If you have the time, I would like you to take a moment to think about what happens when you enter the room. Do you bring peace or does everyone want to leave out of the room, run or hide? Sometimes we direly seek to have peace in our marriages and relationships, but the energy we carry inside is toxic. Even when we think that we are suppressing this negative energy it is sensed by our partners, in our marriages and social relationships.
Our children are mechanically built to sense our attitudes and moods, so many times they are acutely aware of the type of energy that we carry as well. But for some reason, we are often convinced and led to believe that the energy that we possess is something that we can hide. We deceive ourselves by believing that our negative thoughts about our spouse, self-image, success, and careers are merely thoughts. Sadly in time, when we fail to change this energy, some of us will live to discover that this very same energy has been passed to our children.
Think about it, where did you get your energy from. Or maybe it’s not energy. Where did you learn to think the way you do, communicate conflict, verbally express feelings or hold in feelings about the things that matter most to you? Where did you learn to place everyone else’s needs before yours? The root of the energy you carry could be a response to or action against the energy, mood or behaviors of your parents. Somewhere you also took on the energy, the thinking, and mentality that drives you each day. Maybe you didn’t turn out exactly like mom or dad, but how do you really feel about your turn out.
Learned Behavior, A Default Pattern in Relationships
So much of what we give in our relationships is learned behavior. But if it was not your parents or caregiver that you learned from, where did you learn to interact with the world the way you do. Think back, what is the energy you felt in your home growing up. Was it a spirit of happiness, peace, joy, love, humanitarianism or was it a spirit of depression, conflict, selfishness, pain, anger or hurt. Sometimes to an extent we avoid bringing the negative energy we are familiar with into our homes individually. Great job! The problem is is that we somehow go and marry it.
Our Experience Determines What Energy We Bring
Many times because of the burdens and pain of our experiences we become bitter and angry. The anger never starts with the experience in and of itself, but generally, the anger begins to birth based on how we process our negative anger provoking experiences. We are not always equipped to process these experiences correctly. However, when we do not learn how to face these experiences we suffer. We must confront the pain, confront the people, and accept our experiences for what they are instead of who we are. It is a quick transition to move from victim to perpetrator. When focussed action is not taken to face our negative experiences, we bring harm to ourselves and create an environment that is often harmful to others.
We Hold The Power
There is a song by Jonathan McReynolds called Cycles. The song talks about the cycles that we breed such as anger and depression. When the weight of depression, anger, anxiety, feelings of abandonment have been carried so long, we often become numb to the pain or have to find a way to treat the pain. Because we don’t give it a voice, it doesn’t just sail away. The anger, anxiety, and depression we feel often makes us want to give up or get out, and this is not good for marriages and relationships. But one thing we have to recognize is that we have the source and the power to reverse these cycles that breed cycles. It is not easy to look at pain and anger, scout the sources of pain and anger, and then decide we are going to do whatever it takes to snatch our back peace.
My Experience Is Not Who I Am
Once we learn that we are not our experience and that our identity is not wrapped up in the hell we have been through, then we can learn to break off the pain that keeps us in bondage. We learn to reverse the cycles that plague us and get rid of the bad energy that haunts us. The understanding that there should be no shame in pain, presents the opportunity for us to check the pain that causes confusion keeping us out of healthy marriages and relationships. Once we learn how to simmer the pain in our relationships and marriages, we change the dynamics of how we view and interact in our relationships.
Separating our experience from our identity brings insight. Discovering one’s true identity is a powerful thing because it teaches us that we don’t have to fight for love. Identity orients us to how much of an asset we are to others, but it can not be thoroughly discovered without addressing pain. Identity renews our thinking about our past and our present worth. Instead of having fear about if a relationship will end because of a threat to leave, or because of questions about our worth in the relationship, we change the course of our thinking to recognize that the person that is with us is with us because they are attracted. We recognize that nobody is holding a gun to their head to stay in the relationship, but they choose to be in the relationship because they are attracted. True identity removes the energy of fear.
Identity teaches us that we can attract. It demonstrates this once we accept it. We discover that we are love, we are loved, and that in relationships we no longer have to cling to others for validation, peace or happiness. True identity is a force that changes what we attract, so when we walk into the room, we walk with an ora of confidence, peace, and security that is a deterrent to the manipulator and controller. Once we have taken the task to forgive ourselves, forgive others, and have become an island of strength with the force of positivity, no longer will there ever be a need to cling to a relationship but relationships cling to us. Positive relationships cling because we attract what is familiar and common.
Stump Anger Today
Start your work today by making the determination to remove negative energy, resist being a perpetrator, deal with your pain and find your true identity. Take the time to process your pain, and when necessary find that someone you can talk too. Choose that someone who does not judge and who will be willing to talk about a plan to remove the cycles of pain while moving into a life of peace.
About Choya
Choya Wise, LICSW, PIP is the owner of Aspire Counseling and Consulting Services a mental health clinic in the Huntsville, Al area. As a licensed mental health professional Choya specializes in individual counseling, couples therapy, and depression counseling. He also offers Social Work Supervision in Alabama and Anger Management Classes.
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