One of my "assignments" as I get a grip on what's going on with me was to define my "Circle of Trust". This means that I'm trying to evaluate my relationships with people and decided whether or not this is something that they need to know. No one really NEEDS to know, except for my husband, but outside of that... I know that people don't really need or even necessarily WANT to know.
My circle of trust wasn't too impressive. Basically, it consisted of my husband and my therapist. What's the say about a person that the only people they really feel they can trust is their spouse and a professional that is PAID for trust? It was really depressing, or for a better word, "lonely". It made me realize that my relationships with people aren't really that deep.
I set the circle of trust (COT) aside for a few days and just thought about my relationships with people and I eventually added my brother. I felt that despite where we are in our lives, that doesn't mean that we don't love and support each other fully. I met him a few days later and explained what has been going on. He took it well...as well as anyone could I suppose. He was extremely supportive and I was glad that I had opened up to him. I knew that if he knew, his wife would know, and I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I realize that there was really no way of getting around that. I love his wife, don't get me wrong, but I wondered if she would judge me. It was really scary to feel so exposed. I feel raw. She of course said, she loved and supported me as well, but still, I'm sensitive to all this and wasn't sure I was ready for her to know. I do consider her one of my closest friends, so I guess that means that I'm not ready for any of my friends to know.
So my circle now consists of 4 people, my husband, my brother, my therapist and my sister-in-law. Two of them, trust by default. Not really a source of "warm fuzzies" but I'm dealing. Looking at my other relationships, I go back and forth with "I don't want to bother them." or "This isn't something that I want to add to their burden." or "Would they really care?" and even "I don't think I would ever ever ever want this person to know this about me."
One relationship in particular, we've been friends for many years and I've talked to her about a lot of things. Recently though, I found myself not feeling connected to her. I realized that I wasn't feeling the value of our friendship and it made me sad to think that this was not something I could share with her. It really broke my heart. As I looked deeper and deeper into my relationships, it became more apparent to me that many of my bonds with people were superficial. I only let people in so deep. So why do I always feel so busy? Why do I always feel like I'm pulled in different directions to spend time with people. Don't I only want to give my valuable time to people I value?
I'm definitely going to talk to my therapist about this. Perhaps if I unloaded these shallow relationships, I wouldn't feel so bogged down...
No comments:
Post a Comment