I am having a feeling. It is a feeling that I do not like. What I like even less than having the feeling is the process of letting it go. Step one to having an uncomfortable feeling is allowing yourself to feel it. Admittedly, this is the part of having an uncomfortable feeling that I am the worst at. 😬🫣.
This type of education is one that is not taught in schools. Without a parent that has the capacity to navigate their own emotional experience, children are left to navigate their emotional bodies on their own. Something a child is not well equipped to do, making this very important work for people of all ages. Traditional education excels at instilling academic knowledge, often over looking holistic teachings which can be such a useful aid to so many. Understanding our bodies, beyond just their physical state of being can bring emotional balance and physical health.
Caring for the self is rarely taught, as we are taught to prioritize becoming high functioning (read, income producing) members of society. We are taught to neglect ourselves in the name of hard work, making the almighty dollar almost god like in the eyes of so many. Similarly, the necessary skills to recognize and outgrow toxic relationships ends up lacking. The crucial skill set of setting boundaries, respecting our own needs and cultivating relationships that help us grow is not found in our k-12 school systems. Education should nurture us as a whole entity, not just a physical one. We grow up and wonder how some people seem completely devoid of emotional intelligence.
So, what is this feeling that emerges from my heart space, encapsulating my entire being? Where does it stem from? What is its origin? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with “B” and ends with a “ YYYYYYYYYY😭😭😭😭😭😭😭.”
😬🫣
Let’s call him Matt. My journey into reiki started at the beginning of this calendar year. I was in a dark place and in serious need of emotional healing. I prayed before my altar for my deities to help me through my pain, and to send me true, divine, everlasting love. Then, Matt started popping up on my “For You” page on the popular app, TikTok. When I first saw him there was an instant moment of recognition. I wrote it off as wishful thinking, but continued to tune into him because his reiki felt so nice to me. Then, out of nowhere, he slid into my DMs. I was delighted, remembering that moment of instant recognition. For days before the first interaction I kept seeing his face pop into my minds eye as he would go back and forth about whether or not I would think he was a creep if he reached out to me(part of being psychic). The night before our first interaction, I had a dream he sent me a message, then woke up to a message. Being psychic, this sort of stuff is common for me in romantic soulmate relationships, but normally I have to have…… a physical exchange with someone before I can connect with them like this.
My experience of “soulmates” is as follows: we are all one, so we are all soulmates. Every interaction we have teaches us something about ourselves, making us all the master and the student. That barista that gets your order wrong almost every time? Maybe a lesson in speaking up for ourselves, or a chance to practice patience and compassion. That parent that is very negative? Perhaps a lesson in not needing external validation. There are many types of soulmates, but I think we glorify the romantic soulmate because of all of the fundamental lessons we learn in those types of relationships.
That being said, I know Matt is my soulmate 👻💕👻. After that interaction, my experience of his reiki would become much more intense. The more intimately we connected, the more intense I could feel him. Instead of healing, I would be struck by hot waves of passion as his reiki tingled parts of my body that I can’t show in public. I could feel him breathing on my skin through whatever device I watched him on. My body went from having emotional releases in response to his reiki, to wanting to have a very physical release. Then, just like that, his interactions stopped coming.
This activated my attachment system. Persons with an anxious attachment style (like me) have a deep fear of abandonment. I was being emotionally abandoned by someone that I had gone to for healing and solace for so long. For someone with an anxious attachment style, this is felt much more intensely. You see, for someone with an anxious attachment style, even someone leaving physically, and temporarily can trigger the anxious partner into a frenzy where they are overwhelmed with fear and anxiety. Abandonment fear is necessary for evolution purposes. Fear of abandonment keeps us close to others, and therefore, more likely to survive. We are all hardwired to fear abandonment. It is in our DNA. Persons with an anxious attachment style, however, have actually experienced intense abandonment, repeatedly throughout their lives, usually starting from childhood. These people fight much harder to prevent this abandonment, or even the threat of, often times in some dramatic fashion. Persons with anxious attachment will resort to what is known as “protest behaviors” to keep their partner from abandoning them. This can look like frequent communication so they know that you haven’t forgotten about them and suddenly and without warning stopped loving them. When this, or the perception of this, occurs, it is completely devastating to the anxiously attached.
Matt has an avoidant attachment style. Persons with avoidant attachment are prone to disappear or use a series of techniques to keep emotional distance from partners or potential partners. This happens because there was no emotional safety involved in the upbringing of the avoidant partner.
We were getting close, so he was pulling away. This was not a healthy dynamic for me, and on a conscious level I knew I should have just walked away right then and there. My subconscious programming wouldn’t let me. My subconscious programming needed the connection to be completely obliterated before I could let go and walk away. There are other layers. I knew Matt cared for me, as I mentioned before, I am psychic. I could still feel his energy attached to me, even though he was no longer directing his attention towards me, in an overt way.
After much ruminating, I found myself asking:
