photo of couple standing on water

Toxic vs. healing relationships

When two people come together with broken halves…

it is a bond of need. Hunger meets hunger. Each reaches into the other with urgency, with hunger, searching desperately for meaning and fullness that will fill the void within themselves. And so, it is destined to fail because you cannot drink from an empty cup. The hunger never ends, as nothing can satisfy it except creating meaning within their own selves. Yet the two people continue their frenzied search in each other’s depths, inevitably falling to disappointment and pain upon realizing there is no relief to be found.

The love, however earnest, emerges from a source of fear, of pain, of childhood hurts and wounds deep within never faced – seeking to fill the love that was absent, whether of friends, of family, of an absent mother, an emotionally unavailable father. The two people don’t yet know that by having little to no boundaries, they allow worse and worse treatment from and to each other. They don’t realize that the reason they demand to find power, meaning and anchor in another, is because they refuse ownership over their own actions, their own life. (The key here is the difference between “I need” and “I want/choose”. Need = recognizing they lack something, whereas want/choose = conscious intent coming from a source of fullness).

They accept toxic behavior because deep down they believe that is what they deserve (This is not a fault, or a mistake, or a weakness. It is simply the lack of mindfulness, or awareness, not yet having shined a light upon their deepest self.) Most often than not, they are attached to the idea, the concept, the ideal that they have created in their mind of the other person; and so when the passing of years shatters that illusion and reveals the disconnect between who they thought the partner was, and who they really are, it only leads to further heartache, a sense of having fallen in love with someone who has completely changed, a sense of awakening overnight to a stranger.

In other words, time only makes the attachment/love wane. Paradoxically, even in this hunger to find meaning in another, a common fault is to be either consciously or unconsciously blinded to each other’s true interests and passions; there is an attempt to overwrite the other’s world with one’s own. When you are in the dark, you do not see all the light hidden in another.

When two people come together as whole, individual selves

it is a bond of choice, of mindful presence. It is a coming together of enlightened awareness, of clear intent, fully present in the here and now. There is no ravishing hunger; there is only a sense of rightness, of peace, of calm, of feeling at home. Instead of need, there is want and choice, which are completely different things. The bond, the love, emerges from a place of peace, of self-love, of self-fullness, it comes from a place within that is already deeply anchored within itself, and so does not cling desperately for anchor in another.

Both people have worked and continue to actively work upon their inner wounds, they have brought/are continuing to bring those painful memories to light, analyzed and understood them, embraced and released them. They already know their worth, their value. They already know they deserve good, healing love, and nothing less. They take ownership over their actions, their words, their choices, most of all, they take ownership over their inner wounds, their weaknesses, their shortcomings. Furthermore, they work together as a couple, as a team versus the challenge, instead of one against the other.

They know that in order for a relationship to work, both will have to invest continuously, that at every dawn a new choice is to be made, that love isn’t just an endless honeymoon dictated by moods or needs or changing hearts; that love is choosing each other day by day, and knowing that there will be times when one will have to carry most of the weight to compensate for an imbalance, whatever the reason may be for this, or sometimes both will carry it equally, and so forth. They know that in the end, it’s all about intent and choice, as long as they both hold on and want to be with each other, they will keep doing whatever necessary to make it work.

Most of all, they know that time changes things, that people evolve, and that is absolutely natural and essential for a joyous union, and to this end they strive to encourage and support one another in becoming their very best selves, in pursuing whatever passions set their heart alight. Time only strengthens such a couple, because they grow together, like flowers in a garden. An enlightened couple coming together in these conditions, is a powerhouse of love, of unbreakable commitment, a power couple in its truest form. It is a divine union because there is nothing that cannot be achieved by two people that have reached such a state of awareness, of self-love and intentional living.

Much love always...

💋 Lumen

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