Toxic Relationships & Authentic Self-Love

I had the pleasure of attending a daylong training with Michael Meade last month and asked him to share more about the connection he alluded to between addiction and initiation. His response was a linguistic one that left me reeling. The word addiction breaks down into a-dict-ion, “dict” relating to speech and “a” as negating. Addiction literally translates as “against speech”, silencing the voice.

I began to ask myself what voice in me is crying to be heard when I am engaged in addictive behaviors. What is going on inside of me when I walk through the door after work and head straight to the cupboard for cookies? What am I silencing in myself when my mind is drawn over and over from my work to fantasies of when I will see him again, whoever he happens to be today. And I also began to ask myself what voice I am listening to when I feel no compulsion at all – when I not only don’t seek out treats but actively pursue veggies instead; when I realize I haven’t thought about him for days.

I was surprised to find that my addictive behaviors seem to be triggered, quite simply, by being around people. The more time I spend alone, with myself, especially in nature, the subtler and nearly non-existent my compulsions are. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I am in conflict with people or having a lovely time; simply being around them makes me want to eat, makes me want to fantasize about union with some elusive and noble other, makes me feel twisted up and restless and edgy inside. I am torn between a longing to connect and flee, doing everything I can to both earn and protect myself from secure and loving intimacy. And navigating it is exhausting.

So how does this all relate to toxic relationships? Because toxic relationships are where I learned to feel ill at ease around my own species. I have learned over and over again that relationships are really unpredictable, that people can lash out when you approach them with love, that people can mock and abandon you when you share the truth of your feelings and dreams, that my feelings and needs are unreasonable. And because I have learned that, I find myself with people and in places that fit that belief. I feel edgy, misunderstood, unsafe, and needy because I believe I am the problem and I don’t even realize I am being diminished, discouraged, and exploited. I instinctively know that to notice this dynamic means I will have to challenge it to be free; if I challenge it, I will be punished and cast-out; and if I am cast-out, I will have nowhere to go because this is simply the way the world is. So I eat for instant gratification, and I fantasize for a safely distant redemption, and I don’t even feel the impact on my body, heart, and soul because I haven’t been listening anyway.

This is a particularly dark and exaggerated charicature of an aspect of me that is, of course, intertwined with and modulated by hope and joy and creativity and compassion and courage. But it is none-the-less that persistent shadow that dogs my steps, that grounds my flight. It was the mother who teased and wept and ignored and shamed and punished. It was the childhood friend who projected her resentment and anger on me. It was the college friend who picked arguments with me because my anger amused him, who belittled my projects, and was jealous of my attention. It was the co-worker determined to undermine and antagonize me while I kept trying to reason and empathize with her. It was the director who encouraged me to surrender to teachings I didn’t believe in, who facilitated chaos by withholding financial and relational accountability, and who publicly shamed community members who challenged him. It was the partner who told me I laughed too loud, who shut down when I set boundaries, who punished me when he didn’t get what he wanted even when it was clear I was in pain. It was the boss who could be playful one moment and cuttingly critical and sarcastic the next, who labeled anything but polite acquiescence as “attitude”, and who saw me only as a contributor to his business.

Addiction for me now appears to be the link between my authentic self and toxic relationships. My soul, unconditioned by my personality or culture, rebels against being ignored and exploited in this way, and because I do not see and hear myself, I eat and fantasize for surrogate comfort. I feel tremendous compassion for why it is so hard for me to listen. If I listen, I become responsible. If we really hear a child’s story of molestation, we have to deal with our feelings of guilt and grief and rage. We have to do something to stand up for her, to heal her, to hold others accountable. And when we have learned that our needs and our voice and our power won’t be respected and may even be punished, silence is survival. And that little child remains a victim, just as my body, heart, and mind are victimized by my lack of care and attention, which are, ironically, crafted for protection. And so I adopt the strategy of patience and endurance, of living in service, of believing that because our culture rewards these things that I in some way will be redeemed, acknowledged, saved.

This is the point where listening becomes revolutionary, not just for our inner world, but for our entire culture. It is the point where we can rise up and say, “No one else may see or hear me, but I see and hear myself! No one else may appreciate my pain or my dreams, but I have space enough for them all!” Trying to get people who don’t respect us to show consideration, to get people who don’t see us to express admiration, is still giving them power over us. I am the one who most needs to hear my own voice, because I am the first one to decide what to do because of it. And for all the times I stayed silence, keeping my voice to myself, I can at least honor that I walked away. I walked away towards the one source of intimacy and security that I can really depend on – the soul of the world, the ground of being, whispering to me through my own inner knowing. Especially when I had no idea where I would go next.

My personal journey mirrors what I heard in Michael Meade’s words. A healthy community is built on the needs of the individual for what the community most needs is the diverse genius of all of its members, and what each person most needs is the blessing of the collective. This starts with listening to ourselves with a genuine desire to know what’s there; with wrestling with the fear of being rejected and feeling lost; with beginning to voice how we fit in relationship to everything around us; and taking action to align our knowing and with people, places, and activities that see, celebrate, and honor our boundaries and differences even when the benefit to them is not directly apparent. The best supervisor I ever had exuded transparency and affection, had a knack for recognizing my gifts and limitations, and was always seeking out safe opportunities for me to stretch in the right direction, even when it didn’t directly benefit the organization. This one job, this one community that truly supported me is the place where I made the deepest impact of my adult life, and the one that showed me what is possible and left me with a hunger to find it again.

Before we can take action, we have to listen inwardly and we have to believe that what we are hearing is true and worth defending. A part of me feels ashamed for continuing to remain so inwardly focused during a time of so much environmental and humanitarian devastation demanding our attention. But if I cannot listen to and honor and act on what is inside of me, how can I ever find my bearings in the chaos of this world and how can I ever stand strong against the rampant hostility and denial and fear? Trust me when I say I am not motivated by my own salvation or comfort. I don’t believe we can find that without stepping fully into the challenges of the time and place in which we are born to serve with our unique gifts and wounds. Believe me when I say I am fighting with all my might my own battle against the hostility and denial and fear I have internalized from our world. I am practicing enduring spaciousness and ferocious loyalty and unconditional love and common humanity, and as I grow in my own self-love and protection, I will bring more and more this medicine to the world.

Nancy

“I want to unfold, because where ever I am folded, I am a lie.” – Rilke