Work through your baggage and bag a new relationship!
Hi Everyone,
I just had the most intense weekend on an imago workshop and am really excited about sharing it with you and using it in my own life too! I am not yet trained in Imago therapy however it has made a big impact on me and I will bring it into my one to one coaching.
Imago is about who you are in a relationship, what baggage you are bringing and how you can heal yourself most effectively through being in a relationship and pushing through any discomfort and difficulty the relationship brings up.
What was fascinating to hear was to hear that we only really grow ourselves up when we are in a relationship, so I guess the key is to go and get into one so that you can start practising!
Oh and by the way, apparently relationships are meant to be hard work, that’s when we know we are with the right partner.
It is scientifically proven that we are naturally attracted to people who will trigger our ‘issues’ in us. We will pick someone who has some of the traits from our parents, good and bad. For example, if a parent was absent we end up with a partner who will have that in them. Our job is to get from our partner what we needed from our parent and that’s where the healing is.
The way to get what you need is to get into dialogue, this involves sending a clear message to your partner about how you are feeling opening up and talking about yourself, not the other person,
‘I feel like you don’t care when you don’t keep in touch with me.’ ‘This makes me feel like I don’t want to be in this relationship.’
The listener now has a chance to respond by repeating back what they heard you say. The listener has to put their own stuff aside and ONLY repeat back. ‘I hear you say that when I don’t keep in touch with you, it makes you feel like I don’t care and that makes you not want to be in this relationship. Did I get you?’
‘Yes that’s right’
‘Is there more?’
Then the validation,’ I imagine you must be feeling angry?’
What would it be like to be heard in this way? What changes?
As I looked around the room at the wonderful people in the workshop with me, I actually saw the child in each them, grappling to come to grips with what went wrong for them as a child or a past relationship. Where they felt unloved, where they were made wrong and where they were ignored.
The good news is that we do all have the capacity to heal, but only through being in proper dialogue with a partner. Of course, you can practice with friends too.
The other fascinating bit was called ‘baggage reclaim’. There was a fantastic you tube clip of a row of customers at the airport literally checking in suitcases full up of their own baggage. One by one they checked in until one man decided he wanted his back.
When you wipe out past relationship baggage; the guy who left you for someone else, the girl who broke your heart etc, you come to the relationship baggage free. This also means you are empty of emotions and feelings the chance to open up again.
In the clip the guy who wanted to get his baggage back was unable to, and then something remarkable happened, the girl behind him saw him jumping up and down distraught about getting his baggage back and so she offered not to check hers in but to share it with him instead.
They walked out of the airport together wheeling the joint baggage and what you heard was her start to say, ‘he told me he didn’t love me, after ten your of being with him’.
What will open up for this couple is a real relationship where each of them is going to talk about their experiences and how it made them feel, what they want in the future. They have a connection with love and emotion, as each partner listens the other will get the healing they need.
If you want to do your own growth work then I cant recommend this course enough, as well as getting a personal coach like myself to be your guide.
