I recently had a discussion with someone who wanted to know why she kept attracting people who were self-centered, narcissistic, and emotionally unavailable.

I told her I addressed that exact issue in my book The Magic of Venus: Friendships, Soul Mates, and Twin Flames and that changing our attractions is as easy as reflecting on what in us attracts the type of people we do.

We attract who we attract either unconsciously or consciously. There is no other option. Once we are aware, ALL our choices are our decisions to make. It is entirely our decision whether to say yes or no to anyone or anything.

She felt that her empathy and willingness to be patient and tolerant with others’ toxic behavior was the problem. I told her that countless toxic people have been attracted to me because I am empathic and have both knowledge and understanding. However, that dynamic doesn’t limit me in any way in the relationship, because I know when to say no. I know how much slack I can cut people before I cut them off and out.

She felt like her openness sets her up, and that many patterns of accepting others are programmed into us as children. While our openness does “set us up” and a lot of our expectations are programmed into us as children, ultimately none of that matters once we awaken. Then we are aware, and no longer innocently ignorant.

Our default attractions are set by our birth chart and our family and cultural matrix. I speak extensively about our childhood programming about likes and dislikes in the book. Still, the issue for everyone, once they perceive these traits in another, is why would anyone persist trying to make a life with people who are bipolar, narcissistic, or destructive?

We are not doomed to follow the patterns we were parented with after the age of 21 because that’s when we begin to make independent decisions which are entirely our own. To me the issue isn’t that we attract people based in unconscious desires and childhood programming. The issue is why we would bother to continue after we recognize the unhealthy behavior. I have NO empathy for people who are nasty or crazy or selfish. Why bother?

If one is attracted to such creatures, after a certain age it has nothing to do with our parents. Some will still insist we are attracted to childhood figures who resemble our parents. I find this incorrect in too many cases to list. I have never had a wife or girlfriend who resembled my female lineage in any way, neither physical nor psychological. Whatever issues they may have had with their own families, they were different than my family of origin.

I question why any adult follows destructive relationship patterns if they know they are destructive. Then it's less about them and more about us. That is an absolute fact for everyone older than their first Saturn return.

If we are not aware, then we attract what we unconsciously want to attract until we are conscious in who we do not want to attract. Once we awaken to our ability to choose what we do and do not want to perpetuate, then we choose whether to attract and be attracted to unhealthy people or healthy people.

Over time and experience, we continually make choices whether we want to continue the pattern or not. Part of becoming aware is that we have to see what and who we’re attached to, so we can replace unhealthy acting, feeling, or thinking with healthy behaviors.

In all my relationships, I try to think the best of others. I am always ready to forgive. That doesn't mean I allow previous toxic people another shot, since life is a one way street. What was, was. We cannot un-say certain things, and we cannot un-hear what was said to us.

What happened once "could" happen again IF we allow it. No one can ever go back. We can only move forward. Either we have evolved or we haven't. If we haven't learned the lesson then we attract what it takes to learn that lesson, over and over until we learn that we do not have to endure those conditions.

We are not here to save anyone. We're not here to prop up anyone else's delusion. We're not here to cling to our own delusion. We're here to grow until we die. We have 12 frequency zones of human experience, and are continually challenged by life to learn healthy responses across all of them.

Because many of us never learned healthy responses to life challenges, we usually begin with unhealthy responses. Then over time we learn healthy responses to unhealthy situations. Then we find we have learned all we need to learn except how to say NO to all which is not appropriate for us. Others have no say in that at all.

I believe that we have to learn how to spot unhealthy behaviors, and see who or what triggers them. That way we can choose in the moment to redirect our response to something better. When it comes to toxic people, we have to be able to step back from any attachment to feeding into the drama generated by them or us and see it as a lesson in detachment.

I have come to regard toxic people as an embodiment of a type of energy which has presented itself for my ability to discern whether to say yes or no, how much or not at all. These experiences are less about them and all about us, since we are the ones who have to go through those experiences to learn whatever we had to learn.

Mostly it comes down to learning we don't have to dance with everyone who presents themselves, and if we don't like how the dance is going, we have to get off the dance floor and ask ourselves why we’re there to begin with.

Again, I explore all of this and more in The Magic of Venus: Friendships, Soul Mates, and Twin Flames. You’ll find many explanations about why we attract who we attract and how to change patterns. I offer insights into unhealthy behavior patterns, symptoms of narcissism in others, coercion, seduction, and why certain signs just are not able to get along with certain other signs, as well as the description of each sign’s archetypal mate.

We could attract many people who would make perfect friends and may even become Soul Mates, but we have to know what we’re attracted to and why, and change attracting toxic people to attracting healthy people. It’s all in the book!

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Robert Wilkinson. Copying this article to other blogs is strictly prohibited. It is copyright protected. 

© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson

The title for this article was created by CrystalWind.ca.