Look Before You Leap
“Brought to Light” by Cameron Gray
I've joined a lot of narcissistic abuse recovery groups on social media, and I see one solution to a lot of problems - if we could all permanently imprint it onto our hearts & brains, we'd all save ourselves a lot of trouble - and no judgment for anyone who's done the opposite, as almost everyone has, as this society promotes the opposite. That solution is:
Make SURE you find out exactly WHO someone is BEFORE getting into a relationship with them because once you are bonded with that person, no matter how they treat you, your brain is going to try and do everything it can to avoid the pain of separation. So, make sure they are going to take care of your heart, for sure, before giving it to them. This will help to avoid a lot of pain if you discover they are not who you thought they were and are toxic to you. You can walk away without the pain of separation if you have not bonded so deeply yet. Nature works how it works. Human bonds run deep. It's normal and natural to bond with others, especially a life partner. Just make SURE the person you're going to bond with isn't toxic first.
Seems like common sense, right? However, no one taught us this ish. It seems like our society promotes jumping into a relationship, trying it out, and THEN seeing if it works. Doesn't seem to be going too well for our society. People are suffering from that everywhere.
If you observe long enough, and you're honest with yourself, and keep from projecting who you are onto someone else, making assumptions about their intentions, etc., and if you don't try and justify and explain away red flag after red flag, you can tell who someone really is, given enough experience with them.
Of course, we can't expect people to be perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. However, a mistake, and a pattern, are two completely different things. If someone repeatedly does something harmful or inconsiderate over and over and over again - that's a pattern, not a mistake. Any apology made was to get through the moment and stay connected with you. They have no intention of stopping the harmful behavior if they don't show that they are. Believe what you see, not what you hear.
So, I think it's quite possible to do this. Let dating become what it used to be, for the mental health of the world. Let dating be when you get to know someone and find out all there is to know about them. Let that phase last as long as it needs to until you are sure of who that person is from the observations you've made - not from what they've told you.
Then, if they are a good person and potentially compatible with you, make sure and talk about every foreseeable thing that could possibly come up in the future, to prevent problems from coming up and shaking the foundation of your relationship then. As long as you have observed them thoroughly and concluded that they are a good person - not someone who is just going to tell you what they think you want to hear in order to keep your attention and who doesn't speak from their heart or say how they really think or feel or what their true plans are - then a lot of things can be discussed beforehand.
These principles could save a lot of people a whole lot of pain.
I actually have a 7-step process I developed for securing a lasting relationship with a life partner that combines yoga, TCM, and neurobiology to create a blueprint for a strong foundation for a relationship with a life partner. I touched a little bit on two of the steps here - observation and communication. For the communication phase, the blueprint includes the most important topics to discuss, to help ensure longevity, happiness, and peace in the relationship.
If anyone would like to know more about this, feel free to connect.
