Articles & Reviews

Perfectly Imperfect

by Niyaso Christine Carter

Discover healthy sexuality, trust your emotions, and learn to enjoy intimacy in Sacred Loving workshops with sexual trauma therapist, Niyaso.

Why relationships are perfectly imperfect

By and large, relationships tend to be perfectly imperfect – sometimes miserably imperfect, but from a higher perspective still perfect. What I mean is that we choose exactly the person who can touch our soul, and help us learn our soul lessons the best. However, that doesn’t always mean we’re happy about it.

The way it seems to work is that we rarely choose a partner who is easy for us, but rather a partner who is exactly who we need them to be. To help us grow in all ways – mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This is true even if we don’t have any spiritual aspirations whatsoever. It can be compared to the law of gravity. The law of attraction is a universal law – always at work. And we become attracted to a partner who will help us heal and grow, whether we like it or not, whether we know we chose it or not.

Because our souls are so hell-bent on growth and expansion and learning to love ourselves and others more fully, most of us don’t choose a life partner who understands us all the time and who supports us unconditionally. It would be so nice to be in a lovely, always supportive relationship. But most humans seem to choose precisely that person who will touch their vulnerable places the most, and bring to the forefront the things we’ve come to this earth to heal and grow through. The things we would continue hiding from ourselves because they are just too painful. The places where we don’t believe in our own goodness.

Our soul lessons are often our blind spots, and we need someone to touch them or we would ignore them. We need someone to touch them so these wounds or soul lessons or soul questions can come to our awareness and be addressed and healed. So that we can learn to love ourselves more completely. Our partner seems to manage to find those blind spots just fine. That’s the gift and the challenge of intimate relating. Unfortunately, very often, especially in the heat of the moment, we don’t remember this. We just know that our partner did exactly the opposite of what would’ve felt good to us, and we have a lot of feelings about that. And we want to blame our partner for being at fault.

When an individual in such a difficult relationship starts getting curious about what their soul questions might be – what things being triggered by the relationship are trying to show them – things can begin to shift. When a couple looks from a higher perspective, they can often see how perfect they are for each other. Perfect in this very uncomfortable way, but nevertheless a match formed by love. The love of growing together.

My job is to remind couples of this purpose of their being together. It’s not wrong that you are having challenges and problems come up. It’s part of the design of things and not just an awful mishap. Just keeping this understanding in your awareness can change how you deal with situations. It will help you negotiate ways to lovingly grow and heal together. It will help you face your own pain with vulnerability instead of shutting down or blaming. You can even learn to have fun with the inevitable comedy and drama of it.

It is my job as a relationship coach and counselor to help make this journey as sweet, pain-free, and inspiring for a couple as possible.

But I can only help couples where both individuals are open to the possibility of such a soul journey going on, where both individuals are interested and curious about this deeper soul agenda and willing to turn inward and self-inquire as to what may be going on on a deeper level. Ultimately, when we inquire like this, most often we uncover a wounded part or a younger self that was hurt, a part that falsely concluded: “I am not good enough”.

Then we can affirm the truth that we are indeed worthy and precious, and this in turn can fix the relationship dynamic faster and more permanently than any negotiations or communication skills training ever could.