The chemistry was palpable and it was overwhelming. To feel safe, I clearly stated my boundaries – nothing was going to happen between us. The response was there was no need to state boundaries, that he was a safe person, it would be cool if we just wanted to kiss, but he was safe. So I restated very clearly my need to set boundaries and again the need was rebuked, because according to him there was no need. He was a safe person. I said it again and he restated he was safe.
Nothing happened, he was respectful of my personal space. I was safe.
I doubted my inner voice. Why was I so adamant about setting boundaries? Was this fear speaking?
I was 43 years old but barely knew what it meant to set boundaries in any aspect of my life. I learned about boundary setting from my then six year old daughter who came into this world knowing exactly what she wanted, what she would and would not tolerate and what kind of mother she deserved. She was born with her boundaries intact and all I needed to do was help her stay in her power with them.
My own childhood was very different. My father was physically, emotionally, mentally and verbally abusive towards my mother and me. He would beat her, or much worse, and destroy the house, occasionally being physical with me, though most of the abuse was just pure and constant fury. It was like living with an unstable nuclear reactor. Melt downs were only the beginning of the issues, the aftermaths were pretty severe. My mother unconsciously took out a lot of her abuse on me. Very few people knew about this, and if they did, it was not spoken about. On the outside my father was a rising star well respected in the medical community, living the American dream. My mother was a woman who appeared to have it all as she was a hard working physician working insane hours, raising children and cooking for her family. She was a brown woman leaning in in the 1970’s. She was also living the American dream.
My survival needs were met – I had shelter, clothing, food – and my parents went above and beyond with toys, piano and horse back riding lessons so that I could be American and keep up with the Jones’. I was mostly cared for by a rotating door of live in nannies. My parents loved me, and still do, in their own way. Years of deep healing, rebooting, reprogramming, and forgiveness allows me to understand that now. However, in my youth I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I needed my family, it was the only thing I knew. And all I wanted to do was escape that house of horrors. I would dream of finding my birth family (I was not adopted, but certainly felt like I was), concoct elaborate plans of running away and surviving, and write suicide notes.
Boundaries were not a thing.
Sure part of that was cultural. Indian families have a different concept of boundaries than Western civilization. Just the number of people, the sheer way of life and the ways family function creates a different concept of what is appropriate. However, I can discern the impact of culture by seeing how my Indian cousins, raised in households filled with love, define boundaries. The lack of boundaries I experienced stemmed from the abuse from both my father and mother. Our immediate family was an anomaly.
If I stated a need, an emotion, a feeling, it was continually dismissed. I was told that my needs did not matter, that I was selfish. I continually acted out lying, stealing, alcohol, drugs, and even suicide attempts. It felt like death was chasing me, even when I wasn’t trying. At 17, I was driving my youngest brother four years of age at the time to school and I hit a tree and was hospitalized in an out of consciousness. My brother was fine, thankfully as I had crashed on my side to protect him. I have no memory of the accident, the time before or the time after. I have a large scar on the left side of my face that runs from the top of my eyebrow, right by my eye to my cheek that has stayed with me through life to remind me that my life is a blessing. When I was out of the hospital and recovering at home all I heard about was how stupid I was, I had ruined my beauty and marriage prospects with that scar and issue after issue I had created. I felt miserable enough knowing my brother was in the car. I was just trying to recover. Everything was my fault. Only a decade or more later when I overheard my dad telling the story to someone else did I learn the brakes had failed on the car, and it was a miracle I only walked away with a scar on my face. The brakes had failed. It had never been my fault. I had carried years of emotional toxins in my body believing it was my fault. I grew up believing that all my feelings, my instincts, my needs were wrong.
I was raised with many privileges. My parents built a rags to riches story and to show off their wealth, they flaunted their money. I was a recipient of it, sometimes in ways I wanted but mostly in ways I did not want. I was supposed to be the model daughter that did the things that they expected me to do. My interests and my hobbies were defined by what they thought I should do, or because they made a decision, like to buy a baby grand piano.
I was expected to perform because part of success, in both Indian and Western cultures, was showing off the kids. I was the only one that could possibly be trained to bark on command. I was not very good at the role. I was rebellious, argumentative, and constantly trying to escape reality. I was not anything like other Indian kids they compared me to. The ones that loved their parents, wanted to be doctors following in their parents footsteps and respected their parents to God-like status. There was something wrong with me. I could not understand why I wanted to run from Indian culture, had no interest in anything my parents said or wanted of me, even if it was for my good and would have served me today. I knew other families loved their children, but I could not understand why all children didn’t push love away, hated themselves and the world around them and experienced non-stop fear. I knew the abuse and my childhood was not normal, but I had normalized the chaos in my life.
In my early double digit years, a letter I had written to a friend had been found. In it I expressed my emotions about my parents, especially my mother. I always craved her love and affection and desired her attention. As a result my anger towards her was stronger. My parents were furious for numerous reasons. That I could have such feelings for my parents, could speak about it to another person, and worse of all, that I was speaking of such things to someone who had recently lost their mom. In those early years of my life, I did not consider factors like that and it taught me a lot about considering people and their circumstances, being sensitive and compassionate. I thank my parents for teaching me that. However, it also stuck with me that I would lose a friend if I complained about my parents to another person, because I was abnormal and ungrateful because they gave me so much. When my parents questioned me on how I could feel such a way especially when I was the one always creating problems, I spoke simply, bluntly and honestly. I wanted their attention. The responded that they were too busy to give me attention. This was one of those pivotal moments in my life when I shut down my ability to communicate or reinforce my needs. I began to accept what was given to me or demanded of me when it came to love, albeit angrily. This is where I let other people take the lead. I was not worthy of love in the way I needed it.
Then there was the part of me that knew my parents were right. I did not need or deserve their attention. I was selfish to ask anything of them because I had a brother and sister who were dying and needed their attention.
My brother and sister were dying.
It is a story I have told often, but it still stops me in my tracks every time I write it. My brother was a year and a half younger than me. My sister six years younger than me. They were born with an ultra-rare neurodegenerative disease. A disease so rare there is no incidence rate for it. It was discovered by Nazi scientists and occurs only in Indian people from a certain region of India that belong to a specific caste system. Not only was this disease not understood, it involved difficult to discuss subjects like Nazis and the caste system, not suitable for discussion especially in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. There is so little information about this disease, there was not much that could be done except palliative end of life care. My brother and sister both started to develop normally and then began to regress eventually losing all ability to speak, move or function. They had seizures often. My brother was on life support at the end but because my parents were physicians, they had the resources to be able to maintain him at home with a round the clock nurse. He was in a room in the house. My parents loved him dearly and checked in on him, but there was no real love in the house. It was all just actions without any emotion. Emotions were scary all around. He passed away when he was 10 and I was 12. My sister passed away before she was bed ridden and died of pneumonia when she was eight and I was 15.
I was dead inside. I had no boundaries in my life but I had walls and walls of armor up around me. Love was not safe. Love meant people died. Love meant constant fear. Love meant my feelings were wrong.
I loved my brother and sister and did not know how to interact with them. I was scared of what was happening to them. I was scared of my parents. I was scared of myself. Of feeling. My world was constantly upside down. No one talked about what was happening to them, it was a taboo subject. It was a skeleton in the closet at our house and the only time I heard my parents talk about it was with their peers, which only garnered more sympathy and respect as doctors. I know my parents loved them and they love me, but love was a four-letter word. Love was scary, manipulative and a tool to use for power, not for feeling. My brother and sister did require a lot more attention than me. So it left me raising myself, void of love, isolating myself from others, and letting people cross my boundaries when it came to my needs, especially love. I was always seeking to be loved for who I was but was so very scared to be seen and heard. So I just kept my walls thick and protected myself from feeling.
It wasn’t until my late 30’s and early 40’s did the armor start to crack and eventually crumble. My daughter changed me.
I am beyond grateful to my husband for being there by my side, dealing with the worst of me, this unfeeling ball of anxiety with a suit of armor for skin. To be with me by my side and allow me the space to heal.
When I began my healing journey, I dug deep into my shadow work. I rewired and rebooted my system with plant medicine journeys and many guides. I have no words to explain the depths of my healing work, the shadows and demons I have had to face. I learned how to parent myself. I learned that I was safe. That it was ok to feel. To let the horrors of my past flow through me. To feel pain meant I could feel joy. I was no longer numb. And then something happened. I stopped thinking about suicide. I actually started to feel. I started to love life. My magic started to spark and flow and the universe blessed me with abundance and was conspiring in my favor to make my wildest dreams come true again and again.
It gave me the ultimate gift. A free trip to Costa Rica, travelling with friends to a festival for two weeks. My husband volunteered me to go on this trip and agreed to be a single parent to our six-year-old girl. It is a lot of work to shoulder for two weeks, especially when our house was being renovated at the same time. What a luxurious treat for me.
And then one night at this festival, I was talking to this guy and something happened. My world aligned. I had memories I could not explain and a part of the unseen universe opened to me. I had lived many many lifetimes with this person and this was our Earthly meeting in this moment of now.
I did not trust my feelings or my intuition because that is what I had been taught from my childhood.
The chemistry was electric, lightening in the sky that was tangible.
Nothing happened between us because I put up clear thick walls that could not be penetrated. I was not going to cheat on my husband. I love my husband and would never do anything to hurt him.
This guy, he turned out to be very respectful, did not pursue anything and we had limited interaction during the festival.
So I questioned myself. Why did I put up walls and feel so adamant about setting boundaries? He assured me I didn’t need to and it turned out he was respectful of my physical space.
At this point in my life, I was a newly born person, just learning how to feel. Years of prying off the armor with many crow bars and jackhammers, I had just shed the final layer literally weeks before. My skin was raw, had never experienced the feel of the cool breeze on my skin. I was feeling myself for the first time.
Was this need to put up walls with this guy a remnant of my past? Were my feelings operating from fear? I did not trust my feelings or my intuition because that is what I had been taught from my childhood.
Days after we had left the festival, my soul urge to reconnect with him brought about the most profound vision. Unaided by any mind-altering substances, I saw the union of Shiva and Shakti and knew it was he and I. All the world felt right and harmonious. There was peace and prosperity, trust and love, safety and security in the world because of this union. I had never felt this level of peace and I didn’t know what to do with this vision. I surrendered it to the universe, thanked it for showing me and declared it for another time and space because in this moment of now I was married, I loved my husband, we had a daughter and a life together.
The feeling and vision were very real and wouldn’t leave me. My soul kept nudging me. I sat with it for a bit of time and my soul was urging me to write him. This was not the type of thing I did. I did it and I figured it wouldn’t matter because we lived in different countries, so nothing would come of it. When he responded, it blew me away. Apparently, he had been in a deep practice over this last year to embody the divine masculine in order to let the divine feminine rise. He would not “chase women” because that was the masculine trying to control and conquer. He would let female come to him. That he had been asking for his true love and that he specifically told the universe he wanted the Shakti to his Shiva. And that when he read my letter I had basically said here I am.
I was floored. Terrified. Overjoyed. Scared. Excited. I was the entire range of emotions at once. What did this mean??? What was I to do??? I told him my situation and that I needed to speak to my husband. That I did not want communication between us to feel like an affair to me or anyone else. He agreed. He had been burned by affairs in his previous marriage and that was definitely not where he wanted to be.
I did not know how to even broach the subject with my husband because it was all so surreal. I did it. We had been having problems for years now. We loved each other dearly and were not wanting to let go of one another but there were so many issues too. We tried many avenues like therapy and were always thinking of ways we could evolve together. We had also watched many couples fall apart due to lack of communication and issues with polyamory, something we had yet to try, so we both knew that open communication was essential. My husband was OK with it all and understood my desire to get to know this other person more. This was a unique and once-in-a-lifetime connection.
So we began to message. I knew absolutely nothing about him, but I knew when he was thinking about me because that was the power of the ancient connection. There was an undercurrent of love present that did not here in this plane of existence, but my soul remembered lifetimes past even though I had no clue who he was currently. This was not like the love I felt for my husband which was here in this physical reality.
I never believed in twin flames. I would hear many in the neo-spiritual communities talk about twin flames and use words like that about every person they met. This love was nothing like the love I had for my husband. It was ancient and raw. There was a purpose in the passion. There were worlds to be created to be of service to humanity.
In the beginning stages of that communication, via text with him, what happened is that I fell in love. Not with him but WITH MYSELF. Literally. I never knew what self-love was. I knew about self care, but not self-love. It was something I had heard about, yet never understood.
My whole narrative had flipped. That underlying subconscious loop that played was no longer saying words of self- criticism, judgment or berating myself. I now heard phrases like “I love myself, I am kind, I am beautiful, I am confident, I am good, I am sexy, I am powerful, I am worthy, I am enough.” It blew my mind. I had achieved a level of self-love and reprogramming that I had no clue was possible for me.
I began to have a lot of visions, insights and memories through our communication about my life, my childhood, my present, my future. Sometimes just the messages would lead to profound insights, rewiring and healing a lot like a psychedelic journey.
This ancient knowing in me knew that we had tried this reunion before through other timelines and it always ended in disaster. I wanted to do this right and my intuition was telling me that was in establishing a friendship. A solid friendship. I needed this friendship to make this work. Every part of my being knew that.
I am not a person that engages in relationships talking about the latest news or movies, unless there was a reason. I like to go deep. I want to know how it impacted the person, changed the person, rather than the plot line. I was deep in my spiritual practice of growing and exploring 5D consciousness – detangling myself from the matrix, while still living here on Earth. I was learning to explore my supernatural abilities – to feel energy and to extend beyond this physical reality. And here was this person who tapped into that energy with me directly.
We had similar goals which was to be of service to humanity, a light leader and felt that perhaps, one day, that the power of the connection could make our service even stronger. I expressed my needs and was clear with my intentions. I wanted to get to know him. Who he was in this lifetime. I wanted to practice with him the ability to develop and hone supernatural gifts like telepathy or even astrally projecting and meeting people in other dimensions. We were so connected so why not play with this energy?
The energy between us was not on this Earth. Time collapsed where days felt like months. I was constantly being reborn. I was growing.
I opened myself up to him. Everything about my life. He would respond with words of judgement, not towards me, but towards my situations, condemning them, feeling sorry for me, hating America or men. I asked him to just hold space, to not judge. I was healing and I did not need pity or a shoulder to cry on. What I needed was space to heal.
I still knew nothing about him. When I would ask him questions, he would answer them, but it was clear that he was over it and there was nothing to discuss. To me it was clear he still had a lot of healing to do, and I was holding space for him.
And then one day, just days later from the beginning of our communications, he said “I love you.” I told him that I did not want to go there, that I wanted a friendship, that I was married and this is not what I was looking for. He stated that he felt this way and could not continue in a friendship, he did not want to be put in the “friendzone” and said it would be better if he walked away. I did not know what to do, there was no going back now. The words had been stated out loud. And I did not want to lose this powerful connection. I had become addicted to the healing. I was curious about this connection, it was a strong bond not of Earth.
I was becoming the most vulnerable I had ever been. I was learning to trust and feel.
In my meditation practice that night I asked my higher self to take the lead. My higher self opened me up to the feeling of love. There was no denying this ancient love in me. I was feeling it. My soul was grateful to be reconnected.
That night I spoke to my husband and he was really supportive. My husband and I love each other so much. We set firm ground rules around everything so that we could work to become a bigger open family and explore new models of family. We were to be open and honest, constantly communicating with one another because we did not want to destroy the goodness that we had between us.
My twin flame was thrilled.
I was vulnerable, allowing myself to feel and experience life in a new way. I loved myself. I was stretching myself in more ways than I knew possible. I was growing in leaps and bounds. I was healing faster. I was faced with some pretty big demons and I was slaying through them like Kali cutting off heads of my past lives. I was thriving. I had stepped into my power. I was a magical Goddess. I was becoming the most vulnerable I had ever been. I was learning to trust and feel.
And then something shifted.
The more vulnerable I became and unconditionally loved, the more he became the person he said he was not, the more he withdrew. My vulnerability was barely acknowledged and definitely not reciprocated. I did not know him at all. All I had was an ancient love. I asked him to ask questions and answer questions. He would blow off subjects, no desire to heal or go deep, and would only speak at length out the latest movie he watched, or offer me suggestions of what I should watch or read without any insight on him. I had no time for this with everything going on in my life and was open and honest about that. Yet the suggestions continued that I felt pressured into watching because that was all there was to connect on.
All the while, he would speak at lengths about the visions of love he had of me in the past, present and future. Some of these visions and energies were similar to what I had seen or felt. He would use words like Goddess to refer to me. He always called me My Queen and showered me with love.
I began feel unsafe emotionally. I was becoming angry and I did not understand why.
My higher self kept telling me the problem was that the friendship never existed, had never developed. I was not pushing for what I needed.
The love felt very empty to me and reminded me of my childhood, words without substance. He lived in a fantasy world. It didn’t even feel rooted in the ancient love. He was in love with the concept of being in love.
He was, in his own words, a nomad with so much freedom, no real responsibilities and an endless amount of time at his disposal. In my minds eye, if anyone had time to open up, write, do the work, honor my need to go deep and get to know one another, it was him. There was a lot of commentary of others based of people’s lifestyles which judged me and the way I lived directly. I don’t know why, but I fell into an old pattern of just agreeing with him and not standing up for myself. He was light-hearted and a happy go lucky person. I was the more serious one. So I kept doubting myself, my feelings. I was ignoring my needs, my inner voice all because I was showered with words of love.
This is not working.
I was living in two worlds. One that existed beyond this realm of existence with him, and one that was firmly planted on Earth with my husband, daughter, large extended family, several businesses, friends and so much more. I had poured out my heart, my life to him. I opened up my marriage for him. I was working day and night trying to be there for everyone, including him. I was divided, distracted and growing disgusted with myself.
In just a couple months time I had experienced the most profound form of self-love and now I was not allowing myself to enjoy my life out of feeling guilt. Guilt for the bounty of my life. Guilt for opening up my marriage. I felt guilty for wanting a friendship, for my feelings, for not wanting to do what was expected of twin flames – union for the ascension of the Earth. I felt guilty for everything. He kept telling me that I had reached out to him, he just willingly followed. I accepted the blame of his victimhood. I felt like it was all my fault. I doubted my feelings and felt like I had to power through this because that was what I was expected to do. I no longer felt safe emotionally with him.
I was unbecoming the person I had worked so hard to become. I had returned to the feelings of my former self feeling confused, powerless, angry, annoyed and petty. I became critical of myself, him and others. I became abrupt with him. I was ignoring everyone around me, constantly fighting myself. I was no longer in a high vibration. I did not trust or listen to my feelings. I did not like or love myself anymore.
I doubted myself again and again. Was there something wrong with me? Did I not want to be loved? Was I pushing love away? The connection was real, I could feel him thinking about me and would see him in visions. Why couldn’t I just accept what was being given to me?
I no longer felt safe wanting to explore the supernatural realm with him. I no longer felt safe emotionally with him. It was all because I had repeated the narrative of my youth, allowed my boundaries to be ignored being told that the words of love were enough.
The walls that I had put up in Costa Rica were not walls of fear. They were my body’s knowledge speaking to me. My intuition. My higher self. This was someone I needed to clearly set my boundaries with and demand to be heard.
What I learned was both he and I had focused on physical safety in Costa Rica, the real safety that my soul was pushing me towards was emotional safety.
It took a small trigger, and I am sure it was unexpected to him because my anger surprised me. I exploded. We stopped talking for a couple of days. He then took a massive leap forward and agreed that I was right, he had not done the work and started to tell me about himself.
I felt guilty for my reaction, my outburst, my declaration of my emotions and anger. I took a step back, found my calm and asked that we proceed with a friendship. He agreed.
Unfortunately, in his version of friendship he could still call me “My Queen”, saying I love you, telling me his visions of us together which made me uncomfortable. I felt ignored and disrespected, yet again. And then I understood the truth. His desire to be in love along with our connection led to a fantasy world that overshadowed seeing me and hearing me as I was. He was single, alone and his current journey in life seemed to be fully focused on partnership, which meant focused on love and planning for a future together. I could not give him what he wanted. I was fine in the uncertainty, the exploration, and evolution – my life’s journey prepared me for this. He was not.
I finally found my voice – my authentic voice – that communicated with compassion. I told him I could not give him what he wanted. That I did not have the capacity or desire to engage in a relationship with him because that is not where I was in life. He pushed back out of hurt, reminding me I had reached out to him, he did not chase me, but I was firm. I could not do this.
For nearly two months he left me alone.
Time collapsed again. The three months we had been in communication felt like a year. Those two months we did not speak felt like five years. I began to heal more deeply than ever. Opportunities knocked at my door. The universe was delivering endless gifts to me. I began taking risks and playing with life again. I was flowing, healing, channeling. I reconnected with my husband, daughter and friends. I reached new levels in vulnerability, compassion, understanding, and the ability to hold space. I healed the relationship with my parents within myself and most importantly healed the relationship to myself. I began to love life, my life. I loved myself again. My spiritual practice grew more profound and I was opening up to my gifts. I evolved faster than ever and had reached a place in which I was content and happy. I was able to move through tensions and issues in my life with more grace and ease. I was acting, not re-acting.
In my journey through life, I have learned the most important lesson – we have choice. I empowered myself by choosing to focus on myself.
I could still feel him thinking about me – damn, that twin flame union – but I was no longer invested in him.
And then he reached out and told me of his revelations and apologized for his behavior with me. I responded nicely and succinctly, with no need to reply. I really had no desire to reengage at this point. He wrote again telling me more. I did not respond. And then he wrote again to tell me he still believed in us and was working hard on himself towards that goal of union. It had never occurred to me that he still thought we were still working together.
I suddenly realized he had never been listening to me, what I had to say. He wanted to be with someone and was following the narrative of the twin flame that union essential, rather than a choice. In my journey through life, I have learned the most important lesson – we have choice. In the every moment of now, we choose how to act and there is no wrong choice. And with every choice we chose how we react. I empowered myself by choosing to focus on myself.
I asked my higher self how to proceed and the answer was very very clear: SET BOUNDARIES. The message was the same as it was when we first met, boundaries.
I wrote at length of how I had changed and how I no longer felt good in communication with him. I was careful with my language. I did not blame him and focused on myself. I clearly stated that it was time to move on, that the connection was real but to respect my energetic space and leave me be. Not to write me. I wished him well.
Something stopped me from sending the message. I felt better just writing it. There was no need to send it. No need to hurt his feelings.
This was my old self resurging – stay quiet, pretend like nothing is wrong, and the problem will go away or it will be forgotten about. I was still internalizing the blame that was projected on me – I had been the one that reached out, so it was all my fault.
The universe would not let me rest in my old comfort zone of taking the blame and staying quiet. With this twin flame energy, I could feel him thinking about me and it was distracting me, draining my energy and making me doubt myself. I would think, he was a nice guy, so it must be me, something was wrong with me. I could feel myself being pulled backwards into a lower vibrational state.
Luckily, I had evolved so much in the short time span that I knew better than to remain in this state. I asked my higher self again, should I send the message? And the answer was clear: There is no doubt.
I felt good sending it. I could still feel the energy between us. No problem I thought, he is just processing and this will go away. Yet he decided to write to tell me yet again I had been the one to reach out and he just followed, he thought we were on the same page about union and he was sad.
I thought, why not just ignore it, let it be. Don’t respond. End it here. Continue from this place of compassion.
But now I was angry and that anger was eating away at me. Every time I had acted from compassion I had left the energetic door open and my boundaries were crossed.
In my life, from my childhood to workplaces, I have been chastised for not being a team player and told that I must serve the needs of others at the expense of my own. If I established boundaries, like I will not answer a work call at 10 PM at night or I would not tolerate an inappropriate behavior, I was told I had to be fluid. It was inappropriate for me to have needs and anger in a woman was unbecoming. I felt guilt for the anger I had inside me – that primal female anger – that wants to be express her emotions, wants to be heard and rages when she is ignored. In our society, it was never appropriate for woman to be angry – they get labeled and judged. Woman were supposed to be easy going and sacrificing themselves for others. I fed into that societal narrative and stigma and judged myself for it.
It was time for me, once and for all to stand up for myself. To declare with firmness and authority. I don’t feel safe. GOODBYE.
I felt my energetic boundaries firmly in place. I felt safe. And I felt sad. I had closed the door on a unique bond and would never know its potential. I realized I was pushing away that sadness, and that was not helping me. Healing comes from our ability to feel the range of human emotion and to flow through them without getting stuck. I allowed myself to feel that sadness. After it passed through me, I felt whole, complete and at peace. I felt my body relaxed, calm and without stress. I felt aligned with myself.
Meeting him was unexpected for me. I had not been searching for love. When I first read up on what a twin flame actually was, a single soul split in two, I too thought this was a journey to union. Everything I read was about the intense problems that arise when twin flames are together and how to make it work. He had asked the universe for me and expected union. He assumed I would wait for him to grow, despite my words that stated otherwise. He was buying into the twin flame narrative because he wanted to be in love with someone.
In my healing, I came to a different understanding of this union. I have learned that this journey about the union with self. That the twin is there to accelerate that journey. This was about me learning to love myself. To know I am enough as I am. I am worthy of my needs being met. To trust my intuition. This was about me learning that setting boundaries, energetic and emotional boundaries, is a form of self-love. That stepping into my power meant declaring my truth and speaking with my authentic voice.
I broke cords in the universe to these narratives that are ingrained in our society, lineages and culture. As I heal others heal.
There are children across the world, some in horrific unimaginable conditions and situations, that cannot stand up for themselves right now. There are people who stay in relationships because they think they are supposed to. There are women who sacrifice themselves for the others and suppress their voice because that is what they are expected to do. There are people that allow themselves to stay the course because that is what is expected, or the narrative that currently exists out there. There are people whose needs are not being met because they are not heard.
There are physical ways we can make a difference in the world but there are others ways as well – through our shadow work we unravel the narratives of our society, generations, masculine and feminine energies, power and more. When one rises, we all rise. We lift each other up.
As I healed in this journey, I healed many versions of that disempowered self who did not trust her own intuition and feelings by standing up for myself and declaring with authority NO MORE. I took my inner child and told her that she did not deserve what she endured and that I was here for her to love her. I did not stay in a relationship that has a powerful once-in-a-lifetime connection because that was the expectation. I empowered myself with choice, self-respect and self-love. I broke cords in the universe to these narratives that are ingrained in our society, lineages and culture. As I heal others heal. This is my journey. To help heal and changes the narratives of life. The moment I declared this truth the universe blessed me with even more gifts of abundance as I flowed into alignment – she said, “See, this is what happens when you step into your authentic voice. You are a powerful creator of your reality.”
As my twin flame, he had helped me achieve these levels of healing and I am grateful. I can only hope that I helped him heal in some way, but the truth is I am not invested in knowing. He will make his own choices in life. All I can do is be grateful.
We have been taught to ignore our intuition because it has been programmed in us to judge that inner voice.
In my minds eye, I have revisited that experience in Costa Rica in which I clearly stated my boundaries in that nothing was going to happen and he says “there is no need, you don’t have to worry about me, I am a safe person.” Sure he is more sensitive and aware than the typical dominant masculine energy in the world, and yet he did not hear me, and discredited my need for safety.
It makes me think of one of the core lessons in Black Lives Matter movement: When a black person is telling you what they need, it is not enough to say you are an ally to black people. You listen to what they have to say and don’t discredit their experience, their life, their needs. This thought can be applied to any relationship in life and has changed my relationship with my daughter, husband, and friends.
When I revisit that moment in my minds eye, I change the events that happen. I am no longer that stumbling newbie of a human that is just learning to feel, trust and love herself. Instead I am empowered and listen to the voice of my intuition.
I tell him “ Stop talking and listen to what I am saying. This is what I need to express to feel safe and I need you to hear and acknowledge my need. If a woman, if a person, states their boundaries, instead of denying their feelings, you thank them expressing their needs and you do what it takes to make them feel safe. You let them be heard and you respect that boundary. Don’t deny their feelings.”
When I stand up for myself, my boundaries, my needs, I honor myself. When I stand up for myself, I empower other people to stand up for themselves. There is only one love that matters. Self love. When we love ourselves, we are better able to love others, because the people in our lives are a reflection of who we are. Our boundaries are a form of self love. Love yourself by listening to your intuition. It is always guiding you in the right direction.
Unbecoming: The Rebuilding of Self 