I believe relationships are our biggest mirrors. Their reflection serves as signposts for our healing and growth. This is the story of how I dealt with one of my most challenging mirrors and the gift of wisdom it inadvertently left behind.
The concept that relationships are mirrors to our unhealed parts has been part of my life for many years now. However, it took experiencing the intensity of that reflection in a particularly destructive relationship to really understand what this idea was all about.
A few years ago, after a divorce that I thought would grant me the freedom and happiness I was so frantically searching for, I found myself lonely, fragile, and lost. What followed next was to change me forever, destroying me and rebuilding me at the same time.
I realised, that in order to cure myself from this relationship addiction (and any future ones) I had to do the work. Look within. Read my reflections. Become friends with my shadows. There is no other choice.
Desperate to avoid dealing with my loneliness and pain, I latched onto a man who came to be the biggest, most impactful mirror of my life. What started innocently enough, just as a ‘bit of fun’, rapidly turned into a full-blown relationship addiction that consumed me for the good part of 2 years and turned my life completely upside down.
I remember being constantly miserable, trying hopelessly to extract love and attention from this man by doing everything in my power to show him that I was ‘good enough’. I manipulated, I controlled, played-power games and so did he. Together, we created a maddening dance. One of dysfunction, violence and shattered hearts.
I hated it but I could not stop. The process of healing from this relationship was excruciatingly painful and slow. Every time I thought I was over it; another wave of grief would take me under, leading me to re-join him in our destructive dance.
I resisted, I fought, I begged for the anguish to stop and then, one day, I realised that through was the only possible way out. I needed to see and recognise the patterns that were being reflected back to me through this relationship. I needed to acknowledge and tend to my old wounds. Suddenly, it was so clear; I was chasing him in the hope that he would give me that very thing that I could not give myself: love.
Later, I came to understand that this troubled relationship was my psyque’s effort to re-stage old unhealed traumas (abandonment, lack of connection, loss) so if I was to put a final stop to this crazy-making dance and unstrapped my feet from the proverbial ‘red shoes’ (see Anne Sexton’s poem), I had to heal the issues that created this, the root cause.
I realised, that in order to cure myself from this relationship addiction (and any future ones) I had to do the work. Look within. Read my reflections. Become friends with my shadows. There is no other choice.
Relationships as Mirrors is the result of that journey and the inadvertent gift that relationship left behind. Its premise is to aid those travelling the relationship healing path by providing signposts to guide their way back home, back to themselves.
My wish is that you find your own reflection in this space, so you can feel seen, knowing that you really do belong, and that healing is possible if you look within and begin the practice of giving yourself the precious gift of self-love.
