I am terrified of commitment & yet am not safe without it | Walking the tightrope of paradoxical vulnerability

I am terrified of commitment, and yet, as a person living in a born body with female hormones, I know that conscious communication in a committed relationship provides a framework that keeps me - and ultimately the he - safe. 

Safe from my inner child of fire who will stand up and scream when she sees me (her) being hurt again, whether the hurt is real or not. I would probably call that trauma. But the good news is, because it is trauma, it can change. 

I have had to evolve my emotional language, both intellectually and then to understand that once I am aware of it, it will take time for my body to implement it. Sometimes bumping up against the same mousetrap over and over, even though intellectually I know better. Cradling my wounded hand, the one that got slapped again, thinking “What is wrong with me? Why did I do that again?!?” 

Until finally, slowly, glacially, I change. 

Until it integrates into my muscle memory, the place where, perhaps, is the source of our true motions (the physical kind, not [e]motions), where true decision-making comes from (for good or bad). 

I believe this because of the years of spiritual study I’ve done. I’ve always wanted to believe in something larger than me, and knowing that organized religions felt too human. I wanted the lofty, the ideal of the better than. The perfect.

But what I found was that spiritual study - for me - was in itself a form of detachment from MY humanness. Once upon a time, when I was young, it saved me. To live in my head meant I could escape from the reality of what was happening around me. 

But as I got older, when I would dip down into my body, I would find the divide between mind and body SO great that I got even more out of sync. And well, my logical mind said, should I just live in my head then?

Except I would be forced into my body by panic. My body would not - could not - be ignored in those moments. 

AND, I could not access other body functions - normal ones - because of that divide. 

But, logically, I was ok with a life without orgasms for the trade-off of so much else. So much abundance in other areas. 

Until I wasn’t. 

In 2019, deep in those studies, I asked the universe to help me heal my second chakra - the seat of creativity - also said to be the energy center of sexuality and passion, 

Now I believe in this and I don't. I believe there is so much more to our energy bodies than science has been able to detect with human tools yet. 

Do I think it’s only called a chakra? No. 

We live at the only time in history where we can see all of the world's (recorded) spiritual and religious practices, and I think the truth is somewhere in the aggregate. In the places where all overlap, in their Venn diagrams. 

But the evolution of religion and spirituality, limited by humans and the worlds they lived in at those times, has always been a driving force for science and striving to know more about this thing they called life on earth. 

Brené Brown talks about her childhood superpower:

“As if all of this wasn’t enough to navigate, I had magic powers. … At the time, I would have told you that I could predict the future. I couldn’t tell you what was going to happen in twenty years, but I could tell you with stunning accuracy what was going to happen in twenty minutes. And when you’re young and navigating a tough time at home… twenty minutes is all the future you have. So, yes. I could predict the future. 

I knew which snarky comment would produce a laugh and which one would set off a fight. And I knew why. I knew that the comment about too much dessert was funny when someone felt good about how they looked and how the same comment would unleash a screaming match if someone didn’t feel good about themselves that day or that hour. I knew everyone’s shame triggers and the unwanted identities that elicited their shame. I knew how it was important for everyone to be perceived, when we could poke fun, and how long we had to get the hell out of Dodge if we got that wrong. I knew that everyone in our family was really smart and funny, yet there were flavors of teasing that people used to work out stress or hurt, and once unleashed, that type of teasing wouldn’t stop until someone was crying. 

I was eight or nine years old the first time I realized that my superpowers worked outside the house. Our neighborhood swim team coach liked some people and disliked others, and his preferences seemed to change every day. Everyone tried to figure it out—some of the kids even ran experiments—but no one could solve it. Except me. I knew the secret. …

Maybe I couldn’t actually predict the future, but I did have top-level observation powers. I understood that people would do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing pain and abusing power, and I understood that there were very few people who could handle being held accountable for causing hurt without rationalizing, blaming, or shutting down. What surprised me the most when I was growing up was how little other people seemed to understand or even think about the connection between feelings, thinking, and behavior. I remember often thinking, Oh, God. Do you not see this coming? I didn’t feel smarter or better, just weirder and pained by the amount of hurt that we are capable of causing one another. The observation powers were partly survival and partly how I’m wired. Everyone, including me, seemed so desperate to feel more connected to their own lives and to one another, but no one was looking in the right places. No one was thinking about how it all works together. Everyone seemed disembodied from their own inner world and disconnected from other people. Too many lonely and secret lives.”

And - wow - did I resonate with that. 

For I do have all these feelings, and when I do dip into my body, I am so afraid I will drown in the eddies of their swirling waters. 

There is a reason water has been associated with emotions in many places, for many generations. 

And why intuition is touted and talked about in the same way. Our bodies feel things. Feel things from other bodies too, even if we are not touching. Though touching can ramp that up. For me anyway. 

But it is the mind that layers on a story about those feelings. And the mind story adds more feelings. So the quagmire of emotional soup thickens, and what is reality?

For I have tried to get as quiet as I could these past months. To let others be others without the influence of my emotions. For I have BIG emotions. And that is mine to own. 

On its best day, when I’m happy, I can bring others high with me. But the down emotions are a spiral no one wants. 

Truly a spiral that is not fair to anyone. I have found some beautiful warriors that are so secure in their space that they can bring an umbrella through the hurricane to sit beside me so I’m not alone in the proverbial woods. Because I’m afraid if I emerge in this condition I will scald others that don’t have umbrellas or others that haven’t consented to be there. So I always am poised to run to the outside, to not harm others, to stay away from them, looking in.

And they have helped me to see that I have consent too. I don’t have to own others' emotions either, though it hurts to say no. That I can be grateful for people with the umbrellas, and love them forever, but that I always have a choice too. But it hurts. Physically, painfully hurts to say no. For then it feels like I give them the reason to do the thing I am most afraid of - leave. 

But I’ve learned if I don’t give them the freedom to leave, then I trap myself with the very same box. 

And that is the base of my fear of commitment. I am terrified of the commitment - perceived or real - in relationships. Not that I WANT to fly away, but that I CAN’T. That I lose my ability to say no - endangering both hearts in the process. 

A shaky bottom is an unstable foundation. 

As I play with power dynamics - stated or otherwise, living without constant choice and consent or freedom in relationships is dangerous. But, also, for me, living without the paradox of simultaneous commitment is also dangerous for my emotional vulnerability. 

Maybe that is what poly is to me - committed freedom with constant conscious communication. 

Maybe I’m striving for a label, knowing none will fit exactly, but tired of going first. Tired of standing up to shine, forging a path into the unknown to do what I feel - not think - is right. 

Right for me and for the little heart I am trying to shepard though the world and show (not tell) a different way. 

A different way to love, and a different way to be. 

One that breaks free of the shackles of generational trauma and shoulds and rules. Acknowledging that the pendulum swinging the other way isn’t useful either. 

So trying to walk the tightrope between new and lawless and stopping to breathe every time I fall down. Acknowledging it hurts to hit the ground, again, then slowly climbing back up and on to tiptoe forward, hoping for a few joyful dance steps along the way.