How Do I Know if My Partner is The One?
“How do I know if my partner is ‘The One’?”
This is a common question among the collective unconscious. This idea that if we “just know” for certain, then we can settle into the relief of knowing we made the right choice and we are on the right path. It makes sense why this question lives rent-free in the minds of so many. Since childhood, we have been conditioned to believe that the right relationship involves the happiest of endings. That love is this strictly butterflies, unicorns, and rainbows—nothing less. That the “right” person will complete us and provide us the very love that we seek. That by divine law, out of the 8 billion people that walk among Mama Earth with us, only one is right for us, and that one will make us feel whole.
This question plagued my psyche, kept me trapped in the story of my mind, and disconnected from my heart back in 2021 when I was held captive in the chokehold of relationship anxiety/ relationship OCD (ROCD). I frantically searched the internet, outsourcing my own inner wisdom for anyone who seemed to have all the right answers. I sought for clarity, hoping someone other than myself could point me in the right direction and fulfill this heavy, lingering uncertainty that sat so uncomfortably within me.
After scavenging the internet frantically, I oftentimes felt myself more anxious than not, leaving the uncertainty and doubts to only grow more. I stumbled across so many distortions that lacked the nuance of being human, like “If it’s not a full body yes than it’s a full body no,” or “Trust your gut,” and “Your body knows.” How could I possibly trust my body when my body was screaming at the rooftops with anxiety? In the depths of relationship OCD, I wanted to flee, not only from my relationship, but from the world itself. If only I could “figure out” the truth to this question, the million dollar question if my partner was truly “the one,” then surely I would feel better and be able to move forward with clarity.
As time moved forward, I began to decipher the voice of anxiety and intuition. And while yes, my body at the time screamed “no,” I understood that it wasn’t from a place of truth, but rather trauma, fear, and unhelpful, limiting belief systems. I also began to peel back the layers of distorted belief systems I had been holding onto. Distortions that had been fogging not only my vision, but the eyes of so many other people looking for answers to the same question.
If you are wondering if your partner is “The One”, then you may be operating from the lens of distortion.
Hollywood lied to us. Disney fooled us. Society led us astray. But it makes sense why the world at large would do such a thing. This is because the collective unconscious holds a disempowering belief system when it comes to the concept of love. From a young age, we were conditioned to believe that true love is to be found outside of us. We were told that “The One” will complete us and bring us into the state of wholeness that we all search for. And once we achieve this love, then we will be swept away by the magic until death do us part. Well, that’s one thing the collective got correct—love within a union is magic. But not the fairytale magic that we grew up watching on the big screens.
The magic that society believes love to be is elation—a feeling of extreme happiness and exhilaration. But prolonged elation is actually disruptive to our hearts, according to Chinese medicine. To carry out ecstasy can distort our heart space and disconnect us from the truth as it renders our perception, behavior, and reality as a whole. The body cannot sustain a continuum of euphoria for long periods of time because it deranges our Qi, which is the energy force that flows within our body and withstands health and vitality. Yet, society has been ingrained to chase this feeling, to constantly yearn for a constant state of excitement and exhilaration. When we achieve this outside of us through another person, we believe it must mean that they are “The One.” We have equated elation to be love and anything less than is not true. However, this simply goes against human nature and what the body, the greatest connection and messenger of the Divine, was designed for.
We are chasing a fantasy.
This fantasy leaves us constantly hungry for more. When the sparks of elation die, which is a natural process of our body’s ebb and flow, many who deem this to be the source of their supposed love find themselves feeling empty and dissatisfied. That perhaps, the person they thought was “The One” may actually not be, because it does not align with the stories we grew up with. This unconscious thought process is far from the truth.
The truth is, “The One” isn’t something to be stumbled upon and found. Rather, it is something to be co-created.
“The One” doesn’t leave us outsourcing our power and in search for love in the external. When it comes to true organic love, which is the very source of creation itself, is found within. When we seek outside of ourself for another person to make us feel whole, we will continue to return to a place of malnourishment and dis-ease. Putting our happiness and love in the hands of another can leave us fragmented. Rather, if we seek to come back to wholeness and love within union, we must find it within ourselves, first.
Real love is accessible within, for it is the spirit that flows through us and the world around us. Love, in essence, is not limited to a feeling, but a state of being. It is a choice to make everyday, an action, and an access point to the Highest Architect, that of which is God. When we look for the love within us first, we then open the opportunity to find it outside of ourself, too. And when we enter a safe union with a beloved, love will reflect to us all the parts of ourself that we have not yet learned to embody. Love is found in the depths of reflection, inner work, self evaluation. And when it comes to romantic relationship, when both people are committed to perceiving their union as mirror to their inner world and are dedicated to doing the inner work, true love flourishes like a field of flowers in the spring. When we have the safe space to do the inner work, to be with the shadows and the parts that we have abandoned, we open up the opportunity to expand, evolve, and love even deeper. This is when the narrative of “The One” recodes. This is when the idea of “The One” becomes a co-creation, not a divine grant. We create by threading the love within us individually, and then together as one in union. We meld the unification intentionally because we, too, are co-creators with The Highest.
This ideology goes against the mainstream narrative because doing the inner work doesn’t always feel good. But doing things that are good for us won’t always feel good. We aren’t out here looking to feel good all the time—we are here to expand, to remember our wholeness, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel.
I invite you to rewrite the story you carry on love. To remove the lens that Disney, Hollywood, and society has placed over your eyes. For “The One” isn’t something to divinely stumble upon, but it is something to be co-created between two individuals who are on the path of introspection, embodiment, and remembrance. That is where the true magic lies.
