Have you ever met someone that you just knew you knew?
Then, maybe after a some weeks, months, or years you suddenly understood why you haven’t kept in touch in a few millennia.
I’m talking about soul connections—the concept of reincarnation, and what some people call twin flames or soul mates.
I’m not certain where I stand on all of this. But I do know I have met many people—friends and lovers over the years, who I knew I knew. I recognized them. Maybe it’s their smell, the way they move that feels so familiar. Maybe it’s in the tone of their voice. All of that and something else, something intangible. Their essence.
As a child I was raised in a New Age organization (cult) called Church Universal and Triumphant. Incorporated into their doctrine was the legend of twin flames—split souls who were destined to be together. Now that I think back, it was key to a lot of the church’s mythology.
The head of the organization, a woman named Elizabeth Clare Prophet, was allegedly the twin flame of a man, Mark L. Prophet, who started the organization. It wasn’t enough that they had found each other in this life (and founded a worldwide spiritual organization together). The mythology spanned previous lifetimes as well in which they were (allegedly) such famous lovers as Lancelot and Guinevere, Akhenaten and Nefertiti, Hiawatha and Minihaha, and others.
When people believe themselves to be part of a twin flame pair, it is often felt that connection spans lifetimes throughout the ages.
It’s not that hard to believe that (if reincarnation exists) souls would seek each other out through different settings and eras to (re) experience each other over and over. What becomes suspicious to me is that often people who believe in reincarnation perceive themselves (and their lovers) to be a part of some grand mission.
Therefore, it’s the grandiosity that often comes wrapped in reincarnation that leaves me skeptical. Besides, we can’t all have been Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, Genghis Khan, etc. If reincarnation is a thing, then the majority of us will have spent our lifetimes living as serfs and peons, often dying before the age of 40 without any teeth.
So this invites us to ponder: Are common people capable of great love? Well, of course! Maybe for the common folk, great love is what we have.
Maybe without the possibility to pursue power and riches, the more vulgar among us—who have existed throughout history, and who by far outnumber the wealthy elite—can cling to the concept of meeting our twin flames over and over, and getting to hash-out whatever unfinished business is leftover from the last go round.
I can, to some degree, resonate with the appeal of meeting a great love in different skins, times, and places, and dancing until we get it right. I also cannot help but notice that the (alleged) twin flame connection is often also window dressing for a trauma bond.
A trauma bond can happen in any type of relationship. It is characterized by continuous cycles of drama and (re) wounding within the relationship dynamic.
It is natural for people who love each other to hurt each other. Hurt is an unavoidable aspect of vulnerability and human connection. A trauma bond, however, is not defined by whether hurt occurs in a relationship, but rather by the lack of accountability and repair.
Mature, caring people hurt each other and tend to those wounds making repairs and necessary changes. But when hurt occurs between people who are trauma bonded, there are increasing cycles of stress, pain, drama, and breakdown in communication. There are also highs when emotions and hormones are soaring and dips that feel utterly awful when in the pits. In this way, trauma bonds are not unlike addictions.
Trauma bonds are often characterized by fantasies of how things could be if only…
It is the fantastical component of connection that reincarnation often melds with those for those who are in a trauma bond. You see, it’s not that this erratic love has them pinned in the now; this has been going on for eons.
I’ll share my own trauma bond story:
When I was 17 I met a man who, literally, took my breath away.
Yada, blada, and bleh… we had epic (if rather toxic) sex. We did a bunch of meth together, and we made a beautiful baby.
And we fought and fought and fought…
We didn’t make repairs. We didn’t take accountability. We didn't change anything. We had insane make-up sex and we did more of what we did—drugs and emotional avoidance.
I was convinced for years that this man was my twin flame. I even had an epic past life backstory: He had me condemned and burned at the stake for being a witch.
I was deep in my own healing work when this narrative emerged. I was doing some type of meditation with a friend and we both found ourselves coughing, eyes watering, as an almost tangible essence of smoke filled the space.
A vision began to unfold before me.
I was standing on a platform surrounded by people focusing solely on me.
Overwhelmed by a sense of fear, tears streaming from my eyes, it took seconds to realize I was being burned at the stake.
Since this actually happened to millions of people (not just women) over a space of several hundred years, it is a memory that is more than personal. It is a part of our collective consciousness.
In the vision flames rose around me, the heat forming waves between me and the crowd.
I connected to the viscerality of the experience: heat, smoke, flames, pain, and fear. Me as woman with red hair, wearing a roughly spun green dress, being consumed by fire. A crowd of people standing by transfixed.
It was awful.
Within the woman’s awareness: I barely took in the crowd, but was instead consumed by sadness so heavy that I would have collapsed save for the ropes holding me up. My attention was fixed on a solitary man who stood away from the crowd, who, himself, only had eyes for me.
I knew in a flash that he was responsible for this woman’s plight. He was as sad as a child who realized that he had just smashed his favorite toy and there was no going back, no getting it back—no getting her back. He had done what he believed in his head was right by turning the woman over for witchcraft.
In his heart he knew he had lost the thing he loved the most.
My mind and body in the present registered all of these senses: fear, loss, hurt, and betrayal.
Whether the story was true or not it perfectly mapped to my relationship with the father of my daughter. And it was horrible not only for me, but for him as well. The smoke cleared, my breath returned, and I exhaled one thought.
“I forgive you!”
Even though the birth of this compassionate understanding was deeply cathartic for me, it did not change the dynamics of that relationship. And that is exactly the point that I am making: No matter how significant a connection seems to be (spanning lifetimes or just this one), that is not enough to build a sustainable relationship on.
This is where we need to bring our heads, hearts, and bodies into the present moment and look at what is really before us, within us, and what is possible for the material that we are working with—not what we wish it was.
Healthy relationship dynamics are not fantasies of twin flame hood and reincarnation, but of the practical (and mature) rituals that lead to regeneration.
“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. ~Heidi Priebe
Our relationships do not need to occur over thousands of lives to experience death and regeneration. This can happen many times throughout the life of a single relationship. In fact, maybe for our relationships to truly thrive we must, and they must, occasionally, die to what was so we can be renewed.
Relationship death can be an uncomfortable process—wading into the unknown alone and, or, together. But as gardeners and caretakers of vulnerability, perhaps it is up to us to trust that love which is perennial (in one lifetime or over the course of many), can never truly die.
~Justice Bartlett
Image: Jonathan Borba
Twin Flame or Trauma Bond?
Good one Justice! I was in CUT also, in those days I was always hoped that my twin flame was happy in the 'Etheric Realm'. Yet always had significant relations, good and bad , with men and women. As to romance it seemed to me that the 'cult environment' promoted dysfunctional relations. After a few tries at romance in that group, I gave it up. It seemed to me that the cult environment was not conducive to healthy intimacy. Just to much institutional baggage. Though some did manage it. I was glad to get out of the cult and try 'the world' again. Not surprisingly, still seemed to have many dysfunctional relations, some very dangerous, some just painfully wrong. Still working on my own dynamic health. Lots of good friends. Yet 'intimate partner life' seems not to be in my capacity. Oh well. And life is good, I love who and what I am. Funny though to me, in the last month just pursuing connections, I've been ghosted twice. But that's a good sign to me. If someone says No by not being available, I respect that, and move on. Still want a 'dance partner', looking at dance classes. Ha!