I’m far from a perfect person and relationships from my past have shown me that. It’s where I’m most vulnerable.
Relationships are a mirror to show us what has yet to be healed and, most of the time, it’s issues from childhood.
Sometimes we want the person to save us or love us or give us the nurturance and attention we felt our parents or the people who raised us couldn’t.
This one relationship I was in went bad. I was full of shame, anger and remorse afterwards. We both messed up and hurt the other. We both went running from our pain and caused pain for the other.
We kept going back to each other and, each time we did, it felt like we were trying to overcome something we couldn’t jump over. We tried and tried to put the pieces together, but recovering from past pain made it too hard.
It doesn’t surprise me when we finally ended it, with one final big push, that we had to go off on our own to actually heal ourselves . . . WITHOUT the other.
It’s so funny how this works: The more you try to get that thing you want, the more another pushes it away.
So often, it’s only when we’re left to our own resources that we can truly let go, forgive and clear it ourselves.
That’s what happened for me. After we’d parted ways, I decided that, regardless of what happened between us, and no matter how difficult the split was, that I was going to love this person because I was going to love myself. And by loving myself, it meant I could no longer hold onto the pain and anger that was causing me suffering.
It was my own suffering—nothing to do with him—that I was choosing to carry. It was only three years later when I was least expecting it, that an apology came from him.
When I was no longer pushing, holding, grasping, needing—only in my loving for him and for me; truly having forgiven myself and him—that I was free.
But then, after hearing the words he was sorry, I realized I didn’t need them or anything else from him anymore.
I was 100% in my loving, and free of attachment and pain. I had moved on. The past was released.
That’s why we come together in the first place. It’s truly the only reason. To learn to love another with an open hand and stop grasping. To learn that love and safety and peace lies within yourself, individually.
And when you have that, you don’t need anything else. Then you can have the relationships of your dreams.
Wishing you true love within and without!