What is chemistry and why does it matter?
Photo by israel palacio on Unsplash
The evolution of chemistry:
Stage 1: expressed as physical attraction rooted in preferences ("hot or not").
Stage 2: expressed as intellectual attraction rooted in preferences ("good on paper").
Stage 3: expressed as shared belief systems that have polar opposite expressions, and that function as evidence that what we believe about ourselves is true ("men are emotionally unavailable" "women are clingy").
Stage 4: expressed as complimentary attachment styles, shared conscious wounding, and avoidant expressions birthed from the development of self-awareness ("he/she gets me," otherwise known as trauma bonding).
Stage 5: expressed as a deep "fated" pull to another person that might make very little sense on the surface, and is related to unhealed unconscious, suppressed, and lineage wounds ("I just can't quit you."). Can be experienced as both repulse and/or magnetism. Lives outside of preferences. Relationship can either be destructive or a catalyst for healing (or both).
Stage 6: expressed as no chemistry and feels somewhat neutral (often confused with "just not that interested.").
In conscious communities, chemistry in stages 3-5 is often confused and conflated with polarity, though it is far from that.
Attempting to position polarity work on top of shared unhealed wounds can be a recipe for disaster (or a huge opportunity for growth!).
Encountering unhealed wounds from stages 1-5 having positioned polarity work on top of it usually results in stigmatizing the form and the formless (the feminine and the masculine), and gripping onto fixed expressions of it.
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Polarity work is infinite and multi-directional in the absence of shared wounding.
It's multi-directional because without the barrier of unhealed wounds creating limitations in expression, when you go all the way to the depths of the feminine (or form expression), you will discover the masculine (or formless expression), and vice versa.
I personally experience this as a deeply purposeful and totally expanded sense of pouring my embodied love into something or someone else. It feels a lot like attuned and precisely executed grace.
And a soft, vulnerable, surrendered sense of gratitude when witnessing someone else in their fullest expression. It feels a lot like humbled reverence.
They are connected in the same way the infinity symbol is connected, and if the energy continues to flow without hitting any obstacles (both within you, AND within the partnership), you move through both of these experiences and everything in between seamlessly and as is needed for you to continue on a path toward self-actualization.
Encountering unhealed wounds (at this point most likely lineage or collective) still arise, but are much more effortlessly moved through due to each partner's capacity for energetic agility.
This is conscious partnership. And it could very well start with no apparent chemistry. Coming into partnership from this stage tends to occur based on shared values, honest communication, and trust building, which results in magnetism, energetic entanglement based on mutual sovereignty and intuitive connection (NOT enmeshment), and devotion to the relationship. It can also be grown into from any of the other stages, barring *both* partners are willing and interested in that.
This is of course not always unilateral. Many attributes can be present at once — two individuals in a relationship can be in different personal stages — (read: there is A LOT more to it than this) but outlining and simplifying it in this way may be helpful for you, just the same.
NB: I never write about this for a reason. So I'm taking a bit of a risk today! In a way, while nuanced and precise, the above lacks important relational context that could result in it appearing abstract and theoretical to many of you. This nature of self-actualization work is deeply contextual (and deeply personal), which is why I teach it in my 1:1 coaching containers only. But I share it here for you nonetheless so that you know that it's available and accessible. I see so many people get stuck and cornered in rigid expressions of the masculine and feminine to compensate for a need for fundamental healing. I believe it's time for us to all evolve beyond that.