Sabotaging your love life

QUESTION: Masters, I have been trying to live a spiritual path for most of my adult life. Somehow, the only thing I feel is missing in my life is a partner to share and grow. I have avoided relationships with men because I am so afraid of getting hurt. Recently a friend asked me out – he had been interested in me for several years. I was too afraid. I realized I fell in love with him, and am trying to run away. Since we slept together, he does not want anything to do with me. I feel like there is some reason that I am so devastated I finally took a chance and failed. Is it a good idea to move away and start over? The only other man I loved died and I have trouble getting over that too. Is it my lesson to move on after heartbreak? I only feel bad memories in my current location. ~Ellen, USA

ANSWER: You have chosen life lessons of abandonment, self-doubt, self-hatred, and victimization. Because you have not worked on these lessons during your spiritual trek, your life appears to be against you. Your path is to discover your superb essence of unconditional love and then use your powers to know yourself, find love within, and manifest that which you wish to experience.

You feel that a partner will change everything that has gone before in this life and make you feel complete. Nothing is further from the truth. The completeness must begin with accepting yourself and shedding the negativity that surrounds you. The sensations of doubt, fear, and devastation, and the need to run away, are all things you have set up for yourself. Address them and your life will change dramatically.

You can get hurt only if you allow yourself to be hurt. Your own feeling in a situation is what imparts the degree of pain. If you see each situation for what it is, a life experience from which to gather knowledge, it cannot give you pain. If you see it as a personal affront to make you suffer, that is what you will receive.

You are anticipating that any relationship will end disastrously, so that is what happens. You are the one programming the behavior you perceive. During your brief interlude with your old friend, you constantly saw it ending badly even as you were in the beginning stages of accepting the love he offered. Your devastation equaled the amount of effort you put into orchestrating its outcome.

You are worthy of being happy in a physical relationship. You are a beautiful person: see yourself in that way. Reach inside to the unconditional love that is your essence and embrace that feeling for yourself. Don’t run away. Stay and work through the negativity you have been gathering around you and send it packing.