Allan Hardman on Conscious Relationship
“The Case of the Broken Picker”

Balanced Life is delighted that Allan Hardman is writing a column for each issue on Conscious Relationship—this is the eighteenth in his series. We hope you will find it stimulating and useful. Please send questions, comments, and feedback to Balanced Life Magazine and/or Allan. Previous columns can be found on Joydancer.com.

A client was sharing with me recently about her history of disappointing relationships. She described how each one started out with great hopes and enthusiasm, but within a month or two or three, the partners she had picked turned out to be different than she thought they were.

As we talked, she began to see a common theme running through all of those short relationships: An early attraction, an exciting romance period, followed by the realization that she had once again picked an inappropriate partner. Her question for me was, “Why are all men the same? They start out kind and considerate, they say they want to relate deeply, and then they begin wanting to control me and my feelings?”

Before we could look deeper into these dynamics together, her face brightened, and she blurted out, “Oh, I see! My picker is broken! I’m picking the wrong men!”

Ah ha!! A broken picker! Many of the people I work with about their relationships could relate to this simple idea, I’m sure. The question that remains is, Why do people pick inappropriate lovers, mates, or even friends? Is everyone’s picker broken? Well, many are, actually. I have come to see that the most common issue or “problem” in relationships is “Selection Error.” Much of the “work” people are doing to “make” relationships work is the result of broken pickers and inappropriate selecting.

These selection problems are the result of beliefs and agreements that were programmed into our minds when we were very young. The first, and probably the most difficult to overcome, is the idea that love is a commodity that exists outside of ourselves, is in short supply, we have to be good and behave properly to compete for our share, and without it we will perish. If you enter a relationship of any kind based on this agreement from the past, your love will always be distorted by your fear of failing to win and hold the love you learned as a child is essential to your survival. The truth is, you came into this world AS love, AS Life itself, perfect in every way, and there is nothing you have to become or prove in order to be worthy of love. You are it!

Another agreement most of us made in those early days is that in order to earn and hold on to our supply of love and attention, we must be careful about the reactions of others and adapt our emotional reality to their needs. As children many of us learned that our emotional reactions to our parents, siblings, and others were wrong or bad. If we had our mouth washed out with soap for using angry words with our mother, or if we were sent to our rooms until we stopped crying—the message was, “You must not feel what you feel, you must feel what we deem appropriate and acceptable to feel.”

My client with the broken picker made two new agreements with herself that are healing her picker and offering her a new way of enjoying relationships. Perhaps you would like to try them, too. She now agrees:

• I am the source of love, attention, and approval in my life. They are not commodities I have to earn.
• My emotional truth is more important to me than what people think of me and the outcome of my relationships.

By keeping these agreements with herself, my client has been able to heal her picker and take good care of herself in all her relationships.

If your picker is broken, I suggest you consider making these agreements with yourself and see what happens.

Perhaps, true love?

Allan Hardman is a relationship coach, author, inspirational speaker, and Toltec Master, trained by Miguel Ruiz in the tradition of The Four Agreements. He is the author of The Everything Toltec Wisdom Book. For information about Allan’s relationship coaching, a 5 CD set on these agreements, his online Toltec community, or to subscribe to his free e-newsletter, visit: www.joydancer.com. Or call (707) 528-1271. E-mail comments: allan@joydancer.com.