It's all in my head

You intensely fall in love with someone, and you maybe get into an intimate relationship with this person. The relationship is going well, but at the back of your head, there is always this looming cloud of fear that your loved one will sooner or later abandon you. True enough, it may take weeks, months, or years, but your lover does leave you for whatever reason. You are devastated. At first, you blame yourself for being rejected. Then, you start recalling all the shit you had to put up with for this person, and you feel short-changed, exploited, and abused. You then feel an immense sense of resentment and anger towards this person. You wish the person suffers for all the hurt that he/she has done unto you. You hold onto this hate for a long time. Eventually, all the negativity goes away somehow. Then, you fall for someone new. And, guess what, the cycle begins anew.

Sound familiar?

This has been my pattern in majority of my intimate relationships. I've more or less have been aware of this pattern in me for a few years now, and it's become apparent that the old program is still very much alive in me. For reasons that I may never truly know, this extreme fear of abandonment has been instilled in my mind, and I end up putting every woman I fall in love with in that role of lover/savior turned oppressor/rejector. I realize that I make a persistent projection onto my objects of affection. The moment that I declare in my mind that I am "in love" with a person, all these conflicting voices in my head will become attached to every thought of the person, and the voices primarily say "She is going to abandon you", "She has to pay for abandoning you", and "You're not good enough". All these thoughts then get in the way of being at ease and just enjoying and flowing with the relationship. It causes anxiety, paranoia, insecurity, and depression (even if there is no real rejection that occurred yet). Eventually, the mental turmoil leads me to sabotage the relationship, such as by becoming needy or by lashing out, which inevitably drives the person away. Looking back, I could see that I've repeated this drama quite a few times in the past few years.

Right now, I recognize that I am once again projecting all these issues onto my best friend who I am also in love with. I can already see how awkward and resentful I am beginning to become with her nowadays, and I know most of what I am worried and hurt about are mere illusions cooked up by my messed up brain.

What to do? What to do? =?

As I was meditating the other day, the insight that came to me was this:

Because the complex is so ingrained in your psyche, the most powerful way to be free of this persistent projection is to be fully and intensely present, for it is only in being totally in the now that thoughts have no power over our perceptions.

Ummmmmm... Okay? What was that again???  <'_)

Putting it simply --- If I can just be here, just like right now (e.g. here, sitting on my bed, looking at my netbook's screen, typing with my fingers, as the cold penetrates the walls and reaches the soles of my feet, breathing with a congested right nostril, blinking), then I can recognize that no betrayal or rejection is occurring AT THIS VERY MOMENT. I am safely and comfortably just here wherever I am. If my attention is in the present, that is, in what's happening in my body or in my surroundings, then there is no space in my mind to imagine all these scenes of heartbreak, abandonment, and revenge. There can't be any fire if you take away the fuel, right?. And maybe, when the time comes that she and I speak or face each other, I can look at her and really see her; listen to her and really hear her; instead of encountering only my thoughts about her. Then maybe I can savor the moment as it happens and truly appreciate the her as she is.

She is, however, not here right now. She's thousands of miles away. So maybe, in a few months time, when I see her face to face once again, I can manage to be fully there with her. Who knows what that will be like? No point in thinking about it now though. Thinking is the enemy after all. haha. I guess I'll only find out when the moment is there, and I will respond to whatever happens (e.g. affection, rejection, or otherwise) when it happens. But none of that is happening right now. So in the meantime, I will do my best to stay out of my head and, hopefully, also stay out of my own way.