by Marc Bregman
When we are in our trauma, everything we project projects through the trauma. So, when we are in a marriage and we get what we think we want from our spouse, it actually will not be enough or we will have to control our spouse and our spouse will have to live like a love slave. But even having a love slave will not be satisfying. We might then flip into feeling like our spouse is too needy or too kind.
Trauma does not go away because somebody takes care of us. Trauma unfulfilled is need unfulfilled. Trauma cannot be resolved in the world because the need is a spiritual need. Love is a spiritual need that cannot be met in the world. When we were children, deep in our child selves, we wanted our parents’ love, but since our parents were not loving enough because they were not the Divine, we went into trauma. It was inescapable. If we had abusive parents, it multiplied the pain and the projection, which ultimately went back to the loss of the Divine.
If we have to ask the question of our spouse about our need, it is wrong. If we do the Alchemy of being with our feelings with the Animus as the dreams show, the trauma will transform into love and then, from that love, we can face into our marriage. It will be a very different need because we will not be projecting our trauma onto our spouse.
It is almost impossible to get our needs met when we have trauma, control, unrequited love, nihilism and other negative sides of projected trauma or pain. The difference is that if we want something from our spouse, we simply go and ask. But if our sense of survival that comes from our trauma depends on our spouse, then the wanting is charged with our feeling of separation from ourselves and from the Divine. It will never be enough and our spouse will feel the yuck of it. When we begin from a place of loving and feeling loved and then want something from our spouse, it is greatly different than wanting something from our spouse from a place of being traumatized. And of course, the spouse can also feel the difference. If we project the need for love from the place of trauma, it is going to be abusive. If we have no trauma, if we feel loved and we want love from our spouse from feeling loved, it will not be abusive.
It is important to differentiate our point of need. Is our point of need our soul’s desire for the Divine or is it for companionship? They cannot be the same. If we are in trauma all the time, any interaction with our spouse is going to come from trauma. It is hard to have a relationship from that place of having the love to give to our spouse without the negative need from trauma. The negative need cannot be fulfilled by the spouse.
The only thing to do is to stop the projection and focus on our work. If we are aware of the differentiation of the point of need and we find we are projecting a need onto our spouse that can only be solved through the Animus, it is a time to focus on our work. It is important to always reference ourselves to the point of need, asking what we really need in the situation. Do we need someone to do what we want them to do because we are projecting our pain onto them or do we have a genuine need? The point of need is the thing that feeds the soul, not the thing that feeds the ego or the part of the false self that is trying to compensate for the lack in the world in some other way.
Only people who are deep in the work can do this level of work - people in Second or core stage work. For people starting in First Stage, this would not be easy to do. But people who are deep in their work can tell the difference in their need. When we are in our trauma and we believe that what we want is not okay, we are in a double bind. Not only are we projecting our pain out but we are also denying the legitimacy of our need for relationship. It is not that we cannot have the pain of a relationship that is not as deep as we would like it to be. The pathology, through shame, will try to circumnavigate both ways. Either it will make us feel not entitled or it will make the other person wrong. It is a negative either way. If we feel we are not entitled to have needs or we feel our spouse is wrong for not giving us what we want, then it is a double negative. Either way there is no love, either way there is disharmony, either way there is nihilism, failure, either way there is rejection and moroseness.
When we are feeling the pain of not being in relationship with our spouse, why negate it? It is the trauma that wants to negate it. When we cannot ask for the need to have a deeper relationship from a place of love or from the place of the pain of love but rather from the place of trauma, then it becomes confusing. If we did not have the trauma, we could ask for the love from the place of our pain and our need, but if our pain is from the trauma then it gets projected as a deeper need unmanifested. We have to be careful. If our pain of needing our spouse is mixed in with our pain of the loss of the Divine, this is a problem. However, if we feel supported by the Animus and we feel our relationship is not working and we want more, we do not need to be afraid to ask for more. If we have a strong connection with the Animus and we are drawing down some of that love, we should be able to reach out from that place to our spouse in a loving way and perhaps even deepen the marriage.
Our trauma may get triggered, making us feel we should not ask because we are unworthy or we are in our trauma. The trauma can even trick us into not asking. But once the trauma has been worked and the projection of the need onto our spouse is worked through, it is the trauma of needing our spouse in a legitimate way and then not letting ourselves have it. Again, either way is pathology. It is difficult to know the difference especially when shame is clouding the waters. We have to learn how differentiate what is a real feeling. The attack from pathology can come when it makes us feel we are wrong for doing all of this, even when it is good. When a woman rejects her husband because he is not the person she wants him to be, when she does not want to make love because he is not being as real or as deep as she wants, she is wanting her husband to be the Animus.
The point is that we have to accept the other person, with all his or her failings, just as the Animus accepts us with all our failings. The Animus has loved us no matter how many times we rejected Him, no matter how many times we have not shown up. If we are really connected, we would show the same consideration to our spouse. The problem with waking up is that we become aware of how shut down everyone else is. We have to learn to let that be, to accept that we do not have the depth of connection with our family, our friends, our spouse that we have with the Animus. If we cannot stand in the pain of the fact that while we are now open to go deeper with others and they are not, we will go back into some form of our pathology - into control or worse, nihilism or depression. We must learn to have the love and be in the world with all the hurt, all the people who are shut down and still be able to function in a loving way along with the pain.
When the world challenges us in this way, there is always the Beloved. It is how He feels dealing with us when we are not present. We begin to feel the pain that He must feel a billionfold. It can be tricky for there is nothing to do but feel the pain. We cannot change the world because we see the damage. We cannot make it all right. Our calling comes from our connection and relationship with Him. It cannot come from our desire to get rid of the pain we see or to rescue others. It will not work. We did not come to Him for any other reason than the journey we have to take. Everyone else has their journey, too. Many are not going to make it, many may and many will not even try.
When we are feeling His love, we can face into our marriages, face into the world, see all the suffering and pain and know that that we cannot do anything about it but observe it and feel it. This is part of what we have to accept. Otherwise, we will go crazy or caretake from the wrong place.
Once we know what love feels like, once we know what it feels like to drop into our souls, suddenly we are not in the game of trying to get affirmation, of being safe, of needing others to affirm us. We can feel into the souls of others and know if they really feel that they can love us or if they really do not love us. When we know the love, we do not have our trauma or blind spots that block our ability to be close or intimate with others; we do not have an agenda blocking our hearts. Instead, we have clarity so that when the right person is there, we can feel into it. We can feel the openness and share in the love. Then, when things try to pull us out, we can work together.
Otherwise, we may have the love for a minute, a day, six months, a year, ten years, but then somehow it gets lost. It gets lost for most of us because we never really had it for ourselves in the first place. Or what we thought it was, it was not. Once we have been touched by the Divine, we know we are open to real commitment, real love from others because we can return the love and we can receive it. It goes beyond all infatuation and all disabling issues that can corrupt relationship. It goes beyond that moment we all dread when our lover suddenly does not love us anymore. It is a moment we have all experienced.
We either eschew relationship or we become the lover that does not love anymore because we do not want to be rejected. We can also find some way not to be juicy with one another and fall, instead, into a kind of depression with one another where there is no risk. In this case, we just move through life without having that spark in our souls and with each other.
To be alive and open and juicy is very risky. However, when we are connected, it is not risky at all because we do not sell it down the road. We learn how to ground the juiciness in the Divine.
If we are really open to the love of a person who can love us the way we know the Animus loves us, the odds are we will not be open to the person who would turn away from us. Goodness and mercy are in the world if we are in a state where we can receive it. Most of us are not even though we may think we are. We think we should have it; we want to have it. In reality, most of us are really a great deal further from it than we realize.
This creates bad choices. We blame the world and think that if only others were better, we would be able to be better. But in this state, even if we did find the right person, we would shut down on them.
When asked what happened in a difficult situation with a loved one, for example, after a marriage or a friendship ends, most people will never say what they did in the situation or what truly happened. They usually blame the other person or use “we” when describing the situation. They will not really want to talk about the place where the actual betrayal occurred. Maybe they do not know the place, maybe the place is unconscious or too deep, so excuses are made about what the other person did or did not do.
There is always a lie that we never do anything to create the misery in our lives. We rarely take responsibility because we do not know why we do what we do. It is much easier to blame the other person. Even if it was the fault of the other person, the question is, why were we with them?
It is important to find our part in these situations for it is the key to our sexuality, our sensuality and the way we resist the Animus or the way the Animus can bring us closer and into union with Him. Sexuality, intimacy, vulnerability, communication and being open as opposed to not being these things in any relationship. When these things are not working, there are reasons why they get lost whether it is worry or control or managing or simply not showing up in a deep enough place to sustain a marriage or a relationship.