Given all the 'sweet nothings' that we enjoy saying to each other on Valentine's Day, "where've you been all my life" is one of the most endearing of all. Deep in the midst of a current intimate connection, it speaks of a sentiment that one has toward a loved one who seems like a person whom one should have had in their lives far before now. Yet, of course, you didn't meet them before because circumstances were different, you were different, they were in a different space in their lives and, more importantly, the two of you were likely not ready for each other before now -- assuming you're ready for each other even now!
I remember a talk I heard years ago in New Mexico by Baba Ram Dass. He was talking about the complexity involved in 'falling in love'. To illustrate his point, he told a story [from his male perspective] of how a man meets a woman and they deeply connect and 'fall in love'. Several weeks later, the man is in line at the grocery store and he sees another woman and falls in love with her. And somehow, through delicate negotiation, he convinces both women to agree to a ménage a trois. But several months later the man is at a festival and he sees another woman and falls in love with her. Now, he hasn't fallen 'out of love' with the first two, he just keeps falling in love with more women. So, Ram Dass said "what one realizes is that love doesn't have to be possessive, that one can love without controlling others." He pointed out that what 'falling in love' is really about is that each of us has a 'template of love' in our mind's eye, and we're going around the world looking for someone who fits our mold for love. And when we find them, we 'fall in love' with them.
His point was that often we don't 'fall in love' due to the behavior of the other person, rather we have defined what love is for us and this other person simply fits our preconceived formulation. They haven't done anything, in particular, to motivate our 'love picture' except to tickle our self-defined imagery. This isn't to say that one's preconceived formulation can't change over time (often it does, especially with time to heal from past psychic and emotional injury or grief), but rather to note that 'love' is a self-defined, self-conceived construct, and that a large measure of 'emotional projection' [we see what we hope and expect to see] is involved in the pursuit of intimacy.
Of course, in fact our preconceived formulations of 'love' will be, to some extent, influenced by the behavior of 'the other'. The other person may have an approach to intimacy that we simply have not considered or even imagined, since it is beyond our socialization or previous experience. It is that interaction between two persons who are working on a 'mutual shared experience' [as it is in the best of circumstances] that changes our 'love vision' and may modify our understanding of intimacy. Yet, it is our experience, as we personally interpret it, that most clearly defines how each person reacts to 'being in love' with another person.
Externalizing the Inner Search for Self
We live in a consumer culture that tries to convince us that if we buy this product -- face cream, cologne, vehicle, jewelry, clothing, etc. -- or have this kind of job, or invest in this spiritual program, we will then have the wherewithal to manifest "the (other) one" in our lives. The message is that we will, with this particular product, job, or program, be able to attract another person into our lives who will 'fulfill' us.
Hence, "where've you been all my life" is a statement that, culturally, externalizes a personal experience onto 'the other' when the larger, more important and necessary journey is the search for one's Self. I would argue that the "you" in "where've you been" is more reasonably oneself and that the larger and more reasonable question needs to be directed toward oneself, i.e. "where have you (Self) been all my life?" Because if we don't have a deep enough love for our Self, we won't have enough energy -- or clarity of vision -- to 'be in love' with someone else.
My point is that the one who will truly fulfill us, in fact the only one who has any realistic possibility to fulfill us is ourselves. If we feel empty inside our hearts, all the externalizing of that emptiness isn't going to 'fill up' the vacant space.
Centered in the Self
My therapist here in St. Louis often talks about that difference between being 'self-centered' and being 'centered in the Self'. The first concept is about vanity, about getting others to satisfy your desires at their expense. The second is about caring and mutual love, about being centered enough in your heart that assisting others is more important than solely taking care of yourself. But it is critical that you know who the Self is, what it looks like, and what constitutes its many aspects, in order to have a 'sense' of what 'being centered' entails.
I remember the phrase "if you want to attract a certain kind of person in your life, you have to first be that kind of person yourself." We can't simply want someone else and have that person instantaneously appear. Wanting, alone, isn't going to satisfy the criteria. Attracting other people into your orbit will only occur if there is a solid enough 'center' in your soul. It operates much like the law of gravity: the larger the object, the greater its gravitational pull. If your 'center' is either nonexistent or fairly minimal, you won't attract much of anyone else into your orbit. On the other hand, the more you create a solid, significant and emotionally healthy Self, the more your gravitational 'pull' increases and therefore the more you can draw others into the circle of your life.
The journey to becoming 'centered in the Self' is especially difficult for trauma survivors. It often takes a very long time to understand this concept of attraction. For many years, I was so frightened of my Self -- my inner experience had been so terrifying that I couldn't get a good 'fix' on who I was -- that I couldn't attract anyone of the kind that I desired [longingly and forlornly dreamed about] because I did not have a solid center. Due to healing and recovery, as time passed my sense of Self gained more firm grounding and I was able to start attracting emotionally healthy people into my orbit. The more I became emotionally healthy (the more I became the kind of person whom I wanted), the more people appeared in my life who were themselves on the road to emotional health.
In the process of 'becoming the very person whom we want to have in our lives', we become more intimately in touch with a deeper understanding and tender relationship with ourselves. And hopefully, a willingness and ability to love [and forgive] ourselves. Having achieved that critical step -- of self-love and self-care -- we can then reach out 'into the world' and attract 'others' into our lives who we can then 'be in love with' with a greater clarity of vision. We're no longer fixated on finding people to 'fulfill our inner lives' because we've already successfully filled that life with our love of ourselves. We can begin the search for partners to walk alongside us, with whom we can "manifest a co-created shared intimacy."
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