In our quest for wholeness, we often try to
make up for our internal emptiness by seeking completion in another. Many of us
have taken this to an extreme, believing that fulfillment is only possible in
the arms of a soul mate.
Romance. The ultimate dream, especially if
Hollywood has anything to do with it. The best thin that can ever happen to
you: finding your dream partner. Yet until we heal our relationship with
ourselves, we will see our own dissatisfaction reflected in our intimate
relationships.
My own relationships used to go swimmingly
at first, but with time, the judgments would start to kick in. why doesn’t he
put the cap on the toothpaste?! or If he really loved me, he would pay me more
attention. My illusions were soon shattered, and as I looked more closely at my
partner, I began to see things I didn’t like. In other words, I began to see
myself.
In my obsession with finding external
fulfillment, I had come to neglect the most important relationship of my life: my
relationship with myself.
If
he really loved me, he would pay me more attention.
Our relationship with ourselves tends to be
the one we attend to last. We often have our needs on the bottom of the list;
we thing that loving ourselves is selfish. Yet until we learn to love
ourselves, our intimate relationships will be filled with need and
codependency. Need leads to manipulation and the need to control; all the
little games we learn in order to get the other person to do what we want. Yet
where is the love in all of this? Manipulation and control do not come from
love: they come from fear.
We
often have our needs on the bottom of the list; we thing that loving ourselves
is selfish.
When I began to look inwards and make the
journey towards self acceptance, I became increasingly aware of an underlying
fear that had accompanied me in all of my relationships: a profound fear of
abandonment, the enduring legacy of my childhood adoption. I hid this behavior
from my partners, terrified that if they saw my neediness I would appear
fragile and unattractive, but although I ignored it, it wouldn’t go away.
I repeated this dynamic many times in my
life, until I found myself breaking up from one last relationship, where the
fear of loss and abandonment bear it no longer. I finally understood that my
security could not be based in the external, that I had to cultivate an
internal experience of love-consciousness and find stability within myself.
When we feel complete within ourselves, we no longer feel the absence of the
other when they are not present, so the need to control them disappears
naturally. With this sense of self-sufficiency comes great freedom and the
ability to truly enjoy each other’s presence.
I
repeated this dynamic many times in my life, until I found myself breaking up
from one last relationship, where the fear of loss and abandonment bear it no
longer.
I used to think that if I let go of the
attachment to my loved ones, I would lose them, but when I finally did so, I
discovered that actually the opposite is true. When you love without
conditions, even if your partner is not by your side you feel closer to them
than ever before. For you have found them within yourself.
