Generally, I have been a person that does not dwell on the past. I did go through periods in which I wondered why certain things would happen in my life. But I would then shift my attention. I especially made sure not to think so much about the past in fear of recreating it again in the present when I learned about the Law of Attraction. However, I continued to attract low energy people. What I have learned in recent years is that while consciously we may be thinking about the present our subconscious still holds our memories from the past and is bringing us the people of the same energy resonance in our present.
Our subconscious is like a computer. It files away the memories from our childhood and when we meet someone new the subconscious quickly checks the files and tells the psyche, "You don't like him" or "You like him". This happens so fast that you are not aware of it. This is the reason it could be hard to break patterns that keep you attracting low energy people. It is especially harder for the person that comes from a dysfunctional family.
As I've mentioned in my other articles, my childhood was a difficult one. Although I have gone through tremendous growth and healing I am still experiencing the results of some childhood traumas. However, they are not big issues as they were in the past when I was not aware that my past was affecting my present situations. I did not want to look at my childhood. It was too painful and I did not think it had anything to do with today anyway. Instead, what I did was to immerse myself in spirituality. Thinking that since I was a good person, God would bring me a good man eventually.
While spirituality gave me temporary relief from the pain of yet another break-up with a dysfunctinal person, it kept me feeling hopeless. I thought I was defective in some way.
One day I heard someone say that if you keep on meeting the same kind of people you have to look at the common denominator as the problem. That person also said that if you attract cheaters or other emotionally unavailable men there is something in you that does not want to meet someone who is emotionally available. At the time when I first heard this I thought it was nonsense because I consciously believed I did want to meet someone healthy and ready for commitment.
However, something did shift inside of me. I was no longer meeting cheaters. But I was still meeting emotionally unavailable men. They did not start this way, but once infatuation was over their true colors would come through. Then I came accross a book Keeping The Love You Find, by Harville Hendrix, PH.D. He gives detailed descriptions about how what happens at every stage of your childhood affects your present relationships and your subconscious keeps bringing people into your life that will cause old childhood wounds to come up.
In my case, I had two challenges to deal with. One of them was that while I consciously wanted marriage, subconsciously I was repelled by it. My parents had a horrible marriage and I can't recall one incident in which they demonstrated love to each other. Also, my mother always said my father took the best years of her life and that women always suffered with men. So my subconscious had filed away "marriage is bad for women". Therefore I attracted men who were not suitable for marriage. I had good reasons for the break-up which also kept me from seeing my own commitmentphobic tendencies.
My second big challenge was that I chose emotionally unavailable men because spiritually I wanted to heal this. Both my parents were emotionally unavailable. They had their own demons they were dealing with and they had nothing to give. I was attracting men who were emotionally unavailable because on the unconscious level I wanted another chance to fix my childhood. I wanted love by a person who was not capable of giving it to me.
The key to healing is to become aware of the wound first. Let go of denial. I still do not think it's good to dwell in the past for too long. However, if your past is keeping you from changing your unhealthy patterns, then you must pay attention to what happened in your childhood that may be causing the same low energy people to come into your life now.
If you would like to learn more about how your childhood affects your romantic relationships, read Dr. Harville Hendrix's book. He mentions how the dysfunctional relationhips that are brought into your life are perfect for healing childhood wounds. About falling in love he writes, " It gives us the strength for the long undertaking of self repair and the arduous work of a conscious relationship. When we are in love, we have the feeling that we can do whatever it takes to work things out. Falling in love forces our hand; without it we would choose to stay in the safety, however unfulfilling, of our singleness, or of a safe 'arrangement'. Romantic love is nature's anesthesia."
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