One of the most important things I’ve learned about relationships over the past couple of years is making agreements.

 

We make agreements whether we are conscious of it or not.

Most of the time, we are totally oblivious that we are making them at the time and then we often feel victimized and helpless to their framework.

Understanding this helped to me start to see where I’ve made agreements – starting with the ones that really aren’t working for me.

Those are easy. You know the ones. The stuff that gets you pissed off, upset, feeling like your boundaries have been trampled? Yeah, those are the ones.

You see, there was a time where I didn’t see my own choice in the matter.

I couldn’t see clearly my own agency and the role I played in creating these agreements.

 

To be clear, we make them whether we are conscious or not. We make agreements with ourselves and then with others and of course, the agreements we create with ourselves shape the agreements we tend to create with others.

The subconscious part often is rooted in our infancy when the default pattern was to agree to whatever we needed to do to make sure of our survival – not always the most ideal way to start with a fresh and brand new human nervous system, but it’s what we got, and it is perfectly capable of being fluid, adaptive, and transformative.

In other words, you did not get broken by your shitty childhood experiences and trauma.

We can thrive despite all of the fucked up patterns that shaped us because we were designed to do so – and no, that doesn’t excuse the fucked up people or experiences you went through, it just means yes, they were fucked up, and yes, you’re designed to be ok.

 

I’m writing about agreements today because I’ve been sitting with my own underlying agreements I’ve made with myself over my life and with others.

One particular one I’ve struggled with is why I have a tendency to abandon myself in deep intimate relationships. It’s not complete abandonment, but there is a willingness I have to put my own core and deep values aside for logical reasons of nurturing and sustaining a relationship I also value.

Basically it’s a willingness to ignore my knowing – my deep inner knowing.

 

An example that comes to mind is the last 7 months of my relationship with Alex. We had a wonderful relationship. Amazing communication, incredible partnership, and I had literally manifested him into my life. When he presented himself to me in the human form, I already knew – it was him.

When he suggested that we move to a city on the Caribbean coast, it all made logical sense on paper, but in my heart of hearts, I knew it was not for me. I ignored my knowing. Because I was afraid of losing this wonderful man, this wonderful relationship – my manifestation.

Knowing is always right, logic or not because it is our soul essence.

We moved and 7 months later, we were gracefully uncoupling. I was heartbroken because I knew. Knowing is funny like that. No matter what, we cannot force what is not for us. Eventually it unfolds as it’s meant to be.

But my deep curiosity was and still is with my choice to abandon my knowing.

 

At some point, early on, before I was really aware, I had made some kind of pact with myself. The gist of it went something like “trust your knowing, but here are some caveats to keep you alive”. Clearly one of the caveats is to trade my knowing and deep agency for safety and protection in deeply intimate relationships.

Wow.

 

Awareness is one thing.

Writing that and seeing it is another.

Feeling and embodying it is yet another.

 

As you can tell from the story above, it ended anyway, regardless whether I listened to my knowing or not, but the willingness to abandon self left me with something else – mistrust.

When we make a habit of dishonouring our own knowing, we begin to erode our capacity to trust ourselves. We default to unconscious agreements instead, further eroding self trust.

It’s a vicious cycle really. This perpetuation of mistrust means we get totally disconnected from the most important relationship of all – the relationship we cultivate with ourselves.

We make decisions based in fear and shame, rather than honesty and compassion. We become unwilling to look at parts of ourselves that need the most tenderness and compassion.

 

Cultivating trust is one of the most important agreements we can make with ourselves.

 

In the reorientation and reconfiguration of my own personal agreements with myself, one of the biggest ones is taking full responsibility in my choices. Seeing all situations in my life through the lens of my own inner intelligence.

I cannot control anything else but my own inner landscape.

Taking back responsibility lets me start to rebuild and strengthen trust in myself, trust in my own knowing.

 

In the self development space there is this idea of trusting your yes and trusting your no.

We say things like “no is a complete sentence” and “you don’t need to justify your no”.

As I shape-shift my inner agreements to align with my own soul truth, I agree to trust my know.

Trust that my know does not need to be justified (even to myself).

Trust that my know is suffice to say no.

 

I feel like there may be a part 2 in the future.

Stay tuned.