Relationships had never been my strong point. I had them, was in them, did not need them, but still managed to end up in them.
They were unavoidable… relationships were and are everywhere. We have relationships with everyone we meet: big, small, long term or short, we are all in one in one way or another.
However for me it was how I was in and around people that determined the kinds of relationships I had. For the most they were ‘good’ – they were reasonably safe. We had an exchange, we supported each other in what was needed: company, conversation, support in times of struggle and drama.
All these things most of us want and seek in a relationship, but is it what a true relationship is or should be? Or is it a level of comfort, an opportunity for us to continue along in life, not being asked to go deeper, to be transparent, completely open and surrendered to another, willing to reveal or live in our true state of tenderness and vulnerability?
There was no way I was prepared to allow myself to be totally transparent, tender, vulnerable or gentle, totally surrendering to another in all that was me and fully letting them in. I harboured way too many hurts of the past and pictures and images of how I wanted things to be, forever shifting the goal posts so that even if another got close to ticking the boxes, I would shift the goal and add a few more restrictions and demands into the mix. Meaning I would never have to fully let them in because they would never be able to live up to my ideal of how they and the relationship should be.
Expectations were high, their love for me always having to be proven – an unrealistic but safe way to play the relationship game.
This was a game I was very good at – one that, if I allowed it, could go on for my entire life, entering into relationships of convenience, arrangements that allowed me to stay where I was, holding others out, never letting them in to see just how vulnerable and tender I am.
Building my exterior armour, forever in the fear of being hurt, let down or disappointed. Brilliant really, what a great excuse I had set up, lived and played out my entire life. With friends, partners and family, no one was exempt from the standards I had set. Relationships of convenience, we both got what we wanted without having to let ourselves get too intimate, too seen or exposed.
I thought I was being loving, open, honest and supportive of others, but all the while I was forever gauging how I could keep them at a safe distance, protecting myself from the possibility of being hurt. The only true hurt that was occurring was me keeping myself held so tightly, so hard and withdrawn that I ached for true love, to allow myself to just be.
Clever and cunning are we, setting up ourselves and another in a game, you can almost see the pieces being moved by another hand, manipulation at its best, and we are the big-time players, all in the name of perceived protection. Demanding the love and support of another and yet not prepared to give that ourselves.
This is a game that no-one can win.
I have been observing myself in relationships, and it has been exposing, challenging a new level of responsibility I have not allowed myself to go to before.
The manipulation… how I set my partner up to fail in a deliberate attempt to justify the images I hold, the expectations I have of him. Doing things that I know will get a reaction from him, setting him up so when he does react I have an “I told you so” that justifies why I don’t open up and surrender in full. If he reacts, gets angry, doesn’t do something I’ve asked him to do, I’m justified in my actions and thoughts. Absurd, ridiculous, cunning and sneaky, knowing exactly what I am doing, setting the board, making the moves, then calling the shots.
The more I observe my behaviour the more I see how it plays out – excuses, justifications, deliberate sabotage. Asking myself: do I really want to be loved, what am I so afraid of, what is it I am really keeping at bay? I have spent many years keeping people at what I thought was a safe distance, entering into relationships that are safe, that allow and support me to continue playing my game of denial and protection.
Recently I became aware that the demands I have placed on my partner were all to avoid and hold back my own connection, not allowing the love to pour in and through me from my one love.
God’s love, it pours in and through all of us, and it is us who at any cost will hold that back, keep it at bay.
My partner was the perfect distraction and point of focus with me, demanding he love me and prove his love and dedication to me, all the while knowing that no matter what he did, I would continue to avoid the love on offer from above.
God’s love is forever running through my veins: it is felt and cannot be ignored. We can attempt to override it with the many distraction, addictions and games we play, but never does it stop knocking.
For some of us that knock becomes louder, more obvious, unavoidable. It is here we have a choice –– do we bring our focus to that which is within, allow that out, to truly love ourselves and others? No games, no pawns, no more moving of the goal posts, instead surrendering to the love that is on offer, putting an end to the need of love from another?
Simplicity is revealed: God’s love is stronger than, and can hold us deeper than, any emotional love from another. To surrender to and allow this brings a whole new dimension and understanding to relationships as I had known them to be.
In the past we were like pieces of a puzzle that fitted together, filling each other’s gaps and needs. Once I realised I had to fill my own gaps by loving and appreciating myself, allowing the Love of God in, my relationships changed dramatically. There was no longer a need; the expectations and pictures of how it should all be fell away, there was now an allowing of myself and others I had never had before.
As I become more allowing of the love on offer, surrendering to the will of God, Heaven that is knocking on my door, I can feel my levels of protection fall away and I am opening up to the potential of true relationships, to be seen warts and all, no judgement or criticism of self or others.
The spark we carry within burns bright: avoidance can only dim the spark, but never can we extinguish the love that pours in and through us.
By Nicole Serafin, 46, NSW, Australia
Published with permission of my partner.
Further Reading:
Appreciation in relationships
Relationships – Around and Around We Go
Relationships are always about evolving – the key to making relationships work
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
I got to feel how we are always in relationship, I was in an aircraft being looked after by the steward and we had a chat about aviation etc., Because we are both in the industry of aviation. I came to realise it was not so much what I said but holding myself in a space that allows another to feel that they can open up and be heard. He was very open and friendly. As I was leaving the plane his professionalism kicked in and the open friendly man had vanished behind the mask of the company protocol. However the connection had been made.
In my experience healing the hurt of being rejected and not met for who I am is a precious opportunity to consider the possibility that there is much more about me than I thought. Holding myself lovingly in this process, asking for help when it’s needed to make me realize how deeply loved we actually are. And how much we have to share as human beings about the beliefs around love and its true meaning.
Nicole your honesty shows us that it’s possible to let go of protection and control and opening up to a new level of intimacy in the relationships we have. This starts with ourselves when we connect and realize that our first relationship is with God’s love within us.
I came back to this blog and to read it again totally mirrors how I played the game of life too, I can so relate to this
“…doesn’t do something I’ve asked him to do, I’m justified in my actions and thoughts. Absurd, ridiculous, cunning and sneaky, knowing exactly what I am doing, setting the board, making the moves, then calling the shots.”
As you say Nicole we know exactly what we are doing and why we are behaving this way, to stop ourselves from feeling any potential for love. I have come to the understanding that I must know the love of God inside out otherwise I wouldn’t be able to reject it as I do.
“I ached for true love, to allow myself to just be.” The Love of God is a constant flow and it is for us to reflect this Love from within us with every person and in every move we make.
My relationship with me is my relationship with God; I have spent most of my life rejecting me and so rejected God. The first step was to put down the cudgel so that I could actually stop hitting myself, that gave me some space. From there it has been a journey of getting to know me from all the ideals and beliefs that I had absorbed growing up thinking they were my thoughts without once stopping to consider if I actually believed them or not.
Nicole, the word that stood out for me today is the word ‘seen’. That’s huge because how many of us actually allow ourselves to be ‘seen’ in full, completely open, not many. What is it about being ‘seen’ or being transparent that we shy right away from?
Avoiding relationships is in itself a reflection of our relationship with relationships.
Nicole reading this again and once again feeling the deep beauty and truth in what you have written.
Relationships, Me and God one and the same thing because there’s nothing that God isn’t.
Nothing He is the every thing of everything.
So true, even if we try ‘never can we extinguish the love that pours in and through us.’ ….. so why fight love? ✨
Moving those goal posts is exhausting, playng the game is exhausting. Afterall, the love is pouring in from every angle so I need to make minute adjustments to the goal posts all the time. And it’s all for the sake of not being love; the most precious thing in the world to me and everyone. An elaborate and devastating game; when we are every bit of love we have ever wanted and all the while God has always been around us and pouring through us.
Reading this ‘Recently I became aware that the demands I have placed on my partner’ reminded me of something I felt really clearly last week which is how do I ‘see’ people and also what do I hold them as. Meaning what projections or assumptions do I make on a person. If there has been an argument do I hold them (even on a subtle level) to that energy and being that way or ‘that’ person or do I not put anything on them and give them the space to be all that they are. It is great when we knuckle out the nitty gritty of our ill behaviours and ways turning the finger lovingly on ourselves to see how we are rather than pointing it at others.
This is a great blog to be asking such questions because I feel it is asking us all to look deeper into our relationships so that they are not just an arrangement, comfort or support in times of struggle. We are all missing the vital ingredient which is self love. When we can love ourselves it becomes natural that we love others easily so.
Gosh the games we play are exhausting!!!!!!! When we let go of these and actually allow love to flow both in and out from our being it is so much easier. I can still feel there is part of me that is holding onto some kind of protection .. time to let this go as it actually hurts us more when we don’t love and instead hold onto hurts and protection, when we fully let go of all of these there is no hurt.
“The spark we carry within burns bright: avoidance can only dim the spark, but never can we extinguish the love that pours in and through us.” Once we start fuelling this spark all sorts of previously unimaginable magic occurs.
Life can be utterly magical, totally marvellous and unbelievably majestic, how telling is it then that most of us have made it bland, unimaginative and repetitive to the point of tedium.
We are so much more powerful than we give ourselves credit for and the pull back to truth is forever achingly reminding us through the unease in our body. What a gift – long may our soul hold us in so much love that it will not allow less than truth to be our lived way.
My goodness – how supported are we that we can find out way back from such waywardness! Knowing how lost I have been myself I am constantly humbled when I connect with the level of detail that supports us to return.
Me too, When I reconnect and feel the Love that is holding us and how much less stress and tension it is to surrender to that Love, I start to understand a smidgen of the Love that holds us on our return.
The demanding of another of the love we’re not able to give ourselves is something I can relate to! What’s great is that every time I become aware of this I can let go of looking outside of myself and bring myself back to my connection with me and the love that I am.
“Once I realised I had to fill my own gaps by loving and appreciating myself, allowing the Love of God in, my relationships changed dramatically.” Initially ‘to fill my own gaps’ seemed very daunting, however, with the loving support of Serge Benhayon and his family this has not been the case. Instead it is an ever unfolding joy.
My question would be why do we have gaps in the first place? If we truly lived responsibly and lovingly, loving ourselves to the max which would then reflect to all those around us, including our children and families, then there would be no gaps that would need to be filled. It is possible all we need to do is change the way we are currently living.
It is interesting how we can ‘think’ we are something ‘I thought I was being loving, open, honest and supportive of others, but all the while I was forever gauging how I could keep them at a safe distance, protecting myself from the possibility of being hurt.’ but when we allow ourselves to be honest and dig a little deeper more is revealed until eventually after much self-love, healing and willing to look at energetically what has been stored in our body (hurts, frustration, sadness, anger, resentment, wanting to control .. to name a few) we actually are loving, open, honest and supportive of others.
Yes, we can live in illusion for so long in order to protect ourselves from feeling our hurts etc. Once we are willing to take down the defences and to be in Truth we discover there are layers, like an onion, that we have to keep peeling away. However there may be many layers but if we do the ‘peeling ‘ with love, love is always there to take us deeper and the Truth keeps expanding.
Yes, love is always at the core but once we feel the layers we can think that it is scary because they have been our normal for such a long period of time. In fact, the scary bit should be the fact we have those layers in the first place, they are what should feel incredibly uncomfortable.
Vicky that sentence struck a chord with me as well. It reminded me of the many things that over the years I have thought of as being me, all of which turned out to be ‘not me’. In fact not me at all.
How can we expect another to be loving with us when it is us that has shut down our connection from divine love from God. I know if every movement, every breath of life was lived with this divine love there would be no need of emotional love from another but an open communication allowing a depth of beauty to be shared with all.
And it is so gorgeous in those moments when we do manage to express from and with this divine love.
“If every movement, every breath of life was lived with this divine love” then not only would there be no need to have emotional love but we would feel very clearly that emotional love acts like a barrier to divine love as it comes from a completely different energetic source. One is true, the other is not, one is divine the other is not, one represents God and the other one doesn’t. There are no similarities what so ever between the two.
Christopher being around people whose every breath is one of divine love, wisdom and pure joy, shows humanity what is possible, rather than the humdrum of life that the majority of us have accepted, while all the time hating the what we have become a lesser version of the greatness we all are.
Its interesting for me in reading this blog to see how I criticise my partner for not being loving but the more I uncover the truth of the situation, I can see how much protection I’ve been holding, making me right and her wrong, to justify my stance on why I’m not letting the protection down and the love out.
Yes, that is what is so magical about the reflection we offer each other in relationship and the potential surrendering to honesty opens up.
Christopher we can justify our way out of any situation, the dawning of my understanding is that we are fed the thoughts that pour through our minds. The biggest lesson in life for me was that we do not think, thoughts are fed to us by an energy that controls us via our thoughts. So all of our justifications, projections, ideals, beliefs etc., are given to us. Is it possible we try to protect ourselves against the onslaught of the energy, rather than just allowing it to pass through us and not take it on as ownership to the thoughts, Because while we think we own the thoughts we are deaf by distraction to feeling the true energy of our soul that is with us always.
What a gorgeous piece of writing Nicole, and at this point very valuable for me to reflect on what you offer.
The game of protection can be deeply ingrained and a game nobody wins.
How are we living if we can’t have loving relationships? If we want to move on and develop and grow our relationships, we can’t avoid them.
I feel this question could be a wiggle around uncomfortably in your chair question for some! ‘How are we living if we can’t have loving relationships?’ All the same, a great one to ask because if we are honest we have the opportunity to let go of so much that does not support or evolve us in our relationships so they can truly develop, deepen, blossom and evolve ❤️
We have so much to learn when it comes to relationships. Universal Medicine have truly supported me in having more awareness with this, starting with the relationship with myself ✨
I find observing my own behavior in relationships a really supportive practice. Feeling how I am with others helps me to be aware of anything that isn’t love.