Relationships are Difficult

The Journey with Self and Other

Relationships are complicated. I often wonder ‘how do those in ‘them’ truly see their own?’ Personally, it’s been years since I was in one. Correction, one just ended. It wasn’t successful. And it was the first I’d attempted in eight years. I was quickly reminded why.

The true difficulty of relationships isn’t the other person, it’s the psychological maelstrom of misunderstanding oneself. Without deep self-examination, our unconscious patterns, wounds, and defenses spill over, projected onto the other, never retrieved. The one burdened with these projections, along with countless others left unclaimed, becomes exhausted, frustrated, left to assume: It must be me. Mom and Dad were right. And maybe, in some ways, they were, only insofar as the work remains ours to do.

Somewhere between infancy and adulthood, a line is drawn. There is a point where ‘they’ stop, and ‘I’ begin. Only in crossing that threshold do we see what belongs to others and what is ours to reclaim.

I know a woman who is striking—tall, fit, stylish, quick-witted. The kind of woman others see and think, Wow, I wish I were… And yet, she was never nurtured in this light. Her mother shamed her, dismissed her dreams, told her she needed a ‘real job,’ a 401k, a plan. Something real. Something her mother had never quite secured for herself, shadow-casting at its finest.

Yet, the world saw her differently. Men projected their desire onto her, women their envy. In the office, this played out in ruthless ways. If she had stepped fully into that projection, become a model, embraced what was placed upon her, perhaps she would have at least been living the dream rather than navigating the murky waters of power, dismissal, and objectification. Instead, she walks through life carrying others’ expectations, fighting against them, ever wondering, What could have been?

Jungian psychology describes this weight well—the burden of carrying what others refuse to own in themselves.

The work, then, is to become unafflicted by them, to stand firmly within oneself. As Marie-Louise von Franz put it, “To be able to stand on solid ground inside oneself.”

And once this work begins, it cannot be undone. It is addicting in its nature. Like picking at an old wound, just to see if it bleeds. One can pause, resist, even bypass it entirely, but a certain part of the soul, once awakened, never returns to sleep.

For decades, I’ve danced on the periphery of the spiritual life—smoking weed, playing my guitar, pulling tarot cards, searching for something beyond myself. Only now, after all these years, am I coming into true relationship with it. Not simply of it, but with it, the Inner Companion.

I wonder if this path will alienate me from love.

I am deep, intuitive, and all too attuned to the undercurrents of others. I do not want to be a teacher (and yet I am), do not want to carry another (and yet I do), do not want to lead (and yet I lead), do not want to mother (and yet I mother).

I want to be taught. Carried. Led. And Mothered.

And so, I teach myself, carry myself, lead myself, and mother myself—in all the ways I once wished someone would.

And then I wait.

To see if another appears, someone who has done this work for themselves…

Or someone willing to share in the journey of companioning one another through it.