"Because I no longer desire my other half. I instead desire my other whole..."
So, can I ask you a question? One that may be deemed a little too personal?
Well, I want to know if the healed you would have chosen the person lying beside you? If you hadn't been toting along your trauma pieces, if your self-esteem wasn't dangling so low, if you had forgiven your mother, and your daddy issues weren't lingering around...would you have chosen any differently?
The dialogue surrounding therapy and mental health has obviously surged in the last few years, so let me settle this debate rather quickly. Yes, therapy is for black people. Yes, therapy is for the chakra stone carriers and the spiritual too. Unlike the club, there is no age requirement, and unlike your place of worship, you are expected to truly come as you are. Specifically, when it comes to relationships, therapy is so essential.
In school, we were taught many things but I personally cannot pinpoint any course that taught us that a 1/2 and 1/2 may mathematically equal a whole, but when it comes to life you need to be whole all on your own. They didn't inform us that dragging our broken pieces into relationship after relationship would only leave each other cut up, battered, and bruised. I don't know if anyone realized that so many of us would be functioning as grown children because so many painful situations once stunted our growth.
When you remain unhealed, relationships will simply highlight the insecurities and triggers that still exist inside of you. You'll project on one another damage that the other person isn't even responsible for. It's interesting because you can almost always tell if a person is truly healed or not by examining the people they choose.
When you lack self-worth, you'll allow just anybody to determine it. When you value yourself and operate out of wholeness, it'll be evident in the people you attract and are attracted to. This is why it is vital that you tend to the most important relationship in your life and that's the relationship you have with yourself.
If you are not yet married, I highly encourage you to seek individual counseling first. Individual counseling will allow you to unmask your own dysfunction, hold a mirror to your own toxic traits, and provide you strategies to heal and not just place Band-aids over your life. Sometimes people think that only people with messed-up childhoods need therapy, but no. Any time something drastic happens in life such as a big life change, a loss of a loved one, pregnancy, or an added responsibility, you become a different person. Therapy can aid you during those swift and sometimes challenging transitions.
Individual counseling can prove beneficial though even if you are in a relationship or marriage. I know! I know! We've heard it all before that you can't change no man! Well, you can't change a woman either. The best thing we can do for our loved ones and anyone entering our lives in the future is to mend our within and then, pour into ourselves until we are full. Some counselors might suggest couples therapy first to grasp the areas of concern and then work with each individual person while others may complete individual assessments before doing the heavy lifting within the couple.
So, no offense to Big Mama, but therapy does not mean that you're crazy or that you're weak. It means that you are strong enough to say, "Hey, I'm not okay, but I'm going to be." It really is time for you to look under your own hood and if necessary, close down shop to tend to that internal maintenance. Friend, you deserve that much!
So here's to being whole so that we may attract nothing less than that. Here's to diving into love instead of continuing to drown in it. Here's to you working on you, and me working on me. I promise we'll all be better because of it...