The answer is Love. Now what is the question?

Here’s a couple of extracts from Di’s new book.

How much do you love yourself?

Do you feel that it’s immodest to love yourself?  Could this perhaps be one of the biggest limiting beliefs you hold?

There are two facts about love… the first is that no one can love you more than you love yourself.

The love you create and experience in your life will be in direct relation to the amount you love yourself.  If you do not love yourself, then how can you ever believe that anyone else can love you?  Truly, ask yourself that question, because it will be enlightening for you.  It creates a ‘push/pull’ energy.  You will ‘need’ love from others to make you feel complete, whilst rejecting it at the same time, not understanding what it is about you that there is to love.

The second fact about love, is that it will have a say in how you respond to anything. When life squeezes you, then you will respond with love, compassion and understanding if you are filled to the brim with self-love.  If on the other hand you are filled with bitterness or resentment, then with each person who responds negatively to you, instead of seeing through the eyes of love and understanding, you will see and feel their response as a personal insult, failing to see that they are dealing with their own fears and beliefs which they are projecting onto you.  This is when we choose to take every negative thing on board and allow everyone else to control how we’re going to feel on any given day… this is a very fearful place to be indeed…

Projection

One of the most amazing things is that whatever we’re feeling about someone, we will project onto that person. If you subconsciously don’t like someone, they will sense it very subtly from your eyes, the way you look at them, from your body language, and from something in your energy.  We find it very difficult to feel comfortable in the presence of someone we feel doesn’t like us, yet we’re often not quite sure how or why we know, we just do. 

I remember working with a client whose employees had a grievance against him, and he said to me ‘I’ve no idea why everyone thinks I’m bullying them, because I walk around all day at work with a smile on my face’.  However, the smile was hiding something – his energy was angry, frustrated, it came from his eyes, I felt it from him too.  Yet, trying to explain this is like trying to explain how or why electricity works.  We know it’s there, subconsciously we understand why we connect more with some people than with others, why we relish being around some people and can’t wait to get away from others.

One of the most powerful things I learned when I moved in with Andy was that the way in which he generally expected me to behave, was the way in which I inevitably ended up behaving in his company.  I was naïve to expect that I wouldn’t have to go through some ‘stuff’ after removing myself from a life and identity of 21 years, all my possessions and friends and plonking myself into a brand new life, with very few of my own things around me, into someone else’s home as opposed to my own, and into a brand new life and relationship.  Did I go through stuff… oh yes!  It was like being stripped down and having to start again.  Although I loved myself unconditionally before entering into the relationship with him, no one warns you that you’re going to have to start all over again when you go into a new relationship!  So, Andy would often wake in the morning wondering whether I was feeling good or not, and the moment he looked at me in expectancy of a possible bad mood, it was instantly created.

If on other occasions we went out and something would happen which Andy felt was likely to upset me, he would begin to behave in a manner in which this expectancy flowed from his eyes and it was actually that, not the occurrence, that upset me!  I learned very quickly that my behaviour around Andy generally reflected exactly what he seemed to be thinking about me.   These were such powerful lessons about projection for both of us…

We have now mastered the art of keeping ourselves happy, and allowing the other person to be exactly where they are, without any expectation of behaviour, or by joining the other of us in feeling bad… this is the quickest way to help those around you lift their spirits again. 

I then began to realise that I had also looked at others with expectancy in the past, resulting in my creating in them exactly the behaviour that I didn’t want!  Others would somehow read my expectations towards them in my energy the moment they came into my presence, and would then begin to behave accordingly. Each and every one of us does this regularly, however, the difference was that I began to notice it … and as soon as I noticed it, I realised that I had the power to change it!  My goodness… was I literally creating my relationships with other people simply by what I was focusing on in their behaviour?  Yes, I was! 

This was the biggest learning for me in how to diffuse a situation with love.  If someone is angry at you, or you are expecting angry behaviour from another, the way to help change the energy of the situation is to begin to look at them through the eyes of love.  When people are angry it is because they are struggling with something.  We, however, more often than not choose to see this as a personal insult.  If we choose to be understanding instead, it creates alternative behaviour in others…

So it dawned on me little by little that I was with absolute certainty creating my life with the energy I was emitting.  When I first learned about the Law of Attraction, it taught me that all I had to do was ask for something, believe it was coming and then receive it.  Basically all my thoughts became things… so if I thought about a black Mercedes, then would one inevitably appear in my driveway the following week?  No, most likely not, although a great deal of what I do think about does seem to magically flow to me. I believe that the Law of Attraction works on a much deeper level still.  It is created within our own energy – what we emit, we create.  This applies in relationships (intimate or otherwise), with animals, in job interviews, with sales… you name it!

What we are thinking about, however angry or frustrated we are, we draw like-minded people towards us.  Energy attracts like energy.  Negative people don’t enjoy being around positive people one little bit!  Not unless they’re ready to begin the journey that is… I remember when I first became so excited about positive thinking, my usual group of friends when I had loved moaning and complaining about everything soon began to resent my entering into a room, even saying ‘Oh great, here comes Miss Positive again!’… it was hurtful at the time, but a very necessary and powerful learning for my journey.  As my journey progressed I began projecting that I wanted happiness, I loved being around happy people, and they loved being around me – I had changed.  Our energies no longer matched… and with an understanding of how and why energies attract each other, it all makes perfect sense.

It is for this reason that it is absolutely essential to love yourself fully before entering into a relationship.  If you do, you will attract someone who loves their own company too… if you love your company, your partner certainly will.  Someone who loves themselves would never be attracted to someone they needed to ‘fix’ or someone whose energy drained them.  You may say this happens… but I would disagree.  The self-love would not be from a place of genuine authenticity if so.  For instance, many people take on partners that need ‘fixing’.  Now this is a sign that the ‘fixer’ gains something by ‘fixing’ another, they generally get to feel better about themselves, feel worthy, feel superior… make sense?  So yes, they may say they love themselves, but realistically if they still need this sense of stimulation to feel good about themselves, then how can that possibly be true self-love?…

I am loving this journey… sharing my truth… and saying it exactly as I see it!    ♥♫♪

From Frustration, Anger and Divorce to Authenticity, Love and Acceptance

Hi, I’m Andy Nicholson, relationship and authenticity coach and personal development trainer.

I’m living the life of my choosing, I have learned to love and accept myself, I have learned to love and accept others (although I’m not always as wonderful at this as I might like!! – I am still a work in progress).

It was not always like this…. Five years ago after redundancy and divorce, I was mainly angry and frustrated – I was not in control of my life or my emotions. I was stuck, disempowered.

Then I came to realise that I could become very empowered. I was in fact at a crossroads in my life. Before me was a blank sheet of paper, on which I could design the life that I wanted…

But what did I want? What was possible for me?

I did not know. All I knew was what I did not want. The truth is that I was proud of knowing what I did not want. I felt that it gave me direction, helped me to make choices. I even gave myself kudos for this strategy in life. In my 20s it seemed to work, I seemed to be happier than some of my peers who perhaps did know what they wanted (or thought that they did) and were angry, fearful or depressed for not achieving their desired outcomes. Some even looked up to me for doing what I did.

Then, in my 30s, after my entrepreneurial businesses had ‘failed’ I knuckled down into a career, got a mortgage, a pension, got married… I did all the ‘normal’ stuff. I felt that I did not have enough fun and took life too seriously – but I believed I ‘had’ to, I was conditioned to think like this – the good old protestant work ethic…. So I made attempts to be more fun, more outgoing, I even chose a wife who was very much a fun, party animal, extroverted, the life and soul, needed at least three expensive holidays per year…. She warned me against marrying her, as she felt that she may be too much (for me, for many men) – her statement “I’m a nightmare, don’t marry me” fell on deaf ears. I felt that I was a match for her concerns. Boy, was I deluding myself! Now don’t get me wrong, my ex-wife is a wonderful woman, we just had different expectations, a different pace, differing priorities, values and beliefs. The truth is that her life works for her. Mine was not working for me and in many ways, I unwittingly tried to use her to fix me.

So there I was, 39, uninspired by my job, divorced, directionless. At this point, I bumped into an old friend of mine. After listening to my tale of woe (I poured my heart out – dumped all my frustration onto him), he suggested that I go along to a monthly meeting. No, it was not religious, it was about personal development (PD). I’d actually come across a few ‘PD’ and self-help books in previous years, and whilst interesting and inspiring, like most people, once read, I just carried on as normal, deluding myself that I did not need to change me – I just needed the world to change and give me a break!

I enjoyed the personal development get-togethers. Some great speakers started to challenge my mind-set and my beliefs and gradually open me up to new possibilities. I also enjoyed being around people who were more positive. Of course, I believed that some of the speakers, who had achieved great things, had some special talents that I did not possess and could not possess, so I did not intend to try to emulate them. It was safer and easier that way.

Then, after 10 months of attending the PD meetings, two relationship coaches gave a talk that would cause me to change my life. I’d been separated for nearly a year. My divorce had come through, yet the feelings were still raw. I felt like the marriage had been a waste of time, effort and a lot of money. I had yet to be able to take anything positive from the experience, especially any learnings. I felt like I was likely to make the same mistakes all over again (and I was).

I had been going out on lots of dates, courtesy of match.com and Dating Direct. Initially, this was just to get me out of the marital house and have some fun – living under the same roof for 10 months whilst separated was not much fun. I quickly found that I was able to feel more like my old self when out flirting. Yet after a while, there I was again, seeking the answers and my happiness outside of me, from others – seeking recognition and affirmation.

The 2 ½ hour talk by the relationship coaches, who were married, blew me away. It challenged so many of my beliefs about relationships and challenged my very identity and behaviour as a man. I had to know more. I signed up for their four day retreat at their base in Austria. Three months later, I had the most enjoyable and eye-opening four days of my life. I loved their teachings, it all seemed to make so much sense and yet was so contrary to how I ran my life. I recognised for the first time that I possessed an awesome set of values, and a lousy set of beliefs. I was living my life according to my beliefs, out of alignment with my values – hence I was unfulfilled and frustrated.

Picture – Andrew on top of the world (well, a small mountain) in Austria.

While in Austria, I also started to recognise that only I could take responsibility for my life and achieving better outcomes and more happiness. No one could do it for me. It sounds obvious now, yet how many of us are kidding ourselves…? On the Sunday, over breakfast, whilst discussing the meaning of life… I had an epiphany!  The work of the Retreat was completely in alignment with my values. I found the Retreat owners to be inspiring and I felt passionate about their purpose in life. I wanted to help them to help others like me. Plus, I had all these business, marketing and IT skills, which their ‘cottage industry’ could benefit from – I could help them to spread the word.

So to cut a long story short, 6 months later I moved to Austria, lived and worked at the retreat for 20 months, and almost by osmosis (and by attending over 30 days of training that they offered), my outlook on life transformed. While in Austria, I still liked female attention. I dated a couple of girls and flirted with a couple of others. While I was gradually awakening to myself, I was still in some denial. I was denying my potential. Although I felt that I now had my ideal vocation, I still would not face up to what I wanted in an ideal relationship. I underestimated and under-valued myself.

After 12 months in Austria, I decided that it was time to stop playing games. It was time to claim what was rightfully mine – the life of my dreams, a life and a journey that I wanted to share with my soul-mate (whoever she was). My role in Austria was not stretching me enough and I did not feel that the opportunity to grow at the same pace would remain open to me.  I also put out my intention to meet my soul-mate and I trusted that I would find her when the time was right. This was in April 2007.

Around the same time that I went to Austria, I enrolled to train in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), a branch of psychology and personal development that is based around how the brain works and how we think and behave. NLP introduced me to the concept that we all a have wildly different values and beliefs. Along with our innate talents and learned skills, this is what makes us unique – who we are and how we behave.

Andy’s Values
2006	2008
Love Happiness Integrity Connection Growth Health Humour Passion Affection Creativity Family Freedom Abundance	Happiness Pleasure Zest for life Balance Connection Health Purpose Freedom Direction Contribution Congruence Growth Creativity

Having identified my values, I started to want to be more congruent with them and to act with integrity. This lead to two things: firstly, a desire to go back to the UK in order to create my life how I wanted it, living my purpose rather than supporting someone else’s and secondly the desire to find my soul-mate.

You can see in the table opposite how my values changed over two years. I discovered more purpose, energy and enthusiasm, placed myself my purpose and my freedom above the need to please others and seek approval. This shift in values reflected what I had learned from my mentors in Austria about ‘turning up my masculinity dial’.

Being a kind, empathetic and supportive person, I’ve never had too much trouble getting in touch with my feminine side. We all have masculine and feminine aspects to our character. Many would say that to be a balanced and whole person we have to embrace and integrate both these energies, i.e. the yin and yang.

At the end of a 10 day relationship coaching training course in Austria with 12 other people, we were each rated (by the group) on our behaviour and how we outwardly expressed ourselves in terms of masculine vs. feminine energy. This was a fascinating and nerve wracking experience!! My score came out as 59 masculine and 44 feminine. Both scores are out of 100, the theory being that we will typically spend 70-80% of our time displaying the core energy of our gender, i.e. I would typically be 70-80% in my masculine and 20-30% in my feminine. As I said, a fascinating and not un-controversial subject! Again, to cut a long story short, I reckon my energy is now more like 75-80% masculine and 30-35% feminine. This shift has definitely helped me to become more authentically myself.

This is another great example of how I have transformed my experience of life. From all of my study and learnings, I have created what I call my model of Authentic Transformation. This is not a process of re-inventing yourself, or swapping one false self, for a slightly better false self. This process of true personal and spiritual (with a small ‘s’) development is about identifying who you really are and learning the tools that allow you to be authentically you, in all situations and roles. Whilst what I learned and how I turned up my masculinity certainly helped me a lot as a single man, when it came to putting this into practise within relationships, it was not without major challenges…

Towards the end of my stay in Austria, in July 2007, I received an e-mail from one of the dating sites that I had been on a few months earlier. A lady in America had read my profile and sent me an email. I’d not been on the site for several months and my membership had lapsed. I had no desire to start a transatlantic relationship. Whilst online, I looked at who else was also online – there were only a handful of people. I immediately resonated with one of the profiles, a lady from the Highlands of Scotland. We connected and clicked straight away. I happened to be back in the UK the very next week, for the first time in a year. I cheekily invited her to fly down and meet me. She did, and the rest is history… I’d been looking for my soul-mate and I’d found her. Six months later, I moved back to the UK and Diane left her life in Scotland to come and live and work together with me. We had only spent three weeks together in those six months. The fact that we had both done a lot of work on ourselves, and were able to be ourselves without any egos, masks game playing, without the need to try to impress, made all the difference. Our story is featured in other articles.

By loving ourselves 10 out of 10, we were able to accept ourselves and speak our truth to each other without any neediness and falseness. Some people may thing that loving yourself at a ‘10’ is arrogant, egotistical, selfish or even narcissistic! It is not. In fact it is the most self-less thing that you can do. For when you are full of love, you only have love to give others – you lose the need to blame, criticise, judge, hate…

Now it may seem like I am painting a very idyllic picture and everything has been plain sailing. That is definitely not the case. Intimate relationships are one of life’s most challenging things. Not only do you have to master your own behaviour, you have to learn to do so in close proximity to another, very different being. Diane and I are very different. We seemed to accept each other in principle, there were still aspects of each other’s behaviour that we each found challenging. Whilst we share many values, beliefs and our purpose in life, our personality styles are very different. This caused us some challenges, especially living and working together 24/7. Throughout, we have remained convinced that we are soul-mates or ‘twin flames’ and we have experienced amazing connection, synergy and love.  We have had to learn new tools and insights to enable our love to flourish and achieve its true potential.

Ten months into our relationship we enrolled on a training course about the Enneagram personality ‘typing’ system. I had been aware of a variety of such systems; whilst interesting, they all seemed rather complex, confusing and hardly earth-shattering. The Enneagram was different, it dealt with the whole person, you could really identify with it. For us, it was like the missing piece of the jigsaw. It finally explained why Di and I were so different and it allowed us to understand, accept and embrace those differences. We now use the Enneagram with many of our clients.

The other missing piece of the jigsaw for most people is their fears, underpinned by limiting beliefs. Whilst working in the PD industry, I noticed ‘pareto’ at work; only 20% of people seemed to take what they had been taught and use it to transform their lives and achieve the results that they wanted. They other 80% did not – they unwittingly seemed to treat the process as an intellectual exercise, ticking boxes, perhaps becoming ‘course junkies’. When I met Diane, she was Susan Jeffers first and only ‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway®’ tutor. I now teach this incredible workshop, based on the best selling book, with Di. It is the most powerful agent of change. It is also the first step that most people need to take in their journey; a step once taken that enables anyone to play full out in all aspects of life, taking and applying the most from any other training that they do.

With these tools and experiences, we believe that we have created a framework that can enable anyone to turn their lives around, overcoming fear, limiting beliefs and unhelpful models of the world; connecting with their values, personality style, emotionality, purpose, personal responsibility and accountability. It is an holistic approach – one that can deliver both immediate benefits and a transformation that takes months rather than years and hundreds rather than thousands of £s.

So in summary, growing up and learning to take responsibility for your life is a process of:

SELF AWARENESS to SELF-ACCEPTANCE to SELF-ACTUALISATION

Self-actualisation is a term used by the famous psychologist Abraham Maslow, who created the wonderful model ‘the hierarchy of human needs’ – this is another powerful tool of self-discovery that we use. For me, self-actualisation means being the best that I can be. During this process of authentic transformation, you also learn to accept and value others and their differences. This journey can also be thought of as evolving from:

DEPENDENCE to INDEPENENCE to INTER-DEPENDENCE

When life goes according to plan, most of us learn to move successfully from dependence to independence. When life gets hard, we may become fiercely independent, not letting others in, or we may relapse back into co-dependency seemingly unable or unwilling to take responsibility for ourselves. Inter-dependence is being able to accept, cooperate and collaborate with others, learning to give unconditionally and also to be able to ask for help and to willingly receive.

Some of the key learnings from my own journey include:

•    I am way more than my fears, beliefs and alter-ego
•    No one else can do it for me; they can help me to see more clearly and find ‘my way’
•    The answers are not outside of me
•    The answer is not to seek an intimate relationship to fill me up or fill the gaps in my life
•    Be open to new learnings, new perspectives and to challenge my beliefs – constantly
•    To become free of ego, opinion and judgement
•    To accept and embrace that we are all different
•    Real love is free of fear
•    Unhelpful behaviour and unresourceful emotions are largely habitual
•    More empowering behaviour and emotions can be learned
•    We are all innately good inside. We all have a ‘higher self’

Much has been written in recent years about the importance of ‘emotional intelligence’, yet there is little practical help out there to achieve it. Everything that Di and I have learned and developed in our coaching and training business is about helping people to become emotionally intelligent, to be able to live and love with others in inter-dependence, and to live the self-actualised life of your dreams.

We are giving at talk at the ‘Starting Over Show’ in London on Sunday March 7th 2010, where we will also have a stand. Do come and see us.

Andy & Di x

www.executive-relationship-coaching.co.uk www.dimacdowall-lifecoaching.co.uk

‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway®’ is a registered trademark of Susan Jeffers, PhD and is being used with her express permission.

Life’s Most Amazing Experiences… ♥ ♫♪

Here’s a wonderful article from my amazing Diane……

Isn’t life completely amazing? I look back over the last 7 years at some of the lessons that have had such a powerful impact on the way I now embrace life. I know without doubt that I, like you, am an incredible human being, connected to everyone and everything around me, with the power to create my life.

Fear is disabling, and if it’s present in your energy, then it doesn’t matter what you want to create, whether it’s a loving relationship, a new job or a successful business – the beliefs you have which cause your fear are what will tend to expand in your life. People can often see and feel the fear in you, although they can’t always pinpoint exactly why, somehow it comes through on a subconscious level. Over the last few years I chose to step through each and every fear that held me back, changing every aspect of my life beyond recognition. The only thing that now feels fearful to me is the thought of lying on my deathbed many years from now, looking back with regret at how unfulfilled my life has been, wishing I’d had the courage to play full out and achieve my true potential. That thought is far more frightening than stepping through any fear now…

There is no failure, rejection or disapproval in life, absolutely not – all of these things are ego driven and created within our own minds. I gave up worrying about what others thought about me years ago (such a burden lifted!), and therein disappeared any concept of failure in my life. In fact, making mistakes is an essential part of growing and learning, and the only people who ‘fail’ are those who refuse to step out of their comfort zones for fear of being judged, and then ironically sit in judgement of others who step up and out. Fact – if you choose to live your life through someone else’s eyes and expectations, then you will always be in fear, and you will certainly never experience true happiness.

I learned, with astonishing impact, how much my beliefs formed my experience of life. When I told myself I could achieve something, then miraculously, I could. So I changed my beliefs and embraced every challenge. I now live my life without limits. I realised that blaming others is giving away my power and any control over my experience of life. So I chose to take full responsibility for my emotions, regardless of the behaviour of others – after all, their behaviour is their stuff and they’re quite entitled to have it, without judgement from me.

I learned that my experience of any relationship, intimate and otherwise, was a direct reflection of my relationship with myself. I realised that trying to be what I felt others expected of me was in fact, simply a form of imitation love, which could only leave me in a place of fear… because what if that imitation love wasn’t returned?

Learning how to forgive by looking back over my past and finding lessons and gifts in every experience is the most empowering gift – I learned to thank those people who had caused me pain; they had become my greatest teachers by giving me the most incredible opportunities to master my emotions. Without them, I wouldn’t be teaching today and living life to the full.

I learned just how vital it is to love myself unconditionally. The moment I began to love myself, the more love I had to give and share with others. I was also able to receive more love. But then it’s not surprising really, because no one can love you more than you love yourself. You teach others exactly how to love and treat you by how you love and treat yourself. Yet most of us think that we’re being good and kind by putting ourselves last, whilst eventually secretly harbouring resentment.

I have learned that happiness truly is inside of me… it is not created by anything on the outside. By walking away from a majority of the material possessions I owned, I realised first hand that everything can be taken away except what is on the inside. Within this experience was the most beautiful lesson in acceptance. Now, I feel no fear in my ability to stand alone in this world, knowing without doubt that I can, and will, handle anything… and it was in truly knowing that I am capable of standing alone, that I found the most beautiful relationship and realised that I was the furthest from being alone that I could ever be.

I learned how to go from being in a loving relationship with myself, into being in a loving relationship with another. It was through the ups and downs that the most beautiful and powerful lessons were learned, which ultimately strengthened us beyond words. With Andy, I learned the essence of what it takes to create a deeply loving relationship – a Soul Mate relationship – which I now know without doubt is something that we can all create, not something we stumble upon when we meet someone who makes our heart skip a beat.

Essentially, I realised with absolutely certainty that I create my life – no longer does life simply ‘happen’ to me. Those events that are destined and not within my control, well, I can choose how to respond to them – with love or with fear. I choose love now, because I see what happens when I choose to respond with fear instead.

My truth is this: – I can choose to step out of my comfort zone as often as I wish, I can choose to step through fear, I can choose to have empowering beliefs, I can choose to allow others to hurt me, I can choose how to respond to any situation, I can choose to take responsibility for my life and my emotions, I can choose to be in great energy…… I can choose to create the life of my dreams… or… I can blame others for making my life unhappy. And even as I write that last sentence, I truly trust that you will connect with how ridiculous the latter option is.

I choose happiness… and now, I cannot see any aspect of my life that I do not create. Empowering beyond words!

Di xx

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.