Tag: love and relationships

What is Emotional Abuse?

Physical abuse is fairly easy to diagnose, while on the other hand, emotional abuse is more vague and can be confusing for someone who is not experienced in determining what is emotional abuse.

Physical abuse and emotional abuse share the same cycle of abuse. In this way, they are similar, though emotional abuse is often confused with difficult communication which is a necessary component in a successful relationship. It is important (non-abusive and respectful of the relationship) to understand what constitutes emotional abuse.

The effects of an emotional abuser often go unnoticed at first and build over time in a relationship, until it finally dawns on the victim that emotional abuse has occurred. Also, it is so easy to jump to a conclusion when your partner suddenly says or does something that you don’t like, then to accuse them of emotional abuse. Doing so would be a form of emotional abuse. ‘Ere the need to have your wits about you and know what is and what is not emotional abuse.

What is Emotional Abuse?

Emotional abuse comes in basically four categories, disrespect, controlling, accusatory, and isolative.

Disrespect

Disrespectful emotional abuse includes an underlying tone which threatens how you feel about yourself, is often critical, makes you feel valueless, or humiliated. Some of the verbal tools used by the emotional abuser may include words like, stupid, idiot, or retard.

They will assault your character, call you childish, or when they don’t like what you’re saying or doing, challenge you to, “act like a grownup,” suggest you, “put on your big boy pants,” or, “man up.”

They will take pot shots, embarrassing you in public, are sarcastic, insulting, and make you the brunt of their jokes in public. Off-screen, they assure you they were just joking, so you shouldn’t take it personally. After all, he or she was just having fun (at your expense).

They are patronizing, like, “Oh don’t worry your little self. No one would expect too much from you. You’re just doing the best you can with what you have.” Possibly accompanied by an eye-roll or some other gesture which communicates exactly how disrespectful they are being.

They push your buttons, to make you fly off the handle, then accuse you of lacking sanity or self-control.

And the worst of them are loud. They raise their voices, assert threatening postures, and/or other body language to intimidate or threaten you.

Controlling

Threats are a huge component for controllers. They will threaten to take off with your child, harm you (fully awake or in your sleep), your family, your friends, or pet, and if that doesn’t work, they may threaten to engage in self-harm or threaten to commit suicide to get you to comply with their demand, or threaten to leave and abandon you.

They need to know everything about you all the time; what you’re doing, where you’re doing it, in the presence of whom, and for how long. Often demanding a minute by minute play by play reporting. Any lack of verifiable evidence is cause for suspicion and false accusations, putting you on the defensive.

They are paranoid, always suspicious, and are susceptible to spying, digital monitoring, may even demand access to your phone, social media accounts, browsing history, and email.

They make promises they have no intention of keeping, and make decisions without consulting with you, which may include making plans, canceling plans, making financial decisions, or any other method of usurping their control over you with no regard for you or your input.

They go on and on, lecturing you to utter boredom, when all you can do is hear the dull roar of a sociopathic monologue, then they get mad and attack you because you’re not paying attention.

Controllers bark their demands, then expect you to “snap to,” in complete compliance without questioning their authority.

Expect controllers to suddenly blow up or emotionally explode when you forget the slightest detail of any demand they may have had (then brace yourself for another lengthy lecture or a laundry list of threats).

Trying to accommodate a controller might be enough to drive you crazy because they will be so constant and relentless with their demands and expectations, that no normal person could possibly keep up with it, which makes you inadequate in their eyes, and they won’t be shy about letting you know that you let them down, reminding you of your shortfalls periodically along the way.

Accusatory

You are to blame for everything while they remain superior and flawless. Better get used to everything being your fault.

They excel at being green monsters of jealousy with the potential to go into an accusatory rage because you are an unfaithful cheater and cannot be trusted.

They will flip any unfortunate circumstance to be your fault, even if it was clearly their doing that presented the difficult situation.

Do not accept any responsibility from the accusatory emotional abuser because they never do anything wrong. If it’s not you they are blaming, it’s someone or something else. They are always the victim.

If you try to get them to own up to their abuse, oh no, it’s not their being abusive, it’s you who is the abuser. Wake up and get it straight.

You will always be indebted to them so they can use guilt to persuade you to comply because of what they did for you, and you owe them.

And if you caught them red-handed in the act? Nope. Didn’t happen. They weren’t even there and had nothing to do with it. It’s all just your jealous overactive imagination and unbridled insecurity which makes you crazy and delusional.

Isolative

They will create a social vacuum for you to exist within, where nothing else exists except for you and the emotional abuser. Say, “goodbye” to family and friends because the emotional abuser wants you totally dependent on him or her for any of your needs.

And your needs will never be as important as the emotional abuser’s needs, so don’t expect many of them to be provided because his or her needs will always come before yours.

The emotional abuse will be framed in a construct of militaristic restraints. You will be expected to comply with your emotional abuser’s demands, or else. Not unlike an abusive Drill Sergeant, you are expected to, “Jump when I say jump.” And your response better not be, “Why?” It better be, “How high?” followed by your body being in the air or else you will suffer the consequences.

Alternatively, the isolative emotional abuser will isolate you from him or her, punishing you by cutting you off, ignoring you, refusing to communicate with you, or withholding positive attention, intimacy, or sex.

If you try to express your concerns, they will belittle you, accuse you of being needy or immature. If you react by responding emotionally or be moved to tears, they will not acknowledge your feelings and ignore or act annoyed by your being emotionally expressive, which is clearly unacceptable behavior.

What is not emotional abuse?

Emotional abuse is not your partner’s response which is not what you want to hear. Everyone is different, we all have our own ideas about what we want and how we expect to be treated in a relationship. You must respect your partner’s right to express him- or herself in any way that works for him or her.

Disagreeing, arguing, even fighting amongst couples is not necessarily emotional abuse even though it can cause you emotional pain. Difficult conversations even fighting are necessary parts of a deeply personal relationship between two different people.

When someone asserts how they feel, which may be blunt, and can potentially hurt your feelings, try not to take it personally. Everyone is entitled to feel how they feel, and you should feel blessed that they feel safe enough to let you get access to these deepest parts of them which are probably hidden from others in their life.

Yelling does not indicate emotional abuse, although a hysterical emotional outburst would probably be a tool used by the emotional abuser. In a healthy relationship, if someone temporarily loses emotional control, a healthy couple will take a break, allow the emotions to calm, then talk it out.

Raising one’s voice can be a learned method of communication for expressing one’s self. As this person grows, he or she might be able to learn new methods of communication as you grow as a couple and learn more positive forms of communication.

Unless it is a threat used to control you, it is not emotionally abusive to end a relationship. This happens and should be honored, with as much grace as your ability to muster, even though it may feel as if it is devastating.

Healthy communication is the holy grail of successful relationships.

Trust and the Past

The longer you’re with a partner or get to know a potential partner, the more you will discover about their past. Even though you know the past is the best predictor of things to come, people do change. So, it’s important to note the past and look for clues that they have changed since then, or not.

Haven’t you done things in the past, that have taught you valuable lessons? Haven’t you changed since then? We all learn lessons from mistakes and sometimes their effects are life-changing.

Sometimes people do not learn the lessons and continue to make the same mistakes over and over. That’s why you must keep your wits about you and be observant enough to see if your partner has changed. Even so, you need to know that he or she is not likely to have a relapse.

You want to look for patterns that repeat themselves.

How they talk about their ex may be a clue about what you may be facing. If they have nothing good to say, chances are when they are done with you, they will have nothing good to say about you.

On the other hand, if they are transparent about the things that went wrong and the part that they played in a past relationship, this is a good sign the next relationship (potentially yours) may benefit from the lessons they learned from their past relationship.

If they intimate details about physical abuse in their former relationship (even if they make it sound like a joke) this may be something to take note of. If it looks like he or she loses his or her cool and has a tendency to fly-off-the-handle, this may indicate trouble down the road. You might want to think about ways to protect yourself or avoid the situation altogether.

You will never have to tolerate and abuse in any relationship. Thankfully, in our modern day and age (unlike in the days of our grandparents) you can simply opt out or an abusive relationship and move on.

Some things that you learn about your partner may feel like a bigger deal than they are because of fear, jealousy, or deeply buried wounds that you’ve collected over time. Do not make your potential or current partner pay the price for someone else’s sins.

You might get a twinge of fear or are emotionally triggered because an ex- had more previous partners than you and moved on too quickly for your taste and hurt you in the process. That doesn’t mean that everyone who has had a lot of partners in the past isn’t going to love you incredibly. If you think you’ll have a tendency to overreact, best just let it be.

Be careful about the questions you ask, and if you don’t like the answers, try not to be too judgmental if you don’t get the answers you expected. Allow your partner to have the available bandwidth to be honest without feeling that the (potential) relationship might be put at risk for the sake of openness and honesty.

What if your partner had a checkered past or a previous occupation or vocation which might be questionable? You might jump to the conclusion that such a person might be untrustworthy. Not necessarily. Being able to be open and honest about your past is a key ingredient in successful relationships. And like it or not, people are not just simple two-dimensional beings. They grow, change, and evolve if given the opportunity. Some more successfully than others, but it happens all the time.

It’s very rare that anyone stays exactly the same all their life, though some are consistently predictable much of the time.

When you’re talking about the past, you can get furious about exes. You can ask (maybe start by telling something about your’s first, a bit of quid pro quo) but be careful not to confuse that twinge of insecurity for your intuition. It’s a common mistake that anyone could make.

It could rob you of any potential you and your partner might have had. Keep your fears in check.

Trust is the most important thing between you. If you want it, you must think about giving it first. Set the example and given the opportunity your partner will rise to your level of trust.

You need to figure out what you can and can not tolerate. This is your life.

Love like it’s the only thing that matters because it is.

What Can You Do if You Catch Your Partner Lying?

Everyone lies. We do it for all kinds of reasons; to make life easier on us, on those we care about, on the behalf of someone else, to be polite, and to outright deceive and defraud on purpose. But what can you do if you catch your partner lying?

You love and trust your partner. Without trust, where is the love? When you catch your partner lying, you feel as though you’ve been stabbed in the back, punched in the gut, or so disrespected or disregarded that you don’t know if you can think straight. What can you do?

Nobody will deny you your right to feel bad about being lied to, that’s a given. We’ve all been in the same boat, for who of us has made it through life without being lied to of deceived. Sometimes people can be harmfully deceitful without saying a word, as is the case of lying by omission.

Yes, even not saying anything is in order to cover something up or avoid being truthfully honest (lying by omission) is a venial sin. It doesn’t mean you have to be rudely open and honest, just to tell the truth, and if you love someone, be honest lovingly. Tell the truth in a way that respects your partner. Be gentle and speak your truth with grace and love, even if it is difficult. Nobody expects you to be perfect.

If you’ve caught your partner lying, don’t sweep it under the carpet or try to gloss it over. Dishonesty in a relationship will cause your trust to rust, and leads to the erosion of your love, especially if you’re harboring the truth about your knowledge of the deceit or dishonesty and not saying anything about it (lying by omission). Even you are a guilty enabler by engaging in the dishonesty.

Get it out in the open. Relationships go through periods of varying levels of comfort and discomfort, it’s the nature of two people sharing one life. It is all part of the growth process. If there is no conflict, there can be no growth, which leaves you with stagnation. Where is the life in that? You might be able to get by, but you can forget thriving in a relationship which is a cesspool.

Grab your grown-up skivvies and get ready for some gentle conversation about your awareness that something’s not adding up. As in all difficult conversations, create a safe space to frame the conversation and avoid being accusatory. This is about creating an environment where its safe to be honest. Avoid jumping-in, interrupting, or otherwise preventing your partner from fully sharing. Take notes on paper, if you have to, but let them speak their truth in peace.

Let them say whatever it is, without interruption, or else he or she will get defensive, and the flow of open communication will stop if your partner feels like he or she needs to take the defensive position.

Once you’ve actively heard what your partner needs to say, and you’ve affirmed that you’ve understood the key points by paraphrasing them back to him or her, now your partner owes you the same respect to hear what you have to say about it.

Check with your heart and center yourself. Take a cleansing breath, then speak your heart in love. Again, be honest, but try to avoid being harsh. If your feelings have been hurt, say so, but try to use words that are not abrupt or frightening. Remember you are expressing how you feel, so start your sentences with “I,” or, “I feel like,” and avoid starting any statement with, “You.”
Trust your intuition. When you feel like something just isn’t right. In most cases, something isn’t right. If your partner gives a perfectly good explanation, and it doesn’t feel right, you probably know by experience that something has most always been amiss when you’ve had feelings, like that, in the past.

Deciding whether you can live with this or not is only something you must decide for yourself. Everybody’s different, and we all can tolerate different degrees of what our partners are allowed to do or not do within the confines of our relationships.

Even though magazines and tabloids will gibe you a list of do’s and don’ts in black and white, there really is no strict guideline for what is and is not acceptable in a successful relationship. Each couple must figure out for themselves what works for them.

Forgiveness in a loving relationship goes a long way. For the repeat offender, you might think about negotiating new paradigms for the expansion of your relationship, or if you are unable to come to a workable compromise, it might be time to look for a better match for your true love to emerge.

It’s your love life. It’s up to you.

Love, love, love. Love like it’s all that matters because it is. And if you dare, think about loving unconditionally.

I love you no matter what.

Relationship Repeat Offender

Your partner has done it again, and here you are finding yourself caught up in yet another round of the same ol’ thing that you got in an argument the last time. You ask yourself, why are we always fighting over the same old thing(s)? What can you do about your relationship repeat offender?

Here you are again, standing your ground and willing to risk all over this issue that keeps on coming up and simply will not go away. It’s as if your partner refuses to listen, or doesn’t care about your feelings at all, which makes you even more upset, angry, or outraged.

If you can think back to when you were a child, you will probably remember your parents arguing over some of the same issues over and over again, too. Generally, this is where you learn how to act in relationships, and even if you’ve vowed never to be in a relationship like your mom and dad, here you are.

You don’t do it on purpose, but subconsciously, you’ve set your relationship the same way, because it “feels like home.” I know, it’s bizarre, but it’s perfectly normal.

Pattern Interrupt

Once you realize this, though, you can choose to approach the relationship repeat offender scenario differently. When you see this issue coming up and feel your anxiety building, you can remember what it was like watching your parents and choose a different tactic.

What if in your recollection of your parents’ recurring argument, if you could go back in time and play the part of either of your parents, how could you have done it better? This may give you an idea of what you might try differently in the present.

Taking this momentary reflective pause gives you a chance to apply a new approach to the scenario as an alternative to just launching into your normal responsive reaction when you’re triggered (and you already know what to expect from that), thereby interrupting the old pattern.

When you try a different approach, you open up a world of possibilities for a different outcome, a better result from your previous style of approaching this issue. Everything is not always black and white, and you’d be surprised how much closer you and your partner could be if you throw in a dash of tolerance or compromise into the mix.

If your first line of defense is to post up and ready for battle (or flee) this is learned behavior which you have embraced as a survival skill, but really, you are far better than that. In every relationship, there needs to be a degree of openness, honesty, and vulnerability.

By taking a different approach and allowing other possibilities, you may have eliminated the relationship repeat offender altogether. You have the power to do this.

If you really want to grow in love and compassion in your relationship, you must be willing to lay down your sword and shield, be present and stay in the game. If your normal response is to withdraw or leave the room, stay and play it out. This is your life we’re talking about.

I know you’ve probably heard it before, something like,

You have to love yourself
before you can truly love anyone else.

As ridiculous as it might sound, it’s true. If you’re constantly looking for acceptance or approval from your mate, you will be periodically (or continually) fighting for validation. If you are full of love for yourself, you don’t need validation as much from your partner, or anyone else for that matter. Sure, it’s nice when you are recognized, complimented, or even applauded, but you don’t need it because you are in such a good, loving space regarding yourself.

This also changes the way you view disrespect from your partner (or anyone else for that matter). If someone disses you, and you have a healthy love for yourself, you can simply shrug it off as no big deal, and have compassion for whoever verbally assaulted you, because you realize they are acting out of their own discontent and you can have compassion for them, for they are only doing the best they can with what they have (as are you).

Love yourself. And the next time you get triggered and feel a battle coming on, put down your weapons, stay in the game, take a breath and ask yourself, “How could I do this better?” Then, try something different.

See what happens when you allow infinitely new possibilities to unfold in the loving space you chose to inhabit and share with your partner.

My Partner Just Doesn’t Get It

What goes through your mind on that day that you wake up, look at your partner, and say to yourself that he or she, “Just doesn’t get it.” Every day you are getting more and more clear about your life, what turns you on, gives your life meaning, and makes your heart sing, then think to yourself, “My partner just doesn’t get it.”

You might see your profession as an extension of who you are deep inside, fulfilling your life’s purpose but your partner just thinks you work a boring job that he or she couldn’t possibly see him-or-her-self doing for any amount of money, and truth be told, you’d do it for free because you love it so much.

You know that what you do every day is making a contribution and helps to make the world a better place.

The most romantic idea in the world would have your partner loving the same things that you do with the same degree of love and admiration. Very little makes you feel so loved. Time passes, people grow and change, certainly, both of you have.

Just because your partner does seem to care about your passion(s) in this life, is not necessarily an indication that he or she isn’t interested in you.

Regardless of whether your partner takes an interest in your passion, it’s more important that you find those things that turn you on, do them, and fund fulfillment within yourself for being true to yourself, your calling, and purpose. Let your partner be aware of what you’re doing. If he or she doesn’t respond with glee, do not be discouraged.

Of course, we all think it would be nice to be supported and uplifted for doing the things which are more meaningful, because we invest our heart, mind, and soul into these projects, often for little or no remuneration, so any show of support would be appreciated, but not necessary.

In a relationship, there should be a cooperative reciprocal support for each other’s interests (which there probably is in the beginning). Then, as you both grow and change, it can fade over time, and that’s okay as there are different strokes for different folks. If your partner is not supporting your thing, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be supportive of his or her thing.

As always, you should be giving the love you desire. So, support him or her the way you would like to be supported, maybe your partner will reciprocate, if not, keep doing your best.
Stay true to what is meaningful, important, and pleasurable for you. Keep discovering your own innate skills, talents, special abilities, and passions. Out of these, try focusing on the three that have the most meaning for you at the time.

Feel free to experiment, try them on, and see how they fit. Look in the mirror and see what you feel like (metaphorically) with this new attribute. The most important thing is to check to see if it pleases you. If your partner doesn’t appreciate it, notice it, or seems disinterested, that’s okay.

Try not to show off or seek your partner’s approval. If he or she notices it, fine. If not, this too is perfectly acceptable. Give him or her enough sacred space to work on their own stuff,

If you’ve awakened to a new understanding, awareness, or state of being, you can briefly mention it. If there is no interest in it, simply file it away with your truth intact. You cannot persuade or convince someone to see from your point of view. To do so completely is next to impossible. Attempting to force someone to see it borderlines abuse.

Your first responsibility is your life, your growth, and expansion. You were born with all the permission and power to achieve your highest and best, living a better life, your best life, and make the world a better place. The support or encouragement of your partner is not necessary.

Stay true to your path and keep checking in with yourself to see if you’re on track.
Unlimited possibilities are within your reach, waiting for you to ride the wave to the most exciting and fulfilling life.

And if you’re feeling as though, “My partner just doesn’t get it,” that’s okay.

Keep going…

When Love Dies in a Marriage

You got married with the best intentions. When you got married you vowed to love each other for life, but something happens after you’ve signed your affirmation of love on the dotted line, the love you had begins to fade. What can you do when love dies in a marriage?

Love is like an ocean, with ebb and flow. There are good times, bad times, and most of the time you just sort of modulate within the “okay” sense of being neither good nor bad, just somewhere in between, finding the marriage somewhat tolerable.

Like incoming waves, your marriage is visited by incoming waves of love which nourish the relationship. Every seventh wave (as each relationship is different so is the time differential between waves of love) is good enough to make you feel good and strong enough to stay in the love cycle for another round.

The only problem as you stay in this cycle of love waves, the incoming waves of love decrease in their volume as your ocean of love evaporates and can dry up completely. This is when love dies in a marriage.

When your love has died, what’s the point of being at the beach at all? You think both of you would be better off just to cut your losses and go your separate ways, and the thought of revisiting another love beach is either vastly appealing or sounds like an ominous devastating idea inviting dissatisfaction and broken heartedness.

If you choose not to throw in the beach towel of love, you could alternatively choose to love again.

You can infuse your marriage with love just by being willing to step out in faith and recreate the environment of past love and reinvigorating your marriage by acting as if your love never waned.

All you have to do is to remember the way you felt and think about the things that you did when you felt you were overwhelmed by love’s magic spell. Back when you were in the throes of love, you did different things than you do today, You may have done anything for the object of your spouse. All you wanted to do was to express your love and feel the love emanating from your partner.

By doing the things that you did when you were “in love,” even though it doesn’t feel the same or like you’re just going through the motions, you will notice the feeling of love returning to your heart and countenance.

When you feel like love has died in your marriage, remember this…

Love is not dead. Love is, always was, and will forever be. Love is eternal.

You can keep your love ocean full and vibrant by turning on the tap of unconditional love.

Unconditional love is such a high concept and it is frightening for the average mortal to even consider. What? To love someone no matter what?

To say to someone, “I love you no matter what you say, no matter what you do,” just sounds like you’re inviting disrespect, pain, suffering, and abuse. You imagine nothing good could come from that because everyone is always out to get you or take everything from you and victimize you.

Just the idea of giving unconditional love, even though you want to be loved in this way, can make you feel angry.

Sounds like a lot of fear, and fear is the opposite of love. There is no love in fear, but often there is fear in love, and love cannot be raised to its highest form (unconditional love) in fear.

It starts with you. If you can allow yourself to tap into the unlimited source of unconditional love (God), you can have so much love for yourself that it overflows into the world around you.

In this state of unconditional love you can fully love anyone, even your loveless spouse, so much that you don’t require receiving any love in return. One person in unconditional love can sustain an otherwise loveless marriage indefinitely.

A common response of a loveless spouse in a marriage with one partner loving unconditionally is to reciprocate love, leading to a profoundly loving marriage between the two.

Love not only returns to the marriage, but it surpasses any love that has gone before. This is the power of true love which is unconditional.

Think about these things and when love dies in a marriage know that it does not necessarily indicate the marriage is dead. Love is all around and true love is lying in wait, ready to breathe new life into any relationship, eliminating fear, if you dare to release it.

Want to learn more? Consider attending an Awakening to True Love seminar near you

See you at the Soulmate Wizardry event.

Cheaters Have Nothing to do with You

It’s easy to internalize your frustrations if you’ve been with a partner who has been unfaithful. Cheaters have nothing to do with you. If you’re monogamous and committed to someone who is a cheater, when he or she has left, you might start questioning yourself. “What did I do?” or alternatively, “What’s wrong with me?” amongst other self-deprecating questions. When the truth is it’s about the cheater, not you.

Cheaters are gonna cheat. That’s just the way it is. You can change a cheater, it’s just the way they are hard-wired. Can a cheater change into a loving, caring, monogamous, and faithful partner? Yes. But you cannot change them. Only the cheater can change his or her life that drastically. Nothing you can do can change them.

Your first instinct is to blame yourself because you lack the full lovingness for yourself, so you question your worthiness, as all your insecurities rise to the surface, making you feel worse and worse about yourself, while the happy-go-lucky cheater is off on his or her next conquest.

Nothing is wrong with you. You are perfect in every way, only you do not realize it or know that all the love you seek resides within you waiting to be set loose in all its power and glory.

Lacking this true love from within, you will submit yourself to the endless abuse of not feeling as though you are not enough, questioning your authentic beauty, or over criticizing your income, weight, choice of apparel, hairstyle, mannerisms, possessions, family, beliefs, or any other endless possibilities that might make you feel less than worthy.

The choices other people make, the things they do, have nothing to do with you. You are for more inconsequential in the lives of people who have little or no regard for you than you might think. People just say or do stuff because their lives have led them to say or do this or that. That is all.

If it wouldn’t have been you, it would have been someone else.

You are not responsible for the life your ex- has lived up to this point and you can never know what is going on inside someone else’s head or heart.

In most (if not all) cases of infidelity or the inability for someone to make a long-term commitment comes from a lifetime of insecurity, fear, and/or abuse, every detail of which could never be fully known by any other person.

It’s up to you to look after your own feelings and sense of worthiness. You need to not let anyone have control over how you feel. In this way, you can reclaim your power from anyone who has threatened your otherwise sense of wellbeing.

If you let others to be responsible for how you feel, you would be just like your ex- who is constantly needing someone else to make him or her feel good. And when you make someone else responsible for how you feel, it works, but not for long.

If someone doesn’t like you the way you want them to, don’t feel bad. Be grateful that you found out when you did, because it could have been much worse had your relationship been allowed to continue in its dysfunction.

Your value is not determined by anyone or anything outside of yourself. Your preciousness comes from the love within yourself. Allowed to grow within yourself your love can expand and overflow to others and the world around you.

Without this unlimited source of love enveloping you, the best you can do is to mitigate your emotional state, with all its contradictions and inconsistencies, the best you can by applying emotional bandages (other people and what they think of you).

You are perfect, with all your imperfections, just the way you are.

You were born in love, full of love, and worthy of love, for you (in your truest essence) are love personified. Even if no one else recognizes your sacred divinity, it still remains true; you are pure love.

You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, ever.

You love yourself enough to walk away from any relationship which is not in alignment with your highest and best.

You and your love is all the love you need, and when the right person shows up with a vibrational frequency with is alignment with your highest and best, nothing can stand in your way.

Great love is on its way to you.

Romantic or Unconditional Love

Two people meet, fall in love, pledge their vows of love to each other, and live happily ever after. This is the romantic aspirations of most people who seek romantic love in the world today.

There are many forms of love which are active in our society. Love is used on a wide spectrum including many possibilities and representation. On one end of the spectrum you can love chocolate cake, and on the other, a desperate heartbroken young child can find solace in his or her mother’s embrace accompanied by the speaking of the words, “I love you.”

All love is good love and the more there is of it in our world, the better the world can be. For a moment consider there might be a difference between romantic love and unconditional love.

There is nothing better than entering a relationship in love with the expectation that it would last forever. There is an instinctual part of you that wants to go through life with someone by your side. Having to decide who that might be only once, sounds like a dream come true.

When you are attracted to someone or something, this is an expression of your flesh, creating a desire for it whether it be a particular type and color of a car or a prospective mate. Certain hormones create a chemical reaction in our brain which makes us love one thing over another.

The love chemical reaction fades over time and so do the feelings of love. That’s why your admiration of that new car is often replaced by resigning yourself to drive the darned thing, while you long for another car that is more appealing; one that causes your love chemistry to kick in. And so it is with romantic love.

Romantic love projects expectations on your partner. If they look and act in a way that is in line with your expectations of him or her, your love is sustained. If not, you are disappointed and may respond negatively, potentially giving way to disapproval or anger.

Unfortunately, romantic love is based on this expectation and the challenges you face with being shocked by the stark realization that the object of your affection has failed or is unable to meet your expectations.

Instead of fostering togetherness, as in the two of you becoming one, romantic love separates each of you into a my-way vs your-way opposition fostering a push-pull power struggle which can never be won.

Romantic love will have you endlessly attempting to make your partner fit your perception of how he or she should be based on your expectations, with little consideration for who your partner really is in his or her own natural state, or respect of individual potentialities which are yet to be realized.

Romantic love is perpetually fueled by fear of loss, which keeps you looking for clues of potential loss, and as a self-fulfilling prophesy, that which you seek appears, either by using your overactive imagination, or real-life circumstances, which you may have called into being by your fear.

Fear leads to disrespect, suspicion, loathing, and even hatred, when you are jolted into the reality that your love cannot be sustained by whom or what you believed could be trusted to fulfill your expectations of love. This dichotomy creates a violent cognitive dissonance which rocks your world and wreaks havoc on your emotional wellbeing.

Unconditional love, on the other hand, is quite the contrast to romantic love, in that there is no my-way vs your-way opposition keeping you separated. There is no right way, there is no wrong way. There is just you and your partner in love inclusive or all respective possibilities.

This is only possible by allowing true love to flow from the source of all life which does not impose expectations. This true love loves purely, without expectation. It does not look for flaws, nor does it seek to punish. Unconditional love loves regardless; no matter what you do or what you say.

Unconditional love can only be expressed if your heart is full of love for yourself, and to the degree to which you possess this kind of love for yourself, it can overflow into the life of your beloved.

Of course, in unconditional love, there will be differences which appear, but these are allowed to be expressed in love, and you may talk openly about whatever comes up in the contrast of your love experience with openness and honesty, allowing growth or allowing what is to simply be as you move forward.

You were created by this unconditional love source and the potential for it resides in every cell of your body. You can let loose this unconditional love and let it permeate you and the world which surrounds you at any time, if you can allow yourself to consider the possibilities.

Unconditional love is the most powerful force which can be wielded by any man, woman, or child and is more powerful than anything else. It exists in all life, everything, and without it, nothing would be.

God blesses all love unconditionally, from the romantic love looking to be negotiated and contractualized between two, and the unconditional love. Love is love, and everything is love.

God bless you on your journey in love.

See you at the Soulmate Wizardry event.

No Love? You’re Why

Why is it so hard to wrap your head around unconditional love? No doubt, you want unconditional love. You want someone to love you no matter what, but when it comes to your loving someone else, it immediately turns to conditional love, or, “I’ll love you if…”

It might surprise you to discover that if you have no love, you’re why.

You are the reason you are not able to engage in unconditional love because it takes two; your partner and you. The you that keeps all the love you’ve ever imagined just beyond your reach.

Some people refer to this you as “ego.”

Your ego looks at love as a means to an end, a method to get whatever it is that you want, and to provide you with the sense of safety and security that you longed for as a child but rarely, if ever, received from your parent(s).

Chances are, you’ve looked for love in the past and it didn’t turn out the way you thought it would. You may have suffered a few of love’s wounds along the way, and your ego will collect every possible indicator culled from your past to prevent you from falling victim to love’s evil again.

This results in your gathering many (oh, so many) red flags as a method to protect you.

In my Awakening to True Love seminars, we discuss that unconditional love, the only true love, is about the giving of love. It requires nothing from those to whom it is given. True love is a free gift, without expectation of receiving anything in return.

To love unconditionally is to love no matter what you do, no matter what you say.

“Oh, hell no!” your ego shouts out.

Therein is the proof of it.

You want unconditional love, but your ego will not allow you to give it, therefore you can never have true love.

The ego can dress up a romantic affair to make it look and feel like love in an effort to extract a feeling of love or safety and security, but this illusion is not sustainable for long.

As soon as your ego feels the threat of not being able to sustain this love feeling, it will initiate various and sundry irritations, inconsistencies, conspiracies, suspicions, and demons to threaten your sense of wellbeing.

Your ego does not see it as your failure to connect deeply with this person, instead, it will do everything possible to make your partner the focus of your irritation and will exaggerate circumstances and your feelings until you are rescued from this relationship.

The love that you felt previously turns to fear and angst.

True love, your true love, will never come from someone else, it is drawn from an endless well of love which emanates from your heart, which is filled in unlimited capacity by the God of the universe.

If you can get a grasp of this, your ego will post up to guard the gates of your heart against you, with thoughts of “this is preposterous” because “How could the love you’ve been looking for your whole life be inside of you?”

To engage in true love is to surrender your “self” (your ego) and all that is to unconditional love.

In this state of being, all you are is love. Love is all that you see and feel no matter what. Even in the most desperate of circumstances, you can rise above it, see it for what it is, allow all the situations and players simply to be without judgment or blame; and love them and what is.

You can tell if you are in true love by the way that you feel. If you feel uncomfortable, fearful, at risk, or exposed to potential peril, you are not in the true love state. Unconditional love transcends that which is presented to us as a “cover story” or impending doom and gloom.

As more of us surrender to unconditional true love, a shift happens which resonates throughout the universe. At some point, this unconditional love will envelop our planet, and those who do not surrender to unconditional love will no longer be able to thrive.

Non-lovers will lose their power, fear will no longer serve them as a weapon, and they will find meaning in surrendering to true love, or they will deteriorate, and we will love them unconditionally, however they decide to live out their days.

For me and my house, we will love unconditionally.

See you at the Soulmate Wizardry event.

Flexibility Love and Stability

The 7 Phases of Love depicts the love relationship which exists between most mortals. It is used as a text for lovers, relationship counselors, and coaches to give you reference points which are common among love relationships, even so, there is a great deal of variation among love relationships which enter offices seeking love therapy.

The problem with most love relationships which persist over time is that growth and change are not factored into the confines of the love relationship.

At the outset of your love affair, you and your beloved agreed to a certain set of parameters which represented each of your wants, needs, and desires of your hearts. You carve these love commandments in stone and hold each other accountable.

This is all well and good if you are in love with a robot and you are also a robot, otherwise it is destined to be problematic because people do change, and in the best-case scenarios they grow, and growth necessitates change.

Flexibility

The most successful love relationships are constructed with enough flexibility to account for growth and change, for not to presents the couple with a rigidity which is more likened to a prison sentence, or contractual agreement, which is all but impossible to maintain over time, unless one or both parties are willing to sacrifice their own growth and expansion.

Those who willingly acquiesce to resign themselves to a contractual relationship, in a sense agreeing to the long-term martyrdom of self, do so out of fear, and are likely not to achieve must satisfaction in life but are willing to sacrifice for some degree of stability.

In most cases, I see it as a matter of priorities when in the process of engaging in the love relationship.

While many people have a certain set of priorities to maintain in their lives, there are two which seem to impact love relationships more than others, and they are

Love and Stability

If these priorities are mismatched it can invite a lot of complications in the love relationship due to incompatibility. Both partners can have love and stability as their top two priorities, but which one comes first can have a huge impact on how the relationship is approached.

For instance, if stability comes first, then you will not be able to fully love until your needs for safety and security (whatever that might look like because it’s different for everybody) are satisfied.

On the other hand, if love comes first, then you will not be able to willingly do whatever it takes to supply safety and security until your need for love is met first.

You can see why having these priorities mis-matched can cause a great deal of conflict within the relationship. One is not right or wrong, it just is what it is. Everyone is entitled to his or her desires of the heart.

Realistically, if you want to have any hope of longevity in your love relationship, you must allow for flexibility, renegotiation, and change.

You may not find out that your love and stability priorities were improperly aligned until long after you’ve committed yourself to your relationship. This is just one instance when discovering such a discrepancy would call for an important heart-to-heart conversation and coming up with a new plan to address the differences.

All this negotiating is necessary when you’re in a love affair of the flesh. If you are in a relationship which is founded purely on unconditional love (which is very rare, even though many of us claim we love “unconditionally”) then, you are always open to growth and change within your relationship of true love.

Does “loving unconditionally” mean that you and your partner will live happily ever after? Or, “stay together forever?”

No.

It means that you love your partner so much that you want only the best for him or her.

If the day comes when your partner might be better off without you, then you bless him or her and let them go, in love.

You love so much, that you can not only survive but thrive in their departure, though it might be difficult at first, because above all when you love someone unconditionally, you desire only the best for him or her.

Unconditional love is a tall order, and it is not for the weak-at-heart. Loving someone, “no matter what,” is far more than the mere mortal can endure.