Today I’m going to talk about why we attract toxic
relationships. I look around at the world around me, and I see people living their
lives in all sorts of relationships. Some are in seemingly happy relationships,
while others are in obviously unhappy relationships. And I have to ask myself, why
is this? Why do some people get so lucky as to find the right mate, while others
are duped and disillusioned by the torment of abuse, whether the abuse is mental,
verbal, and emotional, or even physical?
I look at my own life experience, and how I myself have two
failed toxic, super unhappy relationships. Tumultuous, chaotic, miserable years
these were. So bad, there were times I wanted to disappear. To run away from my
life and start fresh somewhere else with a new identity. Or what’s worse…at
times, I wanted to... you know… end it all.
If you’re reading this, you most likely can relate
to these feelings. Toxic relationships can cause us to question life itself. The
pain is sometimes unbearable.
So it can make you wonder….
Is something wrong with me? Is something wrong with all the
people who are living in or have experienced unhappy and toxic relationships? Why
are we not easily finding compatible mates like some of these OTHER PEOPLE?
The answer to this question is... well, it’s complicated.
Nothing
is necessarily “wrong” with myself or you or others who have experienced this
toxic sort of relationship.
Yet, at our core, in our innermost subconscious, there
is a wound. This wound is deep…. And it is old… it has most likely been there
since early childhood.
This wound may have been created before we even remember. It
may have been created from years of witnessing unhealthy relationship modeling
by the adults around us growing up. We may be trained codependents, self-sabotagers,
complacent, or unable to stand up for ourselves. To say no. To believe in our
own sense of self-worth.
We may have patterns so ingrained into our thoughts, beliefs,
and actions, that we are unable to see that we are the common denominator in
our toxic relationships.
There is good news, friends! These wounds can be HEALED. The
childhood traumas that are holding us back from living in harmonious, loving, and
toxic-free relationships, can be dealt with at a core level and integrated into
our experience now.
One of the key ways to integrate these traumas so we can
heal and move past them, is through the interactive healing meditations in my
6-week How to Thrive After a Toxic Relationship healing program. In these healings,
we literally go deep into the areas of our subconscious where these traumas are
stuffed under the surface, uncover them, and transmute them for good.
I myself discovered one of the reasons I have always been so
self-conscious and didn’t feel I was as smart or as deserving as the people
around me. I uncovered that my earliest memories in life, around the age of 3
or 4, were of being bullied by my older siblings. They would literally make fun
of me for anything and everything that came out of my mouth. I would say
something sweet, cute and innocent, silly or quirky, and they would call me “dumb”,
“stupid” or worse. They would literally point and laugh at me.
Over time I
learned it was better just to keep quiet so as to not get made fun of. I would
do anything to get their approval. Going into adulthood, I realized I was still
trying to do anything and everything to get their approval. Not only theirs,
but everyone around me, especially the toxic relationships I was attracting. I
was always the people pleaser, desperate for a sense of worthiness.
My survival “monkey brain” had been literally re-wired for
survival. That’s why I changed my personality in early childhood. To survive. I
didn’t know I had a choice.
Now when I was an adult, and found myself attracted to my
first toxic relationship, of course there were red flags. Red flags like he
would get angry at me and not talk to me for hours, but refuse to tell me WHY
he was angry. I would cry and beg him to tell me why he was angry. Finally, he
would tell me, and it would be for one small thing I had unknowingly done hours
earlier. Our day together was ruined, and I couldn’t understand why. It was all
so tormenting and wasteful.
This is a very small example of the many red flags that
cropped up in the early weeks we first started dating.
A person with a healthy
and strong sense of self, who knows their worth and value, would not have
continued in this relationship. They would have said, “well it’s nice to know
you, thanks for your time, but I’ll be moving on now…”
They would have gone on with their life, refusing to settle for
less than what they are worth. They would have waited for someone kind,
authentic and caring. They would not allow themselves to get caught up in the
mind games of a narcissist, who is wounded themselves and playing out their own
childhood traumas in unhealthy and toxic ways.
But then there was me, just happy that a man liked me enough
to date me. Sure, he was cruel and unusual, but I didn’t know I deserved
better. Even if I did, I certainly didn’t want to be alone and single again. It
was scary. Would if I didn’t survive?
My subconscious programming was so developed that I put up
with the mind games, which evolved into emotional and verbal abuse, a 10-year
off and on-again relationship that ended in a nasty divorce, but it gave me my
three beautiful sons.
And when it was over, I took time for myself. I didn’t jump
into another long-term relationship right away. But I threw myself into work.
As a small business owner, I became a work-a-holic, and when I wasn’t at work,
I was running from charity event to happy hour to board meeting. When I was
home, I wasn’t paying attention to myself or my kids. I was on social media,
working on my computer, doing whatever I could do to not face my demons.
So when a new relationship blossomed and seemed like
literally the man I had been PRAYING for, HOPING for, DAYDREAMING would show
up, I was PUMPED!
I moved him in to my townhouse with me and my boys, and
immediately had him start helping me run my business. This was less than 4
months after meeting him.
I’m not going to get into the details of what happened next,
perhaps in another blog post… but what I want to say is that in no way, shape or
form, was I ready for this relationship. There were deep, deep, deep wounds
that had NEVER been healed.
And unfortunately, it ended up being another toxic
relationship, but this time it took my business down with it.
After that, I was so lost and depressed, even suicidal although
I would never leave my boys like that… I mean I was totally rock bottom… then I
found a way to face my demons once and for all.
The people pleasing, the
codependency, the self-sabotage. Now, I’m not perfect and healing is not a linear
process at all. Things continue to come up and I continue to do my inner work
and heal, heal, heal. But this gunk, this subconscious muck that is holding us
back from living our full potential… it really can be faced. It can be cleared
out.
We CAN thrive after a toxic relationship. I can’t wait to tell you more.
Love Rachel
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