Today I want to talk about what to do when you notice that you're not being met.
And just to briefly define that again,
I'm using the phrase not being met to describe those moments when Two people are in an interaction,
But they're not exactly on the same wavelength.
So they may have different expectations.
Each person may have different needs,
Different intentions,
Or different levels of availability.
And often.
.
.
The first way that we know this is not through the mind,
But through the body.
So something shifts.
You may feel a drop in your chest or your solar plexus,
Like a pit in your stomach kind of feeling.
Or you might feel yourself reaching forward.
Some of us experience urgency,
Anxiety.
Anger.
Confusion,
Numbness,
Or even a kind of collapse.
So the body is registering that something is not matching.
And once you notice those sensations,
The first step is simply to name what's happening internally.
Something isn't matching here or.
I'm not being met in the way I expected.
And again,
This is not a judgment,
It's not blame,
It's just recognition.
It's important to recognize it because if we don't slow it down and recognize it,
We may turn it into a story about us.
Before you start to explain more.
Offer more,
Soften,
Start to contort yourself or reach further toward the other person.
Just take a moment.
And this space is where choice can come in.
You can actually try out a new pattern.
And most of this stuff,
These patterns happen so fast that we don't even know that they're happening.
And we can sense that something doesn't feel good,
But we don't know what's happening,
And we're not aware of this situation.
So this pausing can be really helpful.
So instead of trying to immediately fix the interaction,
Stay with what's happening in your body.
And a lot of times,
Sensations that we.
.
.
We call bad,
Like things that feel bad,
We automatically want to fix them.
That's so natural,
Something painful we want to move away from.
But in this situation,
You can stop and just create that space and listen and feel,
Feel into what's going on.
Feel the sensations that are actually there.
Feel that drop.
There's a tendency to just kind of push through,
Like if something's uncomfortable,
Just be like,
Oh,
I didn't feel that,
I'm gonna keep going.
But actually listen to it,
Or feel yourself reaching.
Are you leaning forward?
Is your energy leaning forward?
Is there a tightness somewhere?
Or is there heat rising?
A lot of times anger will have heat rising with it.
There could be numbness,
Which can be harder to sense.
Just being aware of if something feels different.
There might be anger.
Or grief,
Whatever it is.
Try to stay with it for a minute and don't change it.
And what you're doing is letting your body know that you're here,
You're here with it.
And if we consistently do this with our bodies,
Our systems start to realize that a bad feeling isn't something we have to be scared of or move away from.
It's almost like creating the safety that we can be with something that feels hard.
So once you've made a little contact with what you're feeling,
Then you can start to orient yourself,
Start to feel your feet.
Feel the back of your body that can be really orienting.
And notice your breath.
Stop and look around the room.
Notice where you are.
Notice the space around you.
And what you're actually doing is just feeling where you are,
And you're feeling where you end.
Where are your physical boundaries,
The boundaries of your body?
And you can start to become aware of if you're starting to move towards someone who isn't meeting you.
That doesn't mean that anything has gone wrong in the situation,
But you can just become aware of what you're doing.
And you don't have to fix the interaction immediately.
You also don't have to try to make it work.
And you don't have to close the gap by leaving yourself.
So then the next step.
This is really important.
Notice if your mind starts to create a story about you.
Often the painful part is not only that we aren't being met,
The deeper injury is what can happen when we start telling a story about ourselves because we weren't met.
So the story might be something like,
I want too much.
Or my needs are too much.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough.
I should have said it differently.
I'm too sensitive.
I'm not important.
Or I'm not worth showing up for.
Maybe I should become easier to meet.
And when you notice one of these stories forming,
See if you can recognize it as a story.
You don't have to decide whether it's true right now.
Just notice,
This is what my mind is making this moment mean about me.
And then you might ask something even softer.
What if the true story is actually just that this mattered to you?
Whatever it is,
It mattered to you.
And What if the true story is that I'm not too much?
It's just that something mattered.
I was reaching for something real.
I was hoping for connection,
For clarity.
Reciprocity or understanding.
I was hoping for care.
I was hoping for somebody to show up.
That does not mean that the other person did something wrong,
And it doesn't mean they had to meet you in exactly the way that you hoped.
But it does mean that your experience matters.
What you are reaching for does matter.
And your body with those sensations that we were talking about is registering that something mattered to you.
And that's different from making yourself wrong.
So just notice when you say that instead,
This matters to me.
You don't have to try to make the feeling go away and you don't have to convince yourself that everything is okay.
Just notice your body and what happens when the story is no longer,
There's something wrong with me.
And if the story just becomes something important to me is happening,
That's all.
Something important is happening.
So nothing may change right away,
And that's okay.
For now,
We're just simply staying with ourselves when connection doesn't happen in the way that we hoped.
And from that place,
We have a much more choice about what comes next.
So thank you for listening to this.
I intend to keep sharing about this subject.
