wellbeing
may 2022
Can you withstand regeneration in your relationships? ― Forest Hill love psychologist Nancy Elliot explains the Life Death Life cycle
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egeneration isn't just for plants or damaged bodily organs. It is also a vital process in love and relationships. For those of us who wish to find lasting happiness in our relationships, we might benefit from deepening our emotional flexibility to allow for things to die or fall away as part of a process of renewal. The inability to face the regeneration process in our relationships causes many love relationships to fail. To love, we must be strong but wise. Strength comes from the spirit, and wisdom comes from grappling with the regeneration process and how it shows up in our love relationships. So, how do we embrace new beginnings in old relationships or accommodate a partner or child's newly found restlessness or change of heart in some critical matter? These things can be unsettling for us creatures of habit. Most of us don’t like change. We've all been there, decided we would like to emigrate to a new country, climb a mountain or leave a relationship that we've outgrown, only to face the wrath of those closest to us. Or worst still, the wrath of our own inner fear driven authority. If we want to be effective at giving and receiving love, we could start by loving ourselves. Self-love is the cornerstone of any good relationship. And it is self-love that roots us in ourselves and facilitates the emotional resilience and rootedness needed to allow loved ones the space to follow their bliss. It might be time to normalise the life/death/life cycle in human relationships, both with self and others. We gotta let things die for new, more significant things to emerge. Things that reflect who we are today, things
ghostly grip and dives under his bed covers. The wet bones lay lifeless on the floor, illuminated by the crackling open fire; soon, she begins to grow skin and reform into a whole real woman. This skeleton woman is his wife. The message in this haunting story, describes how terrified we become when someone we love, or a part of them, needs the space to die and re-emerge as something new. We often hear divorcing couples refer to their partner as monsters or unrecognisable. It can be hideous when someone we love is changing or becoming unfamiliar to us. Hideous perhaps but personal no. If we want to become more effective at giving and receiving love, we will do well to soften and grant ourselves and those we love the space to heed the inner prompting that calls for a part of us/them to die to make space for something new to emerge. Our intuition is powerful and will lead us into a natural regeneration. We just need to trust ourselves and others. For 2 decades, I walked away (perhaps ran) from relationships the minute I would see that bony hand of death ravaging through my nicely put together love story and how it should pan out. Before learning about this life/death/life cycle, my relationships were over when 'things' seemed to be dying. I was not brave enough to see what new thing might emerge. Fearing the worst. I remember one relationship where we seemed to be drifting apart. Evenings in were quieter, less exciting and spontaneous. I left my partner, not understanding that the relationship was communicating to us, trying to make way for a newer, more profound and authentic
gathered from all we have learned along the way so far - a learning that has impacted who we are and what we want. A commitment to strengthen our emotional resilience is a commitment more useful than marriage. Such a covenant to strengthen resilience leaves us better equipped to face the blustering winds and heinous adaptations love drags us through. Is this the price of loving? Whether for or against it, it seems "we're all afraid when it comes to love. It is nothing new." This is the sentiment offered to us by Mexican/American Poet and Psychoanalyst Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes. In her New York Times bestselling book Women who run with the wolves, Dr Estes issues a warning alongside a haunting and ancient cry, summoning us all to drop our fears around love and face the ravaging hand of death as it caresses and molests our best-laid plans. The process of death and regeneration or resurrection, according to Dr Estes, is intricately woven into the very fabric of our romantic relationships and even the heart of love itself. She calls it the life/death/life cycle. She shares the telling of the Skeleton Woman, an ancient myth from Mexico, about a man out fishing in the deep darkness of nighttime. He sinks his rod into the water only to discover, to his horror, that his rod has got caught in the bones of a Skeleton Woman's rib cage. He is terrified. He tosses his rod overboard and frantically rows his little boat back to shore. Dashing to safety, he doesn't realise that the skeleton woman is still attached to a piece of his clothing. He unwittingly drags her home, rips himself free from her
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thing to emerge. When an injured bodily organ regenerates itself, or one beholds mother nature, we see the extraordinary process of the life/death/life cycle unfolding in awe. This process permeates every level of our existence. Love and relationships are no exception. Each passing year we witness the trees shed their skin, but we don't panic. Instead we trust, that an intelligence and power greater than us will replenish and restore them. No matter what you face, find the same faith in your relationships. Give that divine intelligence and power the same trust to repair and fix whatever you feel is ending or being taken away. Trust the process. It will always work for your good. "If one wishes to be fed for life, one must face and develop a relationship with the nature of the Life/Death/ Life. When we have that, we are no longer bumbling around fishing for fantasies, but are made wise about the necessary deaths and startling births that create true relationships." -Clarissa Pinkola Estes: Women who run with the wolves. If you enjoyed this article check out my new book on love and relationships: Single Girls Rehab available now on Amazon. You can also book 1-1 sessions with me on my website: Nancyelliottcoaching.com
