Why I Keep Avoiding the Truth About Partner and Family Dynamics (Part 2)
The first part addressed what avoidance protects and how it becomes self-reinforcing. This part addresses the specific internal conversations that avoidance prevents and how to begin approaching them.
The Internal Conversations That Avoidance Prevents
Avoidance of truth about partner and family dynamics typically prevents several specific internal acknowledgments:
“This relationship costs me more than it nourishes me.” Seeing this clearly requires then answering what to do with that information, which is activating.
“I have been accommodating in ways that damaged things I value.” This acknowledgment involves grief and regret, which the pattern’s activation management system tries to keep at bay.
“I don’t actually know what I want from this relationship.” The uncertainty underneath the accommodation is itself avoided — because the accommodation fills the uncertainty with a clear directive (keep everyone comfortable) and examining the uncertainty requires sitting with not knowing.
The Approach That Works
Truth-approaching rather than truth-avoidance or truth-confrontation.
One question, written, not for anyone else: What is one thing about this relationship that I know and haven’t said to myself?
Not the whole truth. One thing. The writing creates a record that makes the knowing less avoidable going forward.
The Function of Acknowledgment
Acknowledgment without immediate action is available. Seeing what’s true doesn’t require immediately acting on it. The ability to see clearly and hold the seeing while deciding what, if anything, to do — that’s a capacity, not a requirement for immediate action.
Building the capacity to see clearly without being compelled to immediately act or immediately avoid is itself the work.
The daily practice includes this kind of honest internal documentation.
The Abundance GPS Skool community is a place where partial truths can be spoken while the fuller truth is approached.