The ability to maintain your identity in relationships directly corresponds to the level of empowerment that you feel to be able to be exactly who you are, warts and all.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been talking about the 7 main areas of empowerment, or power pieces if you will.
These 7 pieces together determine your overall ability to find lasting, uncommon love.
Maintain Your Identity in Relationships: Empowered to Fully Be Yourself
One of those power pieces is the ability to fully be yourself. To separate and have your own identity.
When you are disempowered here you might:
- Compromise your core identity (especially in close relationships)
- Feel like relationships take away your freedom
- Create an identity based on someone else’s will, standards, or ideals
- Date others with a ‘bigger’ energy in order to compensate for the deficient sense of self
- Feel safest when holding onto someone else (contributes to codependency)
- Try not to distinguish yourself in the relationship
- Suddenly change religion, politics or interests in order to match their partner
👉🏻Disempowerment here is a major contributor to codependency in your relationships.
When you are empowered here you will:
- Have no fear that a relationship will stifle your authentic self
- Feel safe to be your full, unique self, especially when in a relationship
- Have no fear of being alone
- Not tolerate anyone trying to control, shame or overshadow you in order to keep you small and dependent
How do you become disempowered?
Those that are more disempowered in this area likely had childhood experiences where they felt like being themselves fully was dangerous to their own well-being in some way. Usually in getting love from parents.
They felt they had to assimilate or be who/what others wanted in order to get love or survive.
The problem is, whenever you take on someone else’s interests, identity, needs, etc, the relationship is doomed to fail. Nobody wants to marry themselves!
How to fix it and maintain your identity in your relationships
So if this sounds familiar to you, to remedy it, you will need to work on feeling safe to have your own experiences. Both alone AND when you are in a relationship.
✅You also need to understand that your identity is different from your identity as a couple.
✅And perhaps, taking some time to explore who you really are and what you like/want.
✅Doing some inner child work around feeling safe and empowered is helpful too.
