Behind falling in love with someone who does not reciprocate our feelings, or who does not give us what we want from them, there is a specific psychic dynamic. Behind the intense emotions of unrequited love stand inner laws of the soul that differ from what appears on the surface. If we understand this, much of the confusion these situations generate begins to dissolve.
In the Hands of the Devil
Such infatuations are, as a rule, accompanied by profound confusion. A person does not understand what they have done to deserve such treatment or such a fate, especially when they are giving their very best. The apparent injustice fills the heart with resentment, and feeling like a victim, the person endlessly accuses—internally—the object of their feelings. Their thoughts are obsessively occupied with what the other has done or failed to do, while they fail to ask the more essential question: what does all this mean for me? Why do I continue to have feelings for someone who clearly does not reciprocate them—and for such a long time?
Instead, the person burning in the fire of passion continues to seek ways to provoke some response or reaction from the other, constantly sending messages. Their thoughts are intrusive, as if they have no power over them. They are caught in an intensely dramatic film, deeply suffering a love tragedy. From the outside, the suffering appears overwhelming, almost suffocating; yet on closer inspection, one can see that behind it stands a simple angry child who did not receive what it wanted and who is unwilling to renounce its demand by accepting the inevitable limitations of life and the lack of power over another person’s feelings.
Jungian analysts say that falling in love and the powerful emotions accompanying it originate in the archetype of the Self (the “image of God” within us) and express the activation of the individuation process.
“It can be said that in every deep love experience, an experience of the Self is also involved, because the passion and the compulsive factor in it come from the Self.”
Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, p. 225
But because this intense desire is directed toward something external and concrete, the archetype “falls into matter,” and the person appears as if possessed by the “devil,” whose realm is precisely matter.
“…if strength and passion remain on a concrete level, desiring this or that and unable to sacrifice the desire, then the same passionate libido that forms the basis of the individuation process weakens, becomes destructive, and turns against itself.”
ibid., p. 189
One of the symbols of the passionate libido underlying individuation is the devouring lion—an archetypal image of desire arising from the deeper layers of the human psyche, the collective unconscious. If the person burning in the fire of passion fails to recognize this and does not withdraw their projections from the outer world, the desire becomes destructive. The suffering caused by frustrated desire no longer serves as fuel for spiritual transformation but instead intensifies depression, rage, and hatred.
There Is No Such Thing as Chaotic Libido
Another important thing to understand about the transformation of frustrated passions is that this process unfolds extremely slowly. What is activated is the individuation process—the awakening of the soul—and its changes occur much like changes in nature: they are not subject to ego-will. A factor from the deeper layers of the personality is involved, and only the emergence of a new mode of consciousness—the essence of the soul’s development—can remove Cupid’s arrow from the heart and bring an end to the suffering.
Until the process of calcination is complete and the admixtures of matter are burned out of the spirit, the person continues to be roasted in this fire, no matter how exhausted they may be from prolonged struggles or repeated rejection. Some such relationships last for many years—I know more than one person who remained in them for eight, nine, even ten years.
“Sitting in the fire and being roasted is what brings the philosopher’s stone; as stated here, the fire goes out according to its own inner measure. There is no such thing as chaotic libido, because we know that even the unconscious, as pure nature, possesses an inner balance. The lack of equilibrium comes from the infantility of the conscious attitude. If you simply follow your passion according to its own dictates, you will not get far, for it always leads to its own defeat.
Excessive passion seeks defeat. People with an immoderately passionate nature—almost a devilish nature—readily seek a person or situation against which they can dash their heads and despise any partner or situation in which their passion succeeds. Instinctively they seek defeat, as though something in them knows that this devil must be struck down. Therefore, if one is friendly, weak, or overly understanding toward such a fire, the patient is not helped; usually such people leave, because that is not what they need. The fire of passion seeks what will extinguish it, and therefore individuation is urgent, because these natural immoderate impulses seek impossible situations; they seek conflict, defeat, and suffering because they strive for their own transformation.” ibid., p. 286
Secretly Longing for What One Dislikes
These laws governing the transformation of desire do not apply only to romantic infatuation. They characterize every form of passion that seeks fulfillment by attempting to impose its power upon the outer world.
“Let us say someone is possessed by the devil of power. When he dominates others, he is not happy but remains restless; he dominates his whole family and his professional environment, yet he is still restless. He is truly seeking someone who will overpower him—this is what he longs for, although he does not like it. This is a double attitude: he hates it and at the same time longs for someone or something that will subdue him and put an end to his power. This is important to know in the treatment of borderline cases, because they usually suffer from tremendous emotions and always attempt to dump everything onto the analyst with both hope and fear that he will strike back; this is because the fire knows its own inner measure.”
ibid., p. 286
If people in such situations are told that, deep down, they actually wish to be rejected, that they have unconsciously chosen this kind of suffering, they will look at you with disbelief. But this is the misunderstanding of the mind—the same conscious attitude whose one-sidedness and infantility are being confronted by the forces of the unconscious.
Thus, the only way to win this battle is to accept that we are not only what we know with our minds; we are also our unconscious—the very same force that sent Cupid’s arrow and refuses to remove it from our hearts. When one finally manages to do this, overcoming the fierce resistance of the “devilish” within, the conflict ceases to be external (between oneself and the object of passion) and becomes internal.
Even if this does not immediately end the suffering, it marks the beginning of the end of suffering. As projections are withdrawn and attention is no longer consumed by what the other does or does not do, inner strength gradually begins to grow. Energy is no longer wasted on trying to make the other understand or provide what is desired. Instead, attention turns toward spiritualizing desire—the new guiding aim of a mind that was previously confused.
Spiritualizing Desire
The question that most helps to spiritualize desire and free it from the grip of matter is: “What is it that the fulfillment of my desire toward this person would give me?” In other words, what would the inner experience be like if the object of passion were to give what is wanted?
Typical answers include feelings of fullness and wholeness, inner worth, freedom, happiness. These answers reveal the true object of desire.
In other words, spiritualizing desire begins when one seeks its fulfillment without making it dependent on the actions or reactions of the external world and the people in it. In the language of alchemy, this is called “liberating Osiris from the leaden coffin.”
Only when we understand the divine logic of why we have attracted such suffering into our lives can we use the pain of unrequited love for its true purpose. Then we understand—more clearly than ever—that if we seek freedom through the relationship with another, the result is dependency; that the happiness their presence brings inevitably turns into unhappiness in their absence; that if our sense of inner worth depends on their approval, it will diminish rather than grow—even if that approval is granted.
Something within us knows all along that we have no power over the external and the concrete, and that it can be taken from us at any moment. When longing for love, fullness, freedom, joy, and inner worth “falls into matter,” it turns into its opposite, because matter is the realm of duality and, as such, is ruled by the “devil.”
The fire of passion dies out when the process of inner transformation is complete. When the veil of enchantment finally falls, one sees for the first time that intense passions contain no love at all. They are, in fact, the opposite—anti-love, generating jealousy, hatred, malice when we are neglected or rejected, and dependency and obsession with the other.
Then we understand that the “wrong” person for our love was, in truth, the right one, because they were chosen by the intelligence of the unconscious.
Therefore, the “right response” to this choice is to do what it compels us to do:
- to withdraw our projections from the outer world;
- to become the source of our own emotional states;
- and to be patient until love of another quality is born from the suffering of frustrated passion.
Rising from the ashes of burned-out passions brings an invaluable gift: for the first time, we are capable of loving truly.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
- Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
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