There was a time when I believed my sense of alignment depended on another person.
I did not fully understand this at the time. In many ways, it felt spiritual. It felt meaningful. I believed I had experienced something real and sacred through the relationship, and honestly, I still believe that part was true. But over time I began realizing that somewhere along the way, I had unconsciously fused my connection to love, harmony, and spiritual alignment with another human being.
When I met my partner, he was deeply aligned. We shared profound spiritual experiences together, and during that period of my life I experienced moments of openness, connection, peace, and love that changed me permanently. Those experiences felt bigger than ordinary life. They felt sacred. They felt like remembering something essential.
But because those experiences happened within the relationship, I associated him with the source of them.
Without realizing it, my nervous system and my sense of spiritual safety became attached to his state of being. If he felt open, I felt open. If he felt connected, I felt connected. If he felt aligned, I felt aligned.
And because I did not yet trust my own direct relationship with love and harmony, I made him responsible for maintaining my connection to them.
Looking back now, I can see how much pressure that unconsciously placed on another human being.
At the time, I could not see it clearly because it felt like love. But underneath it was also fear. Fear of losing connection. Fear of losing myself. Fear of losing access to harmony, peace, and divine love.
When the relationship changed and eventually separated, those fears surfaced intensely. It did not simply feel like losing a relationship. It felt like losing alignment itself. I feared that the openness, love, and connection I had experienced were disappearing with him.
What I did not understand yet was that I had projected something much greater onto another human being.
I did not fully allow him to be human because in my mind he had become connected to something sacred. In subtle ways, I experienced him almost as a bridge to God, harmony, awakening, or union itself. And because of that, when he struggled, became misaligned, changed, or pulled away, I experienced it as a threat to my own connection with love and peace.
That realization has been painful to face honestly.
But it has also been deeply freeing.
Because slowly, through practice, I began realizing something important:
My alignment does not come from another person.
Another person can support us, reflect things back to us, awaken parts of us, and walk beside us for a time. Relationships can absolutely become catalysts for growth, healing, awakening, and transformation. I do not deny that at all.
But another human being cannot permanently carry the responsibility of being our source of harmony, wholeness, or connection to love itself.
That is too much for any person to hold.
One of the deepest realizations I have had through Reiki practice is that my connection to love and alignment comes from something much greater and more stable than another person’s emotional state, behavior, or presence in my life.
That connection remains available even when life changes.
Even when relationships change.
Even when another person struggles.
Even when I struggle.
Even when I feel disconnected.
And honestly, I think this realization has changed my understanding of both spirituality and relationships.
For a long time, I unconsciously believed alignment was something fragile that could be lost through another person becoming misaligned. I blamed others for “pulling me out” of harmony or peace. But eventually I had to face the reality that this perspective kept me trapped in a kind of spiritual dependency.
It was a victim mindset, even if I did not mean it to be.
Because as long as my alignment depended entirely on external conditions remaining perfect, then my peace would always remain unstable.
I think many people experience this after profound spiritual experiences or awakening experiences within relationships. Another person becomes associated with openness, transcendence, unconditional love, or connection to God. And then quietly, without realizing it, we begin depending on that person to maintain our access to those states.
We may even begin idealizing them without meaning to.
Not necessarily because we think they are perfect in ordinary ways, but because we unconsciously associate them with the sacred experiences we had through them.
But human beings are human beings.
No person remains perfectly open, aligned, regulated, or spiritually expanded all the time. Life affects all of us. Fear affects all of us. Stress affects all of us. People struggle, withdraw, become confused, lose rhythm, and fall out of alignment sometimes.
And if our peace depends entirely on another person remaining spiritually stable for us, then eventually fear and attachment will begin controlling the relationship.
That is something I can see much more clearly now.
I also realize now that what I truly wanted was not actually another person. What I wanted was lasting connection to love, harmony, peace, and wholeness.
I just believed another person was the source of it.
But over time, Reiki practice has slowly shifted my understanding.
Not through dramatic experiences.
Not through chasing higher states.
Not through trying to force myself back into awakening.
But through daily practice.
Through returning.
Through learning how to remain with myself.
Through recognizing that love is not absent simply because another person is struggling or because a relationship changes form.
I think this is one reason the Five Principles have become so much more meaningful to me over time, especially “Just for Today.”
For a long time I approached spirituality with urgency. I believed I needed to get back to certain states. I felt pressure to remain aligned permanently. When I lost those feelings of openness or union, I became afraid. I thought something had gone wrong.
Now I see things differently.
“Just for Today” brings me back to what is actually here now instead of abandoning myself for the past or grasping toward the future.
It reminds me that I do not need to force permanent awakening or permanent emotional certainty. I do not need another person to remain perfectly aligned for me to stay connected to my own practice and relationship with love.
I can return today.
That return has become much simpler than I once imagined.
Sometimes it looks like sitting quietly with my hands in Gassho.
Sometimes it looks like breathing.
Sometimes it looks like self-Reiki.
Sometimes it looks like noticing attachment instead of becoming consumed by it.
Sometimes it looks like allowing grief, fear, or sadness to move through me without believing they have separated me from love itself.
And honestly, one of the most healing realizations has been understanding that another person does not have to become less human in order for me to remain connected to harmony.
That may sound obvious, but for me it was profound.
I did not realize how much expectation I had unconsciously placed onto another person. I expected him to remain aligned in order for me to feel safe spiritually and emotionally. I expected him to remain connected so that I could remain connected. I expected him to hold something for me that I had not yet learned to cultivate directly within myself.
That was not fair to him.
And it was not healthy for me.
Because real love cannot grow well inside the pressure of spiritual dependency.
I think part of maturing spiritually is learning how to stop projecting divinity onto other people while still allowing love to exist deeply and honestly.
Not becoming detached in a cold way.
Not pretending relationships do not matter.
Not pretending heartbreak does not hurt.
But recognizing that another person is not responsible for being our permanent source of wholeness.
I also think this realization connects deeply to how I now understand Reiki itself.
For a long time, I approached spirituality through intensity. Through seeking experiences. Through chasing union, transcendence, awakening, and higher states of consciousness. But eventually I began realizing that what truly changes us is not usually intensity.
It is consistency.
It is returning.
It is learning how to stay present with ordinary life.
It is learning how to remain connected to ourselves when conditions are imperfect.
This is one of the reasons I speak so much now about Reiki as practice rather than consumption.
Because practice slowly teaches us stability.
Not emotional suppression.
Not perfection.
But stability.
A growing ability to return to ourselves instead of abandoning ourselves whenever fear, attachment, uncertainty, or grief arise.
And honestly, I still feel attachment sometimes. I still feel sadness. I still feel longing. Healing is not linear, and I do not think spiritual maturity means becoming emotionally untouched.
But I can feel something softening.
I can feel the grip loosening.
Not because I no longer care, but because I am no longer believing that another person determines whether I remain connected to love itself.
That connection is deeper than any relationship.
And in many ways, this realization has made love feel more human and more sacred at the same time.
More human because I no longer expect another person to carry impossible spiritual expectations.
More sacred because I now understand that the love I experienced was never actually confined to one person alone.
The harmony was real.
The openness was real.
The love was real.
But those experiences were pointing beyond the relationship itself toward something much greater and more stable that has always existed underneath all of it.
Something that remains here even now.
And maybe that is part of what practice truly teaches us over time.
Not how to avoid grief, attachment, or human struggle.
But how to keep returning to what remains steady underneath them.
Just for today.
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