Gunhild Archer, counselor

A story about reorienting from learned powerlessness

I was supposed to spend the day with someone I knew years ago. He moved south years before me, and after I moved last year, we are suddenly in driving distance. I’m grappling with my Human Design strategy that tells me to wait for invitation. It’s also important to me to engage with people who are coming towards me. Yet… I initiated.

I took the lead, and we quickly got clear on a date. What happened next… I wanted to feel him being equally engaged so I put down the ball to see if he would pick it up by getting clear on the details.

We’re meeting in less than a day and no details are put in place. The only thing I know is that we’re meeting tomorrow, I don’t know when, and I don’t know what we’re doing. Which makes me feel pretty pissed off.

I know I could initiate getting clear on the rest… Which would feel like pulling 100% of the weight and crossing my own boundaries. Just the thought of picking up my phone to text him made me feel angry. I no longer wanted to meet.

I chewed on that last sentence for a while… “I don’t want to meet.” I enjoy talking to him, but I don’t want to meet. This kind of dichotomy has always puzzled me. When faced with positive AND negative feelings, I have always leaned into the positive feeling, at the expense of the negative. I haven’t had my negative feelings taken into account. There weren’t attempts to find a way forward that felt good to all of me. I learned to be powerless to myself and my surroundings.

What the situation with my friend has made clear is that I want him to pull some of the weight. I want to feel that he is engaged. What would that give me? I would feel wanted, like I could relax, and my body would feel less restricted and on alert.

So, how do I make that happen? Waiting for him to pick up the ball I have already done, to no prevail. My second go-to solution is to communicate that I need him to show initiative, but that would be another boundary cross. It would leave me feeling really angry.

What I’m recognizing, for the first time, is how going against myself is a boundary overstep on my end. Doing that would leave me feeling less intact, which is something I don’t want.

I want to make sure I have my own back, that I’m not pushing myself into something against my will. If I listen to my body, I can feel the right way forward. What keeps me intact is viscerally felt. So, what about following through is so hard?

Because… I don’t get what I want (yes, there are other options, other people, but other people is not him).

… Wait wait wait. Let me chew on this for a minute… It’s dawning on me that wanting something must be felt throughout my entire Self. I’m used to deeming a situation “I want it” because SOME part of me wants SOME aspect of the situation, and because I don’t believe there are ways to make the situation a full yes. Asking for that equals losing what I want entirely.

… Wait wait wait. Is that why I have such a hard time being honest with myself when I don’t want something? I believe that, if I ask for something to change, it will leave me with nothing. I will be even worse of in fact, because now I know I don’t feel ok. I can see how it served me to go fully into the attitude of “I want this”. That’s quite far from fully wanting something though, or even halfway wanting it.