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I don’t feel heard in my relationship. What can I do? 

by Nicole's Blog

I don’t feel heard in my relationship. What can I do? 

When I ask women about their relationships, I often hear the phrase “I don’t feel heard.”  This could be in her relationship, with her boss, or even with her child.  

As a women’s coach and healer, I teach that every relationship is a mirror to your own inner work. All the feelings you have about it are generated from within you. 

If a woman is not feeling heard in her partnership, I have her go within. If you don’t feel heard in your relationship, I ask, “Are you hearing yourself?” 

Women will experience this narrative, “I’m not heard” typically in their current partnerships because of their unresolved traumas, emotions and experiences from their childhood.  My specialty is helping women become deeply aware of their subconscious programming so they can transform their stories, reclaim their power and show up from a more conscious place now. 

Here are some examples of why you may feel unheard: 

You had parents who were too busy arguing with each other. 

You may have been a sibling sandwiched between other siblings in a large family. 

You may have had a father who was always at work and unavailable. 

You may have had a mother who was a nervous wreck and wrapped up in herself. 

In all of these situations, your inner child was probably not receiving much attention.  As children we all have basic emotional needs for safety, love, attention, and affection. 

If our parents were unable to provide one of these basic needs, we might create a core narrative, also called a core wound. In this, we develop related emotions, beliefs about ourselves and others, and coping mechanisms that help us to manage our pain. 

If you are not feeling heard, chances are you are not expressing your needs and feelings either. You might be ignoring an inner voice that says, “this doesn’t feel good, but I don’t know how to bring it up. “Or, “I’ll just let this slip because it’s not that important”. 

When you read this, you may recognize what are termed martyr behaviors – not speaking up, taking on others’ pain, and not expressing yourself. These behaviors are shadows because they come from a sense of unworthiness or a feeling of not deserving to be heard, seen or loved. 

If left unresolved, you will perpetuate your pain, and this leads to self-sabotage because you will end up getting what you didn’t want – you will not be heard in your relationship! 

This is a great learning opportunity for the following reasons: 

This teaches you how to re-parent yourself. To turn inward and give the inner child what she so lovingly needs – for you to listen. Re-parenting helps you heal the unresolved pains, feelings and emotions that were trapped around this narrative. 

You open to a new perspective creating freedom from the patterns through self-forgiveness. In this way, you recognize that your parents were doing the best they could. 

You release the martyr shadow behavior and become more self-expressed, authentic and transparent with your needs, and desires because you are not moving from pain, but from power. 

You invite great tools into your life like conscious communication. 

Here is a quick process to learn how to self-resource.  

  1. When you feel unheard, take a pause and a few deep breaths. If you have the space for a brief meditation that’s the best – after all, you want to hear yourself.  Place a hand on your belly and heart. This brings a sense of calm to your body. 
  2. Ask yourself, “what causes me to feel unheard?” Note any images or events from the past that remind you of this. Be curious. 
  3. Now, ask your heart to express what she truly desires – more love, more attention, more acceptance? Now you are listening, and your current needs will be born out of these desires. This form of listening helps you build trust and is self-resourcing. 
  4. In this moment, you may realize that you don’t need anything at all AND there still maybe room for growth in your communication and your partnership.   
  5. Maybe you need more reciprocation from your partner, more reflective listening, clearer reciprocity, softer moments, or them to ask more questions about you. Whatever it is, connect with your partner in the heart and ask for a specific request that can meet your need.
  6. Questions that are connective might be: Would you be willing to…? Can you help me understand…? Can you reflect back what you heard so I feel you hear me? 

And remember this. Your partner might be able to meet your need, and doesn’t “need to” either. If your partner cannot meet your needs, what could you do to get that need met? (That’s another blog!) 

The point is – now you feel heard.

Feel free to leave comments or questions below.  Want to understand how to go deeper, grab a free 15 min chat!   https://calendly.com/unleashthepriestess/15min

 

 

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How to Love

by Nicole's Blog

by Alan Waugh, Sacred Valley Spiritual Retreat

This powerful sculpture entitled ‘LOVE’ and otherwise known as ‘Inner Child’ evokes the innocent child within us wanting to reach out and connect with the innocent, inner child within our partner.

It is symbolic of the deep yearning within us to connect with the core essence of our mate, despite the challenges and conflict that are so prevalent in miscommunication through projection or unrealized expectations.

It is a beautiful homage to that which lies within our own divine essence that is at its core our innate nature, wishing to touch the innate nature of our partner and ultimately all beings.

How many times have you had conflict with your partner, felt hurt, not seen nor heard, validated nor acknowledged? In those moments, have you wished to make it all right, forgive and let go of what appears to be so inconsequential or petty and yet has triggered you so strongly? In those times have you then turned away from your partner in anger and fear where you are pushed into a place of distrust or of not feeling safe?

How many times in those painful moments have you accepted responsibility for the miscommunication or even non- communication of your feelings or reactions before you quickly moved into the fight or flight mode, just wanting to get away, hide or even smash something? Probably not too many!

The sculpture ‘LOVE’ could also have been presented in a different way, in that it is really the Inner Child that is turning away, with the ‘parenting couple’ facing each other. Appropriately rigid and tense in their metallic form, they put an energetic guard, not just around their outer body but ultimately around their hearts, like a suit of armor to protect from all the perceived energetic and emotional arrows being shot at them via ill-placed words, actions or even critical looks.

It is the child within our sub-conscious self that that holds all the woundings and conditioning manifesting in our adult self that gets triggered and sends the message that we are in a place of conflict/ fear/un-safety.

Why would you respond with such a strong reaction with something that could be as petty as your partner saying that they are going out for a drink with their friends? Ultimately your partner just wants to go out with friends. But maybe your inner child is tapping into deep feelings of abandonment that happened as you were taken straight from birth to an incubator?

Or maybe because your Father left the family house when you were two? It is the deeply held unresolved memory of past experiences that hold most of the emotional/ mental or physical triggers for you that caused the present day reaction and not the fact that your partner was planning on abandoning you? Or maybe it is a past memory that somehow you believed that you are not good enough? So your partner going out without inviting you, triggers this inner belief or conditioned response that sends a wave of deep cellular patterning to create the re-action that your body/mind still believes?

Another term for this inner child within each of this is the Shadow Self. The very fact that they are referred to as ‘Shadows’ invokes the belief that they somehow are to be feared because they lie in wait for us hidden in the dark: unseen, unacknowledged nor cared for.

How can we be in Sacred/Conscious relationship unless we take care of all that is held within our sub-conscious experience that holds the limiting beliefs about ourselves, that we project onto the world outside ourselves?

Maybe you have more or less managed to create a safe container within your epidermal layer, that as long as you can live the life you believe to be authentically you, you can live a life of a form of inner peace. But what happens if one or some of those past traumatic or limiting beliefs get triggered by something that someone outside of yourself says or does, that seems like a hurtful gesture or action?

Guess what, that wounding that holds a personality with an associated inner voice kicks you and says “See, you’re not good enough! You will never be able to do that! You’re not pretty enough, they are going to leave you!”

So then what you do is push the responsibility for your pain or neurotic response onto the person that you feel caused that inner feeling of discomfort. “It’s their fault I feel that way!”

So in relationship work with another, the only way to release projections or blame on the ‘other’ is to accept accountability for the source of that blame. Yes, its good to learn communication processes through couples counseling and to better understand what hurts or displease your partner. But unless you learn to develop a better more loving, supportive and nurturing relationship with yourself, to yourself, nothing ultimately will change at the core.

Here at The Sacred Valley Spiritual Retreat, our skill-full facilitators help you gain incite into the originating cause of your triggers and conditioning and through a variety of powerful and transformative techniques, help you love that wounded child within you, that is the source of all love and help bring it out from the shadows.

This is the path of self mastery that the sages and gurus from ancient times teach as the path to inner peace. Maybe now, see the illuminated child in the above photo as an illumination of your heart center.

Look at it.

It is only through shining light into yourself that you can illuminate your capacity to fully love.

Big Love.

Sculpture By Ukrainian Artist Alexander Milov for 2015 Burning Ma Installation