The Other Side Of Me: We Attract What We Need

As I’ve moved through my healing, different memories pop into my head at the strangest times. Not hidden memories anymore. These are known events and occurrences. All associated with painful experiences that I pushed aside, stuffed into a dark corner and ignored. Now is their time to heal too.

As I watch the pictures flash through my memory, threads form and intertwine to show me patterns that are so obvious. How could I have missed them for all those years?

Early in this blog I mentioned my sad history with relationships. I’ve never had a serious relationship with a man who didn’t cheat on me. That pretty much sums it up. But I did keep picking them, again and again. So I’m responsible for that.

Lately, those painful memories have been returning — flashes of a happy time with the particular guy followed by a heart-wrenching, gut-dropping kick in the stomach as the ugly reality comes front and center. Sometimes the ache passes quickly, sometimes the feeling lingers, catches my breath in its fist for a while.

I spent 40 years trying to find a man like my dad – fabulous, handsome, successful – who harbored a deep sickness underneath. Men whose sickness I saw clearly in my subconscious – as my conscious self saw only what I wanted to see: the perfect man for me.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t hard to find Mr. Wonderfuls. I was an expert at it. Today, as their shadows flit through my conscious self, I realize that each and every one of them was a gift sent to help me heal. If I’d been ready to heal.

I attracted each of those relationships as an opportunity to remember my truth – to begin my healing. The ultimate pain of the self-destined ending to each relationship could have triggered my childhood truths to come out. Instead, each and every time I withstood the pain, preferring that heart-breaking reality to the horrible truth buried beneath my soul.

How many times did I attract the healing I needed? Why wasn’t I ready to heal until I was just shy of 50 years old? Why did it take the adult love-of-my-life’s complete and total betrayal to trigger the release of those memories?

It doesn’t really matter. That’s in the past. What matters today is this moment. And in this moment, I am on the other side of me, and healing every day.

But sometimes I do wish I’d paid attention sooner.

Photo Credit

“Broken Heart” Bored-Now @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

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• Of Faith and Fear
• What’s in a Secret?
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• Beyond the Slightest Doubt
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