We keep going back into toxic relationships, over and over again.

Sometimes with the same person, or if that fails we seek out a rebound.

If not a rebound, we tend to fall into our other addictions in order to escape.

Why?

The aloneness and abandonment is debilitating.

The lack of connection is torture to the soul, and it triggers deep wounds.

The sense of failure we feel in love, in dreams, in ourselves—is tricky to face.

The “letting go” to a harsh reality of truth.

Truth that is extremely difficult to accept.

Truth laced in trauma and patterns.

Social conditioning creates shame.

A certain amount of shame may be needed for us all to coexist. Too much shame has the opposite effect.

It creates a lack of belonging and a need to escape the gaze.

You choose less.

You choose less, because it’s more than nothing.

You choose to ignore the red flags because you would prefer to feel something. Even if it’s negative—you choose to matter

You choose to hope.

You choose familiarity, because the unknown is terrifying.

You choose this pain, because it’s better than abandonment.

You are not being stupid, you are not blind to the crap.

You are trying to survive.

As a baby you learnt quickly that your survival depended on love.

Your idea of love became skewed by conditions and reactions.

You associated love with pain, fear, shame, disgust, and anger.

You couldn’t separate the feelings and had no idea that there was any other way of receiving love.

You learnt that in order to get love and survive, you had to attach to this parental figure. You had to be dependent on them no matter what.

They may have hit you, and you said sorry.

They may have taken their stress out on you, and you blamed yourself.

They may have criticized you, and you internalized these voices.

They may have punished you for your fear, and you learned to hide vulnerability.

They may have punished you for speaking out, getting angry, becoming overwhelmed, making mistakes, and for not knowing the rules clearly.

They told you what to do, when to eat, when to sleep, how to behave, and what to wear.

You were powerless as a child.

And this was your first introduction to love.

The more shame and fear a child experiences, the more anxious they will become.

Anxiety comes in the form of instability, insecurity, a lack of control, and feeling unsafe.

Shame creates a mask. We start to hide who we are, and we feel the need to prove ourselves.

We need connection and will do whatever it takes to get it.

We allow ourselves to be controlled, manipulated, and put down.

We accept mistreatment and we don’t put up boundaries.

We hide our true feelings from everyone, especially ourselves.

We lose ourselves in the codependence.

We become addicted to the intermittent love.

We mistake control for care—the plight of the neglected inner child.

We give away our power and control due to the lack of self-trust and confidence we feel.

We oscillate over how we feel and what we want, the indecisiveness stemming from the same shame space.

Discernment is hard.

Self-discipline and self-protection are even harder.

Setting and maintaining boundaries is almost impossible without healing.

Anger is hard when you are in victim mode and terrified of abandonment. We need anger to help us with boundaries.

We fear our anger will lead us to being abandoned. We are scared of losing the person, and feeling pain and rejection.

Accepting less feels better than pain and rejection—or so our fear tells us.

Breaking the addiction to old relationship patterns and codependency is extremely challenging.

It is not simple.

It is not black and white.

It is about trauma and survival.

Society provides judgment and further shame and isolation for you.

Courage is needed in huge quantities.

A higher power or spirituality is the only way to survive it.

You need to be alone. And survive it. As many times as it takes for you to realise, you are never alone.

As many times as it takes to realise, you are enough.

You deserve a love you have yet to discover.

You deserve to feel loved, just as you are, without any validation from the outside world.

Love just is.

We are love.

We need to connect to ourselves to find love.

Once we find love inside, it will mirror on the outside.

That is when we can connect in love, and not dependence and trauma.

~