Love of my life?
Hello ….how are you today?
We all want to feel in love but it’s so complicated, right?
I always say that if friends were our significant others, we’d be alone or full of doubts. Nevertheless, the lack of stress and expectations in this area makes friendship so much easier.
We grow up wanting to live happily ever after, which is extremely idyllic, isn’t it? And that’s where the problem begins.
You can listen to the podcast with this player, or if you prefer reading you have a written version below. Enjoy it!
When I was writing thinking about the title, Freddy Mercury came to mind with his dramatic and great “Love Of My Life”. Do you remember his desperate song? It goes:
"Love of my life, can't you see? Bring it back, bring it back
don't take it away because you don't know what it means to me”
The lyrics are strong, forceful, and heartfelt by a Freddy Mercury who’s in pain and addicted to that love. When we listen to songs like that or watch passionate love movies, we want to feel in love with the same intensity. We grow up wanting to live happily ever after, which is extremely idyllic, isn’t it? And that’s where the problem begins. I have a ton of personal stories to tell you, but today I’m going to share my coaching experience with one of my clients.
Charles & Anne
Charles (not his real name), was very distressed because his wife, Anne (not her real name either), is very good, very attractive, and a great companion, but even so he began to wonder if he was with her out of habit. Session after session, Charles told me he was suffering and that his doubts had begun to torture him,
“Do I have to stay in this relationship? Does being in love feel like this? Am I in this relationship because it’s easy for me?"
The first thing we did was getting out of his mental space, which was tormenting him.
"Charles, what do you feel when you stop thinking and you drop into your body?" Charles: "I feel stiff, cold, tense”, "Where exactly do you feel that?", "My whole body feels like an iceberg, I can’t be specific".
Little by little, we worked on accepting his vital moment. Charles was desperate because he felt frozen but when he stopped fighting his feelings, something opened and melted down and he started to cry. This didn’t happen overnight, I’m summarizing various sessions here.
“Charles, why do you think you’re crying?”, Charles: “Anne is everything a person wants in a partner. I don't understand what's wrong with me”, “What's wrong with you or what's wrong with you and Anne?”, “I suppose it's about me with me”, “What would you need at this very moment?”, “I don't know, I'm scared, I need my mind to stop”, and “What could relieve your mind?”
Fear
Fear keeps us in a trance. Fear separates us from the rest and makes us doubt ourselves. Fear makes us believe that there is a world that is happening out there and that we are hidden watching it. Fear makes us believe that others are in perfect relationships and we are not. Fear constricts us. The ancestral fear that all human beings feel has helped us to survive generation after generation but when that fear is excessive we lose our internal compass and we blame the outside world - our partner, our work, or X circumstance that we’re going through and makes us feel like that. We project outside what annoys and hurts us. That is exactly what Charles did with Anne. As mindfulness teacher Tara Brach says, when fear is not processed, it becomes toxic to us. Let me be clear here - we all feel fear, we are all in this together. The challenge begins when we dare to work with fear and not from it. This allows us to understand that doubts are part of life, that relationship crises are too, and that personal crises are usually expressed by thinking that they are a response to someone or something. In reality, they’re an opportunity to work on ourselves and evolve.
Some questions that can help you
What vital moment am I going through? (My children’s birth? Empty nest? Middle age? Etc.)
How do I feel about my job?
What story am I buying?
What is fear keeping me from feeling? If fear is my ally and I know that its messages are encrypted, where is fear pointing to?
What aspect of my life am I not nurturing? What needs my care?
What is misaligned in my life?
Has some historical pain been triggered by this personal crisis? (Did I suffer when I was a child and I didn’t find support? Is something happening to me today that is related to what happened to me then?
Charles fell in love with Anne because she’s a an amazing woman who also offered him the stability he’d never had in his life. However, after a few years with her, he discovered he needed more adrenaline in their bond. Let me ask you: What could Charles do to relax in, value and enjoy his relationship?
Mind you if you’re in a relationship where there are red flags, you have to leave now. By red flags, I mean all kinds of verbal and physical violence and substance abuse that impacts on your emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing.
This post is dedicated to all of those who grew up believing that their love story had to fit their cultural mold and who want to throw in the towel because they’ve started to feel uneasy. The key is to dive in and see what needs to be attended there. Then, co-write a real love story, where conflict can be repaired and where each member can honor their individual and joint lives, as well as their relationship in permanent evolution. Remember, you don’t have to go through this type of pain alone. Do yourself a favor and ask for help.
I hope this publication has helped you, I have a lot more to share about this but let’s allow this to sink in first. If you know someone who can benefit from this post, please forward it to them and invite them to subscribe. In this way, we’re creating bridges that help one another and it makes those who produce this blog more visible and easier to find.
A big hug ❤