The twin flame mirror and fear of commitment

Who would of thought lol? 6 years into the journey, and light bulb finally went off the other day while I was taking a bath and meditating. My twin flame had been mirroring my fear of commitment back to me.

I had been spinning for years about my twin flame’s involvement with other women.  I had researched narcissism and codependency. I had looked at the possibility that my twin’s sexual addiction was mirroring my childhood sexual abuse, in addition to being a symptom of his own childhood sexual abuse.  I pondered whether or not his narcissistic behaviour was a result of my lack of boundaries and codependent behaviour, or if it was simply the result of the addictions he used to numb his pain from childhood addictions. I also wondered if this was mirroring that I was betraying myself.  I was betraying myself when I put others ahead of me or tried to appease them by not being true to myself, but this didn’t explain why he was still maintaining a circle of women friends he had at one time had sex with.  Although he was not having sex with these  women anymore, he still didn’t want to let go of these “friendships” in case I died or left him.  He was terrified of being abandoned.

The realization came when he told me he wasn’t having sex with others anymore, and he started spending more time with me…actually, he had been spending more time with me before my birthday and before I got triggered and did not to see him in person for 5 weeks following my birthday. Things had been going well since I started seeing him again.  My fears were still there and I was quite sensitive about long periods of time with silence…my ego would taunt me by replaying the past. When I realized that he is in love with me…and he told me he is in love with me…and wants to spend time with me, my ego went into a panic.  I started to have thoughts about maybe I should tell him to keep his women friends, and just stop seeing him. I started to have thoughts that maybe he would commit to me and maybe this isn’t the right relationship for me…what if he is a narcissist?…I sure as heck didn’t want to commit to that. Maybe it wasn’t wise for me to have asked him to be exclusive all along…if he got rid of the others, and he was a narcissist, I would have to leave, because I have boundaries now, and self love…and he would be right…his fears would have come true.  Oh Boy!!! Then there was the light bulb moment as Oprah would say – I was afraid of commitment!  He had been mirroring my fear of commitment back to me all this time.

Luckily, I realized this!  I had experienced this issue in previous romantic relationships.  I normally chose partners who were emotionally unavailable…who were running away.  I thought I had dealt with this…put it into healing years ago. And here I was face to face with the realization that my twin was mirroring this wound back to me. It really wasn’t about him.  It was about me! I didn’t realize I still had a fear of commitment.  Because he was involved with others, it was safe for me…it was safe to desire someone who wasn’t standing still to give me the commitment I believed I was so desperately seeking.  I was my own issue!

I did not run.  I have been seeing more of my twin flame, and it is going much better. We are building intimacy, and coming more to the middle in terms of both of our healing. I am starting to appreciate just how much healing he has done.  He is showing much more concern for my well being, and is showing less of the narcissistic behaviours that had been so predominant over the past 6 years. He is risking being more vulnerable, and so am I.  It is at the same time scary and wonderful ❤

Mirroring the childhood wound of emotional unavailability

I see my mother’s behaviours of emotional unavailability mirrored by my twin. Her incessant talking about herself and endless detail. I was forced to sit and listen and validate, not exchange or create an emotional bond. My twin does this as well. He talks on and on about himself, his work, his interests…and if I try to relate or engage, he cuts the conversation short or redirects it to himself. We often talk and I ask how he is, but he rarely reciprocates and asks me how I am. Like her, he often ignores my attempts to talk about things that are important and emotional in nature. They both stay away from the deeper, more important topics.

I have always had an uneasy feeling when communicating with them. It feels empty, alienating. It feels like disconnect…no depth…no mutual understanding or rapport. It’s like they talk at you for validation. And I was taught to tolerate this, be polite. As a child, this was my normal.

Another way my mother did this was by always being busy…cleaning, cooking, and her perfectionism. My twin mirrors this in his workaholism, his perfectionism, and his involvement with other women. It always feels like there’s not enough quality time. It feels lonely being in relationship with them.

I have been attracted to many emotionally unavailable partners, most often they had addictions. I am healing more and more everyday. I am uncovering my childhood wounds and placing them into healing. I am choosing me…keeping my promise to my inner child to love and protect her…to keep her safe and loved ❤️

Here are two excellent videos by Alan Robarge about emotional unavailability:

Narcissistic and codependent behaviour on the twin flame journey

Are you experiencing or have you experienced narcissistic and codependent behaviour on your twin flame journey? I have, and it had me spinning in confusion for a long time.  I knew that it made me feel shitty inside; however, I didn’t know what to do about it.  I didn’t come across solid advice about this topic until recently when I found a couple of videos by other twin flames which I will post at the bottom of this post. The advice I had received was very confusing and contradictory at times…don’t set boundaries with twin because it creates blocks…it doesn’t matter if twin is with others because the feeling with you is different and he will eventually choose you because of that feeling…where is your worth?…and on and on. Every time I set healthy boundaries, I would feel relief.  I know now that is because I was listening to my own inner guidance. Then, I would betray myself by going back on the healthy boundaries I had set, because I thought I was wrong after listening to someone else’s advice.  It took me a long time to understand that the twin flame dynamic is not exempt from the healthy boundaries I set in my other relationships, such as family and friends. I also learned that my emotions are my GPS.  They tell me when something is right and when something is wrong. They are here to guide and protect me.  They are here to let me know whether or not I am living in my truth.

Narcissistic and codependent behaviours come up in twin flame dynamics to show us where our wounds are.  These templates are not conducive of healthy relationships and they are far from unconditional love.  As twin flames, we are called to place these dysfunctional templates into healing.  We are called to love ourselves by setting healthy boundaries. If we fail to set healthy boundaries, our twin will mirror back to us our mutual self-abandonment and self-rejection…the twin with codependent behaviours gets this reflected back by the twin with narcissistic behaviours by his/her cheating or sexual involvement with others and/or addictions…and the twin with narcissistic behaviours gets this mirrored back by the twin with codependent behaviours through their tolerance of the cheating or sexual involvement with others and/or addictions …both twins are abandoning and rejecting their true selves in this dynamic.

Subjecting yourself to abuse, denying your truth, and invalidating your emotions is never okay, especially in the twin flame dynamic. Love yourself first ❤

Addictions

I have arrived at a place on my journey where I am discovering that our reaction to the trauma we experienced in childhood, whether it be neglect or physical, emotional, sexual abuse, and/or failure to establish healthy attachment to our primary caregiver, sets the stage for us to develop addictions.  These addictions are a human being’s way of avoiding or numbing the pain of the trauma.  The defenses we adopted in childhood helped to ensure our survival, since we did not have the tools to deal with the trauma at the time. Unfortunately, these defenses or soothing behaviours we take on, often develop into addictions that hinder us in adulthood.  They impact our health and our relationships in a negative way.  Dr. Gabor Maté has made amazing contributions in the field of addictions.  He is truly a pioneer and a gift! His work offers that there is a link between childhood stress and addiction and disease.

 

Both my twin and myself were sexually abused as children.  We both struggle with addictions in adulthood. I smoked cigarettes for many, many years.  I was able to finally quit smoking in 2012.  Unbeknownst to me, until it was pointed out by my best friend, I replaced smoking with emotional eating as a way of pushing my emotions down. I devoured every self help book I could get my hands on to try to heal the emptiness inside. Romantic relationships also numbed the pain and filled the emptiness for a while until the high wore off, and I realized that I was once again in a relationship with an emotionally unavailable partner.  I always had sex way too soon.  I didn’t get to know my partners first.  Sex was good, so I tried to make the relationships work.  I didn’t have healthy boundaries.  I compromised my needs, wants, and values.  Like I had learned from my abuse and neglect, external validation came to me when I was a good little girl.  So I tried and tried to please my partners, so that they would love me in return…aka make the emptiness go away/numb the pain.  It never worked though.   No matter how much I did, how much I sacrificed, how much I abandoned and betrayed myself, what I received from my partners…the outside validation…never filled up that emptiness or made the pain go away. I usually ended up with partners with addictions such as alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, sex, anger/rage, gambling, and workaholism. It wasn’t until I started uncovering some of my repressed memories about my childhood sexual abuse, that I was able to start placing my addictions into healing.  My recovery of repressed memories began with Transpersonal Hypnotherapy and Past Life Regression. I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with unconscious blocks, or who suspects they may have repressed memories. I still struggle with wanting to numb my pain with food or escaping into my mind.   It takes conscious effort for me to shut all electronics off, get quiet, and let myself feel…go into my emotions, feel them, retrieve any memories attached to them, and release them.

The biggest lesson in addiction for me is compassion.  We are not our addictions.  Our addictions are born out of our fear of the pain of going into and allowing ourselves to experience the pain of the trauma we had to push down in childhood, and/or doing the necessary work to retrieve our repressed memories of trauma, so that we can bring them into awareness to be felt, released, and placed into healing.

I am currently reading Maureen Canning’s book titled Lust, Anger, Love. I believe that we need much more education and exposure about sex addiction if we are to help people place their addictions into healing so that relationships based on healthy intimacy becomes the norm for our society.

Pain is a gift

Valentine’s Day was disappointing and illuminating.  Twin made plans to have dinner with me and then showed up late because he was with another woman.  I felt hurt.  I shared that I felt hurt and sad, and he ignored me.  I didn’t run from the pain.  I didn’t hide in my mind or eat Ben and Jerry’s.  I talked to my best friend about the same trigger surfacing again.  She suggested that I needed to connect to my knower, my feelings, and work my way back in time to retrieve the memories and the years I had repressed. I asked her how to do that.  She said I needed to get quiet for a least an hour before I tried to go into my feelings and retrieve memories…no electronics she said. Just let my thoughts come and observe them as the ego would fight to keep me from going into the pain.  Then thank my ego, and let it help me find those memories in my soul. And so, that is what I did.

As soon as I got home from work, I let my daughter know that I was turning my phone off, so that I could do this memory retrieval. I ran a bath, and stayed in the bath for an hour and a half, while my ego tried to point the finger at twin and blame him for everything…anything my ego could think of to dissuade me from attempting to uncover my repressed memories and feelings that were attached to them. My ego repeatedly tried to convince me that this method would not work. Well, lo and behold, my bestie was right…it did work.  First, I went back through 2017, memories of events I had forgotten came up…some positive and some negative. Then I scrolled back through the years, as she had suggested. I really struggled with 2015 and 2016 as I had experienced much suffering and confusion on my twin flame journey until I did Root Camp with Lee and Sherry in 2016. I asked my soul to guide me back to the memories that had resulted in the story I had told myself that twin kept mirroring back to me. At first, I felt nauseous. The intensity increased, and I thought I was literally going to vomit, and then there was an image that appeared of one of my father’s friends was sexually abusing my sister and I. I started to cry and cry, and I was so distraught because I couldn’t protect myself or my sister. I sat and cried for a while.  I didn’t make the connection right away.  The next day, as I was sharing my retrieved memory, I had an aha moment, as Oprah would say 🙂 That friend of my father’s disappeared from our lives. I figure that my father probably knew, and even if he did not, he failed to protect me. And then there was another one of his friends who had sexually abused me when I was the age of 3 to 4, until my parents found out.  He committed suicide shortly after that. The story I told myself from these incidents was that my father didn’t choose me and he didn’t protect me…he chose his friends.  This is the story I told myself about the masculine that kept getting mirrored back to me in my romantic relationships and by my twin flame:  Men don’t choose me.  They choose their friends, or their addictions…(my father is a workaholic) because I am not worth it, and I am not important.

Thank you Alicia Alderson at Living Colour Tattoo for the beautiful tattoo pictured below that you designed and did for me last September that symbolizes the transformation I have undergone on my blue ray twin flame journey.