We attract someone who is our complimentary opposite. We unconsciously feel drawn to someone who's expressing the parts of us that we repress. My wife is very creative, and for a long time I didn't believe I was.
You might think this doesn't prove anything, and that's ok, don't trust me.
Test it out for yourself.
If you're someone who doesn't value being heard so much, does your partner want to talk more than you? Would your partner say that this is fulfilling to have a quality conversation? And vice versa, do you want to be seen? But your partner doesn't care so much about that.
John Demartini said once "The definition of caring is to communicate in someone else's needs, then your own.
In this example that would mean if you wanted to be seen, you'd focus on helping your partner feel heard by you, and only then would you ask for your need to be seen met.
By the way, maybe you want to be touched, maybe not. Maybe there's something else you need.
My point is that it's likely different to what your partner desires.
Here's how you can help someone feel heard (Quick story)
Jenna doesn't feel heard by her husband.
She sits there telling me this while he sits quietly.
She's crying.
As soon as he gets the chance, he consoles her and says something to try make her feel better.
This is how she doesn't feel heard.
He, with the best intentions, is trying to stop her from crying, but that's the only way she feels heard. Because she needs to release this sadness she's been carrying for so long because everyone she's told hasn't been able to sit with her in the mud.
What's sitting in the mud?
That's what Simon Sinek calls being with your partner when they're suffering.
When we suffer together, we bond.
So I teach Jenna's husband that crying is ok, she's releasing. He also cries a lot after this as well. She now feels heard because he's no longer interrupting the process.
Because he now the speaks the language of sadness. In his own body first, so that he allows her to have her experience.
Then he can now relate also.
And that is how we improve our "relationship"
We improve how we are "relating" to our own feelings, perceptions and actions.
Remember, nothing is external.
All people, moments, feelings come into your field of reality as sign for you to evolve and heal.
What signs are you being shown right now?
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