Category Archives: Relationships

Positive(ly) Love, A Look on Love in a Relationship

Love Like the Movies Make you Want to Love

Movies will make us believe that love is a cruise down easy street, where more flowers show up every day, engraved hearts show up on more of our trees, where hearts grow fonder and each little character nuance become more charming and charming with each moment spent with our lover.

Is this true? Have you ever found this?

I believe this is only one half of the equation of love. These represent the good days when cloud 9 is hitting with a soft, comforting hand, waltzing lazily down the murmuring streets with gaiety.

The truth? Try have a discussion about bank accounts or children or the future or making that sacrifice or having some questionable friends over or downsizing or making conscious changes. See how fuzzy thy heart still beats. Still on cloud nine?

I hope so.

But chances are, at least one of those things will strike an angry, emotional, or tempered chord that will far outbalance all the other happy lovey things you’ve been doing up there on cloud 9.

The Truth of Love

The truth is that love requires positivity and respect and an unceasing willingness and effort to dive off the deep end, even though you’re scared out of your shivvies of what lurks beneath. And further, not only does love require this of you, it requires you to have an ongoing awareness of this so that you begin to check yourself before a new habit of dis-respect or dis-trust forms.

Truth is, its going to hurt sometimes. Love is not easy. Nothing worth having ever comes easy. and the reason it hurts is because when you fall off of cloud 9 it’s not pleasant.

No, the truth of love should not be built upon fuzzy dreams of leisure. The truth of love should be solidified with the physical actions of life.

It’s Not Just Loving Yourself

Love in a relationship is more then just how much you can sacrifice, how much you can turn a blind eye, how much you can keep the faith. That’s one sided blind love that’s more fit for your favorite band or pair of shoes: even though your favorite band may try to explore a new direction you’re not so sure about, you got to love them so much that you’re going to join them on that journey.

That’s what favorites are, and sure, love in a relationship should have a bit of this in it. After all, you did pick that partner because they’re your favorite, didn’t you?

The unexplainable happens sometimes as growth naturally progresses, and this almost always, unchecked, creates animosity in relationships. Nostalgia, it’s a thing. As humans, it’s inevitable that we grow at different rates. This is our uniqueness, our special secret code of humanness. To steal the old yogic wisdom: There are many paths, there is only one way.

The problem here is that self love works. Self love works because we make a habit of loving ourselves more and more and more until we love ourselves so much we can’t help but feel happy and excited to be alive. However, self love is not partnership love, though it is very related. Showering our partner with more and more love without first off having a discussion about the growing discontent will nurture guilt, resent, self disrespect, and blindness.

You got to listen to that lover!

Think of this analogy. Think of yourself standing at bat, waiting to hit the ball coming at you. You swing and miss. So, you wait again for the next ball, except this time you swing harder and quicker and with much more energy invested. Swing – miss. Sure, try investing more violent passion in the next strike, you only get one more!

“We are deceiving ourselves if we think that only the violent passions, such as ambition and love, can conquer the others. Laziness, sluggish though it is, often manages to dominate them; it wrests from us all of life’s plans and deeds, where it imperceptibly destroys and devours the passions and virtues alike.” ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld

What I’m trying to point out here is that in a relationship, love isn’t just about loving yourself, or about how much your partner loves themselves, or about how much confidence you can build up in your partner – all very important things in themselves. No, love in a relationship is about how much love is flowing back and forth between you and your partner.

Are you listening? You got to listen to that lover of yours. They’re speaking.

(and yes, this means that if you’re partner is telling you they’re listening, you’ve got to speak to them with the honesty of that deep end.)

Thank-God vs. Not That Way Clients

Leave a reply

Dealing with clients is a very tricky business, and I classify them into two main categories.

1. Thank-God Client: The client that worships you and your work, believes what you say, and appreciates all the work you do for them.

2. Not That Way Client: And then there’s the client who fights you ever step of the way, who knows how to do it better and demands you change everything to align with their superior knowledge.

One is a pleasure to work with and builds your self esteem greatly with spontaneous bouts of magic. The other frustrates you, leaves you pulling your hair wondering: “is this person for real?”, and will try and suck all of your time for relatively minute things.

Which type are you? Which type are you chasing?

The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma

Leave a reply

I have never found that reading personal development (pd) books enlighten me to a whole new way of living, a whole new theory, ground breaking results, astonishing returns, etc.

I don’t think this is what change is really about, or really that it’s realistic to think that a human will grasp onto this kind of alteration to life. I feel that change – and learning – is a direct result of connecting with what we are learning, associating our own lives and acts with what we’re reading, and being able to take away new techniques that we might be able to use in our quest to get stronger.

Though drastic change is required and necessary at times, people are much more susceptible to change on a gradual basis. Say, over a year or even 10 rather than cold turkey.

“Success is created through the performance of a few small daily disciplines that stack up over time to produce achievements far beyond anything you could have planned for.”

The Leader Who Had No Title – by Robin Sharma – discussed the importance of realizing that change happens one at a time. Each day if we pick one thing to focus on and grow and nurture, after a year there will be 365 things we’ve learned!

“Leaders are those individuals who do the things that failures aren’t willing to do – even though they may not like doing them either.”

If you’re looking for words of inspiration, with take home notes that will have you returning again and again to re-find tips to find personal success, to re-learn how to lead without a title, then this is your book.

I really appreciate the underlying message of the book, that we can not afford to wait until we have a title to start acting like a leader. Make every day a day where you’ve been sticking your neck out there, leading.

The book guides the reader through a fantastic and life changing day Blake is taken on by an unexpected life guide, Tommy – an old friend of his fathers, who helps enlighten him to the ethics of a leader without a title.

I have talked to some people about this book, and they’ve mentioned how they dislike the authors delivery, which I can associate with. I think for a lot of people this is the awkward feeling of introspection. Reading a pd book really does make you look inside to your own actions, associating with your activities and assessing how your actions can be changed. However, the repetition Sharma employs can at times make one feel a bit silly.

I appreciate what this book is delivering though, the message. It was almost too easy for me to associate with. To me, that is the power of this book.

I suggest reading The Leader Who Had No Title, and if you have read it, I would love to hear how you felt about the book in the comments below!

Present is Presence

2 Replies

It may be an old axiom beaten around the bush, but presence is a truly remarkable state.

If you cry, you are feeling. If you help you are building. If you wait you are respecting. If you hold you are encouraging. If you are aware you are present.

Present isn’t just now. It’s really not. Now is far too restricting.

My friend Brian Thompson, aka. Thorny Bleeder just reminded me of satori in his recent Medium post on the unfolding of happiness. Though he was talking about taking the steps to ensure happiness will have the ground to awaken within, I feel that presence can also lead to happiness.

What’s it called when you accept what happens, when you recognize beyond verbally expressed explanation the caveats of a situation? What’s it called when you bob and dip with the punches?

What’s it called when you do take precious moments to acknowledge little things in life that can easily be – and very often are – missed?

Whatever that’s called, that’s where it comes from. That’s where presence resides. I also believe that’s where happiness builds.

So This is Your Love

Leave a reply

When you climb into the eyes of another, when you share your soul with the ears of another, when you let yourself be consumed by another… or even unto yourself. This means love. I’m no definitive answer to – no do I know – all that is love, but I do know this means love. Love with self, love with nature, love with others, love with desire, love with connection.

There is a point in sharing when it becomes necessary to let go of inhibition and allow to flow forth from the depths of your soul what it is that needs to flow forth. You are the guide in this journey, you are the canoe floating down the river silently. You are the flag sitting atop the mountain triumphantly. You are the spark sitting in the fire, grasping for oxygen.

How do you recognize this moment?

I think the scary part for most is when we confuse – or feel the desire to separate – this feeling with lust.

To hug is not to sex. To stare deeply into the eyes of another is not to sex. To rest on the shoulder of another is not to sex. To explain feelings is not to sex. To share is not to sex.

To love is to never give up and to always give up at the same time.

In the history books, or religious books [most, probably not all], or classroom study guides, or mathematics books we don’t discuss this constant ebb and flow. Love has seemingly been hidden behind closed doors, under thick sheets with socks on, uncomfortably. This is love as a singular, as a taught concept and un-explored; even afraid to be explored.

Perhaps if you explore what love means to you, you might just find it’s a bit lovely too!

Further reading (and inspiration for this post) found on Elephant Journal.

Sharing Energy

Leave a reply

Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power. ~Shirley MacLaine

Whether you want to believe it or not, every single day we are bombarded with energy. If from no other source than the sun that touches us. But it’s everywhere, it’s in the air, it’s from the plants, it’s from the people we walk by on the streets… and what we should be most aware of, is it comes from us! We are energy! Truly we are energy!

We are the epicenter of an energy source that floats around us. Think of it as though we are a beacon of light in the darkness. The energy is most bright at our core, and as it emenates outward it really does exist, but just less frequent.

Continue reading →

Love.. Programming? …Instinct?

3 Replies

Love

This four letter word is more demanding of our thoughts than the strongest of all gale winds, wetter than the wettest of all storms, deeper than all rivers, and thicker than all trees. It follows us on every path, every road, greets us at every waking, and usually sends us to sleep every night. No matter at work, play, home, or away, love follows us.

Wherever you go, there you are ~Confucius

Love often sways our mood greatly. Those of us that get effected by sadness, love is usually a large player in that game. Happiness is usually associated with the freedom to love. Sometimes woes with our family comes from wanting to send with love some wisdom, and having our love insulted when the other doesn’t jump up and thank us for that same wisdom from the heart.

It is a weird bird, this love. Is it pesky? Is it warranted? Is it necessary? Are we being told to love, and therefor wanting to love? Continue reading →

Being a Friend

Leave a reply

By no means do I have the most friends in the block, nor do I have the most likes on Facebook, or the most followers on Twitter. What I do have is a heart, a mind, the power of compassion, and the observation skills of a hawk. I have been hurt, and I have hurt. I have shared my feelings, and helped friends through some of the hardest times they’ve faced in their life to date. Through all of this, I have learned the characteristic that cultivates these intimate friendships the most is an unrelenting concern for friends.

Continue reading →