So you've learned to manage your mind and your time enough that you have hours to spend with your family every single day. But now you don't just want to have time with the people you love, you want to love spending that time with them!
You get home from a long day on set and it's hugs all around, but full days together are also full of contention. You start to prefer working away to being home. You are not alone. And your family probably feels distant from you too sometimes. It's nothing personal and there's nothing wrong with you for feeling it.
We're all trying to find the balance between two basic needs - the need for individuality (to be unique, different, and independent) and the need for togetherness (to find commonality with a group of people)
This dichotomy operates in families, film crews, and any relationship.
Sex and Marital Therapist David Schnarch said:
"Giving up your individuality to be together is as defeating in the long run as giving up your relationships to maintain your individuality"
A lot of people start relationships from a place of self-confidence and admiration toward another person, but stay in committed relationships because they've become dependent on that person to feel secure and confident.
In order to maintain a sense of self and still be able to be close to other people, you need self-confidence and integrity. You need to be able to make your own decisions and be honest even when it hurts. And when you both show up in full honesty you are able to love another person for who they really are and not someone they are pretend to be to please you.
Kent and I make a point of practicing brutal honesty in our marriage. We tell each other what we are thinking and feeling *especially* when we know the other person may have a hard time hearing it. But being honest anyway builds our ability to self-validate and maintain individuality.
Be honest. Be yourself. And your relationships become one of the best containers for personal growth. Maintaining your ability to direct yourself and your life in relationship to other people is taking it all to the next level.
