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Hello, I hope you’re having a beautiful week so far. I will admit - January and I have had a pretty tumultuous relationship when it comes to love. From breakups to crummy dating situations… we just haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye for the last few years. And you know what that means… Yours truly often spends Valentine’s Day alone lolol. Joking aside - in honour of Valentine’s Day I wanted to share some learnings* that have been and continue to be instrumental in my life when it comes to love… The importance of self-sourcing pleasure Let’s start with maybe my favourite lesson of all and that is self-sourcing pleasure. Self-sourcing is fulfilling a need internally rather than obtaining it externally. This is challenging because for most of our lives we’re taught the very opposite - that we are to look to our caregivers, teachers and friends for approval, validation and praise. And while this is OK (and necessary for early development), it can be difficult as we begin to navigate relationships and continue to rely on this approval/validation/praise from others. It was only last year when I started applying this concept of self-sourcing to life and it changed everything. And today I want to share specifically about self-sourcing pleasure… Pleasure is simply an experience that feels good. It can be sex. It can be dancing. It can be listening to the birds sing. Pleasure is totally unique to you. With sexual pleasure, we’ve mainly been told that it comes from someone else. Think about porn, film or mainstream media - it’s often portrayed that someone else gives us pleasure. And I’ve had to fumble through this learning to make it out on the other side… For me, all I’d known was that I needed a partner to fulfil all my sexual desires. Much of this limited worldview was influenced by my Roman Catholic upbringing - where pleasure was never discussed. So anytime I’d spend time with with a lover, I had this expectation that we needed to have sex. I expected them to fulfil all my sexual needs. And this caused a lot of confusion. After a pretty rough breakup last year, I made the decision to work with a somatic sex coach to help me rebuild my relationship with my body and with pleasure. Through our work together, she helped me build a relationship with my vulva (something I was afraid of approaching), and also inspired me to build pleasure into my daily life. Whether that’s making time for movement and music in between meetings, visiting a book store or just taking some extra time to savour a meal - I try my best to make pleasure a daily practice. The takeaway: Think about what brings you pleasure in life. Find ways to give yourself that as often as you need. Repeat often (especially when you’re in a funk).
When we know how to self-source pleasure, we not only improve our relationships with ourselves, but we can then approach our relationships from a place of wholeness - enjoying it for what it is rather than expecting or needing others to always meet certain needs. Allow yourself time to grieve When we talk about grief we usually associate it with death. I personally had no idea one could grieve something other than the death of a loved one until I started seeing articles referring to how many people were experiencing grief during the pandemic. While a quick search of a definition for grief will result in “deep sorrow, especially that caused by someone's death”, if you do a little more digging, you’ll see that more generally grief is a response to loss. Knowing this, we can experience grief towards any loss - whether that’s the loss of a relationship, idea, identity, job, and more. I didn’t know grieving a relationship was a thing. There is a popular saying that “time heals all” in breakup culture, but as I started to learn more about trauma in school, it became clear that “time does not heal, it conceals”. And not gonna lie that blew my mind. Previous to learning this, I rarely made time to grieve anything in life. However, once I started to understand the importance of processing and integrating important life experiences, it not only created more space and compassion in me, but also weirdly transformed any old ill feelings to neutral ones. The takeaways: Give yourself permission to feel hard feelings (this is an excellent 2 minute video of psychologist Susan David speaking to the importance of emotional courage). Give yourself as much space as you need to process loss. You don’t have to grieve alone - reach out to family and friends or enlist the support of a professional.
Understand the importance (and science) of reciprocity One of my earliest issues of TWYN focused on reciprocity and I had many of you reach out to share that it resonated deeply. A lil recap on reciprocity and the nervous system is this - as we connect with others, our nervous system communicates with other nervous systems. And in this process, it scans for signs of safety - one of these signs of safety being reciprocity. I love the description Deb Dana gives of reciprocity in her book The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: “Reciprocity is a connection between people that is created in the back and forth communication between two autonomic nervous systems. It is the experience of heartfelt listening and responding. We are nourished in experiences of reciprocity, feeling the ebb and flow, giving and receiving, attunement and resonance. We feel it in our bodies, the ways caring and being cared for bring well-being.”
Understanding the science of reciprocity put so much into perspective for me. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and since then I’ve been committed to better understanding my inner world. As I started studying the inner workings of the nervous system through school, I realized how important reciprocity was in making one feel safe and regulated. In particular, I noticed that around the time I was experiencing the peak of my anxiety, I was in a very one-sided romantic relationship. This lack of reciprocity actually dysregulated my nervous system (which is a proper way of saying my nervous system was totally freaking the f*ck out lol), sending it into a state of survival, which manifested in the form of anxiety. The takeaways: If you are finding yourself feeling stressed, anxious or depressed - I would invite you to take a look at your relationships and ask yourself the following questions: Is there an ongoing invitation into a flow of reciprocity? Does the relationship nourish a sense of mutual connection? Is there energetic symmetry in the relationship?
Honouring our body and nervous system Our bodies carry a ton of wisdom, especially when it comes to whether or not someone feels safe to our nervous system. There is an actual scientific term for this - neuroception (another Polyvagal Theory gem) - which is basically our inner surveillance system. This internal radar is constantly scanning for cues from the world to determine whether things feel safe or dangerous. If things feel safe, we move towards connection, and if it’s unsafe we move into protection. If you’re interested in learning more (and have 8 minutes to spare), this is an excellent video that very simply explains our autonomic nervous system and response to trauma and chronic stress. While we are often unaware of WTF those cues of safety or danger might be, we feel how the nervous system responds. Things like easy breathing, smiling, and a relaxed posture are examples of a connected response. And conversely - things like a stomachache, dry throat, and tension in the body and stiff posture are examples of a protected response. If you’ve been under chronic stress or have experienced trauma there is possibility that your nervous system is stuck in a protective state, however it’s important to be aware of how your body reacts when you’re around someone who might be dysregulatiing to your nervous system. I can speak from experience that while I have experienced chronic stress and trauma, I have been in romantic situations that have felt safe and others where I literally could not sleep next to the person. The takeaway: Observe how you feel after spending time with a loved one or prospective lover. Tune in to your body. Do you feel at ease? Do you feel present and connected? Use your body as wisdom, and these signals for greater exploration and deeper discovery.
Know your needs (and non-negotiables) There’s endless relationship advice encouraging us to identify “red flags” and I admit I bought into this until pretty recently when I listened to a podcast episode on dating. The host posed the idea that while it’s important to generally know what our flags might be, red flags can be connected to needing control of an outcome. And I agree. As I reflected on this more, I thought about the fact that it is important to know our preferences, but maybe instead of focusing on “red flags” it’s a better use of our energy to identify our basic needs and non-negotiables. Some examples of basic needs: a need to feel seen, heard and understood, certainty, humour, and support. And examples of non-negotiables: honesty about whether or not someone wants marriage and/or kids, and physical affection. The takeaway: Think about what your basic needs might be in a relationship. Once you have this info, reflect on what your non-negotiables are.
A couple final thoughts on dating I want to leave you with a final couple check-ins that have been super helpful for me as I’ve been dating. I have a bad habit of romanticizing situations that are just straight up not there, and this has bitten me in the ass on several occasions. So, after a date I'll simply ask myself: And both answers need to be a “yes” for me to move forward. We all know that dating can suck at times and relationships are hard. However I believe if we can approach these experiences with curiosity, we can not only give ourselves more space to explore the relationship more freely, but we can also take the opportunity to learn more about ourselves. I hope you have a beautiful rest of the week and if you have any learnings from love that you’d like to share, please hit reply to this email - I would love to hear them! Much love, B *Disclaimer: I am no Dr. Phil or relationship expert. I am simply a curious human who has some life experience and a deep passion for inquiry. P.S. I would love to hear from you.
Hit reply and tell me what might have resonated.
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