I screamed “leave me alone” at the top of my lungs and slammed the door. My heart was pounding, my vision narrowed, palms sweating as if my entire existence was being threatened. I tried to steady my breathing and make sense of my racing thoughts.

Why do I continue to let this person get so far under my skin? They always knew JUST what buttons to push and could always count on the same predictable response. They would keep pushing and eventually, I would lose control. When I blew, they would sit back with a smug – maybe slightly entertained – look on their face as if this was their objective all along.

There’s only one conclusion – this person is dangerous and toxic and I should avoid them at all costs. The problem was, I had more than one of these types of dysfunctional relationships in my life.

Most everyone does. In fact, the issue I help women with the most in my coaching practice are relationship based. Our relationships with people can be the source of our greatest joy, but also our deepest pain. Simply put, the quality of our lives are determined by the quality of our relationships.

What I understand now that I didn’t for many hard years is that our relationships – especially our intimate ones – are ground zero for our greatest healing.

In psychological theory, we repeatedly act out our worst traumas in and unconscious pattern called a “repetition compulsion.” We project the unhealed, wounded parts of ourselves onto other people or events and then blame them while we wonder why this sort of thing ALWAYS happens to us or why ALL of our intimate relationships always turn out the same way.

The short answer is, we created it in an effort to resolve old wounds. 

Now I’m not saying that you are at fault or to blame if you’ve been mistreated. What I am saying is that you are responsible. There’s a big difference between responsibility and blame.

The most critical understanding anyone can ever have is this: “So within, so without.”

We are each the powerful creator of our own reality. Our external life circumstances are simply a reflection of our internal conditions. This is a profound grace because we can’t see into our psyche. But we can easily see the projections of our unconscious playing out on the movie screens of our lives.

So if you don’t like what’s playing on the screen, you don’t wear yourself out trying to mark up and change the screen. You simply change the film. 

Similarly, if you’re looking in a mirror and don’t like what you see, you can’t change it by taking a magic marker and drawing on the mirror. You have to go within and make the changes at the source.

So how do we do that? How do we do the inner work that heals the wounds and ends the projection. The first step, as I’ve already alluded, is taking radical responsibility responsibility for every single thing in your field of experience.

This requires a ton of courage, but it’s the only way to freedom. Once you stop blaming the outside and turn inward and give compassionate attention to what is hurting or neglected there, the people and patterns that drive you crazy mysteriously disappear or at least lose their grip on you.

We’re here to help. Rewiring these patterns and healing old traumas are two of our primary objectives at our live events. We have another coming up soon and would love to have you join us. You can get all the details and register here: http://risetoreign.live/events