I’m driving through Copenhagen in the legendary bus 5A (If you know you know) blasting “Poppa was a playa” by NAS so loudly in my earphones like I really had no worry for tomorrow. It’s a late fall afternoon. “Næste stop Ravnsborggade” I jump off the bus and the colourful streets of Nørrebro invites me in as I make a right turn on to Blågårdsgade. I’m dragging about my brand new heavy white Timberland boots, my mother gifted me for my 17th birthday the month prior. The air is crisp. My skin is pale with the contrast of a light rosa chin and a slightly runny nose. I’m trying to memorise how much further down the street to go by closing my eyes and visualise the front door..colour…shape..form….steps…number? 16A !
..”So Vanessa..You’re sharing with me that you don’t see this friendship as anything more than physical. I wonder..what is your drive force behind? In your own words what is it you want?..” She initiates while looking deeply into my eyes with so much attention it makes me nervous. “..I… I guess I really just see him…I see..why he is the way he is..Aand I.. I want to love him out of it” I stumble on my words. She looks down at her notes and starts doodling. I politely wait for her next question like a good student in search of the ‘right answer’
The story above is a big travel back in time to one of my first ever therapy sessions taking place on the late side of the year 2016. I’m choosing to share it with you as it serves a beautiful example of my conditioning around intimate relationships. I did not understand it at the time, but reflecting back I can fully embody it from my now moment. I was and have continually unconsciously sought out to mother people in my life as an attempt to express affection and love. It does sound pretty innocent until you look deeper- the need to mother others can and often (I will not speak in absolutes) manifest as a fear response of wanting to take control of a situation. In my case this seeking of control was birthed out of so much distrust from my father-daughter experience. It reinforced the shadow aspect of the “saviour” archetype. I was out seeking my worth by trying to ‘fix’ the other. It brought with it the need to be needed.
Today I wrote in my diary “If I want to be wanted- but refuse to look at my need to be needed, I will perpetuate my own victimhood. If I don’t take responsibility for my side of the story, I will keep attracting codependent people into my life”
Mothering your man is indeed an expression of a codependent trait. Codependency is something we must take accountability for on our path to self realisation. Codependency is a natural occurrence of survival through our very first years of life, where we are totally depended on another to keep us alive. With other words codependency says ‘I am depended on another for my wholeness’. With the outsourcing of our wholeness we must understand what it’s attached to. How is lack / unworthiness playing out in your life? By externally seeking for validation? Yup. Me too. Attention once equalled our literal survival and we began to demonstrate how to get what we needed, by learning what would get us attention. When we project our unmet needs from childhood onto another person we sustain our abandonment wounding “I abandon myself and instead depend on you to fulfil me”
Moving to Bali four months ago gave me space to reflect and reunite intimately with myself and it lead me into to asking “Is it really love or am I seeking to extract my sense of wholeness from Rasmus?” It took me on a knee deep…..Toe deep..More accurately beneath my feet deep gut wrenching journey of alchemizing my father wounding. Necessary and up in my face painful. Especially the last full moon of 23’ was inviting it all out from hiding. Anyone else?! I acted on unconscious impulses which manifested the exact feelings that were ready for transmutation and expansion. Everything as pure perfection! I had no other comfort than to look up.. and gaze at a fully lit night sky sprinkling with stardust and fallen hopes.
If we don’t look at the raw truth of our intentions and we move in the world from a place of lack. We will keep manipulating our way into completing something we have yet to learn, we already are without even trying. That’s why in many cases I like to refer to “in the trying we have already missed the very point”
Everyday I work towards accepting the full spectrum of I. I want to know myself. Know my thorns. My weaknesses. Not from a place of seeking perfection, but from a place of true love, protection and inner strengthening. I’m doing my best in taking full ownership for my experience as I claim it all as my own creation. With all that I understand the importance of placing boundaries to guard my holy. As a woman I’m now learning to please myself. A deconstruct of everything I was ever taught by society. I know now that through pleasing myself I’m intentionally setting the framework for how I will, and who I will move with in my chosen reality of freedom, limitless potential and breakfast for dinner! …Or dinner for breakfast.
Recoding love is everything. It is the fundamental work. The how’s and the why's. Our whole existence is constantly push pulling between the duality of love and fear. Everything is related to Love. It has the big potential of being the great destroyer, the innocence of a planted seed starting to grow life inside the void of her womb space and everything in between. How can we build new, lasting systems from the ground up, if we still operate from a place of lack? Feel about it…. “Do for love”
V
So super beautiful:
I want to know myself. Know my thorns. My weaknesses. Not from a place of seeking perfection, but from a place of true love, protection and inner strengthening. I’m doing my best in taking full ownership for my experience as I claim it all as my own creation. With all that I understand the importance of placing boundaries to guard my holy. As a woman I’m now learning to please myself. A deconstruct of everything I was ever taught by society. I know now that through pleasing myself I’m intentionally setting the framework for how I will, and who I will move with in my chosen reality of freedom, limitless potential and breakfast for dinner! …Or dinner for breakfast.
I loved this part so much! Thank you! Happy international womens day