Have you ever been dating someone for a few months and you find yourself having this internal struggle within?
You see some disturbing things, there are a few red flags, but you spend a great deal of time trying to convince yourself that the ‘connection’ to this person is just too strong to be wrong?
We think to ourselves, ‘It couldn’t be that strong if it wasn’t for my highest good, right?’
In the past, I might have agreed but now…I’m not so sure.
In my personal experience it seems that the ‘connection’ I felt was simply the pull of familiar energy that has been surrounding me my entire life. Even though it felt heavenly as it wrapped its recognizable energy around me, it was a toxic soul-sucking vibration that over time would completely consume me until I found myself back in an unhealthy relationship, waking up to some nightmare reality that was somehow my life again.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Yes, we may find ourselves staring down the road of familiar terrain, seemingly doomed to repeat a constant looping of old programming as our trauma resurfaces, but what if we are self-aware enough to see it unfold before us? Even if we feel helpless to stop it from happening?
While our initial reaction might be to lament and berate ourselves for our perceived weaknesses, perhaps we could alter our perception to see it as a gift instead? What if there is a special Truth for our soul that is waiting to be unpacked, so we can heal our trauma on an even deeper level through this repeated cycle?
Well, if we look at our relationship as an opportunity for growth, it invites energetic frequencies of Love to influence how we look at our partner and will illuminate any cycle we might be repeating unknowingly. Another way to look at it is, when we love ourselves and choose Love as our dominant intention, we allow opportunity for growth that is for our highest good and the highest good of all involved. This is not always easy to do, but should be our innermost desire in any romantic relationship.
It is important to remember that we need to love ourselves through whatever part of the cycle we find ourselves in. We need to allow ourselves to feel what we are feeling in the moment and not suppress or deny the existence of our emotions.
When we invite Love to be our guiding force in how we view our relationships and ourselves, we realize that we can choose to not get angry, we can choose not to blame our partner (even if their behavior is a clear cause of the issues), we can refuse to pass judgement and we can choose to own our responsibility for our choices that led us here.
We all need a gentle reminder of a simple Truth, the acknowledgement that we are all on our own journey and we get to choose who is aligned with us and who is not, as we walk our path to wholeness. If we choose to work towards operating from a place of Love, we find that certain people just can’t co-exist around us anymore.
When we are radically honest with ourselves, it allows us to recognize that there is past pain in our mental, spiritual and emotional bodies that needs to be understood, loved and released. We need to understand why we are feeling that pain and fear and be truthful in where its origins are, especially when it’s scary to look at.
Awareness that you’re even IN a repeated, unhealthy cycle is the first step towards breaking free from it. On the other side of your pain and fear is beautiful and transformative Power…the power of Divine Love.
How to Recognize if You are Repeating a Cycle
If we are in a relationship, especially a newer one, and find ourselves in a seemingly triggered state, agitated and anxious, or feeling clingy and possessive, or experiencing constant highs and lows, we need to take a step back and evaluate what is happening.
We need to allow all of those emotions like fear, insecurity, and aggression to come to the surface in a safe place. The best method (I feel) is journaling, because it gives you a place to express yourself freely without fear of judgement. You can talk about why you were triggered, what feelings you are having, where you think they are coming from and to evaluate whether this relationship is helping you become the best version of you. (I use Google docs or Penzu for my journal, but you can do audio/video journals or traditional paper journals too)
Journaling gives you the amazing opportunity for deeper self reflection, allowing you the chance to understand your habitual patterns of fear-based response and to love yourself through the process of growth and expansion.
Journaling helps us process our emotions and allows us to start seeing a pattern emerge in what triggers us. When we see a pattern, we can then dive deeper into what emotion lies behind that habitual response and sequence of behavior. This will always lead to a deeper awareness of one’s self and provide insight into whether we are repeating a cycle or not.
Remember, we are all on our own journey – our own path to Truth, and we can easily become entangled in relationships that do not serve our highest good and everyone will suffer if we do not learn to self-evaluate from a place of love and non-judgement.
How to Break Free from the Cycle
Sometimes, even when we are aware of our cycle and have come to the conclusion that this person is not good or healthy for us – we still go back. Like a heroin addict looking for the next fix, we feel compelled at our very core to keep seeing this person and trying to make it work, but eventually this leads to self-delusion and denial of your true feelings, which will keep you locked into a place of agitation and stagnation.
It’s okay to find yourself in this position, do not lose hope!
The realization I want you to have, is that you don’t have to rely on just your willpower or desire to end what you know you should. You have at your disposal unlimited access to the Infinite Intelligence that created our Universe and everything in it. It doesn’t matter what you call this Power, since it’s simply the energetic frequency of Consciousness and Love. The important thing to remember, is that we all have access to it when we actively choose to seek alignment with it and operate from a place of Love.
The last partner I dated was the beginning of a repeated cycle for me.
I could see it pretty clearly about a month and a half in. I knew it wasn’t for my highest good and yet continued on anyways in a highly triggered state almost the entire time. However, what I did differently this loop around, was I practiced self-love and awareness in what I was feeling, and journaled extensively to process the intense emotions that were bubbling up to the surface.
I faced them head-on and it allowed me to understand the triggers that had nothing to do with my partner and were simply because he was the first person I had dated since my ex-husband. But, it also shed light on the traits and energy in this person that were all too familiar – triggering me because I knew I was headed down a very worn and recognizable path.
And yet, I still felt helpless to stop it!
Even with my awareness around it, I could not seem to stay away. That damn ‘connection’ was a force to be reckoned with, as it tried to seduce me with thoughts of just ‘helping’ this person to ‘reach their full potential’ and all the usual bullshit we say to justify behavior in others we aren’t aligned with. We think, ‘I can be the one to lead them to love, to help them heal their trauma and become who they truly are…’ blah, blah, blah.
Let’s be honest with ourselves and admit we do this, especially for my ladies reading this.
We make up reasons and excuses to justify the behavior or character traits we find upsetting, because we ‘feel a strong connection’ to this person. We see the good and the Light in others even when they are shrouded with darkness. We feel if we could just love them enough and share enough of our Light with them that it will all work out. But, if you’re reading this article, you already know where that path leads.
Enough of this insanity!
We must realize that in order to reach our full potential, we need a partner that is actively working on reaching THEIR full potential too. That’s the only way it can work if you are a person who is honoring your journey and choosing the path of Love. A partner that is not following the path of Love will only bring repeated cycles of trauma and unhealthy experiences into our reality, until we learn that this path is not for our highest good.
So there I was, feeling all out of sorts emotionally. And even though I had already broken up with him, I found the desire to go back incredibly strong and could not seem to stay away.
Soon after that, I was in meditation and saw with perfect clarity the cycle I had fallen into and why. I was honest with myself and expressed my inability, at this moment in time, to feel like I could walk away for good, even though I knew I should.
I owned what was happening, took responsibility for where I was currently at, acknowledged my past trauma that had attracted this experience into my life, and I asked with pure intention that if this relationship was NOT the highest good for all involved, that he would be so uncomfortable in my presence he would choose to walk away.
Just a few days later, it happened and he chose to break up with me. I would be lying if I didn’t say it hurt, or that I doubted it and wanted to reach out, BUT I did not go back this time…why? Because, I had received the exact answer I had asked for and to deny that would be the same as denying my own alignment and connection with Source. Because I had the pure intention of Love for him as well as myself, the answer came in with a roar – not to be so easily brushed aside.
I processed the emotional pain I was feeling and when a few days later he asked to see me, I said ‘No’. I was grateful for the lessons he taught me and I thanked him for our time together and wished him Love on his journey.
I felt truly empowered at this new experience I had just come out of!
For the first time in my life, I was able to fully walk away from someone I cared about in the EARLY stages of the repeating cycle instead of staying to try to ‘fix’ it until it devolved into a horrible mess.
Sometimes, we just need to get real with ourselves. Cutting cords and energetic ties to another is a valuable tool in certain situations, but when we seem stuck despite these actions, that is a clue there is a deeper Truth we need to understand to heal our trauma even more.
Become aware of where you are at in your relationship, what YOU are feeling. If you find that you cannot communicate with your partner openly and without anxiety or fear, then you need to reflect on why. Is it just a pattern in yourself that you need to recognize and overcome? Or is it your ‘inner guidance’ trying to get you to see clearly the cycle you are beginning to repeat, and that this relationship is not for your highest good? In my case, it was definitely both.
That experience was an important one for me on my journey. It allowed me to see where I still needed healing, it pushed me to grow and expand, and it showed me that when my intention is one of Love, my steps are guided back to the right path.
One last observation I have to share is this…
The person you find yourself in a repeated cycle with may not be overtly abusive like your past partners – mine wasn’t – but ultimately that person was not walking on the path of Love. Because of that, we could never be aligned in our purpose and grow together. If you need help walking away from a repeating cycle, set your intention with Love for the highest good of ALL and watch it unfold in front of you with gratitude. Recognize the gift of awareness and alignment that you have access to, so you can walk away in Love and heal another part of your past pain.
Becoming the Catalyst
It seems almost everyone we encounter is living out an existence of trauma in some form or another. Just wounded and traumatized children growing up into adults with unhealthy or aggressive coping mechanisms that keep them locked into their own cycles of living out their pain. We try to have relationships, while being unaware of the influence of past trauma in our behavior and get entangled into familiar territory that eventually leads us down the same worn path again and again.
Oftentimes, people don’t learn anything and choose to be a victim their entire lives. They will die the same person they were 50 years ago, never realizing their potential or growing in their understanding of Love. They are robbed of happiness and joy, because of the inability to understand how to love themselves through the pain of what they endured so they can find the lessons and heal themselves.
Many of us come from families where there is a history or pattern of physical, sexual or emotional abuse, addiction, exploitation, poverty and other unhealthy energetic imprints from our ancestors.
Scientists are studying the effects of trauma and what they are discovering is quite astounding. They are learning how trauma literally changes our DNA and can be passed down to subsequent generations through mothers and fathers who’ve experienced prolonged and traumatic environments.(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) If you think about it, the effects of countless war, poverty, rape, slavery, exploitation and genocide of our world history impacted our ancestors at the cellular level and as a result, they handed down to future generations an energetic imprint of fear and trauma through their DNA. I believe, this is the scientific understanding of the term ‘ancestral karma’ that we hear about in the spiritual community.
When we learn how to heal ourselves through Love, we also heal our past and those that come after us in our ancestral lineage.
Remember, time is an illusion of this dimension. Our Universe is vibrational and behind the veil of physical reality, we find the Eternal… and in that sacred place is where we find our healing.
The energy of Love heals the toxic energetic mutation in our DNA and reaches back into the deepest part of our ancestral lineage to allow this healing energy to bring restoration and wholeness. This in turn allows the collective human consciousness to heal another part of itself and has a rippling effect across the entire world.
Many of us feel we are being called as a catalyst for healing in our ancestral heritage. This path is not for the faint of heart, but by boldly facing it head on and with Love, we can heal the past and allow future generations to live their lives out from under the energetic imprint of our ancestral trauma.
The path to healing and wholeness is paved with Love and pure intentions. If we all take responsibility for our OWN healing and personal evolution, we help heal the entire world.
If you find that you are in a repeating cycle, love yourself through the process of growth and you will come out the other side a wiser, more loving expression of consciousness that this world desperately needs.
Much love to you on your journey of transformation.
