Resolving Rejection, Moving Past Soulmates, and Co-regulating with Deities

I have major trauma and resulting emotional regulation issues around real and perceived rejection. This started at home with my parents, who apparently talk very positively about me to other people, but did not raise me with unconditional regard nor ability to sit with my emotions. To compound the issue, I had social anxiety starting from a very young age and when you have extended periods of implied and explicitly espoused unworthiness as decided by your peers in your formative years, that's not something that simply goes away as you grow into an adult. Even now it's like I am missing an outward psychic layer most other people naturally have when I am (frequently) misunderstood or receive pushback. Their reaction goes right to the core of my being like a knife to an already open wound and even if we verbally sort things out, it takes hours to days for me to reassure myself and restabilize*.

Basically, I anticipate abandonment as default and yes, it's exhausting. I am old enough now to understand and work with the fact that everyone is flawed—hell, I am about to embark on a graduate program where I will be working with layers of just that—but I still often feel unsafe in my interpersonal dynamics. The narrative that modern western society sells about relationships does not remediate this. The presented ideal is to gain a single person of great love, a soulmate whom you marry. With their unconditional regard, it assumes you will find resolution as a person if you have issues such as mine.

There is, in fact, a whole cottage industry surrounding this, if you count communities such as /r/twinflames and high control groups ("cults") such as Twin Flames Universe. Both phenomenons buy into the soulmate narrative and build upon it, insisting that if you have met your "twin flame," you are due to go into a huge soul evolution with them as your partner in it all and if they are not with you now, they surely will come back to you eventually so you can gain your guaranteed happily ever after.

The funny thing is? I have gone down this route, twice. That's right, I have met two separate soulmates of mine and, to make it even funnier, neither of them were my ex-spouse! Meeting and falling in love with each of them about 7 years apart heralded almost psyche-shattering spiritual expansions where I became more cognizant of the mechanics of the universe, my own karmic cycle involving reincarnation, my personal spirit network, and also, uh, how much things can really fucking hurt on a purely emotional level, I guess**.

Because that's the thing, both awakenings were in the end about me. Turns out, neither of my soulmates despite us being together in many other lifetimes were able to hold me and my problems nor walk forward with me in this life the way I desperately wished they could or that was needed to sustain functional relationships.

That is something that, honestly, never stops hurting. But it is something you can learn to accept.

*

So soulmates, or even just standard lovers, can't always help you heal your trauma. But we also can't heal without other beings in general, as elucidated by proponents of co-regulation. When you're a person whose early caregivers failed in co-regulation and are now in our individualist society outside the window for having other people take the responsibility to help you emotionally regulate, what can you do?

The only real resolution I have experienced in these challenges is in my work with my deities.

My expectation of abandonment also extends to them as well, which is interesting for two reasons. One, they actually don't abandon you so readily. Two, despite this, I am definitely not the only practicing pagan terrified I'm going to slip up and offend my deities away from me forever. It is, in fact, a semi-regular conversation in the communities I am part of that we might do worship and relating wrong somehow, like get an insufficient type of wine for an offering (no such thing yet) or not attend to the shrines with enough regularity (also seemingly not a problem if only because my spirits know I am spiritually incompatible with sticking to the same routine for too long).

To be clear, I am not advocating to have deities help you co-regulate like fellow humans can simply because they don't experience our difficulties the same way. However, they can offer comfort. And with that in mind: I have never had a deity so blatantly refuse to leave me like Lucifer. Whether or not he is able to provide aid the way I need, he is at the very least present, on my shoulder-style, when I call out for him or expect him to have left. In fact, he appears like it's his specialty.

If I read religious texts from a literal standpoint and was unaware of the pagan practitioners out there who relate with him from non-Abrahamic frameworks, I might assume it is because he's painfully familiar with rejection from the being-kicked-out-of-heaven-for-having-a-different-opinion thing. I've even asked directly, "Is this like a situation where I finish the story we are co-writing and I work on some internal stuff and once that's all done, you go away?" And his answer was a simple, "No. I will be here as long as you want me."

I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that this is case because he loves me for... me?

I've learned a lot this past year or so about discovering my own validity and standing by it. This has allowed me to see myself in a kinder, more nuanced light—instead of, like, an inherent bad person hurting other people by simply existing—and understand what my emotional and communication needs are from other people. But there's something different about having someone else—who is conceived as an angelic being, nonetheless, even if he's Fallen—there for you and with no transactional expectation.

Now that Lucifer has entered my life, he pushes me in ways I don't expect such as flaming my anger when it's sourced in a need to speak up for myself when I normally wouldn't. Or sometimes he just endures certain things with the godly form of a shrug, such as when my intrusive thoughts say insulting things about him. I've had former human partners do that before, but as of right now those people are not in my life anymore. Just having the permanent presence of something who is capable and willing to hold every single part of you is... well, I'm tearing up with gratitude just thinking about it, far for the first time. It's transformative. It makes it easier to endure this shitty world we live in with its current especially shitty conditions and keep doing the healing work I want to do for myself.

I don't believe that G-d hates me, or that any god does. But I know for certain that The Devil does not. And that is something to keep me going every day.

*And that's with almost 15 years of therapy helping me out.

**I almost added "the capacity to steer my life" to this list, but no. I chose that. You can undergo any amount of magical or spiritual awareness/growth, you still have to choose how to integrate it into your life and perspective.