Tag Archives: Addiction

Is It Love or a Trauma Bond? When Loving a Bad Boy Isn’t Love at All

Posted on by under Culture

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There’s something intoxicating about the bad boy. The aloofness. The danger. The emotional rollercoaster. The sweet highs followed by gut-wrenching lows. For many, the pull feels undeniable—inescapable, even. But here’s the truth: what we often mistake for love may actually be trauma.

So how do you know the difference between a genuine soul connection and a trauma bond dressed up in romance?

Let’s go deeper.

🧠 When Love Mirrors Old Wounds

A trauma bond forms when we become emotionally attached to someone who repeatedly hurts us. It’s the emotional equivalent of an addiction: a cycle of pain followed by intermittent reward that keeps us hooked. You may feel unable to leave, despite knowing the relationship is harming you.

This cycle is especially common in relationships where one partner is emotionally unavailable, abusive, or dismissive—and the other is stuck trying to earn love that should be freely given.

It’s not love—it’s survival.

And survival patterns are often rooted in our earliest relationships—especially with our parents.

👨‍👧 Daddy Issues, Mother Wounds & Repeating the Past

Many women who chase unavailable or abusive men are replaying unresolved pain from childhood:

A father who left, abandoned, or emotionally neglected them—instilling the belief that love must be chased, earned, or proven. A mother who was critical, absent, or hurt herself—leaving emotional scars and shaping one’s view of worthiness in love. A home environment where love was conditional, chaotic, or abusive—making dysfunction feel familiar, even safe.

We’re not consciously choosing to relive our trauma. But our nervous systems crave what they know—even if it hurts.

🌌 The Spiritual Truth: You Attract What You Are

It’s often said: We don’t attract what we want. We attract what we are. Your vibration—your beliefs, your wounds, your energy—draws in relationships that match your inner state. If your inner world is filled with abandonment wounds, low self-worth, or chaos, you may subconsciously attract partners who reflect those wounds back to you.

That doesn’t mean you’re to blame. It means your energy is calling in mirrors—not because you deserve pain, but because your soul is seeking healing.

Spiritually, toxic relationships can serve as teachers—illuminating what still needs to be healed.

🚨 6 Signs It’s a Trauma Bond, Not Love

1. You feel addicted to the relationship, even when it hurts.

2. You justify or downplay abuse or disrespect.

3. You feel anxious, not safe, around your partner.

4. You’ve lost yourself trying to please or “fix” them.

5. They give you crumbs, and you treat them like a feast.

6. You’ve mistaken chaos for passion—because calm feels boring or “off.”

🛤️ Healing the Pattern: How to Break Free & Attract Healthy Love

Acknowledge the Pattern. Recognize that what you’re experiencing isn’t healthy love. Naming the cycle is the first step to breaking it.

Do the Inner Work Therapy, inner child healing, shadow work, and journaling help uncover the core wounds driving your attraction to pain.

Cut Energetic Cords. Practice spiritual cord-cutting rituals to release unhealthy attachments. Cleanse your energy regularly to reset your vibration. Read my upcoming blog posts thus week on cutting energetic cords and protecting your energy. I also have a YouTube video on that.

Reparent Yourself. Give yourself the safety, love, and validation your parents didn’t provide. You become your own source.

Raise Your Vibration. Do this through cultivating self-love, gratitude, meditation, and joy. Mirror work is a great way to do this. Stand in front of the mirror and speak good things about yourself to your reflection. Do this for a few minutes daily to reprogram your subconscious mind. You begin to attract from a place of worth, not woundedness.

Redefine Love. Love is not supposed to hurt, confuse, or deplete you. Real love is safe, consistent, reciprocal, and kind. Believe you deserve a love that you do not have to work hard or diminish yourself to earn.

💗 Final Words: You Deserve the Love You Give

The truth is, love doesn’t look like begging, suffering, or waiting for someone to change.

If you were taught that love means sacrifice, pain, or chasing someone who keeps slipping away, it’s time to rewrite the story.

You are worthy of love that feels like peace, not pain.

Healing your patterns means you no longer accept less than you deserve. You stop dancing with emotionally unavailable partners and start making room for those who meet you in your fullness.

Because when you love yourself deeply, you raise your standards—and your vibration will only attract what honors that.

Sex, Spirit, and Soul Ties: A Conversation We Must Have

Posted on by under Culture, Spirituality, Uncategorized

By Nomathemba Pearl Dzinotyiwei

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Reading through the #My1stSexualExperienceWas hashtag reveals just how much pain and confusion still surround sex, particularly for women. It is a haunting reminder that our society has failed to teach the full story of what sex is—not just biology and “don’t get pregnant” warnings, but the emotional, spiritual, and psychological dimensions that linger long after the act is over.

Centuries ago, African cultures had initiation schools to prepare young people for adulthood. These were sacred spaces that taught not only about physical maturity but also about emotional intelligence, responsibility, boundaries, and the sacredness of intimacy. It’s time we return to a holistic model of sex education—one that honours the full humanity of both boys and girls.

Sex Is More Than a Physical Act

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Sex is sacred. It’s powerful, someone once wrote: ‘sex can create a memory, make a baby or generate a disaster.’ It connects two people not only physically but emotionally and spiritually. It creates ties—some healing, some harmful. In the right context—between two people who love and respect each other—sex can be affirming and deeply pleasurable. But when used as a tool of manipulation or taken without mutual consent, it becomes a source of spiritual damage.

This is not just poetic metaphor. It’s spiritual reality. During sex, we exchange DNA and spiritual energy. If your partner is emotionally broken or spiritually dark, that energy can pass into you. If they are entangled with other partners, you can be exposed to those energies too—without even knowing it.

Soul Ties and Spiritual Attachments

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Have you ever felt an inexplicable longing for someone who hurt you? Or found yourself unable to move on, even though your mind knows better? That’s the power of a soul tie—a spiritual connection that keeps you bound to someone, often through trauma bonding. It’s one of the reasons why narcissists love-bomb, rush intimacy, and then abandon you. They know that once a sexual bond is created, it becomes harder for you to leave.

Breaking up, divorcing, or even mourning a partner who has died doesn’t automatically sever the spiritual tie. Rituals, prayers, and conscious detachment are often needed to truly be free.

The Energetics of Sex

Sex releases energy—life force energy. That’s why you feel physically drained afterwards. Workers of darkness know this and use sex in rituals to harness that energy. Some even go as far as collecting bodily fluids to be used in harmful spiritual practices. Women have traditionally been taught to wash or cleanse after sex, not just for hygiene, but for spiritual protection.

If your partner is involved with others, spiritual harm can come to you from people you’ve never met—through the ties your partner maintains. This is not superstition. It’s spiritual science.

Reclaiming Sacred Sexuality

We must reclaim sex as something sacred. This means:

Teaching young people about consent, respect, and pleasure. Helping women know their bodies and communicate their needs. Ensuring boys understand emotional responsibility and that intimacy is not conquest. Encouraging discernment over casual encounters—not from shame, but from awareness.

Men need to understand that female arousal is not instant. It requires emotional connection, trust, and safety. And women need to stop being policed by outdated patriarchal norms that protect male predatory behaviour, while shaming female agency.

In Conclusion

Sex is not something to fear—but it is something to respect. It can build or destroy, heal or harm, elevate or enslave. We owe ourselves—and our children—a deeper conversation.

Let’s talk. Let’s teach. Let’s heal.

Reflection Questions

Have I ever felt spiritually tied to someone after intimacy? What rituals or practices help me cleanse and reclaim my energy? How can I teach or model holistic sexuality in my community?

Affirmation

I honour my body, my spirit, and my sacred energy. I choose love, truth, and protection.

Conclusion: A Call for Holistic Education

Holistic sex education must address the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of intimacy. It should teach children about the joys and responsibilities of sex, emphasizing love, respect, and mutual pleasure. Conversations about consent, boundaries, and self-respect are crucial, as are discussions about the risks of harmful relationships and spiritual entanglements.

By fostering open, honest conversations, we can empower future generations to make informed choices about their bodies and relationships. The goal is not just to prevent harm but to celebrate the transformative power of intimacy when shared with love and respect.

Book Review: Nomaswazi by Busisekile Khumalo

Posted on by under Book, Culture

The story begins with a recollection of a wedding. You would think they live the happily ever after. Instead find yourself on a high speed train ride that is the relationship between Nomaswazi and the man that left her at the altar. An innocent girl, she is crushed by the rejection and flees to Johannesburg.

One day she is minding her own business when he saunters casually back into her life and decides that he has no intention of leaving. She loves him, yet she hates him. He loves her, yet he feels undeserving of her after ditching her at the altar and trying to keep a lid on the demons of his past. He pulls out all the stops in his effort to get her back. The story will have you hooked, wondering what other curveballs the writer will throw and she has plenty. Busisekile’s imagination is unparalleled and her research is on point making the story so real.

With recollections of war, weapons smuggling, intrigue, hot erotic encounters as well as a fatal sibling rivalry, this story set mainly in rural eSwatini will keep you up late as you try to find out whether Nomaswazi and her man eventually make it down the aisle and get their happily ever after.

Dark Chocolate

Posted on by under Crushes, Inspiration, Relationships

Dark Chocolate

From the equatorial forest.

In my imagination,

We make a beautiful duet.

His dark chocolate

with my caramel entwined.

Heady and sensual,

Utterly irresistible.

Electrifying,

Like shot of espresso

The colour of his eyes.

One look, is all it took.

The cup of my heart is brimming.

My head is swimming,

Like after an Irish coffee.

A shot of whiskey,

A dash of cream,

Stirred with a chocolate spoon.

The worst addiction

Demands gratification.

The food of the gods and

The Devil’s own elixir.

Secretly brewed in the dead of night

Now incarnate.

The ultimate black magic,

No cure from a medic.

Desperately sinking,

A maelstrom of emotions.

The worst part of it,

We’ve never even spoken.

©️ Nomathemba Pearl Dzinotyiwei

Why Is It So Hard To Find Love In This Present Generation? 

Posted on by under Crushes, Relationships

By Nomathemba Pearl Dzinotyiwei

@BlueBlood_elia tweeted that line this week. We weighed in with our opinions,  some of them were profound while others were flippant.  I have many single women friends and I ask myself the same question sometimes. A single friend of mine recently posted on Facebook, how she just wanted a man “who would show up and stay”. I thought this was just a women’s issue until  @DirectorSolomon tweeted the following:


The responses ranged from hilarious to heart-breaking. My response to him was that this kind of stuff makes men skittish (nervously shy away from commitment) and for every girl that cheats on a guy there are dozens of single women who are searching, sometimes desperately, for a man to love them.

It is not easy to find love, not just in this one, but in every generation. My parents have been married for over 40 years and even they have close friends who never got married or went through multiple divorces. This is not a new problem, but it’s a sad state of affairs.

Dr. Caroline Leaf, a neuroscientist says we are “wired” for love, i.e. drama, stress and heartbreak etc. are not a natural state of affairs and they literally change our brain chemistry. Human beings are made in the image of God and God is love. Her approach is both biblical and scientific. Check out her YouTube videos, she’s phenomenal. By the way I’m no expert but I see many people in pain and have experienced some pain of my own in the past from bad choices. Are you in the swamp of despondency when it comes to love? if you are single and searching think about the following issues.

Who Are You and What Do You Attract?

This is the principle of  ‘As within, so without’. Your visible reality is a manifestation of your thoughts. Thoughts can become unconscious and habitual if you hold them long enough. Ok you don’t believe me. Think about it. Your constant thoughts create habits and patterns of decision making that have brought you to this point. Think back to the decisions you made in your last relationship, when it started, why it ended and how it ended. What were you thinking. How would things have been if you had different thoughts about the person. By the way, ending a relationship is not always a bad thing, particularly if it is not good for you.

Consider these questions:

The first question is who are you in the relationship equation? What are your needs? These needs are based on the story you tell yourself when you are on your own. Your story is so very much a part of you, you don’t realise it’s there and it determines your every move. This story is created by habitual thoughts from when we were children and trying to make sense of the world. This background story shows up with you in every situation and causes you to make automatic decisions that determine the outcome of a situation. Are you:

a) Mr. or Miss Right-Now. i.e. not looking for a serious relationship. The background story is most likely because you need a temporary escape from the pain of physical, emotional or sexual abuse and want someone to make you feel attractive and blot out the pain. In this case love and sex are the addictions of choice. This is a typical addict’s profile. Zoleka Mandela’s book When Hope Whispers is an excellent example, where she talks openly about her journey back from addiction. Psychologists have coined a term called limerence, which is the emotional high you get when you are in the early stages of a relationship. This had been investigated and identified as changes to brain chemistry that happen when you are in love. So you can be addicted to love and change partners frequently to feel like that over and over again.

b) Mr. or Miss I’ll-Make-Him or Her-Right-For-Me. This background story is , I’ll change the person into my ideal partner because I’m perfect or I’ve worked so hard to be this person and my partner needs to meet my unremitting standards. Deep down, the story is that I need to control every situation so that I do not get hurt or taken advantage of. Many abusers fit this profile because their abusive behaviour comes from a place of unacknowledged raw pain.

c) Mr or Miss I’ll-Make-Myself-Right-for Him or Her. The background story is, I’ll be whoever my partner wants me to be, because I feel so unworthy and unloveable. I’ll do whatever it takes to have them in my life because deep down I don’t believe that I deserve to be loved. Many victims of abuse fit this profile.

d) Mr or Mrs Married-But-Available? No need to state the obvious. However any of the first three background stories apply. Infidelity is really is not just about sex. Emotional infidelity is just as devastating for the spouses. However for infidelity you need both motive and opportunity. Temptation presents itself based on your background story. James 1.14 says each person is lured and tempted by his or her own desire. And if you have a motive from your background story, e,g. a) ‘I need sex as a temporary relief from my pain or stress ‘, you will find an opportunity to be unfaithful whether it’s your next door neighbour, a colleague or on Oxford Street.

The second question is who are you attracting when you look for Mr or Miss Right? Is it

a); b); c) or d)?
Relationship Arithmetic

Let’s do a little bit of relationship arithmetic, shall we? In my relatively short life, I’ve learnt the following from observation and experience. A mismatch of the four doesn’t work, that’s pretty obvious right? But, a perfect match of any of the four needs does not make for a fulfilling long-term relationship either. A coincidence of wants should make a perfect whole right? No? Why is that?

a+a = one night stand; booty call or ‘friends with benefits’. It’s ok if you both walk away unscathed. Sometimes one person ‘catches feelings’ eventually. Then there is awkwardness or drama if you still bump into each other. Or you have another another hook-up for all the wrong reasons, because you’re lonely, bored or drunk.

b+b = a prison without bars of nagging, manipulation, physical and or emotional abuse. There will be a prison break eventually. I guarantee it. You cannot change a person. A person needs to change by themselves and have really good personal motivation for doing so.

c+c = an illusion, a game of smoke and mirrors. This one ends in tears without fail. That sounds like the lady in @Director Solomon’s tweet. She probably made herself over for them and played the two guys, then picked the first guy who popped the question because she just wanted to get married. That is not genuine love, if she loved her fiancé, she would not have cheated on him until a week before the wedding. For the other guy, it’s like showing up for training every day, not knowing that there are trials in progress or there’s a scout watching.

d+d = a perfect storm. Refer to a+a, only add trauma for your children, depression, the drama of divorce and or suicide or murder to the mix. The truth is someone is always playing the other person  in an extra-marital affair, not just the spouse. Very few extra-marital affairs, studies say only 10% end up in marriage and many of those marriages end in divorce because of a relationship built on a shaky foundation of deceit.

So How Do We Find Love?

We know what doesn’t work. So what does work? Actually, that is the wrong question. The answer is that you don’t search for love. When you do, you will be disappointed because you will invariably look in the wrong places based on your mental programming, the background story. The truth is that there is no formula for finding love. Love finds you. You have to be the person that someone will fall in love with. The real you, the one that you are behind closed doors, when no one is looking.

These are just a few examples of what repels love. If you are bitter, twisted and resentful, that will eventually drive love away. If you are jealous, angry and controlling, you may hide it well but eventually the mask will slip, the person will see the real you and disappear from your life. If you are clingy and desperate because you need the other person to make you happy, then, what you fear most will happen, the person that you live will leave you, because the relationship is too much  work. Being happy is your own responsibility, not that of the other person. What are you willing and able to give? You cannot give what you don’t have. To attract the love, you want, change your background story. Martha Beck’s book Steering by Starlight has great advice. Dr Caroline Leaf and Iyanla Vanzant also have some great Youtube videos on that subject.

Attractive vs Loveable
There is a difference between an attractive person and a loveable person. An attractive person takes care of their external appearance, good skin, a good hairstyle, apparel that suits them, smells great and has the right toys, car, cellphone, handbag etc.  They know what to say, how to flirt, when to stop and when to make a move to get you interested in them. They make a great first impression even without saying a word. A woman’s  reaction to them is: “Damn! He fine! So hot I gotta fan myself” (sic). For guys, well, let me not speak for them.

A loveable person is genuinely interested in the other person. To do that, you have to forget your ego, how you look, sound etc. and focus on the other person. Get to know their heart. Spend more time talking. The club or a party is a great place to meet, but not the best setting for  you to truly get to know someone. Decide whether this is someone you want to spend time with. If they are not, it’s ok, move on, you can still be friendly, or not. It’s your choice.

A loveable person may not generally make a great first impression, but they make a lasting one because they make a connection from the heart. People can tell the difference between someone who is genuinely interested that they can trust with their feelings. The typical reaction to this type is, ” I really like this person, and it’s not just for their looks.”

Here are a couple of suggestions for letting love find you. Don’t limit yourself with pre-conceived ideas about who or what true love looks like, or what he or she does for a living or what car he or she drives. A person can get an education, a better job, buy a car, or buy designer shoes and acquire certain skills. A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions (Luke 12:15). However a person cannot buy a good heart. They cannot be honest, show up for you and show affection and concern consistently if it is not from the heart.

Make the Circle Bigger

Meet more people, more often, make that circle bigger. Spice up your life. Go places and do different things, things you enjoy and you will meet like-minded people. Don’t keep to the same boring weekend or work routine. We spend to much time with the same circle of people and never create opportunities to meet other people. Or when we do, we find reasons not to get to know them because they are not from our little universe.

Next time you meet someone, talk less, listen more, and listen with genuine interest. You may not make a love connection but you can make a lasting one, which who knows could grow into love, or lead you to the love of your life. Do this often enough and I believe love will find you. Finding love is easy. Keeping it is hard. I’ll save that for my next post. Until then, stay attractive and be loveable.