Finding Your Independence in Relationship

Hello. I am so glad you are here because today is all about learning how to have independence and relationship. And I'm talking that primary romantic relationship or relationships. If you're polyamorous, you can have both. Okay, we're going. Okay. Three, two, one. I'm Rebecca Silence, media personality, author and emotional healing and relationship coach. If you are new to our show, the healing is possible experience. Welcome. So grateful that you're here. This is a show where we take you on a journey of hope and healing, but even more back to the truth of who you are. Back to the place where you can love yourself and trust yourself again, which is your right. You loving and trusting yourself. What if that is the ultimate life purpose? And on this show, every single week, we're giving you more and more and I'm giving you everything I I have to help you get back to knowing yourself, loving yourself and trusting yourself again. In one of the areas of life that people love and trust themselves the least that I found with over 15 years of experience in private practice work with individuals and couples and families and corporate teams, I see people over and over and over again losing themselves and that ability to be independent and to feel free in relationships and it is so not necessary. And it is so painful to care about relationship and to want relationship and to want especially and specifically love, but to not trust that you can be independent and free and have that love, relationship, that romance, the way you can imagine you, you could and you can. It's possible, right? Independence and relationship. We have been doing a series on getting your needs met on the healing as possible experience. This is the fourth and final episode. So if you've missed any of the first three, please go visit our YouTube channel and subscribe. Hit that notification bell. Watch the previous episodes. They are so good and they are so powerful. And today, if you're watching this first, great. The other three episodes will be amazingly supportive. In addition, if you've already watched the other three, great, you're primed and ready. Bottom line is you are here for a reason. You want relationship, you want independence and the ultimate need because that we want to know how to get met in relationships. At least as far as my professional opinion and experience goes. Is this need to be independent and seen and to get to still be me, even in relationship. This not needing to give yourself up or dumb yourself down or be who you think you need to be in the name of love. Let's just unpack and free you up so much today. If you feel called, grab a journal, grab some paper, grab Pen, take some notes. This is a big, big, big episode. Why are we not experiencing independence and relationship? Well, a few reasons. Most obvious is it was a model to us, right? I don't think I have seen any relationship that modeled independence and freedom and relationship until my marriage to Mark. And from there, I've seen other people do it, but I hadn't until I created it with Mark. So this was something I had truly never seen done before. Not even relationships that mentors had were there. These healthy dynamics of independence and respecting the other person's autonomy and free will and the relationship getting nurtured at the same time. I had never seen this before, but I knew on some level it had to be possible and that it had to exist. And my very first coach used to teach this formula that I am going to teach today here. That made a lot of sense. And as a concept, I was so attracted to this idea and so excited about the idea of independence and relationship and. But I haven't seen anybody do it yet, right? So here's the other piece. Codependence is glorified. It just is. I can't be happy unless you're happy. If you're suffering, I have to suffer. If you're happy, I get to be happy. If you're not, I don't. If I'm not happy, don't you dare go be happy. We learn codependence is love. We learn to lose ourselves in relationship. It's in so many marriage vows, you know, it's time to compromise, right? And it's time to care more about the other person than you care about yourself. I'm going to caution you. I mean, if this feels good to you, if this nourishes and feeds your soul and makes you come alive. When you think about compromise in relationship, when you think about being more committed to your partner's needs being met than you are to your own needs being met, more power to you. But I'm just going to boldly suggest, I haven't met anybody, that this actually felt good. It just felt like the right thing to do. It just felt like what they should do. It just felt like, well, this is how it works, right? Love, marriage, relationship, family, compromise. Give you up in the name of love, betray yourself in the name of love, lose you in the name of love. It's just what we're taught now. There's a better way. All right? The way I look at codependence is there's me, there's you, there's the relationship, and it's like this one plus one equals one formula. It's all a meshed, it's all me intertwined with you, losing me for you. And each of us now become one entity called this relationship. There's no more me outside of the relationship. There's no more you outside the relationship. There's just in the relationship. And all of who we are is now about the relationship. That is codependence. That is not the highest vibration, the highest paradigm, the highest possibility of relationship or foundation for relationship. And here is the better mousetrap formula, the better, you know, structure and foundation for your relationship. Okay, it's one plus one equals three. And this is the formula that first mentor I mentioned earlier had taught me very early on in my personal development. And I was so intrigued. Wait, what? One plus one equals three. There's me, there's you, there's us. And there are three different major pieces of relationship to nurture all at the same time. It doesn't have to be me, independent and free or a relationship. It doesn't have to be codependent. I mean, I was mind blown when I first heard this. One plus one equals three possibility for relationship. And while specifically today I am talking about romantic relationship dynamics, this applies across the board. You know, my, my relationship with my gorgeous business manager, executive assistant, we pay attention to this. My relationship with my kids, with my friends, with my clients, with my husband, all of it, with my mother, with my sibling, with, you know, any person in my life I care about. What's the experience I'm having? What's the experience they're having? How are we co creating the relationship together? All three pieces matter, right? So this isn't just for romance, but specific to romance. Because I have so many couples in hell ready to light a match, blow it all up, ready to be done. Maybe they already are done. Maybe they're just lonely because they don't want to go through the turmoil of having to lose themselves again in a relationship. Whatever it is, there's a way to have it all. I freaking promise you. And this one plus one equals three formula is what we're going to spend a lot of time on today because it is the gateway to more depth, more emotional intimacy. See more physical intimacy, more spiritual intimacy in your relationships. And it is a way to have a long term, committed relationship, foundationally sound and sustainable for the long run. I have people ask me all the time, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. If I want my partner to be free, doesn't that mean I'm going to Lose them faster because they're going to find the grass is greener. They're going to go and pursue things that actually did disrespect me in the relationship. And then that's gonna mean I can't stay with them. You know, this is a real fear and these are real things, right? People think, oh my gosh, if, if I'm saying I want you to feel free in your experience of me loving you, are you gonna go cheat? Are you gonna go and, you know, all of a sudden disappear for a week, for two weeks, I don't hear from you, are you going to go and take care of yourself in a way that neglects me? Because I want you to be free. If they do, I would suggest this isn't the partner for you. And it would be better to find out because here's the truth, here's a hard truth. Everybody, if they were going to go do all that, they were doing it anyway, they were going to do it anyway. It's not because you just gave them a hall pass and said, all right, green light, go be you go do you boo, I'm not going to stop you. Anything you want, it's on the table. If they're going to choose self destruction or, you know, ways of behaving that are not in alignment with your standards and what you're looking for, wouldn't it be good to have that information sooner rather than later, wouldn't it be good to know that I want to know what's real? If you're new to me, I say this a lot in relationship. Let's have the cards on the table, face up. People compliment me constantly about my ability to communicate. I just communicate from these two premises. Number one, One plus one equals three. I gotta stay in my lane, I want you in yours. Doing whatever you want to do, pursuing life in all of your truth and authentic desires. I want to met and then together, let's co create the relationship. And then here's the deal. I know what my standards are, I know what I'm looking for and I'm honest about that. And I'm not afraid to communicate from this place of. Let's just put the cards on the table, face up so we can gather information, so we can make some decisions as me for my individual life, you for yours, and for our relationship and for the future of our relationship. Okay, so one plus one equals three. Okay, One. We start with you not because I am saying don't care about other people. I'm saying the more you provide and again Go back and watch this entire series of four episodes on getting your needs met, you know, to get even more on this. But if you're not knowing yourself, loving yourself, honoring yourself, paying attention to yourself, making sure you're getting your needs met moment to moment, day after day, your relationships are going to suffer. You're not better in your relationships or in your life or in your pursuit of serving at the highest level, back burnering you and your desires and your needs and your truth. You're just not start with you. You're afraid to be selfish. You're afraid to be too much. You're afraid to get judged for being, you know, so focused on you let other people be uncomfortable and confronted watching you, prioritize you because I'm telling you there's no other person out there that has the right to tell you you should be squashing yourself like a bug and your needs and back burnering you and running on fumes and being a drained battery because that somehow glorified and you know, in our society, valued. I think it's crazy. I think it's insane to dumb it down, betray yourself, give you up, back burner you so that other people can feel like you're being the right type of person. Now take what you want, leave the rest. I am never trying to be right. I say all the time, there's not a right way to live, there's not a wrong way to live. There's what works for you. So if it works for you, please follow it. I'm just here to tell you people not prioritizing themselves first. Starting there, you got relationship drama, turmoil, disconnection issues happening. Start with you. How are you treating you? How are you seeing you? How are you honoring you or not? What is it that you need and how can you correct? By giving it to yourself. By standing in a commitment to being unwavering and unapologetic about your needs, your wants, your feelings, your emotions. I could go on and on being taken care of. It is your job to honor, respect, affect and take care of you first from that place. How much better are you going to be for other people, for your life experience? This is so big. There's no value, there's no gold medal, gold star for deprioritizing yourself the most, back burnering you, putting everybody else ahead of you in. You're not winning any awards and you're not any happier or more fulfilled. I promise. And I'm not wanting anyone to feel bad or feel shamed. I'm just trying to make this really Unattractive. And it's not our go to. To go. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Something is sideways. Let me start with me. What do I want? What do I need? How do I feel? What would honor me, take care of me, respect me now? And how do I get those needs met without needing the world to be different or other people to be different for me to be okay. For me to feel worthy and like my needs get to be met? So start you with you. Let's get back in the driver's seat. Let's take ourselves back. Let's take our lives back. Let's take our desires and deserving this back now from there. That was one. Here's the other one, the other person. Guess whose job it is to do all that for themselves, not you. It's not your job to go in there and fix all that for somebody else. And when you do, you're training them to be dependent on you. Your own energetic batteries are drained because of you, not them. And I say this with no judgment and so much love. We do it all the time. We want to help other people and we want them to help us. We want to validate them. We want them to validate us. And it's a mess. That's more of that codependence that just leads to all this enmeshment and one plus one equals one. And there's no more me anymore in the room. There's no more identity. There's no more independence or self respect when I'm engaging codependently with another person. So all of what I was just talking about you, with you, that's on them. And if they're not doing that, no judgment. That's their path, that's their business. They're okay how they are. It's you needing to stay okay with you, that is your job. It's you needing to be in the pursuit of your independence and your fulfillment. Not unless and until they are on board. Not unless and until it's okay with them. Not unless and until you feel like they're having their needs met too. So now it's okay for you to get yours. Matt. No. Let their individual pursuit of life and love and possibility be theirs. Let yours be yours. And by the way, don't lose your individual independent vision because you're in relationship. Now that you're in relationship, you've been waiting for it your whole life. Don't give up your individual vision for who you are and where your life is going. Because if you do, you'll be resentful. If you do, you're codependent without meaning to be. If you do, life is going to feel really small, really fast. So part of having independence and relationship is you independently in the pursuit of your best life, you doing you, you knowing you, you loving and honoring you in being a space for the other people in your life, your primary relationship specifically, to be in that pursuit for themselves as well. When I'm working with couples, two day couples, intensives, game changing over and over again, I just see where people lost themselves in the name of love, where they lost their ability to pursue their independent vision for their life. And there's no longer a shared vision a lot of the time, or at least one that inspires them. So now let's jump over here to relationship. Okay, me with me, that's 100% my absolute responsibility, you with you, that's 100% yours. Us, the US part, the number three, the relationship, that's 50, 50. Me giving 100% to my half, you giving 100% to your path. And what is so important is that there's a shared vision that inspires you both. While you have your vision, I have my vision. And we get to have all those wheels spinning, all of those possibilities in motion and expanding all at the same time. So when it comes to relationship, we just want to make sure that we respect and understand how to stay in the pursuit of our independent vision while we honor and nourish and nurture the shared vision of the relationship and the individual vision of our partner. It is so possible, it is so doable. If you don't feel free in your relationships, likely you've neglected you or you're over functioning over here. You can't, you know, in a healthy relationship be the one to get the other person to come around. You can't over function and expect the other person to be able to meet you with reciprocity. You go 90%, there's only 10% left for them to do to go to meet you at, right? And I used to be so guilty of this. I didn't expect reciprocity. I wanted to over function and over give at my own expense. Because it felt like that was the right thing to do. It felt like that was me being the superhuman giver. And it was crazy. It was crazy for so many reasons. It created dependency, it created me resentful, frustrated, very, very drained. And I decided a few years ago, it's reciprocity or nothing. Like that is one of my standards. So the next piece I want to talk to you about is when was the last time you checked in on what your standards are in relationship? What are you looking for? You know, I joke a lot and tell the story a lot about how when I first started dating Mark, I had an 11 page list front and back of what I was looking for. It was all stated in the positive, in the possibility of what I wanted. It wasn't here's what I don't want anymore. It was what I want. And it was 11 pages front and back because I had messed up, I had left things out. I wasn't going to do that again. And I was half wanting to scare him off. If I'm really honest. I was like, yeah, he won't be able to handle me. He'll be like every other person I've ever been with and he'll run for the hills when he sees how clear I am about what I want, how confident I am about who I am and where I know my life is going and what type of relationship I want to nurture and create. Amazingly, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I got out my list. He had his own in his wallet. His was half a page. But he knew what he wanted to. We both came to the table individually and independently knowing what we wanted to do with our lives. We both had standards of what we were looking for in a partner and in our next relationship. This is the secret magic sauce formula. I am giving it to you today. I hope you are taking this as seriously as you would as if you paid for this show and this episode like it was a course. Because what I am giving you, people have paid me so much money to help them navigate and walk through. And if you're ready for support in your own life, in your own relationship, privately, great, let's get together. Message me. But this alone will give you so much context to look at. Wait a minute. My bar has been so low unnecessarily. It's time to raise it. It's time to raise it. It's time to no longer default to codependence and dependency and me feeling small and making myself small in the name of love. And it's time to pursue. One plus one equals three. There's me, there's you, there's us. All three are equally important. My job is me and how I show up in the relationship. Your job is you. And the more the cards are on the table, face up, the more I get to respect you on your independent path, wanting everything for you, especially freedom. That's what I expect from my partner as well as part of my standards over here. And I get to have an individual vision, you get to have your own individual vision, and we get to have a shared vision. And when all this is happening, you don't have to be afraid. And if things go sideways, if you find our values just aren't aligned, that's okay. What isn't okay is you settling, caving, playing it safe because you're afraid you're not worth more. You're afraid that if you do decide you can have both independence and relationship, you're going to end up alone. No, that's not okay. And it doesn't have to be true. And it's really easy to be independent and free when you're not in a relationship. But what about taking on the challenge of being independent and free while you're in a relationship? I think that's a goal worth exploring, that's worth playing for, fighting for and pursuing. You deserve it. Independence and our relationship and every relationship breakdown, on some level, I just see it over and over again. People are upset because they've lost themselves in the relationship every time. And you don't have to. I love you. I'm here for you. I see you now. It's time for you to take on loving you and hearing you and validating you and seeing you even more. It's time for you to raise the bar on your relationship. I'm so proud of you. I am here for you. Thank you for staying with me this long. Please. If you know someone that you feel like would benefit from today's show, share it with them again. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Comment what was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Let us know. Subscribe. We'll see you again soon. Get your needs met. You can have independence and a relationship. I promise. Healing is possible, and not just in theory. It's possible for you and for your relationships. I promise you that. Love you so much. See you soon.