One of the reasons we like falling in love - or meeting and making new friends - is that these relationships come with little to no baggage. But while these new relationships come with no troublesome backstory...it isn't too long before they start to look - and feel - very similar to all of our other relationships.
Like some plague we can see our "old story" sweep in and start to overwrite what we hoped would be a new narrative. Before too long, faultfinding becomes easier than forgiving them. The same old blame-game begins, and what was new slowly takes on the appearance of what has always been.
For instance, maybe our heart got crushed in days gone by; perhaps a loved one betrayed us in a most cruel way, so that now the thoughts we carry with us into each new relationship are pre-colored with a sense of caution we just can't shake. Or perhaps we were in some kind of abusive relationship. It really doesn't matter who may have punished us, or even at what age, be it a past partner, or maybe a parent who was maddened with enough pain or frustration to take it out on us.
Nevertheless, what remains are wounds that never seem to heal, woven through a story from the past that follows us into the present. And given even the slightest hint of having to relive anything like the nightmare of our past, our own fearful thoughts rush in to seal us off - stealing from us the possibility of forming a new and meaningful relationship.
This "body" of unconscious thoughts and feelings literally stains our reality, causing us to see our relationships, and their possibilities, through its fearful mindset. It doesn't just confine us to live in its dark reality, but it actually helps create this ever-shrinking construct for us by "showing" and "telling" us why - if we don't want to get hurt again - we need to be afraid of love! It should be clear: as long as we continue to look at our relationships through the "eyes" of these conditioned thoughts and feelings, we have almost no choice but to be a prisoner of the world they see.
This means that we can't really know love's power to free us, to fulfill us through our relationships, until we gain some totally new ideas about how to see, and then interact with others. Not just a rehash of our past failed viewpoint; we know that path is powerless to heal the aching heart. An altogether higher view is called for. We need to be able to see others closest to us through the "eyes" of a completely fresh understanding - one that only unconditional love can provide an unencumbered heart in the pure and present moment.
A Helpful Question and Answer
Question: I feel as if I'm stuck in a kind of purgatory. On one hand, I've just entered into a relationship with a wonderful new man, and I want to embrace this opportunity - love him - as fully as I know I'm capable of doing. On the other hand, I'd have never met this man if it weren't for a real jerk crushing my heart less than a few months ago. My dilemma is this: I can see I'm afraid to let go and trust my new partner, but I know that if I don't, then our love will have no way to grow. Help!
Answer: Your patient study of the next insight will show you why we must have a new set of eyes to help us see through the lie behind these kinds of fears, as well as the way they mislead us into the very situation we hope to avoid.
When it comes to any form of (psychological) fear... the "feel" is real, but the "why" is a lie. In this instance, can you see that whatever fear you feel now - telling you of dark hours to come - doesn't exist without some part of you imagining, revisiting the very past that you hope not to relive? And then, the same unconscious mind, the one responsible for projecting this pain, goes on to tell you how to escape the very fear that it's created!
You can't change this painful dream by trying to protect yourself from it, or by trying to control the unwanted moment that it projects. There's only one way to end this kind of nightmare, and that's to shake yourself awake and out of the dream that's causing it.