Today Grasshopper, as in, “the answer is in you, Grasshopper,” asks a question.

Dear Jeanne,
I am struggling over the return of a former intimate partner. I have been resisting going back to an involvement with him for almost a year now. This is a relationship in which I feel I fully express myself, and am accepted as I am, which is what the real draw is for me. But there are significant issues of addiction (alcohol addiction-his) and my avoidance of codependency in that issue. Not to mention the huge gap in our ages.

I suspect/believe/assume the addiction/codependency thing is an area in which I am supposed to be learning a lesson and, hence, I avoided the relationship when he has pursued it because I thought that was the lesson. But it’s puzzling, because it is yet another repeated experience presented to me, so often, that I keep thinking I get the lesson, and yet I still feel drawn. This is a person who is not what I am looking for in a life partner, but highly attractive in his way, who seems fated, with whom I feel that I have some kind of otherworldly attachment to, even with my full knowledge that he will not be someone I will commit to in any permanent way, AND who has some kind of addictive issue. I don’t want to be held back from finding a suitable partner with whom I can find mutual trust and ongoing healthy intimate involvement. So if I’m getting the lessons, why do they keep coming back? And where are the men with whom I could actually have a real committed relationship?

Am I supposed to be examining my judgments of myself and others? Am I supposed to be resisting my physical desires? Confronting my fear of aging, as I am approached by a young attractive man, repeatedly? All of these things I have thought about. Even as I know “the answer is in you, Grasshopper,” I feel like I’ve recapitulated endlessly around this issue. Am I doing it right? Is this just a particularly resistant issue for me? Am I over-thinking, and is that, in some way, avoiding real recapitulation?

So maybe my question is about more insight into recapitulation, as it’s related to relationship patterns, and in my case, actual repeated relationships with return partners. I’ve been dealing with this for a long time, and I can’t seem to find the right balance of honoring the relationship for it’s value in bringing my issues to light, which the relationships in question certainly have done, as they are the only ones I am drawn to repeatedly, and being the light for the other person without crossing into codependency. And I wonder if there is just some huge vat of other gunk I need to clear that I haven’t even recognized. I sure do feel like I dig deep, but why am I here again? I really feel it is time to clear the way for more positive and committed experiences.

Is this a Mephistophelean situation, the tempting by the devil, offering a taste of what he offers, in return for giving energy to him?

Ok, so anything you can offer, Jeanne, it’s greatly appreciated,
Grasshopper

My Dear One, you are caught in the web of self doubt that does afflict many who seek wholeness, both with the self and with true partnership with another resonant being. This is not only a Mephistophelean situation with energy enticing energy, but it is happening outside of you, outside energy attracting outside energy. Underneath sits the real truth, which you speak of as “resisting going back to.” Pay attention to that underlying truth and the truths you have spelled out.

If you were looking at this situation from afar, would you have a different perspective, a truer perspective? For I do think that is what you have had as this year has progressed and you withdrew from intimacy. But now you are presented with a close-up smoldering pile of energy at your door, asking for you, for your nurturing participation in feeding the big baby its bottle. Do you really wish to be in that situation again? Yes, babies are cuddly, and fun to be around, but then you have to care for them, clean up after them, and feel exhausted by their neediness and their draining of your energy. No matter how evolved they may appear, they are still big babies.

To offer the self in this manner to someone else, to offer your “light” to them, as you speak of, is to deny your own inward turning light.

Focus not on what this man offers you, for he offers only a reflection of the self, stuck in repeated patterns of behavior. He is your mirror, shiny and appealing as that beautiful mirror is, so is it reflecting not only all your own wonderful qualities, but also your own addictive qualities of interdependence and reliability on repetition of habits, much easier to resort to than to shift away from.

Women have a tendency to want to change the image of the man before them; but how can you change a mirror image? Only by changing the self. It is not your job, nor your inner desire to really change anyone else, but only your job and inner desire to change the self. Why do you repeatedly spin your wheels in front of the same mirror images, Grasshopper? Who are you looking for in those mirrors? Or better put, who are you avoiding? Who are you attempting to see in others, but not in your self?

I know you probe and ask your self all the right questions, but your mistake has been to ask them in relationship to others. To actually do a recapitulation around relationship is to take the self who approaches relationships out of the relationship, and place that self, alone, on your knee. Remove the mirror, the partner, totally from the picture. A relationship is not about the other person, it is about you. Where are you within your self? Still looking for the one true partner, the one true being who will fulfill all your dreams? Do you know that no such person exists outside of you? Don’t you know that the only place you will find such a partner is inside you?

Perhaps your question is really about the nature of relationships, and this I have spoken of, but perhaps not enough. For a true relationship to prosper and have the possibility of growth, so must each partner be able to face the dire and most tragic truths of the self, along with total acceptance of the beauty and the positive aspects of the self. The first act of recapitulation around relationship must be around love of self, acceptance of self, especially as reflected by these previous relationships you do speak quite clearly about.

You speak the words that will lead you properly, but do you hear them? Do you accept them?

From what I can see, My Dear Girl, you have not truly accepted your place in life as self, as totally enclosed, safe self. You have not refused to look into the mirrors as they appear, enticing you, saying, “Look, look what I offer!” They do not offer what you think they offer. They do not offer “fated” relationships, or gifts of “feeling” right. They only offer reflections of the self.

Where is your addiction problem? Where is your dependent neediness? Where is the aspect in you that asks the other to take over, and care, and love me? This mature you that desires to light the way for another must truly turn that desire toward the self. Find that seeking light that is buried inside your self, waiting for your nurturance of its flame.

Turn away from the mirrors. Do not look into them. Do not be enticed by romantic ideals of love, for that is where you get caught. You idealize the shiny view in the mirror, desiring, wanting what it has, but the price to get it is too high a price to pay, for it involves giving up the self, and that is not what a true relationship will entice with.

A true relationship will only entice the true self to emerge, to partake fully, and to be not only assured of safety, but expect it in return. A true partner will inexplicably be on equal ground, with not one mirror in sight; face to face; real skin, eyes, hair, mouth, touch, feel; emotions flowing; nothing hidden or secretive; no illusions, delusions, or untruths that need to be covered over, retreated from, or posed in some fashion so that you cannot see them. No hidden agenda; no questioning of, Am I doing this right? Is this the right partner? No wondering, Why am I here, again? Because it will be a place you have never been before, yet will you know that it is totally right.

Your wariness at this mirror appearing again, is your truth speaking. Your champion in this place of now, is your questing spirit putting you in a place of puzzlement and confusion, and in that place do you have your answer that, no, this is not right, for all the reasons you have already laid out.

But now what do you do? You put the mirror down gently so that you do not have to look at it again, but you take all the truths of that person and investigate your self, with them as your guide. Why must you continually look into the same mirror? You are missing some important aspects of the self that you have not quite understood correctly or thoroughly yet. Your illusions about the self must be cracked and broken, not the other person. So do not hurt the other, but simply turn the mirror down, face it back upon him, who must also do his own work in the mirror.

There are mirrors all around you. Every day do you encounter reflections of the self in others. Turn all those mirrors now to the inner spirit, and recapitulate the self, not the relationships, or the others involved, but only the self.

Yes, I know you want a relationship with a man, the right man, and you want it now. But wait, My Dear, for your true self to emerge, so that it does meet the true self of another evolving being. Only then will you emerge from the hall of mirrors and enter into living life in true reality of self. And in that world will you meet others who have also emerged from the House of Mirrors, and live in truth with the self; no ideals; no illusions; no shiny presentations, coated with possibility. In that place of self love, self safety, self nurture, and utter self truth, are there no shiny surfaces; no requests for your energy, but only an equal and vital exchange of energetic giving, and giving, and giving. Partners of truth do not drain each other, nor do they request personal feeding. But they grab you by the hand and say, “Come on, let’s go,” without dilemma, or conflict, or doubt. Yes, with some hesitation will you take in the clarity of seeing another person boldly displaying their every truth without cover of addiction, or shrouded in neediness; but no attempts to confuse or deceive will be present, so your eyes may not be able to take in the clear picture before you, but your inner spirit will know. And what it will know is that no romantic ideal could ever match perfect truth of self.

I think, My Dear Grasshopper, that it is time for you to stop looking in mirrors. Find your self, your beauty, your inner truths, and even your specks of addictive and needy qualities that still linger. Do not look for the man outside of you now, but look for the man inside of you, and merge with him. Only then, in your own masculine/feminine wholeness will you meet another, also balanced in inner masculine/feminine wholeness, to match your energy and your desire to grow. For that must always be what fuels a living spirit, the desire to grow.

So All of You Readers, merge first with your self, with your truths, with your romantic ideals of the self. Reconcile every aspect, every speck of unfinished business about what you seek in another, first within the self. Then will you be ready to meet your match. It may not appear as you suspect, for it will not approach as a mirror does, but in a completely fantastic manner, as the universe sees fit, not as you imagine or would like to perceive based on the old notions of love and romance. But it will unfold as it will, for your grand benefit, as you pass your tests, and find that, yes, you have learned your lessons of the self at last! And the universe will reward you with a special gift for your work well done.

I wonder how your gift will arrive, Grasshopper? On a blade of grass? On a drop of dew? In the early morning light as you flex your wings and look around you in the light of a new day, the sun peaking out and saying, Wake up, Grasshopper, it’s Graduation Day? I await your discovery of the self. And now, All of You Seekers must truly turn inward, and work hard, for that new day is coming soon.