By Baba Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
Relationship issues can create very painful situations. They are the manifestation of a deeper issue, like a migraine that bothers you whenever you are stressed. If you want to cure the pattern of the migraine, however, you don’t do it by taking painkillers. You go to a specialist who, after thorough investigation, can find the cause of the migraine and help you cure it.
If you have someone in your life you love dearly, yet he or she is hurting you, it is a symptom. You need to dive within to find the cause. You have had similar situations, possibly many of them, before. If you do not find time to look within for the cause of the pattern, you will create others. Someone will always come along to repeat the pattern.
Most often, these situations relate to your childhood. Maybe your parents could not inspire you with the self-confidence that grows with appreciation and love. Maybe they could not help you build the inner strength of trust in yourself. Maybe there were situations of ill-treatment or abuse in early childhood or adolescence. You grew up with them. They became your deep-seated, unconscious psychological patterns. Maybe you have already realized the pattern. You have surely never fully realized the unconscious ways in which you set yourself up to repeat it. It grew through your continual participation, however. Due to unconsciousness, it grew like a wild weed multiplying in your backyard.
Keep in mind that what comes to us in the form of our near and dear ones, or in the material dimension, does not come by accident. An element of choice, however hidden, is involved. Consciously or unconsciously we are the victims of our own thoughts. We are victims because it is the thought that precedes any emotion or action.
Look back. See your own thoughts, how they reinforce themselves and how you express them. You discover that certain thoughts have grown in your mind like weeds due to your unconsciousness. Initially they were isolated thoughts. Then they established roots in your mind. Eventually they created their own repetitive patterns of expectation and belief, intensifying energy and response. Then they began attracting situations according to the law of attraction. “Like attracts like”. The situation that you see today was born long ago, in your own mind, through your own thought patterns.
Do not try to fix the person who is causing you pain. He or she is external. The problem, or the cause of the problem, is not with him or her. The remedy is within you. You need to wake up to realize that most of the things that went wrong in your relationship did not happen suddenly. They are not one-sided. Your expectations, your actions and reactions, your trust and distrust, your love and hate, and most of all your deep-seated negativity, have their own role to play in the whole dynamic.
