Friday 27 July 2012

Emotional Attachment - How it damages our relationships and how to avoid it

In this article I will focus on emotional attachment, one of the most common traps that we fall into in our relationships and life. Attachment makes us dependent on the people and things around us and makes us forget that we have natural self-esteem. It also makes it impossible to find true and lasting happiness.


To be attached is to believe there is something 'out there' that will make us happy. This could be anything - a job, lots of money, a new home, or winning a sporting competition, even the Olympics! Of course, it can also be another human being who we believe will make us happy. This is where our dependence on a partner comes from. Whatever the attachment is, it points to a need that we are trying to fulfil, and when this fails we feel hurt and begin to suffer.
An attachment originates when we believe that we lack something personally. This almost always begins in early childhood as we start to make conclusions about the world and our part in it. The problem is that in the fear, pain and confusion of childhood/parenting issues within our families, we can take on many negative self-beliefs. These beliefs are always mistaken because in truth we can find everything we need emotionally (and spiritually) from within, but we begin to doubt this and assume that we need somebody or something else to make us feel complete and happy. At the core of our doubt is the belief that we are personally lacking in love and therefore need to search for it in the world outside us. From this belief stems a whole raft of negative self-beliefs that are full of feelings of scarcity. We might believe that we lack money, health, intelligence, good looks or physical attraction. It is inevitable that we will then look outwards to find these things and make ourselves feel whole again.
Attachments can be incredibly powerful and will hold us back from finding happiness because they deny our own resources. They will also damage and destroy our relationships. It is therefore essential to let them go. What are you attached to? To help identify this, ask yourself what you are still lacking in your relationship and life. Let's say you lack self-confidence. You may have looked for a partner who is much more confident than you and who can support you through difficult situations in life. You may have become dependent on them and be terrified of losing them. Or they might have already left you, and you will already know the dreadful feeling of loss and fear that this creates. If you become attached to your partner you can no longer bond with them fully because you are dependent on them. True bonding can only happen when you feel equal with your partner and need nothing from them.
The way to get rid of an attachment like this is to recognise that your belief that you are lacking in confidence is an illusion. Your natural state is one of confidence but somewhere in your life you began to doubt this and turn away from this gift. You might be able to identify when this happened, but this isn't critical. What matters now is that you recognise that you do indeed have a gift of confidence that you can embrace for yourself and the people around you. Deep down your friends, family and partner know you have the gift and are waiting for you to exhibit it! You might take some time to get to know and accept this 'new you', but with attention and practice you will find that you feel much better about yourself. Your relationships will improve and your dependence on others as well as your attachments will dissolve away.
One of the most interesting discoveries that psychologist Check Spezzano (originator of the Psychology of Vision model upon which these articles and my website are based) has made about the human mind is that the things we become attached to, are also our greatest gifts. In other words, we minimise our lives and become dependent in the very areas that we are experts! The most astonishing conclusion from this finding is that we do not need to search for love in the people or situations around us. All of us are naturally gifted in love and have the ability to form successful and happy relationships. But we are also afraid of this greatest of gifts - and that is why we so easily become attached to people and material world. It is time to recognise our giftedness and embrace the love that is within us and available to us through our relationships and spiritual connections.

Sunday 6 May 2012

Cheryl Cole says, “I’m Too Busy For A Relationship”?


How busyness can prevent you from finding a romantic partner and if you are in a relationship, rob you of love and connection.



Celebrity Cheryl Cole said this week on a radio show that she was too busy for a relationship. While I’m sure she is very busy with her new album, I would guess that nothing would bring her more happiness than to be in a loving and supportive relationship. So what might be going on here? In this article I want to explore the issue of busyness in relationships. For those of you who are single I will look at how busyness will prevent you meeting and starting a relationship, and for those of us in a relationship I will look at how busyness can rob us of connection and feelings of love.

I cover the subject of busyness in dating in the Lovecoach section of my website but let’s look at the deeper issues here.  I know that when I was single, I could find all sorts of reasons why I was too busy to have a relationship. On the surface this seemed to be about placing my work and leisure interests ahead of having a romantic relationship, but deeper down (and with retrospect) I can see that there was something much more fundamental going on – I was avoiding the intimacy of a relationship because I unconsciously knew that it would force me to come face to face with my fears. By staying single, and distracting myself with busyness, I did not have to show up and take emotional risks. At the core of this was a fear of getting hurt – of being judged and rejected for who I was. I know this now, but at the time I was blind to this painful truth. If you are a busy single person, and you are struggling to find a partner or start a relationship, be honest and ask yourself if you have any of these same fears.  In the final paragraphs I will show you how to deal with them.

Busyness is also very common within relationships, as one or both partners rush around hectically with little or no time for connecting with their partner. Again, on the surface, it will appear that the rushing around is an inevitable consequence of a modern lifestyle. Work, homecare, children, family, community projects and leisure pursuits can leave us exhausted and with little quality time for our partners and spouses. We may become irritable and stressed, and this can cause great damage to our sex lives. But the deeper reason for this busyness is exactly the same as for the example of the single person above – we are afraid of true intimacy. The busyness allows us not to deal with the fears and insecurities that keep us at an emotional distance from our partners. In fact it creates the distance and then stops us from reducing it again.

So let’s deal with both cases. If you are often very busy and are single, or feel disconnected from your partner, ask yourself what it is that frightens you most about being in a romantic relationship. What is the worst thing that could happen and what feelings would this bring up? It is these feelings that you will protect by avoiding intimacy. Let’s say you could not stand the heartbreak and sadness of being let down or rejected. You will not venture yourself in any place where this could become a reality – so you will stay at a safe distance, as a single person or within your relationship. Now comes the fascinating and critical bit. Although you may be afraid of your insecurities, what has brought this about is the fact that you have a very big and emotionally sensitive heart. What you are really afraid of is opening your heart too much in case you venture yourself in love fully, and then get hurt if things go wrong.

This paradox lies (literally) at the heart of all relationship problems. To differing extents we are all afraid of our potential for love and open-heartedness. Getting busy is a way of distracting us from our true state of love and relationship. Being busy makes sure we do not find romantic happiness! Yes it’s a crazy way to react, but that is what we do in our relationships. Your loving heart is the greatest gift that you have, but you may have become convinced that it can hurt you. The way forward is therefore to take the risk of opening your heart and feeling into all your emotions. Make your partner, or finding a partner a priority in your life, and find the time to be completely present and connected. If you can do this you will find that the busyness falls away and a true partner will come into your life if you are single. If you are in a relationship, with an open and undefended heart you will make the choice for love and connection rather than busyness, and you will become much more happy and fulfilled.

Tuesday 10 April 2012

The Keys to a Happy and Successful Relationship



I hope you have had a chance to look at my relationship coaching and emotional counselling website www.iloveyouloveme.com

In this post I want to take you through the key principles that underlie my website, books and work.

The first and most important principle is that:

1. Your essential state is one of love - it is who you are


You will have experienced this state if you have ever fallen in love. Those incredible feelings of joy and love appear when you let go of your insecurities, fears and negative self-beliefs. The presence of somebody who you love and who loves you, reminds you of who you are. This takes us straight to the next principle.

2. You will become unhappy and have relationship problems if you ever forget your natural state is love.


The negative feelings and problems are your intuitive, subconscious mind's way of telling you that you have gone astray. This turning away from love is also likely to happen for your partner (unless they have done some emotional healing), so they will react negatively to any difficulties and you will end up in rows and arguments, or you will withdraw from each other. Of course, the way to solve the problem is to:

3. Remember that love is your essence and to embrace the self-love that comes with this


But here comes the big problem - As you try to embrace self-love and return to your natural state, the first thing you will hit is a wall of unconscious fear and negative emotions.


These painful emotions include fear, inadequacy, a sense of failure, guilt, as well as resentments and judgements. They come directly from the self-beliefs that you would have taken on as a child in your original family and they are stored away subconsciously so you are probably unaware of them.

The problem is that because you have suppressed these horrible feelings (to take away the pain), you will have inadvertently closed down your heart. You need you heart in order to give and receive love, to compassion and to connect with your partner, and without out it you will become emotionally distant from them. They will probably do the same with you, which just makes things worse. 

In order to experience more love and happiness it is therefore important to remove the barrier of fear that separates you and your partner (if you have one) from love. This idea isn't new as you can see from the quotation below.

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek to find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it"  Jalad-din-Rumi, 12th century poet and philosopher.

The way forward is therefore to:

Open your heart again and be willing to work through any fear or negative emotion that comes up


My website, blog, and books will help you with this process. Some of the techniques I describe are radical and may challenge you, but I promise you (I know this from personal experience) that you will be incredibly rewarded if you can break through your own wall of fear. You can return to those feelings of falling in love, and they can become even stronger and more meaningful!

Do subscribe to this blog if you are interested in my approach, as I will write regular articles, discuss topical issues and answer questions that readers might post. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Peter

PS In my next post I will describe the most important thing you must learn to do if you want to solve a relationship problem


Tuesday 3 April 2012

Launch of Newly Updated Website





Welcome to my blog. In this first issue I would like to introduce you to my newly revised website www.iloveyouloveme.comhttp://www.iloveyouloveme.com. I will not inundate you with blog posts, and will aim to publish one every week or so. I will repsond to reader comments and questions from tim to time.

The site is dedicated to helping you find more love, meaning and happiness in your relationships. Although the site focuses on romantic relationships, you can apply the principles to any type of relationship.

Short video introduction to site
 

The site has lots of free love and relationship ideas and techniques, as well as a unique online coaching system called Lovecoach. The system allows you to choose a particular relationship problem or issue, get some understanding of what has caused it, and then see some solutions, both short-term and longer-term.




One of my key aims with all my work is to make the relationship-building and emotional healing principles available to a wide an audience as possible. Therefore I have placed many social networking tools on the site. If you find the content useful, please think about your friends, and feel free to share the pages with them. I have kept the site free of  third-party adverts so I hope you find it refreshing uncluttered.

I also have a Facebook (freelovecoach) and Twitter page (freelovecoach) and will be using these to advise you of new, and what I hope will be useful content in my website and blog. I will also point you towards other useful websites and topical blogs that will support my own site, and help you with your relationships.

Click image to go to Amazon Bookstore to read sample 


Finally, I would like to introduce you to my new e-book called Lovecoach – How to Create The Relationship Of Your Dreams. This books summarises all the key principles and relationship-building techniques that are in the website. It also contains a series of self-coaching exercise which will allow you to understand and solve any relationship problems that you might be facing. Click for more information.

So have a look at the website – I hope you find it useful. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter, or if you prefer subscribe to this blog.

In my next blog, and for those new to my articles and website, I will describe the key principles that underlie my relationship coaching. After this I will discuss topical issues relating to love and relationships, specific relation-building tools and techniques, and respond to readers comments.    

Have a great Easter if you are celebrating it, or having a holiday over this period.

Peter