relationships

The Discipline of an Open Heart

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I have come to believe that two complex and opposing truths can almost always coexist.

In my relationships, I live with low expectations and yet I move through life held by hope. This balance keeps my thoughts grounded in context and my heart deliberately soft. I chose long ago to keep my heart open—not out of naïveté, but because it is how I wish to live.

I love the sensation of my heart expanding and leaning outward. The quiet intimacy of falling in love with life itself, with strangers, with fleeting moments. Love, in its purest form, centres my soul and grants me the freedom to breathe deeply and without restraint.

I understand, perhaps too well, the fragility of being human—our limitations, our fear, and the courage it takes simply to remain present.

To reflect honestly, to grow, to heal, and to walk this life with groundedness, insight, and discernment requires a devotion that unfolds over a lifetime. These qualities are not acquired quickly or easily. They are refined through lived experience, through humility, through loss. To be human in this way is, in itself, an act of courage.

This understanding has shaped my commitment to myself and to how I choose to experience life.

Within that space, I have learned to hold strict boundaries alongside a wide and generous concept of love. I no longer confuse openness with self-abandonment, nor closeness with obligation. Love does not always disappear; sometimes it simply changes shape.

And when it does leave, I trust that it has fulfilled its purpose in my life. It was contextualised love—true for a season, meaningful in its time—and now it asks to be released.

I have also committed to no longer chasing closeness, nor over-explaining myself in the hope of being understood. I will never again abandon myself in order to be chosen.

I sit firmly in my own sense of self-worth, self-respect, and dignity. From that place, I am acutely aware of when these values are honoured and when they are not.

I do not confront what diminishes them with drama or force. I allow silence to speak. I allow attitudes to fill the space between us. And only when they have settled fully do I step away—quietly, with my head held high.

Living from this place of low expectations and hope has given me both emotional lightness and depth. It has released me from the weight of frustration, from the impulse to grieve endlessly or to fix others simply because I can see their potential, or the imagined potential of what we might become.

I no longer live in possibility.
I live in presence.
In the clarity of what is, rather than what could be.

This way of being took time to embrace. Yet once I understood the emotional state from which I wished to experience life, the path revealed itself—its skills, its limitations, its clear choices.

What emerged was a way forward that honoured this singular and precious life.

We are all layered beings, revealing only fragments of ourselves at any given moment—the parts that feel safe enough to share. And in that space, for me, low expectations held alongside hope become an act of respect.

For the other.
And for myself.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

From Performing Empathy to Precise Empathy

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I am on holidays in the wonderful Moree, in NSW, Australia. Moree is famous for its therapeutic Artesian Hot Springs, its rich agricultural land (wheat, cotton, pecans), vibrant Art Deco heritage buildings, significant Aboriginal culture, and its role in the history of Australia’s Civil Rights Movement, notably the Freedom Ride protest at its public pool.

In this space, my mind went into what is empathetic performance vs precise empathy.

Empathetic performance is displayed care that is driven by fear of judgment rather than genuine feeling.

In my youth, I performed empathy because I did not want to be seen as cold, bad, or immoral. This showed with me knowing the right words to say while feeling nothing in particular, helping others because others were watching and judging me in my community, staying longer than I wanted to at a celebration because I did not want to come across as uncaring, seriously over-explaining my good intentions, sacrificing my comfort, time, or boundaries to maintain a moral image but ultimately feeling resentful, drained, or faulsely exposed afterward.

I performed empathy not because it was arising inside of me but because I felt socially pressured to do so.

Is this wrong though?

How many times, do we encourage our children to say “thank you” when given a present?

How many times, even as adults, do we say “thank you” for a present that is clearly not something that we want, need or desire?

 Afterall, at no point in time, was I being cruel, or lacked empathy, nor was I being selfish.

I stopped performing empathy in my 40s which coincided with healing my nervous system and thus my gaining the skills to retrain my nervous system.

My nervous system had adapted intelligently to an environment where moral safety depended on appearance, not truth.

The covert message I received in my youth “How I am perceived matters more than what I intend.”.

The learning did not come from one event. It was a social pattern I picked up that communicated my tone and not my meaning was important, that behaving neutral was interpreted as being emotionally cold, being corrected emotionally rather than being emotionally understood was the norm, and appearing good prevented escalation,

My nervous system optimized for social survival.

What happened in my 40s that was the beginning of me being able to heal my nervous system?

My father died.

I performed a lot for him. I was the good girl, the dutiful daughter and the child he was extremely proud of because I had achieved my father, as a migrant in Australia, what he had not been able to achieve – a successful career, a lovely home, a good family and financial security.

So, when he died, something inside of me cracked open, like a volcano that erupted from the centre of its core.

I no longer wanted to identify as the good girl, the dutiful daughter or the child who sought my fathers pride and fundamentally approval.

And it hit me like a brick in the head – I NO LONGER FELT THE NEED TO SEEK MY FATHER’S APPROVAL and by definition, I no longer had to shift ANYONE’S approval.

This whole and big world opened up to me and I started shaking off beliefs that I no longer believed, narratives that were not mine to carry, dreams that I never cared for, relationships that had long ago not served me but drained me, clothes that I had outgrown….I sifted and springcleaned my life.

I felt empowered.

I also bled onto others and that was my only and biggest regret.

Strangely, it was the ability to truly feel and own regrets that opened up a lifetime of grief and being able to look at my life with acute truth and without judgement that gave birth to me healing my nervous system.

Within the space of regrets is the birth of humility. The voice that that knows what is mine to carry, what is not, and to act without needing to appear important, good, or superior.

And I stopped proving my goodness, stopped defending my image, embraced my limits without shame, accepted my strengths, admitted my limitations without collapsing, discerned the boundary what was not mine to fix and I was able to admit when I was wrong without losing my dignity.

And I found this amazing calm, unhurried energy and quiet confidence and I was able to behave with ethical clarity and in that space I learned the power of “I will care where care is actually needed.”

I found home in precise empathy and I started to live in truth.

I cannot be everything to everyone.

I have finite capacity.

And the most powerful truth – not all suffering belongs to me.

Interestingly, my heart has become bigger, not smaller. I feel emotionally safe now — safe enough to feel, and safe enough to say no.

I applaud my younger self, because behaving in socially appropriate ways, even when I did not yet feel them, was not deception — it was adaptation. It was intelligence. It was a nervous system doing exactly what it needed to do in order to survive an environment where belonging depended on appearance, not truth.

That version of me was not wrong. She was learning.

But I no longer need to live there.

Today, empathy no longer needs to be performed. It arises – or it doesn’t – and I trust that distinction. I care where care is actually needed, not where it is demanded, expected, or socially rewarded. I can stay present without self-erasure, compassionate without collapse, ethical without exhaustion.

This is what precise empathy has given me:

  • clarity without cruelty,
  • humility without shame,
  • and a deep, embodied permission to be truthful.

I have learned that I cannot be everything to everyone.

That my capacity is finite.

And that not all suffering belongs to me.

And in accepting this, I have finally found something I never had before – a sense of home inside myself.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

Respect or Deference: The Quiet Difference That Shapes Our Relationships

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A relationship based on respect versus one based on deference produces entirely different outcomes.

A relationship based on respect says:

  • “You and I are equal in dignity.”
  • Differences of opinion, boundaries, and needs can be spoken.
  • Boundaries are allowed and respected.
  • Authority can exist without humiliation.
  • Differences do not threaten the bond.
  • Responsibility is shared.
  • Repair is possible.

Succinctly, respect is mutual recognition.
It requires emotional maturity, tolerance of discomfort, accountability, and a stable sense of self.

Deference, on the other hand, is a relationship based on:

  • “I feel safe only if you don’t challenge me.”
  • One person adapts; the other does not.
  • One person must stay quiet, agreeable, or invisible.
  • Authority is experienced as a threat unless it belongs to me.
  • Conflict is dangerous.
  • Withdrawal or punishment replaces dialogue.

Deference, briefly put, is one-sided safety.
It requires submission, silence, self-erasure, and avoidance of accountability.

Relationships based on deference are often experienced as calm—initially.
But that calm exists only because tension is suppressed, nothing is named, and one person absorbs all discomfort while the other never has to adjust. Calm is maintained because one person shrinks, becomes small, and is rendered insignificant.

Deference-based relationships are unhealthy because one person’s comfort is protected while the other remains indefinitely uncomfortable and is expected to accept their lot. This creates an emotional hierarchy—often reinforced by wealth, status, or power.

That hierarchy collapses quickly when one person sets a boundary, asks for fairness, asserts authority, or names the impact of the other’s behaviour. Because they no longer fall into line, they are seen as the problem. The system fails the moment adult emotional maturity is required.

For emotional hierarchy to function, one person must swallow resentment, apologise for being reasonable, over-function, doubt themselves, and avoid naming the truth.

In short: a relationship based on deference feels calm only as long as one person disappears.
A relationship based on respect can tolerate truth, boundaries, and shared authority.

I grew up in a household that expected deference rather than respect. Love was tied to endurance, not mutual adjustment. My parents held the emotional gravity: family life organised itself around their moods, while I adapted, managed, smoothed over, absorbed, and stayed quiet. Conflict threatened the bond because love was equated with restraint.

When my father died, my family imploded. I became estranged from my mother. I grieved that loss for two years. And then—unexpectedly—it gave me freedom: to find my voice, my sense of self, and my dignity.

I finally found self-respect.

The greatest gift my parents inadvertently gave me was this clarity:
relationships grounded in mutual respect are the only ones built on true love, emotional maturity, and stability.

I found myself by expecting respect as the foundation of my relationships—and from that came genuine happiness and security.

The Roots of Self-Respect

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I remember being a child and wanting whatever fad swept through school. My father would always ask, “If everyone jumped into the fire, would you?”
Of course I wouldn’t – logic told me fire burns.
But as I grew older, the simplicity of that logic met reality.

Do people deserve respect when they do not respect me?

Intangible matters have a way of blurring what once felt obvious. Being disrespected hurt – it embarrassed me, made me feel small, insignificant, even ashamed. Like everyone else, I thrived when I was treated with dignity.

But I also noticed something unexpected: I did not feel stronger, safer, or better about myself when I disrespected those who had disrespected me. It felt hollow. It felt beneath me.

Somewhere along the way I learned that a strong sense of self is the shield against disrespect. It allowed me to remain respectful regardless of the other person, regardless of the room I stood in, regardless of how sharp or gifted I was with words.

There is enormous power in simply looking at someone with quiet, candid pity – not hostility –  and staying grounded in myself. Sometimes the most dignified act is to walk away without letting their chaos infiltrate my inner world.

When I mastered this, I realised how deeply empowering it was. It affected others more than any noise, rage, or rudeness could. More importantly, it freed me. I was no longer at the mercy of other people’s emotional storms. I became separate from their flaws, their turmoil, their behaviour – and that separateness became my truest form of self-respect.

And in that space, I discovered a powerful truth:
When you no longer need to react to disrespect, you naturally begin to respect everyone – not because they deserve it, but because you do.
Your calm becomes a mirror. Their behaviour no longer belongs to you.

Disrespecting others, to me, is a sign that somewhere inside, I have forgotten how to respect myself.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

Learning To Love From a Place of Power

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Love is one of the most difficult and complex states to master because it is an emotion, an action, and a choice.

For me, it was especially challenging to learn how to operate from a position of love. I did not grow up in a loving environment, and the only “template” I had was fawning – the behaviour that once kept me safe because it earned attention. My now-husband was the first to show me that this was not love. It was a defence response. When he gently asked me to stop, I felt exposed and even defensive. Yet he preferred that real version of me – the version I was not acquainted with yet.

His manner of relating forced me to dig deep, to develop the skills I had never been taught, to make conscious choices that built trust and intimacy rather than fear and appeasement.

It took me a very long time – decades – to learn how to come from love when interacting, how to stay in love in daily life, and how to return to love regardless of my moods or the chaos within me. Through that process, I met all the parts of myself: my insecurities, my false beliefs, my internal map, my fragile sense of self, my lack of boundaries, and my fear of stepping into my own power.

I kept myself small. I was nice to everyone, even when they treated me poorly. I feared the word “no,” both saying it and hearing it. And deep inside, I wanted my husband to be my knight in shining armour.

But my husband – a strong, grounded alpha male – believed that my life was mine to lead. He saw no point in managing my daily choices or defending me at every turn. That, he believed, was my job. And so, he loved me steadfastly while I learned to build a life where I was in charge: my boundaries, my decisions, my voice, my self-respect.

This was his love in action – quiet, constant, unwavering. He made sure I was never in need and that I felt protected as the woman he honoured and built a life with.

Meanwhile, I was on a long learning curve: how to return to love again and again, how to reveal myself slowly, how to let others reveal themselves in turn, how to give love without emptying myself, and how to receive it without shrinking.

And then, one day, something in me went AHA. A whole new world opened. Suddenly I was the main actor in my own life, surrounded by people who aligned with who I was becoming. I saw how bountiful life truly is – and I was overwhelmed that I had lived so long without seeing it.

I now know that coming from a position of love makes me feel rich, powerful, and grounded – because love has always been the foundation of life.

Now, I return to love as my home base. It is a daily discipline, yes, but also a choice — because, in truth, it is where I feel safest and most alive.

~ Evgenia Pimżin