Relationships and Our Unmet Desires
A common dilemma for so many of us is our lack of satisfaction in our intimate partnerships. We come to realize, after the honeymoon period has ended, that the person we originally fell in love with, is no longer the person we want to be with. Why is that? There are many reasons for this falling out of desire, so to speak, with one’s most intimate companion. Some of these reasons can be quite practical. For instance, one might come to find out that the person they have decided to partner with is quite different from them, in terms of their energy, preferences, cultural background, and value systems. These traits become revealed over time. They are not often the things we take into deep account, when we are first courting someone we desire.
A Battle of Unmet Needs
“It is not the rage or the hatred that is most destructive, but the sacrifices and compromises made around the conditions of relatedness that are the most devastating to the self”
James F. Masterson
On a deeper level, the suffering that we come to experience in partnership, is like a mind field of deep psychological triggers that re-open our most profound wounding. Sound intense? Well, it’s because it is. Loneliness and a sense of hopelessness can readily accompany a fight with one’s spouse. A perpetual sense of not being understood by the person closest to you, can remain as the most prevalent feeling state of any given day. This sense of misunderstanding can lead to poor communication, extra-marital affairs, a progressive unauthentic expression of self and a stockpiling of resentments. This is a recipe for personal and interpersonal disaster. The battle of unmet needs between two individuals who are attempting to create union is a deeply troubling matter than can penetrate the psyches of both parties involved.
From a Mind Map Perspective
“Through my many explorations, I have discovered time and time again that the origin of inorganic human suffering stems from the earliest detachment in our lives: the mother-infant disconnect. All forms of Human Disconnect have profound negative effects on both our physical and mental well-being. However, none is as profound as the mother-infant and father-infant disconnects.”
Dr. Judy Rosenberg, Ph.D.
When we take a Mind Map perspective, on the issues affecting our most intimate relationships, we can connect the dots between the original mother-infant disconnect and our continual recapitulation of what Sigmund Freud refers to as “Repetition Compulsion”. “Repetition Compulsion” is the way in which we as people perpetuate the harm that was inflicted upon us in childhood, by choosing partners and a lifestyle that mimics the blueprint of our original wounding. For instance, if your father was physically abusive and did not show you tenderness, this mistreatment penetrated your sense of self and self-worth. Unless you heal these wounds, It is likely that you will choose to partner with someone who abuses you in the same way. This cycle of continual trauma has gone on for lifetimes because we have not found the ways to break the chains that have us so tightly bound to our original childhood wounding.
Sometimes the abuse is harder to pin down. Neglect, for instance, is an easier abuse to ignore. Ironically, neglecting neglect as an abuse, is easy to do. If your mother did not pay attention to your needs and ignored your desires, it is likely that you have struggled with your own self-worth and ability to value your own needs. Neglect can leave children feeling isolated, unseen and unimportant. How this translates into adulthood, can take on a myriad of forms. One manifestation could look like choosing a partner who puts their needs in front of your own and pays little attention to what your preferences are. This lack of care has become normalized to you and therefore feels almost comfortable, making it very difficult to ascertain as something unhealthy.
The Hole in the Soul
“The hole in the soul within each of us can only be filled with the most powerful healing force in the universe: unconditional love”
Dr. Judy Rosenberg, Ph.D.
The creator of Mind Map therapy, Dr. Judy Rosenberg describes the “hole in the soul” as:
“A sense of emptiness accompanied by symptoms of anxiety and depression brought on by isolation, shame, loneliness, anguish, despair, misery and other forms of torment.”
There is a profound emptiness that sits in the seat of our sense of self, asking to be tended to. The Be the Cause system was designed by Dr. Judy Rosenberg to tend this emptiness. We are not to blame for the hole that was left by our caregivers, nor are they to be blamed. This wounding is transgenerational and is the root cause for much of our human suffering. It is also the root cause of suffering in our intimate partnerships. Unless we are consciously attending to the ways in which we were emotionally wounded in our childhood, the world that surrounds us will only continue to mirror the pain that we hold inside of us.
“Curse by Design”
M. Scott Peck, M.D. coined the term, “curse by design”, to point out the potential that exists in each of us to use the ways we have been wounded to advance our healing later in life. In his book, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Peck explains,
“To proceed very far from the desert, you must be willing to meet existential suffering and work it through. In order to do this, the attitude toward pain has to change. This happens when we accept that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth.”
If we truly digest this concept than we can begin to understand that there is a way out. There is a way out of the suffering that is currently running our lives and designing our interpersonal struggles. When we tend to the mother-child and father-child disconnect we begin to become the Cause and unveil the traps that we have been living in all of our lives.
Healing is not Just a Hope
There is a solution. Our desire to be vulnerable, seen, understood and cared for by another human being is a human right. We have all that we need in order to achieve harmonious and fulfilling romantic partnerships. It must begin as an individual inquiry that digs deep into our past in order to heal our present. Mind Map Therapy offers a way to decode our conditioning and reveal our hidden sense of who we really are.
“As we begin to understand the multigenerational nature of psychopathology… we can finally hold our parents therapeutically responsible and accountable for passing down the impact of their unhealed wounds. Only then can we begin to heal the wounds presently festering in our (and our children’s) bodies, hearts and minds.”
Dr. Judy Rosenberg
Once we clear the way to ourselves, how we partner and who we chose to partner with transforms. Life becomes something far more worth living.
It takes courage to become the person you have always dreamed of becoming. The Be the Cause system lights the path to finding out the very truth we have been forgetting; we are the person that we have been dreaming of all along. If we are willing to work towards healing, our partnerships will become transformed, as we become who we have always been. Isn’t it time to meet ourselves once and for all?
V. Haddad AMFT
@The Psychological Healing Center
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