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Lesson 11 kicked my ass.
I felt resistance to it immediately, and by the time I finished my homework, I understood exactly why.
“Never underestimate the power of your agreements to influence your life.”
The last sentence of Lesson 11 is pretty much the only thing I needed to read.
The rest of it was relevant and all, just not new territory. I understand that we teach people how to treat us, and that what we allow, we’ll receive.
Katherine’s case studies were helpful reminders that beliefs and agreements—conscious or unconscious, spoken or unspoken—greatly impact our lives.
But for me, the lessons of Lesson 11 were all in the practice.
Lesson 11 in practice
The homework was to write a lot.
“The agreements, both spoken and unspoken, I made with _____ were…”
I filled in the blanks with my mother, my father, and most of my ex-boyfriends, and I came up with a lot of answers.
It turns out that all the exes—Tyler, Leo, and Jim strong among them—had an agreement in common.
In every relationship before Paul, I agreed: Your needs are more important than mine.
Even with Paul, near the end, I was starting to drift toward that unconscious assertion. He just put a stop to things before I made it true.
My needs are equally important, and it is safe to trust at 100%.
Another one of the homework prompts completely blew my mind.
“The agreements I made with myself regarding closeness and love are:”
It’s not safe to trust anyone else at 100%.
That is what I wrote! First thing, immediately, I acknowledged my own inability to receive exactly what Paul told me he couldn’t give me. Percentage points and all!
Talk about a breakthrough. No wonder I was okay with receiving 95%; that’s all I have felt it safe to accept.
But I am worth more.
And since it is easier to live the truth when you can put it in words, I am grateful for the last writing prompt of the batch:
“The new agreements I could make instead are:”
My needs are equally important to my partner’s.
It is safe to trust someone 100%.
I deserve unconditional and unlimited love.
True intimacy creates expansion, not contraction.
(That last one addresses an old self-agreement that I’ll get smothered if I let anyone in too close. What, you thought Paul was the only one with commitment concerns?)
Renegotiating what’s next
On the plus side, it was refreshing to see how different the list of agreements I made with Paul was from any of the others.
We had agreements, both spoken and unspoken, like: “We will each keep an independent life,” and “honest communication is vital,” and “I will tell you what I need.”
Good stuff, indeed.
But there was one final agreement that, thanks to the work of today, I can finally admit is not okay.
I am not okay with the terms I agreed to back in August.
At the time, it really seemed all right. Even reasonable. The man I loved told me he wanted to get to 100% and asked for time apart till the end of the year.
What could I say?
I suppose, in theory, “thanks but no thanks, goodbye” would have been an option.
But it wasn’t. I couldn’t. I still can’t.
What I can do is drop the deadline.
This imaginary marker, the idea that when the clock turns 2018 we will suddenly have answers? It’s not working for me.
I haven’t wanted to admit this because to do so is to change the game. It feels disloyal: I told him till the end of the year was okay!
But things do change. All the time. And if you go two months without talking to someone, surely that can’t be a surprise.
So I gave Paul a call.
Not actually, of course. But I did actually speak aloud, and I cried my way through an explanation of why I was renegotiating our agreement.
I still love you, I told him. So much. And I’m not closing down the possibility of reconnection. I’m just removing the false pressure of a timeline.
If Paul wants to come back, he can do so in two days or six months or ten years.
I’ll be available or I won’t, we’ll just have to see. But I will definitely be free.
Because freedom is love, and love is now, and we both deserve the best.
Love > fear,
Christina
Want to know what happens next? Proceed to Chapter 12.
Missed what happened before? Go back to Chapter 10, or start from the beginning.
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