IS IT HIM OR JUST THE IDEA OF HIM?
Have you ever considered whether you like someone for who they REALLY are or whether it’s just the IDEA of what they represent that is attracting you?
So the question is – is it the idea of him that I am obsessed with, in love with, attached to?Because we will have created a story – an idea about this person – what that person represents to us.We will project our idea or story onto them and this is what we'll see.And based on the projection, we create expectations, and when those expectations aren’t met we feel disappointed.Here’s how this has played out for me over the last 10 years in my last 3 long term relationships. One of those was my marriage and the other two were just whiskers away from the same.Prior to meeting these men that I’ve been deeply in love with, I had an idea of what I was looking for in a partner.An idea of what I wanted the ideal relationship to be. And I projected that idea onto them (unknowingly at the time).So in the beginning they were able to satisfy that idea…they met the expectations and were the epitome of my projection. And then over time, the story I created about them being my ideal partner began to crumble.
Because it was simply that. A story.
It wasn’t reality.I wasn’t seeing them for who they REALLY were. What I’d done was put a screen in front of them which I had projected my own stories and ideas about what I WANTED them to be. About what I thought they COULD be and what I thought the RELATIONSHIP could look like with them.I projected that onto a screen – so to speak – in front of them and that screen stood for a while until that person’s own selfness started to crack that screen, so that projection started to crumble and what I began to see was the REAL person behind that screen that I had created.
And that story started to fade.
So when they didn’t end up satisfying all those ideas and expectations I felt very disappointed and let down.At the end of the day, they had done nothing wrong.In fact, this is a normal part of life – this is how we construct our reality every single day.We project ideas and stories out into our external environment as we are trying to make that model, that tangible model 'out there', fit the idea in our mind.What is helpful is if we can clearly see what's going on and the stories we're telling ourselves.Then we choose to see who the other person really is seperate from the story that we're making up to do with this person.A lot of this has to do with what’s familiar to us. So there will perhaps be something about this person that feels familiar, there’ll be some qualities, some traits, there’ll be something about this person that creates a level of familiarity and that’s why we end up having an attraction and in the end, Attachment to this person.The idea or the story that we’ve created about them isn’t really about them…often what it’s really about is something unresolved in ourselves, usually from our own childhood. Our inner child is looking to have some part of us nurtured. A part that wasn’t nurtured when we were a child and we're hoping that this person now, who we’ve projected a story onto can fulfill that for us NOW.We can then begin to see is it really about him? Or is it just a story related to a part of ourselves that is unresolved that we are trying to heal.Want some extra help with this? Sign up for my FREE Mini Course and get started today.
With love,