The art (and heartbreak) of disappointing another

In any close relationship, we will inevitably disappoint the other and let them down.

This can be incredibly activating, especially if our role in early relationships was to set aside our own needs, where tending to the other was the primary way that we received love and attention.

In a field of narcissistic organization, we are not seen as a subject in our own right, but as an object in the perceptual field of another. Our sense of worth is derived by how well we are able to regulate and care for the emotional needs of that other. Especially at a young age, this is a very tenuous situation to be placed in.

For many, we will do just about anything to not disappoint, for to do so opens the doorway to seemingly unbearable feelings, images, and impulses. The invitation, as always, is to slow way down and bring curiosity, awareness, and kindness to our experience in these moments as we begin to encode new circuitry.

What is it like for you to disappoint someone? To let them down? To fail at living up to their expectations, no matter how hard you try?

What are the core beliefs that arise during these times, the feelings that you will do just about anything to get out of, the habitual behaviors you engage to avoid a direct confrontation with your own embodied vulnerability?

What do you imagine the consequences will be if you are not able to “make them happy,” or remove their anxiety, emptiness, self-hatred, and the pain of their unlived life?

Will you be abandoned if you disappoint them? Or will you be the target of rage and attack? Will you be shamed? Unsafe? Should you just go ahead and try to make them feel better at all costs, even if detrimental to your own integrity?

To what degree have you come to organize your life around the unconscious belief that your role is to urgently heal, fix, and cure the other when they are upset?

And for those of us who identify with being healers, therapists, or counselors of any kind, what does it mean about us if we are not healing, but disappointing?

It’s some very rich territory that we can investigate, as alchemists and archeologists of soul… a whole fountain of sacred data we can mine in this experiment. It is an act of mercy and compassion, for both ourselves and others, to take some time and explore this.

Falling in Love with Where You Are: Embracing the Joy and Heartbreak of Spiritual Awakening - our annual spring, five-day retreat - will take place April 22-27, 2020 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado, with myself and Jeff Foster. More information here. 

My online community, co-facilitated with Jeff Foster - Befriending Yourself: Discovering the Beauty in the Wounded and Broken Places - will be opening to new members later this month. Learn more here. 

My most recent book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is available in both paperback and Kindle editions. 

My next book, A Healing Space: Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times, will be published by Sounds True in 2020. 

Matt's online community now re-open to new members - Befriending Yourself

Dear friends, we've just re-opened membership to Befriending Yourself, the online community I am co-facilitating with my friend and spiritual teacher Jeff Foster. I know some of you are already part of the community, but for those who are not we'll be registering new members over the next couple of weeks, at which time we'll close until later in the year.

Each month, you'll receive videos from both Jeff and I (individually) where we speak about our own experience and that of working with others in the areas of healing, spiritual transformation, trauma, shadow, and what it means to truly "befriend" ourselves at the deepest levels.

In addition, we'll also meet twice live (currently on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month at 11am PT/ 7pm London) where we'll meditate together, talk about this journey, and take questions from participants. If you're not able to join us at that time (many are not) we'll send out a replay of the video, downloadable audio, and also a written transcript of what was covered.

Finally, there is also a private Facebook group (optional) where members around the world share their experience and support one another.

I look forward to seeing you online, on retreat, or in whatever way life brings us together this year!

Warmly,
Matt

A parting of the veil

Falling apart, holding it all together. Then falling apart, then coming back together. Cycles of clarity and confusion. Hopelessness and hope. Heartbreak and bliss. Knowing who we are and why we are here in one moment, deflated in the next as the way we thought it would all turn out is dissolved into the vast.

Inside the opposites it is alive and creative, but there is no solid ground from which to orient. No familiar reference point to look back to or rest in. Only tenderness. Open. Pregnant. Potential. Shaky. But what will be reborn from the ashes has not yet been given.

The tendency in these moments is to rush to rebirth in an urgent attempt to reassemble the known, where it is believed safety and aliveness is to be found. We can honor the adaptive function this belief has provided, while discovering for ourselves if this perceptual organization is able to meet the longing wired within the cells of this heart.

If we remain too identified with “falling apart,” we lose contact with that which was never unhealed, untransformed, and was never “together” to begin with. That innate radiance, the holiness of the breath, and the miracle of having an open sensitive nervous system. We disconnect with the magic of embodied presence, the wisdom of the mud and the earth, and the unshakable confidence in our true nature.

But if we remain too identified with “holding it all together,” we split off from our organic spontaneity, imaginative vulnerability, and the truth that love will take whatever form it must to reveal its qualities within us. Raw, achy, illuminating heartbreak may approach at any time, requesting safe passage inside. But it is through this broken aliveness that the poetry of our lives will flow.

Right in the middle of “falling apart” and “holding it together” is the secret place. Go there. It is here where light and dark are at play. For just a moment the veil parts. We peer behind the curtain and are astonished.

Photo by Sandro Porto

Falling in Love with Where You Are: Embracing the Joy and Heartbreak of Spiritual Awakening - our annual spring, five-day retreat - will take place April 22-27, 2020 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado, with myself and Jeff Foster. More information here. 

My online community, co-facilitated with Jeff Foster - Befriending Yourself: Discovering the Beauty in the Wounded and Broken Places - will be opening to new members later this month. Learn more here. 

My most recent book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is available in both paperback and Kindle editions. 

My next book, A Healing Space: Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times, will be published by Sounds True in 2020.