I want to tell you the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. This is a story of love, trust and faith. There is a learning here we can apply to any relationship (and in fact any goal in life).
In Greek mythology, Orpheus was the son of the God Apollo. Apollo gave his son a lyre and taught him to play. He played it to such perfection that nothing could resist his music.
Orpheus fell in love with Eurydice. They got married and lived happily for several years.
One day Eurydice was wandering the forest, when Aristaeus, a shepherd, saw her and was enchanted by her beauty and started chasing her. Eurydice got scared and ran away. While running she fell and got bitten by a snake and died.
Orpheus was so distraught that Apollo advised him to go to the underworld and see Hades (God of the Underworld) and his wife, Persephone.
When he met them, he started playing his lyre and his melodies were so emotional even Hades’ heart started to melt. Hades told Orpheus that he could take Eurydice with him to the mortal world on one condition; Eurydice would follow him while walking out to the light from the caves of the Underworld but he should not turn back to look at her before coming out to the light because if he does, he will lose her forever.
Orpheus was delighted by this news. He started walking towards the exit, trying to hear Eurydice’s footsteps. He couldn’t hear anything and was starting to doubt she was there and that the gods were playing a trick on him.
Only a few steps from the light, where Eurydice would be turned from a shadow to a woman, Orpheus lost faith and turned to see if Eurydice was behind him. He saw Eurydice only for a moment before her shadow was whisked back to the underworld and gone forever.
Find your courage
When Eurydice dies, Orpheus grieves and uses that grief to do something incredible; to enter the underworld, an impossible place for a mortal to go. But to have what he wants, Eurydice back, he must face a difficult task and with the support of others (Apollo helping him), he finds a way forwards.
Once in there, he is granted what he wants. All he has to do is walk out, trust the thing he wants most is coming and not look back.
Have faith
Trust and faith. We all know a relationship doesn’t work without these. You have to have trust in your partner. But sometimes this can be hard, especially if you’ve been hurt in the past. This is a great time to look at what fears are coming up for you. Orpheus gave in to his fears. He started listening to the doubt in his mind.
What is your mind saying? What thoughts are you having regularly? Are you fearing the person will leave you even though there is no evidence for this? Do you have an expectation for the worse? Do you believe you are not good enough to be loved? Do you need constant proof that your partner loves you?
I worked with a client last year who had low confidence and didn’t think she was good enough and therefore required constant validation from her partner. She needed him to constantly prove she was more important to him than anyone, that he loved her more than anything, that he would do anything for her. This resulted in her playing games, or getting upset very easily over the slightest thing.
Learning to notice when this was happening and working on how she felt about herself massively affected the relationship as she didn’t need his validation to feel loved and valued.
Is the past holding you back?
Your negative thoughts, your fears affect how you behave and how your partner reacts as a result. Are these fears coming from past experiences (they may not be linked to past relationships, they could be any past experience)? Notice when these fears are causing you to react in a certain way.
How many times has the past come up to affect your current relationship? This happens so easily. I was working with a client who was reacting to her current partner because of something her ex did. Her reaction was extreme and didn’t make sense to her current partner. But she hadn’t let go of the past and she was getting triggered. She was allowing those experiences from the past to affect how she was reacting in the now.
Our past is our past and looking back doesn’t help us move forwards. Orpheus gave in to his fears and the gremlins chattering in his mind and looked back. By looking back he lost the very thing he wanted. I see this as looking back can often stop us getting the thing we want in the future.
For example, if you want a loving, trusting and healthy relationship, but you are plagued with a past of cheating boyfriends and as a result you constantly suspect your current partner, you will never achieve a loving, trusting and healthy relationship, because you are holding on to the past and expecting the same results. There are several ways to overcome this but the first thing is to notice it when it is happening, when you are being suspicious or worrying without there being any real reason for it.
Trust your intuition.
Tune into your intuition, trust that you will know when something is truly wrong. Trust not only in your partner, but in yourself. I remember when I was with my ex-boyfriend and he was messaging another woman, it was my intuition, that gut instinct, that had alarm bells going off. I knew something was up because my intuition made it so clear and I trusted it. I was able to make decisions based on my intuition. I could have ignored it and pretended nothing was wrong, but I trusted my intuition and listened to it. Listening to my intuition has been a massive game changer for me.
Don’t get ripped from limb to limb
In the end, Orpheus was so miserable after the journey to the underworld, he sang of death, until he was killed, either by beasts or Maenads, followers of the god Bacchus, who ripped him from limb to limb. Not so nice!
If you are working towards a goal in a relationship, it is important to put the work in, but also have faith in the process, trust you are headed the right way and everything will fall into place. Orpheus was so close to having everything he wanted, but he lost it all because of his fears, because he didn’t follow the process, because he looked back.
Don’t give up too soon
Don’t give up too soon by giving into your fears. The journey isn’t always easy, there will be hard times, but if you want a happy and amazing relationship, you have to put the work in. Look at your thoughts, beliefs, what is coming up from the past, what is stopping you from achieving those relationship goals. Awareness is the start. From there we can do so much more to look at how to progress forwards.
If you want to have a (no obligation) chat about this, maybe you are struggling in your relationship or you are going through a dip and not sure how to come out of it, then get in touch. We can have a chat about what is happening and what steps to start taking to get closer to your relationship goals.