An amazing flash of recognition!

“I know this person, but we’re only meeting now for the first time… we must be soul mates; how lucky I am!”

Or perhaps….

“This date is okay, he won’t stop talking and to top it off, he’s got food in his teeth, and it’s almost embarrassing when he smiles. Hmmm…he has nice eyes, a good job and doesn’t live at home. I guess I could be with this dude.”

Either scenario sound familiar?

We often choose people subconsciously.

We want them to play a role in our ongoing miniseries or soap operas.

Little does either person in each scenario know what it was that actually brought them together.

In the first scenario, it seems we’ve met our person. They look, feel and sound like the person we have dreamed of for years and we take whatever they say or do to believe they deserve to be on a pedestal. Perhaps, they don’t fit quite on the pedestal, but we’re gonna make them fit.

We’re going to overlook any glaring red flags, such as they’re in another relationship or still hung up on someone else; their interest is mainly physical; they seem interested, but something is off and so on. If we’ve met the one, really the one, it has little to do with a continuous parade of bells and whistles.

It’s more like two pieces of a puzzle fitting together and seeing each other clearly, and ourselves clearly too. There is an ease, and it’s not based on a negative or anxiety-ridden high; it’s based on a genuine attraction to someone, in which we get the whole picture. It doesn’t mean it’s bump free, but it usually comes when there is a high degree of awareness.

Getting back to the second scenario…

We may shake our head at the thought of settling for someone who borders on revulsion, but most of us have made someone fit into what we want—at least in our fantasy. We’ve taken them home, given them a bath and made them look shiny and perfect.

Except, it still doesn’t feel right; it feels like a constant struggle and instead of recognizing how the puzzle pieces don’t fit, we jam them together harder, forcing them into place. How are we surprised when this doesn’t work? Better yet, if we have self-awareness, we may see a pattern of relationships that leave us unfulfilled, wanting and wondering what the hell we’re attracting to our lives.

Self-awareness is a great way to create a connection with ourselves.

It entails being connected to yourself and understanding why you do what you do.

Our own awareness is key in the third scenario; it is all about being open, not playing ego-building games, understanding our own insecurities, having confidence to be comfortable in our own skin and protection-free. In other words, being vulnerable—authentic—being honestly who we are, when we meet this person.

Looking at the cases where we don’t know why we’re choosing or what we’re choosing, it’s a signal to get clear. At least then we understand what we’re doing when we meet and enter into a relationship.

If we constantly find our relationships a struggle to be loved, to get attention, to communicate or to be shown any consideration… do we have any inkling as to why? It’s not the other person.

Whether they are a match or not, it’s us and our perception of the world and our place in it. If disappointment in our youth was associated with our primary relationships, because we weren’t shown enough love, were made to feel unworthy, invisible or bad… we’ll repeat those situations over and over again.

If we felt as though, we couldn’t handle our parents’ emotional outbursts, we may have traveled within, hunkering down in our inner bomb shelter, wondering if it was ever safe to come out. We may have decided that we didn’t want someone to get so close to us that we only choose people who we really cannot have a relationship with, instead of healthy and open partners.

These unknown or foggy details in our past helped to build the beliefs we carry forth today and are a magnet for what we attract. If we take a look within ourselves, what does our inner landscape look like? Happy, miserable, angry, peaceful?

Those spaces within us are what we have to give and that’s where we receive. When we bring self-awareness forth, we bring light to the darkness, so we can see and know ourselves, then we can decide what actions to take now that are not a reflection of the past.

As we create new choices and actions, we’ll notice a shift in the types of people we’re attracted to.

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Ed: B. Bemel