relationship work. Dating and partnering really should not be like bumper cars. So, if chemistry isn’t the thing to lean into then what is? It’s not that chemistry is bad. The problem is that we tend to misconstrue and confuse dysfunctional chemistry with compatibility, without considering what true compatibility is.
Many of us with anxiety and depressive symptoms from abuse or neglect are operating from our wounding, desperately hoping that partnering with someone will fill the voids. The insta-fire activated feeling that we label as chemistry, attraction, or love is often a warning sign that we interpret as excitement. This is driven by the inner child. It’s as if our inner child is thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, this is such an exciting feeling. Something about him or her is similar to mom or dad. I couldn’t get my needs met with either of them, but maybe this human being will repair that for me and little me will finally have what I’ve always wanted!’
Relationships that start off feeling so electrified often blow up because our people picker was calibrated to pick people similar to our families. People pleasing in my youth was a subconscious strategy to move me through life by encouraging me to be human clay--to mold myself into what a partner wanted so that I could secure a person to fill my abandonment wound. If I was a passive person or operating on the surface level, this may have been good enough. However, in this life, my real, natural, true shape had to show itself. I couldn't and wouldn't hold the codependent shape, and I had to shapeshift back to ME. Then I wasn’t what others in partnership or relationship wanted anymore. No matter how inadequate or toxic my past relationships have been, I had to own what I had done to myself and to the people from my past. I ultimately chose to take full responsibility for my part to grow and find freedom.
The hard truth about codependency is that when we are in the thick of it, we are being manipulative--we just think it’s for the great good or that it’s the right, loving people pleasing thing to do. If we have a seeker’s spirit with insight and are evolving, our real, true shape will come out. If I had to pick one thing to focus on in dating, it would be authentically--not codependently--representing ourselves to others. We learn who we are beyond the people pleaser and get to know what we want in life. We practice standing in our center and listen to our deep intuitive self. From this work, we start to honor the journey of figuring out compatibility with another.
When we let go of people pleasing, we start to hear ourselves. This is how we start to partner with our intuition. We cannot hear our intuition over anxious people pleasing. It makes sense that self worth work becomes ant-anxiety work, which becomes intuition listening work--all equalling soul care. Our intuition really does feel, sense, see, and hear the pink and red flags. Listening to our body’s alarms without allowing chemistry to cloud, overshadow, or blind is very important. Think about the word chemistry. There is a chemical pull towards another human being, an energetic drawing in. What might happen if we allow those intuitive pink and red alarm bells to be considered?
Chemistry can paint pink and red flags white. Then later, as life pushes up against us, the paint starts to chip off. Almost everyone who has worked with me and had to leave a dysfunctional relationship tells me at some point, ‘I ignored the red flags.’ This indicates that we really do feel, sense, see, and hear the pink and red flags--we just don’t want to. We can break these patterns of denial and dismissal. Psychologically, when we commit to hearing and seeing ourselves, we clean out the old wounds and help them heal.
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Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 14
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 8
- Bullying 4
- Childhood 37
- Codependency 7
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 4
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 71
- Existentialism 1
- Faith 1
- Family 24
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 10
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 51
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 19
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 36
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 2
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 7
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 12
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 16
- Self Love 11
- Self-Care 24
- Sex 1
- Shame 4
Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 14
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 8
- Bullying 4
- Childhood 37
- Codependency 7
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 4
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 71
- Existentialism 1
- Faith 1
- Family 24
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 10
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 51
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 19
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 36
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 2
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 7
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 12
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 16
- Self Love 11
- Self-Care 24
- Sex 1
- Shame 4
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