The Death of the Fairy Tale

Growing up, I was always a huge fan of fairy tales, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast were my favorite! As I loved Cinderella’s kindness and gentleness, and seeing the triumph of good people getting their happily ever after. I also loved Belle’s unique nature, and her ability to shift a grotesque beast into a gentle man through true love. However, through all the years of glorifying these tales and awaiting my true love…aka my prince charming to come along and whisk me away to happiness, I’ve found that there is a lot more to the “real life fairy tale story.” So this article is to help bring in more clarity about love relationships and to explore more of the truth about why we go through such hardships. Thus, I’d like to offer you the wisdom and knowledge that I have learned upon my journey, to help bring in more clarity, understanding, and hopefully a lot less heartache.

So what is the TRUE purpose of relationships themselves? Now this is not as glamorous as our favorite fairy tale would like us to believe, and not that we can’t have the happily ever after, we can, but it’s going to take some work to get there! And I hear the groans over there, believe me, I wish the Fairy God Mother could Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo us into easier waters…yet that’s not the nature of this planet at this time. So let’s begin by breaking this down into nice and easy steps…

FIRST, every relationship is a direct mirror of our inner selves. So we meet, our said “prince/princess charming” and are all super excited, and then all of a sudden they ghost us after two weeks without any reason. We sit their rummaging through all the texts, over analyzing each date, wondering what happened, what went wrong?? Then quickly finding ourselves back on the dating app trying to find a new charmer to fill our void. Or maybe our story is being in a relationship where we are constantly over-giving and not appreciated for anything, or one where we are feeling smothered and don’t feel we have any freedom. Maybe we feel lonely, feel bored, feel under-valued, not chosen, not appreciated, unloved, etc. and so forth.

Any sort of heartache or pain that comes up from another person outside of ourselves is triggering an inner emotional wound that is held within us looking to be seen, heard, loved, and healed. And you legit have to feel it to heal it, and truly LOVING yourself for all that you are – good, bad, ugly!! And let’s get real, this requires a lot of digging deep into our childhood wounds and processing any and all relationships that created some sort of pain and/or trauma. In some cases, we may even have to explore other lifetimes to find the “root cause” of our emotional wound. We will also want to explore forgiving others, and most importantly forgiving ourselves. This alone is a powerful healing technique; however, it may not be the easiest to forgive others who have hurt us, or even to forgive ourselves for mistakes that we have made. Yet if we can find our way to truly forgive, we can begin to liberate ourselves from the past traumas and pains to help us move forward with more love within our hearts.

Now this can all sound overwhelming, but this is also why it is called a journey. It’s not going to happen overnight, and it’s going to be something that takes time, even multiple years to process. Also know, that if you desire to heal, that you will be provided the tools, as your Higher Self and God will always guide you when you are truly ready and wanting to heal. So don’t throw in the towel just yet, as this is a very rewarding path if you take the time to lean into the heartache and pain that is coming up within your past or current relationship. And it may take a few cycles, or repeats to finally get to that “ah-ha” moment of, “oh no, this isn’t my dreamy fairy tale union after all, this is just another damn lesson!” This can be a bitter moment at first, but once we take the time to process all that was triggered within us from the relationship, such as anger, grief, and frustration, we can begin to empower ourselves again! We also must remember that we each hold the strength and courage to get through the trials and tribulations that we have signed up for within this lifetime. So hold steady, you got this, and remember, to move forward one step at a time. 

For myself personally, I’ve had to pull my head out of the “fairy tale sand,” and see each relationship for what it really was. This can be eye opening, as well as humbling. As we may want to get the victim card out and start pointing fingers at everyone for being so mean and cruel to us. Which in some cases, rightfully so, there are some real jerks out there, and we should stay far-far away from them, yet it is beneficial for us to take a look at our past relationships to see what patterns are coming up. What do we tend to “attract” into our life? As there usually will be a common theme showing up with each person we’ve been with. As it may be that we always attract in the unavailable guys, or the smothering gals, or the person that always takes and never gives in return. Then you have to really sit with that and ask yourself, WHY??

Where does this root from?

What is the cause of this continually popping up within my life?

What is within me, that is creating these outer experiences?

These questions will take some time to answer, and I highly recommend building a solid connection and foundation with your Higher Self and God, and strengthening your intuition to really find the answers within yourself. We all have this ability to connect with our Higher Power to be able to heal all aspects of our lives from the inside out. Sitting in meditation and/or prayer are the best starting points, and if an outside professional is needed, you will be normally guided to one, so trust the process.

Another pitfall is that we want the uncomfortable AND unglamorous healing part to be over with quickly, and for us to get to the ooey gooey part of union with our Beloved. Just as quickly as watching our favorite Bridgerton season, we wonder to ourselves, “why aren’t they here yet, I’ve done all the work?!” Yet, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. This world is pretty heavy, and we have to keep exploring to find all the darkness to really unravel the beautiful light that is beneath it all. Patience grasshopper, one step at a time. Like the tortoise and the hare story, the faster we try to go, the longer the journey ends up being. And believe me, it is not easy, and we want to have the fairy tale, we want to believe that true love will come in naturally, quickly, and easily, we’ve waited long enough, we’ve dealt with our fair share of hardships, where is he/she?? Yet if they are not here yet, or we keep attracting in the “not so charming” partners, it’s time to move within to see what’s creating this. LOL, and I know, that “fairy tale sand” sounds really good right about now, but heads up and trust me…it will get better and easier the more we keep purging through. For as we keep doing the work, we get to a stage that I like to call the “Warrior of Love.” Because let’s get real, if you are on this journey, you are a WARRIOR!! For example, as you move forward on your love journey, you now know the red flags to be aware of and you see the patterns that you’ve dealt with before to help you know to stay clear and to choose another path. You are also ready and aware to take on any challenge, knowing that you have the tools and the ability to get through it all! It does actually start to get exciting at this point. And as the Warrior of Love, you will be like “I got this, I know what to do, as I’ve been here before, and I’m NOT going to sink into this murky pond again like I did that last time, and I’m going to pull myself out of these dingy waters and set sails onto new horizons.” This is a beautiful point upon the journey, because this is where you finally, FINALLY start to choose yourself and LOVE yourself more fully, thus creating the life that you really want to live! And if a shit charmer comes heading your way, you are like, “nope – no thank you!” As you are NOW choosing a better path for yourself. Then the Universe and God start working their magic with you to create a better path…and THEN you can begin to see the real magic happening within your life!

Second, if you don’t do the work, then shit will not change in your life. You will keep repeating the same patterns over and over again, moving into a very hard headed belief of victim mentality. This is one of the hardest spaces to get out of if we stay here too long. As it’s easy to point fingers at others and feel sorry for ourselves, yet this is not empowering, and again, as stated above, we are here to do the work to heal from the inside out.

Third, we cannot EVER change another person’s beliefs about us, or for them to change themselves in order to fit our “ideal” of what we want them to be. There’s A LOT of manifestation techniques out there on how to get the person you want, and not gonna lie, I’ve tried it. It may have worked for a bit here and there, but it always eventually backfired, it was unnatural, and felt icky. And honestly, what it all really came down to, was the lack of trust, as well as undealt control issues and manipulation. Which places us in a space where negative energy will boomerang back to us in an unpleasant manner, so better to remember that we only have control over ourselves, period! I’m not fully hating on the manifestation techniques, as I feel it’s good to visualize and imagine the type of person you want in your life, or how it would feel to be loved, as that will be super beneficial in bringing in the love you desire. Yet, if the first two steps listed above are not dealt with, we can spin in manifestation dreamland all day long, but it won’t change until we face our inner shadows and emotional wounds. And I understand, there are strong connections out there that run deep within our souls, even for myself I still hold certain guys deeply within my heart, but we must remember that if they aren’t going to show up for us in a healthy way and/or do NOT want to be with us, we have to let go of our attachment with them, and move forward upon our path.

Fourth, to stay out of the comparison game with others. We will all have our fair share of relationship woes. Some will have an easier time with love relationships but then maybe have family and/or co-workers who are terrible to deal with. Some will have a hard time finding their Beloved, but maybe have a great family and/or friends that support them on their path. We just want to be aware that everyone will have their own story and their own path, so we want to stop assuming that someone else has it better than we do. Since not everyone shares their hardship, as we live in a world that is largely based on lies, fakery, and pretending all is okay as we sit on a mound of internal pain that lies beneath us. We don’t live in a world that honors our true emotions, facing the darker aspects of life, or even dealing with mistakes, at least not yet anyway. And until we get there, remember, that we each have our own heartache to deal with, and it’s best to not compare with those around us thinking they have the better bargain. We all have shadow work that we have to dive into and deal with, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US!! No one has the sweet cherry deal, so stop comparing and start focusing back on your own life!

Fifth, communication is GOLD!! Good, truthful, honest, vulnerable, kind, loving, compassionate communication is what really binds and holds a relationship together. And the biggest and most important relationship to build first, is the one with your Higher Self, and the one with God. When you have more of that balance within yourself, then you can begin to hold space for another person, as they (equally balanced within themselves) can hold that space for you, as you both grow and evolve and support each other upon this journey.

Now I hope with all of these steps that you are able to move forward upon your path with relationships with more ease and clarity. And I know the title of this article can feel daunting, but do know that you can still have your fairy tale, it’s just going to be a much different story than the ones we were told as children. There will be work to do, as you may cry many tears, face heavy fears, process grief, anger, sadness, and rage, but honestly, you are strong enough to get through this, and remember the tools will always be provided for you to get through each situation that arises. And as the negative emotions are fully seen and felt, they will begin to lift out of your body to allow the true feelings of love, peace, and serenity to emerge! Here you will find the empowerment within yourself, and begin to truly love yourself for all that you are! And as the saying goes, “as within, so without,” and as you start to fully love, value, and appreciate yourself, you will find that you naturally attract in those better partners, friendships, and so forth, that mirror this loveliness that you have created within yourself. Then you will see the real magic begin, and hey, I’ll always be a hope-FUL romantic after all, I just don’t want you drowning out there without the tools and understanding of how to truly get there! Again, take what resonates, as your heart and soul knows what is best on how to guide you upon this journey of LOVE!