Remaining curious and present

Relating with other people can be challenging. Sometimes even communicating our wants or needs to a person we usually are at ease with and feel we trust can stir up our own wounds and have us wanting to resort back to old and harmful patterns and cycles.

It is important to do the work of remaining curious. Present. To ask questions of ourselves. To be curious about the situation. To ask questions of the other person.

Assumptions and avoidance have been the death of many relationships, platonic and romantic.

A thing is though, asking those questions can be terrifying. Maybe we don't want to know the answer. Maybe all our insecurities flare up and with them our fears of abandonment and rejection. Maybe we know in our bones the answer and don't want to admit it or have it confirmed.

But by avoiding stressful conversations, by making assumptions, we are allowing fear to be in charge. And we aren't giving the other person the opportunity to show up for us, or to show that they can't or won't f…