What I Require

I’ve been having some pretty crazy-good experiences since getting back from Puerto Rico.  So much gratitude for so many of my sisters and brothers on their own journeys.  Sometimes I am in the role of provider of love, opportunity for healing, all the good things…sometimes I am in the role of receiver.  Or is there really a difference, I ask myself, between giving and receiving?  (No.)

One of the gifts I have received in the last couple months is the chance to do some work with a very skilled teacher of Family Constellations, Suzi Tucker.  I think I heard of this stuff vaguely in grad school, never took a course in it, and wham! I’ve discovered another ‘flavor’, as I call them, that I do like.  A flavor of the work of consciousness, of becoming more whole- they all lead to the same place…I just like some particular flavors better than others, and this is definitely up there with my all-time favorites.

In my first session, she started using phrases like: “being chosen” and “what do I require?” .  I am pretty sure I was ill-prepared to even know what she meant by those things, let alone define them for myself.  Yet I am a fast learner, and a motivated one, for I have the distinct sense I am at the end of my  career in painful relationships, relationships in which there is more than a teensy bit of drama, relationships in which I am working too hard.  (Sound familiar, by the way?)

Over the years I have been moving more and more toward this place, where I am now, in the no-more-bullshit-zone.  And my relationships have been getting better and better.  More satisfying, more intimate…Yet there is a difference between moving toward and landing.

I began to get clarity on what being “chosen” means, on what I “require”.  Slowly, it dawned on me:  “Oh, wait, I get to say what I REQUIRE and stand in that truth, accepting no less?  I get to be CHOSEN,  AS me, not in spite of but because of that?  I get to be ME?  All the way?  I don’t have to take the bullshit I see you dishing out?  I don’t have to settle for less than a full banquet? (And yes, part of who I am is FEISTY, and I’m not apologizing for it.)

Today I had another session, following an all-day workshop last weekend.  On Saturday I got what it means to be chosen.  Today I got clear on what I require.  And I see there’s a way for all of us that we got confused.  We/I thought I deserved less that what I do because of the circumstances I was born into, because I was not held in the way I deserved to be.  And it’s okay.

Today I feel so happy, so me, and here is MY list of what I require in ALL my relationships, romantic or otherwise:

To be treated with love and respect

To be welcomed

To be seen and heard

To be valued for who I am, simply for being, not for what I can do for you

To be treated as an equal

To be first.  I am very willing to share first place with every being, but I am not second

To have my choices and boundaries respected

To be validated

To be appreciated

To be wanted

To be treasured

To be leveled with

To be called out on my shit

To be told the truth

To be seen as perfectly imperfect, as I am

To be held with compassion, even when I go unconscious, even when very young parts of me show up

To have my strength and ability to handle things trusted

To feel safe

To be met eye to eye- not as you try to perch above or below me

To be responsible for my own feelings- and only my own feelings

To be recognized as the loving being that I am; your ally

To be spoken to kindly, in a reasonable voice

To have a decent amount of consistency and predictability from you

To be free to reveal that we are in relationship (not to be your secret)

To be taken seriously

To be chosen

These things all just popped out after my session today.  I also reserve the right to change my mind, to add things, to subtract things…

And I wonder….what do you require? <3

 

 

 

---