Minimum Requirements
Mar. 20th, 2020 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormSuper interesting. I'm beginning to get a sense of this pattern.
Right now I'm holding space for my feelings, observing them, and feeling compassion and understanding towards them. When I'm doing this I can't really self-regulate: I need to ask for support, which I have done.
These are big feelings, old and deep. They surprise me a little. It's so easy to let feelings I don't want to share and feel I shouldn't have slide by because intellectually they seem ridiculous. It's embarrassing and humbling to know that I'm subject to subliminal and lingering influences that I want to reject.
But.
Here we are.
I really just don't think that as long as I'm poly, as long as I put my own life and desires first, that I'm worthy of love. Want to date other people, even if it impacts my ability to be present exactly when my partners want me? Want to live on a farm in a rural area? Want to have animals and a career that I won't give up for a partner? There's no reason anyone should want to be with me. I'm useless, inconvenient, not treating them right. Someone would only date me as an inconvenience to themselves, and if they do I should expect them any moment to go date someone more reasonable when they figure this all out.
But of course, in a partner, none of that is what I want at all. When I think of what people bring to my life, what I get out of dating someone else, I don't want them to twist themselves up into a shadow of my life. I want folks to be the fullest expression of themselves, which means they do what they love and see the people they love. I seem to need people who are "poly enough" that they've done it for years, that they've rejected other relationships over it: those folks will understand me and be able to celebrate with me in ways no one else can, and I will be able to do the same with them. I need people who are willing to go into themselves and find their boundaries. I like folks who recognise that setting a boundary is a victory. I like folks that make decisions for their own benefit. I need folks who love things other than me. Folks who have their own lives, those are the folks who are beautiful to me. Not people who just want to shadow me.
So I should be able to grant that same set of motivations to my partners.
The trouble is, there really have been so many people who have said, to my face, that's not what they want from me. I am not in relationship with any of those people now: not as lovers, not as partners, not even as close friends. They are absolute poison as a personal reinforcement of the overarching societal narrative that relationship means annihilation of self. And I loved those people so it's hard to know what to do with their voices.
No doubt I'll dig into that later. For now, though, I'm just wandering around being loved by people and feeling terrible and guilty about it. The alchemy is that I'm feeling it, voicing it to them, feeling my way through a new narrative. I'm seeing pieces of what I love in them reflected in myself, pieces I feel guilty about but love in others. I'm letting those rub up against each other and co-exist. I'm letting myself be loved. I'm letting speaking about these feelings be normalized.
My goal is to get noticing and speaking of these feelings so normalized that when they come up again I catch them instead of just acting. My goal is to not feel ashamed of having the feelings, so I can speak about them and ask for help and reassurance.
I'm definitely on the path.
Big work. Big feelings. Good work.
Well done, self.
Right now I'm holding space for my feelings, observing them, and feeling compassion and understanding towards them. When I'm doing this I can't really self-regulate: I need to ask for support, which I have done.
These are big feelings, old and deep. They surprise me a little. It's so easy to let feelings I don't want to share and feel I shouldn't have slide by because intellectually they seem ridiculous. It's embarrassing and humbling to know that I'm subject to subliminal and lingering influences that I want to reject.
But.
Here we are.
I really just don't think that as long as I'm poly, as long as I put my own life and desires first, that I'm worthy of love. Want to date other people, even if it impacts my ability to be present exactly when my partners want me? Want to live on a farm in a rural area? Want to have animals and a career that I won't give up for a partner? There's no reason anyone should want to be with me. I'm useless, inconvenient, not treating them right. Someone would only date me as an inconvenience to themselves, and if they do I should expect them any moment to go date someone more reasonable when they figure this all out.
But of course, in a partner, none of that is what I want at all. When I think of what people bring to my life, what I get out of dating someone else, I don't want them to twist themselves up into a shadow of my life. I want folks to be the fullest expression of themselves, which means they do what they love and see the people they love. I seem to need people who are "poly enough" that they've done it for years, that they've rejected other relationships over it: those folks will understand me and be able to celebrate with me in ways no one else can, and I will be able to do the same with them. I need people who are willing to go into themselves and find their boundaries. I like folks who recognise that setting a boundary is a victory. I like folks that make decisions for their own benefit. I need folks who love things other than me. Folks who have their own lives, those are the folks who are beautiful to me. Not people who just want to shadow me.
So I should be able to grant that same set of motivations to my partners.
The trouble is, there really have been so many people who have said, to my face, that's not what they want from me. I am not in relationship with any of those people now: not as lovers, not as partners, not even as close friends. They are absolute poison as a personal reinforcement of the overarching societal narrative that relationship means annihilation of self. And I loved those people so it's hard to know what to do with their voices.
No doubt I'll dig into that later. For now, though, I'm just wandering around being loved by people and feeling terrible and guilty about it. The alchemy is that I'm feeling it, voicing it to them, feeling my way through a new narrative. I'm seeing pieces of what I love in them reflected in myself, pieces I feel guilty about but love in others. I'm letting those rub up against each other and co-exist. I'm letting myself be loved. I'm letting speaking about these feelings be normalized.
My goal is to get noticing and speaking of these feelings so normalized that when they come up again I catch them instead of just acting. My goal is to not feel ashamed of having the feelings, so I can speak about them and ask for help and reassurance.
I'm definitely on the path.
Big work. Big feelings. Good work.
Well done, self.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 05:40 pm (UTC)