Week 1 of Blog Challenge

Maxim Filimonov
Aug 25, 2017 · 6 min read

With this blog I’m planning to start a challenge for myself. A challenge to write a blog per week to reflect on things coming up. It will be in either blog or video format and I’ll keep it consistent each week.

The purpose is for me to have a space to vent and demonstrate extreme vulnerability.

Back to the Motherland

This week I’ve spent back in Moscow in my parents house. One of the interesting things I found is how Moscow has changed in the last 6 months, it’s one of the shortest trips I have had outside of Russia for a while and the amount of changes is stunning.

This is the view you see almost everywhere in the city Center now. Many streets have become pedestrian only and it’s quite pleasant experience to walk around. I was genuinely surprised by amount of progress made in such short period of time.

Now as we are starting on some soft stuff let’s transition slowly to something more interesting. Specifically, the challenges of the week.

Numbness

The first big challenge which came up during this week was numbness. I a have started to feel it creeping on me while I was in Australia couple of weeks ago, and it hit me here full on.

Numbness is the state when I feel disconnected from my own feelings. I don’t really feel sad or happy, just feel nothing… It’s a strange state to be especially after Ubud and maybe it’s necessary to help my brain and body to recharge?

Though, I do struggle a lot in that state as I feel like I’m not suppose to be there and should shine brighter and be weirder. It might be also connected to. the fact that I choose to not to go dance here in Russia.

I had opportunity to go to multiple dances and I kept finding reason not go to them. I hope that changing environment will help me to avoid this pattern in the future and it’s something really toxic fuelled by my fear of being seen too weird or maybe not weird enough ?

Long distance relationship

My lover has been away for over a month from my physical space and I’m finding it very difficult to being able to hold the space of love while we cannot even see each other. She disappeared for about a week completelywhile she was in Mongolia((cellular issues) which did trigger a lot of feelings of worry and care for her, and as she reappeared early this week I stopped feeling much. It was less like longing for partner and more like genuine worry for a friend who disappeared. So why do I think of my partner as friend instead of lover?

Confidence – or lack of there of

After many hours of reflection I came to realisation that it’s connect to my insecurity about the relationship. I feel that insecurity in the relationship. – started couple of weeks ago translated to insecurity in other aspects of my life? I’ve created turtle shell which caused me to feel less and judge more. The jar from which I cannot see the label. The label which is the same thing over and over again, fear of **not being good enough** for my partner. Fear of them finding someone better.

Fear causes us to behave in many different ways often irrational and I feel that my subconsciousness choose a very specific way. A way which leads to me jumping the ship on the first sign of iceberg, of avoiding to let the situation of being left behind even happen.

Even wonder who are the. first people to leave relationships? People like myself with fear of abandonment, option 1 is we force our partners to leave relationship with us so we can proof our own story to ourselves. The story that our lover will **ALWAYS** leave us.

That would actually require one to face the fear which I’m apparently too scared to do so instead I choose option 2 – run away. Over and over I have created a story for myself that my partner will leave me and I choose to leave them instead, it might be wrapped in some sugar coating and I might not be end up saying “I’m leaving” at the end but the end result is the same. As the end result is the same my subconscious recognises the pattern and prepares itself for defend which is shutting down emotions such as missing my lover and feeling love and compassion towards them and instead focusing on lust and hunting of other prospects…

Now what ?

So they say that the first step is recognition of the problem. Okay let’s presume that I have recognised the problem. The question is what to do about it ? Tackling the issue at the root would be to breaking linking between my own insecurity and insecurity of my relationship. While **AT THE SAME TIME** coming back to space of love and compassion to my partner.

Honestly, I still don’t know how to do them both – when I do what I want, when I hangout with friends, when I take care of myself I often feel disconnected from my partner… I know that the problem is actually not specific to long distance relationship and I find it’s way harder to reconnect in long distance. While you are in same physical space it’s relatively easy to get back into connecting space especially for people like myself for whom touch is one of the most important languages of love. And I’m not talking about Sex in particular here, just being able to hug and hold person you feel disconnected from heals really quick. That’s not possible to do while you are away from each other… Soooo….

I’m honestly puzzled at this stage as I don’t know how to proceed further. I feel I like if I focus on myself I will destroy my relationship, if I focus on my relationship I will end up being needy which will lead to the same results. And now I don’t want to just “let the universe decide” – universe has nothing to do with that.

Finances… or is it my fault?

On top of everything I’m starting to realise that my current income is only enough to provide for myself which is partially the source of tension in our relationship. Not because my partner expects me to provide for her completely, no not at all. It’s more a story about being able to support your partner when they are experiencing challenges. And we come back to full circle as for me to being able to provide financial support for my partner I need to have confidence to find a job with better pay or to ask for raise at my current job. So full circle… It all comes to the same root issue, the issues of being able to believe in yourself and solve one problem at the time.

End Goal

One useful thing I learned from going through Mindvalley courses is distinguishing between mean and end goal. The mean goal in that scenario would be to earn 5000USD so that I can provide for me and my partner, the end goal is different. I’m struggling to formulate it, and I feel like it’s something like to being able to provide financially not just for myself. The end goal is not necessary attached to my partner, it’s more about contribution – to being able to contribute, to help someone, one needs to have enough themselves. If my own income is barely covering my expenses I cannot help financially neither my family, nor my partner, nor my friends.

So i finish with defining this end goal and focus on it – being able to contribute financially to people close to me. Let’s see what progress I can make around it next week.

)
Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade