Let Me In
As I witness people talking to each other on a regular basis, the pattern is detectible. Someone is talking and the other is waiting to respond. Internally, the latter is formulating their response, potentially avoiding bullets that sometimes stray into the deepest wounds of their soul, having emotions stirred that put them into fight, flight or freeze. The other is imploring to be heard, trying to have sense made of them. They might just be verbally spewing their pain, not slowing down to make sense of the root of their message: I want to be seen. I want to be known. Can I depend on you? Will you still love me in spite of my perceived filth and shame?
Sometimes being the monitor of these conversations is painful. Witnessing the wounding that each person is sometimes unintentionally inflicting on the other. Watching the wounded’s eyes glaze over as they are now reliving the memories of past injuries that are echos of this new one. And they either shrink away, pain too overwhelming to engage, or their inner challenger rises up. The little angry, spewing child that is now ready to throw back their own weaponry because their own injury is too much to bear. They get bigger, louder, as they are now demanding to be heard. They are no longer speaking to resolve, they are fighting for their life. They are fighting to defend their value, their safety, their pride. The feelings of the other long forgotten, as they have now become a villain in their story, forgetting that this person is for them, not against. Forgetting the battle is not this person, but rather, all of the old patterns and injuries and wounds that have gone untouched, unresolved, and are now being scraped open again.
I witness these two wounded soldiers, with mere words and lots of unspoken messages, wrecking and being wrecked by the ones who have the power to hurt them them most: themselves and each other.
So what do we do? Where do we go from here? The more often that battles of this type arise, the more likely that the war will be lost - on both sides, might I add. So, instead of engaging in battle when you notice your partner gearing up to inflict pain: slow down, breathe, listen. Look at them not as a fighter against you. Look at them as a wounded child, because at some point, the wound they’re fighting to defend is one that was first inflicted in childhood. Someone told them they were unworthy, unloveable, unimportant, and not worth sticking around for. They are terrified that you are going to do the same and therefore, they fight to defend or they flee before their feared reality hits. So rather than pulling out your own armory, listen to their words. Did you hear them? I mean really hear them? Is there a part of you that can understand? Is there a part of you that knows what it’s like, to be frightened and bleeding and craving the soothing affection and healing of human connection? Can you try to make sense, underneath the angry words or the cold shoulder or the shouts or tears, of what they are really trying to say? Because usually the question is: do I matter? Will you stay with me? Will you love me in spite of myself?
This battle isn’t about you, my love. This battle is about the others’ wounds and their fear of them being re-opened by whatever just occurred between the two of you. So if you slow down, if you take a breath, if you listen, you are soothing the inner angry warrior child. You are telling them, I am going nowhere. I am here, I hear you, I am trying to understand, let me in.
