Skinny Love

Liz: Dating and partnership and everything has everything to do with our relationship to ourselves. Right? And settling is a funny one because it's akin to what we discussed in the previous episode about no one completing us. And when we try to fit into a relationship or partnership, we carve out those parts of ourselves to make us fit. To not find somebody who actually fits us, but we mold ourselves and shape ourselves in such a way that somebody can fit us or we can fit them. That is sacrifice. It's also settling.

Rhea: How would you define settling?

Liz: It is saying that: I do not matter.

Rhea: So it's not just compromising something saying I matter, but this matters to you more and I respect you and honour you enough to try and make it work for you.

Liz: Well, I know this will not kill me.

Rhea: But settling is more, this will kill a part of me.

Liz: Yes. I do not matter.

Rhea: And I will let it die for you.

Liz: My wants, my needs, my desires do not matter.

Rhea: You're willing to sacrifice them and give them up in the hope of being with a specific person, rather than understanding or having the faith and trust that you can find the person who wants the same things as you too and that you feel that way about as well.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: I've done it where I've really wanted something, whether it's I want children or I want to live in a certain country or I want to live a certain lifestyle. Instead of having the faith that I could meet someone that could match me and also be those things, I would convince myself that I didn't need those things at all, effectively killing off a part of my wants and my desires and saying that they didn't matter because the other person's mattered more. And I think that that's a very big difference between compromise.

Liz: To make our life together work, these things are required and these are things that will require me to adapt, shift a couple of habits. I wasn't a morning person, but I had to become a morning person in order for us to be able to achieve this. I would have preferred this kind of car, but this kind of car has better mileage. It will serve the same purpose. It will be much more financially responsible. That's compromise. Settling is saying, well, I'm just going to sit there and suck it up.

Rhea: Does this bother me when I'm in my power?

Liz: Right. When I know I am enough.

Rhea: When I know I'm enough, does this still bother me?

Liz: Yeah.

Rhea: And if the answer is yes, then we communicate it.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: And as a partnership together we come to a solution.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: But if the question is, I need this so I know I'm enough, then really the responsibility will lie with you.

Liz: Always.

Rhea: Settling, I guess comes in two places cause you're also asking someone else to settle, right?

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: If not, it's a sacrifice.

Liz: Absolutely.

Rhea: So it's 'I'm so disempowered in myself that I need you to prove that I have power by sublimating - is that the word?

Liz: By giving me what I want.

Rhea: By giving me what I want.

Liz: Give in to my demands. Show me and prove this to me, and we see that all a lot.

Rhea: And then I know I'm powerful.

Liz: Yes. I know I matter.

Rhea: And I have to say from a very personal experience, I did that all the goddamn time and I did that the most in my relationships that were dysfunctional.

Liz: Just feeds the dysfunction, doesn't it?

Rhea: But it does. But it's kind of what we're saying. I wrote it in Humongous Lesson, but it's 'I know the bigger picture isn't quite working, so I'm going to make a huge deal of these little things to know that I matter to you and to know that I have power. So you have to give yours up for me because in the bigger picture, I'm giving up so much for you.

Liz: And in stereotypical relationships and traditional relationships, the conventional story is that women are often shaping themselves to prove that they're worthy of men. But I often see that the demands are often made of men in relationships.

Rhea: Yes. And I think that's why so many men, if I'm going to go gender for a second, have such a problem with monogamy because the ball and chain, she's going to ask me to give up what I care about. Once you are whole enough in yourself and you can respect that the other person is whole enough in themselves, you're happy to give them the space to do what makes them happy.

Liz: Completely. Go forth and have as much fun as you can. Please try not to come home too hungover cause I'll need you to function.

Rhea: Exactly, because that's what partnership is. But then the dysfunction of that is one person going out all the time and the other person sitting at home being resentful about it.

Liz: Or going out but not enjoying themselves but doing it because they feel like they have to, or out of some sort of revenge. So you'll miss me.

Rhea: Yes. And I think again that's because it's not whole and not healed. Settling really is linked to that. When we're operating from our insecurities on both sides. Because if we, from the previous episode, talk about how it's either two people who are looking to complete each other or two whole beings fitting, when it's two beings who are looking to complete each other, they're bringing so many insecurities and fears in the relationship.

Liz: Beyond.

Rhea: So at that point, in order for the relationship to function, in order to find their power and to source their power from the other person because that's why they're in that relationship in the first place, they are going to be constantly disempowering the other one in some way or another. Where a true partnership is empowering the other person and you're not settling because yes, you're going to compromise in order to make life work at points, but you're not going to be giving over your power to someone else to make it work, and that is so subjective. How each relationship functions is so independent and personal from everyone else's, so you can't really judge what works and what doesn't for someone else.

Liz: No, it has to just be reflective of their values, individual values and the values that they decide that they'll carry into their partnership.

Rhea: And that really is linked with the alone thing. And as we were speaking about in the last episode, that's a real driver to get into partnership in the first place.

Liz: Right. Number one.

Rhea: That means what you'll demand of your partner is presence and constant presence, which can be very stifling.

Liz: Yes. And this is not the same as when you're in the first six months or a year of relationship and you just can't keep your hands off each other and you really do want to be around each other the whole time. There's another factor also. We're talking about that really needy co-dependent.

Rhea: Exactly. Yeah. I need to know that I'm not going to be alone, so you must show up for me, rather than I want you to choose me and spend time with me and I don't want to have to force that in any way, shape, or form.

Liz: No, cause I'm a shit ton of fun and I have great skills that you enjoy.

Rhea: Exactly. I'm just so magnetic and I think that's a big difference. And so I think when we're operating from that place of insecurity, either settling ourselves or asking the other person to settle for us, it's really just a power game and you're playing who's got the power, rather than seeing that the power is sourced from inside and we always both have it, if we choose to be whole or we choose to see our own divinity or whatever you want to call it. And that's what all these dating games also mimic. I'm not going to call you so you miss me, and then you're going to call me so I miss you. You know, who has the power in the relationship. So we're seeing it from a very big level, like kind of the more permanent partnership level of that power struggle constantly to I'm the one that pays the bills. You're the one that looks after the kids, all the way down to the dating of I'm the one that pays for dinner and you're the one that gives me head when we're finished.

Liz: Exactly.

Rhea: You know, it's that instead of just two people just meeting, existing and being.

Liz: Right.

Rhea: And that's very different.

Liz: Very different.

Rhea: When you don't feel like you're good enough and you're locked in these power games, every action you do is to overcompensate for the fact that you don't think you're good enough. It's always overcompensating. It's always almost excusing who you are.

Liz: Completely, and then it's I do not have an identity and that's when we move into: this relationship becomes my identity. It is natural because we are looking to expand who we are that we start trying on different personalities, and relationship is a great way to do that, but it's not meant to be . . .

Rhea: It's not at the expense of who you really are. 

Liz: No.

Rhea: It's definitely about following the feeling until the feeling stops, even if they didn't fit you because then you're learning something. It might be a karmic thing, it might be experience thing. It might be a growth thing. It might be a lesson thing. It might be anything.

Liz: Or it might be the feelings want to hold on, but circumstances are really showing you that this isn't going to work no matter what you do, so stop now before you really, really kill yourself trying.

Rhea: And you know which one it is.

Liz: And if you really are a bit like me and you're a little stubborn and you're going to hold on a little bit longer, life will still push you.

Rhea: Yeah. I mean I'm so stubborn. I'm like, no, I'm not done yet.

Liz: No. I was in a point I just didn't enjoy. I didn't like the feeling of being wrong or I didn't want to not be the one chosen, and that hurt a lot.

Rhea: Well for me it was more. I've decided that these certain things have to happen or I know that certain things will happen so I will hold on until they do. But also I think it comes from a space of lack. Is it, 'I want to do this with you. I want to marry you. I want to have your children. I want to settle down with you. Not because of you, but because you're the one that's around'. That concept of lack is the most damaging thing when it comes to power, trust and purpose.

Liz: Interesting.

Rhea: Because you can always look at something from a space of 'but I didn't get this expectation', and you can miss all the other things that you didn't expect that were better instead, and I say that because actually when you're in a moment and you're forced to make a choice that either brings you back to yourself or further away from it, if you let lack drive your decision, therefore you're tapping into fear. You tend to walk away from your power.

Liz: Oh, interesting.

Rhea: We can't really realize our potential. We can't see our possibilities when we're in that space because we're too scared of the unknown, because we think that because we are not enough, the unknown will hurt us.

Liz: Completely.

Rhea: I guess that's trust, but it's also just understanding that what kind of partnership do you want? One where you are loved for who you are and you are chosen and you are heard and . . .

Liz: Respected.

Rhea: Respected and wanted. Or one where you aren't yourself anymore to be loved. Cause I think we will have to ask ourselves, how much am I willing to pay of myself for this relationship to work? And the answer should usually be, nothing.

Liz: That's right.

Rhea: I'm willing to compromise. I'm willing to listen. I'm willing to adapt, but I'm not willing to split.

Liz: That's right. And so much of that I think is what drives the fear of commitment among millennials and younger.

Rhea: I mean, for everyone.

Liz: Yeah. In third dimensional relationships, because the power dynamic was always so skewed, we looked to the other person to help create our lives. We cannot do that anymore in 5D. We have to create our lives for ourselves. And so it completely throws out how many of us would view a whole relationship because it demands that we be whole first. And so we have to know that we have that by creating a relationship where we are in compassion with ourselves, when we respect ourselves, when we are in integrity with ourselves and we're whole and integrated people. We just don't know what that kind of relationship looks like. So we can't fake it till we make it. We can't build it and then step into it. We have to allow it to come to be.

Rhea: So is it about having the faith that once you're in your integrity, people who are in their integrity too that match you will appear?

Liz: Yeah.

Rhea: So what about people who are already in some form of relationship and you know, we're all at this point in time, it seems to be that we're all growing at quite an exponential rate and we're all becoming more whole, more quickly.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: So how does that work when someone takes a leap forward? What happens to their relationship?

Liz: If there's enough in place that really makes us compatible with that person by being in our power, it gives them the space to step up and grow into their power.

Rhea: Do you have to have those foundations in place for when one person grows, the other person grows too?

Liz: Yes, completely. And that's why we keep saying you need to be in your own power first.

Rhea: It is possible to really care about someone and to just know that as much as you work on some levels, you just don't fit. And that to make it work with them would mean losing so much of your identity that the person that you were who chose them wouldn't be the person who ends up staying with them. And it's funny cause now at the end of this, I'm able to understand what settling really is. It's one too many compromises because I think you can compromise and still remain in your power.

Liz: Totally.

Rhea: You can adapt and still remain in your power. You can still give space for others to come into their power and respect them whilst respecting yourself. But I think at some point each step in that if you remain in that compromise for too long and it's too one-sided, at some point you've settled.

Liz: Completely. We're here for so many experiences. We are here for a variety and a spectrum of emotions. It's not fair to us, it's not fair to who we are and the larger goals we've actually set for ourselves in this lifetime to reduce ourselves to the point where we say: This one will be enough, just because we're so scared of uncertainty and what lies after and beyond that we cannot see.

Rhea: Instead of just saying this one right now was enough for now, but as I grow, if I give myself the space to grow, they might not be enough later, cause that's the other thing as well. I've definitely been a victim to this. Knowing that I was going to grow and I would outgrow them, but not wanting to lose them so resisting the growth. I think we all have to start seeing that relationships like everything in this new world is fluid.

Liz: Very fluid.

Rhea: Things come in and out and they work until they don't.

Liz: Until they don't.

Rhea: And you can't settle your way into making them work because all you would be doing is just continuing that cycle of disempowerment, which will take you straight back out of this new world into the old one, which let's be honest, worked for nobody.