I recently entered into a relationship after many years of avoiding relationships and it was an absolutely amazing experience for me.
My first date with this man was lined up to be for one afternoon after work. We had arranged to meet for dinner. As I was preparing to leave work I felt a little bit of nervousness, but when I got into my car this passed, and as I drove towards the restaurant I felt a deep settlement in my body. I felt much more of a woman. It was a truly incredible experience as I hadn’t ever felt anything to this depth within myself before. All feelings of nervousness were no longer there and there was just a feeling of absoluteness, knowing and grace.
When I arrived and met my date we decided to go for a walk before having dinner. As we walked along the river a bird was flying along beside us about 2 to 3 metres away. It kept flying at a height just above our heads then plummeting straight down into the water only to come back up and do this again. It did it for the whole length of our walk. We looked at it and laughed. It was a bit of a sign saying, jump right in — something I often wouldn’t do for fear of getting hurt or rejected.
There was such an ease to being with this man and he shared he felt the same with me.
I hadn’t gone to the date with any expectations or pictures, there was just an openness to meeting him.
We connected over dinner and the conversation was easy and flowed. I left the date with the same feeling as when I drove to it, this in itself was pretty cool for me. I haven’t ever really found it easy to open up with men but there was something about this man that I trusted and the ease I felt around him was a new marker of how I could just be myself with another – no trying to impress or needing to be anything.
Over the next few days we continued to communicate over text message and decided to meet up for dinner again a few days later. He arrived at my house to pick me up and this time some nervousness had crept in. We went to dinner and the conversation didn’t flow as much and it was a bit awkward in moments. On the way home he shared that he had felt a bit nervous about what to expect on a second date and had even googled it. I shared that I felt a bit the same and could feel how we had both now had pictures creeping in of ‘measuring’ each other and where this was going and how it would work etc., instead of just staying with what we felt.
We decided to take the pressure off it needing to be anything and from here our dates changed a fair bit. We loved hanging out together. Previously I have avoided spending time with the same person but this guy somehow found his way in and I just loved being around him. Our dates from this point changed – they were pretty unconventional and included things like helping with a work project, cleaning a property, taking a friend’s kids out for the day and meeting his family at a busy and hectic market – they were all pretty funny experiences but allowed us to get to know each other more just through living life together.
Over the next few weeks it grew into a relationship and this for me was the first relationship where I felt that I was actually myself in it. I wasn’t perfect but I felt a total ease within myself and I was able to open up with this man in a way that I have never opened up with another before.
Through this I started to learn much more about myself. I always had this idea that I wasn’t good at relationships but this experience was starting to totally bust this open for me. I got to learn that I actually wasn’t this standoffish person, but that I had an amazing capacity to express love. I had held this back for a long time but was now at a place within myself where I had dropped a lot of the protection and was able to open up in this way and it was an amazing feeling.
I adored this man and didn’t hold this back. At times he said he felt it was a bit difficult to accept the love as he had stuff coming up with that, I wobbled and held back a little bit but soon came back to sharing with him how I felt about him.
From being with him I learnt how I am able to hold people and express a huge amount of love (yes, this wasn’t perfect and there was need in there too at times) but I got to see that what I bring and offer another is absolute gold when I let it out and I got to feel the difference that it makes to someone.
The more that I expressed this my body started to change. I felt more beautiful in myself as a woman, I walked taller and my face got softer. Other aspects and relationships in my life also started to change. I became more of myself at work and was opening up with others more too.
I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.
I stopped getting so invested in or intense about things and was more able to allow things to be.
The relationship lasted for a couple of months before ending. When it ended I didn’t have any resentment or bitterness. There was still just a feeling of accepting and still deeply loving this man, even though the way this would be expressed would change.
I did have feelings come up of missing him and missing the connection that we had and also an old pattern resurfaced for a few days of wanting to hold back love and not let anyone in.
However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.
I also got to feel and realise that the depth and level of love that was expressed in this relationship is a depth that sometimes people never get to experience in their whole life: that people can be in relationships but it can actually be quite lonely. I had all the pictures and thoughts come up that for it to be a ‘successful’ relationship there needed to be wedding bells and happily ever after. However, I got to see that even though it ended, for me it was a truly successful relationship because through it I learnt to express love in a way that I never have before, and this stays with me.
It is now there as the foundation for my next relationship. It’s my starting point, and from there I know that my expression of love can only get deeper and grow.
I also learnt that I don’t need to hold myself back in celebrating and enjoying myself as a woman.
This came out more in this relationship because it was there in me to be let out. The relationship – and its ending – showed me that I can continue to get to know, enjoy and express this side of me, regardless of whether I’m in a relationship with another. Being in this relationship was an amazing experience for me as I started to let more of myself out and share this with another. Through this relationship I have learnt that I can continue to bring this quality and a deepening connection to all of my relationships.
By Anonymous
For further inspiration …
Saying ‘no’ to the pictures and ‘yes’ to loving ourselves, first – Adele’s experience.
A powerful audio – what is true love?
Loving ourselves is the path to true love with another.. read Zofia’s story on dating and finding true love.
Women in Livingness Blog 
Re learning to love ourselves is paramount if we want any real and truly loving relationship.
To let the love out, we have to let go of the constructs we have tangled ourselves into. Judgements, expectations and pictures. When that happens, it opens the door for a new way to experience life.
With openness we invite love with expectations we invite devastation.
Expectations in any area of our lives will set us up to fail – best ditch them the second we feel them come in.
The first person we date is ourselves, often because we have forgotten who we are from working so hard to fit into life and be ‘accepted’. Yet we will never know if we have been fully accepted unless we embrace who we are and bring that to the world, otherwise people we are in a relationship with are simply getting to know a version of us, and often one we don’t know that well either.
If we were the love that we already are then there would be nothing to learn about love.
it is so beautiful to feel and read your blog. What came to me was how healing relationships truly are, if only we let them in and not get caught up with old patterns and behaviors around them all. Just be open to love and all it entails in this particular relationship at this moment.
It is such a powerful read dispelling so many pictures and beliefs we have about love that are untrue. We can place the power to feel love or not onto others, then it can become something we feel we have not control over and we go in and out of, when it’s actually our essence and consistently inside us. A great line “However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship.”
What a beautifull learning and unfolding you had here ✨
I agree, when we look at relationships as opportunities to evolve together it’s a completely different purpose and a more picture free space to enjoy one another.
Learning to truly love is one of the finest things on earth. And whether in a one to one relationship or not it is something that when realised beautifully infuses all our relationships.
Everyday we have an opportunity to deepen our love with another, I feel this is all about letting go of trying and instead just feeling and following the purpose of what is there to come through and to be expressed.
I am sure anyone we are in a relationship with would appreciate that unimposing way of being. The moment we are trying or have an agenda we are controlling and not truly present in a relationship.
What you have shared is amazing anonymous and I admire your courage to just let go and see what happens. Not many people can do that.
How beautiful it is to discover that love is being tender, delicate and precious in everything we touch and do from the moment we wake up to when we sleep. All we have to do is connect it.
The true quality of life is always there and never will it not be there, we have to learn to not scribble over the top of it and then it will be known to us again in exactly the same way that it was known to us before.
Yes how stunning to connect to that and, clearly now, it would be a travesty to put a dam in that flow!
I am starting to understand the debilitating scourge of fear to another level this morning; how it holds us back and stops us feeling the Love and the Joy that is otherwise present in our relationships.
Love is a quality that flows through us and is from our inner heart. It is not for us to hold onto it, but to express it and let it out.
I love the title of this blog ” Learning to Love” We really do have to learn to love, ourselves firstly before we have the same to offer others. But first lets deconstruct the many
false pictures we have of romantic love and get back on track. True love is universal, knows no bounds and cannot be restricted to one person or immediate family. To align with this infinite reservoir of love, accessible to all equally and live it, is to be reborn.
It is beyond beautiful to learn to love and to be a willing student of its ongoing unfoldment. Love is the strength, delicacy, warmth and intelligence that is at the heart of our development and evolution.
Thank you for this honest sharing and the huge learning you received from the relationship by being open and honest. We do have a huge tendency to be intense and hold pictures of how we want life to be. In this wanting to control there is no room for the spontaneity and flow of life.
The more I consider what is really important in life the more I realise that it is all about relationships and our interactions with one another. Then it can be so simple. If it is all about relationships, all we have to do is uphold a standard and quality in how we conduct ourselves, how we care for ourselves and how honest, open, respectful and honouring we are with each other.
I really get a sense that to love is to be and express who we are in our true essence and keep doing it, so being in a relationship with another is to confirm this commitment of ours, and allowing a possibility of it being expanded to be.
I love re reading how you dropped the pictures of what dates look liked and really enjoyed each other by hanging out with each other. It is one thing to pick an activity to do with each other and another to really connect and en-joy.
I heard the most beautiful sentence yesterday. ‘Love like there is no tomorrow’. And when I really let myself hear those words, realise what was actually being shared, I understood the stupidity of letting any past hurts or anything interrupt what is actually totally natural to all of us.
Yes, so natural because it is who we are, what we are made of and where we are from 🙂 To love like there is no tomorrow completes moments and there is much more ease in our day and we rest, sleep and recharge so much better. So perhaps Love is our way back to true health and wellbeing…
A beautiful sharing . Thank you Anonymous.
It says a lot about our education/ society when need to relearn how to love when we was born full of this naturally.
Yes. And with this realisation it becomes very clear and simple that we take responsibility for how we care for and communicate with ourselves and each other.
Celebrating ourselves, not holding back and claiming ourselves is so attractive!
It is always quite remarkable to read this, it’s an inspiring kind of true love story where the love is not dependent on others but grows because of the opportunity with another but continues to grow after that has ended. That’s actually the kind of love that stays around even if people or partners come and go. I can relate to this line, it’s something we commonly do as human beings, I also noticed it after the death of someone close to me “I did have feelings come up of missing him and missing the connection that we had and also an old pattern resurfaced for a few days of wanting to hold back love and not let anyone in.”
Expectations are such killers, expectations stop us from entering into that otherwise amazing relationship and expectations once in a relationship can cause so much problems.
Super important we drop the projection we have of how we want someone to be and instead feast on the love that is presented.
Beautiful expressed Elizabeth and true, we will never loose our innermost love, it will only grow and grow the moment we allow ourselves to let it out and let it in.
‘I hadn’t gone to the date with any expectations or pictures, there was just an openness to meeting him.’ How amazing our relationships would be when we would choose to have no expextations or pictures. Let’s not imagine how amazing as this would be another picture above on all the others we have.
Not having pictures of how a relationship needs to be is huge and something we could apply to all our relationships.
Thank you for sharing the deepening love with yourself and how this deepened your relationships with others. Lovely experience.
This comment is one we could remind ourselves of regularly “love wasn’t tied to the relationship” because we often ascribe certain feelings to certain moments, experiences or people. Yet love comes from within and therefore if we love deeply then we will continue to love deeply regardless of the change in situation or location.
We have so many pictures about relationships including that to be classed as successful they have to last a long time but this is one of the many myths that you have busted with your deeply touching expression of how you found your true loving expression in this relationship and now it is there to be shared and deepened with all.
I agree, Helen. We have very weird measures of what success is.
“I also learnt that I don’t need to hold myself back in celebrating and enjoying myself as a woman.” This is beautiful and something for all women to realise and bring into our lives with the fullness this allows in all our relationships lovingly.
“Learning to love” a forever expanding process of joy and presence that opens us up to the world and ourselves beautifully.
A beautiful celebration of you and how you expressed your love in a relationship and the joy in that – and that’s a true relationship one where we love as we are and are loved.
“However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me ” Superb realisation. Love is infinite, gifted to us to be shared not owned or limited to one or select few.
Yes Love is infinite and it grows by being shared.
Incredible. We’ve put so many blocks in our way, we don’t know how to love. Your sharing is beautiful because it shows us how we can ‘learn to love’ again.
It is interesting that we disconnect from the love that we are and then seek it externally in the form of acceptance, recognition and approval.
“Learning to Love” – I can say I learned to love when I truly connected to my body and my feelings …and that I fell in love when I connected to my femaleness to then absolutely adore myself as a woman through my innate quality of stillness.
The pictures we bring in to most if not all situations totally caps the potential to flow and be accessed. We limit things to a minut portion of what is truely possible.
I would not have understood that till I offered myself the space to deepen my relationship with me, at which point I realised how much more I brought to others!
This is learning to love; to see that what we bring and offer another is absolute gold when we let it out and to feel the difference that it makes to someone. We are here to share the gold that is in us, the love that we all are.
What a wonderful example of true love and purpose in a relationship. And also a wonderful example of the needlessness between two people. Very refreshing to feel and super needed in today’s world.
Yes, such a great reflection to all those you met who experienced another way a relationship can be.
After living 52 years on the planet in this lifetime and God knows how many years in previous lifetimes I am only just on the cusp of coming to know and understand the purpose and potential in relationships. I’m not quite sure what I’ve been doing up until now but know that neither me nor anybody else benefitted from my previous flounderings.
How wonderful you really let love out and in. That is the most healing thing we can actually do.
“Learning to Love” – I learned to love through learning to be honest with myself and with others about how I felt about myself in general, and what was going on for me as opposed to keeping the door closed, aloof, in the belief it was “wrong” or “failing of me” to admit something “not being ‘right’ about myself”. Admission, acceptance go hand in hand when it comes to exploring the vastness of love through the vastness of ourselves.
I loved reading what you shared, and how beautiful that you let go of your protection, ‘I had an amazing capacity to express love. I had held this back for a long time but was now at a place within myself where I had dropped a lot of the protection and was able to open up in this way and it was an amazing feeling.’
That is where relationships with people are so important. We practice something that we know of old! We have put so many layers on top of who we are we have turned down our light to a point we do not think we can shine brighter – how crazy and harming for our health is that?!
Such an incredible sharing you learnt so much and realising love comes from within regardless of who is in your life or not is one HUGE lesson!
When we meet another for the first time there is no attachment, and with that it is easier to not have expectations. For me, these expectations come as a result of personal insecurities. For example, when in disconnection from love I expect others to give me that love, to cherish and appreciate me. This creates a need on others which is pretty heavy on them but it also drains me too. It is so acceptable to be needy today, in our honesty we even discuss that we have relationships to “fulfil our needs.” It is so common that when I have told another that I feel their neediness and it feels really yucky, they’ve come back quite confused asking why is it so bad to be needy? – It is bad because in that need we are left clueless to the abundance of love that we have within our own inner heart, we are left not knowing of the magic of life, loneliness creeps in and devastation prevails.
It is interesting how when we have expectations of how a relationship should be we can limit the love and connection that is naturally there to be felt.
A deeply inspiring blog Anonymous. To realise that love is not something external and it is already within, is awesome. To re-connect to this love and choose to express from this inner knowing is a game changer – accepting people in full and opening them up to their own love, by reflection.
“what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship”.
What I find super disturbing is how many pictures we actually have, buried deep within us, layer upon layer. It’s not till when we are at a point of willing to reflect and bring awareness to our every moment and thought do we really see how ingrained these pictures are. It is just great calling them out when they come along for everything but particularly around men and relationships.
So many of us women are searching for that connection with our inner heart, a connection to who we truly are, a settlement and a content. Many of us are very disconnected, living our every day with a constant angst and trying to be better, to be something. Thanks to Esoteric Women’s Health there is a place on earth where we can come to and be supported to find this missing link within ourselves, explore our tendencies, look at our behaviours and find what it is that is stopping this innate connection.
I love this as it shows how much we can grow in relationships if we are open to seeing and feeling what it is we have to grow from.
I love how you regard this as a successful relationships because of what you both brought to it and that you go to see and feel what love was and is. There is nothing ever to regret when we are this way.
Look at us and you would think that our greatest problems are our wounds and big scars, but what if the greatest issue we face is fighting the Love that we are?
Connecting to my essence and feeling this making it a consistency in my life is something I am learning more and more and it changes everything allowing true quality and love in my life.
Learning to love and inspiration for us all to appreciate and enjoy who we are within and share this with others . Beautiful and a joy to read and feel.
The love that we hold within is not to be held on to but shared with others as the quality we are willing to reflect is part or the responsibility that goes with living the love.
I like what you share about the dating and how as soon as we live according to ‘should’s’ and and ‘have to’s’ this really has an impact on the naturalness of the relating with each other. When I think about it, it makes sense that we just do the things we normally do with someone we get to know and like, because it is about the connection, not the activity per se.
It is beautiful how you decided to bring every particle of you to your relationship and not hold anything back, we have everything there within us to shine out.
“it was a truly successful relationship because through it I learnt to express love” This is a beautiful appreciation of your opening up to expressing all that you are with everyone you meet.
‘Jumping right in’ is a great way to live. What I notice is the confidence that oozes and I feel powerful but like Anonymous this way of living has not been the case for me either as I allowed the fear of rejection and getting hurt to get in the way. How can I hold back my expression for fear of something that may never happen? And anyway if a person chooses to reject or ignore me it is no big deal – all I have to do is not react but read, learn from it and let it go.
If love is not tied to any one relationship, perhaps we are love in essence waiting to connect with all people.
When we are open with another we can feel how the inner beings within us all are communicating all the the time and naturally connect.
Every stage of a relationship is for us to learn and grow. Whereas most people celebrate when someone starts a relationship and are sorry when a relationship ends. These pictures are very harming for the people involved and don’t give the space for us to evolve.
Its beautiful how we constellate with others at different times. When we are able to be absolutely honest the love that is shared just magnifies and blesses each of us and the relationship. I love the symbolism of the bird plummeting into the water for this is what these times are like we have to take risks and be willing dive deep, sharing more than we have ever shared before.
Wow how powerful this is and a beautiful sharing ‘I also learnt that I don’t need to hold myself back in celebrating and enjoying myself as a woman.” So important to find out and express ones love fully in every area in ones life and to start to live from this with oneself.
Giving ourselves permission to adore is very remarkable… as I explore this in my relationship I am blown away by the simplicity of it, as well as feeling the awful impact of previous resistance and guardedness.
Some would argue it’s a sad ending, but from what I’ve read it’s been far from that. You’ve learned a lot, not held back and just been (loving) you throughout. Very cool!
Not taking any ideas or expectations into a date allows a space for both people to be themselves and for the inherent possibilities between the two people to develop naturally.
‘I also learnt that I don’t need to hold myself back in celebrating and enjoying myself as a woman.’ – This is awesome to feel and appreciate that through the whole process of this relationship you were able to connect, express and not hold back how beautiful and sexy you are. This is super important and I take this with me as a constant reminder to not hold back but express all of who I am as a Woman no matter what.
It is great how you exposed any pictures around what a ‘successful’ relationship is, whether we are in relationship for a day, a month or a few years what’s important is the opportunity we are given to evolve and expand, anything else is an arrangement.
Not taking any expectations to a date is freeing for both parties. It allows you both to just be yourself and not feel you have to jump through hoops to impress. We all crave being allowed to just be ourselves, so at least one person needs to offer.
A completely different perspective on relationships, so many us jump into relationships out of a complete need to be loved, cherished and accepted. But it sounds like a relationship where that need is not there, but simply an ease of being with yourself has a potential for much deeper love, true acceptance and real cherishing of the person walking with you.
I love this, the fact there is such an openness and ease in which you are sharing and how the relationship felt and on reflection when I read this ‘this for me was the first relationship where I felt that I was actually myself in it.’ I gave myself space to ask the question has there been a relationship that I actually truly allowed myself to be me in it?
There are many relationships I hear about where by they end bitterly and then we all refer to people as our ex and resent them – but this sharing shows how we can deeply love one another regardless of if we are with them or not, and appreciate what is on offer for us both to learn from a relationship.
I have learned to that the best way to date is to have absolutely no expectations and to not size eachother up as potential partners or not. To simply meet each other and seize the opportunity to express and move with another from who we truly are is deeply beautiful in itself no matter what would come after.
This sounds like the perfect relationship to me, not because it itself was perfect but because the personal growth and expansion in uncovering and expressing the love that we are was taken fully on board.
Ripper of a blog even reading it again. There is so much to learn rediscovering your feelings and how you in particular express that love eg. I love the detail .. and it makes sense the love for me is in the detail how I need that to be for me.
I love the sharing that love was not tied to the relationship, love is who we are in essence and we have a choice to bring that in all we do or not.
Yes, so it all starts with our relationship with ourselves and there are moments in life where this relationship has to deepen before looking or needing something outside ourselves.
Every relationship offers us the opportunity to evolve and invites us to bring all of who we truly are. Every step has it own offering from how you meet, date, are with yourself and each other in the relationship and the break up (if there is one). And the consistency in this is: deepen the love, for love has no off button and we can only deepen more into it.
I had a conversation in line with that this morning with a former partner who expressed that he couldn’t stop loving me and I replied that this is also not what we are meant to do, stop loving someone. We can only love another more, which doesn’t mean you have to stay in the relationship, because it can be the most loving this to do: break up and allow what is next to unfold.
Going into a relationship without having pictures of what it should all look like takes some doing but you can see how those pictures then colour the relationship and steer it in a different direction.
Love is infinite and within us all. With this understanding we can be in loving relationships with every one we meet. More than the one is the love we have for all.
‘To jump right in’ regardless of what it is, we have to let go and surrender and then deal with what arises but in doing ‘so we are given opportunities of growth and learning that support us in our evolution that otherwise would have been stunted or delayed.
“However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship”. Well you don’t need the often obligatory chocolate chip ice-cream on the couch with girlfriends consoling you after a break up like this!
I think in the process of re-connecting with what love is in truth is becoming more aware of all that it is not so we can let that go and allow out the innate love we are unhindered…
There is so much investment that plays out when we are starting a new relationship. That which comes from ourselves and others. All in the “hope” of ticking the boxes of success when little regard is taken to stop and view what is truly going on from within.
What a gorgeous confirmation you had of jumping straight in, with the symbolism of the birds diving into the water and following you along your walk together. It can be so easy to be cautious and hold back from showing the other person who we are for fear of being rejected. I think I have done this in the past because I have put expectations on wanting it to be perfect but it can never be perfect if we are holding back who we truly are and presenting what we feel the other person may want to see….when I look back I can see it is quite calculated and dishonest.
This is a line that stood out for me too Ariana, that so many women including myself have wanted to feel safe and almost wait for permission before we could accept and enjoy being a woman, yet the crazy thing is that we are women first, and all we have to do is live and celebrate this in every moment.
No permission needed as the go for it signs are always there waiting for us to get on with it!
I read this blog before and I was not expecting the relationship to end (I may have felt this last time I read it also) .. it was showing no signs of ending. What a beautiful constellation for both the man and the woman and what can happen if both commit to love, your feelings and not holding back all that you feel.
A great example of letting the love out! We can do this whether we are in a relationship or not.
we can do this in any and every relationship as we are always in relationship with ourselves, those arounds, those we meet and even the entire universe….a great way to expand our view to the bigger picture and the effect it has when we hold back.
When we are love, all we can do is be love.
The unfolding process of letting myself feel and connect to the Love within has been so loving and holding. I have really been able to understand and see how the amount of Love that is in my life is down to the amount of Love I am willing to let in but also express.
Well said Richard, there are no borders. Love is who we are, where we come from and what we are made of. Therefore we cannot turn it off, we can just re-interpret it and then experience the complication that goes with that detour.
It is true, we don’t get to feel relationships and the expansiveness of love in all their fullness very often and take this as our normal. Even though you didn’t continue the relationship with that person it had a ripple effect throughout your life, therefore you will, in some way, forever be in a relationship with him and he with you.
A beautiful sharing, yes, our love is for all, ‘love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.’
When I say ‘yes’ or ‘jump right in’ without any hesitation whatsoever to something that feels true, boy I am supported! Everything falls into place and life becomes so simple. Self-doubt then becomes a thing of the past as I learn to embrace everything that comes my way.
I love the fact you were open to love and didn’t hold back, this makes such a difference to any relationship we have. So often we enter relationships with so many expectations and needs that it can put a lot of pressure on the other to live up to them and does not allow them space to be themselves.
So true Alison, our expectations can really dampen the love and connection that is on offer.
Beautiful sharing, how you allowed yourself to love yourself an another and allowed the flow of what will be will be. Like you say its a great foundation for your next relationship.
Beautiful sharing an amazing reflection and the learning to love yourself and the fullness of all your are . Inspirational and changes everything with love as who we are innately.
When we approach life as an opportunity to learn it takes the pressure off whether we get something right or wrong and we can just be in the present moment without worrying about what will or won’t happen next and learn from our experiences.
That is so true Fiona, it is us who puts the pressure on ourselves, when we let this go and just be the magic takes place, we are able to open up so much more.
To hold no pictures, expectations, outcomes, ideals or beliefs about any relationship is the foundation for truly meeting another for who they are and not what they do or can do for you.
I love this Anonymous – that beautiful and profound sense of being truly womanly. A blessing to bring to any meeting with another.
“I felt a deep settlement in my body. I felt much more of a woman. It was a truly incredible experience as I hadn’t ever felt anything to this depth within myself before. All feelings of nervousness were no longer there and there was just a feeling of absoluteness, knowing and grace”.
To be open to have a relationship without pictures or expectations is huge, so beautiful for you to hold your love for your self and also for your partner, it was amazing that when the beautiful relationship came to an end there was such appreciation for what you both had shared, with no need for it to be any more that what it was, holding still with the love you held for yourself all the way through.
Starting new relationships from a point of love first is not the norm in today’s society, it is refreshing to read your experience and how you made love your foundation first and from there if the relationship doesn’t work out there are no what ifs or maybes.
What has been shared in the blog is that it was about true love, by expressing truth and not holding back. This is a great reflection of allowing to express and being you in each moment.
It is great to realise this . . .”that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship” . . . as this is massive as this love is who we are.
I love that you gave your all and did not have an investment in an outcome.
Having no investments is the key, that allows us to give all that we are with no holding back. In this we give the other the space to feel and connect to this love on offer, without any expectations.
It shows how successfully we are imprinted away from our nature that we need to re-learn how to love. I can still feel in my body today how I just knew love as a little girl and how simple and natural it was. It didn’t belong to anyone, it was open, and it didn’t need to do everything as the quality of love does all the work in relationships. But then I learnt over time that it needs to look a certain way, belongs to certain people and is a finite resource that is exchanged. Luckily for us, despite these detours the love we are and began with is always there, like a flame that can’t go out.
This is such a beautiful sharing of how in fact when we let go and allow ourselves to just be us, to be seen as us all we bring is there to be shared and there is such a joy in sharing that with another. And no pictures either, what I feel reading this blog is how amazing this relationship was and how it’s ending doesn’t take away for that in anyway at all, but how it’s now the foundation for the next step forward.
“I recently entered into a relationship after many years of avoiding relationships and it was an absolutely amazing experience for me” – awesome experience and yes Anon, because, and as with every life experience – whatever “gets thrown” or comes our way, has come our way because it needs looking at. This is where the evolution lays.
Every journey is an experience, a learning as we evolve and more is given.
Being ourselves in relationships.. if we’re not being ourselves, from any situation from a relationship to a job to a friendship, or even a simple conversation with a stranger- it’s interesting to look at why: what picture or outcome are we invested in and don’t want to let go of? Are we putting being liked and accepted by others ahead of liking and accepting ourselves?
Our minds can come in with all sorts of reasons why we should not follow our heart and allow a deepening of a relationship but love does not reason, it just is.
Love is from our entire being our whole body not from the mind, there it is forever holding.
When we come from love everything is less intense, we can feel but we don’t need to hold onto right or wrong.
I love what you have shared here on so many levels, especially kicking to touch the ideals that it has to be wedding bells to make a relationship successful!
Yes the illusion of the ideal relationship that leads us on a perpetual trail of more and more images and ideals we feel we need to align to but lead us further from knowing what it true for all.
Love it Richard, thank you, and this puts the value back into our everyday interactions with people we may never see again.
There is something so amazing about letting ourselves love. Every time I do this without reserve I am blown away by the realisation that the endless abundance of love is real and that there is absolutely no end to it.
I agree Matilda its an endless ocean of love it just keeps pouring in. Being open and saying yes.
Learning to love ourselves is a journey within and not something to look for on the out side and the knowing of this changes everything from all that it offered to us to show the opposite. A beautiful knowing that we are love and the emanation of this in our lives from there is life changing and makes so much difference.
Many of us wait to be loved to feel it, rather than build and know it from within, to learn to Love is so much to do with our relationship with ourselves.
We can spend most of our lives not loving ourselves – look around and we see non acceptance is the norm in society. Learning to accept and love ourselves is one of the most important things we could ever do for ourselves.
Making a mistake and still hold ourselves in love is a totally different experience to when we make a mistake and we are not loving – we can be so very unnecessary harsh on ourselves – self love is the answer.
True, learning to stay with Love and not bash ourselves when we think we made amistake is so vital to growth and loving our potential.
In a Universe where the truth of all matter is love it’s crazy beyond belief that we have to re-learn that love is the very substance out of which we’re made.
As women we seem to crave that intimate connection with a man, and want it to be everything to us, but of course no man can be that, so reading your blog I get the sense of you attending to you being there for you, and then from there you had that to share with a partner. Beautiful sharing.
Learning to love a beautiful sharing of what we can all do and is forever offered to us in our lives . Beautiful different with no pictures just and evolvement and expansion listened to from within.
Jump right in, I love that motto! But first do we dare to do that in honouring and cherishing ourselves?
Isn’t it interesting what we can come up with or put in the way from jumping straight into having a relationship or even spending time with one another. Although I am in a relationship, I can see how this has played out in many areas of my life where I have held back from expressing all of me. However, this is changing as I learn to say ‘yes’ to what is being offered.
What am amazing reflection relationships are. What I find is that the harsher I am with myself, the harsher other people are with me too. I can blame them for the difficulty and perceived injury – but it started with me denying my light. Thanks Anonynous for the reminder of Loves beauty.
I love that you were both open and honest in your communication with each other and allowed yourselves to be vulnerable from the start.
I used to dread the end of relationships, I thought (and I’m sure I wasn’t alone) that they were the worst part, but actually we can learn and grow just as much in the end as we can in the beginning and the middle – life completely changes if we see every moment as an opportunity to learn from.
It is amazing to be able to let a relationship form or unfold and not try to make it happen because we need a relationship.
Wow – this totally turns around the story we so often hear, of grand pursuit and high excitement only to loose everything at the end. Where true love is concerned nothing is lost, only learnt. Beautiful to feel your expansion and sweetness Anonymous.
Wow, to go to a date without any expectations or pictures is so completely different than what is ‘normal’.
The expectations that go with dating or building an relationships are so riddled with pictures that we can often stop a true potential from developing. The ideal man and women are just that an IDEAL!
It’s true. We can get in the way of something beautiful developing if we step in with all our ideals and pictures. We need to be open to embracing what comes without judging it as it approaches and unfolds.
Beautiful to read your journey, and how you went on dates that were real life experiences sharing true life, and how you didn’t allow any expectations to creep in but allowed the love that you are out, there is so much that we can experience when we come from love.
How strong the old patterns can be “of wanting to hold back love and not let anyone in”, patterns that have held us back from experiencing the joy and expansion you experienced in this relationship. In fact, what you have shared is showing the truth of what a relationship is and how, in general, the majority of humanity have a very different idea, so missing out on many beautiful and natural interactions with another.
So true Ingrid, I clearly felt this in my body the other day in how I had denied myself love! Crazy that we spend most of our lives fighting ourselves and fighting love!
‘…what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship.’ This is huge! I don’t have to shut off love depending on my relationship status. I used to believe it wasn’t possible to love more than close family, friends and a partner. It’s such a lie we get sold – the soul partner, the one, the one that will complete us. I bought into all of this because I haven’t wanted to love myself so I even believed that wasn’t possible – but what if it totally is?!
This was very healing for me to read as I have not been in a relationship with a partner for a while now and can feel expectations or pictures I still hold on some level regarding this.
If love is not tied to a relationship, but comes from within, we can all be the love we are, regardless of our relationship status.
Beautiful Anonymous – we need to chuck out the ideas of milestones and duration, relationships aren’t about being together forever but sharing a deeper quality of ourselves. Doing this for whatever length of time is huge, having lived many lives disconnected and enthralled by the lies we choose.
As I work and develop my intimacy with myself and my partner – reading this has supported me to see the depths to which we can go and surrender to love on our bodies. That we can be all of us and that we can explore what life can offer and be.
I am totally with you on the mark of success for this relationship; to have learnt to express love more freely and openly is absolute gold and as you say, this is something that stays with you forever.
What a gorgeous sharing and a great foundation for any other relationships that will come along.
What you shared sounds amazing breaking the consciousness of how a
Relationship looks like. But how did that happen? What changed in your daily life to support this from your past experiences?
Its amazing the deeper level of connection we can have when we let of all the conditioned ways of thinking and beliefs that we have allowed to get in the way of such precious and beautiful relationships. Thanks for sharing Anonymous.
As soon expectation kick in we are in the hands of our thoughts, pictures, ideals and beliefs in which there is no space to deeply connect to the love that is being presented to us.
Having succes to me is completely redefined in reading this blog. Succes is not realizing the beliefs and images we are holding but true succes is when we are able to deeply connect with the essences within, not only our own essence, although that is the start, but too to the essence of others in which we feel united and one.
It is gorgeous how we keep getting opportunities in life to heal, learn, explore and expand. It is not about longevity of relationship or anything else, but the quality we choose to embrace and the commitment with which we connect. And in this way each experience provides a perfect foundation for the next moment.
I love how this shows that we can always learn from each other no matter what kind of relationship. We are here to bring out the best in each other and help us deepen our love.
I’ve found that having that feeling of ease while with another has to first come from being settled in and with myself. It’s not about waiting around or Mr/Mrs Right as when connected and treating my body with care, I can feel that person that is there to learn from. Often they don’t match my expectations of what my partner should look like but they feel true.
Beautiful what you share Leigh. It are our expectations that can come in the way and makes us feel unease in relationships, relationships that otherwise would flow from the depth of the connection we are able to allow with one another and in which ease can be felt.
Good point, it wasn’t about learning to love it was about reconnecting to something I had shut down and learning to trust and let that out once again.
Yes, there is this picture that as women we need someone to bring something to us yet it is about bringing out this beauty within and allowing that to be enjoyed and shared with others.
It can also be that we hold this back because we don’t know how to handle the level of love that can come back. I agree, it is devastating to hold back love because this is when you lose- you miss out on the opportunities. When you express love with no need you are complete and grow from this regardless of what happens.
The way we have been taught to see the world is quite akin to a very insidious lie. The thinking that we need another to make us feel complete is the basis behind almost all of our relationships. This has totally robbed us of our innate sensitivity and love, and has made it very difficult for us to live from, share and accept that love is there to be lived, not needed to be given to us from another.
This invites me to consider the endlessness of love, there is no finite quantity or quality, it is forever abundant and up to us to deepen our relationship with its riches.
It’s funny how we can set ourselves up to not accept love, we actually create stories to avoid ourselves from feeling the love we are and the love that is from others.
‘…what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship.’ This reminds me of a few years ago and there being the flutter of something with someone that I knew wasn’t going to be anything more than me realising I can love everyone I meet and not hold back loving people to just one person in an intimate relationship. Having held this as a belief, which I see many other’s share, it’s no wonder people are desperate to be in relationship – but why not put any conditions on being loving?
I really love this it brought back a remembrance of honoring myself deeply as a woman without having a picture and from there every day was rebuilding truth. I love taking stock and see where I am now and how far I have come.
This is a beautiful story – not because of a happy ending, but because the relationship is so much about where it starts (with ourselves), and what it offers us by way of intimacy, rather than the outcome.
Taking care of and committing to the quality with which we attend to everything, rather than being focused on goals, needs, outcomes and getting to these at whatever cost, shifts everything; understanding this is the beginning of re-writing patterns and beliefs we may have been entrenched in for ages.
This busts so many myths about relationships and what a ‘successful’ relationship looks like … I’d say one which supports us to express and be more the love we are is that no matter how short, long or otherwise it is. And to feel the depth of understanding the author came to about what it is to express love and be us in the world is deeply inspiring.
Coming from love vs coming from need..there is a huge difference between the two and what this then offers our relationships – one offers a space and steadiness for evolution and the other stifles and smothers.
What a beautiful journey. Making ‘dates’ about real life I find very cool. We usually create such situations which actually add to the tendency to have pictures of how things should be and add pressure but just keeping it real allows a true connection. Not that there is anything wrong with going for a meal but mixing it up with the things we live provides a deeper understanding of each other and an openness and transparency which is a great basis for starting a relationship.
I agree, love definitely comes from within us and I am finding this in a new relationship – the more I am self loving, the more love we can feel between us
“However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship.” Yes we think we have love because we are in a relationship but this does not need to be the case, there can be relationships void of love or love when relationships end. It is mainly our choice to express the love we know in our hearts and that can be with anyone or any situation.
The treasuring and beauty of the love we have within us all and our honouring and connection to this is amazingly special to feel and know for ourselves from within and coming from this love changes everything .
Learning to love is learning to love ourselves enough to hold ourselves within any relationship. Without this commitment to self we just end up giving ourselves away. No relationship is worth more than we are.
What a beautiful confirmation around not needing to fit any pictures and learning just to allow each other to be yourselves.
As I re-enter the dating scene, this is a joy to read, thank you.
Love is never tied to any relationship. The love we have within us only wants to be let out, therefore relationships are important as the foundation in our lives, because in any relationship where we are unable to be the love that we are, we would feel hugely compromised.
” However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship. ”
What a huge learning , being love is just of emanation of who you are.
To my own amazement I have realised, and appreicated how easy it is to shift something that previously seemed way too painful to address, by simply expressing how I feel the moment I need to express it.
Beautiful Anonymous. The more we open up to Love in ourselves – the more connection and intimacy we will feel and offer to others. It’s the complete opposite of the lies about Romance we have all been fed – it is not our partner, but us who are here to present the greatest gift, instead.
What an amazing experience to not have any expectations or pictures from your date. Bringing this into any relationships can truly support the quality of that relationship and beautifully reflect
This to others.
Love and relationship are not such a grand thing when we experience it step by step in our body—it never needs to be perfect and there is no picture to follow, what amazingness to reimprint this in our lives.
It is amazing to read about a woman holding herself steady in the face of nervousness and tension. This shows what strength and power we do have as women, to hold the quality of space that we share with others.
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others” – nothing beats love’s exquisiteness!!!
While we may think that a relationship starts and comes to an end but in truth it is not. We are forever in relationship with one another. The point is we only have to become aware of this fact and when we do, we do allow ourselves to feel that we are love and inevitably are connected to every single person on this world.
This is beautiful, it seems to me we have the opportunity all the time to open up more and more to loving and being loved, and the only thing standing in our way is us, when we hold back. Inspiring thank you.
The biggest thing standing in our way of love is ourselves and our fears/ideas. If this was the last moment in this life, as is the case of people about to crash in a plane, there is an overwhelming desire to express love. Yet in our daily lives we hold back and temper the love that is naturally there for everyone.
‘I felt more beautiful in myself as a woman, I walked taller and my face got softer. Other aspects and relationships in my life also started to change. I became more of myself at work and was opening up with others more too.’ How gorgeous that it only takes a shift in one area to affect all others – certainly a testament to the spherical nature of life and that everything is connected.
I love stories like these. Very real and relatable. And I love how the opportunity of a relationship enables us to put everything we know into practice, and it can be a huge marker of where we are at.
Sure Rebecca, when we are in a relationship everything becomes very tangible, so too how we are in it and by that a relationship is a beautiful place to be to explore the depths of our love for people.
“Learning to Love” – is learning to explore the extent and depths of how I relate with myself and with my body on an everyday basis. It is a journey of consistent self-developing and looking at the quality of this… For how we self-relate is how we love to eventuate the quality of that [our] love.
“Love” has so many ideals, expectations and pictures attached to it. Valentine’s Day having just gone, its evident we are still very much associating ‘love’ with items and displays of so called affection, as well as a time or a particular day. What if we were to have a consistency and an openness to ‘love’ being different each time, forever deepening and an adventure to explore with not just our partner but friends and family too?
And even more so learning how to be in true relationship with another has to be learned and worked through, it doesn’t just happen. Your willingness to drop the pictures of how things should be and simply open up, express and allow things to unfold meant you enjoyed your time together. It also confirmed your capacity to be you and hold yourself with deep self worth in relationship with men.
I love the title of this blog, ‘Learning to Love’ it is a truth we do have to, first with ourselves and then with others.
There is nothing about love that we don’t know, we know love inside out because we are love and yet we flounder around pretending that we don’t understand how love works. We all deserve an Oscar, we really do.
Alexis, I had to smile when I read this! Of course we know love otherwise we wouldn’t live life so wounded for the not having it and yet we do pretend so well that we don’t get it.
Oh we are absolute masters at pretence because how otherwise would we have been able to keep the whole charade of life going for such a long time?
We are masters of denying this fact and living so we are blind to that fact. An inconvenient truth as they say.
We can appreciate how loving we are every morning, and then we can learn to live life from this love.
When we live and express from love the world changes.
I love how you had no expectations before meeting your date for the first time and your open-ness to meeting him for who he is and in turn your choice to openly share who you are led to this ….. ‘the ease I felt around him was a new marker of how I could just be myself with another – no trying to impress or needing to be anything.’
What a great learning! If we are open we can learn from every relationship as we are even in relationship with the person in the street;in whatever gets reflected to us there is always an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and others.
Not having pictures means a relationship doesn’t have a defined term. Being open-hearted allows it unfold organically and takes away the pressure of wanting it to work. And if it ends after a short while, appreciating the learning gained is gold.
Anonymous this inspires. When we walk with love, we’re more open in relationships, not dependent on them for love. Beautiful how when the relationship ended you were still you and full of love.
A beautiful honesty and reflection and something for us all to realise that our love is lived from within us and this is our foundation for love in the world.
Relationships are such a great practice ground because Love is for everyone, when it comes from us loving ourselves first.
A powerful sharing Anonymous and great that you came to the ‘end’ of the relationship with such realisations because in effect, there is no such thing as an ending of a relationship is there, just the end of physical contact with that person, as energetically we are all connected. ‘Through this relationship I have learnt that I can continue to bring this quality and a deepening connection to all of my relationships’, this is wonderful also, and awesome that you share this with others as it reflects to us that it is possible to have deep loving, relationships with everyone based on the love we have for ourselves first. An open heart gives us permission to have open relationships.
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.” It is truly joyful to see and feel the ripple that flows when we come from love.
It is interesting that we may need to learn how to love again, just as we may need to learn to walk or talk again after a stroke. Especially when we consider we were born as love and separated from this because of not being met or hurt in life.
“I also learnt that I don’t need to hold myself back in celebrating and enjoying myself as a woman.” What a wonderful and important lesson for you Anonymous, and for all of us. We are so worth celebrating!
“love wasn’t tied to the relationship” – This is exactly what television, the media and society encourages people (and particularly women) to believe, that without a relationship we are nothing and that to have love is to have a marriage and kids too. Not only are we sooo past that ancient ideal, but the love we can feel towards ourselves and anyone in our lives is incredibly powerful. We do not need to tick a box to feel this.
It really is empowering to be able to observe and feel the impact of not holding back has and how right it is. This is something that I still can dabble in by going into old habits but lately I can really feel my body being super receptive to allowing myself to feel all of me and making it normal everyday whenever.
“I got to learn that I actually wasn’t this standoffish person, but that I had an amazing capacity to express love.” It is beautiful to learn that all the behaviours we have ourselves identified with is not us when start to express love and that life from there can totally change. We can do this every time we recognise one of these behaviours and just simply debunk them by expressing love and nothing else.
Love gets to be itself more naturally when free of pictures and judgments. This reflects how the two people involved have had a letting go of judgments in themselves, a true blessing in the world to experience this.
Love is within each and everyone one of us. I know how easy it can be to put it on another and not feel enough on our own but that really is just subscribing to the false ideals and pictures that we need another to complete us. When we truly see this and appreciate it we then bring to everyone else, not just our partners, all the love that we are. Need goes out of the picture and instead love is shared which is truly worth feeling and allowing it to unfold which it can do with anyone it just needs to start with self!
I like the bit where you say you felt the same driving away from the date as you did driving toward it. This is a great marker. Often I can come away from an interaction with another feeling like there was something that I didn’t express or something that I didn’t get from them – all markers of a lack of absolute connection to myself and surrender to whatever was needed.
This is such a powerful read as it breaks open so many false ideas we have that love comes from another, that love ends when a relationship does, and that a successful relationship needs to have a happy ending, etc. As you have shared, love is something that comes from within, so there is no condition or outer circumstance that can cut that off except our own choice. A wonderful learning.
I love the fact that even though the relationship only lasted a few month, you can appreciate it for what it was and what you learnt from it. I have been very scared to get back into dating but reading this makes me realise that each encounter, or relationship, whether it be one date or five years is worth something when it you are in it to evolve. Not to mention the importance of not holding the relationship to the ransom of such ideals and pictures that we have created.
There are times where it feels true to date and there are other times where it does not feel honouring to date- that it is a time to just be with me and deepen in this.
What a beautiful sharing and offering of what happens when we allow ourselves to be the love we are and thus express this naturally .The more that I expressed this my body started to change. I felt more beautiful in myself as a woman, I walked taller and my face got softer. Other aspects and relationships in my life also started to change. I became more of myself at work and was opening up with others more too.
every new relationship is an opportunity to feel true love and it starts from within
Fully agreed Carmel and a new relationship does not need to be a physical one it can simply be with a colleague at work, it can literally be with anyone as we are all in essence love.
What we are feeling is our own love and the deeper we go with this the more we can reflect love to each other, naturally, without trying or needing to do anything. I am learning to trust people, to let them in and I suppose what I am saying is I am learning to trust myself and that it is safe to open my heart and simply be the love that I am.
‘Learning to Love’ feels very accepting that we can be open to learning new things the whole of our lives. Relationships change as we develop and grow with understanding, and I am learning they can always go deeper.
Ironic isn’t it that we have to learn how to love when love is who we are.
“As we walked along the river a bird was flying along beside us about 2 to 3 metres away. It kept flying at a height just above our heads then plummeting straight down into the water only to come back up and do this again. It did it for the whole length of our walk” – reading this has brought a smile to my morning Anonymous… I just love the magic of the universe when this happens, it shows that never are we alone in our relationship with a person as in your case for example on a date… and that nature comes with us too to join in, to inspire and to reflect to us our collective majesty : )
Not many people can say a relationship that ended was truly successful but you can because you opened up your heart, allowed yourself to be vulnerable and went for it. When we hold back we are left in the emptiness of “could have been’s and the “what ifs” giving it all we have got is always recipe for true success no mater what the outcome.
Success is evolution, irrespective of the outcome.
It’s cool to read how you took that experience as an opportunity to deepen your ability to express love to yourself and another.
Its funny how we are born full of love and really willing to let that out and also let love in, something then happens as we get older and we start to measure how much love we can be at any one time.
Love hearing how you reconnected back to that natural innocence of accepting love – for the grandness of Love never ends….
The deeper we are able to go in our own self love and acceptance the more we are available in our other relationships.
This is such a learning to feel how ‘I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.’ When we hold ourselves back, not only ourselves, but also everyone else misses us in full. We do have an amazing capacity to express love, it seems quite crazy not to.
The acceptance of our own love within us is such an important learning even though we know it deeply inside and the allowing of it and ourselves to blossom and bask in our love from within and this can be felt by everyone .What an amazing journey and knowing to share.
The title of this article touched me this morning. ‘Learning to love’ as an invitation to stay open life-long to the opportunities to develop and deepen our relationship with love… ourselves, others and life.
Yes and to give ourselves the grace to understand that we are learning and to not put pressure onto ourselves of how we think we should be.
“I got to learn that I actually wasn’t this standoffish person, but that I had an amazing capacity to express love.” – we can label and judge ourselves by our past unloving behaviours (or even our present ones) but that is never who we truly are – it may be the way we are choosing to express but it’s not what our essence is.
I agree, I have had moments when I doubt in no way that the Love is within me and that it is in no way dependent on someone else, The more I have accepted this as a potential the more true and a reality it has become. No seeking outside for Love, it is within us all equally to be expressed.
Relationships are awesome and can offer us much to learn, explore and uncover about ourselves and how we connect with the world and within our relationships we can also appreciate and confirm all others too.
It’s a really good gauge when we meet someone new of how claimed in ourselves we actually are. Will we go along with how they think and give ourselves away? Or will we hold what we know to be true for us and stand strong? If we are not true to ourselves we rob others of the opportunity to feel something different to what they are used to. We owe it to ourselves and to the people we meet to be transparent and open about who we are, what we know and what we feel.
There is in this writing, a gift of one of life’s most beautiful lessons – that the love we are and express comes from us, it is not dependant on a situation or another person for it to be there, it simply is because it is who we are. The essence of you is love.
There is in this comment, a gift of one of life’s most beautiful lessons – true appreciation is our fuel as we learn to live our souls on earth.
‘However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.’ This is so beautiful. It’s something I realised and forgot a few years ago when I was intrigued by what it was about having the potential of someone interested in me. I was looking forward to expressing love with another which got me to stop and say, ‘there’s nothing stopping me from being love with everyone I meet!!’ I don’t need a relationship for this!”
‘However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.’ So well said Anonymous. Love is an expression that’s no boundaries and doesn’t ‘stop’. When we contract away and don’t stay open we are expressing through hurt and not Love.
The reality of learning to love ourselves and express it is so beautiful to discover nurture and deepen realising it is an every expanding journey as is the beauty of who we are and not needing this from another but from within ourselves firstly to share makes all the difference.
I love how this relationship showed you that love is something that we are and the absolute gold of expressing and sharing this love.
‘love is something we are’ and actually down to the nub of everything, love is all that we are 🙂
The metaphor of jumping right in, reminds me of how it may take several attempts to open ourselves to another and to love. Especially when we have protected our hearts because of our previous hurts and rejections.
‘I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.’ I agree, in the past I have been very critical of others and when I appreciate them instead the relationship changes, I am coming to understand more and more the words ‘Be Love’
“All feelings of nervousness were no longer there and there was just a feeling of absoluteness, knowing and grace.” I love how the way you were feeling in your body made such a difference to how you were on the first date. Therefore it was how you were with yourself that determined the ease that you experienced. Truly beautiful.
When we treasure and honour ourselves it’s easy to share this with someone else. How crazy we make our whole life about finding the one when we are all the one all along. Thank you Anonymous for reminding me when I cherish me, and express love there’s nothing I can loose.
“Learning to Love” – the moment i began to love myself, to take care of myself.. i started to live life and truly enjoy it. Up until then life really had been a facade and exhaustive performance laced with perfection. True love offers vitality and pith… and most importantly ease.
That is very true isn’t it- that living life with love and in each moment bringing it back to love brings a simplicity and ease to life.
After a ‘successful’ conversation or meeting (or a date!) where both parties walk away on what feels like the same page, after enjoying the connection and potentially with a purpose or plan going forwards, we often leave on a ‘high’ and get excited by the prospects of what is to come, entertaining anticipation but sometimes anxiousness too. What if these kind of conversations were the new ‘normal’? All too often are our ‘small talk’ interactions meaningless and dry, when they could be grand and inspiring.
So true Susie, we often don’t even fully get honest with ourselves about how we are feeling but when we do things become more lighter and easier to deal with as it is all on the surface.
Not letting up on love, learning every step of the way and staying open-hearted is changing my life completely. There are ingrained behaviours built from hurts that ongoingly need watching out for, but the tide has turned and being an open book has brought so much inspiration, intimacy and love into my life.
‘Staying open-hearted’ is a real lesson. I can feel that when I get hurt I shut down to people or block them and in this justify my actions by making it about right and wrong. In truth, I can feel that when I stay open-hearted and make it about love I am taking responsibility and not getting drawn into the right or wrong.
I am learning to love too – but sometimes I stumble and fall, wishing I were more loving but instead, going back into old hurts and feelings of rejection. The antidote – stop making childhood hurts an excuse, be responsible and just BE LOVE. Considering we all come from Love, therefore are all made from love, it’s absurd that we are re-learning to connect to something that is innately in all of us because it IS us.
In life we may go through many relationships or a few, but either way if it is a relationship it would always deepen, so that the love we see in ourselves and in others keep growing and expanding. It doesn’t matter whether we do this with one person or many, but the purpose is the same.
It is interesting to consider what we often want from other people in relationships, and yet are we actually willing to let out from within us what it is that we would like to receive from another. This is what I am ponder gin concerning the level of intimacy in relationships I am willing to go to in terms of being seen for all that I am, no protection.
It’s in relationship that we truly come to see and know ourselves. And when we’ve worked on healing past hurts and connecting more to the inner most part of us, it is then in relationships that we realise how far we have come, how the neediness is replaced by space and joy, and how amazing it is to come to a relationship in the fullness of you.
Crazy how love happens and when it’s done at the right time how amazing it can be! Great read though 👍🏽
I was talking to a friend of mine who a few months ago parted from her long time partner. What she shared with me was amazing that she could see how people are in relationships but are actually quite lonely, and how there is such a strong expectation on women to get married and have a family and this expectation is coming from her girl friends who are married with children its as though she is being told to hurry up time is passing and so any man will do! If not there is a sense that some how she has failed. I wonder why there is this pressure to conform to the current way in which society is set up and why as women we are buying into these Ideals and Beliefs.
This is such an important point you raise as there is often these pressures (and many times unsaid but felt) that a woman is less if she is not in a relationship. I had a colleague of mine recently joking with my about why I wasn’t dating someone who I met through our workplace. I shared that it did not feel true for me and was not the quality I would want in a relationship but that I want something deeper and that if it wasn’t there then I would prefer to be single. He asked me what had happened with this relationship and I explained it. He then looked at me and said ‘I respect that you are not just jumping into anything, not just any man could be with you, what you offer people, it will be a man who is out of the box and equally as gorgeous as you who will be the one who will be able to stand by your side’. It was so honouring and so loving what he shared, I was deeply touched by this.
When we start to wander off into the future or the past of how a relationship should or should not be we have lost ourselves and it is in this losing connection to ourselves that we find ourselves in anxiousness or nervous energy. On the other hand when we are steady and with ourselves holding ourselves in the love that we are there cannot be nothing but love because we are in the present moment expressing all that is needed with no holding back but allowing what is there from within to come through.
‘I also got to feel and realise that the depth and level of love that was expressed in this relationship is a depth that sometimes people never get to experience in their whole life: that people can be in relationships but it can actually be quite lonely.’ – so true, Anonymous, the depth of love you established then became a new marker for all your relationships. Very inspiring.
‘… they were all pretty funny experiences but allowed us to get to know each other more just through living life together.’ – I love how you mixed up your dates and made them very real, no expectations or needs, just hanging out with each other. So often dates come with enormous pressure to impress, which then makes it more about the outcome rather than connecting with and appreciating the other person, just as they are.
Very true, at times I had the thought of ‘I can’t ask him to this..’ but when I felt it, it just felt true and was the next thing to do together and it then didn’t come with that pressure to impress as you have shared.
‘I left the date with the same feeling as when I drove to it, this in itself was pretty cool for me. I haven’t ever really found it easy to open up with men but there was something about this man that I trusted and the ease I felt around him was a new marker of how I could just be myself with another – no trying to impress or needing to be anything.’ – it’s very beautiful to feel how claimed you are in yourself as a woman and the open-ness you both shared and, therefore, the gorgeous connection you felt between each other.
Beautiful blog. Thankyou for sharing. “My expression of love can only get deeper and grow….”. When we hold back we serve no one, least of all ourselves.
Great point that love doesn’t leave us when we’re not in a relationship.. it is always there within us, waiting to be connected to and expressed outwardly. And even when we think there’s nothing inside worth connecting to, it is still there, ever patiently waiting for us to turn back to it.
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.”How beautiful and expansive to feel and the appreciation magnifies it also.
“Over the next few weeks it grew into a relationship and this for me was the first relationship where I felt that I was actually myself in it.” When we are true to ourselves and don’t hold back there is a simplicity and joy in being with another person.
I got to see that even though it ended, for me it was a truly successful relationship because through it I learnt to express love in a way that I never have before, and this stays with me.This is a great point you make here Anonymous as we can have a truly loving and intimate relationship with another but not be in an intimate relationship in that way with them and not hold back the love.
I had an opportunity of a relationship last year but the signs around me were not positive, in fact they were telling me to walk away. Sometimes the learning is in the saying no, otherwise we are doing more harm than good under the guise of trying to learn from a relationship.
A relationship based on need is very draining and as it develops away from need there can be other complications as we learn the difference between sex and making love, especially when we have all the childhood messages about men always wanting sex, or women always being frigid, it is very much about feeling your way and calling out anything that doesn’t feel right. A stony silence is not helpful to anyone but better than an angry reaction, and eventually someone has to crack the ice in order to restore harmony.
This is a beautiful sharing Anonymous, such an inspiration for those who may be searching for love on the outside of ourselves, through another, when the only true love is found within our own inner heart, connect to that and everyone gets to share!
Love is what we are all about, , we try and take it, need it, want it, give it, but in truth it is within us, ready to be expressed for all equally. No need or try. I am learning this….
I am learning this too – ironic isn’t it that we are all RE-learning something that is innately inside of us – it is the core, the essence of us, but it appears we have disconnected from it which has led to searching of love outside of ourselves. This can lead us into heartbreak and disillusionment. What Anonymous has shared is that when we connect to the love of our inner heart we feel whole and complete whether we are with someone or not.
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.” This is key to true relationships. When we come from what we know to be true for ourselves, in other words understanding and appreicating that we are love first and foremost, we are able to offer another (and others), so much more both individually and in a relationship as we have no expectations or conditions about how we want it to be.
“I felt more beautiful in myself as a woman, I walked taller and my face got softer.” A beautiful image of a woman walking in her grace and power – a gorgeous reflection to this world.
Oh what love can do, soften us around the edges and makes us feel all warm and glowing 🙂
Such a great point you share about how even thou it was a two month relationship the level of depth of love that were willing to express and share with him was so powerful and you learnt so much from it that is absolutely was a successful relationships. Thanks for sharing, very inspiring.
I also have learnt since then more about giving another the grace to make their own choices and do things in their own time, not expecting them to fill a need of yours or to do what you feel is right. I am entering a new relationship and can feel to give it much more space and to date myself as much as I am dating this man and as it is early days to just allow things to unfold without putting any pictures onto it (which can be challenging but when I connect back to something truer with- how to be with it all is known).
“The more that I expressed this my body started to change. I felt more beautiful in myself as a woman, I walked taller and my face got softer.2 beautiful. I have seen this too when couples are in relationship. My question is why can’t we have this when we are on our own?! Expression is key.
Sure we can, I touched on this once too – fell in love with myself. It didn’t last long as a choose to go back to my old ways of looking for love from others – I’m learning though, as are we all, that true love is what we are made of so it is impossible to NOT be the love that we are if we connect to it from the inside out.
What I love about your approach to relationships here is there’s no focus on the end point, i.e. – will we/won’t we be together, instead it’s all about the journey and what you can learn on the way… That’s a great way to approach both life and relationships.
I love that no matter what reflects back to us we can always choose to be loving to ourselves. We can always choose to connect back to the love that we are and reflect that back to the world.
That’s a very good place to start diningwithoneandwithlove… connect to the love within ourselves first and everyone feels it. After all, it is what we are made of so it seems crazy that we yearn and search for it. No one can take our love away, we can only lose connection with it.
Isn’t it interesting that we have externalised love, when in fact our essence IS love and when we feel or connect to the love we are and share this it naturally expands.
This is lovely to read thank you. We are always in relationship with ourselves and can learn much through our connections and openness with others. Allowing yourself to go there without the pictures or expectations is inspiring.
So many of us have been hurt by past relationships we dare not take the plunge with another just in case we get hurt and rejected. Or if we do we hold back a bit just in case and think we are protecting ourselves. But all we are doing is keeping love out. The more open we are with ourselves the more open we are with everyone else. For me it took a while to get rid of the notion that being love does in fact mean I am protected from being hurt. Not so much in the sense of how we use the word protection but in the sense that by being the love that I am I know who I am and so I know if someone does not treat me with love it is not personal and they are not rejecting or trying to hurt me they are simply already rejecting themselves and that is their choice. For me that has been a real game changer as no longer am I the victim.
I can really relate to what you are saying in this blog anonymous about giving yourself permission to feel and express the love that is naturally your way and let go of the straight jacket that is holding it all back. I have often had a bit of a block in really expressing how much I love and adore people in my life but recently it has started to shift and the deliciousness I have felt in my body when I allow that goregous natural love to come through and the depth of connection I have felt with others as a result is simply sublime and definitely one I want to explore even more.
Yes andrewmooney26, I too have held back from expressing the love for the people in my life for fear of getting hurt yet it’s ironic because it has hurt me even more in not expressing! Could it be that my lack of expressing my love and appreciation towards another is because of my lack of appreciation and love towards myself? There is much for me to explore here too…
Yes, I find that when I drop on holding myself in love and knowing who I am and really loving myself then I do not have the foundation there to appreciate others in my life. When I do have that love for myself it can’t not flow out to others.
A baby is entirely natural and un-self-judgmental in its exploration of how to walk; thus we should be in our exploration of how to love. This is a beautiful example of that.
“this for me was the first relationship where I felt that I was actually myself in it” How beautiful and what a joy to be able to simply be who you are in our relationships , very inspiring and a great refection.
You know this is gold because we are so used to the negative talk, to relationships not working and then falling apart, to not valuing who we are and what we bring, to not seeing self-responsibility as high on the list of priorities and it wires the brain in the wrong way so it seems ‘normal’. The down side of that is any other way seems worrying, possibly even life threatening in the perception of the fear of ‘different’, to value love, to take responsibility for our own behaviour and our contribution in life. It is bananas! Our brain, if wired to not want to stand out, will be more at ease with the struggle and drama than the simplicity of self-responsibility!!! eeek
This blog busts the myth of needing someone special in our life in order to have love. In this case your experience with this man led to a deeper understanding of love, so it’s not about isolating ourselves until we feel ready. By engaging in life with the willingness to grow and develop our awareness we can use every experience as a way of deepening our love.
We are students, we need to practice.
We are love, so yes it is a matter of allowing that love to be expressed without the framework. 🙂
It is ananazing and healing process, opening to the potential of love with another, of allowing ourselves to shine out and be seen, and to truly see and love another – for it has a ripple effect in all our relationships
“However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.” What beautiful, wise and valuable advice for anyone who may feel they have lost something, or feel at a loss when a relationship comes to an end. When we learn to love ourselves first, we lose nothing as we already have everything within us to begin with.
There is much to learn from every relationship, no matter the time we share together. Being open to whatever the possibilities are a key.
this is true and how different would it be if this was our focus rather then ‘did we stay together or not’
I hadn’t gone to the date with any expectations or pictures, there was just an openness to meeting him. This is definitely key to whether your showing a true version of yourself to another or not, for sure.
Yes I felt very much myself leading into the date. As I was driving there I had a deep sense of stillness in my body and a cherishing of the woman I am- it was strong inside me and also a new experience for me and it was amazing to learn to let this out and be seen by another.
This is such a beautiful post, thank you so much for sharing this incredible story about our capacity to love ourselves and others 🙂
I am learning to love me, and from this love comes the love for all equally, then and only then am I able to share this love with others. It is the natural way to be – as it is who I am.
Not quite there yet, but working on it 😉
And thank you for sharing Anonymous, a great reflection for all of us.
” I know that my expression of love can only get deeper and grow.” A beautiful sharing and inspiration that offers the learning of life and the deepening of ourselves and relationships with our evolution and expression of love.
“Learning to Love”. A paradox in the sense that we are already love, but that we need to learn to live that love and express it.
Very true Rebecca. We are learning to be ourselves again, when that has always been what we have always been – and always will be.
Seeing a relationship that broke up as being successful is not the common experience and is really quite incredible. A beautiful example of saying yes to love and living it to the best of your ability.
Being ourselves in any relationship opens up so much potential between two people, regardless of whether they are our partner, friend, relative or a local shopkeeper. When we offer all of who we are to another, we offer them the opportunity to do/be the same, and as a result our connection and interactions are deeper, joyful and filled with true meaning.
Loads of relationships these days end with bitterness and resentment -I love that you saw the opportunity and what you could learn from this relationship, the joy felt in your writing confirms that a relationship does not have to be romantic or to look a certain way in order for there to be real love there. True relationships evolve and it sounds like yours still is – there is no need to be physically together in order for there to be real love.
Yes very true, I no longer see this man but there is still a depth of love I feel for him that will forever be there (while not perfect in my expression of this) I still respect and adore who I know him to be.
Such wisdom – thank you for sharing it here Anonymous. When we start to love ourselves this becomes the foundation for all relationships. I find that I have much less fear of being hurt now, because I know that the love I have comes from within and is what I bring to relationships rather than seek from others. As is shared here, a relationship break up does not mean we lose love for ourselves – that choice is constantly available to us all.
I am sure I have written this before but this sharing is so valuable because the relationship you learnt it in has finished so it isn’t shared from the glow of an initial relationship but from the steadiness of what love feels like when it is who you are, what you are made of and expressed without holding back.
Thank you for sharing your post!
I almost feel like I need to congratulate you because it is so rare that a woman leaves a relationship in the way you describe.
One, with her your self-worth in tack but also with a sense of completion for how things transcribed.
Two, with a divine confidence and openness to love.
Three, zero judgment on his choices and no blame.
“learning to love ” I love this sharing and the opportunity it offers us all in life to love ourselves deeply and allow this in our lives more and more as we express it and the deepening and contentment it allows ..
There is our external world and our internal world. If in our internal world love has deepened no matter how our external world reflects, love is love and it can be felt no matter whether people are together as couples or not. In my own experience when love has deepened for one person and this sparks the inspiration to deepen in the other person in whatever way, the relationship is deepening, and this is a natural process in fact that no one can stop, but if there is resistance to this movement, then the relationship stalls–and love starts to disappear as love is forever moving and can never stay in one place.
I love the awareness this brings, that love is “…something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship…” In other words, you are also saying that love coming from within one’s body is 100% for oneself, its not conditional, exclusive or only experienced, if or when being in a relationship with a partner … Developing the relationship of self-love with ourselves is No #1…
Being free of images and thus of expectations and demands, to the best of our ability (they will try to creep in, most likely) is a great foundation for all relationships. It lets us be at ease and does not impose on another.
Yes, the more we invest the more we have to lose. Also being ourselves is not the same as giving of ourselves
This blog highlights the at times unfathomable depths that are available to us if we so choose to live in a way that access these depths.
It is such a relief to stop being “so intense” and allow others to be, I think they might also feel a little easier too to be with me!.
A beautiful sharing and understanding to come to within that changes everything
“I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.”
Beautiful blog Anon, when we remove the false pictures that we have been fed by outer influences and make our relationships of equal importance to every aspect of our lives, then we give ourselves permission to be and express more of who we truly are and in turn the results are supremely confirming.
However, I got to see that even though it ended, for me it was a truly successful relationship because through it I learnt to express love in a way that I never have before, and this stays with me. Very wise and beautiful, nothing is ever lost especially if the relationship ends, because we are richer for all the reflections it offered.
Yes I got to experience a way of expressing myself that I had not before and if this was the start then there is a whole lot more to unfold and let out still.
What a cracker of a blog on relationships and dating. It is so interesting how pictures can easily creep in about things should or could be, it is great you both called them out and simply enjoyed being with each other. Something I found is when you find this with another you can, well I did, get attached to it with them rather than saying ok if this is possible with this person then surely it is possible with everyone else. If we get attached to the person, in my experience, we then stop expressing all of ourselves just in case we may lose them – which is crazy as essentially we set ourselves up for that to happen. It really is magic when 2 people come together being themselves, not trying to be anything else – and this does not have to be ‘physical’ relationships. I see the magic, for example with other men at work who really open and show their sensitve caring side and see how after our conversations they go away walking differently more honouring of who they are and less attached to putting on the macho stance. And it call comes back to the relationship with myself 1st because if that is missing, I cannot have it with another.
You pick up on such an important point here, that when you don’t want to lose someone you change small things about yourself to ensure that doesn’t happen. When we are not ourselves there is much more chance of the relationship not working out because there is something ‘not quite right’ or something missing.
And the crazy thing is the person has chosen to be with you because of who you are and what you bring and so, generally, want to be living with you in your fullness. Of course that is when you have presented and offered it in the 1st place. Otherwise as is so often the case we show parts of our sweet, tender, delicate selves to our partners and then they grab onto those moments wanting more of them but end up settling for less and so things never quite feel right. I know for me in my past relationship everythign worked when I was simply being myself and as soon as either of us were trying to be something, or somewhere we were not then we would not feel content within and so little things would creep in and whilst we were not directly attacking or figthing with each other the quality we were bringing to the relationship and each other was not what we knew it could have been or was constellated to be and so we would feel a tension and an uneasiness.
That is a great template. I can see that we struggle with unpeeling the layers of what is not us because it has become like a familiar coat we believe protects us from the elements and keeps us warm. Yet it is actually a blistering hot day and we are sweating profusely!!!
I love that analogy – I have also found that people seemingly tend to relate more to you and accept you more when you are struggling with life rather than truly enjoying it. It is a mad world we live in where we are all made of love yet are rewarded most for being the complete opposite!
Yeah very true and it is in this changing that you then seperate from yourself and can grow to resent this but also it is often the thing that drives another away.
Only when we live relationship we know who we are in relationship and can learn what we can only learn in relationship by the reflection it offers. The same is true for being alone in the sense of being with oneself, you only learn being with yourself when you are with yourself.
What I love about this blog is that the deepening of love is a process, and not a place to arrive at. What you bring in here is that love is so much more than a partner to partner relationship, and that there is no end point. Love is within us, around us and between us, and the more we feel and know what love is within us, first, the more there is to share and express to others, in all of our relationships, with no pictures of what they look like.
I love this story. There is such a willingness to be open and to explore and learn. There is also so much awareness regarding your own personal process, and how this did not need to affect your partner / ex-partner. There is absolutely no blame, simply a curiosity and the freedom to love – with or without a partner.
At times thoughts could come in of wanting a different outcome or doubting myself but when I come back to the truth I feel that what was offered in the relationship for us both was a great learning and very healing and that there was a love there that still remains regardless of whether another is open to it or not.
Relationships can be tricky as they develop because old hurts pop up and if not expressed and let go can lead to reactions and friction and arguments. Then if one partner is willing to work on their stuff but the other isn’t it can create a further imbalance. Relationships have to be worked on, we have to express what we are feeling, it is never healthy to ‘tolerate’ anything and nor is it healthy to bottle things up otherwise resentment festers and any subsequent emotional outburst is likely to be very unpleasant. We also need to be able to appreciate each other rather than judge.
I love it that on your second date you shared all and that there was an openness there where you both shared how you felt – he even fessed up to googling what happens on a second date. What a gorgeous way to enter a relationship – with a willingness to bare all.
Yeah true, I hadn’t clocked this, that there was an honesty, openess and transparency there from the beginning.
Just as we have to learn how to love another, equally relationships offer an opportunity for us to also learn to be loved – and if we find that we are not being loved, learning to express this and hold ourselves as worthy
When we express all that there is to be said to a partner, it is extremely liberating as it opens us up to be able to express whatever needs to be said in any situation. And when we are open and honest, we get so much in return as there is nothing stagnating in the body, which would otherwise be the case.
I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others. Yes it does and with sharing our love, it just bomerangs right back to you!
And also a huge difference to ourselves!
A super duper blog this was to read with so much gold in it, and there was much I could relate to when I had a short relationship for a few months back in March this year. The relationship brought me so much in the way of reflection and I got to see that I still held back all I was feeling. Several months on that is no longer the case.
Isn´t it fascinating that we learn to love or need to re-learn to love when actually we come from love? As absurd as it may seem it is a reality everyone has to face – we are returning to the love that we are from. It is a fantastic marker or compass to know if we are on track or not with our life.
Just tonight I was with some new people I had recently just met, I had been feeling pretty awesome and then I realised I was holding back the earlier feeling of love, when I noticed it I changed it with the knowing I can be love and hold that loving feeling with anyone no matter if I know them well or not. Being Love 💕 really is just a choice.
What I love is that you show that there is no end to oneself when there is an end to a certain type of relationship. It makes it so clear how we live in cycles and though they may start and end it is never an end to ourselves but a deepening and expansion.
True, it is just a choice. We can either go into losing ourselves when a relationship ends or use it as an opportunity to deepen within ourselves.
Yes, we somehow have made life about failure and success but what I can observe more an more is that everything is actually always an opportunity to learn from, to understand and to deepen.
Space and permission to be who we are when getting to know each other is the only way to really get to know each other. Who else would we otherwise get to know and what for?
The magic of not holding back love in any of our relationships is something very profound and touching to behold.
Thank you Anonymous for sharing your life so openly, its my second read and fast becoming my favourite blog. I enjoyed this line “I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.” It’s so true and it confirms how if we begin by loving ourselves we then have so much to bring to others, and they truly appreciate a loving presence and reflection in their life. I’m still working through letting go of beliefs, ideals and pictures that hold me in emotional love, so I could relate to (and have a laugh at myself for) this next line “I stopped getting so invested in or intense about things and was more able to allow things to be.” Emotional love is a very intense place to be, whereas true love is a living Stillness that comes from within, without needing love and simply being with the love we are within it does take a lot of drama out of life.
Yes I agree, I am now entering the start of dating someone new and can feel the ‘intenseness’ and pictures come in of jumping ahead or trying to control the outcome instead of just staying with and feeling each moment and allowing it to unfold.
It is amazing to be in an intimate relationship with someone as it is a Livingness of the intimacy we have lived with ourselves up to this point now ready to expand.
Very true, if we are not intimate and loving with ourselves then this will also not be there in the relationship as it can only be as deep as what we have lived in our bodies and then express out.
I am found in entering into a relationship for the first time is how much more i have actually learnt about myself and how I have not only been dating another person but also myself as I learn, grow and explore both relationships at the same time. A very cool blog Anonymous thank you.
“I got to learn that I actually wasn’t this standoffish person, but that I had an amazing capacity to express love.” How amazing to discover this about yourself, and how wonderful that this experience has led you to find it in yourself to be able to express love more openly to everyone you meet.
Relationships are very much about what we can bring and the gift of being in a relationship is the number of reflections we get that indicate we are not bringing our all.
Learning to love, is like consistent fresh clear oxygen – we cannot live without it/its exuberance, and if we do end up only to suffocate into halls of damp grief.
Learning to make my relationships with myself a priority and to connect to the Woman within has been incredible and now I can feel that this is what I am taking to all my relationships. The quality of who I am and what I am expressing in the process, the more I surrender to how beautiful I actually am the more I am able to share all of me without being apologetic about it.
I have had exactly this experience of an open and flowing first meeting, followed by a less than inspiring second meeting. I also noticed that pictures and what I wanted (or thought I wanted) had come in. I also realised how good I was at staying single by creating problems and barriers where there were none.
Yes and even before the first date- we can jump ahead and let pictures interfere and get in the way and then we don’t have the openess of living in each moment but try to control an outcome to get our pictures met.
Learning to live the love we are to express it and allow ourselves to receive it is very magical for our ourselves and all our relationships as is the appreciation and expansiveness that comes from this.
I am learning more about love every day. As a young adult I read romantic fiction, always looking for that feel good factor. I dated a few guys in my early teens but that was not love. I was married for nearly 40 years but that was not love. In my 60s and divorced I started to take more care over my relationship with myself and learning what Love actually is. Now I am in a relationship and have a great opportunity to deepen my understanding and my experience of love. One thing I have learned is that love isn’t about what you get from another, it’s about what you can bring such as allowing the space they need to evolve, appreciating their qualities as well as your own, and treating them always with decency and respect.
Thank you Carmel for your comment about love “it’s about what you can bring such as allowing the space they need to evolve, appreciating their qualities as well as your own, and treating them always with decency and respect.”
Ah true and sometimes in allowing them to evolve it is about learning to let them go as they need to make decisions in honour of their own rhythm and need the space to unfold in a way that is true for them.
The beauty is that when this relationship ended, rather than feeling desolate and alone, you felt stronger, more you and more open to all the relationships around you, including the one you have with yourself. How many people on the ending of a relationship experience an expansion like this? Something rare, which only The Way of The Livingness can explain.
I agree .. that is pretty amazing and truly inspiring. There are many times in my life where I have felt completely flawed and a mess in regards to relationships but can see just how much this is changing for me now and appreciate the relationship I have with myself which is forever unfolding and deepening.
“I also learnt that I don’t need to hold myself back in celebrating and enjoying myself as a woman.” If we make the decision to celebrate, love and appreciate ourselves love can never ever be far away.
Yeah I am reconnecting too and learning to let embrace myself as a woman and ‘date’ myself and explore expressing my femininity even though I am not in a relationship.
I loved reading about the process of entering into a new relationship and the pictures that started to get in the way. What was great about it is that you were able to discuss and be honest about how you felt.
When we are full of ourselves – full of love – we bring so much more to every person we encounter.
How awesome is that to have experience and felt the potential of the relationship but at the same time you are all-knowing and can sense what really felt true to you at that time.
Appreciating relationships and what they bring if one is open to learning are the greatest classrooms for personal development.
Very true and also learning to have no expectations or attachments or investments in outcomes is a huge thing. To do this truly allows another to be.
Connecting to the love that we constantly have access to is a game changer for all relationships, and the self drops away so we can let go of the pictures of how love needs to look.
Beautiful that it is not the man that makes you love and being in relationship but being the woman that you are and bringing that to whomever you relate to.
When we have the understanding that love is fundamentally who we are, then it very naturally follows to ask ‘How much damage have we done to ourselves that we have to ‘learn how to love’?
Lovely how you talk about letting more of yourself out…that is it with relationships, being seen and seeing other more fully. There is divinity in it.
I love how you appreciated the depth of connection and learning in the relationship, even though you did not ‘live happily ever after’. These pictures of how a relationship needs to be often prevent us from valuing the blessings available to us.
Spot on Rebecca, it’s about the ‘one life’ and being loving and transparent with everyone, and feeling the many blessings that flow to us when we move in this way.
So true what you share here, we can experience very loving and successful relationships and then may only have last a short time. This takes away all the pictures and ideals we can carry about ‘happily ever after’ when in truth someone may come into our life to support us to deepen our love and connection without any need or attachments to this having to be forever.
What a beautiful learning and knowing of the importance of expressing love .The more that I expressed this my body started to change. I felt more beautiful in myself as a woman, I walked taller and my face got softer. Other aspects and relationships in my life also started to change. I became more of myself at work and was opening up with others more too.
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.” When love is the common denominator, anything is possible and will always be expanding.
“I left the date with the same feeling as when I drove to it, this in itself was pretty cool for me. This is very inspiring as most of us would leave a date either feeling excited and unable to think of anything else or contracted and drained if we haven’t been ourselves. Consistency and steadiness are such great keys to having love in every aspect of life, not expecting it all from one person.
I love stories like these. Very real. And what I love is the fact that you were not scared to live and look and discover. So many of us are frozen by fear of doing the wrong thing.
I am beginning to realise the difference I make to others but especially in my relationship with my husband and my children. What I am noticing is that when I am not myself and this can be subtle the huge affect this can have within the whole family. It is really making me see my sense of self worth and purpose and also my responsibility I have towards myself and hence towards my family and beyond.
What I find amazing is if we love ourself deeply there is no way to hold back this love hence I love the others as well.
Thanks for sharing…. Isn’t it fascinating how when we let pictures in it totally interrupts the flow and things just feel weird or awkward. Super cool that you both openly shared this and were able to let that go to explore and hang out with each other with nothing going on but this.
Super inspiring approach to dating! I relate a lot to not feeling the need to do the done thing when it comes to dating, like dinners and movies etc. Whilst those activities can be nice, putting yourselves straight into every day life activities makes good sense to me, as it’s putting us back in the world, doing practical things. What a great way to get to know someone.
I recently was offered by a very wise young woman what has felt to be the best relationship advice I have received. ‘Focus on your quality, focus on the quality of how you live.’ The more I deepen, the more I connect to the love that I am and the sacredness I hold as a woman. Protection, guards and needs fall away – there is no need when I am in communion with the essence of who I am.
And to have a relationship without need… that feels amazing.
This is such a sweet sharing, the preciousness of a love we all hold inside, but for some or many, we ‘think’ or seek it from another to give us a beautiful feeling inside, especially when we are on a date or in a relationship. Yet as women and men, we all hold this inside of us and as we let ourselves begin to express lovingly with an openness, it actually begins to fill us up and then we want to share our love with another. BUT often this has been protected for so long, that it may feel difficult in the beginning as it can bring up a lot of stuff. But we are always being held by this love.
Intimacy comes from us allowing ourselves to be seen and so Love is known through living Love. Looking outside will not offer us what we seek or what we know to be true, will not provide us with the remedy. Learning to Love is as much about our relationship with ourselves as anyone else.
I love the title of this article and might add ‘re’ in front of learning, simply because the more I let myself love, the more I open myself to being loved, the more I realise that these ‘skills’ are completely innate and that I am actually simply discarding things that get in the way of a natural cyclical expression of love with others, to and from.
Super cool to realise that if we open up to love in one relationship all our other relationships change and benefit also.
Yes indeed, if we let go of the happy ever after pictures, a relationship can support us to grow and deepen in love without needing to last a lifetime.
Haha I love the way your dates changed – who sets the rule book that says we can’t support each other in work, to complete projects, write articles etc. even on a date! What a great way to get to know all about them too
“This came out more in this relationship because it was there in me to be let out.” The real beauty of love is that is not something we rely on from others, but an infinite well of energy within us. An awesome inspiration to feel Anonymous, how once we connect there is no end to our learning and sharing of what is so innate within us all.
Your blog is very inspirational, it inspires me to be super loving to all the people in my life with no expectations of how this will be received or reciprocated. Thank you Anon.
We are love and when we allow this to be in our lives ad expressed in full with everybody we meet then, as being shared in this blog, love is in the air and is reflected all around us by nature and the many people around us.
I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others. Yes, absolutely. Others can choose to not accept the love that we are in our interactions with us, but that love that we are, can’t be taken back, its out there forevermore doing its thing.
How gorgeous it can be when we do not cloud the relationship with pictures and expectations of the situations, the other person or ourselves. We are then free to allow the true unfolding, feel the grace of each moment and respond with the same.
Your blog Anonymous, shows us how being in true relationship with ourselves first allows us to let the barriers go and live to the full with love until the time to let it go. So often we cling onto people and things because we haven’t or aren’t living the fullness of ourselves and so always searching for more from a neediness and desire to be whole. It’s obvious that when the empty hole inside us is filled with Love and appreciation for who we are and that we can bring all of our natural selves to another, that we will feel whole, and able to let others come and go in a flowing way.
Very awesome and confirming to have built a relationship where you felt for the first time you could easily be yourself – there’s a lot to be said for getting to know each other in the very everyday things and events, and even more said for the openness you were both able to bring to them.
This is a beautiful example of how we can be so natural with someone when we are not trying. As soon as we get an idea in our heads that it could lead to something else we almost get in our own way. If we can let go of any expectations at the beginning we would then be free to be our natural selves regardless of the outcome.
How you observed and held yourself in this process feels very lovely Anonymous.
Love the fact that there is no ounce of perfection, trying or needing to be to impress anyone, just a humbling observation of yourself that allowed to discover the wonderment of you.
“However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.” – How truly powerful it is to realise this and appreciate that it’s something we can reconnect with and express or let out in every aspect of our lives unconditionally.
It’s very beautiful when we realise that love is not something that we give and receive from a special friend or partner but is always within us and we can share it with everyone equally. How wonderful that we can be in love, walk in love, move in love 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week if we choose it.
Living love as a quality that then informs all our movements and interactions throughout our days… an inspiring thing to commit to.
‘The more that I expressed this my body started to change.’ The link between expression and how our body responds to what we say or don’t say I find fascinating. Up until hearing the presentations of The Way of The Livingness I hadn’t appreciated that expression is so important to our physical health and well-being.
Thank you for sharing. Whether in a sexual relationship or not, our openness to love and deepening our ability to let others in is going to lead to many beautiful interactions and opportunities to grow.
Beautiful Anonymous. I often feel that those ‘first meeting moments’ are so precious because we have no expectations at all. It’s sad how as soon as we recognise potential in life we load the relationship up with pictures of what we think it should become. But the beautiful thing is, as you say, that when we naturally enjoy and appreciate ourselves in the moment, there’s nothing more to seek and need. This loving way is something we can take everywhere we go, not just on dates or romantic walks by the river. What a gift to receive from this adventure you had.
Yes indeed, Joseph, to appreciate that we can be so open to love without any attachments or pictures is a blessing in itself.
‘This came out more in this relationship because it was there in me to be let out.’ yes it is having that connection/relationship within ourself first, living it, then bringing this to others.
“I also learnt that I don’t need to hold myself back in celebrating and enjoying myself as a woman.” A true gift of relationship, when we realise that just being our selves is all that is needed and in being so, we give the biggest gift of love we can to each other.
The difference between feeling flow vs. no flow is amazing, and actually this sense of whether our movements, behaviours and patterns make sense to our environment and the bigger picture is one of the greatest supports available to us. Could this actually be natural to us as a result of our clairsentience and apt for observing and understanding life at a deeper level than face value?
Sometimes feeling the no flow in a situation is not comfortable but is very powerful how we can observe life with no reaction and respond to it. Feels very natural being real with another and simply share what is really going on, the key to develop true relationships based on love.
Learning to love ourselves and ignite that within is the key that opens the door to being able to share our love with another – until that moment there is no true understanding of love other than a romantic ideal.
True Susan. It takes honesty to make this step because to love ourselves we have to see and feel the pictures, ideas and beliefs that we have been moulded to be in a relationship with. We have to accept that we have been fooled actually. But how freeing is it to observe this fact with no regret and give ourselves the greater love that we can receive, from us to us first.
I loved how you described going to a date feeling one way and returning from the date feeling the same way as it shows that you did not lose yourself in the process as so many people do. We are love and it does not matter what we are doing as that love can be expressed and enjoyed.
Thank you Anonymous, this reflected to me that I can be myself with myself and that I often question myself in a way that is actually not transparent but already in judgement of what i have chosen, see or did not or did act on.. I am feeling that this is actually a way that is old, and that by this blog, even though I am not in a partner relationship at the moment, allow myself to be more open and willing to see where I am with myself and my movements in life. Observation for me is my key, as it holds me in space and equableness, so a good opportunity to now bring that more into my relationship with myself.
What a huge development in relationships – particularly in your self where you felt the marked difference there is when you come from love.
When we come from love, it gives the other person permission to also be more open and true in their interactions with us if they so choose.
I love how you didn’t have pictures about how your dates should progress and just got on with living your lives and including the other person which feels such a lovely way to connect more deeply. It is also super cool that you were able to appreciate how much love you brought to the relationship and about not holding this back even if the other person was struggling with accepting it.
Thank you for sharing so freely and busting so many myths in the process – awesome to re-imprint all relationships and choose to share our love without expectations and inhibitions.
Loving ourselves more deeply allows others to feel this too and we can then love others equally so.
I can remember feeling very alone in some relationships and that the person I was with just didn’t understand me or love me. Not surprising really as I didn’t understand or truly love me either. To add to that I had all sorts of pictures and expectations around what a relationship was. Not a great recipe for a successful relationship but what you have shared has now offered me some beautiful ingredients so that the recipe for any future relationship can be sure to have love at the top of the list.
I too have spent many years avoiding relationships and now, even though I am not in one, I no longer feel like I am avoiding them and I feel very open to a relationship with a man. There is such joy in this and a skip in myself and this comes from me not being so protected nor keeping people at the length I used to.
Your bet would be right 🙂 Our relationships are all interconnected and cannot be separate. Each one forms the foundation of all our relationships.
Through reading this blog I can see that I am still tied to relationships being a certain way – that I have pictures of certain outcomes and can also rely on others for s sense of who I am. Being able to recognise this allows me to let go of preconceptions and build a deeper level of acceptance
This is such a joy to read, thank you. It is a brave and honest account of your relationship with love. I smiled when I read this – “I stopped getting so invested in or intense about things and was more able to allow things to be”, from someone feeling a bit intense it was good to read this, to lessen the investment and allows things to be.
This is a very mature and worldly approach to dating that will support many women. You sound like you really are viewing life in a way that the glass is half full, rather than half empty and while we are talking on glasses and fullness. In truth though, it feels like you are approaching relationships from a place of feeling full within yourself and this means that you are not looking for someone to fill your cup but rather, sharing your full cup with another, which means you are always offering love to another, rather than looking for love in another, amazing really.
“I also learnt that I don’t need to hold myself back in celebrating and enjoying myself as a woman.” How gorgeous this is Anonymous, to truly value and appreciate all that you have to bring to any relationship, and what that can offer another, when you bring all of yourself to it.
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.” So true and what a massive difference it makes. We have grown up in a world rife with criticism and gossip. When we speak from love, confirm, appreciate and welcome one another, it sets an entirely different tone to every situation that lifts our hearts and our sights so much higher.
When we have a date with ourselves, we can learn a loving relationship that we can take everywhere we go. It is a great start.
A few years back I got excited about the possibility of dating. I was no where near actually dating someone so had to ask myself what it was that was so lovely because it was more than just the possibility of being cherished or adored; it was that I allowed myself to express love towards another. And then I thought how crazy, what’s stopping me from being love with everyone I meet?!
A beautiful sharing and understanding of the importance of loving ourselves in our own relationship first and this is the foundation for all our relationships and expansion from there.
Very supportive blog indeed Shirley-Ann, how Love is so bastardised and tainted with being related to having a partner or in being in a relationship.
Our relationship with ourselves is paramount and something to be cherished, nurtured and nourished.
To be able to end a very loving relationship, with no neediness or regret and feel that it was successful is quite amazing, also the fact that you got to express and deepen your love gives you a marker for further relationships. Thank you Anon for a beautifully inspiring blog.
Getting “to know each other more just through living life together” is surely a most honest and true basis to start a relationship, as it is what one is going to be doing if the relationship lasts.
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.” I know personally that I have had to untangle a lot of criticism and judgment, but the more we can come from love, welcome and embrace each other, the more we realise just what an essentially nurturing, evolving and confirming quality it is. What a gift to bring that into all our relationships, loving one another qualities and talents so that we know exactly how to bring out the best in one another.
Relationships with a new partner can be scary as the other has just as much a choice as we do so the fate of the relationship is only partly in our hands – but there is a lot we can do with our part.
Everybody misses out when a woman holds herself back in celebrating, enjoying herself and moving in stillness.
How great that you were able to experience the depth of love that is possible. Letting love in and letting our live be felt by others is a true gift
There is still a perception in society that having a partner equates to having love in your life, but love isn’t limited to one specific type of relationship nor is it guaranteed with a partner. We can love ourselves absolutely, as well as everyone else in our lives regardless of their ‘title’ to us e.g. colleague, sister, father etc.
‘I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.’ yes building love for ourselves is paramount in having loving relationships with others.
it is amazing how we can transform when we allow ourselves to open up and let love in and most importantly, let our love out – as you say, we soften and grow and develop a quality about us that is deeply tender and beautiful and it is because by loving ourselves first we are whole when we walk out into the world
I love this blog and the inspiration it brings – to fall in love with ourselves and everyone by claiming the love we have within and not holding back expressing it.
Yes, claiming of the love within and how that results in loving oneself and others as expressed here is truly inspirational,
There is such a freedom in these words, Ariana… thank you
Thank you for this article and for sharing so openly about your discoveries and unfolding in relationships. What I particularly love is that even when knocked back a bit you chose to step forward open hearted again and again… this is a huge point of inspiration as I understand more deeply that love is a boundary-less quality and that the more we express love, the more it expands both out in the world and within us… pretty cool science I reckon.
When we are able to surrender to sharing and expressing the love we feel for another from the foundations we first have built within ourselves, we begin to see a transformation in how we move and feel about ourselves too. Having been in my very first relationship over the last year I have seen a shift in the way I share and express with others how I feel about them and the love I hold for them without fear and the way in which I look after myself and the clothing I choose to wear has also changed. Showing me that the more love expressed for one person has a flow on effect into all facets of our lives in oh so amazing ways.
Love the apparently ‘atypical’ dates you described – cleaning together, working on a project, spending time with the family – which are very practical and part of life.
It is in these seemingly ‘atypical’ moments in life, when we are taking part in the most normal things together, as we move in care, love and honour of one another, we relate as if we are making love in every single moment.
It is how we spend the majority of time together in a partnership, just doing the ordinary things of life, what a great, direct way to get to know someone.
Dear Anonymous, what a beautiful story and a beautiful beginning of a solid relationship with yourself and others.
As we are all made of love deep in the essence of our being, learning to love is actually a relearning, a process of surrender back to that which we already are but have simply not been expressing, rather than the process of acquisition we so often make it about.
If we make relationship about quality and not about the things we do then it really supports our bodies. I really appreciate this sharing as it shows that there is nothing outside ourselves we need to get to in order to be all that we are.
“I got to see that even though it ended, for me it was a truly successful relationship because through it I learnt to express love in a way that I never have before, and this stays with me.” Success cannot be measured by outcome. It is our quality that determines success.
Walking is such a gorgeous way to catch up with someone, because any problems that come up in conversation have no power compared to the majesty of the nature or architecture surrounding you, and thus they can be discussed without getting ‘stuck’.
It is amazing when we offer our all to the world! The gold we offer is not a currency that can be bought, sold or given away, but like the sun that warms everyone equally.
What I feel in this piece is humbleness, a place where we deepen our own love first and how amazing is that foundation for all relationships to come. There is no beginning and end to relationships, relationships are from eternally our connection first with God, and this is the basis for everything in our lives.
Absolutely Adele, there is no beginning or end to relationships, we are continuously developing in and through them.
Holding this foundation, there is no need mourn the moment of parting in a relationship. All that remains the perfection and depth of love that is forever constant.
Such tenderness and openness expressed here. We get sold so many ideas about success and failure in relationships that are false. A marriage can last for 75 years but if there is any kind of abuse in that relationship is it successful? Your relationship with this man you describe is clearly an extension of the relationship you have with yourself and it’s truly beautiful.
Being open to meeting people and dating is a really great way to observe the willingness to simply be myself or notice what it might be that has me holding back and not actually sharing the essence of me.
How beautiful and innocent when we just allow ourselves and another to be and explore the potential of a relationship together rather than automatically carrying with us our bags of expectations, ideals, beliefs, worries etc
“…. I felt a deep settlement in my body. I felt much more of a woman.” I have felt these moments too, they are powerful moments when I know exactly who I am and what I bring, there is no need to prove anything or do anything. Being open and transparent and allowing the person to see all of me is the key, no measuring or wanting to please. One I am still mastering but it is amazing to feel when I do.
When we create pictures in any situation we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.
As a single woman dealing with the many that litter my own mind’s eye…I’m just imagining if we did date without any pictures, ideals, expectations, deliverances?? We would date the truth because we were the truth to enjoy the one thing we’re after –
truth in relationship, that is true love.
It is beautiful to read how nervousness does not have to dominate, and that there can be a knowing and graceful approach to any situation.
It is a beautiful experience to be in our full-ness when we date. It also makes us aware in much more details where the other is at and it can be a surprise how affected or vulnerable they can be.
Beautifully said Christoph – I love the way that the dates described in this blog are everyday experiences too. Life can be one big date if we approach others from a foundation of love.
There is still so much need in me that I still get attached to men who I go into relationship with. This does not leave me free to love in the way that you describe in this blog. The answer for me at the moment is in learning to love myself deeply.
‘I also learnt that i don’t need to hold myself back in celebrating and enjoying myself as a woman’. This is a great reminder to give ourselves permission to really go for it in terms of expressing and loving our womanly nature. I love this blog and keep coming back to it to read and be inspired by.
Very inspiring blog Anon. makes me want to deepen all my relationships, starting with my relationship with my self.
Thank you for the gorgeous sharing. There is so much in life we can observe and deeply appreciate when we are prepared to let go of our pictures and let our heart lead the way.
An inspiring blog Anonymous – sharing the joy of living from love and how this touches others – like the ripple in a pond spreading outwards from its centre where a pebble had been thrown..
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others”.
Yep good call Stephanie this is awesome in showing how we our within ourselves affects our environment and all our relationships with others.
It feels so lovely that when we commit to one relationship, it exposes how we have been in other relationships that we may have previously thought were loving, but they are now will change too to all becoming of that same quality through the deeper commitment.
“All feelings of nervousness were no longer there and there was just a feeling of absoluteness, knowing and grace.” A proper foundation for a relationship to flourish and grow, one that brings Love to the table rather than demands it from the other person.
What a gorgeous post Anonymous. You remind me that in truth no relationship actually ends and that the quality of every relationship is determined by the amount of love we live with ourselves.
It is funny how in many cases all we truly want in a relationship is real love, but often we don’t know how to allow that love out or in to our lives. It might seem strange but sometimes the hardest thing to do is to allow another to love you and for you to love them because it requires a level of transparency and openness and honesty we aren’t used to and it is something we have to be that way with ourselves before we can be with anyone else.
What I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship. Such a great understanding and confirmation from your body on this one Anonymous, and thank-you for sharing.
I used to seek relationships in order to fill up the emptiness I felt inside, but I now know that relationships are about bringing out the best in each other. What a revelation to enter into a relationship full of the inner gift of love, to appreciate and deliver all you feel with no attachment to a return. True evolution in action.
“Learning to love “is so beautifully expressed here and realising the more we allow ourselves to express love the more we expand this with others also and the difference this makes is amazing and well worth trying.
What a beautiful sharing of a very innocent and fresh blossoming of a relationship
I was drawn to read this blog again because it touched on how amazing the feeling can be in a relationship if that feeling is honoured and both are committed to nurture and grow the feeling.
I am learning so much in every relationship. The constellations are not only there for our own personal development they serve a bigger purpose: for all of us to remember how we are meant to be together and move backwards to that way of interacting.
I love the honesty in this ‘On the way home he shared that he had felt a bit nervous about what to expect on a second date and had even googled it.’ and Gosh we really do google everything don’t we! A reminder of just how out of touch we are in connecting, listening to and trusting within.
“Through this relationship I have learnt that I can continue to bring this quality and a deepening connection to all of my relationships” – This is super gorgeous, and every relationship can be an opportunity to deepen and set a new foundation of love just like you did with this particular connection!
In having a twin I have experienced an incredibly deep bond with another that can’t be shaken no matter what life has thrown at us. It is literally unbreakable and has supported me through life, but because I have experienced this with one then I know that it is possible to experience this with all others.
Yes – when we let another in they stay in your heart. There have been a number of people I am no longer in contact with but have loved and appreciated deeply. The love I have for them has stayed in my body and in my heart and I feel open and full whenever I think of them and feel. My life has been enriched through these relationships and I do not feel it as a loss that they are no longer in my life.
All feelings of nervousness were no longer there and there was just a feeling of absoluteness, knowing and grace. How beautiful anonymous to experience love between you and another in this way. You now have an awesome marker of what bringing all of you feels like.
So true Elizabeth and a beautiful way to put it. Evidence that when we commit to the natural truth and love within us, it cannot help but escape into others areas of our lives, a genuine expression of grace that effortlessly flows out.
“learning to love” – is learning to not lose myself or who I am irrespective of my status in being single or married, with kids or without.
If we can love another, whilst not losing ourselves in the process from need – then this is true love indeed!
Learning to love, starting with oneself and that love then lived in your body being there for everyone, – irrespective of the name of the relationship.
You share so beautifully what can be learned from being in a relationship, and also ending it with such grace shows it is possible to be very different from most people’s experiences of relationships. We are designed to be in relationships so the more practice we get, the more we can learn and grow from being in a relationship.
Being loving is something we all innately are – it’s like we need to learn to let go of all the things we bring in that get in the way of just releasing what is already there…
What your sharing is gold – how often do we twist or stunt a relationship before it has even begun to grow because we layer on it so many pictures and expectations of how it should look.
It is amazing what is possible when we let go of pictures and let ourselves be with another
It is good to have a relationship that starts out as a friendship as well and we never know where it will end up. It can be a very hairy ride but it is often enormously worth it.
Absolutely true, it is almost like having a relationship with humanity by having a relationship with one. If we hold back with one person, we do it with all.
You say it was such an ease to be with the man on your date and I wonder if this is because you were at ease with yourself. When we are at ease it does assist others to be more of themselves, to me this is quite magical.
Yesterday I was at a celebration and was dancing with some friends. I was clocking how much more at ease and natural I felt in my body and what a joy it was to move in this way. Once upon a time I would have felt awkward and very stiff – simply indications of how much protection I had been living in. To feel where I am at now is like a miracle to me by comparison, and for this I am full of appreciation too.
I can relate to what you have written here Michelle, I used to dance like an ironing board I was in so much protection, trying not to be seen, and just like you I am much freer in my body especially my hips and it is a miracle.
This made me smile Mary. Yes I used to feel like an ironing board too. If I had known you then I would probably have felt reassured that I wasn’t the only one who felt (and looked like) this, especially on the dance floor!! It really was my verson of a nightmare to have to get up and dance and pretend I was enjoying myself!! I’d also look around and be jealous of those who seemed to move with fluidity and looked like they were having so much fun becasue they were able to do this. Understanding that my own movements and expression were inhibited simply because I felt such a lack of self worth has been very revealing, but it has taken time to let go of the hurts that caused this in the first place. Having done so I can appreciate every step I have taken on my return to myself and each time I move my body is confirmation of just how far I have come.
We bring so many pictures and expectations into a relationship that block almost all opportunities to connect deeply. The more connection we build with ourselves the greater the space we offer for others to share our lives as we allow a more natural flow.
Yes, and that connection gives the other a choice to embrace that connection or not and we cannot know in advance which choice they make. Trying to steer that choice can have short term benefits but has major drawback in the long run.
We all too often can believe when a relationship finishes that ‘that’s it’, you stop loving that person. Yet this only exposes that there was no true love in the relationship in the first place. I’m coming to understand well that relationships can end but the love can continue and deepen as you deepen the loving ways within yourself and life.
When we fall in love with ourselves, the world becomes a smaller place as we expand. What happens when we all come back to love?
So often we dive into relationships with a ‘what’s in it for me?’ attitude. Quite a significant shift to allow a relationship to gently unfold, focusing on making it about expressing love and appreciation rather than ticking boxes and fitting the picture.
What I love is that you both started to break the pictures around relationships and dates. Is it not funny that with all of this pictures we are not able to meat each other – we only meet this pictures and expectations around them. For me tho change this is the first step into a truly amazing and honest relationship.
“Learning to love” – is learning to say YES to the gorgeousness of your true self!
The fact that the relationship ended actually could be seen as part of the success, as it gave you the opportunity to again see where you turn the love off or withdraw, and you realised you could keep expressing love and that it was something there within you and not a just a part of that relationship. If we were to define success as being more love then every part of that relationship delivered, even the ending.
Any pictures or ideas that we have of how a relationship should be just totally gets in the way. We really have to let go and be open, without having any expectations. Sometimes actually harder to do than we want to admit because we have pictures upon pictures that get in the way.
This is such a gorgeous blog and absolutely foundational to support the re-imprinting of being in a relationship. As you share the first imprint is to love our selves, clearing the ‘need’ that can arise and be imposed on another. Need is a guaranteed full stop to relationship in my experience.
Beautiful Anonymous – your words remind me that if we are appreciating adoring another, it almost impossible for issues to slip in. It’s when we put conditions and limits on life that it doesn’t work. There is no constraint on Love, so weather something ‘works out’ or not the true success is the care, depth and understanding we have shared.
How clear can it get that when we let go of expectations and pictures love remains a constant and is able to flourish and be expressed! Anonymous thank you for sharing, a powerful blog that would be inspiring and supportive to read before, during and after being in relationships!
I loved reading this blog. I also have had the belief that I am ‘no good at relationships’ but I can see that that is not true for anyone. It’s the holding back of love and expression that is the problem. It felt like quite an honour to be allowed into this process of reclaiming the true woman in and then beyond a relationship. It is amazing to feel what can happen when you stay open and let go of the pictures of how things should be.
The power of expectations or pictures is immense. They can limit us and cap our experience, besides the fact that they aren’t real and can never be achieved so are super exhausting.
Agree Monica, pictures are super exhausting and complicate everything, to observe them and not to attach to them is key to not letting them control us.
Yes, Anna, and judging versus accepting and allowing is also an important part of this letting go.
I love this Anonymous. I met someone not long ago but I was not able to stay with it in the same way that you did so missed out on this unfolding….a learning and now an encouragement and inspiration to build more deeply the foundation of my relationship with myself and to nurture myself more so that I stay steady and don’t run away from a relationship with a potential partner however it pans out.
Each interaction and relationship is an opportunity to share ourselves more openly and not holding back the love that we are.
There is great humbleness in being willing to go there, to love another in full, with no preconceived idea of if it will work and how it will look. And absolute love to allow the grace that has happened in this experience, the grace of stepping away, or allowing another too, if this is what is required to love the other in full.
yes and pictures of what we want or what a ‘relationship’ should be none of which allow the space to just en-joy and let it unfold naturally. This also shows me just how much we can learn and evolve from relationships if we are willing to.
Thank you deeply for sharing your experience here. There is much that I can fully relate to, especially the bit about thinking I am not good in relationships. I can so clearly feel that living all the woman I am is amazing and brings such beauty to the world.
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.” This is beautiful Anonymous. If we all came from love all of the time, what a difference that would make to every relationship in the world.
‘Learning how to love’. I love this title.
Holding back just in case we get hurt, and only coming forward when we feel safe to express is like playing a game where nobody wins, and this can soon become an arrangement. Looking back on my relationships I played this game and it is so limiting and so no wonder the relationships failed, as there was no expansion.
A beautiful example of what being in relationship is all about. I can feel how this is really setting the foundation for future relationships for you.
Thank you for this inspiring and revealing sharing of what learning to open up to love is all about.
That is an awesome achievement to enter into a relationship with no picture of how it should be or invested outcome (wedding bells and so on) and share your self and your love with no conditions. What a gift to give each other and one that will not only serve you and your next relationship, but give the other person a new benchmark of what a loving relationship really is too.
Love the way you describe about the pressure to be a certain way on a date Anonymous… a pressure that comes not from the person we’re on a date with but from ourselves through the endless pictures that litter the body. Remove the litter, feel the ease and joy : )
Awesome sharing! I could have written this part myself:
“I adored this man and didn’t hold this back. At times he said he felt it was a bit difficult to accept the love as he had stuff coming up with that, I wobbled and held back a little bit but soon came back to sharing with him how I felt about him.”… and I also realised that the more I didn’t hold back with him, the more I didn’t hold back with others and the more I was open and expressed that love, the more I could express that love with everyone else.
What I love about this is your sharing of how one true relationship pulled all the others up. That is so true in life, when we totally apply ourselves in one area, naturally everything else needs to shift.
All relationships teach us heaps, there is so much to be learned from living life with one another, they are constant opportunities to grow and evolve.
We can learn so much from one another… every relationship, no matter how brief the encounter or how intimate it may or may not be, has the potential to offer so much love, joy, truth and understanding.
What is so very inspiring about this sharing is the evolution – the learning, growth and understanding – that came from you being open and willing to be yourself in this relationship no matter what happened outside of you… and that this continues after the relationship ends. So very beautiful.
Absolutely gorgeous Anonymous… to let go of any pictures of the relationship and the fact that love is with us wherever we are and whoever we are with… “…love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.”
Wowser. Completing inspiring. What a delight to read.
“… I got to see that even though it ended, for me it was a truly successful relationship because through it I learnt to express love in a way that I never have before, and this stays with me.’ Beautiful, success has nothing to do with the outcome, it is about the learning and the expansion you feel within yourself.
This is such a beautiful account of how we begin to surrender to the process of expressing the innate love that we are. These lines are gold:
“…love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.”
They remind us that we can never lose the love that we each in essence are made up of. We can only ‘lose’ our connection with it. Thank you for sharing your experience of this, your words are very healing for us all.
The fact that you felt no bitterness or resentment when your relationship ended is a remarkable thing considering the usual reaction we go into with a break up. What you took with you on your parting, (a greater more expanded version of you) is the most precious gift and this can never be lost or taken away unless you choose it so.
Its a very beautiful thing to allow a relationship to simply run its course and not be hurt by the outcome and treasure what it brought.
This is true, when we are not focussed on outcomes or pictures, we can see and appreciate the gifts and the opportunities for growth in all moments, no matter what unfolds.
We have so much to learn about being love, it is not something we give to anyone, we only have to be the love we are, and it will develop and unfold. We can be love with everyone we meet.
I love your describing of jumping right into the relationship without the fear of getting hurt or rejected. So often holding on to our hurts and by that being judgmental, taking things personal and not accept where another is at are in the way of deepening any relationship.
How much do we miss out on when we hold back, or tip toe into a relationship because of all our past hurts…. that in fact have nothing to do with the present relationship.
What if we didn’t see relationships as an end point or a happy forever after, but simply an opportunity to learn about love? It makes life super simple.
And in relationships we have the opportunity to learn so much about ourselves too, and this goes for non intimate relationships too. So much is there to reflect and support each other with if we are willing to go there.
A great sharing, Anonymous. There is no greater relationship than the one we have with ourselves and when it is open and full it is reflected in all other relationships.
Thank you for sharing this Anon. Recently I’ve been aware of more pictures I hold around relationships. Finding a partner and then thats it, I have to stay with them no matter what. Having recently ended a relationship has exposed these pictures but it felt true to end it and I learnt and am still learning so much about relationships from this experience.
“Learning to Love” is a great title because so very few people know what it is to be love and only when we can be love ourselves can we really know how to love another. We grow up with so many ideals and beliefs of what love should be, usually based on the lack of love we have for ourselves. It is crazy really, love is nothing like the magazines films and story books depict, love is all encompassing and leaves no one out.
This is a great sharing thanks. What I am learning is that we are having a relationship with everyone we meet, so what a huge opportunity to be open and caring even if you are just passing them on the street. To allow others to feel and receive the love and the joy in my heart as I walk by has got to be so much more fulfilling than walking by in anger and resentment which they would equally also feel.
So true Elizabeth, it is magical when we connect with each other allowing ourselves and others to be who we are. To me this is what feels more natural and nurturing.
Awesome blog, thank you Anonymous. Every relationship is a success when we choose to be ourselves and when we let go of any expectations and or images of how it should be.
“Learning to Love” – and really, truly learning to love is lifelong.. we often make the mistake (as i did myself) that learning to love only really starts with the meeting of another person, dating, marrying, kids etc. and yet being single now and for a few years, learning to love myself has proven to be inspiring, wonderful, amazing, enriching and full of everything i’d love a potential partnership. When we have true love there is no longer the need to search this through another and the immense pressure we can place on ourselves to ‘tick the love box’ thankfully dissolves. For there are no boxed lines with love ; )
I also loved that this was a real relationship that allowed you to know and feel more of who you truly are, because there was a willingness from both sides to be honest, open and real about how you felt. So no airy-fairy stars in your eyes schmaltzy romance, but simplicity, realness and depth, that didn’t end when the relationship ended, but simply provided you with a new marker of who you are as a woman, that you now take with you everywhere you go, into every relationship. Very awesome.
I love how as you expressed more, your body started to change, physically, and so did your relationships with others. The more we express love, the more it expands and feeds us back.
We always present the end of a relationship as a failure or disaster – but this is beautiful – because you have appreciated what you have learnt from being in a relationship, and that is a gift to read. Every relationship has something to offer, and we can totally look at the end of a relationship not as a failure but potentially as a learning for us to deepen what relationships are to us.
Very true, the pictures we hold blind us from seeing the lessons and the value of the relationship. Regardless of it’s length or activities within it.
Amazing sharing. I love how this represents the fact that through every relationship truth and evolution is offered, and the magic that unfolds for all from being open to embracing a loving relationship with ourselves first.
What an awesome blog anonymous! It’s very interesting to observe how many of us measure the success of our relationships by whether or not the relationship continues – when in fact, a truly successful relationship has everything to do first and foremost the relationship we have with ourselves and then how much we are being ourselves with another.
What is beautiful to feel in your writing this is the relationship you have built with yourself and how when you allowed love in, and freely expressed your love with your friend all other relationships also expanded.
Yes I found this beautiful as well Victoria, everyone wins when we express our love.
This is very beautiful and supportive for re-claiming our true selves in all relationships. The ‘pictures’ we have about how a relationship with a partner should look are really the makings of nightmares not happy ever-after’s.
I would have to say that the title is not quite fitting! To me there is nothing in you that was learning to love. This is a beautiful example of the fact that we are love and that we do know how to love as it is our essence, it’s just sometimes we let our stuff get in the way. It is a beautiful sharing.
Yes the true purpose of relationships is to express more love to relearn to open up and let people in. This would totally change the amount of successful relationships there are in the world, if marriage is not the gauge but the increasing expression of love that counts.
What a Revelation – just because a relationship ends, doesn’t mean it isn’t ‘successful’. Thanks for sharing your learning.
Yes Laura, the fact that a chapter of our life is closed does not have to mean it was unsuccessful. It was a step towards the many we take to walk back to love.
Sometimes you meet a man and everything simply flows, the love just pours out of you and you cannot but be together. After a few months there are challenges as you trigger off each other’s stuff but the depth of love is still there, in fact growing ever deeper as you appreciate the constellation that brought you together to evolve in a relationship.
It is interesting when we avoid things, they go on the shelf but they do not go away, we simply delay and stop looking at them. You have shown the possibility of changing how you felt about something ,and re-imprinting it has taken it off the shelf for good.
Awesome reflection from nature with the diving bird on your first date and thank you for sharing how you opened up to love and sharing yourself with another without pictures (for the most part) and embraced all the learning on offer and truly claimed it as a successful relationship despite the fact that it did not continue. Appreciating those who come into our lives for whatever length of time and expanding and deepening our love for ourselves is an ongoing gift for everyone.
It’s beautiful how you show that love is something that we release from inside of us – that it’s not something we need to try to force out or need from another as we have an endless well within us that we can share by being open and holding all others as our equal.
This is a beautiful sharing for how when we open up to being more love that every part of our lives are affected; we deepen our relationship everywhere else. There was so much growth from the relationship you experienced, anonymous and a beauty in the fact you were able to let it go when it ended.
I love the way you opened to this relationship and you were then also willing to let it go. We put so much emphasis on finding ‘the one’ that often we don’t allow ourselves the option of letting go of someone if that is what feels true. I love the fact that your love remained even though the relationship had ended. A beautiful confirmation of how we can love irrespective of whether we have a partner or not.
A very inspiring read and such a huge learning thanks for sharing.
What a beautiful learning in the expression of love and how this changes us so lovingly “The more that I expressed this my body started to change. I felt more beautiful in myself as a woman, I walked taller and my face got softer. Other aspects and relationships in my life also started to change. I became more of myself at work and was opening up with others more too.” what an amazing marker to expand on for your relationship with yourself and others. A real inspiration of love.
‘I left the date with the same feeling as when I drove to it’
To me this is also a great marker if I can leave somewhere with the same feeling as when I arrived. And when this isn’t the case for me to get clarity on where and why I left myself and the connection changed or vanished.
To be able to move on from a relationship without any of the usual hurts, disappointments and regrets but with an appreciation of the time spent together is really inspiring.
This is just gorgeous. “Love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship” – wow. You really busted the picture of a successful relationship. I just so love this piece. Thank you.
I like this too, the romantic idea of love is a flawed one when it is shrouded in the many pictures and expectation we may have. Love simply is.. and there to express and share as we allow.
Absolutely Victoria, ‘the romantic idea’ how many movies, books, blog sites and TV shows are out there promoting the devastation of ending a relationship. Seeing women and men drown their sorrows in drinking or going out and partying to forget but what exactly do we want to forget in these instances? Could it be we want to not feel the investment in another or the pictures and roles we willingly went along with instead of focusing on love and allowing that to permeate through the relationship?
Yes, while ever our focus is on another ‘filling’ us there will always be the feeling of loss, in or out of the relationship. Love does not ever leave us; it is we that leave love.
“However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship” – how fantastic to actually feel this truth Anonymous, and such is the beauty of self-love to love and be loved. Love goes everywhere with us as its originator.
This sentence stood also out for me and I agree Zofia: ‘Love goes everywhere with us as its originator.’ Love doesn’t depend on another person being there, it is inside us all along waiting to be expressed.
It also stood out for me and as you say, Monika, the love is just ‘waiting to be expressed’ and when it is, it is so love enhancing.
I have found too that the love I have had for another has stayed with me. It doesn’t disappear if there is no longer a physical connection or connection or communication. Once incepted it remains and I have treasured it for the expansion and enrichment it has offered – but the thing is that it was always there. It simply took the reflection of another to bring it out to see the light of day.
Very cool and very inspiring especially this ‘love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.’
This is just gorgeous. What a beautifully real story. I love every word.
Anonymous you were born to write and express your life experiences from this quality of awareness that you bring. What an empowering understanding of love being something coming from within you to bring to every relationship and connection you enjoy.
“However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship”.
Very very interesting to read Anonymous. I was a bit shocked that your relationship ended it was such a great start – “I hadn’t gone to the date with any expectations or pictures, there was just an openness to meeting him”. I have had a similar amazing experience with my last relationship. Although it ended too, it was a constellation (from heaven) to show me what love actually is i.e. it was not based on pictures that were in my mind but it was based on a connection and feeling that elated me in my body – to be open with all that I was feeling and show it by expressing.
Wow I would agree, it was a VERY successful relationship….. Learning to Love again is massive.
This is very inspiring. Just feeling how solid you were in yourself to allow yourself to be so open to what was on offer. And then maintaining that solidness after the relationship itself came to a close. How amazing to be able to give love from a body that already is full of love for itself, rather than pouring love in to something from an empty space, which would have left you distraught when it was over.
Awesome that you both felt so much more confident and content letting the relationship unfold naturally rather than artificially based on expectations or ‘shoulds’, where the values you both treasured were honoured and not jeopardised!
For me the most important part came in the last line, “Through this relationship I have learnt that I can continue to bring this quality and a deepening connection to all of my relationships.” For me this shows how we can set ourselves up in that we think we are only suppose to show certain things to certain people, you love your parents in this way, your friends in another, you partner like this and your children in another again. We have all these parts to love and gauges of how far things to go with each group and yet how you are with one is how you are with all. I am not talking about a physical action of love alone but the quality you express it in. If you are ‘saving’ love for someone special or only do this with this person etc then you are in effect caping yourself for every relationship. We have pictures of how love looks and with only seek to make a better looking picture if we hold this as a way of living. If we see love as a quality of expression then you will see that how you are with yourself, the love you are willing to be with your every move is the love that then is lived with everyone. It brings us to more understanding of how things are the way they are.
A very wise practitioner recently shared with me that relationships are all about accepting more responsibility. As I read your blog this came back to me. Responsibility and our willingness to love, to hold love, come hand in hand.
I have heard a lot of women share that they can’t be with someone until they are perfect at relationships or with themselves which may never happen because it is through relating that we develop and learn to relate!
You have just got to jump in with two feet and not have a picture of what that will look like! I would say the same for people who have been in relationships for a long time. Has a picture crept in of what we think it is supposed to look like? Dating your boyfriend or your husband should happen from the start to the end regardless of the length of time or the life events in between 🙂 Thank you for the reminder and the inspiration.
I love this in many ways. It is really great relationship advice as well as being fantastic relationship confirmation. Thank you for sharing.
It’s awesome how you realised that you feeling more womenly, more truly you and loving was not dependant on another bringing it to you but because it was already within you and something that you can always re-connect with and deepen.
Great anon, you have given it your all = all your love, and that is all that matters. When a relationship then finishes no one looses, but everyone has learned and become richer.
It is true, we all have it in us to be masters of relationships, the reason we hold back from them or fumble is because we have laid upon ourselves years of feeling rejected and hurt. We can change this when we turn towards ourselves and learn to love ourselves again, this can only be reflected in our relationships.
No fluff, no frills, just the real deal when it comes to Love. Love it!
This is a love-ly blog that really resonates with me because I can feel to just how much capacity I have to love others and how much more I could express this to others around me. Thank you anonymous.
What a great way to experience and deepen a new relationship, by just jumping in to those very everyday situations and enjoying them together.
Good on you, well done for bravely taking yourself of the bench and diving face first into the dating waters. As a society, we can get so caught up in end results, that we actually forget to soak up the experience itself. It sounds like a life changing relationship, that you were both blessed to have and that you have taken the time in this blog to really appreciate. Sometimes the love level is just too much for people and when that is the case, there is nothing that can be done besides observe, feel and accept, which is exactly what you have done in this situation.
Very beautiful and so embracing of us all in what you have shared here. It is clear you walk and live what you have expressed – the reader is held in your love, this love that you have claimed is not dependant on another but within you.
It is so gorgeous to feel your expansion as you embraced expressing the love you were reconnecting to inside and how it is always there whether or not you are in an intimate relationship. Thank you for busting that myth and sharing your love with all.
What a learning, that love isn’t tied to a relationship. We simply are love and we are always in relationships with everyone.
This is super beautiful, it is not only learning to love but being open to learning. There are so many pictures to live by, and these pictures are static, i.e. living happily ever after, that they do not leave any room to grow and learn and unfold. What you share here brings exactly that room to learn and unfold.
I love the symbology of the bird diving into the water, that was a good one. So great that you had that experience together to prepare you for a relationship where you can go so much deeper with your love.
Very cool sharing, I don’t think I have ever read something about love which was where the ending felt as precious as the beginning. Very inspiring.
Yes this is very different to the usual rollercoaster story of romance. What this blog shows is that love is a constant steady state of being that comes from within us and not something we need to get from others outside of us.
Just what I was feeling, love is a constant state of being from within and doesn’t stop when a relationship is coming to an end.
Wow anonymous this was a super blog to read. I especially liked the part where you say, ‘However, what I came to realise was that love wasn’t tied to the relationship. It was something that came from within me that I allowed out to be expressed with another and that this didn’t lessen or leave me because I was no longer in a relationship.’ Powerful words.
Our relationships need to be based on the love and connection we have with ourselves first and then the flow into other relationships comes more naturally. Why do we spend so much time looking for love outside of ourselves to make us feel good and complete when in fact this never happens?
What I love about this is: ” I got to learn that I actually wasn’t this standoffish person, but that I had an amazing capacity to express love.” We can learn so much about ourselves through our relationships with other people, they show us just what amazing incredible people we are and how our capacity to love is in fact endless.
Yes, we learn so much about ourselves through relationships with other people. All can look good and feel very comfortable on our own, but every relationship is a constellation that offers evolution and an opportunity to discover that there is more love in us than we realized before.
We definitely get in the way of ourselves sometimes, don’t we? Feels great being open to change, removing the ‘this is who I am’ label and to letting go.
I reckon we are the BIGGEST thing that gets in the way of ourselves! Genuinely most of the time if there’s a problem I’ve created it, which actually makes life pretty simple – because if I’m the only thing in my way then all I need to do is step aside and let out what’s naturally there to be let out and give myself the freedom to not be perfect and enjoy the opportunity to constantly learn.
I know I do not realise the immense power there is every time I express my love and appreciation for another. Often I hold back in my relationship with my husband but I hold back not because I don’t want to express my love for him as I could say that’s the easy bit but what happens when he expresses his love for me… umm as I pause to reflect it surprises me that it is not as terrifying as I first thought it would be!
ha ha I love that, I have felt the same – crazy to think we are afraid of someone showing us how much they love us because we haven’t contemplated deserving or accepting that level of love. Let’s collectively throw that one in the bin! – now I need a heart emoji 🙂
Beautiful sharing. “The more that I expressed this my body started to change. I felt more beautiful in myself as a woman, I walked taller and my face got softer…” When we are love changes can occur without any trying.
What a beautiful lesson in love this is. Coming from the understanding that “when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others” is such a huge revelation, one that is offering us the possibility of living life in a very different way; a very responsible way. There is a long held belief that our love is restricted to our family, perhaps close friends and the one we are in a relationship with, but at times we even hold love back from them; how harming that is to them and to us.
“I got to see that when I come from love it makes a huge difference to others.” A beautiful realisation that expressing all the love that we are is felt by everyone we meet, including ourselves, as well as the person we have a close relationship with.
I love how you bust a lot of myths here about how it should be on dates, the ‘stages’ you need to go through and how you should feel when a relationship ends. We can just be ourselves on dates, we can do what we feel to together and there definitely does not have to be a ‘when are we allowed to meet the parents’ thing and most of all it is about deepening our expression of love with all and this does not need to stop when the relationship ends.
It can be so easy to find someone that you can connect with and think this is it, and then create pictures of how the relationship should be, based on our own wants and needs. Letting go of any pictures, allowing ourselves to be love and be loved without any expectation allows the relationship to unfold in a true and simplistic way. Relationships are about learning about ourselves and each other and an opportunity to grow and quite often we can learn and move on.
In the past used to think that LOVE (with capital letters) just could be felt in a couple relationship, and from that picture I had, I looked for the person I could share that love… of course this approach never worked as love was not outside, but within me. Recently I’m truly experiencing those capital letters in love. I’ve reconnected with a dear friend of mine who is very ill and the whole situation is offering to me an opportunity to feel how much I love him, and by expressing that love without reservations, I’m experiencing myself in a very new way… I do really can feel that love has no end and from there, my approach to life is changing upside down. I feel much more alive, shining, surrendered, free, unselfish,… and although this re-connection has come from this friendship, I know that it is much more than him. It is mainly a re-connection with myself and the permission of me being fully me with others, without reservations..
Very inspiring Anon, great example of not holding back our love from fear of being hurt, as the more love that we express, the more we get to know ourselves as love and like in your case, even if the other walks away we are left with all our love. Love wins.
I am really loving this piece, thankyou so much for writing about and sharing your experience. It seems that love really is what is there to be when what is expressed comes from the deepest parts of our hearts.
This is a very timely sharing on relationships Anon. I have been made aware of how people I know who are in new relationships are finding the experience after a long break . It seems to be important (as you say ) to not carry pictures of how we think a relationship should lo look.
“From being with him I learnt how I am able to hold people and express a huge amount of love (yes, this wasn’t perfect and there was need in there too at times) but I got to see that what I bring and offer another is absolute gold when I let it out and I got to feel the difference that it makes to someone.” I found that when I met my current partner too. I had always been quite protected and held back for most of my life but I have found my partner has helped me come out and share who I am more and that has supported me to express love more freely with others. Our relationships are always an opportunity to learn and deepen so much more which is a true gift.
Anonymous the way that you chose to be in this relationship is in stark contrast to the way that most of us choose to be in relationships. The way that most people choose to be in relationships is in a very contracted way, a way that by it’s very nature excludes love, (the very thing that people are so desperately wanting). On the other hand, the way that you actively chose to be in the relationship was so incredibly expansive and that expansion contributed to the overall expansion of the All.
Anonymous this is such a glorious sharing because what you are choosing to live and express is love, pure and simple and that is what will change the world.
The beauty of any relationship is in awareness and the forever deepening love that is expanding, this is a choice that everyone makes for themselves, a choice when we support ourselves in we also support each other.
Beautiful Anonymous, I love the ins and outs you share of being together with someone else. It makes me realise how I label certain areas of my world a ‘relationship’ and others just people I know. But in actual fact this up and down, ebb and flow is part of everything we do. When we open our eyes and start to see, we can learn and grow from every exchange and everyone we know. We all are teachers in this world.
I like what you say here Joseph. We are in relationship with everyone in our lives, not just our intimate partners, and I agree that we can learn so much from each other.
The whole dating thing can feel kind of a bit of a false set up. I find it easier to invite the person in to be part of your life and through this you get to know each other. The notion of the formal dating and measuring and sussing each other out can interfere with genuinely meeting another.
A deeply beautiful blog busting many myths of what a ‘successful’ relationship is and how in fact no matter the outcome when we learn to be more us and express love in how we are in the world this is awesome and pretty amazing. And this line struck me ‘I left the date with the same feeling as when I drove to it’ … in other words you came as you and left as you, and in a world where we’re often bombarded in how to be and change ourselves accordingly this is a great confirmation.
I have found that it can be hard to stay with this, to stay with the learning and no go back into what you think the picture should be but to just allow yourself to let go and move on in the full grace of the learning with no attachment.
Gorgeous sharing. I love how you thought you were not good at relationships but then busted that myth. I used to think that too but I am awesome at relationships.
I agree. And me too, I am just opening up to feel how much I have to offer in relationship with others and how much I love people. It is indeed very gorgeous to return to this innate way of being. This blog inspires me to allow this to continue to unfold and expand and not hold back everything I am. Thank you.
It is rather odd how we are played to doubt the great love that we are and our natural ability to want to share this with all others who are equally made of such love, when we consider that it takes more effort to block this expression than to live it.
Perhaps more than odd but one of the greatest crimes against humanity. Imagine if we all expressed the love we truly and what affect that would have on the world and our bodies!
I am learning that sometimes the things that we avoid the most are our greatest strengths but we have avoided bringing these.