You know how sometimes you read something and it hits you with an iron fist?
In the words of another person, I will see truths regarding pieces of myself which will lead me on a journey of searching inside myself for how they truly apply to me.
These words did that to me recently…
“Withholding distorts reality. It makes the people who do the withholding ugly and small-hearted. It makes the people from whom things are withheld crazy and desperate and incapable of knowing what they actually feel.” From the book Tiny Beautfiul Things by Cheryl Strayed.
The withholding she’s talking about is not telling someone that you love them.
But I read it as withholding love in general.
I know I do this. I used to do it comepletly unconsciously, but now sometimes I do it on purpose.
I have a bad habit of becoming emotionally invested in people who aren’t fully emotionally available to me. I have felt the crazy and desperate and incapable of knowing what I feel, I know those feelings well… my coping mechanism to those feelings is to withhold love in return. It’s always good to have 2 crazy, desperate, and incapable people in a relationship.
Many years ago, I used to turn my emotions off completely when I was angry with someone. I could turn into ice. I remember the day I saw someone in my extended family do the same thing and I was mortified by it… I have never turned to ice again.
Those words I read hit me so hard because they are true and I could see it.
Withholding does distort reality, because you aren’t in harmony with yourself. You’re feeling something on the inside that you aren’t living on the outside. In this state you can’t see clearly, and neither can the people around you.
Part of the picture leans left, part of the picture leans right, and somewhere in the middle where the two parts collide, everything is haywire… thus causing the craziness and desperation in the other person.
I can see what a mess I’ve created by these patterns in the past, and I definitely need to stay more aware in the future.
Oh the tangled webs we weave. If only we could all live authentically all of the time…