Self Esteem

No One Deserves That Much Power

A client walked into my office, looking as if a hundred-pound weight had been lifted from her shoulders. As she sat down, it was apparent that she was different. When Dee had first come to see me, she had wanted help getting over a relationship. She had been involved with a partner for three years. They had shared many good times including long drives in autumn, great dinners, intimate moments late in the evening on the couch talking about their lives and dreams. Dee truly felt this partner was her soulmate and she eagerly waited for the time when they could move into that long-awaited commitment stage of the relationship. As days turned into weeks, into months, into years, her partner never could seem to make that transition. The relationship did not seem to be getting deeper or moving into an exclusive or long-term partnership.

When couples find themselves in this predicament, it usually results in feelings of frustration for both, but especially for the person who wants “more” out of the relationship. Most describe it as heartbreaking!

This young woman really came to me to strategize how to get more from her partner, but she quickly learned that she was not going to change him, so her new goal became how to break it off. She knew she needed strategies to avoid re-entering the relationship, because she had broken it off several times before, only to reconnect with him and feel that familiar “nagging” that said, “I need more from this person than what I am getting.”

Our work together focused on her doing the following:
? She developed the awareness that she deserved better. Her partner was not a bad person, but she was not going to be able to get what she needed in the relationship.
? She could not change him. Her partner was comfortable and could not give her what she needed.
? She needed to develop a letting-go process or ritual to put the relationship to rest.
? She needed to develop boundaries that absolutely, under no circumstances, allowed the two people to connect.

Unhealthy relationships are like addictions. She needed to abstain from the other person at all costs. Just as with alcohol one drink will restart the cycle of alcoholism, one phone call, card or visit will reconnect the two people together.
? She needed to fill her time with pleasurable activities and find supportive people who would encourage her to work on herself and to stay busy.
? She needed to visualize the kind of partnership she wanted. She needed to practice telling herself she would create that for herself some day when it was time.
? Lastly, she needed to stop giving that person the power to be in all of her thoughts.

Often times we become so consumed with another person we view the entire world in relationship to him or her. We can’t imagine our nights, holidays or lives without them. The truth is that you must be able to have a healthy and whole life without that person. No one should have that much power in your life that their absence causes you to feel less than whole.

I had told Dee that she was giving her ex-partner too much power for several sessions. Then one day, she heard me. When she came to the session, she looked lighter and different, and she said, “You know, you said one thing to me two weeks ago that really stuck. You said, ‘Don’t give him the power.’ and when I ran into him, he no longer had that power. Wow, I think I am finally ready to move on.”

When we give away too much power, it leaves us with no power of our own to create the life we need. Dee discovered that she needed to take back her power so that she could get the love she really wants.

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