On my way to the airport, I was clearing some spam emails and came across this one with title ' Why Was I Quiet For 2 Months?" And I knew, I had noticed the author's absence but never bothered. And this email title grabbed my attention and After reading it, I am bummed, something deep has been nudged, yet I feel elevated at heart's level as this knowledge come to me in wee hours of early morning and completely unexpected!
I am copying the email below (with due credits to the writer, healer Ehsun Anwar):
Here’s Why I Went Quiet On Social Media For 2 Months, and what I learned about relationships
In short: I walked away from a 3-year long “situationship” (a close but confused bond with someone which isn’t given the official title of relationship, due to no agreed commitment). This situationship was the cause of much suffering for me. Or so it seemed.
Turns out the situationship was just a mirror of some deeply embedded trauma within me: the mother wound. Guess what happened after I healed much of my wound, and could therefore finally walk away?
I immediately ran into someone with whom I felt a deep feeling of truly wanting to be with, and began a real relationship. Every other romantic relationship in my life was bound by a sense of guilt (a trauma bond). I never connected with my heart’s yearning. It was always about pleasing them, though I didn’t realise this is what I was doing.
So for the first time ever, choosing someone purely because it feels right, has been enthralling. It also presented its own brand new challenges. So I decided to take a couple of months to heal, rest, and gain some clarity.
In this lifeletter I will share with you new wisdom that I learned in these 2 months. I hope you will take things from it that can improve your life also. I feel much freer, lighter, and have new empowering insights into relationships which have completely changed the way I see the world.
As you read through this, I encourage you to reflect on your own life and see whether there are any similarities in your own relationship or patterns.
The Pain Of Ignoring Intuition: Trauma is very sneaky
The key struggle for me was that I adored the girl with whom I had a 3 year long situationship. I felt incredibly physically attracted to her, and more importantly she had all the qualities of mind and heart that I wanted. Yet deep down something vital felt like it was missing.
Truth be told, in the very start, my intuition said “She’s not the one”. But my mind said “You would be crazy to throw this away, there must be something wrong with you if you don’t want to keep her. Just go for it”
The agony that unfolded over the next 3 years, was unbelievable. Though there was no disrespect or arguments between us, it felt like were both chasing a carrot that was dangling right in front of our faces. But we could never have the carrot.
We went to healing events together, read books about relationships, and tried to “figure it out” with everything that we had. We would get close, go through all the motions that a loving couple would, yet inside I kept feeling empty. She was deeply in love with me, so it broke her heart over and over. Whilst I was left feeling like a terrible person, with whom something must be wrong. I even developed skin rashes in the process due to stress.
What I learned here is that romantic love is something that is either there, or its not. You cannot force it. I thought that if I healed myself enough, I would finally fall in love with her. This very thought was the trauma. It had sneaked in through the backdoor and was running the show all along. I believe this is why many couples are “on and off” with each other for years, despite clear signs that it isn’t right.
How Trauma Runs You
As I said earlier, all my life I chose partners not because I truly wanted to be with them, but because something in me was driving me to be with them. “She’s a great person, go for it” would often be the rationale.
It turns out this was simply the need to “save them” by giving them the love they deserve. I was trauma bonding, without realising it.
This need to save them comes from an unmet childhood need that I carried my whole life: The need to save my mother.
From as young as 3 years of age I sensed in my mother a deep loneliness and anxiety. Though she was physically well provided for by my father, my intuitive senses clearly detected the pain she carried so silently. She carried it so well that even she did not realise she felt it; but I did.
The newer generation always senses things that the previous could not. This sensing initially hurts us a lot because parents typically deny our reality, it seems absurd or disrespectful to them. But this very struggle is also the seed for our evolution.
Like many other children, I carried a deep sense of failure because I could not take away my mother’s unhappiness. My identity merged with this feeling, and I unconsciously carried her pain with me. This is how seamlessly generational trauma is created.
So when I looked at women who I considered a potential life partner, without me knowing, I was looking through the filter of my childhood.
I was not looking for a woman with whom I felt a true calling to be with. But rather, a woman who I perceived as a victim, and who I knew carried deep sadness. It then became my mission to take her sadness away. Sensing a viable option to carry out this mission is what produced the powerful chemistry and pull. None of this happened consciously. It was experienced as excitement. That’s why trauma bonds are so tricky. They can be mistaken for real love. I feel that at least half of all people enter relationships based on trauma bonds.
My inner child was searching his whole life to finally rescue his mother through another woman.
It is a very innocent and even noble seeming intention. But a gravely mistaken one. A vital piece of wisdom here is that we must learn that we are not responsible for the happiness of anyone but ourselves.
Playing saviour for others may seem honourable on the surface, but secretly it is egoic.
It is about you trying to feel better about you. This is not love.
Others experience trauma bonds as looking for someone who abuses them in the same way their father did, or finding someone with whom you have to play caretaker for and who can’t pour back into you. There are inifnite ways in which trauma bonds play out. We look for ways to reincarnate our childhood conditions. But the essential common theme is this:
A persistent deep intuitive feeling remains that something is missing, though the logical mind can never say what this is. And, there is constant confusion or suffering of some sort. There is no lasting peace and feelings of shared love.
A Summary Of Lessons:
Seeing so clearly that my mother wound was running me, felt like a monumental victory. Before this, entering relationships would always trigger this enormous codependency and anxious attachment in me. I would lose my centre and obsess with the person. I hated that feeling.
But now, giving myself permission to be in a relationship without a sense of debt on my shoulders, actually felt too good to be true at first, as guilt and anxiety was all I had ever known.
“So you’re telling me I can do what I love all day, and not worry about my partner? You’re telling me we can just love each other without worry and obsessive thinking? WOAH :)”
The inner freedom I now feel in this relationship is absolutely magnificent. All of a sudden, relationships don’t feel like a big deal to me at all. I do not tie any conditions to it. How long it lasts is not as important as the quality and consciousness involved (sense of peace and mutual awareness) in it, which I feel is the most important factor in any relationship.
In our modern era, relationships are no longer a survival need. They are an exciting playground which offers us the valuable opportunity to deepen connection with a partner, share love and beautiful experiences, whilst also learning about our own hidden wounds. What a luxury!
I could go on, but I would like to leave a summary of what I learned for you instead:
Your intuition presents itself as a silent whisper often immediately, and is always correct. Your mind/trauma is the louder voice, the voice of reason which kicks in a few moments later. Listen to the first one if you want deep fulfilment
A romantic relationship bound by a sense that you “should” stay, or you “should” love the person, is a duty, not love. Duty creates misery and fatigue. But love creates joy and replenishes you. Duty comes from the mind, romantic love comes from somewhere deeper and is inexplainable
Relationships are not here to complete us, or make us happy. This way of thinking belongs to the survival mode of our ancestors, and is driven by the fear of death. In this energy, you will keep experiencing loneliness, heartbreak and resentment, because you are unconsciously expecting your partner to take away your childhood traumas and make you feel loved. Which is impossible. Only when you look at yourself as already complete, and learn to fill yourself with your own love, can you have a loving relationship.
You’re responsible for your own happiness, and they’re responsible for theirs. That is a lot of pressure gone
Now you are with someone not to meet your unmet needs (essentially trying to use them), but to share with them the love that you already are. There is a monumental difference between these 2 energies. The first one feels like need, fear, clinging, judgemental, potential to hate, and fear of loss. The second one feels light, expansive, infinitely compassionate, and has no fear of suffering.
Many relationships are bound by both real love, and a certain amount of trauma. Therefore they are not a trauma bond. These ones can be salvaged and made into a place of joy, trust and connection, if both partners are willing. But some relationships are bound mostly by trauma. As you heal your trauma, be prepared to walk away from what you thought was the right match for you
Healing is an exhausting and difficult process. To reach the deepest parts of yourself, you have to be able to silence the mind enough to go beyond the logical mind and into your subconscious mind, as well as the memory stored in the cells of your body. It is in these deeply hidden places that our wounds sit
