Trish Everett asks if you’re silencing your voice for the sake of harmony with your partner. She won’t be mad at you if you say yes.
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“What I really want is for everyone to be friends; my ex-wife, my kids, my new partner,” he said, a line forming across his brow and a smile trying to form on his lips without success. Harmony. Harmony is what he sought above all things. And he was happy to sacrifice many other things to have that harmony. He is a Harmony Junkie.
He is not alone, many of us can have this addiction. Wanting and striving for harmony is a noble approach to life. The problems surface when, in order to get our beloved harmony, other things that we stand for fall away.
What are the signs that you are a Harmony Junkie?
Squirrel Tactics
Just like a squirrel that collects nuts and hides them away for another day, Harmony Junkies do this with parts of themselves. Hide them away. These parts are the bits that get criticised, spark conflict or they have fear that they will not be loved if they show that part of themselves. They only show the parts of themselves that they think will be accepted.
Second Place
“I want the red one,” says the Harmony Junkie,
“I want the blue one!” says their friend, ex, partner, child.
“Ok let’s get the blue one,” says the Harmony Junkie.
Sound familiar? Harmony Junkies make the desires and wishes of other people (especially those who might disrupt the peace) more important that their own. They may even be so practiced at this that they have even forgotten to ask themselves “what do I want?”
Crumble effect
Voices are raised, blame flies and for a Harmony Junkie it can just seem a lot easier to let someone else have their way. They crumble and take the road of least resistance, even if this road has great resistance within them.
Integrity Wrestle
Harmony and the whole truth and nothing but the truth are not always on the same side. Speaking up with absolute honesty can be the fuel of conflict if it is a hard truth. The white lies and the silences are so as to not hurt the other person, not inflame them.
Leg rope attached
A Harmony Junkie’s happiness is tied to the other. And when a big wave of conflict hits, they are pulled under and continue to be held under until the other person can let it go.
So is this you? Are you a Harmony Junkie?
If you are, the first thing I would like to say to you is that your value of peace and need for harmony is real. And it is valuable. And I would suggest that your fear of conflict and your ability to move around it has kept you safe. I would also suggest that it has disempowered you, left you without a voice and that has consequences. If this is what you struggle with, I offer you this as a starting point to build your awareness of when you are swapping your own personal power for a sense of harmony.
Harmony with others is a beautiful thing, but not at the cost of harmony within yourself.
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Originally published on Connectful and is republished here under a Creative Commons license, also republished on Medium.
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