Healing within the context of a relationship is maybe the hardest piece of the work we could ever do. So many of us want a good, solid, committed, yummy relationship, but the road to a time-tested, work- in-progress pairing is littered with casualties. We seem to make the same mistakes, and get drawn into the same patterns of behavior, reactivity, and reversal so often that it’s amazing that we keep pursuing relationship.
How does it come to this? After all, it’s so incredible in the beginning for most of us; the famous “honeymoon phase”. Why can’t it be like that forever? This part of any relationship marks the halcyon days often used as a yardstick against fearful, guilty, angry and sad realities that precipitate into being as many a relationship wears on. It’s not necessarily that we are projecting perfection in the beginning, overlooking all the bad stuff, although that may be present too. It’s just that in the very beginning, we haven’t hit the gap yet.
And what is the gap, you might ask? As we ascend to the heights of the honeymoon stage, we also cut deeper, in exact measure. We grow in all ways within a relationship, separately and together; the energy literally gets bigger. This energy pushes on all the unhealed places within ourselves and our partner, and “the gap” is the container for all of what we had previously pushed away. The gap is another word for splits or holes in our energy field, and into those subconscious gaps go everything we haven’t dealt with or integrated into our conscious acceptance. The gap is always lurking within us, until we are completely healed, and it can’t be avoided when growing interpersonal connections reach a critical mass. The gap is within us as individuals and between us as couples.
Different people handle hitting the gap in different ways. Some of us act out, engaging in addictive behaviours of escape. Some of us resort to blaming our partner as a way out of taking responsibility for our part. At our best, we can learn to recognize and apply the understanding that our partner is our mirror, showing us something we cannot yet see or accept about ourselves, and we seek in our healing intent amidst the emotional turmoil to find our role or responsibility in the situation.
When I feel victimized, I need to ask myself, what subconscious or gapped part of me is drawing this reflection to the light of day? Our gapped energies draw situations to ourselves that can be triggers for balancing those energies. One of the hardest aspects of a given gap between lovers is recognizing the interlocking and meshing patterns that are enacted between the two. They are often complex and disguised, completely non-obvious, especially when strong feelings are being stirred into life. I prefer to feel, and express, whatever it is I feel, in a safe and responsible way, and then look at what my role is – because most often the understanding isn’t available until after the emotions stirred are resolved. If I try to figure it out either in my own brain first or in charged dialogue with my partner during the emotional activation phase of the gap, I don’t get very far.
Why do we keep going toward finding functional relationship? Perhaps it is the potential of self-awareness and the desire to apply it, live it, and return to a deeper phase of the honeymoon stage, to match the original dreams and visions of a match made in the heaven of our hearts.