Why do people stay in bad relationships? It is the question most often asked by people who are standing on the outside looking in, and is the provocative question asked of one’s self after finally leaving a bad relationship. I often asked myself this question after I left a ridiculously long and toxic relationship. I know the answer. I stayed because of the familiarity. I knew the familiar, as bad it was, better than I knew myself.
“Come away with me” Spirit would whisper and even though my soul would ache to follow, the fear of the unfamiliar was excruciatingly painful. Fortunately Spirit never stopped calling me. Miraculously I never stopped listening.
When we block a powerful burn to let go of something that we know isn’t healthy for us, we resist our inner calling and great pain is experienced. Pain on top of pain is felt in our heart and soul, and shows up in our body in all manner of ways. This can ultimately cause dis-ease in the body and mind.
At one point in my life I experienced lower back pain on a level I wish never to feel again. I shuffled instead of walked, was in tears constantly with the pain and I couldn’t work. It lasted seven months. Seven months of seeing doctors, specialists and being prescribed all manner of drugs but nothing helped. None of it made any sense. I hadn’t had a fall, or an injury so why was this happening?
It all became clear when I saw an intuitive healer and she explained that the foundations of my life were barely holding together. The reality was that I had no foundations. The foundations I thought were mine really belonged to everyone else. So when the game changed, which was very often, I found myself constantly on shaky ground scrambling for stability. I clung onto the bad relationships in my life because they were familiar and because there really was no me. I didn’t know who I was and with the familiar being all that I did know, there I had clung. For too long.
Stepping into the unfamiliar is bold, but it is beautifully bold. The unfamiliar offers many new opportunities, new ways of looking at things and a deep, deep understanding of the reasons why we held on to the familiar for so long when we knew it was so very wrong for us.
When I began to build my own foundations from values, beliefs, faith, and dreams that were important to me rather than those that belonged to someone else, I felt like I was standing on solid ground for the first time in my life. Slowly I detached from pain and was pulled into the surprising light of the unfamiliar and the unknown, to a place where my new life waited, where my foundations grew strong, where my awakening has never ceased...and where my back pain has never re-surfaced.
Feel the stirring of your soul. What does it seek? Listen carefully. It is calling you to take action. Close your ears to words of doubt. Let your eyes see only truth. Allow your courage to roar.