Women Gone WILD: Wealth

Filled with stories from women who have contributed to the new definition of wealth and have helped others find a more abundant life, Women Gone Wild: Wealth gives you the raw, unfiltered truth of what wealth really is.

“When we alchemise our own, & our ancestral, stories into our ​biggest gifts, the whole game changes.”

- Genevieve Searle, Ancestral Wealth

Junkies & Narcissists

Why owning that you are one could be the best thing for your relationships.

By Genevieve Searle

• What do I most deeply desire to receive in this/a relationship?
• What do I most deeply desire to offer to the relationship?
• What role do I want to play?
• What role do I want the other to play?
• How does this look in practical everyday life?

These key questions are rarely asked in relationships yet, if they were, could dramatically ​improve many relationships.

Here’s the thing: Relationships are ALWAYS an exchange. Every relationship is a contract. ​Sounds brutal, but it's true it’s just that most of the time the contracts are covert. That is, the ​exchange is unspoken.

So, we don't know what the other is wanting or expecting, and of course, then it fails ​because invariably we don't measure up to the expectations and obligations that we don't ​know we're under.

Or we get tired of playing the role we find ourselves in (hello personal evolution) but have ​no way of renegotiating because there was never a negotiation to begin with.

We don't ask these questions for a whole range of reasons:

· We don't know to ask in the first place,

· We don't know how to ask.

· We assume everyone has the same needs, desires, expectations, values and ​understanding of the “rules” in a relationship or what a “good” relationship looks like– heads ​up, they don’t.

· We don't actually know what we want or who we are, and/or

· We're ashamed of what we most deeply desire, so we avoid asking the questions and ​shining the light on those scary places.

In addition to this, we don't want to play a role. We just want to be the fullest version of ​who we are and be loved for it. Which is cool, until life happens. Bills, kids trauma, growth, ​evolution, sickness, etc. If you don't know who you are or what you're doing when these ​things happen it is an extremely painful, confusing, nd challenging time, leading to toxic ​arguments or suppressed resentment, etc. Suddenly your partner, the one you love so much, ​isn’tt there for you. So now you're researching the meaning of narcissist checking off all the ​boxes feeling confident that they're one and asking yourself “How could I've missed this ​before?”

Want to know a secret?

Everyone’s somewhat narcissistic. Guess what else?

Everyone’s also a “junkie”.

“What???” I hear you say “I’m NOT a junkie!!!”

Hate to break it to you, and I say this with love for your highest evolution, yeah you are. ​We are all “hormonal junkies” trying to get our next “fix” of our dominant hormone.

Let me explain…

We're all seeking safety as a baseline for navigating life. The feeling of safety happens ​when our nervous systems are regulated and it's our dominant hormones that are key to ​nervous system regulation.

Each of us has one, sometimes two, key hormones that we need to regulate more than any ​other one. We still have all the other hormones, and many more, but there is one that is the ​key hormone that each person needs to pay the most attention to. They are: Oxytocin, ​Prolactin, Serotonin, Vasopressin, Dopamine and ACTH.

When chronically stressed (most of us most of the time!), we automatically move into ​survival mode activating flight, fight, freeze and/or fawn responses. These are all strategies ​for survival but survival and safety is found in different ways by different people.

Oxytocin seeks regulation through connection, Prolactin through service and being needed, ​Serotonin through pleasure, time and space, Vasopressin through serenity, rules and order, ​Dopamine through achievement or the pursuit of something and ACTH through action and ​excitement,

This all sounds pretty good, until we remember that when we’re dysregulated we’re ​generally not at our best and so our unconscious strategies for getting back to baseline safety ​can look pretty ugly. How’s clinginess, lying to spin the truth so we look better and are ​loved, neediness and martyrdom, depression, stonewalling, resentment, rigidity, coldness, ​harshness, blind pursuit of something regardless of anything else, addiction, grandstanding, ​triangulation, closed mindedness, anger, self-absorption, attacking and belittling?

These are all symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system seeking safety and on top of that, ​two different people with different survival strategies in a relationship will fire off each ​other.

Let’s be honest when we're dysregulated we’ll do just about anything to regulate and we’ll ​convince ourselves that our behaviour is totally justified.

To make it extra tricky, culturally we've attached positive and negative meanings to ​various regulation strategies. Some are “Good” and some “Bad“.

Usually when we try to regulate through connection, service, people pleasing or martyrdom ​it's “good”. When we try to regulate through solo pursuits or hard boundaries it's selfish. ​Sorry, but they can all be just as manipulative as the other depending on what’s driving the ​behaviour.

At the end of the day, we're all selfish and we're all junkies trying to get our hormonal fix. ​Which, when talking about relationships, leads me back to the original questions and the ​invitation to get honest and clear with yourself.

· What do you want in relationship? Like, what do you deeply most secretly desire?

· What do you want to offer to the relationship? How do you want to show up?

· What exchange do you want there to be?

· What does an ideal relationship look like to you?

· What are your core wounds, values and needs?

Thankfully, the answer to all of these are written in your epigenetic and hormonal wiring, ​which is awesome because when we take it back to biology, our shittiest traits and most ​shamed parts can find some grace. Here we no longer need to hide who we are and by ​exploring ourselves and our partners through this lens we get to find out if our relationship ​desires and needs are actually a match.

From this place we can start being much better versions of ourselves and can consciously ​create more beautiful, honest, connected relationships that can ultimately feel much like the ​fairy-tale we secretly desire.