When it comes to peopling, I can see why many of us prefer fairy tales. Disney fantasies have had so many of us in a chokehold. Sadly, fairy tales don’t give us what we really need to maintain and sustain healthy relationships.
I’d say it’s safe to assume that most of us desire better. We want deeper connections. We want to feel safer with the people we love, and we want more effective communication. Oftentimes, we want better, but we don’t know how to cultivate the “better” we desire. We either don’t have the information, we’re missing the tools, or we have not had the information and tools long enough to be skilled at using them.
Many of us feel guilt and shame around what we don’t know. As if not knowing something by a certain age is the end of the world.
Woooosah! Society has not adequately prepared the majority of us to build and maintain harmonious connections with the important people in our lives. Actually, quite the opposite. I too, was fed the same BS, even though the reality I was raised in looked quite different from what my “kid-friendly,” whitewashed cartoon experience would have me believe.
We have been groomed for codependency and conflict. We have been trained to objectify and to build transactional relationships. We are taught that “love is blind” and that it “hurts.” We believe that relationships are “hard work.” We are trained to have unbalanced and unhealthy relationships with ourselves. Of course, the suppression, repression, and betrayal of self reflects and projects into our relationships with others. No wonder why so many of us are frustrated in our most intimate relationships!
This is why it’s good to have a quality coach and/or therapist in our support system. It truly helps to have someone who is professionally trained to see our blind spots and guide us in the direction of our desires. Trained professionals can help us use our delusions as launchpads for curating the realities we truly want to live in. They can provide us with new perspectives and innovative tools. and they can help us skillfully practice using them. Even as a relationship coach, I still have both in my life and I’m grateful. Shoutout to the Black woman who is my therapist and the many coaches from all over the world who support my humanity and my mission.
