Love Attracts Love – By Nicola O’Hanlon

The eternal quest to find the perfect life partner – that “someone” we connect with on every level – is something we all crave. If we just find that right person, our whole lives will transform into magic. Having someone to spend our days and nights with, share the highs and lows with and make love with, will definitely enhance our existence – when we are emotionally available enough to create such a connection.

When we come into recovery having left our addictive behaviour behind, we often feel a huge loss. A grief of sorts. It’s at this time we are most vulnerable and find ourselves filling that gap with relationships that may end up being detrimental to our wellbeing. Those who are already in relationships are presented with their own set of problems and struggle with the immense surge of feelings and emotions experienced in early recovery. The dynamics of the relationship often change and both partners are unsure how to navigate it anymore.

While training in all of my healing modalities, the most important aspect of giving treatments and caring for another, was to look at my own physical, emotional and spiritual state first. This was further compounded when I came into recovery. You cannot give or attract what you do not possess yourself. And while you may have the theory to practice and logically know what you need to do, do you actually have the presence of mind and heart to carry it out?

When people come to me for healing, and tell me about how they cannot find love or find it hard to connect with the other person, I always look at their relationship with themselves first. I ask questions to understand what it is they need to heal in themselves like:

• What purpose does having a relationship play in their lives?
• What can they offer another person?
• How do they feel about themselves?
• How do they speak about themselves?
• How do they practice self-care?
• How do they view sex and their sexuality?

Asking these questions to a person in recovery often has a multidimensional significance. It’s often the first time they have looked at themselves so deeply. The person answering the questions can be shocked at their own reply. Perhaps they’ve never considered these questions, and just expected to attract love without even knowing the answers or knowing what they want. We are so influenced by what other’s ideas of relationships and sex are that we take on those ideals instead of knowing what our own truth is. Our sexuality and our desire to share that with another runs much deeper than the superficial porn influenced version we are bombarded with on a daily basis. If we don’t explore what it means to us we will consistently come up against people and situations that do not compliment us.

To attract a healthy relationship or to improve an existing one you need to improve yourself and know yourself first. This isn’t a new concept for people in recovery yet we still try to put everything else, including relationships before our personal recovery. And I know from personal experience, it will never work. To recover means to completely discover and know who you are on all levels.

The most important thing in a recovering persons’ life, is their recovery. If you are not recovered or recovering from your addiction you cannot possibly feel deeply enough to attract or maintain a healthy relationship. We often hear that recovery needs to be a selfish endeavour. However, I completely disagree with that. I feel that there is no greater act of selflessness than to become the best you can be and share that with the people you love. Being fully present and available for those around you is the greatest gift imaginable. By being able to fully take care of yourself, you give people time and space to take care of themselves too. And don’t we all want to meet someone who is a complete person? Don’t we want to be one ourselves?

Personally, my experience of recovery is deeply profound and now the relationship I have with myself comes first. I’ve had to overcome huge trust issues, fear of abandonment, chronic low self-esteem and massive feelings of unworthiness. I conquered these by staying in recovery, years of therapy, creativity and my spiritual practices. All of these things brought me deeply within and helped me get to know who I am as a woman and a human being. I now have boundaries and refuse to mould myself into something I’m not. I will not settle for less than I deserve and I have stopped harming others by being needy and destructive in my relationships with them. I now have something to offer another person instead of constantly taking. At times, because of my difficult past, fear can rise up and consume me, but I’ve also learned how to ask and communicate what I need. If something is not okay with me I say it instead of pushing down my concerns to keep another person happy.

When we get to that point in our recovery, we can create and maintain the most beautiful relationships of our lives. One where we can meet another on a level which is very new to us. We become uninhibited in our expression of love and cast off the societal restrains, shame and guilt of being sexual beings. We find ourselves in a place where the expression of love comes in unexpected ways. Sexuality and love, when experienced through the heart and meeting of minds, is an entirely different entity. It is the manifestation of divine love in its purest from.

Give yourself the time and space to learn and grow and be your own lover first. Then, in time, you will attract the reflection of yourself and the work you have done to become who you truly are.

It will be worth it.