relationships are a rehumanizing practice
partner villification is a sign we are struggling with our own paradox
Rehumanizing is usually what is needed when relationships are in crisis.
We look for all the ways we have dehumanized our partner. All the ways we’ve turned them into a tool, a parent, a villain, an instrument of our own values, our needs, our comfort - without realizing they have their own.
Part of rehumanizing is rewilding. We relearn our partner, their glorious messiness, their flaws, but this time we trust them. Their mysterious workings, so different from our own. We undomesticate them from ourselves.
Sometimes our judgment and righteousness is THE tool our system is using to protect us from intimacy and vulnerability because those feel so unsafe.
Sometimes, the wedge between us and intimacy is just an unfortunate byproduct of our rigidity around how we need the other person to be.
Relationships are here to save us from our own rigidity. They are here to keep us open, humble, and to provide both the safety and the arena for our riskiest, most vital growth.
I coach on relationships.
Specifically on relationships that are stuck in patterns of conflict or misunderstanding. Relationships where different neurodivergence or values are at play.
I help you to develop the ego strength and self trust to allow both you to be more yourself and your partner or child to be more themselves - creating win-win progress for everyone.
Here’s what I have realized about relationships:
They are a free primer on our shadow and blindspots. We can use them as clues and accelerators for self-awareness work. We externalize and project our deepest and most unknown parts onto others. Knowing that every judgment of another is actually a need of our own in disguise, we can reclaim our projections. Our relationship work becomes about us, not about them.
They are a reflection of our patterns of receiving. When we recalibrate how and what we receive in relationships, guess what else is magically upgraded? Money issues, success challenges, other relationships, business growth. That’s right - relationship work is abundance work.
When we villify and/or parentify/infantilize our partners, this indicates places of wounding and shame in ourselves. Villification of others is a clue that we were once shamed and villified and there is a sore festering inside us, needing our attention, our unshaming, our self-compassion. When we judge others, it is a clue that we have unexamined self-judgment internally.
Parent-child, partner-partner, your inner parts - it’s all relationships. I have some 1:1 spots opening in August. Would you like one? Message me, let’s talk!
