"In our disease defense system we build up huge walls to protect ourselves and then - as soon as we meet someone who will help us to repeat our patterns of abuse, abandonment, betrayal, and/or deprivation - we lower the drawbridge and invite them in. We, in our codependence have radar systems which cause us to be attracted to, and attract to us, the people, who for us personally, are exactly the most untrustworthy (or unavailable or smothering or abusive or whatever we need to repeat our patterns) individuals - exactly the ones who will "push our buttons."
This happens because those people feel familiar. Unfortunately in childhood the people whom we trusted the most - were the most familiar - hurt us the most. So the effect is that we keep repeating our patterns and being given the reminder that it is not safe to trust ourselves or other people.
Once we begin healing we can see that the truth is that it is not safe to trust as long as we are reacting out of the emotional wounds and attitudes of our childhoods. Once we start recovering, then we can begin to see that on a spiritual level these repeating behavior patterns are opportunities to heal the childhood wounds.
I spent most of my life being the victim of my own thoughts, my own emotions, my own behaviors. I was consistently picking untrustworthy people to trust and unavailable people to love. I could not trust my own emotions because I was incapable of being honest with myself emotionally - which made me incapable of truly being honest on any level."
- Quote(s) from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
No matter how much we try not to, we will always be energetically attracted to people whose inner dynamic is like our parents, our first experience of love. If we meet someone who feels like a soul mate, it may be that exact person who is there to recreate wounding, but to also help you grow spiritually and recover from the pattern.
Becoming conscious of emotional energetic patterns at play within ourselves, affords us the opportunity to take responsibility for our own choices and consequences, allowing us to regain our own power.
It is important to let go of focusing on another person as the solution to our problems or the cause of our problems. It is the illusion that if we "only lose more weight" or "be better" that the other person will change and love us more. No! We will never change that other person. They will never one day wake up and be exactly who we want them to be, no matter what we try to change about ourselves.
We get involved with people who are unavailable because we ourselves our unavailable. We attract them because on some level we are trying to still prove our worth by earning the love and respect of our unavailable parents. Cultivating our own self love is key in recovery.
Developing healthy patterns and cultivating the inner light and our own self worth makes us not only available for a healthy partner, but to the world as a whole. All too often we blame "them" for what is happening "out there" without taking responsibility for what we do.
Unfortunately, what comes to mind is the current situation with the US and ISIS terrorists. We are killing their people and so they kill ours. We call them animals because they behead Americans but fail to take responsibility for killing many of their people. Violence breeds violence, as distrust breads distrust. At some point to break any pattern, someone has to become conscious enough of it to stop. Whether it's a relationship, a war, or a disagreement, there will always be several schools of thought and behaviors because of it. We need to learn to accept each other for where we are, instead of trying to make the other side change to our way of thinking. Changing someone else is impossible unless they want the change themselves. Self healing and a degree of "consciousness" is the only way any change or transformation can happen - individually or globally. As Nelson Mandela so wisely put it - reconciliation, not violence, is the way to true change.
My heart and prayers go out to all the families and individuals effected by these killings; for the ISIS group as well as for the Americans, the Israelis and everyone and anyone in between. We are all people, all with different stories, and no life is worth more than another. May peace and love reign with us all, everywhere; not just in our own backyard.
