Our relationships are more than a contract of love. They are also opportunities for growth and expansion. In all of our relationships, we have times of good connection and bad. Through the journey in life we have many opportunities to expand love. We also have the opportunity to disconnect and separate.
Many of our relationships can be challenging. We aren’t always surrounded by our ideal set of people. We attract what we need to teach us what we are vibrating inside. Our relationships can often reflect the things we haven’t dealt with. No matter how much or how deep our love is for our families, spouses, and children, we will have interactions that we provoke from one another. Things we have the opportunity to face and work out.
Often our triggers play out through defensiveness. When we feel defensive or hurt, we are preventing ourselves from listening openly with our hearts. We may have some deep-rooted seeds from childhood or past experiences that we haven’t worked out and they play into our relationships later. Often when we don’t do the inner work, we may not even be aware of our triggers or the inner walls we’ve built.
We may have many excuses and reasons for our defensiveness, but we also are ignoring our opportunity to grow. This can affect our feeling of wholeness. When we feel defensive, we shut down and put up our shields. We can’t let much love in. Not only are we blocking the love from ourselves, we are experiencing more difficulty in our relationships.
It does require a bit of trust from yourself. We don’t always learn these foundations to aid in our relationships. When we point fingers and blame, we avoid seeing the truth within. We all have triggers we run up against, but to transcend them, we need to be more open and honest with ourselves about why we feel the way we do. Most of the time what triggered the emotion had little to do with the seed of our issue.
We all act as mirrors for each other. It’s not always easy to acknowledge that the aspect we don’t like to see in another is what is coming from ourselves. It takes practice to think about our reactions before they come out of our mouths. It takes more openness and patience to move through what emotions we are experiencing and what we are protecting ourselves from.
We use our emotional shields to try to protect ourselves, but they usually keep showing up until we deal with them. We are wired to feel instinctively protective, but we are also capable of transcending pain. This can certainly separate our connection with ourselves and each other. There is a time to protect ourselves from imminent harm and danger, but what I’m referring to is how our shields and defensiveness plays out into our relationships. Especially in our discussions, arguments, and disagreements.
We don’t always heal our triggers in one discussion or instant, but we can learn to be more aware of what is coming out and going on within. When we can listen more openly;, we can not only deepen our connection in our relationships, but also in ourselves. The more we face ourselves and heal our wounds, the more we raise our frequency and help those around us create the space to do the same. Our own healing heals the world. Together can help each other grow and heal.