Then you probably recognize this.
You start raising your voice, trying harder to be heard.
And when that doesn’t work, you retreat - discouraged - behind your own wall.
Connection is a dance you do with two people. When the other refuses to step onto the floor, you’re left standing there alone. You can carry safety on your own, but carrying it alone does not create closeness or togetherness.
There comes a moment when the question is no longer how to open that closed door, but how long you’re still willing to wait on the threshold.
And this is where it gets real.
Because yes - this asks that you can carry yourself and stay in contact.
Self-regulation does not mean you’re no longer allowed to feel in relationship.
And closeness does not mean the other has to carry your inner world.
This tension - between carrying yourself and staying present together - is exactly what I call Invigorate within my BLISS Method.
It is powerful to regulate your own emotions instead of placing them onto the other.
And let me be clear: this doesn’t mean emotions aren’t allowed. But placing what is yours onto someone else and expecting them to “keep absorbing it” is not healthy.
Every emotion tells you something about you. Another person can’t do anything with it if you’re not willing to be open to that yourself. That requires ownership - on both sides.
I’ve experienced it one too many times:
people repeatedly dumping their emotional weight, continuing the same behaviors that caused the imbalance -
and me ending up completely empty.
Crying or being angry isn’t a problem for me, as long as there is movement toward self-regulation.
For example:
your partner comes home angry or upset from work every single day.
Your day was fine. You’re handling your own stuff.
But after the umpteenth story about the same situation, you’re done.
Nothing changes - but you’re expected to absorb it.
At some point you tune out.
You might even walk away.
And suddenly you’re the problem.
Or this:
you’ve had a shit day yourself.
You can handle it.
And once again, the other arrives with the same story.
What this dynamic asks for
is that both people step into the space.
Holding space.
Onto the dance floor.
Making room for feelings - without solving them,
without fixing,
without taking over,
sometimes even co-regulating.
Being there for each other lives in that space.
You are allowed to exist - with all of your emotions. That is what it means to be heard and seen.
You are not made to merely emotionally survive any relationship.
You are made to bloom in closeness.
Invigorate