Until recently I always thought I knew ‘I don’t need a man’, that I am complete without one and if people were to talk about women needing a man to be complete I would think how absurd it is to think that one does. I did not really see this as something for me to know or look into because I agree… one should not feel as if they are not complete without another.
On a personal level I could not stand ‘neediness’ anyway, it just did not make sense to need someone in that way and so if ever this topic was mentioned I thought, yes I already know about this and have always ‘known’ it… so I never gave any thought to it again.
WELL …
Recently I had an experience that showed me otherwise.
I was doing some usual laps at the gym pool, I was having so much fun with myself, feeling the grace in my arms and the rise and fall of my body in the water as my breath went in and out and cracking up laughing because a piece of apple that I had just eaten flew out of my mouth and I thought ‘Hey I wanted to eat that!!!’.
I was feeling so much love and joy in my body as a result of the loving way I choose to live for myself and I was literally swimming in it.
As I came to the edge of the pool, a guy that I’d been chatting to a bit recently, had come in to do his laps and came up next to the pool to chat with me. He could see the absolute love, harmony and joy I was in and we had a special moment where he ‘fell into my eyes’ – it felt so gorgeous. As we kept chatting my body was saying keep going in the water but my head was saying ‘no, keep chatting to this guy, you don’t want to lose this special moment because in this you are everything, you are complete, you have just felt everything you ever needed, ever wanted, it is everything you could possibly ever imagine and he might feel rejected if you swim off’ (and I couldn’t hop out next to him because I hadn’t done my bikini line!). So I stayed talking and got cold.
When I hopped out of the pool the thoughts of all the possibilities and playfulness of what I could have with this guy, began pouring in as I tried to warm myself up in the shower. The next day these thoughts were constantly distracting me at work and I was getting very excited about the possibilities. By the end of the week I was deeply exhausted and quite unwell.
This made me stop and think… how could I go from being so vital and joy-full as I was that day, to allowing myself to get cold, distracted and exhausted? I knew that something had happened here that did not make sense.
What was it that was more important than what my body was loudly asking?
I know I need to look after myself first before I can be with another but in that moment at the pool I felt that I needed to stay talking. I took this to an esoteric healing session and the practitioner posed the question: Is it possible that you think you need a man to be complete?
WELL… wholly crap… actually yes!
I can actually see that there is a solid construct in my head that even though I am absolutely loving my life and living on my own, in the back of my mind sits this idea, this notion that if I lived the rest of my life without having an intimate relationship with a man, I would have missed out, that I would have dishonoured myself.
There is this insidious picture of me at the end of my life ‘with a man’ saying now you are complete, you have achieved everything and another insidious picture of me at the end of my life ‘without a man’ saying you are empty, you are on your own and you are not enough.
I was shocked when I finally brought myself to see this. I was disturbed about how I could not see it another way. I realised I have allowed myself to be infected with an insidious manipulating virus of beliefs saying that ‘I am less’ or ‘I have missed out’ or ‘I am incomplete’ without a man. In other words, that a woman needs a man to be complete.
In the acceptance of these beliefs I override and completely dishonour what I am feeling in my body.
This is absurd because my body is what enables me to feel my love and joy and live it and in this I don’t ‘need’ anything, but to keep bringing my love to me, which means I will naturally bring it others. This is what makes me feel Complete and Full – full of my loving ways. So when I don’t take care with myself first and foremost, my immune system drops and the virus kicks in. The viral beliefs say ‘you have to do what ever it takes to keep this man, because that is what will bring you everything you ever wanted and it will make you feel better’.
The way the virus works is that it makes you think that you ‘need’ the love of another which means you must put another first in a way that makes sure they will stay with you, to provide for you what you have not chosen first for yourself. Ouch. So it asks me to override and dishonour my body to keep this man pleased so that he can comfort my body so I don’t have to feel the emptiness I have just created by looking for something outside of me to achieve what I think I need to be complete!!! Insidious indeed!
What I can see is that the horrible thing about this virus is, not only have I dishonoured my body to great extremes in the past but that I have held back expressing what I truly feel and have behaved differently towards a boyfriend or potential partner in fear they might not like it… And worse, I would try to change them and impose on them the way I need them to be so I don’t have to risk the possible reaction/rejection if I call them up on their behaviour because if they reject me I would then have to feel the emptiness I created in myself for not choosing me. This is not what I want for me or for them.
So the plot thickens and what I thought I always knew to be true has showed me that somewhere along the line I have caught a virus that keeps me believing I need something outside of myself to be complete. This is absurd, because what I have discovered having given myself the chance, is that I am the one that brings me the tender, precious, delicate, strong, play-full, harmonious, joy-full, warm and loving love that I feel, not anyone else.
I have been so fooled… I have seen this play out in other relationships and in songs and movies that portray this viral belief scenario. All I did was give up on me and began to play it too.
So as I walk into the shopping centre and all the music playing is saying ‘I need your love’ and ‘I’m nothing without you’ and I see ‘happy couples smooching together’, what I now have truly gauged from what I live in my body is that this Love and Joy is mine already, here willing and waiting for me to take, forever and always. And this will always be with me if I choose me and how my body feels first, whether there is a man beside me or not.
by Amber Goodwin, Goonellabah, Australia