Today in therapy I realized, I am scared of conflict.
I avoid it at all cost. My way has always been to be as invisible and least inconvenient as possible. But what comes with that is not speaking my mind, my needs and wants, not standing up for myself, not having boundaries and for that not saying when someone hurt me. I’m now at a point in my life, where this survival pattern that I developed as a child no longer serves me. I realize life or better relationships, are full of conflicts and disagreements.
In my romantic relationship, I am now confronted with that, and let me tell you it is hard. I hate when he does something that upsets me or hurts my feelings, because I know this is the moment to speak up about it and let him know. I realize it often only later on and I struggle badly to open up about that.
Because every time I do, I’m terribly scared that it will escalate, that he will leave or yell at me.
This "worst case expecting" comes from my childhood. I grew up seeing my parents fight like this, I saw my mothers ex-boyfriend hit her, and I could hear them yell so loud I was scared. And it’s still very much present in me. But now my task is to acknowledge this pattern, how it served me as a child, but now as an adult not anymore. It’s now about giving myself permission to use my voice, to talk about my feelings and my needs in the moment, to accept there might be a disagreement but to still speak my truth.
I can’t ignore myself any longer, my body is showing me the way and so it’s about practicing the thing that scares me the most.
It’s about allowing myself to make mistakes, to be wrong at times and let my feelings show. I want to be authentic, show up in this relationship as deep as I can, and I’m willing to make the most out of this love.
But most importantly, I’m allowing myself to be my real, raw and messy self.
And I wish that to you as well.
From Larissa with love,
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