Let’s take the example of a woman who has been rejected by her parents. In some form, they didn’t really care about her – they left her with relatives, they didn’t respond to her basic requests for love and attention and warmth, they didn’t make her feel valuable, etc. This is what she has learned as attachment.

A side note here to say: the subconscious does not operate in negatives. It does not understand lack. It only understands that it has access to something, or it is something or is part of something. It does not have the capacity to say: this is less than good or inappropriate or anything like that – that’s the domain of the mind. A child (who operates mostly with and through its subconscious) does not have concepts. A child just receives, internalizes and then mimics what it was confronted with, what it bathed in, so to speak. In the case of the woman above, it understands that: lack of attention and care equals connection – it is rooted in the humans to be connected to their parents in order to survive – so her subconscious will link, throughout all the formative years, being uncaring, being aloof, being absent to being connected.

This is where inner work becomes very difficult. In order to uncover her real inner make-up, this woman should be able to look into and see that she only has that as a reference to operate from: unconsciously, she is uncaring, unresponsive, avoidant, etc. and that this is what she will call love or connection or attachment. She does not realize that all she is doing is to reproduce her parent’s patterns. She has no access to another type of feeling connected. Think about it this way: let’s take the concept of winter as an example. Winter in Canada is as it is. Once you have lived there as a baby, as a child, if you move to Morocco, for example, you will not equate the Moroccan winter to your Canadian concept of winter.  It does not feel like winter to you. Similarly, when this woman is going to encounter human warmth and care and proper intimacy, her inner compass will say: no, this isn’t it. I need to feel rejected and abused in order for my brain to send “love signals”.

Where it gets tough, is to understand that, no matter how hard this woman would try to go through the motions of healthy attachment patterns (aka to tell herself and others that she is caring and warm and loving), her default place to operate from, is that she can only construct relationships where she lacks care, where she is cold or abusive, etc. This requires a person to get very very very very very open to look into the reality of their being. What is usually happening is that this woman would be given the opportunity to see herself through becoming involved in relationships, where she will bring her own style of care – aka, her aloofness, her rejection, her lack of trust, her lack of proper intimacy – she will call that love. Now the partner she will feel attracted to and be with, will inevitably be someone who has the same reference points. A healthy man would immediately recognize that what this woman is able to bring to the table, isn’t actually proper intimacy and care and support and, as a result, he would not feel attraction for her. His internal compass will not resonate with what she can provide in a relationship. Similarly, an unhealed man will not resonate with, will not feel chemistry with a healthy woman.

With the partners she does get involved with, what ends up happening is a ping-pong of projections, where each of them will blame the other for any type of lack, or abuse, or “less than” that is happening in their relationship. This ping-pong game can take place for months, years and even lifetimes if it is not seen through. If neither of them has the courage to really take a hard cold look at their own operational roots, they will continue forever in this dance where lack of love is perpetually fueled by each other’s unconsciousness. Usually, all relationships like this end up in disaster, only to be replaced by another partner, and another and another… where nothing ever changes. The forms of abuse might be a little different every time, but the core of the relationship will be some type of debilitating lack.

What to do? Well, as I was saying in this post here, this woman first needs to understand and accept that things are bad. She needs to be sick of the way her relationships are unfolding. So sick so as to stop her motion of trying to be involved with anyone until she has seen what she can bring in with honesty and humility. She needs to overcome the blame game where she is constantly the victim and realize she is both victim and perpetrator and that is her unconscious loop. Once that is done, she needs to decide that she will dedicate herself to a self-inquiry process meant to reveal who she really is – her demons as we sometimes put it. This is not something many people can do. Admitting that we really have foul parts that are playing out in reality and that we are the ones who are messed up and broken, isn’t popular at all. Mainstream spirituality, unicorns, elves and fairies are much easier to follow because they do not require any courage, strength or honesty. They are flowing down the river of delusion and same old games. It is easier to float than to stop the boat. It isn’t sexy to sit down and see your own mess. It isn’t socially accepted. There’s millions of memes on the internet pointing you into fooling yourself, into seeing the best in yourself, into so-called self-value and self-worth. Well, all those things have a common thread to them: the self. Until that is uncovered, until that is properly assessed and secured, nothing of value can be linked to it or built upon it. Think of a house: you can have the best materials, the best architects, the best workers… but if you want to build that house on a swamp, it will never bring any comfort to you.

If this is understood, the woman can proceed to the next step, which is some contemplative practice, where she has to look with curiosity at what comes up when she thinks of her relationships. She needs to build a “muscle” which will allow her to keep steady and straight through what can prove to be very uncomfortable understandings about her patterns. She needs to be able to stand in the fire of her own demons. Sounds painful? IT IS! This is the exact reason why nobody wants to do it. This is the reason why nobody promotes this. People don’t pay to be in pain – until it is too late and major expensive surgery becomes vital. What people don’t know though, is that those demons just need to be seen. They just need to be acknowledged as being there, as being parts of ourselves. Some people think that, once seen, they will vanish – that is also a trap. It is the trap of the ego to solve something already and move on. Well, you cannot unlearn winter. You will always have that internal notion of Canadian winter that is your reference point. If you go to Morocco though and live there long enough, this MIGHT change year after year after year… or not. What will change though, and where the value of this whole process stands, is in the acceptance of your own make-up. You will enter a relationship authentically, as you are. This is the point where you are able to really decide, consciously, if you want to employ your old patterns, or if you are willing to be open to proceed in different ways, according to what will actually work, as opposed to what is just triggering old trauma and therefore provide the same outcome over and over again..

Very few people get to this point. This practice demands serious courage and self-honesty. It demands strength, self-accountability and continuity. It demands authentic love of the self that you are. Authenticity is peace. Thinking you are a fairy while subconsciously pushing back demons, is war.

Have you been inspired by this post?