Does this sound like you?
While growing up you saw your parents fight and it was scary? OR while you were growing up you saw your parents very much in love with each other?
Which one is part of your history?
Depending on what you saw around you a part of you decided that love was either safe or dangerous, love was either a desirable entity in your life or not.
I have a client who has come to see me because she always ends up either with men who are mean to her or with men who are not ready to be in a relationship. End result: For her, love equals suffering. If there is no suffering, it feels ‘wrong’.
Her latest romance is with a kind man who is in healing mode after a hard breakup. He has been quite honest with her, telling her that he is not ready to be in a committed relationship but she is ‘heartbroken’. She wants him. If he does not text her for a few days she obsesses, she can’t sleep, she can’t eat, she is losing weight. All of that for a man that she does not really know yet, but she has already decided that he was ‘the one’. Obviously, this is not love. This is infatuation. Love is quiet and safe. Infatuation is intense, like a drug: it takes over your life.
Doing our work together we went back through her history: a mother whose husband was having constant affairs but that she could not let go of: crying and driving around to try to find him to bring him back home. This is what my client grew up with as a model for love. And this is what she is recreating in her life.
What is the solution?
To be successful in romantic relationships there are two important aspects to them:
1st you need to have good self esteem.
2nd You need to understand more about love and what are healthy expectations to have.
These are great pointers to use if you have not started a relationship yet to make sure that you keep your emotions in check by using your mind so that you can more easily be in your heart.
In the case of my client, it is evident that she is being ruled by her emotions. Because the emotions are so strong, she feels like she loves him, but that is not love. Love is not an emotion, it is who you are at the core; it is your essence. True love for another being takes time to develop and is quiet. What she feels are very intense emotions that give her a high. When the high is not there she goes into extreme lows. The lows are equal and opposite to the highs. Just like a drug addict, when the high is not there she goes into withdrawal. And like with drug she had not been able to let go of it. With inner work she is starting to take a hold of her life.
Do you see yourself in the previous story? If so, it is important for you to know that love is not painful like this. That what you have been experiencing is infatuation and that you need to let go of this way of being in your relationship if you ever want to have a fulfilling romantic life. By choosing the right person to be with, you can bypass these intense, passionate and painful lessons. But in order to take the time to have a great companion, you need to feel worthy of love. You also need to know what are healthy expectations about love. Take the time to do your homework: A fulfilling love life is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.
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