Have You Fallen in Love with Potential?
Have you ever stayed in a relationship (romantic, work-related or friendship) that didn’t match what you desire in partnership, hoping that it would change because you saw the potential?
What happens when we fall in love with the ‘potential’ of someone and forget to pay attention to the reality of the relationship dynamic? In the early stages of lust & fantasy we see what we want to see. Sometimes we even overlook red flags. It’s natural to do this but often an arduous process to unwind when the bubble of our fantasy bursts.
Dancing Between Reality and Illusion
What happens when we fall in love with the ‘potential’ of someone and forget to pay attention to reality because we see them as this whole and beautiful person despite the shadows?
It’s a funny paradox because often our visions and fantasies of potential become the source of creation. For example, entrepreneurs fall in love with the potential of their vision; therapists and coaches see the wholeness of their clients and invite them to unfold into their own wisdom; conscious parents and teachers see the potential in their children and students and encourage them to express their gifts.
I know this territory in many domains of my life. I fell in love with the wholeness and potential of someone. Unfortunately, he wasn’t ready to begin the exploration of finding that in himself. By staying so long in the relationship, I bypassed my own authentic needs.
Sometimes people have the desire to do the personal work, and yet they don’t lean in because a part of them isn't ready. How long do you wait? When do you know it’s time to let go? How do you accept that your needs don’t match and the differences create disconnection rather than creative tension?
Breaking the Cycle
Often, we repeat the pattern until something breaks and we see the illusion. Sometimes that break in the cycle can be realized over a simple cup a tea with a friend and sometimes it can take years being in a particular relationship bleeding between reality and illusion.
It’s a tender journey being human and having conditioned responses that often aren’t conscious.
Some of the questions I’ve asked are:
What made this connection more important than trusting my intuition?
What became more important to me than seeing reality?
What made me more patient with contradictions than I would be in other circumstances?
What pattern is this calling me to see & heal?
What's the opportunity for growth here?
“Even when we feel alone and it seems that the darkness is swallowing us whole can we find a small crack of reality that reminds us we are guided, held and loved?”
Falling in Love with Potential Is Natural
Falling in love with potential is a natural part of the creative process. It’s where the inception of an idea or vision has the potential to manifest into form. Into the potential of what a vision “could become.” The most important part of following this impulse is to follow the breadcrumbs of deep listening, pauses, healthy reflections from others and self-inquiry. As we receive information that challenges our agenda through doses of reality we are invited to keep our eyes and heart’s open to reality over fantasy. This requires presence, knowing our core values, staying in connection to how we want the idea of something versus the reality of it.
What do you long so for much that you are willing to override reality to stay in a fantasy of what you hope it will become? Where is love? Where is control? Where do we ignore what we know so we can stay in fantasy?
When you have the presence to see that your fantasy and reality are not aligned do you let yourself grieve and let go or do you blame and try to bend someone else or a project into something it’s not?
“Cultivating the discipline to pay attention to what’s presenting is where our power of choice and leadership reign.”