Facing Incompatibility

Are you capable of providing or offering what's in the best interests of the people, places and things in your life?  Are the people, places and things in your life capable of providing or offering you what's in your best interests?  Essentially, as we awaken, or become more conscious, we become aware of what our authentic needs, wants and desires are. We become aware of what we desire to give and provide as well as have and receive.  We may also become aware of that which is beyond all exchange models, direction-based concepts and defined patterns of relating...which may be a blog for another time.  Anyway, what often can be a challenge is when we realize that we are incompatible with people, places and things.  In other words, we cannot provide or offer what's in their best interests.  Or we realize that a person, place or thing cannot offer or provide what's in our best interests.  In other words, we can't love and be loved in the current configuration.  This can be quite sobering or even grief inducing.  Sometimes it can be too painful to face, as once you do, change is pretty much inevitable.

In theory, compatibility is easy.  It's a matter of acknowledging your needs, wants and desires and bringing in the people, places and things that match that.  "Going for what you want" or "having what you want in life" could be seen as such a straightforward thing or just a matter of time.  So why, for many of us has this not been so easy?  Or, why have so many given up on this?  There are many possible reasons, but there are a few that I would like to explore here.  One is that many of us learned to be inauthentic, to change, modify or adjust ourselves to fit the needs, wants and desires of those around us.  In other words, we learned how to make ourselves compatible, typically because there was a physical or emotional consequence of not doing it that was deemed more painful or unbearable than doing it.  We may have done this to gain closeness to a primary caregiver, or belong to a group, or become recognized by someone or to become useful, helpful, good, valuable, important etc.  The reasons behind the actions or choices may be different for each of us, yet for 'whatever reason' we did it.  And we may have even built our identities based on that, such as: I am flexible, I am easy going, I am good at getting along with anyone, or I am good at fitting in.  Also, as a result of the snow ball effect of learning how to be inauthentic, and then building an identity around being that way, and then being in environments where your ability to change, modify or adjust is valued, praised, appreciated, or admired, you may become trapped by the unwillingness to lose all that praise, appreciation and connection if you "become authentic" or admit to the incompatibility.  Often there is also an underlying belief, as a result of being around people, in places and with things that you aren't authentically compatible with, that compatibility doesn't actually exist!  So you may have an underlying perception that no-one, no-where and no-thing is capable of "matching" your authentic needs, wants, desires and preferences.  It can be quite a challenge to face that possibility, sit with that fear, and be willing to get curious about the potential that that underlying perception is inaccurate, and that compatibility does exist and if you do commit to allowing your authentic needs and desires to emerge you have a chance at them being met and fulfilled.

So, why can incompatibility be painful to face?  It may require a deconstruction of identity.  People, places or things cannot be in your life in the same way.  You may have to face choices that you made to "make yourself compatible" that aren't easy to admit to.  You may go through a process of not knowing who you are and not knowing what you need, want or desire because you learned how to deny and suppress that in the process of becoming inauthentic or "adapted" to what was around you.  You may have a fear that there isn't a place for you, or people for you or things for you.  You may have to face that grief, or shut down, or that which you gave up on along the way.  This is quite the process, that I've been undergoing personally over the last number of years.  It's amazing what becomes possible as we see more clearly what has gone on in our lives and what is going on now, so as to find our way to that which is true and right for each of us.  If you'd like to read other blogs on the topic I recommend, Why We Resist Having What We Truly Desire, Beyond Coping and Acknowledging & Transmuting Let Down.