Sebastian met Marianne in one of our seminars and they both felt an immediate connection. They began dating and experienced a deeper love connection than either of them had felt in previous relationships. They had a lot in common and really enjoyed spending time together.
However, Sebastian had not clearly ended his relationship with his ex, Laila, and quite soon complications developed. She began to text him daily, begging him to come back, came to his house to plead with him and even threatened to kill herself, if he didn’t return. He began to feel overwhelmed with guilt and finally decided to leave Marianne and go back to Laila. Marianne was devastated, furious at Sebastian for being “such a coward,” but his mind was made up. He told her that he could not face the guilt and responsibility of doing something that might cause Laila to be self-destructive.
The power of guilt is strong. Perhaps most of us can relate to times in our lives, even today, when we give up our truth because of guilt. Very likely, we have been conditioned to be ruled by guilt since early childhood.
Today, we may find ourselves behaving out of a sense of obligation and duty at the expense of our life energy; at times not even considering what we really want but acting automatically according to what is expected of us.
Facing guilt is one of the processes on the journey toward freedom. When we teach in our work that “love does not flourish with obligation,” it often comes as a shock to some people.
Of course, there might be tasks or obligations that we may not feel like doing in the moment, but it is part of our maturity to tune into the deeper love flow or purpose and move with that. This is not moving from guilt but moving from wisdom.
However, it is a real problem when we give automatically and habitually from a space of duty and obligation, particularly in our most intimate relationships. The compulsive pull of responding unconsciously out of obligation and duty directly challenges our ability to be authentic.
When someone wants something from us and comes with an energy ranging from gentle requesting to outright demanding, we are faced with a challenge to either listen to our own needs and truth in that moment, or react automatically and habitually out of a sense of duty.
Our fears, beliefs, and self-judgments may be so strong that we are unable to even begin listening to ourselves.
James, a 31-year-old highly intelligent IT professional has recently begun a relationship with a woman and is deeply in love. She wants a lot of his time and he has a hard time taking time for himself to do sports or see friends. He believes strongly that he is responsible for her happiness and is afraid that if he doesn’t devote all his free time to her, she will become dissatisfied and leave. He also believes that he must give, even if it’s not authentic, simply because that is what love means. This is what he learned as a child. We encouraged him to begin to listen to and validate his own needs and to tell her that even though he definitely wants to spend quality time with her, he also needs to spend time doing other things. It is a growth stretch for him to do that and it means feeling a lot of guilt at first while doing what he loves.
As a child, we develop a sense of obligation to meet the needs and expectations of our parents, teachers, or religious authority figures because we desperately want to please them to receive their approval, praise, appreciation, and affection. And if we received any anger, humiliation, punishment, or neglect when we didn’t meet their expectations, it made it even more difficult not to learn that duty is more important than being true to ourselves.
We all have different experiences with regard to this negative conditioning, but few children grow up with an understanding that their own authenticity is more important than fulfilling the expectations of their parents or teachers, or any other authority figures. Being supported to listen to ourselves, to tune into what is right for us, and learn to trust our authentic energy was rarely part of our upbringing.
In our life today, the insight that love does not flourish with obligation is crucial in our primary adult relationships with our lover and with our friends because, if we allow ourselves to be ruled by a sense of obligation, it will sabotage the relating sooner or later. At first, it may not seem like such a compromise to give our energy without checking first with ourselves to see if it is true and authentic.
But if we fall into a pattern of responding to the other person’s expectations, demands, and/or wishes simply because we feel it is our duty to do so, we become an emotional slave and we will begin to feel more and more resentful.
We may even be so deeply attuned to the other person and his/her needs rather than to ourselves that we may give or be attentive to the other person, even if they have not asked anything. It can be so deeply ingrained in our system to keep betraying and abandoning ourselves, without even being aware of it. This deepening disconnection inside keeps fueling resentments, anger, discontent and may even lead to depression.
There are three reasons why it is not easy to get out of relating from a sense of obligation.
1. We may believe that it is a basic ingredient of “love” to give even when we don’t feel it is true in the moment. We don’t trust our natural love flow.
2. We may be too afraid of anger, disapproval, judgment, punishment, or rejection if we don’t do what is wanted or expected from the other person.
3. We may harshly judge ourselves for being “selfish” and “unkind.”
The sense of indebtedness can be very strong when relating with our parents because we feel that we cannot follow or speak our truth because they are, after all, our parents. This can be particularly strong if we feel (and felt in the past) responsible to make one or both happy. Then we carry this program into our relating today.
When someone wants something from us, it sets up a common inner conflict between the force of our inner judge and the power of our life energy. Since we were rarely supported to give weight to our life energy, our inner judge often carries the greater influence in our life.
So, for someone like Sebastian or James, it will take quite a shift for them to listen to themselves. Actually, it is much kinder and more compassionate to give only when it is true for us. And, if we keep giving when it is not true, then we block the moments where our love would naturally flow to the other person and give freely.
We often ask people in our workshops if given a choice, would they prefer to receive from someone even if it is not true for him/her, or to receive an authentic “no”. Almost universally, they say they would prefer honesty. To end this pattern, we will need to create a new sense of self – a sense of self in which we honor ourselves and learn that we are more lovable when we are true.
However, first we need to begin to tune in deeper to ourselves, so we can know what is true for us.
Andrew, another client of ours, has a close friend who chronically complains about his problems with his finances, health, and girlfriend. As a child, Andrew felt responsible to care for his mother who also chronically complained about what wasn’t working in her life. Because of this experience with her, he developed the idea that when someone is unhappy, he has to fix them. When his friend calls and suggests they get together for lunch, his immediate body reaction is to say no. But he feels guilty and almost always agrees to meet, even though spending a lunch listening to his friend’s complaining is not his idea of a joyful lunch. His growth would be to either not go for the lunch or to be honest. But he is too scared to be honest with his friend about his discomfort and so keeps building resentments and anger inside.
To overcome the pull to be dutiful, many of us will need to undergo some inner transformation.
Here are some steps that we have found helpful:
1. We can begin with a clear understanding that love flourishes when we are willing to be authentic and give according to our truth, rather than according to our sense of duty. Giving out of duty encourages us to stay in our old conditioning, and supports fear, unworthiness, and dependency. Furthermore it interrupts our natural love flow inside.
2. We can begin to pay close attention to what happens when we betray ourselves. The best way to learn to be authentic is to really feel the effect of betraying ourselves. In the past we may not have noticed, as it has been so automatic and we have become numb to the intense pain of inner disconnection. The more we become aware of it, the harder it is to keep betraying ourselves.
3. We can begin to listen more closely to our body and energy to discover what feels right and what feels wrong, moment to moment. If it is not according to our truth, it will not feel right and will cause resentment, disconnection and distance. At first, we may most likely discover this only after we have given out of obligation and feel the inner discomfort of betraying ourselves. With time, it becomes easier to tell what is authentic in the moment.
In the beginning it takes a lot of courage to simply feel the guilt and not allow it to move you into some action to avoid feeling it.
However with time and practice, the inner sense of dignity, self-love, and self-respect that starts developing makes the journey easier. When you have started to taste even just a little bit of that sense of dignity, you understand that this is the process of growing up; of becoming mature.