Hi Kelli
I’m currently working on cleaning up my vibration after a difficult breakup. I can tell my energy is still messed up. After a few months of healing and doing some inner work, I wanted to put myself back out there to meet someone, which I now have. My concern is that I’m wondering if who I attract is not going to be a good fit given I can feel my residual energy from the previous breakup. My question is, does this even make sense to be doing this if I know I was still feeling “off”? I wanted to take steps in moving forward, but I am concerned.
Why We Would Be So Concerned About This
It is important to understand what motivates these sorts of questions and concerns because it is stuff that really needs to be recognized and dealt with. Doing that will make all of this a whole lot easier. If most of us are honest, we are doing everything we do personal-growth wise because we hope to get some external result our human/ego mind finds highly desirable.
And the reason it wants these things so badly is because it believes X, Y or Z needs to happen for us to be happy. We crave all sorts of feelings and believe they will come as a result of acquiring something in the world, whether it be a relationship, more money, a better body, a better job or a nicer place to live.
And because we believe that, the possibility of these things not happening for us is a very upsetting prospect. This creates a strong attachment and because of this strong attachment, we worry quite a bit that we will do something ‘wrong’ and screw ourselves. We get very fixated on making sure we are doing all the ‘right’ things to ensure our desired outcome.
If this deep attachment to the relationships, the money or whatever else, did not exist, we wouldn’t worry about any of this stuff. We would just go about living our lives. We may still want certain things but they wouldn’t feel so precious and important; we wouldn’t spend a lot of time fretting over whether they will show up or not.
We wouldn’t analyze our behaviors and decisions so deeply. We may take actions we believe would benefit our goal, but we don’t think too much about whether they are ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ We would probably only do things that felt aligned and good and not do anything that felt bad, forced or like we were trying to control anything in any way.
So in the context of relationships for example, in a more detached state, we may decide we are open to dating again after a break up, and maybe join a dating site, maybe finally take our friend up on the offer to set us up with someone,etc. And then whatever happened, happened.
And if we weren’t feeling a strong pull to put ourselves out there again, we may decide not to take any specific actions to meet anyone and that would be that. And deciding that wouldn’t mean completely eliminating the possibility of meeting someone because you haven’t specifically intended to do so.
But in reality, we tend not to have that degree of detachment, and we will not be so easy-breezy about it all. If we believe we need something to be happy, the stakes are high, and we will analyze, we will hand-wring, we will worry if we are doing the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ things.
So, no matter what the external ‘want’ is, the first place you always want to draw your attention to is within and examine any attachment you feel.
And the only way to transition from attachment to detachment is a willingness to buy into the idea that the state of your external world–your relationship status, your job, your finances,etc–is not the cause of your feelings, and therefore, fixing things externally would not be the solution to ‘fixing’ them.
And the only way to uncover that truth is through a willingness to really look at how you are feeling and examining the stories and beliefs you have. If you do this honestly, it won’t take long for you to see where all the ‘ick’ is really coming from.
It isn’t our relationship status, it isn’t our finances, it isn’t how we look,etc. that is the problem, it is the story we have about the situation, the fears it evokes, the bad things it makes us think about ourselves. It is the false idea that changing any of these circumstances will heal our pain and give us some lasting sense of happiness and satisfaction, that any lack we are feeling will be filled by something outside of us.
And when we realize the external isn’t the problem, our fixation with changing it starts to weaken since that can’t possibly be the answer. And you naturally start feeling more detached, and in this more detached state, you don’t worry about whether you are doing anything ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ You won’t feel the need to analyze your actions and decisions so closely. You’ll spend less time trying to ‘figure out’ what to do and let the proper actions reveal themselves through intuitive nudges and the like.
Don’t Worry about Emotional/Energetic Perfection
Because of our various attachments, fears and the like, we may always have some ‘stuff’ around relationships, money and anything else the human/ego mind deems necessary and important for our happiness and well-being.
This is especially true of people who are aware of LOA-type teachings and are explicitly trying to ‘manifest.’ So long as we think these things are precious and important in some way, there will be the fear of not getting them, of messing things up, of doing something ‘wrong.’
Luckily, we do not require any sort of emotional or energetic ‘perfection’ to have things happen to us that we have collectively judged as ‘good’ and ‘desirable.’ If that were the case, we would all be pretty screwed.
Something like dating again after going through a difficult break-up is going to be hard for a lot of people. You may still be feeling a bit raw and vulnerable. There is fear you will not meet someone good. Using dating apps can be frustrating and demoralizing.
There may be some bad dates. There may be people that seem promising, but they just disappear on you. You have a great first date with someone but then you don’t hear from him again. Understandably, most people don’t want to deal with all of this, and the thought of having to do so is unpleasant to say the least.
So it is okay if you don’t have some super ‘clean’ energy around something like dating again after a break up, taking a new career path or whatever other area of life with which you are concerned. It is normal and okay. It isn’t necessary.
But with that being said, only we can know for ourselves if any negativity is that ‘standard’ sort that anyone with a human mind would experience, or if we are really not in a place to put our attention on these things, to move forward, to make certain decisions and changes.
There is no flow chart or set of questions to help us determine this definitively. Wouldn’t that be great? It is only something we can uncover through honest self-reflection and exploration of our thoughts and feelings. It is something we will know on an intuitive level.
Remember Action is a Manifestation of Energy
Before understanding the impact of our belief system and emotional state on our life, we naturally saw action as the level of ‘cause.’ What we did or didn’t do was largely the determinant of what we had and didn’t have. But that really wasn’t true.. There was something else happening. Our actions weren’t coming out of nowhere, something was motivating them.
What we are doing or not doing is being determined by something inside us. And those emotional motivations, the belief system, the stories, the perceptions and the interpretations are the true level of ‘cause.’ Our actions are merely a manifestation of that energy, and are actually on the level of ‘effect.’
Reminding yourself of this makes it a lot easier to see where action fits into the picture in your particular circumstances. This can be a great source of confusion for people, which adds to the aforementioned hand-wringing about whether we are doing it all ‘properly.’
Another issue is that the idea that action makes things happen is still pretty deeply ingrained, so the idea of not doing much, which ostensibly we should find very desirable and eager to embrace, actually makes us quite uncomfortable. Without action, we can’t engage in our deep need to control, and all that icky energy has no outlet. We think that certain things won’t happen unless we are actively engaged in trying to make them happen.
If you are honestly willing to engage your motivations for action, you can get a better sense of whether these actions may be helpful in the moment or a hindrance. You will get a better sense if you should consider actively dating again, quitting your job, moving, changing your business marketing strategy or one of the countless other things you are thinking about doing because you think it may help your cause in some way.
While action truly doesn’t create, various behaviors and choices clearly play a role in the process–an inspired action that lights you up will probably contribute positively in some way, while a forced, tense action has the potential to cause problems.
So if action truly isn’t the level of cause, our main concern should never really be whether or not we should be doing X, Y or Z. Our main focus should always be what is lying beneath that, what is happening inside.
You Can’t Do Any of This Wrong
If action really isn’t the level of cause, if manifestation at its heart isn’t some action-based process, then that means you can’t do anything ‘wrong’ in that regard. If you make what appear to be ‘bad’ decisions, you’ll be fine, not all hope is lost. There is valuable feedback there.
If in the case of dating, you start before you are really ready, and that leads to some bad experiences, it’s fine. It’s not as if there is some perfect time for you to start that you are tasked with figuring out, and if you get on it too early or too late, it’s all over.
Don’t get too caught up in what happens once you start taking certain actions or moving down a particular path. Suspend judgment and remain open. Things may or may not go how you envision them, and if they don’t, it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.
Like I mentioned earlier, if we are willing to honestly engage with our mind, we can see if we should be taking actions at the moment, even if they feel a bit uncomfortable, or if it’s really not time and we should do some more inner stuff first.
And if you get a sense it is the latter, but you can’t help yourself and you start trying to make things happen anyway, that’s not wrong or bad. But it will probably generate more negativity and you may have a bit of a bumpier road, especially if you don’t engage with these feelings and you choose the ego’s preferred mode of operation, which is trying to change the outside to minimize pain.
Again, the only reason these sorts of issues vex us is because we are still being driven to change our outside experience by a deep sense of attachment to particular outcomes. And this attachment is driven by deep fear. And that deep fear stems from the fact we believe we need these things to make us happy so not getting them is a very unsettling prospect to say the least.
But when we realize none of this is true, we get a whole lot more relaxed about it all. Those attachments and negative feelings weaken. It’s okay if they don’t go away completely, we just don’t want them dominating.
Maybe the next person you date will be the ‘one.’ Maybe they serve a completely different purpose by giving you greater clarity on your ideal partner or helping you work though something inside that you know needs to be worked through to have a healthy, happy relationship, and it wasn’t meant to last, so nothing went wrong when it didn’t.
Some things may happen that you are scared about happening, that you won’t want to deal with. But that isn’t because those situations are inherently bad in some way, and should unquestionably be avoided if possible, it is because of how the ego mind interprets them. But that interpretation is faulty, and should any of those things come to pass, you could handle them just fine, you could choose to embrace whatever it is they would help you work through.
The more we detach from outcomes, the more gunk we clear out that is lying at the root of all we want in the external world, the easier all of this gets. Without all this icky energy driving everything we do, you see how little there really is that you need to concern yourself with. We need to get serious about not taking all of this ‘work’ so seriously, of not making the things the ego mind ‘wants’ so important and precious because they actually can’t give us what we want.
Without those feelings clouding everything, you can deeply internalize these sorts of teachings more genuinely and let them guide your perspectives and decisions. You can see everything much more clearly. You won’t get so caught up in whether you are taking the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ actions. You will be open to whatever unfolds, knowing it is serving you in some way.
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