The image captures something of the inner child within all of us. The purity, innocence and beauty of two children reaching out, while the proud, stubborn and frustrated adults turn their backs on each other.
I like to imagine the conversation between the two children is the one we would all love to have. We all have relationships – personal or professional – that have become complicated – resentments, unspoken expectations, hurts, broken promises, miscommunications.
When a relationship breaks down there is always so much that is unsaid. Shame, embarrassment, guilt and anxiety mask the fear, anger, sadness and even joy that we don’t know how to express.
Our personalities are shaped in relationships – the myriad ways we learned to be accepted and loved as children. The strategies we developed to prove our worth or please others become part of who we are as adults.
Beneath those strategies are three core fears: Ridicule, Rejection or Rupture.
Ridicule – fear of exposure, humiliation and criticism; fear of getting it wrong and being shamed.
Rejection – fear that who we are is not acceptable, worthy, or enough; fear that belonging is conditional.
Rupture – fear of instability, inconsistency and emotional unpredictability; fear of not knowing where we stand.
These fears shape how we relate to others; we stay loyal to the relationship styles we learned as children. Our conditioned responses protect our vulnerabilities but make it harder to repair what is broken.
Trust isn’t built through the absence of challenge; it grows through rupture followed by repair, allowing the relationship to be restored and strengthened.
When I look at the photo of the two inner children reaching out, I want to believe that the resolution is just a ‘simple’ conversation away. Simple in concept but these conversations may be some of the hardest we ever have.
Imagine if we could find the courage to speak from our deepest vulnerability:
“I love you, I forgive you.
I’m sorry I got scared and pushed you away.
I’m sorry I got scared and withdrew.
I want to move forward, I don’t want to do this alone.
All I ask is for you to love me and let me be me.”
‘I love you, I forgive you’
Love makes repair possible. Forgiveness is the acceptance of fallibility – our own and the other’s. Acknowledging that our interpretation of events is being filtered through our own protection. The possibility of truth in the phrase ‘Every act is an expression of love or cry for help’.
‘I’m sorry I got scared and pushed you away. I’m sorry I got scared and withdrew.’
When we’re frightened or hurt we protect ourselves– fight / flight / freeze / fawn. In that state we don’t fully show up with compassion and awareness. Owning our fear-based reactive patterns allows us to move from survival and back to connection.
‘I want to move forward, I don’t want to do this alone.’
A recognition that we are stuck, that staying where we are is too painful, and that we don’t want to be alone. It’s the offer of the olive branch – the willingness to understand what happened. The desire to heal the wound and recognise that the current conflict is likely an echo of something much older.
‘All I ask is for you to love me and let me be me.’
The ultimate longing for unconditional acceptance. To be loved for who we are, not the masks we wear, the proving and pleasing. To be loved in our strength and our vulnerability. To be loved for our ‘being’, our essence. To be loved for the qualities of who we are when we are not ‘doing’ all the things we learned as part of our childhood conditioning. To be seen, heard and understood in the truth of our fallible humanity.
It’s a big ask. And we will all fail to uphold it at times. But that’s what it means to be in relationship – to recognise our own mistakes and to accept that others will make them too.
The question is whether we can be courageous enough to make the first move towards resolution – or whether we wait, hoping that someone else will find the courage first?
That’s the choice we have to make.
Be Courageous. Reclaim Your Potential. Shape Your Future.
Photo credit: Burning Man 2015 by Gerome Viavant – Alexander Milov Love
Clear view 