trust

What My Anxiety Taught Me About Love

What My Anxiety Taught Me About Love

It’s never easy when you come up against your ego.

Or to be more specific, when your shadow behavior is pointed out to you by someone you love and trust.

Recently I had a conversation with my husband in which he shared that over the past year I’d demonstrated more controlling behavior. He gave a few specific examples, some I agreed with and others I wanted to immediately reject.

My insides squirmed listening to him.

I just wanted him to stop, to go away and leave me alone.

Didn’t he understand anything?

It wasn’t that I was being more controlling it was that I was finally coming in to my own, doing what I wanted as opposed to what other people were telling me to do.

I felt hurt and rejected. Because that’s the only way an ego can feel.

My husband was infinitely kind, loving and soft when he spoke to me but what I heard was, “You’re a controllingbit** and I don’t want to be with you.”

My ego had been bruised. I felt raw, almost like a frightened little child.

It's All About Trust

It's All About Trust

A few months ago, right around the New Year, I wrote about Robert Holden's idea of choosing one word to be your guide for the year. A word that you could contemplate, evaluate and ideally embrace this year, 2014.

My word is trust.

Four months into my exploration with this word, I have come to see its many manifestations in my life.

For one, I will confess to not being terribly trusting - of myself, of others, of the future. All of this lack of trust is from my past, from not feeling supported or nurtured, and from thinking the world is an unsafe place. I have worked on this for a decade but am determined to shed my lack of trust this year. And this resolution has gotten me thinking about all the ways it manifests in my life.