Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Truth.
Like attracts like. There’s something about an energy that’s put out by others that our antennae pick up on and we’re drawn in. Some similarity. Some…reflection.
After my divorce, it seemed every other person I talked to was dealing with verbal abuse and didn’t know what it was. Some people might say that I was aware of it and looking for it, but it’s more than that. People came out of the woodwork to find me and tell me their stories—without knowing mine.
I’ve seen this in other examples, as well. The former abused wife who sat alone at an airport and a stranger sat beside her and began to pour out her heart about her husband’s cruelty—the third time in a week the former victim had this happen. The woman who’d recently recovered from a serious illness, only to share a taxi with a woman who’d just been diagnosed and was sorely in need of a personal opinion from someone who’d been there— the second time in one day.
A work friend cried on my shoulder today. She’s recently out of an abusive, long-term marriage, newly in love, and doesn’t really trust anything she’s doing. After an earlier conversation got cut short, I sent her a message on her Crackberry and found the words resonating, almost as if my Higher Self were giving me a good talking- to!
Here’s what I said:
No, hon, you are not fucked up. You are not fucked up just because you’re afraid this new man in your life will see the real you, realize how much you care for him, then drive you to your knees, and walk away.
That’s not this new guy. That’s attachments to men in your past. That’s just programming. That’s what’s always happened. It’s the only way you know for things to be. Since it’s all you know, it’s what you expect.
It’s said that we’re creatures of habit—well, we’re certainly creatures of patterns. Remember those psychologists—BF Skinner, and others, too—who used to give critters electrical shocks to make them eat or not eat or teach them to peck or touch a bar or to turn around three times to make something happen? It’s like that. Conditioning. And I firmly believe that being conditioned to think about things in a limited way will mandate low manifestations of your possibilities.
You can’t go from such long-term conditioning in your life—decades of it—to a clean slate overnight. It will take time to re-program. But to reprogram, you also need to know what you want to reprogram into. That’s where having a plan or a vision is so important. That may mean cutting out pics from magazines of the home you want or writing a story with the hero in it that you want for yourself (overtly making yourselves the hero and heroine and really living happily ever after (HEA)). Hmmm, actually, writing the HEA after-story, not the conflicts of getting there!
But get a good visual on what you want your future to look like. Daydreaming is very important! It opens up possibilities beyond your established patterns and raises the level of manifesting.
What do you mean, you’re not sure how he feels about you? You’ve told me in several emails that you were sure. You felt it. You haven’t gotten a follow-up confirmation in the physical (that’s what we expect right? Patterns? Because the last guys, even if they were bad for us, said it the right words and maybe said it often?).
But because you didn’t get a follow-up confirmation, now you’re second guessing yourself. Must be a reason he hasn’t said the right words or said he loves you.
Must be you. You must have misunderstood. Or he must be playing you.
Couldn’t possibly be that he’s shy or maybe a little submissive or terrified that you won’t reciprocate or doesn’t understand the depth of his own emotion. Nope, gotta be you, unworthy you.
Making you dinner when he’s feeling like crap, giving you foot rubs during your favorite movie, and treating you like a queen doesn’t count. Gotta be those 3 words because that’s what we’re conditioned to. If the pattern we’re used to isn’t happening (even though what IS happening may be much, much better), then we’ve failed and we’d better look for something else. For someone else.
And how many times now have you said that you’ll just enjoy this for now because it can’t last but even when your heart’s broken, it will have been worth it?
Stop with the “if my heart gets broken” bit. Yes, that’s a possibility. It always is. It always was.
But this is your self-protection mechanism kicking in.
Lowering your standards for yourself. Lowering the manifestations to something else.
It’s my mother always telling me not to get my hopes up so I wouldn’t be hurt when things didn’t work out. It’s my friends telling me that someone I like hasn’t responded the way they thought he should and that I should forget about him because I deserve better. It’s umpteen people telling me to not expect anything if I want anything good to happen.
I know where you are. You are creating expectation of failure. If you have that mindset, you will do things to sabotage yourself. You are telling yourself it’s too good to be true, too good to last, and creating a future for yourself where you’ll be alone and sad about it but strong and okay.
How about being strong and okay and in love everyday with someone who returns that love? What’s so bad about it staying sweet? Or about it maturing into something enduring and real? Maybe you choose to move on to someone else and it’s his heart that’s broken, not yours. Maybe you two are together for the rest of your lives.
But if you’re looking for reasons/ways for it not to work or for it not to be real, you’ll find them and most of the people around you will be happy to assist you in finding that emptiness because it’s where they already live.
But stop bringing negative possibilities to yourself. Stop reinforcing that this is too good to be true and things will change and you’ll be disappointed or maybe you were just wrong all along. You’re tying so many concrete blocks to your wings that you’ll never get off the ground with him.
Enjoy him. You both obviously care deeply for each other, even if neither of you is saying it to the other in a way that the other understands or knows how to respond to.
Defy your past. Enjoy the possibilities of being with him long-term. Stay open to them.
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