Love and relationships don't always make sense.
When it comes to Love, we often have a way of walking away from the relationship we truly want the most and chasing someone who will do nothing but bring us pain.
For some reason, the person who is almost certain to hurt you is often the person that you find most attractive, while someone that would Love you and be good to you feels dull, boring, and unexciting.
Somehow, we've confused the potential for suffering with excitement and the fear of abandonment with attraction. So the more we fear losing someone, the more attracted we are to them, and the more drama they create for us, the harder we work to keep them around.
This leaves us in a perpetual cycle of trying to be happy but never actually achieving it.
Deep down you know you want True Love, trust, and intimacy but time and time again you walk away from someone who could offer you just that and end up trying to prove yourself to someone who will never truly appreciate you.
And you're not the only one who's doing this, we promise.
So what is this all about? Why are we attracted to people who bring us pain and how do we stop it?
In this post, we're going to explain why this is happening and how to break the cycle for good. And if you'd like our support in healing and opening up to a future filled with love, click here to book a free call with one of our expert coaches and find out if the Inspired Love Program could help you.
First, let's discuss Trauma Bonding
Trauma Bonding is when we are attracted to someone because they remind us of our past traumas.
A good example of this would be if you have an ex who broke your heart, you might be attracted to people who remind you of that person. You may seek out relationships with people who look like them or act like them, in a sense, trying to get a do-over and get it right this time.
Another example could be if someone you were attracted to in middle school or high school rejected you (perhaps your first crush). You may create an attraction to people that resemble them in some way or make you feel the way that they made you feel.
More often than not, our trauma bonds are related to unresolved aspects of our relationships with our parents, ways that we didn't feel acknowledged or validated. We then seek out relationships with people who reflect those dynamics.
These kinds of trauma bonds are rooted in a desire to heal the past by getting a second chance. The unconscious idea is that if I can get Love from this person, that will make up for the Love I didn't get from my parents or my ex.
The problem is that we are seeking out dynamics that reflect that trauma, so most likely we will not find the Love we're looking for but instead experience more abandonment and rejection.
This pattern snowballs over time and we end up in relationships with people who make us feel like we're never enough for them and we're constantly trying to prove ourselves.
To heal from these trauma bonds, you have to recognize that there is no one you could ever prove yourself to that will make you feel like enough. The only person you ever need to convince is yourself and when you do that, you'll overcome the need to prove yourself to others.
Once that happens, your attractions start to change as well. Because you're no longer trying to make up for the pain of the past, you lose attraction to the people who reflect that past and become drawn to people who support your happiness.
The Next Step: Clarify Your Attraction
Most people have no clear idea of what they really want in a relationship.
Have you ever asked yourself why you are attracted to the people you are attracted to? How those attractions are being formed? And if those attractions are healthy?
If you take the time to look within and ask yourself these difficult questions, you might be very surprised by what you find.
Most ideas about attraction are very unoriginal. They are ideas that have been molded through our trauma bonds, societal standards, and unreasonable expectations.
They have been pushed on us through movies, music, and culture, which would be okay except that our culture promotes ideas about Love that are very unhealthy and don't create lasting, Loving relationships.
Our cultural expectations of Love have very little to do with True Love or intimacy and as a result, most of us who are looking for Love are chasing something that doesn't exist and have no idea what we really want in our hearts.
Attraction for most of us is usually very superficial, being mostly based on physical, sexual, and sometimes intellectual attributes. It's almost never based on anything deeper than that and most of us don't even know how to look for anything else.
The Most Important Step: Know Your Worth
There is a miracle that happens before you find Love and you can't find real and lasting Love until it does.
The miracle is that you come to realize that you deserve so much more than you have been allowing yourself to have. That you deserve more than relationships that endlessly reflect the dissatisfactions of your past, or are based on your need for approval from others.
It is the recognition that you are a unique being, unlike anyone else, and you deserve what is uniquely perfect for you. You deserve what will bring you happiness.
It's not what your parents thought you should have or what Hollywood says you should have but it's what you want for yourself in your heart.
Most of us are afraid to even explore what that really is because we know if we were to follow our hearts it would lead us into uncomfortable territory. We would leave behind social norms and expectations, face criticism from those around us, and bring up unhealed wounds that we've been avoiding all of our lives.
But the other side is that you would finally feel free enough to be your authentic self and your relationships would naturally change to reflect that.
The need to prove yourself and live up to the expectations of others is fueled by your fears of abandonment and rejection. As long as your decisions are driven by these fears, your relationships will reflect that, and time and time again you will find yourself in hurtful and unsatisfying relationships because of this misguided search for validation.
Worthiness is the recognition that you deserve to be yourself authentically plus the courage to be it. When you start to live your life that way, you will attract a partner who Loves you for who you are.
Conscious dating is about bringing consciousness to these areas and transforming them. It is about freeing yourself from repeating the cycles of your past so you can create a new future.
Creating your dream relationship requires you to find clarity on the true nature of that relationship and understand how worthy you are of having it.
As the saying goes, "nothing changes until something changes." You can't expect to continue with the patterns and habits that have been attracting you to the relationships you don't want and one day find True Love. You will only get more of the same.
The Inspired Love program is a deeply personal journey to heal the pain of the past and open up to a future filled with love. If you're interested in booking a free call with one of our expert coaches to see if this process could help you, click here.
And thank you for reading. Lots of Love <3
Thank you so much for enjoying our content! Our greatest joy comes from knowing that people like you are using it to transform your lives and relationships and that the world is becoming a better place because of it.
We know the feeling of being alone, of struggling through what seems like an endless series of dead-end relationships, of waiting for the phone to ring, of being rejected and let down again and again.
We know what it's like to go to bed alone each night wondering if that will ever change and fearing that it might not.
We know these experiences all too well and that is why we do the work we do. We want you to know that you can find Love, that the application of these simple tools and practices can make a complete difference in every aspect of your Love life, ultimately leading you to the intimate, loving, lifetime partnership you so deeply crave.
You're not in this alone. We're here for you <3