When I look at my very first relationship (I was about 14 years old), the boy I was crazy about (funny, I can’t even remember his name now) and who I believed was crazy about me, told me one day out of the blue that he was in love with another girl. Oh my God, the feelings of shock, betrayal, inadequacy, abandonment and being unwanted swarmed over my entire being as if I had just bumped into a wasps' nest. I felt the sting of rejection in my heart with indescribable pain.
No one told me that the experience had nothing to do with my worth and deservingness of good. I had no one to tell me that I was “safe” to love again independent of that event. I didn’t know that no one had the authority to take away my power unless I gave them permission to do so.
I bought the lie. I bought it hook, line and sinker that if this little 14-year-old boy could turn his back on me, then I could never be safe, and I must be unlovable and unworthy.
I took those beliefs on as TRUTH, and they found a home in my consciousness. Up until a couple of years ago, those beliefs played out in every intimate relationship I had.
Why did I keep entering new relationships with the same wounded consciousness?
Because I wanted to be loved.
Everybody wants love!
More specifically, we want to experience deep love with "another" in divine partnership. It's a natural desire to receive and express love because our very identity as an expression of God is that of love. No matter what circumstances we might have been conceived under, we were created out of the infinite love of Spirit. However, when we disconnect from the very source of love, we experience what Bill Wilson called a “spiritual malady” (the illusion that we are separate and apart from God). So we look for it outside of ourselves, thinking we’re going to find it in another person.
The result is that, while we usually enter into partnerships from a place of excitement, underneath those joyful feelings are the core beliefs that we’ve picked up along the way: loneliness, fear, unworthiness, not being good enough and undeserving of love and fulfillment.
That’s quite natural if you’ve had the experience of “the rug being pulled out from under you,” or someone suddenly turning into a completely different person than the one you fell in love with. The feelings of profound disappointment can leave you with deep scars.
Once the excitement of a new romance wears off – and there will always be an ebb and flow of excitement – the core of what we really believe about ourselves, and what the other person believes about him or herself (because we are always attracting our mirrors) will manifest. And we find ourselves feeling as if we’ve just been blind-sided by the Universe, broken-hearted and wondering what the heck just happened.
So, what part of you is doing the choosing when it comes to the intimate partnerships in your life? Is it the inner wounded child (who can only attract another wounded child) or the emotionally balanced, spiritually connected adult?
Bet you've never thought about that, have you?
From a place of self-forgiveness, compassion and microscopic honesty, it's time to give this question some deep and serious thought if you don’t want to repeat the same patterns over and over again. How many hits can your heart take for God’s sake?
In this past year and a half, I have had the opportunity to heal the deepest pain I've ever experienced in my life with the exception of my father's passing when I was 16 years old. The gifts I've received from asking myself the hard questions, meditating, tapping and being willing to totally surrender my will and life over to the care of God when it comes to relationships have been priceless – and because of those gifts, I wouldn't change my journey for anything in the world. However, I would never choose to do my journey in that particular way again either.
Here is how I stepped into the consciousness of choosing my life from a higher place. First of all, I had to come to the very uncomfortable realization that I didn't end up on my knees in pain after a sudden breakup; rather, I had a life-long pattern of actually entering relationships on my knees from a place of "please love me, please don't ever leave me, please keep me safe and please validate me." Sound familiar?
After that excruciatingly painful experience, I said a prayer I had never uttered before. Surprisingly, it wasn't "please God, don't ever let anyone hurt me that way again." It was, "thank you God for saving me from ever hurting MYSELF that way again. Thank you God for never allowing my inner child (the wounded, traumatized little girl who felt unworthy and unlovable) to choose my relationships ever again."
I want to share with you how you can start the process of choosing love from your own embodiment of self-worth and self-love.
First of all, you need to understand that you were not created out of unworthiness, shame, brokenness or any other definition of dysfunction. You were created out of, and in the image and likeness of God! You were more than likely born into dysfunction and dis-ease (that’s how you learned to treat yourself so badly), but you were created whole, complete, amazing, beautiful, brilliant and worthy – in all your bad-ass glory – INDEPENDENT of someone walking away from you.
But you forgot.
You embodied the lie that you were incomplete, imperfect, unworthy and less than absolutely beautiful. Yes, your body grew into adulthood, but your core dominant beliefs remained in undeveloped adolescent hell.
So here you are, walking around with your adult body, perhaps having had children of your own, at the top of your game in your chosen profession. You might even be very spiritual. Yet, you find yourself in the fetal position from the illusion of betrayal, abandonment and rejection over and over again when it comes to intimate relationships.
If the same old pattern is unfolding in different relationships time after time, guess where the problem lies? Yup – that’s right – WITH YOU! You, my friend, can change locations and relationships, but everywhere you go, you take that needy, wounded child who's sitting by the front door waiting for his/her mommy or daddy to come home along for the ride.
And the end game is always the same: You’re on your knees in disappointment and pain, and wondering how you got there again.
Or, you’re in a partnership or marriage that keeps repeating the same unfulfilling, painful cycles without end. If you’re working on that relationship, it’s probably from an unconscious need of “please change so I’ll be safe, happy and fulfilled.” Knock it off! You will never get what you truly desire from that place – or that person. It’s not their job to fulfill you or make you whole!
What you truly desire is YOU! Glorious, whole, complete, amazing, brilliant YOU! You can’t find your wholeness in someone else; you’ve got to first find it deep down in your own soul. Don’t look so sad. That’s actually great news because the same mind that created your pain is also capable of creating your joy from a place of transformation and renewal.
Here are a few keys to support you in healing the inner child who was disappointed and hurt long ago so that you can instead embody your own sense of wholeness and fulfillment.
1. Make a list of about six painful breakups in the past, and write a short paragraph of what happened (and I do mean short; we don’t want to stay in the story for too long). Then ask your inner child, how did that make you feel? Abandoned, betrayed, dismissed, outraged, resentful, lost, broken, rejected? You get the picture.
2. Ask yourself on a scale from one to 10, how intense is the pain and discomfort?
3. Now it’s time to practice the Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping) on each issue. Tap out the memories of pain being held in your body, and tap in the truth of who you really are and what you’re willing to accept for yourself. If you don’t know how to tap, email me and I’ll send you a transcript of how to do this exercise.
4. Once you’ve done the Emotional Freedom Technique, do a five-step prayer treatment (affirmative prayer) for yourself. It’s so empowering to be able to speak the word of truth for yourself. I have an entire chapter on affirmative prayer and meditation in my book “Soul Recovery.” For those of you who don’t have a copy, you can order it, or I’ll be happy to send you a one-sheet on affirmative prayer so that you can get started.
5. If you’re single and looking for a relationship, STOP LOOKING. The very fact that you’re looking for someone to fulfill you is a huge red flag that you are walking into a situation on empty. Fill yourself up first with self-love, self-appreciation, living your purpose and creating fulfilling relationships with friends, family and community.
From that place, any intimate relationship is going to be a mirror of the wholeness that’s already there. In other words, it’s just the icing on the delicious cake that is already baked! More good news: You don't need to try to make anything happen. Instead, you can allow it to happen. Here's how:
Be in the process of healing your illusions of abandonment, betrayal and rejection so that you’re not projecting those beliefs onto a potential partner. Remember, what you focus on, you will bring into manifestation.
Put aside everything you think you know about your “type.” God’s highest vision of your beloved may not look anything like “your type.” If you are attracting a partner from a place of wholeness, the relationship cannot help but be yummy and blissful, even in the most challenging growth experiences.
Of course, it’s important to have clarity about the qualities that are important to you, but here’s the thing: If you’ve embodied those qualities yourself, based on the perfect law of attraction, the Universe has no choice but to match those qualities with an equal partner. You can’t have what you’re not willing to become.
Be in the process of true forgiveness of yourself and past partners. If you attract a new relationship holding onto old, toxic resentments toward past relationships – well, how’s that supposed to work? That means your inner wounded child is again in the driver’s seat.
Be willing to grant a full pardon to those with whom you have experienced deep pain. They did the best they could with what they had (even if they were the biggest jerk you’ve ever met), and so did you. Have mercy on them and yourself. Scripture states (and I love scripture from a metaphysical perspective): “You cannot pour new wine into old skin.” That means you can’t experience something new and wonderful with an old negative attitude.
Stop thinking about what you can get from a partner. I repeat, they cannot fulfill you or make you whole, however, they can match you. The love, adoration, support and nurturing you desire from someone else is simply a reflection of the good you already are as an expression of God. If you’re thinking that any one person can GIVE you love, then you are also under the illusion that they can take it away. They cannot. It’s already yours. The world didn’t give it, and the world can’t take it way.
It's time to make a decision that, from this moment on, you will nurture your own sense of wholeness – fulfillment, empowerment, worthiness and feelings of being complete – BEFORE you enter a relationship. It is from this place that, instead of "getting into" a relationship, you are actually attracting a relationship to your own sense of love and divine beauty.
And love your inner child as he/she has never experienced love before. No one has abandoned, rejected or betrayed you more than you have abandoned yourself. Forgive yourself and surrender to love!