The Quest is Over. Nice Work.

In the group Benji and I run for long-term, unwanted single-dom, nothing gets us all more riled up than the phrase: “You need to love yourself more.” We do big eye rolls and vigorous head shaking. People gesture with their arms and voices amplify. The phrase has caused us all wild confusion in the search for bonding.

Let me illustrate with an example from one of my great cosmic koans: my hair. Le sigh. I have very fine (which is a nice way of saying thin) hair. It gets greasy within an hour of being washed. One day, I had covered my head in cocoa powder in my long exploration of dry shampoos. I probably looked like a judge from the victorian era who used the wrong wig powdering color, but I was happy enough with the results. Later that day, my boyfriend-of-one-month came by for a hello. We were hugging on the porch when he said, “Do you smell chocolate?”

My inner alarms were like “HAIL MARY! RED ALERT! SOS! THE HUMANITY!” Some readers—those for whom bonding came naturally—may understand that it would be customary to let this guy in on my dry shampoo experiment. But I literally had no idea that this was an option. Letting him know it was my actual head—inches from his head—that was the ground zero for this chocolate olfactory factory was not hot. Letting him see how frustrated and insecure I felt about my hair was the opposite of the self-love-trope I had internalized, and therefore an impossibility to share. 

“No I don’t,” I lied. 

His inner mammal was probably like, “Ummmm, yes you do,” but all I saw was a puzzled look on his face and we let it go. As I continued to hide my inner mess and perform confident-gal-who-loves-herself-and-her-hair, this person who had had a crush on me for FIVE ACTUAL YEARS broke up with me within a couple of months to “work on himself.” 🙄 (Which turned out to be all for the best but the example still stands.)

All the self-love muscle groups (self-soothing, calm awareness, knowing who you are) are surely helpful—good work if you can get it. But in learning to bond, I’ve realized that people with and without those mental health medals of honor are in relationships. Turns out I get to be in a frigged-up but also beautiful relationship like everyone else, bolstered by my strengths and weakened by my blind spots. The idea that I had to be a self-possessed queen to be loved makes me laugh now because I show up to my current partnership more like a nervous lap dog/ demanding ball of insecurity and love. What I want for myself and what I try to help my clients find is a demented little gem of a relationship, one that reflects our current karmic knot so we can get in there and pull it apart. Because, having had my finger on the pulse of the issue for some time now, I’m getting the sense that’s all of our relationships, especially if they are characterized by a high level of intimacy.

On the porch with my one-month boyfriend, I could have said any number of things and still advanced on the dating board game of life: “I smell chocolate and it’s because my head is covered in it.” “I smell chocolate and my hair is making me feel insecure and I don’t know what to do about it.” “[collapsing to the ground in embarrassment]” Any of these would have been fine. If he were a worthy dating partner, he’d meet me with his heart and we could bond over it. If he were not, he’d shut me down and I’d know he wasn’t available for real intimacy. A win-win. 

There’s no wrong way to feel, even if that’s self-loathing or deep insecurity. There’s always a chance to invite someone who can hack it to love you there. If you love yourself so perfectly, you rob them of the chance to offer comfort in your cocoa-powder-hair-problems-gum-wrappers mashup.  That would be a shame because being loved in that mashup is the tits. And I mean tits in the pre-patriarchy-mother-of-creation kind of way.

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Things that might help

And now back to being loved in your version of dry shampoo experiment. The people and resources that helped me learn to drop the self-love-perfectionism:

1. Krista Tippet’s interview with Brene Brown on the On Being Podcast

2. Ken Page’s Deeper Dating Podcast

3. My mentor for many years Dave Cole

4. Stan Tatkin and his view of self love in the book Wired for Dating

I hope they are as helpful to you.

Join one of our Therapeutic Circles in Portland

ie Group Therapy

Thanks to the life-changing organization Teen Talking Circles, I’ve been sitting in sacred circles since I was 15. It is why I’m capable of so much intimacy with my friends and how I avoided so many of the most brutal teenage trapdoors. It’s also why I move toward the conflict instead of away from it in my work and personal life. I have seen my individual clients accelerate their progress when they join a circle. We seem to feel an irresistible urge to reveal ourselves when we see others taking the risk. In one-on-one therapy, the one-sided mirror thing can really disrupt this innate desire to throw our hat in the healing ring.

So I’m starting more groups and I think you should join them.

Why Am I Still Fucking Single

Alternating Tuesdays 6-7:30pm, The Flanders House

Benji and I co-facilitate this one. We have one in-person slot available in Portland. We love facilitating this group. We all cry. We all laugh. Finding community with people who get it is healing. More info, including how to join, on my website.

Re/Connect

Alternating Tuesdays 1-2:30pm, The Flanders House

This one is just beginning and already a space full of honestly and present-moment leaps of the shivering heart. This group is designed specifically for folks who have trouble making friends, or who feel a deep sense of social loneliness. You can read more about it here.

Thanks for reading and I’ll continue to send these out on a bi-weekly that is actually almost once a month schedule. I’m doing my best.

XO,

Nora