When “Advice” Goes The Wrong Way
Almost every day here someone posts their side of the story in a relationship (which I appreciate when you’re genuinely looking for answers instead of validation) and LITERALLY every time someone without qualifications, who they themselves have not demonstrated an ability to create the challenging task of creating a secure relationship has the advice that goes something like this:
“HE’S A NARC. RUN!”
Followed by a backstory of their own, talking about the horrors of their life of 20 years with a narcissist who abused them again and again.
Relationships are hard.
That’s because we enter them blind to our attachment traumas that have us ATTRACTED TO partners who repeat familiar patterns from caregivers who were abusive, neglectful, and invalidating because of their own wounding.
We then choose these partners with the hopes that by being with this person we can be rescued from the hurts of our past.
Unfortunately the exact opposite happens and we end up repeating the cycle unconsciously through no fault of our own.
Hence the term: unconscious relationships.
Most relationships we are engaged in today are UNCONSCIOUS.
That means they are run by complexes that are not conscious — they are run by programs that are stored in the body, often before we even had language.
That’s why talk therapy doesn’t work to solve them: WE CAN’T SEE THESE BLIND SPOTS WHEN WE ARE BEING POSSESSED BY THEM.
That’s why you can’t heal with podcasts and Facebook live videos and books alone.
We need community to help us see our own blind spots past our heavy ego resistance — through witnessing others.
A university degree in psychology doesn’t even come CLOSE to resolving them.
Nor does a Masters.
Nor does a PhD.
Not even an MD.
Definitely not a degree in social work or counseling.
What addresses them is to FACE AND FEEL INTO our shadows.
And that is HARD AF.
And painful.
It’s barf worthy at best and not for the faint of heart.
That’s what it takes to be a Cyclebreaker:
To be willing to feel the shame we’ve been trying to avoid with all our accomplishments and degrees, looking good and seeking external validation.
To be willing to get out of our masculine based cognitive brains and get into our feminine feeling selves we’ve been suppressing and denying all our lives (because society tells us to).
To cry the tears and to surrender to the emotions of the scared little one inside all of us who wasn’t parented by humans who understood how to meet our emotional needs.
Warning: just because someone has a Psychology PhD does NOT mean they faced their shadows and owned their shame. Their degree doesn’t provide that and they are not bound by the regulations of their board to do their own inner healing work.
So proceed with caution.
It’s like hiring a personal trainer who’s read the books and passed the tests and quizzes and gotten their certification, but is morbidly obese.
Before choosing your guide, make sure they are living it first.
And for the love of god, don’t ask random people on Facebook for advice.
Want a great example of how advice can go very wrong when people project their wounds onto you, and they’re not coming from an objective place?
If you want to understand in real time,
Read Joy Joy’s post about how she feels her boyfriend is gaslighting her.
Then read the comments from people who truly mean well but haven’t done the work.
Can you spot what could potentially go wrong when we label others?
Can you see the blind spot in that’s almost a pandemic right now?
Please share your observation below.
We are here to break the cycle and part of that is confronting discussions that are perpetuating it.
It’s uncomfortable. I know.
Not meant to toxically shame.
But healthy shame is a good thing. It wakes us up.
What did you notice by reading the thread?
Update Edit: this is what Psychotherapist Kylie Fgames had to say about reading Joy Joy’s post and comments.
