How my need for freedom ruined my….

I just came back from ISTA and my head is exploding. 🤯🤯🤯 I have so much to update you on!!!!

So, without further ado……. Let’s tuck in 🥁This piece is about how we sabotage our relationships. YAY.

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It should come as no surprise when I say I LOVE freedom & adventure.

I mean, just LOOK at my life choices. 👀

🔥 Lawyer 👉🏼 sex coach.
🔥 London-based 👉🏼 totally nomadic
🔥 Monogamous 👉🏼 Poly Converted🔥

....and perpetual experience chaser. 

That’s what freedom is, right? To always have choice?  ⛔🙈🙅🏻

But the catch is …. I don't truly commit to the options I do pick because I haven’t fully let go of the choices I didn’t pick!

Part of me still looks back, and doubts the choice I made. Did I pick the right one? Did I optimise?

And even more bizarrely, when I DO pick something - I find a way to turn it into a SHOULD.

🌱 “I want to be a sex coach" becomes 👉🏼 “I HAVE TO do this to make a living”.
🌱 “I want this relationship” becomes 👉🏼 “I HAVE TO show up like this to be loved”.
🌱 "I want to take care of my body" becomes 👉🏼 "I HAVE TO exercise".

Wtf is happening? Honestly, I am just conditioned into thinking everything is threatening my freedom. 😳

(No prizes for guessing I had a controlling parent 😂).

And like all stories we internalise, I am subconsciously seeking to confirm this truth everywhere. Ew. 

But these stories sabotage us from having a healthy relationship.

Maybe your story is:

✍🏼 Deep inside, I don’t believe I am worthy
✍🏼 Nobody knows how angry I really am
✍🏼 I cannot tolerate criticism
✍🏼 I don’t really trust people
✍🏼 I’ll never let myself feel hurt again

…..and then, as a result, you f*ck yourself from having the relationship you deserve! HOW?

Well, we do one of 3 things (this is mind-blowing to me!!!!! 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼)

1) We Select. With a  story like “I am not lovable,” we SELECT a partner who can’t love us to prove that we are unloveable. We select partners, jobs, THINGS that prove our unconscious truth. The world becomes a projection screen for selecting the story that confirms our reality. 

2) We Distort. Let’s say you finally do get a partner who is capable of loving you. Thats the scariest thing of all - because then you actually have to let go of your story and be helpless in the face of love. So you DISTORT. Your partner goes to the store, and all of a sudden you go: “I’m sorry, I know you haven’t abandoned me yet but I am going to go ahead and distort your behaviour so I can prove you will”.

3) We Provoke. Let’s say you have a partner who is healthy & loving. You try all your maneuvers, but they KEEP showing up and loving you! So what do you do? You PROVOKE them.

I did EXACTLY this in my last relationship. I provoked!!!!! How?

One of my victim stories is:  “The world can’t handle my wild nature”. My mum can’t. Neither can my partner. “I’m too much” or “No one really understands me” “People are threatened by my chaotic nature & just want to control me”

So I unconsciously seek to reinforce this story. 💁🏼‍♀️

Insert: 👉🏼 Karim. My ex. Amazing person. Capable of loving me.

And so I tested him.

🫣 Being a nomad. Being long distance. Being a sex coach. All causing ruptures.
🫣 Continually changing my mind about my commitments & travel plans.
🫣 Complaining, being tired & not making an effort to really integrate to Egypt life.
🫣 Gallivanting to Mexico and pushing to have an open relationship.

On some level, I was trying to prove that he couldn’t handle me. That he was threatening my freedom.

And - we all know how that ended. I pushed too far and we broke up. 💔

Fuckkkkkk. WHY IS LOVE SO HARD??!?! 🤯

I love this passage:

“People think love is this cute little thing like a cat in your lap. 😽 Love is a fucking raging tiger that will rip the shit out of anything that you think you are and make you surrender on your knees. Love is not your pet. Love has not come to make you feel better. Love has come to destroy you and open you to who you really are which is FUCKING AWESOME. Way better than a piece of shadow story that you run. So when we start to bring in the deep truth that we are love - and we have always been love - that there is support for us, and we are with our tribe, then actually all of the things start to unravel. And thats when shadow [our past trauma] comes.” - Bruce Lyon.

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

PREACH.  🌈

Get ready for ANOTHER wisdom bomb 👇🏼

It's an extract from an epic book (buy that sh*t) that tells you how our past trauma can heal us in relationship 🙃  That's all. 💁🏼‍♀️

“Nature’s therapy process is to put us in situations that resemble past situations in which we have been traumatised. It has to work that way; otherwise how else would we ever free ourselves from the grip of those issues?The source of these wounds has often been forgotten, so that it looks like our current relationships are causing us to hurt. In fact, our current relationships are an opportunity to free ourselves of these patterns from the past.

We don’t get much choice about the emergence of our old feelings and patterns. We do, however, get a crucial choice about how to handle these situations.

How? First notice that you are projecting [your past onto your lover], and find the courage to take responsibility.Choose to tell the truth.Choose to feel rather than go numb.Choose to communicate about a broken agreement.Choose to support your partner as they go through deep feeling.”

I LOVE THIS. 👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼

This to me feels like true freedom. Freedom from my conditioning! Freedom from my past wounds.

….and there I was, thinking freedom was “to always have choice”. 🤨

If I am pursuing that definition of freedom, then I am playing the game of my story, “that the world is trying to control me”.

And, I am quickly realising, this puts me in victimhood. I am in the pursuit of a false kind of freedom. GASP!!

Instead I want love to be about acceptance. (awww I'm cute 😇💁🏼‍♀️)

If I can BE with someone, and not need to change them, only THEN can I say that I truly love them.And If I look closely, the resistance I feel towards my partner, can show me what I am seeking in myself, and where I can heal.  Resistance is my teacher. OMMMMMM. 🙏

SO I AM CURIOUS, SEXY READERS! 

❓ In what ways are YOU subconsciously repeating your stories?

❓ How might you be sabotaging yourself from having a fulfilling love life?

POWERFUL QUESTIONS HUH?

If you are drooling over this article, my invitation is to look out for my workshops on this, or to work 1:1 for 2-3 sessions.

I will invite you:

👊🏼 To see how your relationship patterns might be repeating an old story
👊🏼 To move into responsibility and take back your power
👊🏼 To bring your full truth into connection when there is attraction, desire, wanting! ......so that you can create and sustain (not sabotage!) those beautiful relationships. 

I look forward to seeing you, my loves. 👊🏼🤗👀   

Haneen x