We’re meant to grow into our potential together. That’s the reason why so many of us share this beautiful planet together. It’s absolutely fine if you’re longing for a romantic partner because it’s your inner wisdom guiding you to grow with the help of someone else.
While it’s almost necessary to spend some time of deep self-reflection alone, it’s equally import to recognize the time to unite with someone again and not fear it. I’ve noticed that many people are either afraid of relationships or afraid to be alone.
They fear that they might lose themselves in someone and that break-up will eventually destroy their hearts. While this is understandable way of feeling, I invite you to shift your perception of relationships.
My most favorite book called, A Course in Miracles, describes romantic relationships as holy assignments to help us remember who we’re.
In the presence of another person, we can see the beauty of who we are as well as the ugliness of who we think we are.
At the beginning of a relationship, we feel like we can fly and the whole world is beautiful. We don’t mind anything and we can’t stop smiling. This feels so amazing because this reminds us our own inner beauty. When we feel this way, we let go of layers and social mask that we usually carry so we become more authentic. This is actually what feels so great about being in love. We fall in love with ourselves.
Later into the relationship, the fears and insecurities kick in and once again we put on all the layers that we dropped before.
We begin to filter the other person through our own lenses of fear and thus see own reflection in them.
We may even begin to blame the other person for making us feel bad but in reality it’s us, making ourselves feel bad by being inauthentic to who we are within.
Therefore, relationships are assignments and they assist us to heal what we need to heal- all the wrong perceptions that we hold about ourselves.
Martha a gardener that I coach told me that every man eventually treats her in disrespectful way. It saddens her as she feels like they don’t value her. Each time she waits for them to leave her because she is so afraid to do the first step because what if they are right.
This nicely illustrates the fears in relationships. It’s actually her own fear that she isn’t good enough so she projects this fear onto them. They can feel it so they act in the way like she wouldn’t be good enough.
Now does it make sense to break the mirror because we don’t like own reflection? Probably it doesn’t help for a long time.
Martha understood that she holds this belief within herself and chose to let it go. This is one of the things that she learnt from relationships so now her partner doesn’t need to reflect her own fear back to her.
When we look at relationships as assignments that show us which fears we have to let go of in order to be happy then we understand that we don’t need recreate the same patterns in relationships again. When we’re willing to learn and recognize this dynamic then we can drop what doesn’t serve us and allow ourselves to be happy.
Each relationship is opportunity for us to grow and see the other person and us with love. When we become aware of own projections of our fears onto our partner, we can learn the lesson that we’re supposed to learn. If you feel like your partner doesn’t treat you as equal, ask yourself whether it’s actually you holding this belief about yourself. Blaming the other person doesn’t make sense because we’re the source of all our beliefs that the other person reflects back to us.
What lessons about yourself have you learned from a romantic relationship?
I would love to inspire you to connect better with yourself so I run free Monthly Challenges where you receive each month a workbook with powerful questions that are designed to open yourself to your inner truth.
Originally published at medium.com