Our Love Reflected Back
Something that I’ve asked myself, or should I say Spirit has asked me, as I anticipate meeting my divine counterpart is why I want to meet her. Why am I looking outside of myself for love? The romantic idea of meeting a true soulmate that understands you to your core, what an ideal relationship, right? Except, much of the soulmates or twin flame relationships serve a purpose. It’s not just about knowing someone deeply, going on dates, and living happily ever after.
Yes, there will be love, but there will also be difficult times, too. Not because we want them, but because until we can alchemize the energy out of our field, we will continue to create situations that trigger it for release. Our being desires homeostasis, or balance, energetically and physically. We desire particular connections, because we know they’ll help bring us closer to balance. I want to meet my counterpart, because I believe that I will find the truest love I’ve ever known reflected back at me. But the only way that can happen is if I’m already creating that kind of love within, and I don’t know if I’ve ever loved myself that much.
When we think about that soulmate connection, we dream of finding someone who will love us unconditionally, but how can we experience that if we don’t love ourselves unconditionally? What became clear to me today is that, because we experience our inner world through our outer world, and I don’t feel the love for myself that I feel for my counterpart, I’m thinking the connection will give me something I don’t already have. Which is true. I don’t love myself that strongly, and I’ve been so confused as to why. Why don’t I love myself as much as I connect to and love my counterpart?
Because there are parts of myself that I don’t love. I don’t love how needy I can be, because when I was little I got rejected. It was too much for the adults in my life to provide the love and attention I desired, and I resented the part of me that needed so much. I turned on myself and saw myself as the burden, and not that my parents were carrying too much. This has recently been reflected back at me as I get mad at my dog for endlessly whining at me while I’m doing something. He’ll either want me to fill his peanut butter toy or for some other reason. I get so irritated, because I’m busy and my own tank of energy is running low. I don’t have enough to give him.
It’s also not very loving that I’ve been asserting control over myself inwardly in order to protect myself from social retribution. Having been socialized to conform to other people’s expectations in order to receive acceptance from my community, I’ve learned the rules and developed a strategy to maintain them. I’d internally judge, punish or stifle myself in order to control what I said and did externally. That way I wouldn’t trigger anyone and people would like and accept me. Unless I heal this, my external reality will eventually reflect it back to me so that I can alchemize it.
I’ve been learning to be more gentle with myself and going with the flow instead of punishing myself for making mistakes. I’m learning to take accountability for the thoughts that I choose to focus on and using more discernment on whether I should voice or act them out. By doing this, I’m maturing into a state where I can accept myself and what I do, so instead of punishing myself for the thoughts or the actions they lead to, I take a more active role in changing my behaviors. Instead of continuing to have the thoughts and punishing myself immediately afterwards, I take accountability for it happening and become aware of the habit to change it.
In this process of reflection I realized why it’s so easy to give my counterpart so much love, and why I can be so forgiving, nurturing and soft with her. It’s because I can look past the parts of her that she doesn’t love so much. We share a lot of the same trauma and woundings. We are mirror reflections of one another. When I look at her, I do see myself, and because I do, it’s so easy to understand her. It’s so easy to love her, because I understand her wounds and her pain. Instead of triggering them, I want to shower them with love. I want her to feel at ease and to feel accepted. But why is it so easy for me to do that for her and not myself?
Basically, I don’t love myself the way I love my counterpart, because there are no consequences to how I treat myself. I can punish myself, I can hate myself, I can hurt myself, and no one would bat an eye. There are no apparent consequences when we treat ourselves poorly. Maybe our mental health might not be so great, but we can basically do what we please and no one would be the wiser. However, there are consequences when we mistreat people. We know, inherently, that if we were to treat people how we treat ourselves, there would be consequences for our actions. For instance, they can leave us, they can hate us, and they can hurt us. This separateness that our external world provides offers us a chance to look at how we treat ourselves.
This is true, except when we can be so talented at hiding those thoughts and behaviors from other people. When your reality reflects your internal world, those habits get brought out to the light when we’re triggered, and there are consequences depending on how you interact with other people. However, if we hide from the world our shame and guilt, because of social consequences, we limit access to heal those parts of ourselves. Honesty plays a big role in healing.
This led me to think of how eventually the truth comes out. There’s always the honeymoon phase in relationships. Everything is new and exciting and we’re on our best behavior. But after some time passes our bad habits start to show. We get more comfortable and more stable in the fact that this person isn’t going to leave us, because we’re both invested in the emotional connection. However, have you ever noticed that we tend to treat the people closest to us the worst? We take out our emotions on our partners, or on our pets, because we know they’re connected to us. They’ve seen us at our worst. That’s because we’ve gotten more comfortable to be our true selves, or who we are on the inside when we’re alone.
We have the people, the mirrors, around us to thank for showing us our bad behaviors. Because without them, we would have a much harder time seeing the stuck energy and beliefs that block us from who we truly are. I didn’t know why my dog has been irritating me in this manner. I started judging myself for getting mad. “He’s just a dog. He’s not doing it on purpose,” I say with frustration towards myself. This is where it’s important to acknowledge that he’s giving me an opportunity to see something that exists within me. My perception is what’s creating the situation that’s causing me so much frustration. That’s why someone else could look at him and not understand why I’m so mad. Their perception doesn’t allow them to experience the same thing. Our perception creates/dictates our reality by assigning meaning to a situation, which then leads to our thoughts, words and actions.
Do I think that I’ll meet my counterpart and find that love I’m looking for? Absolutely, but I’d much rather find it in myself first so that I can bring my best self to the table. This is a connection that I want to last. I want to show her the love I have for her, and I want to sustain it. With that clarity of self I’m more capable of releasing those bad habits, and I come into the relationship interdependently. The goal isn’t to be the perfect partner, but instead to find peace within myself. I have this connection, because it fulfills and satisfies my desire for a deeply committed and loving relationship, not because I need anything from it.