02 Apr Looking for Passion in all the Wrong Places

Kerry Cohen (2008, p. 180), author of “Loose Girl:  A Memoir of Promiscuity writes:

I shouldn’t be with him.  I know that.  I’m not stupid.  Yet I make no moves.  I tell a friend, “If I weren’t so damn attracted to him, maybe I would leave.”  And this is true.  But I don’t tell her the real problem.  There’s something deeply wrong with me if I’m so attracted to someone who can’t have a relationship, someone who can’t love me, who can’t even love himself.  I’ve learned at this point there’s no shot I can receive, no pill I can take, no therapy I can be a part of that will give me the resolve to do the things I need to do to be loved.  It’s a choice.  A simple choice.  I say I want intimacy.  I say I want to be loved.  But really, I’m petrified.  The straight truth is, I don’t know if I have it in me, and I’m scared to find out that I can’t.

Cohen wrote a memoir about a particular decade in her life where she gave up parts of herself in order to gain outside validation from men.  She needed the validation that she couldn’t provide for herself.  This caused her to make decisions that put her at danger and seek individuals who weren’t available.  I think many people can relate to the thirst for attention from a partner, losing sight of your own passions.

The desire and longing becomes your passion and reason for living, versus painting, writing or learning something new that moves you.  There’s a deep hole and there’s nothing from the outside world that will fill it. The hole becomes filled from developing practices of self-love and self-expression.  You come to realize you’re chasing something you never received as a child.  Your little girl is in control and the only way to create change is to develop a discipline to soothe her.  Your functioning adult must develop skills to manage when fear or anxiety takes over.  Breathing, calling a friend, writing, singing, fellowship, visioning–these are the tools that bring us to sanity and direction towards what you’re truly here on this planet to do.