My error has been having an awareness, an intelligence about a person and disregarding it or minimizing it because I felt “guilty” for judging them. I often in the past have gotten into entanglements with people who we weren't’ at the same level but I thought I could help raise them and then when that didn’t “work” I felt guilty, disappointed and secretly resented them for their inability.
I draw all of this together from one relationship in college where I was buying books one semester and decided to get Keeping The Love You Find by Harville Hendrix. It essentially teaches singles, couples, etc, despite sexuality about their Imago—-mating/love style that you learned from your parents/guardians and how that appears in adult romantic relationships and friendships.
I bought the book. I even started the exercises in the book and found them deeply insightful—-then I think I got wrapped up in classes and set it aside.
And met a fool.
He purported to be my friend but then put the moves on me. We had classes together and he was seriously acting Straight but going all LGBT on me. I was unsure. If you say you’re on the Avengers, don't’ show up acting like you’re now an X-Men. So I hung back and watched. It turned into what the French call a clusterfuck when I rejected him. I was dating others, actually I dated a lot of older dudes from off campus/non-students, because of just this drama.
Then I moved back to NYC and had a live in European-Turkish actual royal prince lover and then several others over the years.
Then one day I got a job teaching workshops and I was looking for curriculum and I dig out Keeping The Love You Find and completed the book and then taught it and then took the 30 men to a seminar at Columbia where a psychotherapist was teaching it—-they blew his mind at the depth they had studied it. Of course teaching it and completing the exercises, I had to put my past lovers through the analysis exercises and discovered my own parents dysfunctional messages about love and relationships.
I was even able to trace back, most importantly in the Imago System, the personality type I was attracted to.
And like one of those scary horror movies where you flip through half a dozen pages——-they were all the same in personality traits, positive and negative.
I realized, exactly as Hendrix said, I had been repeating an unconscious pattern partially because I hadn’t finished the book to recognize the pattern and how to consciously work on it. Not change it, but recognize it and change my responses.
I ignored their false bravado, their neediness, their possessiveness, their parental wounds on their arms, their sort of piteous depression, their lack of manifesting their goals.
What I learned from my side——the book identifies who and how and what you are—-is that I grew up with mixed up/dysfunctional parents so I was always trying to be good and forgiving and helpful in the face of dysfunction. I minimized myself so as not to threaten their dysfunction. I thought fixing others would make them so grateful for the fixation and that they would turn and love me in gratitude.
What I was sublimating were my own accomplishments, awards, skills, even my writing—-yes, you can Google me and see my voluminous amount of writing—— and one guy—-I never even told him I’d been writing and publishing for close to 30 years—-because honestly I didn’t want to compete with him in something he’d expressed an interest in and so clearly be winning.
I was able to chart back to about 4–5 significant relationships since high school that were more of the traits of my Imago than not. I began to understand what attracted me and why I wasn’t attracted to certain others.
Has it freed me?
I‘m more conscious of who I’m attracted to and why. Now I look for, as Hendrix suggests, Imago stuff but heathier expressions of what might be negative personality traits. Before I would accept it at a Level 10. Now I know it an be managed at a Level 5 so 10s no longer attract me. Or I resist and walk away from the attraction.
I’ve also learned how to communicate myself better—-what I want and don’t want, what fits me, who I am, who I am not. Sometimes in my head now it feels like multiple things and I’ve learned over the years that I can have multiple variations of relationships—-not one person will fulfill everything.
If I had finished that book the first time, 10 years prior to teaching it, I do wonder if I would have drastically changed relationships and friendships. But at the same time, those entanglements allowed me to grow, become a better artist, have deeper insights. But I do often think about the fact that I always had my salvation and the cure for heartache on my bookshelf……
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
Smile, KyleKylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
The Kyle Phoenix Show LIVE STREAMING on MNN.org 1130pm, Spectrum Cable Manhattan, NY Channel 56 & 1996, also FIOS 34 and RCN 83.
Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show LIVESTREAM on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) Thursdays 1130pm
Kyle Phoenix is a teacher, certified adult educator, sexologist, sex coach and sexuality educator with over two decades of intensive experience. He studied at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York University, and Columbia University. He has worked, consulted and taught individuals and focused professional developments for the CDC, Department of Education, Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health, non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and unions. He began his career facilitating on-campus workshops addressing a wide range of sexuality and sexual health issues and then moved on to teaching at universities, non-profits, private groups and clients, hosting The Kyle Phoenix Show on television and multiple online webinars, including YouTube and Sclipo and writing extensively through his blog, Special Reports, articles and other print and E books in the Kyle Phoenix Series on relationships, finance, education, spirituality and culture. He lives in New York with his family.
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
#TheKylePhoenixShow
No comments:
Post a Comment