Mirror of my soul – Stories of you, me, the world and eternity

 

The Twin flame connection carries enormous transformational potential but also comes with a higher purpose; that of bringing new paradigm of heart-based living and spiritual partnerships to the Earth through the clearing of lower vibrational templates. When we as twin flames agreed to take on these patterns as part of our blueprint we knew that the deeper and darker the pattern within us, the brighter the influx of healing light and love on the planet when this pattern was released. It is for this very reason that many of us chose to incarnate into some of the most dysfunctional families on earth – so that through our personal growth we could bring maximum benefit to all.

Being born into a wounded family, we could so easily slip down the path of dysfunction ourselves. Yet no matter what our lives are like, we all have the same opportunity to start anew with each day that is gifted to us. Sure enough, the struggle to break the cycles of abuse and addiction is real, but so is the potential for transformation allowing us to become more than the sum of our upbringing and inherited patterns. Since our growth is often reflected in the types of relationships we attract into our lives, the “rite of passage” for many Twin flames is the relationship with a narcissist, who often comes into our life as a “near twin” or a karmic partner prior to our meeting with the Twin flame.

It is a fact of life that as born healers and empaths, we tend to gravitate towards those who are wounded and in need of healing. We easily tap into the feelings, thoughts and emotions of others, understanding them intuitively; however we also often lack the ability to guard ourselves energetically, or to lay down healthy boundaries. This narcissist on the other hand is not interested in healing: he is a taker, an energetic vampire, ready to suck the life out of the kind-hearted empath. He has no self-love and no interest in hiding his needs: after all if he did these might be ignored. The empath, unable to see this manipulative agenda, quickly becomes attached to the narcissist in an attempt to “fix” him and heal all his pain – believing that as long as they do this he will love them back and not abandon them. Yet the more the empath offers their love and care, the more the narcissist’s grip on them tightens, sinking them deeper and deeper into despair.

Many twin flames have experienced these kinds of destructive dynamics prior to meeting each other and many are in such a relationship when they meet. Needless to say, this causes a lot of turmoil and it may be difficult for the Twin flame partner to understand why the other finds it so hard to leave. The thing is, in this dynamic the empath’s self-esteem comes to depend on the narcissist’s acceptance and love. They are desperate for it – even when the relationship is not working. When attempts to leave the relationship are met with a barrage of manipulation and emotional blackmail, the empath blames themselves for not having tried hard enough. They feel responsible for making the narcissist feel good and so even when they meet the Twin flame, this wanting to “fix” the narcissist stays with them, now with the added weight of guilt.

In my pre-Twin life, I endured years of abuse at the hands of a man I met when I was just 20. He was simply the funniest, most charming and romantic man I had ever met and I fell madly in love with his joie de vivre, sense of humour and spirit for adventure. Of course, for a long while I was completely oblivious to who he actually was – or to his past. Youngest of five siblings, abandoned by his violent father and raised by his immigrant mother in one of the most deprived suburbs of Paris, he had dropped out of school at 16 and fallen into a life of petty crime and unemployment. The repercussions on his life and character were huge yet in my eyes none of this mattered: after all, I was here now ready to show him what love could do.

From the start, our relationship was one with huge ups and down. His temper would flare up, I would get upset, and he would make it up to me with romantic gestures and so on. The dynamic was exhausting but highly addictive. When the abuse appeared about a year into the relationship through a gradual process of degrading remarks, guilt-trips and then physical violence, I did not know how to handle it. I forgave him, refusing to believe that he would intentionally hurt me: he was only doing it because he had suffered too. Perhaps I had said something to warrant such a strong reaction? It was my naïve belief that I could change him that made me stay. I wanted to show him that I would not hurt him like the rest of the world had. The truth was that I needed him as much as he needed me, and I was desperate for his love. And perhaps – and this is where the patterns passed down the family bloodline start to make sense – I also believed that “true love” did require such commitment and sacrifice.

It took me years and years to even realize that this dysfunctional, co-dependent relationship was almost the exact replica of my grandparents’ toxic marriage which had cast a shadow over three generations of our family. Growing up, I had often heard the stories… My grandfather beating my grandmother up with a hammer… My grandma being admitted to a mental asylum for psychosis… Pictures and cassette recordings of my grandad sat in his living room drunk shouting obscenities… Or simply the tales of my own mother marrying the first man who took her away from the hell that was her childhood. Bit by bit, the reality of my family bloodline became clearer to me.

As a child, I had never understood why my grandmother chose to stay and play the martyr in that marriage all those years (55 to be exact). Now I found myself in a very similar situation. Even though I tried to leave more times than I care to remember, the huge ups and downs never gave me the time to get my head straight. When things were good, they were fantastic and it was easy to become complaisant. He was extremely charismatic and manipulative and had a powerful way of turning things around; always making sure I knew he blamed me for his pain. When I emotionally exhausted struggled to understand his behavior, he would tell me there was something wrong with me or that I was “making a fuss”. For my own sanity I always ended up adjusting to what I was being told, allowing the vicious cycle to continue.

This man obviously was not my Twin flame and I never mistook him for one, although they came from the same Muslim country. Ironically this man’s tendency to push me past my comfort zone was what got me started in the career and job which actually led me to my Twin flame. In a further twist, I met my Twin flame on the day of our 5^th anniversary. Meeting him, as you can imagine, was like being pulled into another dimension. I went from complete desperation into a world of love, hope and validation in an instant – everything about “me” finally made sense as I saw my true self reflected back in his eyes. I knew immediately what a LIE my life had been and how I had been selling myself short all these years. Within days, after an entire night spent walking around Paris with my Twin, I went home and tried to end the relationship. Just like so many times before, it ended up in a fight.

The weeks that followed were both the best and worst times of my life. I was spending every possible moment with my Twin while simultaneously being forced to deal with my boyfriend’s emotional displays; ranging from angry, threatening and violent to suicidal, depressed and deeply distraught. I didn’t want to tell my Twin how difficult I was finding it all; after all, it should have been a no-brainer: abusive co-dependency or true love and freedom? Looking back, my twin probably thought I was “choosing” between him and my boyfriend (and he often indicated this), however this was never the case; I just didn’t know how to deal with the guilt or my boyfriend’s pain without wanting to fix it. I kept agreeing to see him, trying to help and suffered physical, mental and emotional abuse on several occasions because of it; he even kicked down the door of my rented property in a rage. Yet even when I called the police terrified of what he’d do to me, I was the one who felt guilty.

Although my twin knew about the incident with the door, I avoided telling him the full extent of my troubles. Being with him made all the bad things just fade away and I didn’t feel like the relationship with my boyfriend was anything that he would or should be concerned about. I naively thought that I had a lot of time to let my boyfriend go “smoothly”, and that at the end of it I would be free to pursue this new reality with my Twin; as friends, lovers or whatever. How wrong was I! Unfortunately, pretty much as soon as my boyfriend took a step back, my Twin jumped back two! It was unexplainable as we had been joined at the hip for weeks. Now however I was suddenly at the bottom of his priority list.

Little did I know my Twin flame (who had told me he was separated from his wife when we met) was also struggling with his feelings of guilt regarding leaving his marriage; he too was dealing with suicide threats and emotional blackmail. He ended up giving me a whole speech about how we were just friends (with everything else being an “added bonus”) and how his duty was to his wife.  I UNDERSTOOD him and his situation 100% since it was not dissimilar to mine, yet instead of bringing us closer it pulled us apart. He blamed me for having expectations – and I accused him of denying our connection. One day, he turned to me and said “If only we had magical wands to fix each other’s issues: you’d fix mine and I’d fix yours”… Yet somehow, even in the midst of trying to fix others, we knew this was not how OUR connection was wired.

Before I could really address the growing distance between us, his wife arrived for a visit and I pulled back, out of respect and hurt. I ended up running and blocking him, unable to deal with the mixture of rejection, loneliness, heartbreak and soul-searing pain coming my way. I no longer recognized myself: this grief-stricken, sobbing emotional wreck of a woman was not me. I just wanted to feel “normal” again. After a few weeks spent gasping for air like a fish out of water curled up on the floor of my Parisian basement flat, I began attempting to grab hold of ANYTHING that could pull me out of this hell hole – and it was my boyfriend who held out his hand. As crazy as it sounds, he reminded me of how uncomplicated my unconscious pre-twin life had been: how easy it had been NOT having to face myself and NOT having every dysfunction in my life cruelly highlighted to me. All I wanted was to forget all the pain.

Eventually I reasoned that I might as well return to what was familiar to me, i.e. my relationship with my boyfriend, because no matter how toxic, it was also predictable and “safe. He wasn’t perfect but we had a lot of history, and he had been the only thing that kept me from going insane during the darkest days of feeling the loss of my Twin. I reasoned with myself that this is what love is: attachment, taking care of each other, needing each other, compromise. I knew that if the immense love that I had just experienced for my Twin could not pull me away from my desperate situation then NOTHING and no one could do it. With it gone so were my dreams. The truth was that the person I thought would be my saviour didn’t even care enough to treat me as a friend. Instead, he made an empath’s bigger fear come true, i.e. “If I open myself up and show that I have needs, I will be abandoned”.

I knew I couldn’t go back to living the life I had before and so in the months that followed the whole dynamic of my relationship with my boyfriend changed; mostly because I no longer acted like a victim. We embarked on the spiritual path together, travelling the world – and I genuinely felt happier for a year or two, until pushed by my kundalini awakening I returned to my Twin, not knowing what to expect or even why I was doing it. Despite the highly emotional union which confirmed that the connection was mutual, real and true, the old issues and triggers came to the surface again. Both our dysfunctional relationships were still part of our lives – and while each of us at different points in the next year tried to leave we ended up triggering each other into another separation.

Nevertheless, the ignition from my twin was so powerful the second time around that I knew I needed to get out of my toxic relationship regardless of what he chose to do. It was no coincidence he was back in my life, and I knew it. The year that followed was the most intensive of my life as I faced a barrage of threats, violence and insults from my boyfriend followed by tears every time I brought up the subject of separation – while simultaneously being pushed internally to keep doing just that. By this point, I had been with my boyfriend for 10 years; of which I had known my twin for 5. During this time he had managed to alienate me from family and friends and gotten me into thousands of pounds worth of debt. I even left my job that I loved in an attempt to get away from him.

In February 2007, things finally went down with my boyfriend but it was not the amicable ending I had always hoped for. With the pressure of the impending separation, one night he assaulted me with a kitchen knife, holding me hostage in my own flat and threatening to kill me. After an entire night of being battered around by him I finally managed to lock myself in the bathroom and call the police who came and arrested him. Yet my ordeal was far from over. After he was released on bail pending trial, I endured several months of harassment from him despite the restraining order that was in place. I genuinely feared for my life and was terrified to leave my house. At the edge of a mental breakdown and having failed to reason with him (because like a fool I still tried) I had him arrested when he returned to shout threats through my intercom. This was the last time I saw him as he was remanded in custody pending trial.

A few months later, as the trial date was only a few days away, I received the devastating phone call telling me my boyfriend had committed suicide in custody. He had addressed his suicide note to me, insisting he had never wanted to hurt me and blaming his desperate action on my misunderstanding of his behaviour and motives. It was his final attempt to destroy me.

This person, for all the pain that he caused me, also delivered some of the biggest lessons in my life – lessons that it would take me years to truly understand. He taught me what can happen when we overstay relationships under the pretext that we care about the other person and feel “responsible” for them. He also taught me that loving someone does not always mean sticking by them no matter what – discernment MUST be used to determine whether our actions support their/our soul or ego. Furthermore, since by default our nature is to be always on the lookout for someone to love (and ultimately fix), we must always treat ourselves with at least the same compassion that we have for others. We must always remember that the way others treat us is not reflective of our true value, but of how we ALLOW them to treat us. As such, healthy boundaries and self-love are absolutely crucial to an empath’s survival!

Sadly one of the reasons so many Unions are being held back is that a lot of Twin flames are still walking wounded, either recovering from or still struggling with the abusive, narcissist and co-dependent partners and relations. Many still believe they have no choice, hiding behind their unfulfilling marriages or their Twin flame’s “rejection” of their connection. Many feel things simply didn’t “work out” (i.e. they didn’t get what they wanted exactly when they wanted it), however the truth is that we cannot EVER expect to permanently jump from dysfunction straight into a new reality and vibration with our Twin flame. Some serious self-work is needed, including a deep-dive within to release all the patterns keeping us stuck in the very victim mentality which has made us give our power away. The new patterns which enable Union have to emerge within ourselves first before the higher call for Union can bring the Twins back together – after all, our Twin flame cannot come to us until we love all parts of our Self; until we are all that we seek.