Why?

One of the pillars that my spiritual foundation has been built on is that we are the creators of our life. I was taught that before we are born, our spirit laid out everything for our life. Relationships, major decisions and choices, who our parents were going to be, who our friends would be, who we would marry, our children. The reason for the plan is to help us remember who we are, that we are powerful creators. There are some other reasons for us laying out plans. We may have karmic cycles that we are repeating and we made the choice to come back to end those cycles, whether for ourselves or to help someone else. And the people in our lives do not show up because of fate. Each person is a part of our soul tribe. We’ve done this dance many lifetimes before but showed up in other roles, playing other parts for other life lessons.

While we have a blueprint for our earthly assignment once we are born we forget all of that. But somewhere deep within our subtle senses we feel a tug, a pull, a nudge that guides us along our path. I’m not gonna get into the specifics and you may be wondering why I’m saying all of this anyway. Lately I’ve been asking myself why. Why did my last relationship look the way it did. I tend to be vague on here about my previous relationship and there’s good reason for that. I’m still connected to this person as we have children together. I have a feeling they may be looking at my content but that could just be my anxious voice. I’ve been through breakups before. I went through a divorce before. But this last one has been the most difficult to move past.

It’s been two years since my divorce. Years ago my therapist hinted that my ex may possibly be a narcissist. When she sent material for me to read with people sharing their experiences of their narcissistic partner I dismissed it. None of the stories matched mine which felt both reassuring and frustrating at the same time. Reassuring because what I read was horrible and seemed so far from anything that I could relate to in my relationship at the time. Frustrating because I still was no closer to understanding what was going on in my marriage.

But each year that passed I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss of complete confusion and hopelessness. I won’t get into the details in here but the last three years of my previous relationship was rough to say the least. I had gotten to the point where I had thrown my hands up and said well if this is what the rest of my life is going to be then…ok. Have you ever experienced something that you can’t quite put your finger on but you know feels off? I spent the better part of those years in that space. And once I got out it only got worse. My anxiety ramped up. Even with therapy and a great support team that affirmed my experiences, I couldn’t seem to shake the way my nervous system would have all the alarm bells going off every time I heard a tone from my phone. A text or email notification would have my heart beating so hard you could see my whole body move to its pulse.

Remember earlier in this post how I was saying that we choose our lives down to the details and we create our world moment to moment? If that is the case and I believe that as part of my spiritual foundation then the question of why did this happen and how did I get here becomes much more dense. Funny fact. I actually said those very words (how did I get her?) many times for months at a time. Since my phone is always eavesdropping on me I started to get content on my social media around narcissism right after the divorce. For the most part of I dismissed that videos and posts because, once again, the stories were much more extreme than mine. But then I day I heard a story that sounded oddly familiar. Then another story, and another story and soon I began to realize what I had been dealing with. A video came across my phone one day with someone saying that narcissism boiled down to its core is extreme shame. When I heard that I began to have some understanding as the why my spirit chose this relationship.

I want to be clear that I’m sharing my story and my perspective. I am not suggesting anything about anyone else’s story. This is not about pointing fingers or even down playing emotional and psychological abuse. This is an aspect of taking my power back and using my voice. I’m sure I’ll get criticism but please understand that this journey has not been easy and as I mentioned earlier, I’m still connected.

My shadow work has been diving into the deep end of shame lately. I’ve been looking at shame and guilt and how those two have been the stage and backdrop to my life for many years. Early childhood traumas embedded this seed of doubt and lack of self trust, unworthiness and an overall low self-esteem. Internally I felt that I was inherently bad and that love and harm were one in the same. In my spiritual work over the years I’ve learned that emotions and thoughts have power. Enough power to mold and shape the world around us. The most dangerous emotions and thoughts are the ones that go unchecked and are often times extremely negative.

So if my antenna is constantly emitting a signal that let’s the world know that I think less of myself then of course I would end up with someone who could sniff that out and play with those tender points. I’ve been asking myself why over and over because I do not want to go through any of that again with a new person. And as it stands right now I am doing everything in my power to not shut down and shut everyone out. The damage to my sense of knowing and self trust due to years of gaslighting is major. I have been racked with immense self doubt. I question every decision. If my gut is telling me something I check and re-check before I take action, and even then I hesitate and doubt my choice.

I’m not sure how much of this I will share and to be honest with you I have some fear around sharing my story. But I want to heal in the most authentic way possible and since this has been a huge part of my healing journey I do want to shed some light on what I’ve been processing. It’s been difficult not talking about this to the extent that I would like and most of what I want to share is what I have learned about myself. None of this is about someone and what they did or did not do. This is me calling my power back to me and asking myself…

Why?