Ask Dan and Jennifer » acceptance

Curiosity Creates Romance

Sarah Elizabeth Malinak — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:11:03 +0000

Hidden expectations are one of the primary things that hurt a relationship. The expectations go beyond the desire to be loved for who we are. They have to do with us looking good and being right where our friends and family are concerned.

The expectations include things like what we want this person to be like, what he or she should look like, sound like, and act like. They can be about wanting him or her to have a certain religion, a particular sense of humor, and a certain body type, even a desire for finger nails and toe nails to be shaped in a familiar way. Hair color and texture can matter. The sounds they make when they eat food or sip liquids. What they look like when they are about to bust a gut from laughing so hard.

Forgiving What Doesn’t Meet Our Expectations

In the beginning, whatever doesn’t meet your expectations falls under the grace of forgiveness. We forgive a lot of flaws in our partner when love is new. We are frequently forgiving because even as the peculiar laugh irritates, we are ashamed to find ourselves repulsed by our beloved. We extend ourselves past the uncomfortable feelings our expectations present because this person makes us feel seen, loved, and whole as no one else has before. How can we find flaws in someone with such godlike gifts of seeing, loving, and healing? Besides, he or she has the same experience of you! As a godlike creature in his or her life, how can you be so little as to have a problem with those pinky toes that lie sideways?

As time goes on and the honeymoon feelings fade, the little irritations get larger. Suddenly you are faced with a host of expectations you didn’t even know you had to meet that agenda of being right and looking good. This phenomenon is irritatingly predictable. It is based on the ties of loyalty that bind us to those who came before the romantic partner. If your family had a thing against redheads and the man you now love is a redhead, those wires are eventually going to cross. Because of loyalty, they are likely to cross with your beloved and make sparks there rather than between you and your family.

Having The Courage To Accept The Little Things Again…And Again

Truly accepting your beloved when you are forced to face the little repulsions that show up takes courage. You have to be brave to, even inside yourself, turn to your family and previous friends and choose your lover all over again. I mean, it really is silly to dislike his “outie” belly button just because no one in your family ever had one. It is also silly to cringe at her strong opinions just because your mother kept hers to herself. Many of these things you now have trouble with, you may have loved in the beginning just because in the face of those differences you felt such intimacy and vulnerability sharing them.

I have stumbled upon a cure for this phenomenon that threatens to undermine how close you feel to one another. The cure will renew a right spirit between you, fan the flames of the chemistry you still share, and make you long for each other’s company like in the old days.

Curiosity As A Cure

The cure is curiosity. Think back to a time when you were curious about something, anything. Wasn’t your mind open as a result? Didn’t it make a difference in your attitude and actions? For instance, you’re walking in your favorite park when out of the corner of your eye you spot something orange moving in the grass. You’re curious. You stop to look more closely. The orange is fuzzy and striped with white and darker shades of orange. Someone abandoned kittens in the park! If your curiosity remains heightened, your time in the park ends with scooping them up, taking them home, and having to decide whether to keep them or find them good homes.

Have you ever fallen in love with someone who wasn’t your “type?” Your “type” didn’t change. Your curiosity kicked in and you found yourself responding to someone’s mind, sense of humor, or kindness for a change. He or she felt like home and, with your curiosity heightened, you gave the possibility of love a chance.

Have you ever received horrible service at a restaurant, determined to leave a lousy tip to clearly send a message of your disapproval while contemplating confronting your server? Then you overhear a conversation between your server and the manager and you realize she has had a hell of a day. Your curiosity takes what you heard further and wonders just how bad a day it might have been. Next time she visits your table, you go out of your way to be friendly and kind, receiving a tentative smile from her. You decide to leave a big, fat tip in the hopes it will turn her day around. Curiosity made that shift happen.

Learning To Truly Love Through Curiosity

Curiosity makes positive shifts happen for lovers as well, restoring the romance and fanning the chemistry. The next time he’s talking a mile a minute and it’s all about him check the annoyance and ask yourself, “What’s he so excited about? This thing he’s talking about must be really important to him.” Let your curiosity take over. You will find yourself engaged in his conversation and, eventually, the conversation will come back around to you.

With those funny pinky toes of hers that lie at an awkward angle, wonder to yourself what they must have looked like when she was an infant and at least two people thought she and all ten of her toes were perfect. Your mind and heart will open and it will no longer matter that your last girlfriend had beautiful feet! The intimacy of loving this woman will win and you will too.

Curiosity opens the mind and the heart to new possibilities. Try applying it to your beloved and watch the passion rise!

Understanding The Difference Between Getting Love And Sharing Love

Dr. Margaret Paul — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:16:33 +0000

The feeling of love is the very best feeling in the world, even better than sex or ice cream!

The Bible states in 1 John 4:16 that “God is love.” When our hearts are open, the love that is God comes into the physical body and fills us with the delicious feelings of joy and peace. Love is always available, as available as the air we breathe.

Yet most people do not go through their days filled with love, joy and peace. Instead, they feel empty and alone, and often turn to various addictions (such as sex and ice cream) to fill the emptiness and aloneness.

Filling the Void With Addictions

One of the addictions many people turn to is the addiction of getting love from others. Coming from the belief that people, rather than our Source, are the source of love, they try in various ways to gain control over getting love from others.

Through physical appearance, accomplishments, niceness, compliments, cuteness, being funny, threats, anger, irritation, and blame, people try to manipulate others into giving them the love, attention, and approval they need. Sometimes this works for the moment, but like food or sex, it is only for the moment. Trying to feel filled through others is an exhausting way to live.

Other people try to get filled through the giving of love. The problem here is that unless you are first bringing love into yourself and then sharing your love from a full place within, the giving of love becomes just another manipulation to get love.

This is caretaking; giving to get. I can tell you from personal experience, since this was my major addiction, that caretaking does not to lead to feeling fill up with love, peace and joy. Rather, it leads to feeling drained, used and resentful, since rarely do others give back the love you hope for.

A Circle of Love

The highest experience in life with another person is the sharing of love. A circle of love is experienced when two or more people are sharing love from a full place within.

We are full of love within only when we have a spiritually connected loving adult self who is intent on taking loving care of ourselves. When our intent is to take full personal responsibility for ourselves physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, organizationally, and relationally, then we feel loved and safe inside.

Intent Opens the Door

…

The Hidden Dangers Of Trying To Control Your Husband or Wife…

Karen Lynch — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:59:40 +0000

There is a beautiful little town just south of where I live. It has peaceful, quiet, tree-lined streets with beautiful homes both old and new. It is the perfect example of small town America, a place where many of us dream of raising our children, a place that we think of as being safe.

Last Sunday, the peace in this beautiful little town was shattered. A few miles north, people in the larger city were also shaken to the core. A senseless and painful crime took place.

A beautiful young mother was walking into church with her own mother when her estranged husband drove up, got out of the car, pulled out a gun and shot her repeatedly. She died instantly.

It was her 30th birthday.

Her estranged husband senselessly took one life and essentially ruined or destroyed 3 other lives, not to mention shattering the peace of mind of the other churchgoers and the tranquility of the town. Two small boys are now in the State Protective Services and the husband himself is incarcerated in the county jail awaiting charges on capital murder.

Why did this senseless act of violence take place? What could have been the motive to inflict so much pain?

Apparently the couple had separated and the wife was planning to file for divorce.

He couldn’t make her stay. He couldn’t force her to love him. He couldn’t control her. So rather than accept that fact and allow them both to move on to a brighter future, he took her life, destroyed his own life and essentially left his two young sons orphaned. Those boys lost both of their parents that day. Their young lives will forever feel the effect of that lingering pain from the senseless violence of that day.

Co-Create a Great Relationship

This is, of course, an extreme example. This is one of the worst things that can happen. But there are many dysfunctional relationships where one party tries to control the other party. One person within the relationship decides that they know what is best for both parties, that what they say is the most important and that they are the only ones qualified to make decisions for the relationship.

It doesn’t work. No one can create a great relationship by trying to control.

No one can create in another’s life. We can only create within our own life and our own minds. We are only responsible for ourselves. Our mates are only responsible for themselves. You can’t change another person, no matter how hard you try, you can only change yourself.

The best, happiest and strongest relationships consist of two happy individuals coming together for the purpose of co-creating a great life. There are no bosses, no dictators, no controllers, just two powerful creators working together to create the lives they both want. They do not have to agree on everything. Both parties are allowed to think for themselves and decisions are made together for good or for bad.

The best relationships allow each partner to be who they really are and to become the best they can be within a safe haven of Love and Respect.

Trying to control another is futile.

Are you too controlling? Check out this insightful quiz from Deepak Chopra and Green living.

To learn more about Karen Lynch, visit www.LiveThePower.com.