Groundhog Day for Relationships

     I was reflecting upon the movie after a recent session of my own Inner Bonding work....Groundhog Day, about a man named Phil, played by Bill Murray as a newsman who has been assigned to cover Groundhog Day in Pennsylvania. Phil is a self-centered narcissistic man who is doomed to continue living out the very same day until he learns to change, to become more loving and compassionate to himself and to others. It relates to the way I've approached my life and especially my romantic intimate relationships. I was destined to repeat my pattern of caretaking in relationships until I could see not only was it not loving or compassionate for me, it wasn’t loving or compassionate for others. I just was repeating the pattern, like he repeated his days, until I learned what I needed to learn. I don't need to judge that it took that many times, it is just what it took for me to learn. Just like Bill Murray learned to be more compassionate and loving as a man by repeating the same day over and over....even to the point of feeling crazy...just like I felt when I repeated my patterns in my romantic relationships. I needed enough repeats of the same relationship with a different man, for as many times necessary to find my part of the system. Since my choice of partner was a factor, my partners of choice were not open and caught in their form of narcissism. I have learned through staying in this relationship past uncomfortable, that narcissism takes two to continue. I discovered my part of the system included my own and I also discovered narcissism isn’t a dirty word. It does not help to judge oneself or another, but a word that gives me information….lets me know I’m making another person’s behavior about me, rather than accepting my helplessness over another’s actions or choices. So if you the word triggers you in any way, try another, but please don’t disregard the information behind the word - call it your woundedness. The information is I’m thinking I should be responsible for another person’s feelings, that I can make a difference in how another person views me, and whether or not I can be loved.

     My last relationship just ended, and for the love of God, I don’t miss him and it isn’t for the reasons I once would think when ending a relationship. I was sad because of my own narcissism when thinking it was his. I was sad because of the stories I was telling myself about me….the me, me, me, me I was sick of wasn’t my inner bonding process, …my inner child was telling me that I was missing the mark. It was the wounded me, me, me that she was sick of and not my essence. I hear her now, I needed the external relationship to see the wounded me, in effect that relationship is the best gift because I stuck around long past uncomfortable to see my part of the system.

     Narcissism isn’t a dirty word. It has information and has feelings associated with it. Wounded is not a sad word. It has feelings associated with it. These feelings are information, our feelings will guide us back to our heart…our essence if we let them. The key is to call ALL feelings, ALL labels whether we gave them to ourselves or we heard it from another person as INFORMATION. Every experience has information that when judgment is removed becomes our GPS, it helps us move toward our best loving and compassionate self.