You hear over and over again, especially in the spiritual community, that you have to change your inner world to change your outer world. Our reality is just a reflection of our inner life. All we do every day is project our thoughts, beliefs, and emotions onto the world around us. This is why every guru (and terribly written movies) say that "the answer was inside of us all along." And for the most part this is totally true! Except for one thing...
Yeah. I'm talking about relationship trauma.
Turns out in order to heal how you view relationships, you have to experience being in a relationship. When I first heard this my mind was absolutely blown, even though it makes so much sense when you think about it. I am someone who loves spending time alone as much as I do being with other people. I've always used the alone time to recharge and do my "reps" to prepare for bumping egos with others. I have achieved a lot of growth this way and have really loved it.
Recently I have actually been getting bored of examining my inner life and have been looking more at my relationships and how to hold space for those to grow. I've been using my alone time to research and learn but when it comes down to it, you can learn all you want but nothing will happen unless you are actually implementing it. So if you find yourself constantly in the same type of relationships or losing your power with certain people, find ways to make space for that healing to start. This should ideally be done with people we trust. Having a conversation with them about what is going on and asking them to help you, and you help them.
There is still a lot of inner work we need to do. We need to take responsibility for what is going on. A lot of people LOVE to blame others for how their life is going and, while it may feel good, all you are doing is falling victim to your situation and allowing someone else to control your life. When we are able to recognize what is going on inside, we can then test the waters outside. We can start reconditioning our brain to stop feeling pain in certain relationships.