Hello again and welcome to your life in the now, where I help you to create that healthy you, that awesome you, the amazing you the life you were meant to live. Overcoming old emotional issues and helping you to embrace your life in the now which I call practical spirituality.
You can also listen to my podcast and subscribe so that you will be notified when my next podcast comes out. On this website you can download more free information about relationships as well as download the “3 things you need to do in your relationship so that you enjoy a passionate, amazing and fulfilling connection.” You can find the link at https://www.yourlifeinthenow.com/individual-and-group-sessions on this website. I guarantee you'll find that these three things are essential for you to move forward and enjoy the life and the relationship that you truly deserve and desire.
So today we're going to explore different aspects of relationships. Over the last 25 years I have been working with clients in my office and by phone so we're going to discuss some specific examples of what could be holding you back in a relationship. Now whether you're single or currently in a relationship, we are going to explore some specific things today so that you can move through and keep you from going down those dead-end relationships and wasting years of your life. If you're in a relationship now this will be useful because you can reflect back upon your own journey and the mistakes you might have made on the way so that you can correct them. Or if you ever find yourself single or looking for another relationship that will be useful as well.
Of course, you realize you are drawn into what you need the most to heal so when you're out there looking for a relationship please focus on being yourself. Avoid taking on a persona other than who you are - the true you, the real you. Being who you really are is going to draw the perfect person for you right now. We don’t have to pump ourselves up like many animals do - showing their feathers trying to be something amazing to draw their mate. As a human being you can show the real you and not some image that you're projecting. We all want to be our best selves and that’s so different from being someone we aren’t. Of course, put your best foot forward and be the best you that you know you can be. Otherwise, after the first year or two that image that you project begins to wear off and you slipped back into becoming the old you that isn’t actually the best you. We become the you that our Guardian created over the first 16 years as you grew up.
Your Guardian is trying its best to keep you safe and secure but it reinforces the beliefs, both good and bad, that it experienced in those early years. While you might be living in your exuberant, freedom-loving teenage self your Guardian pulls you back into be what it feels is the more responsible you. Often this occurs in your mid-20’s when you get a job, get married, have children, or take on a more “adult” lifestyle. This inner battle between these two very different parts of you usually results in the Guardian taking control. Unfortunately, that means all the negative beliefs, worries and fears created over the first years of your life once again manifest as a real and present danger.
This is what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain body with all the issues and the wounds. It brings into your relationship all the unresolved issues of your life, and your relationship begins to enter a less exciting, less joyous phase. Your job, money, kids and other concerns begin to eat away at our inner joy and spiritual experiences. Time becomes a factor and if you aren’t careful you no longer will be doing the things that bring you greater joy and fulfillment. If your Guardian’s issues are slight, this won’t be such a traumatic phase. Otherwise, life as you know it can take a turn for the worse. The reason it does is because our wounded Guardian fills your mind with doubts, worries and concerns. It begins to “what if” your life, filling your thoughts with fears and seemingly irrational beliefs.
In the last session we discussed how relationships are an opportunity to realize that the person you draw into a romantic relationship will bring up your issues. If you realize that it’s healthy for you to now take some time and learn what your relationship will teach you. It will bring up your issues so that you can address, express and heal them.
What I want to do is to help you so that you don’t have to go through this time and time again. To help you avoid pushing them away. Otherwise they will diminish your relationship and it can even sabotage it with the very issues you are meant to address. It does you no good to keep repeating the same mistake over and over again with one relationship after another.
We are meant to learn from this. To learn that both of you have issues that will arise in your relationship. It’s not about placing blame and wasting energy. Instead focus on what needs to be done and move on. If you beat each other up you are doing the bidding of your Guardian by expressing its fears and feelings of inadequacies.
It’s not always 50/50 when it comes to issues but the next time it might be mostly your issue. What matters is what you do about it. What matters is that the person you drew is going to be the perfect person that matches your wounds right now, as well as the happier parts of you. Remember, it's not all unhappiness for there are many wonderful aspects to your relationship as well. Just don’t avoid the challenges when they arise.
Otherwise it becomes more and more difficult to address your issues. You will tend to associate them as yours and that you are attacked when you partner is just trying to help resolve them. This is how you drift apart and find other interests or people and no longer feel that deep connection with one another. Your Guardian part is always trying to bring you back to what it feels like you deserve based upon that old programming. And it’s not always the healthiest you.
Remember that your Guardian would be happiest if you never left the house. It's strongest in your home where it can control the environment and keep you safe. It’s like an overly protective parent whose main job is safety, not your happiness. This is how many people end up. Not leaving the house and they're happy just watching TV. This is how your Guardian wins as it finally controls your life. The amazing, energetic, creative you waste away and gets put aside, no longer being expressed and no longer open to learning new things. But like the old saying goes, “Yes, ships are safest in the harbor, but they are meant for the open seas.” You are meant to be active, growing, learning, changing for the better. Then you experience life in the now, what I call practical spirituality, which also brings a more mystical connection into your daily life.
Relationships are the key for you to keep learning and moving forward. So often after the bloom has faded away in your relationship perhaps your partner will grow dissatisfied with you habits or lack of connection and send you to see me. This happens a lot and typically the person that comes in needs a boost of self-worth and self-esteem. What they don’t often see is that their partner also has issues. So, first we help them to create a healthier self, to feel stronger and healthier and more confident of themselves. When they return to their relationship, they begin to realize that their partner also has issues. And with their new eyes and understanding they won’t be put off or told that it’s all their fault. At this point their partner either recognizes that yes, they also have issues and now also have someone who can help them resolve those issues. Or they are of a more controlling nature and never won’t to admit that they have issues at all. They may be in total denial. This is a crisis point in the relationship as the newly confident
individual realizes just how controlling their partner is. Perhaps their control mate has told them who they can see, what friends they can have, what they can do. With these new eyes the relationship become that learning experience where the healthy individual realizes that they have drawn a controlling person due to their own lack of self-esteem and felt comfortable being controlled which reinforced feelings of not being good enough. Until now.
Now they realize they do deserve joy and love. At this point they either leave the old relationship or their more controlling partner realizes that they might have issues and then work together to grow and deepen their relationship.
If you aren’t this self-aware come see me as I can help reflect back to you how your own Guardian has programmed you and how it affects your relationship. Remember you are also spiritual beings having this early experience and are here to awaken to your true, authentic self. You are meant to bring that higher energy into your daily life and from this place you transform yourself and the world. This is what it is to live a life of practical spirituality and bring forth into the world the you you're meant to be. Not only transforming yourself and your relationships, but the world around you as well.
Marianne Williamson had a great saying that Nelson Mandela later used in his acceptance speech for presidency of South Africa. I'm going to paraphrase it here for it said that it does no good for you to be anything less than who you are. To not be afraid to be that amazing you. For you are meant to be that role model, that signpost to bring everybody else up. We aren’t meant to descend down and become victims of life. Sure, it might be lonely sometimes when you aren’t always in sync with your friends or even your culture. But the world needs you to help others heal so that in some way we increase the level of the consciousness, for at a deep level your consciousness is connected with a consciousness of humanity.
It's really great that people are out there being aware of the worldly issues, trying their best to make changes that will help the planet, to save animals, to help their fellow humans, but at the same time we need to work on ourselves so that these issues finally can be transformed. They aren’t going to go away until we change ourselves inwardly.
Remember that healthy individuals have healthy relationships, so as you work on your issues you improve your relationships as well. Do the best that you can when you are single to improve yourself, resolve when you can, becoming the healthiest you possible. And when a relationship appears it means its time to connect this way and then learn what you need to learn from the relationship to become even more amazing.
Clients often come in to change old habits so that they can improve their relationships. I had one person come to see me once who had low self-esteem and didn't realize it his friends would use him to drive them around to different parties. He would just sit in the car and felt needed and that it was so great because they included him in their Friday evening outings. But he was being used as their chauffeur and he never realized it since we are often blind to our issues. Together we explored what his relationship was for him and he realized that his lack of self-worth led him into this arrangement and that he was a caretaker, a people pleaser, who felt that the only way anyone would like him was when he was nice things for them. He saw this pattern in all his relationships and worked on improving his inner confidence and self-esteem. When he returned for his next session he laughed and told me that his friends didn't like me at all because I had helped him see and understand that he was being used. No longer was that okay with him and he discovered who his real friends were that included them in their outings. He continued to make significant changes in his own self-worth and changed his life forever.
Another client came in to lose weight and work on issues of self-esteem and told me that they drank at least 3 liters of regular coke a day. We discussed other issues and did a session to improve her self-confidence and self-awareness. When she returned for her second session, I asked her what positive changes she had seen. She said that unfortunately she hadn’t done well at all. That she had failed and was still drinking 1 liter of Coke a day. I remember looking at them and repeated what they had told me. I did this several times and the proverbial light bulb went off overhead and she realized what she had said.
She never even gave herself credit for eliminating two liters of coke! Instead she focused on what she hadn’t accomplished and beat herself up for being a failure. She remembered how her family upbringing caused her to feel like a failure, never good enough, never receiving words of encouragement or appreciation. Now she was smiling saying that she really had done a good job.
This is just one example of how so many clients come in that rarely give themselves credit for what they are doing well, instead of focusing on what they have yet to accomplish. I do encourage clients to look forward, not backwards. This also allows you to move into relationships with a new self-awareness. Of course, we want to be aware of our issues and not deny them, but then to actively work on them by focusing your energy upon what it is you do want to manifest and enjoy.
My job is to help you remove what's blocking you from becoming your true self, the you that will create an amazing life. You can move forward in amazing relationships and live life in the now. Never blaming another person for your issues.
Make sure you watch the video on the “3 amazing things that you can do for a fulfilling relationship”. And consider becoming a part of our Facebook group as I want to create a group of people who are moving forward exploring these issues and incorporating new ideas into our daily life. Let me know if you're interested in this private group of people serious in changing the world. Have a wonderful day, a wonderful relationship, filled with joy, peace and fulfillment.