We are all dreaming of this Hollywood type love. We all want to believe that one day we would find this magical true love. But what many of us don’t realised is that this level of trust and respect is not given. This is earned by hard work, a lot of uncomfortable moments and many days/nights of frustrations. So many of you would ask “but we love each other why we are keep arguing and can not stand the other?” Well in my opinion in any situation our ego is the one that is sabotaging our relationship. I can talk for myself that this for sure was the main case in my previous relationships. When I was feeling unsecured for whatever reason my ego was showing up and was keep whizzing in my ears:” if he is not doing what you believe he should and not trying to stop your pain then he is not worth it”. My ego was the one that was keep bringing this dark thoughts and costing me feeling anger, pain, anxiety and blaming the other person for my own feelings. So what is causing our ego’s to turn in defensive position? It took me a long time and hard work (reading multiple relationship and self-improvement books, watching YouTube videos and many hours practicing meditation looking deep Inside myself) to realise that the only reason for my relationship to fail,was me. I was the one that was focusing way too much on what I didn’t have instead of just enjoying the moment. Again both people are quality responsible for the fail but first and for most you need to look in you. Blaming the other would only make you bitter and would not help you with your own evolution. A great relationship could only exist if two people accept the fact that one day or another the relationship would be over( even if the greatest relationship eventually ends because of the death of one or both of the spouse). So why wasting time on trying to “fix” the other? Why trying to “match all social norms and expectation” ? As an emotional human being I was always expressing my emotions in what many people could say “dramatic” way. For many years( till only few weeks ago) , probably because it worked since I was a child, I believed that if I want something I just need to ask for it by expressing myself in any possible way and even demanding if need it to be. Here I should point out that ,the hardest part is to realise that you are doing something wrong and it is a habit, therefore you need to stop finding excuses like “i do that just because he/she done this”. We are the only one responsible for our actions and reactions. To be able to be successful in any relationship, being romantic or friendly, we need to learn to take responsibility for our own emotions. Another great thing that I learn going through my latest break up is that the reason why I feel unsecured and unwanted is because I don’t love myself as much as I should. Many of my friends knows me as a strong independent women that could do anything on her own. But the truth is that deep inside I’m very insecure person. It’s hard to step aside and look at yourself from an outsider point of view, but it’s even harder to look inside yourself and to realise that you’ve done everything wrong. For many years I was looking for the person who would love me for who i am but in reality even I couldn’t love myself for who I am. Even I was trying to convince myself, specially after a break up, that I could changed things if I only done something different, if only I had a different job, being fitter…. I’m a person that always look for my own fault in life and always being so hard on myself. I have always been the person that choose to see only “the good side” of the others. But my biggest mistake was not doing the same for myself. If I’m focusing on my own negative side instead of cherish the positive how could I expect someone else to do the same? How could I expect the other person to see what I’m not projecting? That being said here is the moment to open another subject- learning how to love the other just the way they are. So let’s look at two types of love 1) the love of a parent and 2) the love for god. What we can see, in common , is that in both type of love there is no expectations. There is no ” i will love my child if he/she was..so and so”. The same apply to love for God, no matter what religion you are following your love of god it’s unconditional. You love him through each part of everyday, the good and the bad. You don’t telling yourself I will only love him if he is good to me and give me what I want. In both type of loves you are accepting the negativities as part of the love too. You keep loving your child even when he/she is yelling at you and telling you bad things, you keep loving God even when you are going through a struggle and pain. Sure there are days that you don’t feel receiving the same love from god but you know it’s there. You don’t get frustrated with it because you already accepted that the love is there for you when you need it the most. Funny enough if you ask around why did a couple break up the most comment answer you would hear is ” because I stopped loving her/him or he/she stopped loving me”. What does this mean? Can you just stop loving someone? In my opinion if you truly love someone you love them forever but what does it change is your perception towards them and it’s all depend on how committed to love them you are. For example if you love strawberries can you just wake up one day and say ” from today I no longer love strawberries”. So what is happening in many cases is that your love to strawberries is not committed. You are not declaring to yourself that no matter what you would love eating strawberry. So when you move to say, Africa would you still love strawberry there … most likely you won’t because the taste would be different and you are only committed to love the teste. So what I’m trying to say is that if you are committed to love someone for the way they are, in their worst and their best moments, when you declare that you don’t need to feel loved everyday by other human being because your love for yourself is enough for you to be happy, when you accept to love someone without any expectation towards them when you accept that the relationship would be over one day and just focus on the moment here and now only then you can be sure that you would be able to have a great relationship. This is easily said and hard to do and this is exactly why is so difficult and why so many people are failing. Finding someone who is as equally focus and ready to work towards the same goal is the hardest part of all. Because you can not make someone wanting to change. You can not make someone to love you. Love is not something to be earn or requested , love is something that should be giving without any expectation back, love should be given as a freedom.
Ok, let’s say you found that person and you are both ready to work towards that goal. You both are committed to love yourself first and then the other, but how do you do that? If you are like me, you would ask “I’m a pleaser. How can I avoid losing myself in the relationship?” For me, it took me a lot of pain and sleepless nights to come to the conclusion that the old fashion saying “when two people love each other they become one” is all wrong. In my previous experience when in a relationship I was believing in that to the extent that I wanted to do everything with my partner. I wanted to involve them in any activities that I was involved. But looking back I realized that I was just suffocating my partner. What I would say is that two people are in love and in a committed relationship they become 3. Meaning they still have their own existing but in the middle where all their togetherness and emotional exchange happens they become a much better version as a stronger united team where both of them bring their best. I’ve realized that every individual requires their own space and time alone to be able to be themselves and keep the love floating. We are the only one that is putting a limitation to our existing and if we become one unit, all the time, with our partner we would start feeling their limitations too and won’t be able to shake it off. That’s why it’s very important to keep your own existing apart, try to give without expecting anything back and just enjoy the moment of togetherness as much as you enjoy the moment apart. For many years I wasn’t feeling comfortable being alone not to say that I felt my partner would forget about me if he is not going to see me often or if I’m not there with him. But something I read recently changed my way of thinking. I don’t remember where I read it, but basically was asking if you would forget about God’s existence if you don’t go to church often or if your parents/friends love you less if they see you less. Of course, there are some people in our life that are, what I call them, parasites, they only come to take something from us but not giving anything back. So it’s normal for people like that to disappeared when they can not take anything from you. Sometimes it’s hard to accept that without feeling pain, but once again if you learn to give without expecting anything in return you would be ok with that.
So in conclusion, if you want to build a strong life lasting relationship you need to start by building this relationship with yourself and then share what you’ve learned and your happiness with someone else. Surround yourself with positive happy people. This might sound a bit harsh but it’s very true: Do not take any relationship advice from friends that are in the same or worse situation. We as a human-being tend to love surrounding ourselves with friends in a similar situation so we can find excuses for our own behavior and feel the petting tap on the shoulder. But if you desire a strong and happy relationship you need to surround yourself with couples like that. You can only take an advice from someone that has achieved the level you want to reach. How could someone single or in a crappy relationship give you the right advice when they can not apply this same advice on themselves??? So you would ask” why should I listen to you? You just had broken up yourself?”. Well, I spend the last month in search of all these answers. I’ve spent hundreds of hours looking deep inside myself and evaluating every single bit of myself. I let all the pain fill my soul and my whole body just so I can feel I died from the inside just to be regenerated. Just like a beautiful Phoenix, you need to let the painfully burn you out and only then you can be reborn. Only then, you can take the pain away and see the real story and answer all questions “why”. Don’t try to hide the pain and ignore it, just accepted all and let it go. You won’t be able to build anything solid on weaker grounds, therefore you need to rebuild all over your beliefs and views from scratch. Don’t let anyone discourage you. You can achieve anything you want as long as you love, trust and believe in yourself. Take the time to get to know yourself. Only when you don’t spend half of your time trying to understand yourself only then you would have the energy and time to understand the others. Learn how to love yourself before learning how to love someone else. 😉
