Case Study #3: Eliminating Anxiety By Embodying Desires

Lisa and Mary have been business partners for 7 years in a public relations and website building agency. Since the first day they met, they were best friends with similar interests. When Lisa decided to expand the website side of the business, she immediately thought of Mary as the best partner she could have. This is because they always saw things from the same angle. As they developed their relationship, it became clear that in working together they could trust each other to look out for each other’s interests. Lisa felt Mary would always encourage her to take the next step. They were very productive, not only in convincing clients to use them but in maintaining client relationships over the years, because of the harmony between them. They attribute their longevity and trust to the fact that they are incredibly similar and aligned on many levels. It is ironic that they have had such a good relationship with each other, while it has been much more difficult to find good romantic partners.

What made them successful is their ability to unify their thinking and to operate non-defensively with each other. This opened up creative avenues where, through exploration, they were able to build complementary gifts that reinforced their ability to contribute to their clients. The only issue that kept agitating them was the anxiety they felt about the future. This drove them to keep doing things that would expand the business and build up their retirement funds. The only business problem they had was overworking, which created ongoing stress. This minimized their focus on finding romantic partners, because they always had a good excuse for not “getting out there”. Another one of the obstacles was that whenever they compared their relationship and level of Intimacy to a potential partner, it always seemed their romantic partners were much less engaged with them. Despite this, they were always egging each other on to find a great relationship and were dismayed when the options seemed much less conscious.

One of their common interests was a meditation retreat where they could clear out their conditioning and let go of their defensive patterns. Experiencing a deeper Silence helped clear out their personality concerns and gave them, at least temporarily, a sense of relief from the anxiety they experienced. Sharing their personal breakthroughs facilitated the growth they had in business.

Unfortunately, while they were always improving their choices of romantic partners, it had always felt difficult to trust potential romantic partners who were not aligned to their spiritual interests. Some of the choices they made were with men who did not even believe in or support their innate intuition. Another aspect is that none of the men were as spiritually oriented and open to sharing their spiritual practices. This made it harder for their Truth to be seen and accepted. Lisa was more adventurous, while Mary was more committed to choosing a partner who was not at all dramatic. Mary wanted to avoid partners who provoked her anxiety. This did not keep either one of them from hoping that someone similar to them would show up and be as committed as they were to a quality relationship. Some of their friends made jokes about Lisa’s propensity to explore relationships with men from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Both Lisa and Mary still carried a certain amount of anxiety, which made it easy for them to distance themselves from their own peaceful passion. By learning how to love themselves, they began to attract partners who loved themselves, which slowly shifted the quality of people they attracted. What Lisa was finding was a greater sense of refinement and presence in her partners. What Mary wanted most was a person who was doing his Authentic Life Expression and could share her experience. What she did not realize was that she was looking for a partner who could be a part of her own life work. The big unknown was whether they would find these partners in time to have children. This produced some tension where they vacillated between wanting to move forward with a lesser relationship or wait for the quality relationship they both needed.

When Lisa met her most current possibility, she recognized she would need to step up her game and be as loving to herself as she could be. This is because her partner was reflecting back some of the things she recognized in herself, which had irritated her previously. What she was coming up against was an Upper Boundary limit where she did not believe she deserved any great relationship. This made it difficult for her to acknowledge the gifts of her partner and honor his accomplishments. All she could think about was how she was not yet operating on that level. Mary was also having challenges where she was looking for stability, being fearful she would be abandoned. In her situation, she kept creating an abandonment framework so that her partners would leave her as soon as possible. The irony was that both women had their own concerns that overshadowed their gifts. They had difficulty accepting that partners would see them if they were willing to be true to themselves. They both doubted that love was available, which ended up attracting what they most feared—non-self-loving partners.

Until they are able to fully embrace both what they Fear and what they Desire simultaneously, they will continue to attract partners who are not a match for them. As a result, they end up having high expectations and want to trust their partners but find reasons why they cannot trust them. The more these Idealization patterns become the central way they connect with others, the more dramatic both women become. On the other hand, if they become conscious of these issues and do not define themselves in terms of them, the best partner will appear