So much attention around dating and relationship goes to the Red Flag. The warning signs that we shoulda woulda coulda paid attention to – but didn’t. And then it was a year or five or twenty later and we were belly crawling out of the Love Trenches, getting airlifted out of The Rabbit Hole, resetting the GPS from Hell in a Handbasket (oops) to Bat Outta Hell –destination Ground Zero. Yes, Ground Zero. Mending our broken hearts, psyches, wallets just so that we can start again FROM SCRATCH.
It’s hard to feel like you’re starting over.
Mostly because the narrative around ending a relationship is one of failure, loss, waste, pain (FLWP). All of the ego top faves!!!
If it went so very badly last time, or like the last 27 times can you even imagine another week, month, year, decade spent all Roofied up on deception, lies, betrayal, emotional avoidance, toxicity, crazy with a pretty face?
What has materially changed in you that will prevent you from falling into the very same trap the next time?!!! *flash to psycho shower scene *audience screams.
And then it comes, the sweet sweet answer in sweet relief.
LOOKING FOR RED FLAGS, that is what will save you, right?!!
All the memes say so.
All of the Tik Toks.
The World is ROFLMAO at the poor pathetic genetically inferior among us who cannot for the life of us see Red Flags!
Ha. Ha. Fucking ha.
Well we be Foo’s no more.
We need to learn. We need to study. We need infrared vision. Great Horned Owl rotating its head 180 degrees and locking in on a field mouse from space level stealth. That mouse only talks about themselves!
AWOL sniper on a grassy knoll level focus. That President is racist and sexist.
Micheal Cera 33 rules for surviving a Zombie Apocalypse level vigilance. That date was vapid and glassy eyed.
Red Flag Hunting is like a drug, isn’t it, promising not just to save you from future ruin (FLWP) BUT also a redemption for the misery of your past self. A restitution of sorts. Every time you spot a red one, shoot it down, RUN the other direction, light the flare and sound the alarm and your failing, losing, wasteful suffering past self gets some dignity back.
Don’t they?
Oh Lovelies. I wish it was that simple.
Or maybe I don’t even.
Here is the thing.
Hyper focussing on Red Flags causes us to see everyone as a Zombie Narcissist and also to pretty much shut down.
Even innocent babies are flagged and get thrown out with the bathwater. A remarkable hyperbole if I may say. Zombie babies. How can I get appointed to the hyperbole creating committee? I could influence a next generation.
The thing about the shit you went through with Fred or Wilma, is that once you go through it you know that shit well.
You gain some awareness.
It’s kind of like contracting Covid –you have some immunity now.
You don’t need more spike proteins.
What you do need is to compassionately and lovingly figure out what you wanted and needed so badly that you closed your eyes in the first place, and forgive yourself for that.
You aren’t going to fall for the same thing twice.
But those SAME illusions, ego judgments, FEAR LOSS WASTE PAIN that urged you to panicked action will try again.
JUST STAY WITH ME FOR A MOMENT HERE. The big reveal is coming stat.
I knew this woman. She was a babe. Like super cool, smart, gorgeous. Whole life ahead of her. We had a chat about her impending nuptials ahem that was her upcoming wedding and she confessed to me because I am a safe warm place for deep deep scary hidden secrets, that she was going to get married even though she didn’t think her relationship would last the year. She needed so terribly badly to be seen as joyful, happy, successful, to bring smiles to the faces of her parents and friends and HIM that she closed her eyes to all else. The colour of the flag was not going to save her because her eyes were closed.
If I am deadly afraid that my life is passing me by, if the voice in my head is saying “it’s now or never”, if I am Thelma and Harvey Keitel is screeching up burning rubber as my future in prison looms, a welcoming wink from Louise and I’m gonna rev ‘er over the ledge. Know what I am sayin’?
The reason it terrifies us so much to have made mistakes is the reason we make them in the first place.
The Red Flags are in us. Dun dun dun.
What’s a little selfishness compared to a life alone, a failure to find love and the white picket fence?
What’s a little avoidance compared to the bully at our neck breathing hot and mocking that we are facing failure, loss, waste and suffering?
How do we hear the call of truth with that creepy whisper in our ear?
Look I am not saying every and all reason for a bad relationship is simple.
But I am saying that those prickles of “don’t do this”, the hair raising moments, the confessional at the restaurant with that nice lady who counsels for a living confiding that we are going through the motions catastrophe be damned? Those are fueled and fed by the painful shit judgment that we have done it wrong or will do it wrong and are doomed to fail and our desperate desire to outwit the terror and failure.
If you want to outwit a red flag you need THE OPPOSITE of ego’s terrifying fear in your ear.
That voice gets the villain in the front door.
Try these lines:
You can’t screw this up.
It’s okay to feel your feelings.
I love you no matter what.
You deserve to feel supported, loved, prioritized, included.
You are protected.
We don’t really start over.
That is the secret sauce.
Our wisdom goes with us.
Our willingness to hold ourselves up, above it all, to damn the crowds, to love ourselves first creates a relationship that a “new” person can climb on board.
So instead of setting your sights on red, look for what you need, value; what matters.
Look for the ways they make you feel safe, seen, supported.
Set your sights on safety.
Love isn’t a test.
So give yourself the Get Out of Hell card today.
As soon as you accept that you cannot fail you can start to lean in.
See what will truly serve you.
And hold out for it.
And that gets a green flag from me.
Much love,
Erin