Finding Love, Changing our Fate

Many of us long for a soul mate. We yearn for a partner who will share our happiness, and our troubles. Having a life partner is not necessary for a happy, fulfilling life. Many men and women enjoy the benefits of their single life tremendously, and wouldn’t choose the change their status. For some of us, however, longing for an intimate relationship is always there, no matter how happy we may be with other aspects of our life. Some people, especially women, may feel a sense of shame about this. “I have a great education, and a wonderful career,” a former client explained. “How come I can’t be happy with my life as it is?” We may feel fulfilled socially, creatively, and professionally, and still find ourselves yearning for a partner. Our fulfillment in these other areas does not invalidate a desire to share our lives with an intimate other.

For some of us, finding a life partner comes easily. For others, we may feel stuck, unable to find a good relationship, always pursuing the “wrong people.” We may feel trapped in patterns we don’t understand. Being single can be a joyous time of exploration, but it can also feel like a painful, lonely journey that we are powerless to end. As one young woman with whom I worked told me, “I would really enjoy this time of being single and having so few responsibilities – if I knew for sure that it would end!”

There are often rich lessons to be learned from our relationship failings. In them, we may well find the key to open those parts of ourselves that, for one reason or another, have been denied, cut off, or wounded. Regaining access to these parts of ourselves can lead to an experience of expansion in our lives. We may find ourselves full of energy we weren’t sure we had. Joy may enter even our simplest moments. And learning from where we have been blocked in our search for an intimate relationship can lead eventually lead to finding that longed-for partnership.

The Ill Fated Princess

Fairytales can provide a way of understanding our own, unique situation. At the same time, they can help us connect with what is universal in our suffering. The following Greek fairytale about a princess cursed with an evil fate speaks to many people who feel trapped by circumstances beyond their control in some aspect of their life.

A certain queen had three daughters. When they reached marriageable age, she was unable to find suitors for them. A beggarwoman instructed the queen to make a note of how each slept at night. The queen did so, and reported what she learned to the beggarwoman, who was then able to tell her that the youngest had an “unlucky star,” and that her fate stood in the way of the others.

The youngest princess had overheard everything, and asked her mother to sew her dowry of gold coins into the hem of her dress. This having been done, the youngest princess dressed herself as a nun and set out on her own, in spite of her mother’s pleas. The moment she passed through the gates, two suitors arrived for her sisters.

She spent the first night at a cloth-seller’s, but in the night, her evil fate came and tore up all the cloth. In the morning, the princess gave the cloth seller some of the gold coins from her dowry, and headed on her way. The next night, she spent at the glass-makers. Again, her evil fate came in the night and wrought destruction, breaking all the glass. As before, the princess paid for the damage and went on.

At last, a foreign queen took her into her service, for she could see that the nun was really of royal blood. The princess was given the job of embroidering pearls, but everything went poorly for her. The foreign queen, seeing this, understood what was happening, and told the princess that she must change her fate. To do this, she was to go to the mountain where the fates lived, find her fate, give her some bread. When the princess arrived at the mountain, pretty, pleasant Women of Fortune came to the gate one after the other, but not one of them recognized her. At last, an ugly, ill-kept fate came to the gate. She screamed obscenities at the princess, and told her to leave. The princess offered the bread to her fate, and would not leave until she took it. Tthe fate resisted a long time, even when the other fates argued with her, but finally gave the princess a silk thread and told her to give it away only for something of equal weight.

Soon after, a nearby prince was marrying, and a quantity of silk was missing to finish the bride's dress. The princess brought her silk. It was a perfect match. The princess put her thread on the one side of the scales, and the prince laden the other side with gold coins. The scales wouldn’t move, no matter how much gold the prince put on them. Nothing would even out the scale, until the prince himself stepped on. By this, they knew that the princess should have the prince. They were married, and lived a long and happy life.

The princess in this story has been doomed to an evil destiny that is keeping both her and her sisters out of relationship. When we are struggling to find a healthy relationship without success, we may feel caught in the clutches of some dark fate we do not understand. We may find ourselves repeating patterns that make us unhappy, unaware of why this keeps happening.

Like the princess in the story, we may see our sisters or friends find relationships easily, but we may need to wander alone in life for some time. A dowry was the money that was given to the groom when a woman got married. Psychologically speaking, for those for whom relationship comes easily, our psychic inheritance can flow directly into our relationship without incidence. If we are not fated to have such an easy time, we take this psychic inheritance with us alone into the world, where it can assist us on our solitary journey.

One woman with whom I worked found this to be the case for herself. She was in her early 30’s when we began work, and had been single except for a brief period of one year during which she had been unhappily married. In those years in which she had been single, she had spent her energy, enthusiasm, and education developing a rich professional life, and meaningful friendships. These resources would perhaps have been invested differently had she found a permanent mate earlier. These riches that she brought with her into the world were also used to “pay” for the damage of the painful relationships that she experienced. However, these costs were also a kind of investment, for each failure brought her deeper into her own life.

With the aid of a helpful guide, the princess is encouraged to confront her fate and change it. With the right attitude, we too can confront what it is in ourselves that holds us back against our will. It is not easy! Our fate may be stubborn, and we may have to confront it again and again before it begins to change. Like the princess, this courageous and difficult act can bring release from our suffering, and an enlarged sense of ourselves. The following case taken from my practice serves to illustrate these dynamics. Names and particulars have been altered, and all material is used with permission.

The Case of Constance

Constance was a bright, attractive woman of 32 when she came to me for help. Although she was a warm, kind person with many friends, she felt frustrated in her search for relationship. Though she had had many boyfriends, she had never had a relationship last longer than several months. Using a series of written exercises, Constance was able to discover what exactly had attracted her to the important men in her life. We then employed a technique that focused on the wisdom present in her body. Through this, Constance was able to connect with a subtle but powerful memory of her father’s preference for her older sister. Her eyes filled with tears as she realized that she had been repeating this scenario in her relationships with men. Our knowledge about how exactly this dynamic worked in her life was enhanced by paying close attention to her dreams.

Once we knew the problem, we could go about resolving it. Constance worked on creating a new paradigm for significant relationships, one that included a partner who loved and cherished her, and made her his top priority. We used several different techniques to help this new paradigm take hold, and change her deeply held assumptions about what she deserved. Within a month of her beginning this part of the work, Constance met the man she eventually married.

Finding a lasting relationship can itself be an important goal, the achievement of which can bring great happiness. In addition, what we learn about ourselves as we confront what is holding us back can enrich our lives infinitely, for this work can reconnect us with parts of ourselves we may have forgotten.

"Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us."

Rainer Maria Rilke