Mckell, I hear ya on the posters and markers thing. Fortunately, this was a group activity and the idea wasn't to tell about your personal relationships but about "relationships" as an abstract thing. There was only one sun drawn for the entire group, which was about 20 people, plus the trainer helped. So altogether our sun had 50 rays! So I didn't have to do too much introspection or risk showing a barren sun. So we created one sun that has all the needs in a relationship, most of which are universal, not just particular to one person. Every person contributed from zero to several ideas for rays. I think I only suggested one thing: reciprocity. I guess that's an important need to me since I have felt for ages that my relationship with my husband was not reciprocal, and more recently the mutualism in my relationship with my T has made me recognize how wonderful it is to have this and that I want it in future relationships! But even though I only contributed one ray, all the other needs that people contributed were things I could see were needs in any relationship. So now I have a master list of sorts (in my head) and need to work on identifying which need is not being met when I get feelings of sadness, anger, anxiety, etc. (And of course first I need to work on even identifying what I am feeling, because I am really bad at that too.)

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mckell13 wrote:
I really think I need to continue to get to know myself (all the ego states), even if it means that some relationships don't survive this exploration.

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Self exploration is the journey of a lifetime. I am only in ther early stages. I think it is to be expected that some of your relationships will not continue as you change and outgrow them. That can be sad, but it is part of life, and we can grieve the loss and continue on.