What are you hooked on?

When we are not aware of or have healed our own wounds, we end up chasing them out there and become hooked on to other people's wounds and issues. Instead of listening to our own inner wisdom and being guided by our own feelings, we dismiss them. We tolerate behaviour that is unhealthy, or makes us feel uncomfortable, or is hurtful to us. We try to get them to change, behave differently, think differently, so they’ll treat us better – the way we want to be treated. And when the other doesn’t change, we start pushing down our own feelings, justifying their behaviours, making excuses for them or for ourselves, fooling ourselves, and doubting our own thoughts.

What we are really trying to do, I believe, is have the other validate us and the more they don’t, the more we try to prove our worth to them. BUT, what we are really trying to do is prove our worth to ourselves. It is us who do not believe we are worthy or special enough.

And there is my hook.

That’s why I kept sticking around, even though my head and heart were saying, “this seems unhealthy”, “he has unresolved emotional issues around relationships”. When I felt his actions (not his words, so much) were not honouring me, respecting me or valuing me…I stayed. Hoping he’d see my worth and change. Yes there is many “wrongs” in that statement.

But what really awoke those painful, almost hidden beliefs was what happened after the relationship. After the break up. Sure my insecurities and lack of belief in myself had me be and stay in the relationship, but I am not a wimp or a pushover in a relationship. It was the break up that woke up the beast! The wounds broken wide open! He didn’t fight for me, he didn’t change, he didn’t fall apart (that I saw), he didn’t validate me, rather he disconnected from me AND he found a new girlfriend soon after…one that is still with him almost 2 years later (how invalidating to my thoughts and feelings). Not fighting for me, not falling apart without me, seeming ‘okay’ to let me go and getting a new gf fairly quickly had me hearing my old wounds and beliefs LOUD & CLEAR: “YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH”.

And I realize it was this feeling “I am not good enough” that had me clinging, obsessing over him, holding on to the pain, doubting myself, and a plethora of other self-defeating behaviours, not the break up…not him. I was just chasing my own wound and trying to get it healed by him!?

The more I tried to get him to validate me and prove to me that I am worthy and special enough to fight for, change for, stay with, the more I was invalidated and ‘proved’ otherwise…and then the more I clung and obsessed and held on to the story and the pain of the ‘break up’. Ironically, it is these actions, that not only reinforce those feelings within ourselves, but also adds yet another layer of pain onto that self-defeating belief.

All the clinging and obsessing is not really because I want him (or I wouldn’t have broke it off in the first place), nor is it a measure of my love for that person, it is because I am now looking for proof that I AM GOOD ENOUGH, so I don't have to believe my own demons. And who I am ultimately trying to prove it to, is not him, it’s myself. And I am looking out there for proof of it, driving me to behave in codependent, obsessive, and unhealthy ways which are self-defeating and get me further and further away from “I am good enough!”

The fact is no matter what he did or does, no matter how much I obsess, cling, beat myself up, doubt myself, analyze it all or get the 'proof' that I am looking for to validate my thoughts and feelings regarding him and that relationship,  it is not ultimately going to make me feel like I am good enough because the truth is, deep down it is me that does not believe I am good enough.

My wound just hooked on to him. I'm hooked on to my wound.