Do you know any person in your life (not necessarily a close one, just someone who you’ve met at least occasionally) who feels like they express warmth and honesty at the same time? If you do, looking at how they express themselves is one way of getting pointers.
It might also be worth checking whether your problem is just about not knowing what to do, versus your brain having an outright objection to getting what you want. If you can, try to imagine what it would feel like to get love and affection, in exactly the way you would like to have. Take a moment to imagine it in as much detail as you can. Then pay attention to how it feels—is there any trace of unease, of anything not feeling quite right about you having achieved it?
1) I am open to receiving love, but it needs to be from someone who has self-respect. I can’t abide codependent love because again it just feels like I’m up on a pedestal or being controlled or being used to fill a hole in their lives.
2) I imagine love to be a very physical act, lots of physical affection. That and some verbal expressions, such as encouragement. However, when I think of someone doing favours for me or buying me gifts, I do feel resistance to that, I feel a bit awkward, like I ‘owe’ them something back.
3) I also feel unease in terms of my flaws—the parts of me that feel out of control, like sinkholes of my personality, I don’t want anyone to see me in those states, the ‘unacceptable’ traits. Where I’m a bit rough, a bit irritated or giving off ‘bad energy’, and also unresolved internal stuff—I feel unloveable there and don’t want to show those aspects of me.
4) additionally, I always imagine them, at least initially, loving me for something that I do well, even if it’s just my personality (infatuation), than loving me as I am. Yes it makes me feel like an object, a trophy. I just don’t know what else would attract someone to me other than my attractive traits. And yet it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy—I subconsciously lead with the best features of me, and then I always end up feeling like a trophy. I am not sure how to be loved for just being a mediocre person… :(
Great exercise though, seems to reveal a lot.
edit: nevermind, I think I’ve solved it. The problem with objectification is that it makes a person out to be only their desirable traits, and cuts off their undesirable traits in shame. When, if we view a person as a system, they must have all the traits they have to be who they are, they work in synergy. The objectified traits are only part of them, not all of them, it misses the wholeness of who they are and the life force that drives all of them. To see someone wholly, both positive and negative traits as a part of who they are, and the negative traits as necessary to the positive traits which we so enjoy, is closer to the ideal of love. Than simply enjoying someone’s positive traits and condemning their negative traits, as if they could be what they are without their undesired traits, as if their undesired traits are a crime. It’s like taking insects out of the ecosystem—all your crops would die. So taking a person whole, synergistically, is the key—enjoying the good traits and understanding the negative traits. Understanding that a person is greater than the sum of their parts. And loving them for that. And it starts with loving myself for that. :) because I’m a complex human being, and I’m not going to divide myself up any longer to be palatable to another.
″ There’s a whole art form of expressing your feelings, even going to some very dark places, while still coming across as “rounded”. ”
Umm this is actually amazing. How did you figure this out and can you elaborate?
Do you know any person in your life (not necessarily a close one, just someone who you’ve met at least occasionally) who feels like they express warmth and honesty at the same time? If you do, looking at how they express themselves is one way of getting pointers.
It might also be worth checking whether your problem is just about not knowing what to do, versus your brain having an outright objection to getting what you want. If you can, try to imagine what it would feel like to get love and affection, in exactly the way you would like to have. Take a moment to imagine it in as much detail as you can. Then pay attention to how it feels—is there any trace of unease, of anything not feeling quite right about you having achieved it?
Great I will keep a lookout for such people.
As for your second question:
1) I am open to receiving love, but it needs to be from someone who has self-respect. I can’t abide codependent love because again it just feels like I’m up on a pedestal or being controlled or being used to fill a hole in their lives.
2) I imagine love to be a very physical act, lots of physical affection. That and some verbal expressions, such as encouragement. However, when I think of someone doing favours for me or buying me gifts, I do feel resistance to that, I feel a bit awkward, like I ‘owe’ them something back.
3) I also feel unease in terms of my flaws—the parts of me that feel out of control, like sinkholes of my personality, I don’t want anyone to see me in those states, the ‘unacceptable’ traits. Where I’m a bit rough, a bit irritated or giving off ‘bad energy’, and also unresolved internal stuff—I feel unloveable there and don’t want to show those aspects of me.
4) additionally, I always imagine them, at least initially, loving me for something that I do well, even if it’s just my personality (infatuation), than loving me as I am. Yes it makes me feel like an object, a trophy. I just don’t know what else would attract someone to me other than my attractive traits. And yet it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy—I subconsciously lead with the best features of me, and then I always end up feeling like a trophy. I am not sure how to be loved for just being a mediocre person… :(
Great exercise though, seems to reveal a lot.
edit: nevermind, I think I’ve solved it. The problem with objectification is that it makes a person out to be only their desirable traits, and cuts off their undesirable traits in shame. When, if we view a person as a system, they must have all the traits they have to be who they are, they work in synergy. The objectified traits are only part of them, not all of them, it misses the wholeness of who they are and the life force that drives all of them. To see someone wholly, both positive and negative traits as a part of who they are, and the negative traits as necessary to the positive traits which we so enjoy, is closer to the ideal of love. Than simply enjoying someone’s positive traits and condemning their negative traits, as if they could be what they are without their undesired traits, as if their undesired traits are a crime. It’s like taking insects out of the ecosystem—all your crops would die. So taking a person whole, synergistically, is the key—enjoying the good traits and understanding the negative traits. Understanding that a person is greater than the sum of their parts. And loving them for that. And it starts with loving myself for that. :) because I’m a complex human being, and I’m not going to divide myself up any longer to be palatable to another.