Reclaiming your power
Trauma can cause people to disconnect from their hearts. Both the victim and the perpetrator have experienced trauma. Both have developed mechanisms to cope with the scars created by their traumas. One puts their needs aside to demonstrate their affection, hoping to be loved while the other demands love and attention but is unable to respond in the same way. Each is sabotaging the relationship they have with themselves and both are in need of support.
When neglect, criticism, shaming and emotional unavailability shape people’s worthiness, they become afraid of being vulnerable, concerned that they might be rejected, ashamed, isolated and unaccepted again. They withdraw into a protective shell with the belief that they are unlovable. When people’s hearts are closed off, they cannot access the healing energy of their authentic selves and express their full potential. They are guided by fear, judgement, defensives, pessimism or jealousy. Emotional wounds cannot bring connection and intimacy, because vulnerability is not an option to initiate the healing process. These people’s actions cause rejection, humiliation, deception, confusion, betrayal or disappointment over and over again in their relationships.
Before coldness and criticism bring the storms into our relationships, our hopes rise, thinking that we have another chance to find love. Our desire to find someone to “complete” us is impairing our ability to look within ourselves in order to heal our attachment wounds. When the lack of self – love is creating the distortion that we need someone to “complete” us, we enter another cycle when we put our fulfilment and happiness in somebody else’s hands. Our desire to feel seen, loved and accepted by others leads us to finding another partner who also needs other people’s expressions of love and acceptance to feel good about themselves.
When we think that we will be able to protect ourselves only because we have learned enough about abuse from our previous relationships, we are not equipped with the right tools to remove ourselves from an unhealthy relationship. We enter another relationship without completing our healing. The beginning of our relationships is always beautiful. No one goes to a first date and say: “Hello, my name is Robert and I am abusive”. Robert will do his best to impress you, listing all his positive qualities, and you will present him the best version of yourself as well. When we start a new romantic journey, our heart is open to love, it inspires us to be patient, respond in a kind way to a negative situation. It feels normal and natural to be understanding and nurturing. After all, love is meant to be supportive, give people strength, stability and comfort. Even if we may not like certain things, we choose to have a long fuse instead of a quick temper. And, gradually, we start being more agreeable. We cooperate, stay flexible, adjust to all sorts of situations, try to listen first and avoid arguments.
But what happens if our partner betrays our love by hurting us through their actions and words? Would we still call it love and claim that our situation is not that bad? Are we truthful to ourselves then or do we betray ourselves when claiming so? When we continue to ignore the warning signs of a toxic relationship, we end up feeling baffled by what is going on, stressed out about what will come next. Over time, this confusion leads to paralysis, when we are not able to make sense of what is happening. Many of us find it hard to acknowledge that we are being abused by our partners and, even if we do, we have confusing and conflicting memories and emotions, not knowing if we should protect ourselves or continue to put effort into “healing” our partner. By the time we start experiencing confusion, the trauma bond has already been created by cycles of abuse and perceived caring. The cycles become very difficult to break, as painful craving and longing seem to be addictive. Without realizing, we start to disconnect from ourselves. When we are constantly anxious, we feel the need to prove ourselves and fix the other, we question whether we are happy, we worry about our safety, take on the responsibility of making those around us happy and fulfilled. We are not happy. Our heart is closing off, as we stop feeding our soul with self-love.
This is why we need to do our healing work before entering another relationship. We need to learn to open our heart again. Rumi said that “your task isn’t to seek for love. It’s to seek all the barriers you have created between you and love”. Could lack of self-love be the barrier?
When we no longer base our happiness on somebody else, someone who is not willing to do the healing work to learn how to love themselves, we free ourselves. When we look within ourselves and we realize that our sense of worthiness has been shaped by people who did not love themselves, we remove the pain they inflicted on us. When we give love to ourselves, we no longer expect others to fill our heart or make us feel whole and complete. We forgive ourselves when we come to the understanding that we needed some painful learnings to open our heart to ourselves. From the love we have for ourselves, we can even find forgiveness for those who chose to hurt us. We can say that we have seen the demons they have been battling with and, instead of wanting them to heal in order to love us, we choose to look after ourselves as we already have everything we need. We wish them well, find the strength they need to allow themselves to look within and start their own healing journey.
