Valentine’s Day

I am a sucker for Valentine’s Day. If I am in a relationship, and we are not celebrating – that’s like not celebrating love. So, I had everything all planned out what to do on Valentine’s Day. It fell on Friday and I taught double classes that day. I wore all pink to class. After class, I dropped by the usual shop I go to, to get a Valentine rose for me. It was nice also that the ladies from gym treated me with Dunkin Donuts, I didn’t need to buy chocolates or desserts for myself.

Beforehand, I just came across with really wise relationship content by Lewis Howes which I am going to share here. First one it talks about 5 wounds from childhood trauma that need to be addressed to be in a healthy relationship. To cut short, these wounds are:

1. Rejection wound
2. Abandonment wound
3. Shame/humiliation wound
4. Treason/betrayal wound
5. Injustice/unfairness wound

Martha happens to be an eldest sister and pretty much had same wounds with me, especially the fixer helper stuff. I can totally relate to what she had faced. So seeing her ending up with a very healthy man in relating with others, made me feel so happy and hopeful. The next video, she talks about the key elements from her perspective, to have a great relationship.

What I took the most from this conversation is that we all often have distorted view on what romantic relationship should look, be and feel like based on movies and the feel good happily-ever-after stuffs. But yeah, I definitely want to be with someone I have good friendship, passion and chemistry with and also someone that I am madly attracted to; however, it’s not enough to build a lasting healthy relationship. She talked about her relationship acronyms BALANCCCED:

• Be your authentic self. Be yourself. Get to know yourself. Get to know how you do like to be loved and how do you like to love.
• Acceptance. Accept the other person for who they are. Take time to know the other person. See if values, vision and lifestyle match with yours.
• Laughter. Have lots of them. Joy, play, appreciation of one another.
• Allowance. Flexibility in allowing another person to make mistakes and living their own human experience, freedom to choose how one lives his life. Make the other person feel safe by allowing the person be his own authentic being and not trying to change him to make you feeling safe and secure.
• Nurture. Have a nurturing life separate from partner’s
• Commitment to the vision of the relationship
• Compassion. When somebody is being vulnerable, see them as the wounded inner child and have some compassion for them.
• Curiosity. Approach conversation with curiosity. Avoid inclination to assume the worst or that someone is out to get you.
• Education. Educate yourself on who your partner is. Their inner child wounds, incidents when they were hurt in the past, their past lives, struggles, and compassion to understand. Care to know the specific things the other person needs. Personal growth.
• Dios. Or God. Solidifies and binds all the things together.

And the last one with Jillian, so much sense in this one. The key points I take from here are:

• Your relationship reflects the relationship you have with yourself
• Relationship killer – 1) not knowing how to manage chronic stress (so guilty of this!), 2) taking relationship for granted, 3) not knowing how to have difficult conversation on boundaries, expressing needs, vision, mistakes etc
• Take time to get to know someone before deciding to commit – am I feeling safe, seen, free to express myself as I am, respected, accepted and appreciated?
• Women do not need to be rescued. We can save ourselves by having confidents and self-worth – having the strength and courage to face own problems
• Don’t fixate yourself to change the other person – no one likes being asked to change. It has to come from the other person. Give them the opportunity to work on their own struggles. Demands are like building a cage to the other person to make you feel safe. Sense of safety should come from within, not from other person or circumstances.

I learn a lot in one day. Most of all to believe the information you are seeing and receiving from the other person as it is, not seeing from a place of potential from your perspective. Don’t add, don’t subtract.

The right person will know how to hold your love. The right person will choose you just as deeply you choose them. You will not have to quiet the way you care. You will never feel like you are too much. You will not have to beg for the love you deserve. One day, you will be met where you are. One day, you will be someone’s favourite person and you will not feel confused. You will not feel like fighting for someone who is not fighting for you. One day, you will understand that it never mattered, how tightly you held on to the wrong people, or how intensely you tried. The right people were always going to stay.

@rainbowsalt

What’s for me, will be with me. Cheers to that, just focus on what I want to develop at the moment and enjoy my solitary life. Happy Valentine’s Day to me. I love you.