When you first find someone you love and who loves you back, it can be easy to overlook some of their behaviors and ways of thinking that you don’t particularly like or agree with. What if, as time passes, you realize that you and your partner have some values that don’t completely align? Can such a relationship work or is it doomed?
It is true that shared values are one of the most important aspects of building intimacy in a relationship and planning a future together. Stances on religion, morality, politics, or money, in particular, can sometimes make or break a relationship.
Yet, many relationships succeed even if the two partners do not share all of the same values. In fact, it’s incredibly difficult not to have at least some disagreement about values with any given person.
However, there may be some “basic” values that need to align for the relationship to work. Read on to find out how important values are and what to do if your partner has different values than you.
Are Values Important In A Relationship?
Each person brings a set of values to a relationship. If they align with the other person’s values, the relationship may have a more stable foundation and flow more smoothly.
When looking for someone to spend a good part of your life with, you are likely to seek some common traits, interests, and values. Without at least some overlap in your lifestyle choices, you may find it difficult to maintain the relationship, especially if you start growing apart from your partner because of clashing values.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that your relationship is doomed if you don’t share all your partner’s values. With open and honest communication, you and your partner can establish a set of your own values as well as overcome any differences you may have.
Of course, if some of your deepest values aren’t shared by your partner, you may have to evaluate how much such a disagreement would affect the overall success of your relationship. Sometimes, things just don’t work out, and that is okay.
What Values Are Important In A Relationship?
Each person has their own set of core values that guide them and give them a unique perspective on life. For a relationship to work, some of these values may need to be aligned. Here are some core values that can be particularly important in your relationship.
Trust
Trust is essential for setting a strong relationship foundation. If you and your partner trust each other, you will have each other’s backs and be able to overcome many if not all obstacles in your way. Not sharing this core value with your partner can result in various problems and lower relationship satisfaction overall. This is why it is important to work on building trust and intimacy in your relationship.
Loyalty
As a core value, loyalty goes hand in hand with trust. Being willing to commit to your partner and be devoted to them is a crucial aspect of any relationship. Without loyalty, you may have a hard time trusting your partner and feel as though you aren’t heard in the relationship. It is safe to say that loyalty and trust are the cornerstones of any healthy relationship.
Family
Do you dream of getting married and having children? If so, it is quite important that you find a partner who wants the same thing. Let’s say your current partner doesn’t want kids and has no intention of settling down to raise a family. Sure, their feelings may change over time. However, what if they don’t?
Family values can be critical, as they have to do with ensuring a harmonious and rewarding future for the relationship. If you two have the same expectations about raising a family, you’ll be more likely to feel fulfilled and happy in the long run.
Lifestyle
Naturally, you and your partner may not agree on everything. You may not have all of the same interests. Yet, your relationship may benefit from harmonious lifestyle choices, as well as a willingness to make compromises.
Think about this: you may enjoy the quietness and steadiness of suburban life, yet your partner may feel stuck in such a living arrangement. Or you might want to spend your weekends in a club with your friends while your partner would rather spend a quiet night in.
Overall, your relationship will be more likely to flourish if you and your partner have aligned lifestyles.
What Do You Do When Your Partner Has Different Values?
While you may know that it’s possible to overcome some differences in values, actually doing so can be much harder. If your partner disagrees with you on many of your core values, you may have to make a whole lot of compromises to make things work.
Remember that it’s normal to have some differences in your relationship. What is important is that you respect each other and communicate openly on your issues. While it may not be easy, it is not impossible. And if both of you are willing to work together on your future, having some clashing values may not be such a big problem after all. On the flip side, if you decide that the differences are too crucial to be overcome, going your separate ways may be the better option for both of you.
Deepen Relationship Intimacy Through Coaching & Couple Exercises
Discussing your relationship problems with a compassionate, knowledgeable coach can be of great help in maintaining a healthy bond between you and your partner. At PIVOT, we work with individuals and couples to help them overcome their differences and let go of relationship patterns that no longer serve them.
Do you feel like you just can’t have enough affection? Do you feel like you’re starving for physical touch?
If you do, know that it is entirely natural. In fact, it’s a human need. Humans are wired to have a deep longing for physical contact. Our need for physical affection with human beings is rooted in our biology, as touch and close connections with others is of huge importance in our overall well-being, mental health, and survival.
Being touch starved is also known as touch deprivation or skin hunger and it is more common than you think. This phenomenon can result from various factors, such as social isolation, personal circumstances, or even cultural norms that discourage physical affection.
However, aside from being touch starved, extreme craving for affection, whether physical or emotional, can sometimes indicate an overdependence on other people for ensuring your own wellbeing. It can even indicate love addiction, i.e. attachment dysregulation. This form of craving may stem from unmet emotional needs, childhood trauma, or attachment issues, causing an individual to seek excessive validation and support from external sources.
If you find yourself constantly thinking, ‘I just really want to be loved with affection’ and feel like you cannot function without it, keep on reading to find out why that may be the case and how you can learn to regulate your emotions. In the following sections, we will explore the potential causes behind your intense craving for affection, as well as strategies for fostering self-reliance, self-love, and healthier emotional regulation in your relationships.
Why Do I Crave Affection?
The Need For Intimacy
The first and the most obvious reason why you may crave affection is because you don’t have enough of it in your life. Some people tend to experience this due to a lack of close relationships, the absence of a romantic partner, or simply not having a strong support network of friends and family. You may crave someone and be feeling lost and lonely for a while, without anybody to provide you with the physical and emotional connection, and intimacy. Many people experienced this during the recent pandemic, which led to increased isolation, feelings of loneliness and limited opportunities for social interaction.
Aside from longing for touch, an intense craving for love and affection can also happen for other reasons. Some individuals may have a naturally higher need for affection and emotional support, leading them to feel unfulfilled even when they have seemingly positive relationships. You may actually have people in your life who love and care for you, and you still can’t satisfy your cravings. In this case, your need for affection may represent something deeper. This could include unresolved emotional issues from your past, such as childhood trauma or neglect, which can create a persistent need for validation and connection.
Low Self Esteem and the Need for External Validation
Additionally, craving affection may be a result of low self-esteem or self-worth, causing you to feel worthless and to seek external validation as a way to feel more secure in yourself. When you don’t feel confident or worthy of love, you may become reliant on others to provide the reassurance and validation that you’re unable to give yourself. This strong desire for affirmation can lead to an unhealthy cycle where you depend on others to make you feel good about yourself, rather than cultivating a strong sense of self-worth from within.
Building self-worth involves recognizing your own value, setting healthy boundaries, and learning to be kind to yourself. By developing a more positive self-image, you can reduce the need for external validation and ultimately create more balanced, fulfilling relationships. This may involve engaging in self-care practices, setting achievable goals, celebrating your successes in healthy ways, and surrounding yourself with supportive people who uplift and encourage you.
When You Grow Up Without Affection
People who experience intense love cravings often lacked appropriate affection in their childhood. This could be due to parents or caregivers who were emotionally unavailable, inconsistent, or neglectful, leading to an inability to form secure attachments. Different attachment styles, such as secure, anxious, avoidant, and ambivalent, can significantly influence one’s need for affection and relationship dynamics. Unfortunately, these people may go through life feeling as though they do not deserve love, and still desire to be held, feel validated, feel loved, and appreciated. This can cause them to seek self-love through other people, trying to heal their wounds and make up for the lack of affection.
Insecure Attachment
However, craving affection and love can also arise from attachment dysregulation, or love addiction, involving obsessive behaviors towards another person. This condition is characterized by a strong and persistent need for love and affection, often leading to unhealthy, codependent relationships.It tends to arise from survival patterns developed in childhood or a particularly stressful situation in your life where you had to learn to tolerate feelings of neglect and abandonment. In some cases, attachment dysregulation can also be triggered by trauma or other significant life events that challenge one’s ability to form and maintain healthy relationships.
If you tend to feel like other people don’t love you enough, fear that they may leave you, or experience anxiety over your romantic relationship, it may be the case that you’re dealing with attachment dysregulation that requires your attention. Understanding your own attachment style and how it impacts your relationships can be a crucial part of addressing this issue.Seeking professional help, such as PIVOT’s relationship coaching, can be a valuable step in addressing these issues and developing healthier attachment patterns. This process may involve exploring your past experiences, understanding your attachment style, and learning strategies to build secure and fulfilling connections with others.
What Are The Characteristics Of People Who Crave Love?
People who experience intense cravings for love often have the following characteristics:
Obsession with love and affection: Do you experience obsessive thinking about affection? To the point that you sometimes feel like nothing else matters? People who want to be loved and crave affection often can’t let it come naturally and get anxious when they do not receive it. This fixation on love can lead to an inability to focus on other aspects of life, such as work, hobbies, or personal growth.
Controlling behaviors: Craving love can also make you exhibit controlling and possessive behavior towards those who show you love and affection. This may be a mechanism for avoiding pain and abandonment. Such behaviors can strain relationships and create an unhealthy dynamic, where the person who craves love tries to control their partner’s actions and emotions to ensure they won’t leave or withdraw affection.
Demanding and begging affection: Similarly, if affection holds the most important place in your life, you may be prone to demanding it from other people. Or you may beg for them to give you the love you desperately need, which can be considered a state of limerence. This intense longing for love and connection can put undue pressure on relationships and make it difficult for partners to meet the high expectations set by those who crave love.
Trust issues: Those who experienced abandonment or neglect may find it exceedingly difficult to trust another human being and develop lasting relationships. They may be suspicious, constantly expecting ulterior motives, conspiracies, and hidden agendas out of fear of getting hurt. This lack of trust can cause a person to question the sincerity and loyalty of their partner, leading to frequent misunderstandings and conflicts in relationships.
Accepting toxic behaviors: Unfortunately, those who lack affection may have a tendency to accept abusive behaviors from those they bond with. They may also struggle with differentiating between disagreements and an abusive situation. This vulnerability can make them more likely to stay in unhealthy relationships, believing that any form of affection is better than none. As a result, they may endure emotional, physical, or verbal abuse, further damaging their self-esteem and ability to form healthy relationships in the future.
What Do You Do When You Crave Affection?
Learning about yourself and why you’ve grown to obsessively crave affection and attention is a good first step towards building a healthy relationship. This self-exploration can involve reflecting on your past experiences, understanding your attachment style, and identifying the underlying reasons for your intense need for physical touch. You may try to do this on your own or speak with an insightful relationship coach who can help you understand your own needs and begin to heal your wounds.
Through self-love and acceptance, you will begin to rely less on receiving affection from others and more on yourself for affection, and begin to build a healthier foundation for future relationships.
A few strategies to cultivate self-love and acceptance include:
1. Practicing self-compassion: Treat yourself with kindness and understanding, especially when experiencing difficult emotions. Recognize that everyone has flaws and makes mistakes.
2. Setting healthy boundaries: Establish limits in your relationships to protect your emotional and mental well-being. This can help you avoid becoming overly dependent on others for affection and validation.
3. Engaging in self-care: Prioritize activities that promote physical, emotional, and mental health, such as exercise, meditation, and hobbies that bring you joy and happiness.
4. Developing a strong support network: Surround yourself with positive, supportive people who encourage your personal growth and help you feel valued and cared for.
5. Challenging negative self-talk: Identify and challenge self-defeating thoughts and negative feelings that contribute to low self-worth or feelings of unworthiness.
By taking these steps to nurture self-love and acceptance, you can gradually reduce your reliance on external sources of affection and develop a more balanced approach to relationships, fostering healthier connections with others.
How Do I Stop Craving Love And Affection?
Luckily, there are numerous ways to curb your love cravings and depend less on other people. Here are some tips:
List Your Favorite Hobbies
Ask yourself: what do you enjoy doing on your own? What makes you happy? Make a list of hobbies and interests you enjoy, no matter what they may be. Acknowledge them and think about what else you’d like to try. Engaging in these hobbies can provide a sense of personal fulfillment, happiness, and self-sufficiency, reducing your need for validation and affection from others.
Think About What You Love About Yourself
Write down what you like about yourself, whether it’s physical or more related to your character. What is good about you? Are you kind, compassionate, or reliable? Or are you rational, driven, and responsible? No matter what it is, focus your attention on the positive aspects of your personality instead of poring over your faults. Regularly reflecting on your strengths and accomplishments can help you build genuine love for yourself, while boosting your self-esteem and making you feel more secure in your own worth, without relying on external sources of validation.
Improve What You Can
Think about what you can and cannot change in your life. Improve the things you can control, and make peace with those you can’t. Let’s say you’d like to be better at your job and can’t control how your boss treats you. In that case, you’d work hard to improve your skills and build healthy boundaries in the workplace. Then, move on to another job – if need be – after you learn how to be your own advocate in the workplace. Focusing on personal growth and self-improvement can empower you and foster a sense of self-reliance, diminishing your need for love and affection from others.
Take It Slow
Rebuilding confidence and learning to love yourself is a slow, gradual process. Try not to pressure yourself into changing and focus on each step at a time. Doing everything at once can overwhelm you and even cause you to abandon your journey entirely. Instead, work on yourself and your relationships one step at a time and give yourself space to heal. Acknowledge that self-improvement is a lifelong journey, and progress may not always be linear. Celebrate your achievements along the way, and be patient with yourself as you navigate the ups and downs of personal growth.
Learn To Deal With Love Addiction At A PIVOT Retreat
Experience our well-crafted relationship retreats or make use of our individual coaching sessions to begin your healing journey. Our relationship retreats offer immersive, transformative experiences, designed to help you and your partner reconnect, rediscover, and rejuvenate your relationship. In our individual coaching sessions, you’ll work one-on-one with a skilled coach who will help you identify and address the underlying issues contributing to your love cravings and relationship challenges.
We are here to listen and guide you towards self-love, acceptance, and peace. By partnering with PIVOT, you can feel confident that you’re taking a significant step towards personal growth and building more satisfying, fulfilling relationships. Let us support you on this journey, providing you with the tools, resources, and guidance necessary to create lasting change in your life.
Love, care, support, respect, and joy are only some of the amazing ways healthy relationships enrich our lives. They give us that feeling of walking slightly above ground on a thin-but-firm layer of confidence that makes every step we take, even through trials and tribulations, secure, resolute, and easy.
Then, one day, you trip slightly. Another day, you find it a bit harder to overcome a daily hurdle. You talk to your partner, the response is there, yet it seems as if emanating from farther away than it used to. A thought crosses your mind, one of a widening gap between two once inseparable souls, only for it to be quickly erased by your subconscious.
And so, the gap widens, and the ravine deepens. The days of stumbles become more frequent, and the hurdles become more and more difficult to overcome. And that’s when it hits you – your partner is so far away you can hardly see them anymore, and the other relationship problems and their solutions fade in sheer awe of this gap. Don’t despair, this too can be fixed.
What Does It Mean To Grow Apart In A Relationship?
The simplest, as well as the most accurate way to describe two people in a relationship who are slowly becoming more and more distant is that they simply do not enjoy each other’s company as much as they did before. However, such a description fails to paint a clear picture of the emotional and psychological problems growing apart can cause for both partners.
Once upon a time, it would seem you could not get enough of each other. You wanted to spend every waking moment together, enjoying each other and shared activities. There were smiles all around, fun, excitement, love, and care. It’s almost impossible to identify when exactly you started to drift apart.
Perhaps it was that one time when you decided not to go out together. Or when you decided to watch that TV show at different times of day. Maybe work and daily responsibilities got in the way and your conflicting schedules made it too hard to find some quality time together. It could have been some of it, all of it, or none of it.
It’s important to know the reasons, even though the reasons may seem unimportant and trivial. What’s all-encompassing is the gaping hole between you two staring back from the abyss where once was togetherness. And that’s what hurts the most. That’s what growing apart is and what makes it so unimaginably difficult to cope with.
Is It Normal For Couples To Grow Apart?
Relationships are rarely ideal, as few or no things in life are. Unfortunately, we, as individuals, are flawed, and all of us come with our own emotional baggage that we introduce into our relationships. All this can affect our relationships in different ways and one of those ways is growing apart with our partner.
If you start to notice you and your significant other becoming more and more distant, the first reaction is emotional pain followed by doubt on whether or not you are destined to remain together.
Perhaps you’re thinking that the growing distance between you is a sign of your innate incompatibility. And that’s normal. Doubt is normal, pain because of your distance is normal, the emotional toll is real and the psychological consequences are difficult to bear.
It’s tough looking at your partner and simply not feeling the same connection you once did. It’s even more difficult knowing that your partner is feeling the same. Matters of the heart are hard, especially if there is a ravine where once was closeness.
On the one hand, you and your partner going through periods of less than complete togetherness is quite normal. As individuals, we experience different periods during our lives, and it’s only normal for our relationships to experience similar fluctuations over time.
On the other hand, allowing the gap between you and your partner to become larger by not addressing each other’s problems and not working together on resolving them can lead to more severe consequences that will only leave you farther apart than you would like.
What Are The Signs Of Growing Apart?
To be able to prevent the distance between you and your partner from growing means to be able to recognize the early signs of drifting apart and working on your relationship. Here are some common signs of couples slowly and surely distancing themselves from each other:
You notice you and your partner pay less and less attention to each other.
It’s better to spend time away from your partner than together.
You’re struggling to maintain physical contact and intimacy.
You’re starting to develop trust issues with your partner.
Your emotional intimacy is also becoming a problem.
You’ve started keeping secrets from each other.
You spend less and less time communicating.
You’re no longer each other’s best friend.
It seems you are constantly disagreeing.
How Do You Fix A Relationship That’s Growing Apart?
As excruciating as it can feel to know you and your partner are growing apart, that doesn’t mean there’s no way to turn back to where you once were. “The way we were” can be the way you are once more, especially if you are honest, open up, and try some of the following:
Take the first step and share your innermost feelings.
Start spending more and more time together by making it a priority.
Be spontaneous, do something unexpected and special together in addition to your attempt to ‘date” again.
Engage in actual physical contact more often.
The small things like “hellos” and “goodbyes” can go a long way.
Don’t be afraid to reminisce about the “good old days”.
Make each other a priority, not other things.
Stop complaining and start praising instead.
Try not to constantly argue and put each other down.
Stop playing the blame game.
Address your issues and work through them.
Join the PIVOT Private Couple Retreat For Reconnection to Resolve Your Problems
Growing apart, unaware of the gap forming between you and your partner, is one thing. However, becoming aware of the distance between you, identifying the ever-widening gorge forming between two people in a relationship is when it gets really tough. Realization brings pain, despair, and possibly guilt, as well as the underlying desire to bridge this gap.
Don’t be hard on yourself if you’re unable to admit what the reasons behind this distance are. Sometimes, being honest with yourself and your partner is far from easy. That is why PIVOT relationship advocates are here for you. By participating in our individual workshops, as well as being part of our group retreat for couples, we’ll help you find closeness with your partner again.
Not being heard hurts, no matter your age or the relationship you’re struggling to get your voice and opinion across. It can all begin at a very early age. Trying to explain your actions to your parents, for example, only to see them not hearing your words, not listening to your thoughts, and failing to accept your explanations.
To a child, this can seem like a grave injustice, one that hurts and leads to them closing their parents off, refusing to share their innermost thoughts and feelings. And that can leave its mark. Now imagine experiencing that at a young age, only to find yourself in the same or similar position with your partner years later?
Can you just imagine being an adult, a person with opinions and feelings and difficulties which your partner simply doesn’t acknowledge. Imagine spending hours upon hours trying to get your partner to listen to what you have to say, only to be left unheard again. That’s hard, and fixing the relationship will require some intensive work. Let’s start from the beginning.
Why Do I Not Feel Heard?
Most people want to feel understood and heard by others, especially those closest to them. That is why when your partner is not actually hearing your thoughts and feelings, it can be emotionally tasking and difficult to accept. Being acknowledged by those we love is one of our deepest longings. When that sense of acknowledgment is missing, it’s easy for us to suffer emotional exhaustion.
This is not about our partner simply agreeing with our feelings. It has to do with validation. If that’s missing, communication becomes more than just a problem, it becomes a frightening endeavor you can find yourself dreading.
It is around this time that you start questioning yourself, the things you want to share, and the reasons behind your partner’s inability to hear what you have to say.
The reasons behind not being heard by your partner are varied and complex, and it is extremely difficult to pinpoint them without your partner being willing to openly discuss them. Some of the most common ones include:
Different communication styles: Perhaps your partner is actually hearing you however your communication styles differ and they come across as not actually listening to you.
Defensiveness: Sometimes, your partner may feel threatened by the emotions you’re sharing, which leads to them exhibiting defensive communication behavior that leads to your emotions falling on deaf ears due to their attempt to defend against non-existent accusations.
Distraction: Depending on their personality, your partner might be distracted by their own set of problems which they are unwilling or unable to share with you for a variety of reasons, leading them to seem aloof to your feelings.
How Do You Know When You Are Not Being Listened To Or Ignored?
All of us have our own gut feeling, that indescribable sensation of not knowing exactly why we’re sure something is true, yet we believe it nonetheless. That pretty much sums us being aware of our partner not actually listening to us the way we would like them to. However, sometimes we’re not sure, or we want to believe we’re wrong simply so we don’t have to deal with the emotional consequences of confronting our partner on their communicative deficiencies.
Whether you’re subconsciously aware of your partner not paying attention to your feelings, or you’re consciously trying to dissuade yourself from believing the facts to avoid confrontation, start paying attention to your partner’s behavior. It could be good to know the telltale signs of your partner’s attention not being in the right place.
Their head is too still and their eye contact is way too fixed.
They try too hard to smile brightly.
You catch them tapping their fingers and rushing the conversation.
They have turned their body away from you.
They’re pointing their feet in the opposite direction.
Their body language does not mirror yours.
They fail to react accordingly to the important points in the conversation.
How Do You Deal With Not Being Heard?
It really hurts not being heard, or being ignored by your partner and having to struggle and sometimes even beg for your emotions to be acknowledged. This can be so harmful to your mental wellbeing that it is important to address the problem quickly and try to resolve it efficiently. First, you need to begin with self-care before proceeding to resolve the communication issues with your partner:
Be honest with yourself and understand that you’re not being heard.
Keep reminding yourself that it’s not your fault. Don’t make it even more difficult on you by blaming yourself.
Try to find support and acknowledgment from others before attempting to resolve the problem with your partner.
Listen to yourself and speak your truth to your innermost you.
Once you’ve listened to yourself and your needs first, it might be time to approach them if you truly feel ready. Once you do, it could prove helpful to try some of these techniques to approach your partner more easily and to get them to listen to your words more carefully:
Give them an example of you listening to their needs before you ask the same of them.
Try stating your concrete needs clearly and gently.
Try using a neutral question when asking them why they do not acknowledge your feelings.
Be clear about your expectations and get curious about theirs.
Take breaks in order to regain the necessary emotional stamina.
Join PIVOT Programs Designed To Help With Overcoming Relationship Challenges
It’s hard to speak, to try to communicate with your partner only to see your words fall on deaf ears. This can lead to you developing different kinds of problems, ranging from beginning to feel uneasy in your relationship to you yourself becoming more emotionally closed and starting to place your partner at a distance. That way, it all becomes a lot more difficult to deal with.
The wall of communication breakdowns and misunderstandings is composed of various bricks that simply started building up, one atop the other, across the years of your relationship. Sometimes, couples keep fighting with each other, creating a communicative barrier between them. Other times, they fail to communicate properly to avoid conflicts.
Adolescence is a tumultuous period, one where a teenager moves through the process of developing a stable personality and identity for themselves. This process is known as individuation. As one individuates, they get a clearer sense of self, distinct from their parents and other people.
The term “individuation” was extensively used in the personality development work written by Carl Jung. Jung saw individuation as a self-realization process, one that begins in adolescence and continues throughout adult life. Individuation allows people to integrate the aspects of their true selves with the new experiences and learning they gain in life.
Individuation can be a difficult time in any person’s life. If you are struggling to get back in touch with your true self or make peace with your teenage self, you may keep repeating relationship patterns that no longer serve you or experience emotional intimacy issues.
Learning more about individuation may help. Keep on reading.
At What Age Does Individuation Occur?
Individuation most commonly occurs in early adolescence, when a child begins separating their sense of self from that of their parents. However, individuation can also continue into adulthood, as well as happen between friends and romantic partners.
Adolescents, in particular, are often very well aware of the changes happening during individuation. They feel the changes happening in their home environment, relationships and in their own bodies. Unfortunately, if their home environment is unsafe or chaotic during this period of change, their perceptions about themselves and others will be compromised.
Whenever it happens, individuation is a complex process, as it involves untying the strong emotional knots that bind you to the people and experiences close to you. The more thoroughly you individuate, the more you will become your own person and live according to your own values.
How Does The Concept Of Individuation Relate To Self Love?
Jung saw individuation as the process of self-realization, when one begins to discover their own meaning and integrates their personality into a healthy whole. In essence, individuation helps you make peace with the parts of yourself you’ve neglected or ignored.
However, not everyone goes through adolescence the same and not everyone manages to individuate in a healthy manner. If your home environment wasn’t safe or you didn’t have a healthy relationship with your parents or caregivers, it is likely that you had a much more difficult time during the individuation process.
Many adolescents strengthen the potentially damaging survival patterns they learned in childhood or begin attaching to others in new unhealthy ways to avoid the pain they previously experienced. This can make self-love and self-realization much more challenging, as your unindividuated inner teen may fight hard to be seen and heard or retreat in pain and shame. They may adopt a variety of survival patterns to protect themselves, fight, or hide from the pain and hurt they suffered in their adolescence. Secretive behavior, substance use, acting out sexually, lying, etc.
What Are The Three Stages Of The Individuation Journey?
Individuation can be seen as consisting of three distinct stages: declaration, separation, and reconnection. If you believe that you haven’t individuated in a healthy manner in your adulthood, don’t worry. You can go through these stages at any point in your life and work on achieving independence and learning how to respect and value your own self.
Declaration
During the first stage of individuation, you declare your independence from your parents, caregivers, or anyone else you are individuating from. However, the first step is declaring this separation to yourself and later to others. You can look at the declaration stage as severing the emotional cord with the individual you are individuating from.
Feelings and experiences of denial, skepticism, and confusion are common in this stage. This comes as a result of recognizing the attachment or early life wounds that have impacted your relationships and sense of self.
It is important to note that declaring your independence from these wounds does not mean disregarding or ignoring them. Instead, it means beginning to acknowledge and accept them, and working to integrate them into a healthy sense of self.
Separation
The second stage involves detaching or disconnecting from the person or experiences you are trying to individuate from. This may mean creating clearer and healthier boundaries and taking responsibility for your own well-being. For example, you may identify the ways in which you were entwined with or dependent on the people in your life. You may have depended on others to soothe you, motivate you, or provide you with a sense of worth.
The purpose of the separation state is to help you pivot from confusion to clarity. It enables you to learn how to self-regulate and soothe yourself, strengthen your own values, and take responsibility for your own actions. During this stage you may also discover your unfulfilled needs and realize which ones you are able to satisfy.
Reconnection
The final stage of individuation involves reconnecting with the experience or person you are individuating from while maintaining a strong sense of self. Keep in mind that reconnection may not be possible and you may need to sever some ties for good, if they no longer serve you. This is where the relational circle boundaries with PIVOT can be helpful to discern the best course of action.
While attempting to reconnect, you may have to make new agreements and recognize the other person for who they truly are. With a clearer sense of self, you will be able to connect with others in a stable manner, without the risk of losing yourself in the relationship.
Additionally, the reconnection stage may also involve organizing your personal relationships and setting relational circle boundaries. This will help you determine appropriate levels of intimacy in your relationships and maintain healthy connections while enhancing your sense of self-worth.
Embark On The Individuation Journey At A Relationship Coaching Retreat For Individuals
Individuation can be a lifelong process and you may have to continue to adapt and develop your sense of self as you have new experiences. Luckily, PIVOT is here to help you gain a new perspective and pivot from confusion and dependence to clarity and self-worth. Whether you choose our one-on-one coaching sessions or attend one of our relationship-enhancing retreats and workshops, depend on us to provide you with valuable tools and resources for facilitating positive and meaningful behavioral change. Contact us today and start your journey to becoming a healthy adult.
The experiences we have in childhood can have a serious impact on our quality of life in adulthood. They can mold our personalities, affect romantic relationships, and influence how we parent our own children.
Most people can easily understand how physical abuse can affect a child. What about emotional abuse? And what about the often inevitable painful experiences many children experience, despite their parents’ best efforts to keep them safe?
Most people have emotional childhood wounds. These painful experiences can have long-term repercussions, often resurfacing in adulthood and wreaking havoc on our emotional wellbeing.
If you feel like you keep sabotaging yourself, making poor relationship choices, or having over-the-top reactions to certain situations, it may be your wounded inner child acting up. Your inner child represents your childlike aspects, personal memories, hopes, and dreams. If it is trying to get your attention, it may be crying out for an old wound to be healed.
Speaking with a relationship coach can be of immense help in this regard. You can also get started on your path to becoming a healthy adult by uncovering your childhood wounds on your own. Keep on reading to learn how you can get in touch with your inner child and heal emotional wounds.
What Are Childhood Wounds?
Imagine a child who craves affection and attention. Yet, their parents repeatedly ignore them. They need connection and nurturing without receiving the appropriate care. Such painful experiences can affect the child’s emotional intelligence, result in constant relational cravings, and cause the child to develop various survival patterns to heal their wounds. In adolescence and adulthood, they may turn to alcohol, drugs, food, or relationships.
Here are some of the most commonly experienced emotional wounds:
Rejection: Kids who are rejected by their parents, caregivers, or peers can develop a deep fear of rejection. A rejection wound can also extend within, tainting your feelings and thoughts. A person with a rejection wound may feel like they don’t deserve affection. They may also isolate themselves from others and take all kinds of measures to avoid rejection.
Abandonment: If you feel like loneliness is your worst enemy, you may have an abandonment wound. Kids who experience abandonment often grow up to develop a deep fear of being left. They may choose to leave their partners before they leave them or abandon projects early on.
Humiliation: Being humiliated in childhood can leave a lasting mark. Parents and peers may tell the child that they are “bad”, clumsy, or not good enough. Or they may humiliate them in front of other people. Humiliation can have a serious impact on a kid’s self-esteem.
Injustice: Cold, authoritarian, or controlling parents can produce feelings of inadequacy, uselessness, or ineffectiveness in their children. When this perpetuates into adulthood, the child may become rigid, perfectionistic, and mistrustful.
Betrayal: When parents don’t fulfill promises or fail their child in any way, the child may develop a tendency to mistrust. This can later transform into feelings of jealousy and envy, or result in a controlling personality.
How Does A Bad Childhood Affect You?
As you have seen, childhood wounds can be the catalyst for a variety of self-sabotaging behaviors. Childhood stressors can cause emotional reactivity, causing you to develop various survival patterns to cope, and chronic hypervigilance as a result of an attachment wound. Some specific examples of survival patterns may include:
Secrecy
Avoidance
People-pleasing
Controlling behaviors
Perfectionism
Use of substances to not feel
Insecurity
Indecisiveness
Aggression
Selfishness
The survival patterns you develop may show up in your adolescence and adulthood, negatively affecting your relationships and overall well being. Although these coping mechanisms may have served you for years, they are unlikely to help you change your behavior and develop healthy intimacy.
Can Childhood Wounds Be Healed?
Yes, deep childhood wounds can be healed with patience and effort. For most people, speaking with a compassionate relationship coach can make a world of difference. A good coach will understand the immense impact of your painful childhood experiences and will make you feel heard, seen, and understood. They will enable you to express your feelings and thoughts, whether they be fear, sadness, or anger.
Also, your healing journey needs to unfold at your own pace. Give yourself time to work through the difficult feelings, keep learning, and embrace new experiences.
How Do Childhood Wounds Heal?
While everyone’s healing journey is different, there are some general paths you can take to facilitate the process:
Know yourself. Acceptance starts with self-awareness and self-knowledge. Explore your emotions and accept where you are at right now. Be mindful of the present moment and be as honest as you can about how you feel. Then you can reflect on the root of your problems. Allow yourself to learn to become comfortable being uncomfortable.
Get perspective. It is easy to fall into the trap of seeing things just how you want them to be. This can cause you to lose touch with how things really are. To accept your pain and heal it, you may need to change your perspective and try to get back in touch with reality.
Acceptance doesn’t mean “giving in”. Just because you are willing to accept your emotional pain doesn’t mean that you endorse it or that you don’t want to change your behaviors. Instead, you are simply making peace with your past and allowing yourself to move on.
Heal With The Help Of A Dedicated Remote Relationship Coach
Changing your childhood survival patterns is not an easy process. Yet, if you are honest with yourself, you can develop healthy intimacy and let go of patterns that no longer serve you. Change is possible.
We are vastly experienced in helping individuals like you become healthy, happy, and balanced adults. We have a number of carefully thought out modules designed to help you address your deeply ingrained survival patterns and work on transforming them. Reach out to us today and start your healing journey.
