Do You Find Love and Relationships Painful and Difficult?

Do you find yourself compromising who you are for someone you ‘love’?

I’m going to speak DIRECTLY from my heart here….because we women really need to get out of pain and get with it!

If you answered ‘yes’, then my second question is why?  Do you think you can change him so that you no longer have to compromise being who you are?  OK, if that’s the case, then why were you attracted to him in the first place?  Surely it’s not your job to change anyone – is this not a purely selfish act that can make only you feel good?  After all, who made ‘you’ right and ‘him’ wrong?

Really think about this for a second…. Will he ever really feel good about himself within the relationship, or will he ever feel good enough for you if you spend your life trying to change him?    How would you feel being with a man who constantly made you feel not good enough by trying to change and fix you?  Does this not make you feel awful, useless and literally not good enough? Arghhhh!  Personally, I’d be asking why on earth he wasn’t with someone more like the person he was trying to change you into….

So, if you’re compromising who you are, then again, why? Let’s look at this from another perspective. If you’re keeping up an act of trying to be who you think he wants you to be,  then who is he really in the relationship with?  You’re likely to feel permanently exhausted and very resentful for not feeling that you’re allowed to be yourself?  So let’s get this right…. you’re being fake, then resenting him for it….. because you think this is what he wants….. and you’d rather be in a painful, fake relationship than no relationship at all… and all because that occasional feeling of love between the bouts of pain is so pleasurable…. arrrrggghhhhh!

How utterly exhausting for everyone…..not least of all, you…..

So, how about this instead?  You just be yourself (and love who you are!) and allow him to be himself (and love him for it!)… and accept that if neither of you can feel this way in a relationship, then it simply isn’t right for either of you anyway. So wouldn’t you be better  moving on rather than trying to change who you are for the sake of being in a relationship?  But no, we cling on for dear life hoping and praying that someday he’ll change (and he may be doing exactly the same with you!)…

It’s all so painful isn’t it?  So why do we always associate love with pain?

It’s not always easy to accept that we often love our partners far too much in our relationships.  We’ve all heard the songs like ‘I can’t live, if living is without you’.  OK, well, if you say so, but WOW, how much pain is that! I hear this pain in most love songs nowadays and quite frankly, it’s totally debilitating to listen to, never mind to live out in real life…

True love is not meant to be associated with pain – it’s easy and comfortable to be yourself in a truly loving relationship – you are never second best, nor do you have to fight to be loved, nor do you ever wonder if you’re loved, nor do you ever feel out of love with yourself, or feel like you have to explain yourself away or put your own needs last. In a loving relationship with a man, believe it or not, your job is to love YOURSELF! …. the missing bits, or pain, in our relationships tend to appear when we don’t love ourselves enough, and this attracts exactly the kind of men who will hurt us or want to fix us.   In not loving ourselves enough, we actually teach any prospective partner that we need and want to be fixed, and then we spend our lives wondering why we keep attracting exactly the same kind of partners over and over again….. and the answer is, because they are generally the kind of man who will be attracted to us in the first place!  Bah humbug!

I know so many people who want to attract a wonderful, loving partner into their lives, and yet they don’t love themselves.  But here’s the thing – a person who loves themselves at a 10 will gain absolutely no satisfaction from being with someone who needs fixing – they will want to be with a partner who also loves themselves at a 10.

And ladies, I’m not talking about becoming a completely selfish monster here – all relationships are about understanding, compromise and giving from both sides…. but think about this for a second…. why do most women I know think that loving themselves last and putting their own needs behind everyone else’s is a good and selfless thing to do? Speaking my complete truth here with regard to ALL relationships, not just intimate ones, personally I find it exhausting to be around people who care only about my needs rather than their own and who slave after me as if I can’t take care of myself. It’s really exhausting – there are no other words for it. On the other hand, I adore being in the company of people who love and respect themselves – I know they will always speak their truth with me, always state their preferences, there is no false behaviour – it is a pleasure to be with them.  I know they are happy to begin with, that it’s not my responsibility to make them that way, and I know exactly where I stand with them. Always!

So, let’s have a look at your beliefs…. Do you expect to get hurt in your next relationship?  Do men always let you down? They really are all useless, aren’t they!!  In our line of work as relationship coaches, we hear this every day.  Unfortunately, if this is your belief, then this is exactly what your experience of men and relationships will be – I’d even go so far as to say that it will be impossible for you to accept a man who will not hurt you, because YOU will reject him, you really will.  Acccepting that kind of love will not fit in with your beliefs about you – this is a fact!  To you, he will appear boring because he is not hurting you – there is no pain and no challenge. Sound at all familiar?

A man will only treat you according to how you teach him he can…. if you do not love yourself 10 out of 10 (and many women I know only love themselves at around a 4 or less)…  then they need the man to ‘fill them up to a 10′ in order to experience love….  this is why the ‘infatuation’ stages of first falling in love are so mind-blowing, because we feel like a 10 for the first time in a long while, and it feels wonderful!!  It becomes an addiction…

This creates so many problems. Firstly, what a burden to place on him!  He becomes responsible for YOUR happiness!  When did he ever agree to taking that challenge on board?  If you have problems loving yourself, then how on earth do you expect him to love you more than you can?  You don’t come with a set of rules and instructions. So if you don’t love yourself, know your own needs and are able to fill them, then how can you expect him to, AND make him totally responsible for it? This is tantamount to suffocation… it really is….

In doing this, you’re also always living the entire experience of your relationship in fear – because what happens if and when he doesn’t fill you up to 10?  Those arguments really rip you apart, don’t they….?

Not only that, but to him, you’ll always come across as needy, because you’re always relying on him to make you feel good, worthy and loved rather than taking responsibility for that yourself… so your fear will come through very subconsciously in many of your actions, and certainly in terms of trusting him and in believing he loves you. Just think about it for a second – if you’re expecting to get hurt because all men are awful, then you will seek evidence for it everywhere, because if you don’t love you, then you’ll automatically have difficulty believing that he can – you simply can’t understand what on earth he’s actually in love with!  So, will you ever REALLY trust him?

And of course, if the relationship ends…. bang!  We hit 4 again, or even way below, and it feels utterly terrible – like the world has ended, like we can’t go on, even worse than we felt before he came into our life! And then of course we listen to those love songs that reaffirm how utterly worthless we are without him, causing so much pain……all because we placed so much meaning and expectation on that ‘feeling’ of being filled to a 10…. AND because we took no responsibility for creating it within ourselves…

Is the vicious circle becoming clear?….

It gets worse!

We then really, really begin to believe that we’re not worthy of love because everyone we meet treats us this way, and then…. (yes, there’s even more!)…. we take all this baggage into our next relationship with us (it accumulates!) along with an even stronger belief that all men are bad and will hurt us….

Now of course you know that you literally create your life through your beliefs and expectations. No?  Gosh!  I thought everyone knew that!

Believe it or not, a person who truly loves themselves at a full blown 10 is unlikely to feel the initial stages of ‘infatuation’ that most people go through when entering into a new relationship (well, certainly not to the same degree)….. simply because they feel this way about themselves most of the time (nice thought huh?) So it’s nothing new for them to experience love, they are not surprised that someone else can love them, they do not place responsibility for their happiness in the other person’s hands, because quite simply, they create this for themselves….

So, instead of going into a new relationship filled with immense grattitude that at least someone likes them…. they concentrate on how the relationship works for them, how real they can be within it, and how good it feels… because they know that being happy and single is better than being in a relationship that’s wrong.  In this way, the craving for the feeling of love does not form into an addiction.

This kind of relationship is easy…. it feels easy, it happens naturally, it’s not challenging…. it just slips into place….. perfectly!  No drama, no hurt, no pain, no neediness…. No changing each other, just a beautiful, pure acceptance and love of who the other person is… (and yes, he may well come across as boring compared to what you’re used to… what an incredible catch 22!)….

When a woman loves a man too much by either trying to fix him, change him, allowing him to fix or change her, by putting her own needs and happiness last and certainly after his…. then she is teaching him not to value her…. full stop!…. it isn’t even all his fault that he treats her that way, because this is what she teaches him is acceptable because it’s how she treats herself…..(it’s so important to really understand that no one can love you more than you love yourself)….

Only YOU can change this, but you have to fall in love with yourself first.

• You have to love, know and value who you are to take that ‘whole’ person into the relationship – YOU!

• You have to know your own needs, then communicate them to him so that he can share in fulfilling them. (PS. he’s not psychic!)  A man will love fulfilling his woman’s needs, because it will make him feel fantastic as a guy.  After all, men love being with a happy woman, and if they know they make you happy, then they will be drawn to you like a bee to honey and will want to make you even happier – quite the opposite of how he’s likely to feel if you’re telling him how broken he is by trying to fix him huh!

• You have to completely believe that you are worth loving, but YOU HAVE TO KNOW AND BELIEVE THAT BEFORE YOU CAN EXPECT ANY MAN TO…..

If your man doesn’t feel good about himself, what do you generally do?  Do you join him there, worry about him and then spend the day walking on egg-shells?  Do you spend your time giving him false compliments in an attempt to buff him up so that he feels better about himself?  Ask yourself – is this not actually manipulation, similar to emotional blackmail?  Anything that isn’t ‘real’ which is said or done in order to make your partner behave differently is actually manipulation.  In doing this, you’re effectively telling him that you feel he’s broken, or not capable of taking responsibility for his own emotions and well-being….

I always hated it when Andy used to walk on egg-shells around me if I was having a bad day… and I hated it even more if he used to join me in my ‘bad’ mood, taking it personally if I felt this way – this made it so much harder for me to come out of, plus it also used to make me feel guilty and responsible for putting him there too!…..arrrghhhh!  Sometimes all I wanted was to have an ‘off’ day without affecting anyone else!

Then I realised that if he chose to join me in my mood, it was actually nothing to do with me, it was in fact his choice…  so, I’d concentrate only on my own happiness and well-being, and like a weight was lifted, magic and miracles began to happen. Now if I go into a bad mood, he simply lets me get on with it and it lasts minutes – no longer does he join me there or feel responsible for me!  YAY.. FREEDOM!!!….I now find myself in great energy a vast majority of the time – we both do – because we allow each other to ‘be’…and it feels GREAT!  It took some practise though – when you’re living and working together 24/7 then you absolutely have to understand how successful relationships work and take responsibility for your own emotions, or you’d end up wanting to throttle each other!

I realised that if I was happy and took care of loving myself, and Andy did exactly the same, then it gave us both permission to be ourselves.  If he wakes up in a bad mood nowadays, I just let him know that I love him, that I’m here if he needs me (he really loves that, because it gives him so much space)… and I just ‘let him be’ whilst I get on with creating my own happiness…. Phew!  What an incredible relief for both of us….

So, after really ‘getting it’ and truly living it…. there is no pretending, no falseness, no attachment, no neediness, no resentment, no drama, no challenge, no mistrust, no fixing, no acting….. just two people being exactly who they are, and loving ‘being it’ together… all the while, being each other’s greatest teachers in self and life…. and bringing out the very best in the other…. Now THAT’S what a relationship is meant to be like!……

And all because two people love themselves…. as well as each other….

Andy and Di through their journey together

Di’s Journey – The Lessons…..

Hello fellow bloggers!  Di here…. I trust this finds you well and happy in this rather snowy weather…

I’m deeply inspired to write today, it’s been just over a year since I took the biggest leap of faith in my life.  I packed my car with my most treasured belongings, which when it came down to it, were one suitcase of clothes, my personal development books, my motivational CD’s and my Border Collie….. and drove 500 miles south to start again at the age of 40.

Did I feel the fear and do it anyway….. absolutely…in fact, I felt pretty terrified!  I left behind a home I’d built and designed overlooking mountains and sea, a well established business, 20 years worth of personal possessions, the treasured piano my Dad had built for me, all my friends, a large Egyptology collection…. literally ‘lifting’ myself out of my life of 20 years in the Highlands and plonking myself firmly into a brand new life in Warwickshire with a brand new partner.  I had no idea whether we would work or not…. It really was a leap of faith, a following of instincts, a trusting in life….. so I stepped through my fears and took that leap into the unknown……

My journey into personal development actually began 6 years ago when I reached what felt like the lowest place I could reach emotionally. I had the word ‘Victim’ clearly tattooed across my forehead.  I remember one Sunday, my mother saying to me “Right, you need to buy this new book!”, and so I went out and bought it, along with a 30 minute hypnotherapy CD.  After listening to the CD just once and reading a few pages, my body and mind felt different…. Was this exciting? You Bet!  And so my journey began…

Within one year of starting to read personal development books, instilling positive affirmations and investing time in myself to learn and grow, I fell deeply in love with myself as a person, the kind of love where you trust your own instincts and know that you can handle anything life throws at you. I remember getting out of bed one morning, glancing at myself in a mirror and catching my own eyes.  I said out loud, and it came from nowhere! “Oh my God, you can achieve anything you want with your life!”…the difference here, is that this was the first time in my life that I believed it 100%… that day I booked a hotel conference room to hold my first ever workshop…there was no going back.  My positive thinking had become part of my identity….. so, was it worth it?  YES, YES, YES!!!  It certainly changed my life!  My life’s purpose had suddenly been lit like a flame inside me that could not be extinguished…

Over the years I set up a very successful practise, which quickly developed into motivational speaking, evening classes, support group and workshops.  I felt so alive, so on fire, when I worked that the thought of not doing this full time was utterly ludicrous to me….. My enthusiasm must have come through in abundance in my work, because it took a relatively short period of time before I was able to live my dream full time….

The difference here was that I truly stepped into my future, claiming it as my own.  I believed absolutely and utterly ….nothing could stop me from living my life’s purpose…
 
I handed my notice in at my full time post of 14 years with the local government on 6 August 2007 – exactly one month before my 40th birthday.  Inside me was the belief that life begins at 40, and so it did.  My last day of being an employee and working for anyone other than myself, was 18 months ago on my 40th birthday.  I went out into the big wide world, I mean REALLY went out into the real world with the belief that no matter what happened, I could succeed with the love and enthusiasm that was living and breathing inside me …..

To me now, the only fear I have in life is the thought of lying on my deathbed many years from now, looking back and wondering why I hadn’t given myself the chance to be everything I could be…. there is simply no failure in my experience of life, even on those occasions when I have fallen…. They are only opportunities to learn, feedback to help us improve, the Universe guiding us in a different direction instead, one which we’re not quite aware of yet….If something doesn’t work for me, then I simply trust that this is the way it is meant to be… somewhere hidden within it, will be the lesson I have to learn.

Over those 6 years, I learned so much and my journey will never end – I am so excited by the thought of continually expanding my mind and challenging my own beliefs until my last breath….so far, each step of my journey has been the logical next step, overcoming fear, followed by learning all about beliefs, the law of attraction, studying the science behind our thoughts, how they effect our biological state and health as well as our mind…then how our energy connects to everything and everyone around us …WOW!  I now sense, feel and see energy around me, and can understand perfectly within just a few minutes of speaking with someone, how and why their lives are exactly the way they are.  I see wonderful things flow towards me when I’m feeling great, and I see everything come to a standstill when I feel low… Thank you Universe, for this incredible gift…

If I had planned the unfolding of my journey this way, I simply couldn’t have done it…. the story just seemed to magically open up as I gave myself to it.

The realisation that I create the outcomes in my life depending on my beliefs and how I choose to respond to any situation is so empowering to me…. no longer does life simply happen to me, it is mine to create.  I can’t always choose what will happen in my life, but I can certainly choose how I allow it to effect me, I can choose the moments where I can respond with love instead of fear or anger, and watch in amazement as to how that changes what comes back into my life.  Learning the power of forgiveness, learning how to give love in the face of hate and anger and how to learn from every situation in life, are the biggest blessings imaginable.  I no longer carry the burden of blaming anyone else for how I feel… it is literally like having a weight lifted.  When this change first occurred, my energy lifted, my head felt light, and I began to have an uncontrollable urge to extend love and give wherever I could…

The realisation that my beliefs formed the entire experience of my life, in other words, what I choose to focus became my reality, well, this is so exciting to me that I find it difficult to put into words. For instance, take 5 people, all with different beliefs, ask them to walk down any high street together, then ask them what they saw – they will all have a completely different experience of exactly the same thing depending on what they are focusing on and what their beliefs are. WOW! Focus and beliefs = reality!  The journey over these 6 years has been inspirational to me, to the point of living in awe some days, I have cried with joy on countless occasions…

And so, over this last year, my journey has stepped up a gear and gone into overdrive!  Take a very independent and positive young lady (me of course!), remove her from absolutely everything she knows….put her in a home that doesn’t belong to her, in a place surrounded by cities as opposed to mountains, no well-acquainted friends, very few personal possessions of her own, living and working with her new partner 24/7, a complete change in diet incorporating raw food and veggie juicing, all chemical-free products…..

Along with that, a wonderful little brother who is undergoing treatment for cancer, a fantastic Mum who also had to overcome cancer, and a not at all well 14 year old Border Collie who is rapidly going downhill….. all of this in one year….

So, what did I learn?. Well truthfully, it’s more a case of what didn’t I learn!…. I’m still learning and always will be, but here are a few snippets of the key points which have affected me most…

• Happiness truly is inside of you…. you can take everything you know out of your life, and you can still feel happiness…. this was a gift that I treasure, and has helped me to instil so much trust in myself.  It is all inside of me…… ‘home’ is inside of me……
• Not knowing whether I would lose my brother, Mum and little dog all in one year was something I had to handle, so the Universe provided me with the ultimate lesson in acceptance.  I learned that going into victim mode over these things was focusing the attention on me and not giving the love inside me to those who needed it most…. So I learned to give an abundance of love, rather than curl up in grief… people who need our love during these times can feel our energy, so it is kinder to give love while they are alive and to grieve after they have gone….
• I learned how to share myself with a new partner, to adapt to new ways of doing things and new ways of being…. I learned how to teach him and how to be taught by him.  I learned how to argue too!  It wasn’t an easy journey for either of us, but we gained more knowledge and understanding in our relationship than we could ever gain from any book ….we become wiser through our experiences and how we chose to handle them. It has been one amazing journey! 
• I’ve learned to stand back and observe… I now understand that when my ego is removed from a situation, I can listen, hear and respond clearly and with love….
• I remember a period when I felt particularly low for a couple of weeks and I’m horrified to say that I actually fell out of love with myself.  I learned how shocking it felt to me, how painful my body and mind felt during those couple of weeks, how difficult and undeserving I found it to accept love from anyone, yet at the same time how needy I became for my lack of love in myself to be filled by others.  Andy was quite horrified by the change in me to be completely honest! It was such a clear reminder of not only how I used to feel every day 6 years ago, but how most of my clients feel when they come for help.  Thank you Universe for that invaluable lesson…. I shan’t forget it in a hurry!
• I have learned to look at any situation and connect only with what I can learn from it…. for instance, Andy and I had an argument one night several months ago, it was a tough one!  We actually agreed to go our separate ways that night (until morning, when we made up!)…. However, I will always remember sitting in the living room with a cuppa, thinking to myself “Well, I’m 40 and homeless”, and here’s the thing…. I was unafraid.  Realising that I felt no fear about the situation was a gift that I treasure beyond words.  I truly realised how far I had come in that one moment….

There are gifts in life no matter where we look….no matter what we are going through, the gift is inside us…. it is always there, it is simply a matter of finding it and connecting with it….

Over this last year, so many amazing things have come into our lives that there are days I stand back in amazement.  With a sense of trust and no fear about the future, without any attachment to particular outcomes, I have finally learned how to truly give myself to life….

One of our close friends said to me recently “If you had set out to achieve so much over the course of the year it would have felt like a daunting task!” He was right!  I guess I’d never actually taken the time to sit down and realise how much had come to us in 12 short months…..isn’t it incredible what opens up when we give ourselves and life the chance? I could never have achieved any of this without having had the courage to step out of my comfort zone first.

Thank you Universe, for the way in which you have unfolded my incredible journey in life….

For always knowing what page needed to be turned next…..

For giving me the wisdom to learn from life, rather than to be a victim of it….

For helping me to understand the part I play in every experience of my life, and for accepting responsibility for them without blaming myself or others..

For helping me understand that my journey will never end…

Thank you for the magic and miracles, and for the wonderful people you have brought into my life… 

Thank you for teaching me how to love…

The Dangers of Office Romances and One-Night Flings

Loving Intimate Connections occur on multiple levels:

1. Physical – visual appeal, tactile, sexual, lust
2. Intellectual – admiration for an/or mutual appreciation of wit, intelligence, knowledge
3. Sense of Humour
4. Emotional – (love or fear based) from the heart, romantic, from a place of self-love
. . . . . vs.
. . . . . co-dependent, fear of being alone, validation
5. Financial – a desire or requirement for equity, contribution or provision/being needed/relied upon.
Can result in a ‘convenient’ relationship, more friends than passionate lovers
6. Passionate – shared hobbies/interests/culture, giving and sharing love and/or intimacy
7. Cultural – shared rules, expectations and beliefs around life and relationships
8. Trust and Respect – can be a healthy mutual respect, or can be an unhealthy ‘on a pedestal’ kind
of respect that is expected and not necessarily deserved or a trust that has been earned.
9. Purpose – shared passion for a vocation/contribution/charitable work. In some couples, the sense
of purpose can become focused on bringing up the children, or a sense of ‘us against the world’.
10. Spiritual – peaceful connection, energetic connection, similar level of emotional maturity and
personal growth

Other less helpful factors that tend to result in unhealthy/temporary attraction and connection include:
A. Proximity
B. Flirtation
C. ‘Forbidden fruit’, risk of being caught spices things up
D. An attraction to power and status

A great lasting relationship will be based on several of the first 10 levels of connection and more than just the physical, which often forms the initial lustful attraction. Too many people, especially women, allow themselves to fall in love (or pretend to) based on an initial attraction that won’t stand the test of time and before establishing the scope for much deeper, lasting attraction on many levels.

The positive and healthy aspects of these 10 levels are often confused with either the less positive aspects, resulting in neediness, co-dependence and unhealthy attachments.

At the office, the other factors A, B, C and D become powerful attractors in the absence of more healthy connections. Seemingly uncomplicated office flirtations and the proximity, are oiled at the office party by alcohol and exuberance.

Wishing you multiple levels of lasting love and connection. Andy

What are you teaching your children about love?

Family Dynamics shows us how the experience of Love that a child has, is the sum of the amount of love experienced between the child and its parents and the love between the parents. So, if Mum and Dad are only experiencing Love at a 2 out of ten (2/10), Dad and little Johnny are a 5/10 and Mum and Johnny connect at 8/10 then Johnny’s overall experience of Love is 15/30 – far less than you would hope for him and not a great basis from which he can experience relationships and bring his own children into the world.

Dr Patrick Dixon, author of ‘The Rising Price of Love’ states: “We now know that children from divorced homes are four times more likely to have problems with behaviour, nightmares, bedwetting, and stomach pains. They do worse in the classroom and are more prone to depression…. They are more likely to leave home early or run away, to leave school with no qualifications. They are more likely to get into early relationships, to get pregnant as teenagers, to marry early and then get divorced…. Where children have experienced several break-ups they are ten times as likely to have severe behavioural problems.”

The children of divorced parents are almost twice as likely to repeat the past that they grew up with and become divorced themselves. Some parents say “I wish I knew then what I know now” when looking back and regretting the impact of divorce upon their children.