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Posts tagged with “Love”

How to Start Dating from a Place of Self-Love

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“You must learn to love yourself before you can love someone else.” ~Sonja Mylin

It’s tough being out there.

I remember myself some years ago embracing the world of online dating. Everyone kept telling me “be yourself” (and I kept telling myself that), but when I was actually on a date, “myself” would fly out the window.

I’d go hard on the impressing, second-guess myself, drink too much, look for every little thing we had in common (even if the person did not feel right), feel devastated if I was rejected, and utterly lose sight of what I was …

Why I Got Caught Up in the Drama of an On-and-Off Relationship

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“One reason people resist change is because they focus on what they have to give up instead of what they have to gain.” ~Rick Godwin

Dave and I met earlier this January. I was immediately attracted to his aquamarine eyes and his tattoos. I met him on the eve of my twenty-sixth birthday and, based on our interaction, I assumed we’d have a casual fling. Things didn’t end that simply, to my surprise.

When we were lying in bed together that first night, holding hands, he turned to me and asked if there was any chance we could get to …

Healing, Forgiving, and Loving After a Painful Break Up

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“People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you will know exactly what to do.” ~Anonymous

About five years ago, I learned the biggest lesson of my life about self-love and losing oneself in a relationship, through a breakup that almost killed me.

After going through another night of three hours of sleep, I drove myself to the ER to save my own life. I hadn’t eaten or slept much in three weeks, and the scale pointed to ninety-seven pounds. I felt weak, malnourished, and unloved.

Three weeks …

Tell Someone You Love Them Today

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What Helped Me Love and Accept My Imperfect Body

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“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.” ~Amy Bloom

“Just look at yourself!”

“That chubby face, those massive hips and thighs. The stumpy legs.”

“No wonder he doesn’t love you anymore. No wonder he left you for her! She is so much prettier than you are.”

I stood in front of the mirror. Tears streamed down my face. My body was shaking uncontrollably as I stared at it in disgust.

Resentment and anger accumulated in my chest. Heavy, dark, and painful, the all-consuming emotions tried to crush me. My throat felt tight, I couldn’t breathe, my …

Coping with Your Partner’s Life-Altering Medical Condition

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“We don’t know what’s causing it,” I say to friends for what feels like the hundredth time. My boyfriend has been unable to walk or stand without pain for two years. And no doctors can seem to figure out why.

We were in our early twenties and had only been dating for a few months before his leg issue started. What ensued was a harsh transition from a highly active couple hiking mountains on the weekends, to a sedentary couple that needed to take an Uber to a coffee shop just a few blocks away.

Our identities as individuals and …

When the Euphoria Fades: Dealing with the Highs and Lows of Love

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“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” ~Sam Keen

When we fall in love, we feel excited to experience some of the most joyful moments of our lives. Because love is supposed to be the source of the best feelings, right? But what about when that relationship churns up some hard stuff and leaves you feeling hurt, annoyed, sad, and irate?

For many of us, especially deep-feelers like me, when we start to experience these inevitable lows in our relationship, we may conclude that something is inherently wrong …

How to Stop Losing Yourself and Giving Your Power Away in Dating

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“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.” ~BrenĂ© Brown

I was a serial dater for a decade.

Dating can be fun and exciting, but it can also come with lots of disappointment and emotional pain.

All those rejections, ghosting, and shattered hopes had a huge impact on me.

They left me feeling exhausted and heartbroken. Probably because I dated too much but also because I didn’t do much to protect myself and my energy on these dating adventures.

I’d say yes to many men who were …

The Top 7 Reasons We Stay in Bad Relationships

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“Some of us think that holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” ~Hermann Hesse

She knew it sooner than I did. And more intensely than I did.

I, on the other hand, may have considered our differences but never thought of them as deal-breakers. I tried to justify the many struggles we had between us and believed that our marriage could work despite the challenges.

I had this feeling things would get better and stayed hopeful no matter how bad our relationship got.

I told myself that her extraverted personality and my more introversion could …

It’s All About Perception: You Can Look Through the Lens of Love or Fear

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“We are not responsible for what our eyes are seeing. We are responsible for how we perceive what we are seeing.” ~Gabrielle Bernstein

One of the things I love about this journey of personal growth is that we get to learn the same lessons over and over again, until they finally sink in on a visceral level. I love it when I hear or read the same insights repeatedly, from various sources and at different stages along my own path.

Recently, at a low point in my life, I re-encountered this fundamental teaching in Gabrielle Bernstein’s book The Universe Has …

Forgive Often and Love with All Your Heart

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How to Get Past Blame and Shame and Strengthen Your Relationship

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I used to think that if I told my wife exactly what’s wrong with her, her response would be, “Yes, I see it now! Thank you for showing me the errors of my ways.”

To my surprise, that never happened. Finally, I saw that I was going about things the wrong way. Complaining, blaming, and shaming were simply not an effective strategy for creating more love and harmony with my wife. Duh! Once I realized this, I went in search of what really did create more love and harmony. Fortunately, several great strategies—backed by actual research—helped show me what could …

True Love Is Built on Free Will

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How I Healed My Strained Relationship with My Mother

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“Give without remembering. Receive without forgetting.” ~Unknown

It was Sunday, April 12, 2015. I had just finished my grocery shopping and was about to leave the parking lot when I noticed a call from my dad.

I called him back so we could talk for a few minutes. He said, “Troy died.” I thought of his friend Troy, who I’d met a couple years prior, and said I was sorry to hear his friend had passed. My dad realized I had not heard him correctly. He said “Troy, your stepdad, he died this morning.”

I felt like someone had punched …

The Little Things in Life Are the Ones That Matter Most

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“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” ~Muhammad Ali

I followed a little boy in Walmart today. He didn’t look like my son and yet I trailed him and his mother all over the store. I curled my fingers around the shopping cart so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and touch him.

He didn’t walk with Brendan’s bounce or jerk his head back, trying to slide his glasses back onto his nose. He didn’t have his sarcastic smile or those tiny freckles scattered across his cheeks.

But he …

Whatever Is Taken for Granted Will Eventually Be Taken Away

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“They say ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.’ The truth is, you knew exactly what you had. You just didn’t think that you were going to lose it.” ~Unknown

She was a mother of eight children. She lived with her family in a small village in the countryside.

Living in a poor family, with eight mouths to feed, she worked every possible job from dawn till dusk, from working in her family’s own rice field to accepting gigs from anyone who’d hire her.

Many people told her not to put her children in school so she could …

How You Needed to Be Loved

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Easing a Broken Heart: 5 Ways to Reframe Rejection

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“When the wrong people leave your life, the right things start to happen.” ~Zig Ziglar

The end of a relationship triggers many grief emotions, but when a couple breaks up because one person decides that it’s over, there is a very distinct pain: the sting of rejection. It doesn’t matter whether things had been difficult for some time or if the split came out of the blue; either way, rejection feels cruel.

At the end of my marriage eight years ago, I had no idea that the breakup was coming. On top of the shock that the relationship was …

No Matter What Life Takes Away, You Still Have Everything You Need

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“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?” ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau

On February 21, 2009, I received a phone call that would alter the course of my life. It was my sister, and I could barely make out what she was saying. My mom was in the hospital and had received a diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer.

My body absorbed the news before my brain did. Since I had lost my ability to reason, from someplace beyond me I found a way to keep functioning. I asked my sister to put my mom on the phone.

What could I …

8 Tips So You Don’t Lose Yourself In Your Next Relationship

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“Never lose yourself in a relationship. Love your partner fiercely, but always follow your unique dreams and desires. Be true to yourself.” ~Unknown

All my previous relationships drained me.

Not only because I was with the wrong men and kept trying to make things work where there was no way, but also because I was a queen of justifying, accommodating, and compromising.

I accommodated men because I wanted to be liked and avoid rejection.

I justified their lousy behavior because I wanted to be in a relationship and not be alone.

I compromised on my values and romantic ideals just …