“I like who I am when I am with you”.
Such a small sentence that can mean so much. Years ago I was married to a women…nothing abnormal about that, who was, said friends, very much like my mother. I couldn’t see it. Both women were unlike each other in just about every way possible, yet friends persisted in seeing the similarities.
They were right of course. In fact as a rule of thumb, all of us tend towards mates that are in a certain way, like a parent. Boys are attracted to women who are like their moms. Girls to their dads.
Yet when you look to see what others might be telling you, it fails to be seen. It’s because we are looking at the wrong things. IF we look instead at who we are when we are with our mate, the comparison to a parent becomes clearer.
No longer looking for physical or character traits in other possible mates, but rather looking in at ourselves in the company of these significant relationships, it becomes possible that our character and emotional and behavioural traits can become observable.
It’s still not at all easy, but looking in the right direction is a big first step. Do we choose our friends because of who they are or that we like how we feel, or think or who we are being, when we are with them?
I believe that no matter who we were, in the company of our parents, and by this I mean, how we felt, thought, behaved, created. Also the kind of things in our hearts and on our minds, all of it makes for a kind of desired continuance of self.
We want to have the same childhood us-ness in our adult relationships. And we will be attracted to people who unwittingly provide that. The attraction to another contains some interesting features.
Firstly in being highly attracted to a possible partner, there often won’t be any similarity in physical appearance to parents, nor emotional, spiritual, or any other signs of parental likeness. They will seem unlike your parents.
So if life at home was unpleasant and you make the important attempt to live a better life, it might seem right that your partner is different. Yet all the looking at your potential mate is the wrong place to look.
While all the looking at who you are being, while you are with your attractive partner will tell you the story you are looking for. What are your thoughts while with this potential mate? What are you feeling, creating, intuiting. What are your fear or freedom levels.
And the biggie….are these things very much like they were with your opposite sex parent. You know, if your mate is male, are you like you were with your dad, and if female, are you like you were with your mom.
This isn’t a moral thing. There is neither good or bad in this view, rather the likelihood, that how you were as a small person living at home years ago with your mom and dad, and step parents too, is quite likely about to repeat itself.
Attraction to others is that powerful. It contains the seeds of continuance. That’s what it’s for of course. When home and village life is good, that life perpetuates itself. When the life is bad, that too perpetuates itself. It’s all in attraction.
It’s clear enough that the idea that history repeats itself is true enough. Usually though, this little idea is used to speak of war and the stupidity of nations, but it also tells of the children of alcoholics and abusers finding themselves in alcoholic and abusive relationships, time and time again.
It also tells of children of happy creative humour filled homes finding via the power of attraction, mates that allow for happy creative humour filled lives in adult life.
So if any of this goes BING for you, what if anything can you do?
Choice is often talked about, but unless there is awareness, no choice is really possible and you are destined to repeat history.
My advice when trying to break with the past, trying not to have a present like the one at home as a child…is this. Go against the type of person you are usually attracted to. What you are attempting to do is find out how you are when you are with them. Are there similarities to how you were when you were with your mom if you are male, or dad if you are female. That will start to tell you about the past possibly repeating.
OF course if you are wanting history to repeat, the same procedure can be used to see if how you are being now, when with this possible mate, compared with how you were with that parent. Similarities of behaviour, feeling, thrill, fear and freedom, thought, positive and negativity. All this kind of thing can tell you heaps.
All in all attraction, attracts the good, the bad, and the ugly. All without you knowing what your getting yourself into. But you can discover, uncover and recover. Here’s a story you can learn, one which has been there all along, just waiting to be told, if you are bold enough.
Paul
