All we want is true love!

Love is the greatest force in the Universe and romantic love is the quintessence of it. We all wanted!

Many of us have dedicated our lives, most probably unconsciously, to the quest of true love. We have made lots of sacrifices just to be able to experience that kind of connection to another human being where we feel seen and understood, to be special in the eyes of another human being; we all crave it, if we dare acknowledge it or not. We have given up the security and comfort of family life, the security of being like anyone else and fitting in, for the freedom of continuing the quest, for the luxury of keeping hope alive that one day we will find the one.

I am one of those. Never settled, never giving up either! Hungry for that organic connection with another human being that makes me feel special.

Wounded people will attract wound-mates!

But finding that kind of love is not easy, especially when we carry certain wounds in our bodies – I would call them here “love wounds”. I refer to those disturbances in our energetic body caused by childhood trauma or by a deficiency in our emotional development. As children we learn about unconditional love through interacting with our parents. But when that experience is somehow broken by a parent who is abusive, negligent or simply emotionally deficient, we are left with some holes in our emotional development. “How can we help people become viscerally acquainted with feelings that are lacking early in their lives” (Bessel van der Kolk). We do not need to have lived through traumatic events to be wounded; it is sufficient that one of our caregivers has been traumatized or never experience unconditional love him/herself in order to leave us with holes in our development. Without this experience of true, unconditional love during our childhood, we are somehow left in the dark without a compass, forced to come up with our own idea of what true love feels like. Often we end up seeking for a heart connection with a closed heart, and we don’t know how a heart connection feels like.

Somehow, our subconscious knows how to pick people who are like us, because they are the only ones who can help us feel anything, because their actions resurface in us emotions long time buried. Or maybe because we attract those who have the same energy that we put out there. Because like attracts like.

When wounded, the natural instinct is to close our heart in order to protect ourselves. Better not to feel anything than being scared. Having grown up with an alcoholic and abusive father, I spent my twenties and early thirties looking for the man of my life with a closed heart. Rarely did I like somebody for more than three weeks. There might have been some chemistry, I had likes and dislikes but never really felt too excited with any man during all those years. How could I?

Only after I began inner work did I start feeling. But my heart was only half open; as soon as the intensity of the emotions became too strong, my heart would close back and sought to build a relationship with the mind. Which resumes in fact to manipulations of all kind, hoping to caught my “mate” in my grips and having him surrender to my love while I myself was incapable of surrendering to anything, not even my own heart.

That caused the other one to run away. He would come back few weeks or months after, as soon as I felt I found back my peace and was ready to move on, only to run away again. That is the dance of the wound-mates: that push and pull kind of relationship that does not work but I cannot let go either.

When we are emotionally triggered, reason flies over the window

I have met so many smart, beautiful people who were holding on to some kind of love relationship that appeared completely hopeless to any outsider but to himself or herself. When caught in that energy of the wound connection, we are like a fish in the hook: it is very hard, almost impossible to let go. The intensity of the connection is very similar to true, unconditional healthy love; everything we do is pushing us towards that human being. The encounter may be inflamed by synchronicity and the Universe itself seems to want this reunion. And maybe it does want it except that its purpose is not to live happily ever after but to help you heal your wounds, to heal all those broken places inside yourself that is keeping you from finding happiness, with or without a romantic relationship. “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it” (Rumi).

Wound-mates will break us down only to have us come back and ask for more!

The interactions with the wound-mates will touch all those painful places inside you, re-open your wounds and make them bleed again until you are able to accept the pain, stop fighting it and allow those blocked energy to leave our body. Unless we become aware that we are in a wound mate relationships, they will break you down over and over. Wound-mates are toxic and intoxicating and therefore make us feel special for a short time but don’t stay long enough to get real. We get addicted: this is where the hunger for more comes from.

The wound-mate will break your heart over and over only to have you coming back and ask for more, until you are ready to accept the pain and start the healing process.

Wound-mates will help you heal, true love will help you grow!

Wound mates are not meant to make you happy. They will almost never meet our expectations because he/she is too busy trying to hide and protect his/her own inner pain. He / she will only give you enough to keep you hanging on, to keep interested but will never satisfy your need for connection and closeness because the moment you are close enough, he will run away. Because your simple presence will trigger his own pain and fear will push him to do the exact opposite of what he longs for. The wound-mate will never get to close; he/ she will find million reasons to keep a safe distance, either physical, social or emotional  (there are either living on another continent, committed in another relationship or simply avoids you because he can’t stand the intensity of the emotions when being near you). Understanding the difference between the two and their different purpose may save you a lot a heartbreak, disappointment, and time wasted. And its not to say that one is better than the other but it helps to understand the situation you are in and learning the lessons you are given to learn. Knowing the kind of relationship you are in will help you accept the challenge, accept the pain and go through the healing process rather than resisting the process and clinging to a story that might never become true.

Wound-mates are the best opportunity to heal!

There are no greater teachers for you than your wound-mate. Because he / she is so much like you, that will trigger all the emotions you are not willing to acknowledge, he / she will knock all the walls you raised around your heart and break them down until you give them up “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens” (Rumi).

Many times, it is our own resistance to keeps us trapped into the push and pull dynamic; it is our own infatuation with the “specialness” of the relationship that blocks the way of our healing and freedom, of our happiness. The moment you stop resisting the intense emotions and mind stops trying to save the relationship, you are ready to heal. Use your wound-mate to start letting go and heal your body of all anger, shame, guilt, grief, pride, fear! It’s a golden opportunity because no one is better bring it all to the surface.

One of the most efficient techniques to heal of negative emotions is the mechanism of letting go, described by David Hawkins in his book “Letting go – The Pathway to Surrender”. It consists of “being aware of the feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different of do anything about it”. Sounds simple though is one of the most difficult things I had to learn how to master. And I am still learning. To stay still and observe my feelings, my emotions as uncomfortable as they might be and not try to change them, to escape or to solve the situation that created them. But I learnt though my own suffering that there is no other way out of pain but to go through it.

Your body will try to warn you, therefore do listen. Tap into the wisdom of your body when you are confused. When I met my last wound-mate (I hope he was the last one though I know I am never safe) and after spending half hour with him, I went home and literally vomited. My body tried to worn me but my mind kept shouting he was the one. When the heart closes, the mind will take over and try to solve the situation. So I dare you to be still and watch the mind going nuts, the different voices arguing in your head, your heart in turmoil. “When (….) you feel jealousy or fear, just smile. Be happy that this Samskara, which has been stored down there for all this time, has the opportunity to make it through you. Just open, relax your heart, forgive, laugh, or do anything you want”. (Michael Singer). But most of all don’t resist. Don’t try to change anything, not matter how uncomfortable it is. And yes, it takes enormous strength surrender.

You may run but you can’t escape until you heal!

Running from the wound-mate would not help either, unless you are ready to give up love and settle for a social contract. Whenever you try to ran, he will come right at your feet and convince you that he will always be there. But he will not. Even if you manage to free yourself from this dynamic, chances are high that the next relationship will be the same, although it make look different at the beginning. It will be very difficult to have a healthy relationship until you start healing and understand to work with the energy of the heart. “If at any given point in time it [the heart] happens to open, we fall in love. It at any given point in time it happens to close, the love stops. If the heart happens to hurt, we get angry, and if we stop feeling it all together, we get empty”. (Michael Singer)

Be still with the pain, offer yourself to the jaws of the dragon and ask for more. Let that pain flow through you and out of you. Whenever you think you are done, continue to surrender. It may take, weeks, months though most of the time it takes years to let go of the pain and heal. Commitment to remain aware most of the time and decide each time to let go and surrender to the energy that is trying to pass you through, will eventually pay off; leaving you every time a bit lighter, a bit  more aware, a bit happier!

The first condition to heal your soul-mate relationship is to give him/her up

Is it possible to experience amazing long lasting connection with a wound-mate?  Maybe, but that means full commitment on both sides to do the inner work, to be present and to show-up for the other, despite the discomfort and impulse to escape.

This does not mean that we need to have healed all our wounds in order to meet and be able to live a harmonious love relationship. But I do think we need to be highly aware of our wounds, to know our painful places and be willing to go through the painful healing process. We can heal together and that could be one of the most beautiful experiences for two broken souls: learning how to and keeping a safe space for each other in order to put back the broken pieces.

The first step will be letting go of any expectations other than pushing your buttons in order to heal!