“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Rumi
In honor of Gemini season and the Divine Twins, I felt inspired to write about the Twin Flame phenomenon and the mystery of soul connections. I had never heard of the term, “Twin Flame,” until a few years ago, but nowadays it seems to be a known phrase even in the most “unspiritual” of circles. In researching for this article, I found there is much more information on the concept of “Twin Flames” now in 2020 than there was seven years ago (not that I had ever done that much research before...) Sifting through the realms of the internet, you will find many a Facebook support group, love coach, or psychic moonlighting as a “Twin Flame Advisor.” All of them promise to reveal to you the true nature of your connection (which most likely is born of your past lives as a queen and a warrior who couldn’t be together due to their different places in society, obvi). People are so heartbroken and desperate, that they are actually willing to seek what’s probably some superficial form of therapy from a psychic or a “love advisor” (this is a generalization--some psychics are authentic and very insightful). All joking aside, meeting your Twin Flame (allegedly) triggers people to feel things they’ve never felt before, likely leading them to research spiritual subjects that they may have never entertained prior to meeting said Flame.
The idea stems from Plato’s Symposium, which suggests that humans were originally born as one entity. A monolithic being with four arms, four legs, and a two-faced head. These ovoid beings were powerful, as they were completely whole. Zeus feared their power and so he split them all in two, masculine and feminine, and the two separate beings forever wandered the earth looking for their lost other half.
According to Twin Flame lore, when you do reunite with your other half, you will feel like you are in heaven on earth, and that you have come together for some sacred soul mission to elevate humanity. However, the Twin Flame journey is fraught with pain, suffering, barriers, and complications. According to TF blogs (of which there are thousands), it’s not uncommon to meet your twin when you are already married or there is some other obstacle to being together, like age or location. It’s also not uncommon that when you finally make major life changes to be with your TF, they will “run” away, due to their fear of the power of your connection.
It all sounds kind of romantic, in a beautifully tragic way, doesn’t it? And I really love Plato’s myth, especially as a metaphor for the experience of life being one of an inner journey of seeking wholeness. However, my psychoanalyst’s brain--a brain that has studied attachment theory extensively--can’t help but poke some holes in this cosmo-romantic, spiritual theory. Oftentimes, meeting someone whom you cannot be with for external reasons hints at your own internal barriers, like a fear of intimacy. It’s easy to be “in love” and project a fantasy of a perfect lover onto someone you aren’t spending the day-to-day with. Someone you’re not sharing a bathroom with. Someone you’re not arguing over finances with. Someone who hasn’t yet seen you with the stomach flu or food poisoning. That being said, my theory is that part of the reason so much pain at separation is triggered, is that many, many of us have unresolved attachment issues and the person whom we perceive as our “Twin Flame,” for whatever reason, triggers ALL of them in a soul-shattering, catastrophic way. So the question is: are Twin Flames our cosmic soulmates? Or is it really an attachment trauma bond in disguise?
“Attachment is a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space.” -(Ainsworth, 1973; Bowlby, 1969).
So what is attachment? Let me provide an abridged version of the psychological Theory of Everything. I’ll try to make it concise so that we can get to the good soulmate stuff.
In the 1950’s, psychologist James Bowlby observed the intense distress of children when they were separated from their caregivers. Later, through observing babies and their mothers in a separation study, psychologists identified four types of attachment: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. They watched babies’ reactions as their mothers left the room, and were able to calm down and explore the room, as they trusted mother would return. Ideally, when a caregiver is properly attuned to an infant (meaning that the caregiver notices and intuits the baby’s emotional and physical needs), and does this consistently, a safe and secure attachment bond is formed. The infant knows it can rely on the caregiver for its needs, which not only creates a secure bond between infant and mother, it also creates an unconscious sense of safety and security within the world. Since our parents (or early caregivers) are Gods to us, Mother being the Creator of our life, she is the all-powerful Goddess. If we can rely on her in the earliest days of our lives, and our needs are met with love, empathy, and consistency, a sense of internal safety is thus created. This is why our relationship with our mother or earliest caregiver is the template for all future relationships. She birthed us and can destroy us just as easily. She has the power to instill in us, in the earliest days of our lives, the following internal beliefs: Intimacy is safe. The world is safe. Our needs matter. We are important.
When a child experiences anxious-style attachment, psychologists noticed that the babies in the study became very distressed and continued to be distressed even upon the mother’s return. Mothers of anxious babies were unable to soothe or calm their children, resulting in a constant state of anxiety/fear of abandonment for the child. This is likely because mom had been inconsistent in meeting the emotional or physical needs of the baby and had been mis-attuned to the baby’s emotions. Perhaps the baby felt smothered or invaded by mom’s attention at times, but then when the baby wanted or needed attention, mom was nowhere to be found.
Mom was inconsistent in reacting to her baby’s symptoms of distress, or perhaps she was emotionally unavailable or hypercritical of the child’s innate personality or needs. The constant state of not knowing when your needs will get met or if someone will return can create a clinginess/neediness and pervasive insecurity, and a lack of trust in relationships. Mom wasn’t trustworthy, so why would anyone else be?
Avoidant attachment is probably the saddest one. This happens when the caregiver is largely unavailable, emotionally and physically, or unresponsive to the child. The baby’s needs for connection are continually ignored or neglected. This can manifest often when we have a parent who suffers from mental illness (depression), or addiction issues. If the primary caregiver is drunk or high, they aren’t present, and they are completely unable to pay attention to the child’s needs. Parents who foster avoidant attachment styles also can be critical of emotions, saying things like, “stop crying,” or “toughen up,” or they become angry or shaming when a child is upset or distressed and physically separates from (abandons) them. This constant disregard of a child’s feelings results in their eventual suppression of emotions and needs, and an extreme fear of intimacy and vulnerability. There is an unconscious (or possibly conscious) insecurity/low self-worth, a disconnection from the inner/true Self, and a denial of needs and emotions. The unconscious belief being, “My needs are shameful or don’t matter, or will be met with abandonment or rejection if I verbalize them.” Because they were rejected when they were in a vulnerable state, these people usually become very self-reliant and independent. But they are also, deep-down, very afraid of closeness because it wasn’t safe in their first relationship(s).
Disorganized (fearful-avoidant) attachment is a little bit of both, where the child switches from anxious to avoidant, desiring emotional closeness but also fearing it, which transfers into their adult romantic relationships.
All of these attachment styles developed from ages 0-5 become the template for all future relationships. We will all (unconsciously) seek to create a similar experience that we had as children with our primary attachment figures. This is why many anxious people end up with avoidant people and vice versa, or people remain single or in a series of short-lived relationships, for a very long time due to a deep fear of commitment and intimacy. It FEELS familiar, and it’s a perfect recipe to replay our earliest relationship.
So what in the hell does this have to do with Twin Flames? Well, I think that when we experience a very intense attraction to someone, seemingly out of nowhere, our unconscious is driving us to play out our earliest relationships...because it’s familiar, it’s what we know. This may result in repeating old patterns, or if seen for its potential, this gives us the chance to heal ourselves and our deepest wounds. The people who trigger our deepest love also trigger our deepest fears and insecurities, so there is an opportunity there to become conscious of them--to become more “whole,” self-aware individuals.
There is a psychological term called, “trauma-bonding,” which is defined as a relationship we seek to repeat the same toxic or unhealthy dynamics we experienced with our caregivers as children, in adulthood. These traumatic attachments involve overriding one’s needs or emotions in order to receive love and affection. They can also at first be experienced by that emotional HIGH we get when we meet someone and fall for them--the unconscious registers the familiarity, and chemicals in our brain are released creating a sense of euphoria before we actually even KNOW a person. This is why it’s important to take time to get to know someone, and this is why it’s ESPECIALLY important to take time to get to know someone when we had dysfunctional or traumatic childhoods. You see, we (those of us who have any sort of childhood trauma, including lack of emotional attunement), are usually not attracted to healthy, secure people. When we experience chaos, toxicity, and dysfunction in our earliest attachments with our caregivers, we internalize this as love. Love feels crazy, euphoric, painful, dramatic, lonely, and even abusive. Healthy love, with stability, consistency, attunement, communication, and boundaries? Eh. That feels boring. That can look like, “I’m just not attracted to him/her/them.” We don’t get that SURGE or that HIGH that we’re looking for that can be reminiscent of the unhealthy love we know.
“When a person meets the half that is his very own then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don’t want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.” – Plato, Symposium
This can happen in many relationships for many people, and perhaps a supercharged, deep, version of this is possibly the Twin Flame, or the phenomenon that occurs when you feel immediately connected to someone. Sure, it’s possible that this person is ALSO a soulmate, or the other half of your soul, as TF mythology professes. It’s entirely possible that you and this other person have karma, or a soul connection, that triggers all of your deepest attachment wounds that you weren’t aware of. This is why meeting your “Twin Flame” triggers a spiritual awakening, because facing shadow or pain triggers a deep psychological crisis that brings us to the darkest places in our soul, or even makes us aware of feeling like we have a soul. It’s a psychological and emotional rock bottom.
“We are the mirror as well as the face in it.” -Rumi
Not only does your TF trigger the longing, the separation, and the pain that is both related to separation from mother at birth, but also from the cosmic place of Oneness we experience before entering this human life, but the Twin Flame also serves as your mirror. The person you feel is your Twin Flame serves as a mirror for you to learn about yourself and to ultimately learn to love yourself on the deepest level. To a certain extent, everyone is our mirror, but every once in a while, someone comes into our lives who is an exact mirror of our soul, and they illuminate all of our light and potential, and all of our shadow and darkness. These relationships tend to be the most intense relationships of our lives, and they usually end as abruptly as they began. These people come into our lives to help us fall in love with ourselves and to deepen our connection with spirit. They are usually not meant to be our life partner, or long-term for that matter, but they are a beautiful, painful, divine gift. They are you, or the “other half” of you, and when you finally meet them, you can watch yourself and see yourself from the outside-in. This is another reason why meeting the Twin Flame is so painful--to face yourself in this way can be both breathtaking and repulsive, depending on the relationship you have with yourself. On the one hand it can mirror to you your greatest potential, on the other hand it can reflect to you your deepest fears, insecurities, and pain. As Elizabeth Gilbert explains so perfectly, a true soulmate is a mirror:
“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...”
I can imagine that those who are in the throes of heartbreak won’t like reading that, as we want that person to be the “One,” the perfect lover, the answer to our ultimate happiness...what we’ve been waiting for. But no one can be the answer to our happiness, and no one can love us enough to take the place of self-love. And I don’t even think I believe in the idea that there is ONE person out there for us that we’re supposed to be with. I think that the happier we are with ourselves when we’re on our own speaks to the type of person we will attract. We have to become the partner that we want to bring into our lives, so that when they show up, we are the best version of ourselves. And the Twin Flame, or the person who mirrors us perfectly, shows us that that’s possible, and wakes us up to ourselves and our true essence--our soul, in all its light and its darkness. We feel the bliss, the “heaven on earth” feelings, but also become aware of the parts of ourselves that are afraid of intimacy, honest communication of our feelings, and being truly vulnerable with someone. How can we be truly intimate with another if we haven’t developed a deep, intimate relationship with ourselves? When we are taught from a very young age by our early attachment figures that our feelings and needs don’t matter, or are taught to be ashamed or embarrassed of them, how can we honestly communicate to anyone? And without that, true intimacy isn’t possible.
The Twin Flame experience is not one for the faint of heart. And it’s definitely not about finding the perfect lover or the perfect relationship, because that doesn’t exist since we are all ultimately imperfect human beings. It’s really about finding yourself. Falling deeply in love with another is really just a trick to get you to fall deeply in love with yourself (good one, Universe). But to be able to fall deeply in love with ourselves, we must first get to know ourselves, and get truly comfortable with our flaws, feelings, needs, and fears, because we all have them, we just have to get reacquainted with them. So if you find yourself in one of these intense Twin Flame romances, it might be in your best interest to stop focusing on what your TF is doing and why they’re running from you or whether or not you’ll ever be together, and look at yourself and your wounds--honestly. To explore possible attachment issues, fears of intimacy, abandonment, vulnerability, insecurities and fears around communicating these things. Because your true partner, the one you end up with, shouldn’t abandon you, or make you feel anxious or insecure or afraid of communicating how you really feel, but should care about your needs, and show up for you, consistently, because you deserve that. We all do.
So, what’s the answer to the question? Are Twin Flames our cosmic soulmates, or are they attachment trauma bonds in disguise? I don’t know if I really know the answer to the question I propose, and maybe my analytical explanation is just trying to make intellectual sense of something that’s too mysterious to truly comprehend. Or maybe the answer to the question is that they are cosmic soulmates AND attachment trauma bonds. I think that these ultimate mirrors come into our lives to awaken us to ourselves: to our beauty and our pain, so that we can grow and become whole. It is not through being with them that we become whole, but through meeting them and feeling the intensity of love and loss that illuminates missing pieces of ourselves and initiates our own journey of healing to become whole. And what a painful journey! But what a beautiful one, too. After all, it was only after Shams left Rumi that he became a spiritual master and the prolific poet of mystical love. And as he said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” -Rumi