Unable to SSH into EC2 Instance once Openswan IPSEC is running

Question

I am creating an IPsec tunnel between instances in one AWS VPC and another (different accounts). I am using a linux EC2 instance and openswan. Everything works well I can get the tunnel up, the only issue is when I am SSH into the Linux Instance with openswan installed, the moment I run the command sudo start ipsec.service (the tunnel is then showing status up on AWS console), but my SSH connection (using PUTTY) is disconnected and I am unable to reconnect unless I stop the instance and restart it (which brings the tunnel down)

Any idea on what I can do to be able to continue to SSH into the instance while the tunnel is up?

Thanks in advance

I have tried to update the /etc/ipsec.d/aws.conf file which has the settings in there but that just makes my tunnel not go up when I start

Also I am able to succesfully SSH into the instance before running the command to start the ipsec service