The Love Letter

Who knew the power of words would be so, powerful? I remember as a young teenager, I was in love with a girl. The love we shared was new for the both of us, and at the time we didn't live close to each other. In reality, we lived about 30 miles and a 30 minute drive from each other. Needless to say, we felt as teenagers in the early 80's that we lived days away from each other. We were together on Sundays for church, and even then it was only for a few hours. We weren't very happy about it back then, but the only way we could communicate if we weren't burning up our parents phone line was through the love letters we wrote each other every week. We wrote each other in high school, in college, even when I moved to Orlando and she stayed in Chicago. Those letters were life to us. Words written or spoken are powerful, and whether they are the right words or the wrong words, they tend to stay with you for a lifetime. 

I asked a question on my Facebook page: "Can receiving a love letter move you today, like it moved you back in the day?" Overwhelmingly, people said YES! I didn't have one person argue against it, and I believe it's because we ALL need words of affirmation today in order to survive the world we live in. Then I decided that I needed to write one again, just like the teenager that I was back in the day, but with all the grown-up swagger I've obtained some 30 plus years later. She just might read it from me one day, but until then, I thought I'd write one to you. A letter you could read to yourself in case of an emotional emergency. Lord knows that I've had a few of those, and I was longing for words to resuscitate me. You never know when you might need to read it, but I hope it will help you reading it, just like it helped me writing it... 

I had no idea I’d be running into you today, but now that I have, I think that you should know something. I’ve been thinking a lot about you, and how truly amazing you are.

I know that sometimes it can feel like you’re just plugging away at life, and there are endless obstacles and challenges and things that you have to deal with. It’s like you’re playing whack-a-mole, but with your life. I just wanted to let you know that I see you. I see all that you put out into the world. I see the struggles that you go through, the people that you help, and the way that you show up in the world…and I applaud it. I applaud every last ounce of you. Even the big, scary, messy bits that you’re not sure people would love if they found out about it.

You are a true gem of a human being and I couldn’t be more impressed by you. You have a gigantic heart, endless patience for people (even when they try to test that patience), and you are SO kind to SO many people in SO many different ways. I know that it isn’t easy being you in a lot of ways, but you do an admirable job of it. If there’s anyone in the world who is massively deserving of love and belonging, it’s you.

I hope that there’s someone in your life that you can be with and have them hold you for a few minutes. Maybe they can kiss you on the forehead, or run their fingers through your hair, or do that thing that you like. But if you don’t, I hope that these words have done something similar for you, because I meant every single last one of them. You are loved, by me…

I am learning to use my words for good, and not evil. The power of speaking a positive word in someone's life can do wonders for their emotional state. One day the words I give out so freely will be used by someone to speak to me, but until then, let these words speak to you...

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Stop Looking For The Bad In Men

On the average, I get about ten messages per week from my female readers around the world along the lines of “Where have all of the good men gone? Where are the guys who will open the door for you? Why do men only want to hook up and not have a real relationship?” Let me take this time to get something absolutely straight right off the bat…Whatever you continually attract into your life, reflects back at you and the way that you live your life, and how you expect the world to behave. This concept doesn’t just apply to romantic partners (the quality of food you consume, the money you make, the exercise habits you maintain, the depth of friendships that you have, etc.) but for simplicities sake I will focus on romantic partners.

Blaming your cities socially cold ways, or hook-up culture, or the high divorce rate, are just walls that you are erecting in order to hide behind. In my experience, the higher your standards are, the more you attract people with high standards. So even if there is a large amount of truth to the concept of our modern dating climate being geared towards a ‘hookup culture’ mentality, who cares about what 90% of people are doing? You’re not trying to date 90% of people.

Have you ever heard of confirmation bias? Basically it says that when you expect the world to act a certain way, you will select information from your environment that will further reinforce that way of thinking. So if you expect men to be a certain way, you’ll more readily attract men who will agree with your existing viewpoint.

I have one client who went on a month long man-loving journey where she wrote down a list of five things she loved about men every day, and she verbally praised a different man in her life every day. Now, her history (childhood experiences and dating history) had given her a ton of evidence to the contrary, and the month long exercise was not an easy one for her… but she did it. She decided that she had enough of her old way of thinking and she wanted to expect more from men. When she expected more from the men in her life, she started to attract higher quality men with standards as high as hers.

In my first year of blogging and trying to monetize it, I was incredibly hard on myself (I'm still a work in progress) about my blog's rate of success. I have always intentionally surrounded myself with a crowd that few people would call an “easy” crowd, as in they have incredibly high standards and so I often feel like the small fish in a big pond. I went to my mentor to ask his advice on how I could stop being so hard on myself. “How can I be happy with my business that is doing $1,000 per month when I have close friends my age who are doing over $10,000 per month? It feels like I’ll never be able to catch up.” And his advice to me was as elegant as it was profound. He told me “If you want to find someone who is doing better than you, you can find it. And if you want to find someone who is doing worse than you, you can find that too. You’re deciding what you want to pay attention to.” And it’s the exact same thing when it comes to partner finding.

If you tell yourself that there is validity to the concept of “hookup culture” that mainstream media loves to talk about, and you assume that all men just want sex with no attachment, the world will happily provide you with lots of feedback of that being the truth. But if you decide to assume that the majority of men are kind, compassionate, generous and loving individuals who want a committed intimacy just as much as you do, then the world will provide you with lots of evidence to support that version of your reality. As hippy-dippy as it may sound, I'm a true believer in thoughts becoming things.

Know what you want, have the courage to ask for it, and honor yourself enough to only stop searching once you’ve found it. Stop settling with partners that you’re not proud of. If you’re with someone that isn’t right for you, then you’re only taking them away from the other person who is right for them. If you are on a path of growth, self-awareness, intentionality, and becoming the best version of yourself possible, then you will inevitably meet and attract people that are living their lives the exact same way.

To put it another way, if you’re crawling your way through a full marathon then you’ll notice the other people that are doing the same and the sprinters will be a blur from your vantage point. But when you get up on your own two feet and start taking responsibility for the fact that you want to run with the fast crowd, you’ll be able to keep pace with the runners and the people on their hands and knees will be the blurs.

The choice as always, is yours…

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Why We Love The Beautifully Disastrous Person

Passion is fickle. It often makes us do crazy things that are outside of our normal character. It can draw us in, consume us, leave us parched and begging for more even when it’s dried us out and left us for dead. It’s the lifeblood of the world. It gives it color and meaning. Without it, our existence would be dull, and our minds would view the world in muted shades of grey. What’s the meaning of attraction? What ignites passion inside of another person to feel fiercely connected to another person? It’s that feeling you get when your skin feels like it’s on fire without his or her touch to ease it; the times when you feel so crazy and out of control, you fear you’ll lose your mind.

Passion is a complex emotion. It’s essential to everything, and yet it’s profoundly dangerous. All too often, a person might find him or herself hopelessly devoted to a beautifully disastrous but lost soul; a self-destructive lunatic who breathes selfishness and eviscerates every good thing that comes his or her way. Why do we develop intense, unrelenting feelings for people who’ll do us no good? That’s the twisted thing about passion; sometimes it can ruin your life. Being attracted to a beautifully disastrous person causes you to at some point to ask yourself why are you there in the first place taking on the abuse and frustration that comes with the territory. I came up with five reasons on why we stay: 

We want to save them - We become attracted to these tormentors, these vessels of violence, because we want to save them. It’s in our DNA to be protective, to care for those we perceive as wounded. People who go after others who are damaged care more for other people than they do themselves.

We want to make them human - We want to show them that they deserve to be loved because they’re exquisite. We place them on a pedestal; we idealize them. We tell ourselves that they aren’t bad people; that they won’t cheat on us again, break us again, or abandon us again, but somehow they always let us down and break our hearts again.

We like a challenge - When we have a project, it gives us something to do. Your newest disastrous love is just a work in progress. Sometimes it’s easy to think that people can change, molded into someone more solid, more goal-oriented, more deserving of you. If you can fix them, you can fix anything, right? You can’t give up on them because that would be admitting that you failed, and that you weren’t capable of any feat.

We crave the excitement - Every time they let you down, your heart breaks all over again. Being with them is exciting; it’s unpredictable and never boring. Your partner is a loose cannon. You’re always on your toes, waiting for the next fiery explosion to occur.

We’re a little self-destructive, too - Why else would we be with someone who treats us like garbage? It’s like we’re asking for it by always accepting their latest apologies, turning a blind eye to the dubious truth that this person couldn't care less about you. There is obviously something disastrously broken inside of us that we’re choosing to ignore.

Loving the beautifully disastrous is exactly like a drug. We spend amazing nights with these exciting people, and they weasel their way into our blood streams, infecting us with an unshakable desire. I mean, science has proven that love has the same effect on our brains as cocaine! We become dependent on them and every single tiny morsel of affection. If they tell us we’re beautiful, it surely cancels out all of the times they said we were nothing. Passion is a dangerous thing, and passion directed at a beautifully disastrous person can be lethal... 

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Loving Your Soul Before Your Soul Mate

As “Love’s #1 Fan”, I believe wholeheartedly that you can’t have a meaningful relationship with someone until you’ve had one with yourself. Also, you can’t possibly have one with yourself if you’re always dating someone else. That’s why when you see people who are single, you shouldn’t think of them as alone, but as if they are in an intense and meaningful relationship with themselves. All this talk of “soul mates” and “perfect partners” is romantic and fun, but quite frankly, how can you possibly know who your soul mate is if you don’t even know your own soul? Which is why, as comedian Katt Williams says, "you have to learn how to take care of your #1 star player".

People who jump from relationship to relationship aren’t lucky; they’re delusional. I say that because I was once delusional myself (okay, maybe twice). Women who always have boyfriends and men who fall in love with every girl they pass on the street aren’t on their way to settling down with “The One” anytime soon, they’re only refusing to acknowledge they don’t even know what “The One” looks like. What Hallmark doesn’t validate, and no one seems to be talking about, is the one relationship that matters before the “perfect one.” Unlike high school and college romances, it’s a relationship vital to your maturity. The one relationship that you’ll look back on and thank God you went through, even if it wasn’t the storybook romance you’d always dreamed of.

Anyone who’s been single for a while knows it’s a lot like running. It starts off painful, but after enough time, you catch a second wind and you believe you'll run forever. The endorphins kick in, and you have no desire to stop anytime soon. You’re wrapped up in yourself and your mission, feeling free and effortlessly moving through life. Those feelings are the most important ones you’ll ever have. Not the euphoric moments wrapped in someone’s arms. Don’t get me wrong, being in someone’s arms has it place, and I’d love to be in that place again, but those feelings don’t last; they break, fade and leave. And what happens then? You’re left with just yourself, and if you don’t absolutely freaking love the person you’re left with, then you’re truly alone. You’re not ready for a real relationship until you’ve reached one with yourself first.

Spending time alone doesn’t scare you; it invigorates you. Everyone has to be alone sometimes. Whether you’re in a relationship or not, when you spend weekends or nights alone in your home or apartment, the idea shouldn’t terrify you. Instead, it should open you up to an exciting world of possibilities. You’re excited, not dreading the time you have to explore all the passions and hobbies you picked up from learning about yourself.

You’re not looking for someone as a passion, but for someone to understand your passion. You know who you are; you know what you’re looking for. The men or women you date will have a certain specificity to them because you’ve defined yourself specifically. You have your passions, desires and dreams and only a certain type of person will understand and help you nourish them. You know what type of people you do and don’t get along with because you know yourself.

You’re not looking for someone to complete you, because YOU complement you. You complete yourself. You know who you are and what makes you happy. You find your happiness in your love for yourself, not someone else. You know your soul mate will add to your life, but won’t ever make your life. You found your purpose long ago, and no one can ever take that away from you or replace it. You’re completely and absolutely in love with the only person who matters and your soul mate will just complement that love.

Yours goals are for yourself, not about someone else. Loving yourself means having real goals, not just relationship ones. Your relationship with yourself is enough, and the only thing you’re working toward is the kind of work to fulfill and sustain you for the rest of your life. Unlike the relationships so many strive for, you’ve found a relationship within yourself, and are working toward something to complete you in another way.

A person will never be your world because you’ve already created your own. If you know how to have a relationship with yourself, you’ll never experience the loss others feel when the love they gave to someone else is thrown in their face. When you go through an inevitable breakup, you won’t feel like your entire world has crashed. You had a world before them, and will have it after them too.

You already know who you are, so you aren’t trying to be someone else. Most relationships aren’t real because the people in them aren’t. Too many men and women refuse to take the time to get to know themselves and instead just become copies of people they think they need to be. They pick up personalities and personas, usually realizing too late they don’t even like the people they’re pretending to be. When you’ve spent enough time alone, you know who you are and who you’ll never be. You’re free to enter a relationship without the danger of losing yourself.

Just my view, so let the relationship church say "amen"…

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How We Mess Up Unconditional Love (part 2)

Last time I gave you the first two points in part one of How We Mess Up Unconditional Love, and I explained that we have the wrong idea as to what loving someone unconditionally actually means. You can review what I wrote, but the next three points will hopefully bring it all together...

 

3. Unconditional love is not a kind of love but a way of loving. If you’re a parent, you know that you can love your child and simultaneously hate what that child does. Your child’s horrible behavior doesn’t make you stop loving your kid; but it does compel you to treat your child differently in the moment and respond appropriately with corrective action. So to say, “I love my partner unconditionally” doesn’t mean you love that person with some mystical purity that transcends your everyday interaction. Instead, it means that in every interaction, you come from a place of love. That place of love means you act respectfully and treat your partner as an equal. That place of love means you don’t judge or try to control. And that place of love means you don’t hit below the belt and use your partner’s vulnerability against him or her. Those are the conditions you don’t violate.

4. Unconditional love has boundaries. To understand this, it helps to understand the value of boundaries and that boundaries are not selfish. A boundary is not a condition you set that says, I’ll only love you if you do "x" or I won’t love you if you do "y". A boundary is nothing more than a healthy understanding of your own value and of what behaviors value and devalue you. While it is necessary in some cases, particularly in high-conflict relationships, to attach consequences (such as leaving) to the violation of a boundary in an unconditional love relationship, consequences are not needed. The consequence is the impact to the feelings of the person you love whose boundary you have crossed. If your partner knows that coming home late without calling makes you feel unappreciated and disrespected, your partner can choose not to engender those feelings in you, because he or she doesn’t want you to feel them. Setting a boundary is making your feelings known, and respecting a boundary is making a choice to respect your partner’s feelings and making that choice from love rather than fear of retribution. Failing to express clear boundaries sets up a dysfunctional dynamic in which partners cross lines and cause pain unintentionally, then suffer the angry reaction to the offense, a pattern of interaction that erodes love over time.

5. Unconditional love is not one-way. If you love your partner unconditionally but your partner doesn’t love you the same way, it’s damaging self-sacrifice, not unconditional love. Similarly, you need to hold yourself to the same standard you expect from your partner and that your partner adheres to. Unconditional love is a mutually supportive dynamic in which both partners pull each other up to the healthiest way of loving and neither partner tears the other down. Many people get stuck in unhealthy, self-destructive relationships because they think that applying the healing salve of what they believe is unconditional love to a difficult or even abusive person will change that person into the partner they desire. Trust me when I say, it doesn’t work. Despite our conscience and sense of morality, the human tends to do exactly what it can get away with. No more, no less. Your one-way unconditional love will never heal or change your partner. It will only change you into a bitter and resentful person. Demanding that your partner love you in a healthy, respectful, reciprocal way (which sounds like setting a condition but is actually recognizing your own self-worth) is the only way to improve your relationship.

I don’t know what you thought unconditional love was, but I’m betting it wasn’t this. I know when I first fell in love, I thought it was something different, and it took a long time and a lot of pain for me to learn these truths. So I share them with you as an act of love, a gift forged in the crucible of my suffering, because love isn’t supposed to hurt. Abandoning yourself, sacrificing your happiness, stifling your true character, and giving up your dreams is not unconditional love. It’s unconditional surrender. It’s relinquishing the territory of your joy before the first shot is even fired. To achieve intimacy, you do need to take off your armor. But always remember, your heart is sacred ground...

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How We Mess Up Unconditional Love

There’s this thing everyone talks about called unconditional love. You hear about it from people who seem to have good relationships, and you see it plastered all over Facebook. Unconditional love is presented as the purest form of love, the gold standard, the summit of bliss we’re all trying reach. And you begin to think, if I could just learn to love my partner unconditionally, or better yet, if I could find someone to love me unconditionally, I would be supremely happy. It's because I want you to be supremely happy, that I decided to call out unconditional love. I’m not saying that it doesn’t exist, but it doesn’t mean what you think it does, nor does your supreme happiness depend on it. So let’s correct some major misunderstandings. If you try to love unconditionally and you get it wrong, you will be supremely miserable and you won’t be doing your partner any favors either. You’ll be creating a relationship in which you will tolerate and enable hurtful behavior that doesn’t serve either one of you. Here are a few things I’ve learned about loving unconditionally that you can put into practice for better, healthier relationships. When you practice these for yourself and expect them from your partner, your understanding of love will change, and your whole life will change with it.

1. Unconditional love is not an obligation; it’s a choice. Loving your partner unconditionally doesn’t mean loving (or staying) no matter what. The power to love, to give love, and to walk away from love always resides with you. If someone abuses you or is cruel to you or your children, holds you back in life, or consistently trashes your sense of well-being, you’re not obligated to stay or to keep giving your love to that person. You may still harbor a kind of love for this scoundrel in your heart (a love that keeps a safe distance) but you are not required to leave yourself vulnerable to emotional or physical harm. Saying no to hurtful behavior is not setting a condition for love. It’s simply saying I love myself first, and I refuse to abandon my self-love to indulge in the love of another who hurts me. Some people do choose to remain in relationships that don’t bring them happiness or worse, bring them harm. Justifying this choice with the excuse of, “But I’m obligated to love unconditionally,” perpetuates powerlessness and a victim mentality. Choosing to be with a person who respects you, honors you, treats you with kindness, and enriches your life is actually the first step to loving unconditionally; it prepares the ground for unconditional love to flourish.

2. Unconditional love doesn’t mean unconditional forgiveness. Your partner does something that pisses you off big time, or repeats the same mistake twice (or five times), or says something that is unforgivable. Unconditional love doesn’t mean you let it go. You can demand and accept your partner’s apology, but you don’t have to forgive unconditionally, meaning without defined expectations for future behavior, in order to love unconditionally. In fact, calling your partner on his or her crap, not accepting lame excuses, and refusing to be a doormat is a higher form of love than forgiving everything to keep the peace. First, it challenges your partner to a higher standard of behavior, which is in the best interest of the relationship. And second, it enables your relationship to grow by ensuring that you and your partner learn from your mistakes. Relationship dynamics do not remain stagnant, and sometimes the way partners interact with each other needs to shift for the relationship to improve. Unconditional love requires you not only to allow but also to enable that shift by making your forgiveness meaningful and real.

I will conclude with more points on this coming next time. But for now, let this marinate...

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Happy Un-Valentine's Day

It’s that time of year again. Tweets and Facebook posts complaining of $200.00 dates can only mean one thing: Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day! This weekend, you'll be reading this and anticipating that you’ll be occupied exactly how you wish to be occupied. Valentine’s Day is arguably one of the most polarizing holidays that we celebrate. For the most part, people either love it or hate it. For those that hate it, they hate that the day even exists. Some might see it as just another excuse to feed our economy. There’s a whole myriad of opinions. But year after year Valentine’s Day seems to have it’s relevance. 

This post today is dedicated to all those who don’t have a Valentine. It’s dedicated to those who don’t have a Valentine, but wish they did. Believe me, it’s quite alright to wish you had a Valentine; think of it as our little secret. To those who are single on this Un-Valentine's Day, I seek to turn that frown upside down. You see, you’re going to be fine. As a single man, I’ve been in this position myself a time or three. Today I tell you basically what this holiday means to me, and how I spend it when I don’t have a Valentine.

What do you do when there’s no one to do anything for? I tend to do things for other people. I see Valentine’s Day as a day to show love if nothing else. It’s a day to celebrate good feelings. Celebrate it simply by trying to encourage a coworker. Maybe you could buy cupcakes for the office. Surprise a friend with a little gift. Doing things for other people would get you in a great spirit. Bringing someone else joy is just as much a part of this holiday as it is you receiving good things as well.

All too often people get so bogged down by this holiday. It’s possible some may feel obligated to do certain things. Maybe this holiday brings up bad memories for others. I really think less is more. Forget what social media is doing and what they’re touting, you can make the simplest things mean something if you know who you’re getting it for. A lot of the joy this holiday is sucked out because people think that they have to do more than they need to. When all else fails, keep it simple and sentimental.

If you’re spending it alone then treat yourself. V-Day is about all kinds of love. I promise you that you won’t know love until you’re at least digging the hell out of yourself. Let’s spread love this Valentine’s Day. You loving yourself is enough validation...

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Falling Out of Love

In my head, when you tell someone you love them, the other person says it back to you. I know that may not be very realistic, but it’s how I always thought it worked. You’re hanging out together; you’re rolling around in bed, taking out the trash or doing some other mundane task, when you realize you love this person. One of you says it, and it makes the other one realize it too. Congratulations, you’re officially in love. You then use those three little words to sign off text messages, or as an excuse when your partner asks you to do something you don’t want to do. That’s how I always thought love was supposed to happen, at least when it finally hits, you both know it.

Little did I know, that’s not always how love works. Life doesn’t always follow romantic-comedy storyboards. Love is not always mutual. Love doesn’t follow our carefully crafted plans. Sometimes, we fall in love without even realizing it, and the other person doesn’t at all. Sometimes, the other person simply might not love you. Not every person is ready for love. You can be dating someone who very much cares about you, but doesn’t know how to love you yet, and that’s okay. It might not feel okay, but sometimes you have to learn how not to love someone too. You have to learn how to fall out of love.

You might realize you love someone, but you can’t say it. His or her answer wouldn’t be as crystal clear as yours, even if you tried to convince yourself otherwise. You know he or she doesn’t love you. Love doesn’t work for everyone at every point in life. Maybe falling in love at the same time can be as challenging as orgasming at the same time; you need different things at different times and at different paces. It still might end in mind-numbing pleasure for the both of you, but at slightly different times. That pleasure might never come for one of you. The tracks of what you each needed were too far off. You might realize you’re in love too soon. So, what can you do? Do you stay in love? Do you tell the person? It’s too painful. You want to tell him or her every moment of every day because it’s too much of one thing to keep inside of one person. Love is supposed to be shared, but you can’t share it. The only other option is to run from it.

We always talk about falling in love, but what about falling out of love? It’s less fun to talk about, but it happens nonetheless. Falling out of love is for the person who doesn’t even realize it’s happening. A person who gradually wakes up one day and realizes it’s gone, and it’s been leaving for a while. You force yourself out of love. Love says, “no, please, let me stay,” because it knows as well as you do that it’s supposed to be here, and it’s supposed to be heard. Your body can’t handle it anymore, though. Your body can see that this love won’t have a home in which to bury itself anytime soon. “There isn’t time,” the other person’s body says. "This isn’t the time, and it won’t be the time for a while." Love doesn’t wait for time. Love is an explosion that operates on its own clock. Your body can’t hold it for any amount of time, except now. You have to force it down until it’s not love anymore.

You have to make love shrink into itself until it stops banging on your heart, begging to be let out. You know what love is shouting at you is true. "This love could work." You fall away anyway. Love does not blind you; lust blinds you. Lust can make you believe you’re in love, but when you squint hard enough, you realize you can’t see a life that works with this person. Love is like a pair of glasses you never knew you needed. You can see more clearly than ever before; you know you and this person could have a life together. A wonderful, challenge-filled, strange life that’s probably been in the cards since the day you two first met. It’s a love that isn’t always convenient, but it always works. You have that love with this person, this person with whom you are forcing yourself to fall out of love. Maybe it came too soon, and that’s why you need to get away from it. If you don’t run away fast enough, you might get in too deep. It might run its course before it’s supposed to.

Falling out of love is for when it’s not supposed to be love anymore and you drift away from it slowly and amicably. Forcing yourself out of love is screaming, running and trying to get away from it so it can come back again. Forcing yourself out of love is knowing it could be something great, but knowing it might never happen. None of us really know how to fall or force our way out of love. Love hits hard, and love hits for keeps. Forcing our way out of love comes when we know the other person isn’t ready, and we need to move on until something changes. This might never happen, and that is what makes it scary. Forcing ourselves from love means giving up on something that could have been everything. It still could be everything.

How do we fall out of love? We don’t. We distract. We become busy. Most importantly, we learn how to love ourselves more than we loved the other person. We love ourselves and hope that maybe one day, we’ll be loved back. We don’t wait for love; it finds us when it’s ready. You say goodbye to love for now. You tell love, “I’m saying goodbye, I’m wishing you well and I’ll fight to get you back when you’re ready to fight in return.” You love deeply and you will again. You say goodbye to love, but you never forget how to say hello again. That’s how you fall out of love...

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Who Can Love a Broken Person

There is nothing in life that will make you stronger or screw you up more than being broken. I've been broken by someone in my life before, and it was more than enough. Falling in love with someone isn’t only falling in love with an incredible person that you find to be one of the best people in the world; it’s also falling in love with the person you've become when you’re with the one you love. Sometimes the person we love makes us want to be a person who isn’t especially great. But when your love does make you want to be a better person, what the two of you share has a real shot at lasting the test of time. Yet, there’s still more to it than just that. Falling in love is also falling in love with what you believe to be your future. Most often, losing this is what hurts the most.

When you lose the love of your life, you lose the piece of yourself that holds you together. You lose the piece of you that makes you the good person you’ve become; you lose the piece of you that allows you to be you. So when your heart gets broken, you in a sense, break too.

As there are different depths to love, I believe there are also different depths to heartbreak. It only makes sense that the shallowest of loves leaves the shallowest of cracks, while the deepest of loves causes our hearts to undergo a sort of shattering. The heartbreak I’m speaking of in particular is of the deepest kind that only really happens once in a lifetime. I say only once in a lifetime because once we experience such heartbreak, we are never again the same. We become different people, scarred and nerve-damaged. We begin to look at life and love through a different shade of glass. We will never have our hearts broken in exactly the same manner, as we have lost the innocence of our younger days that allowed for such vulnerability in the first place.

When you completely give your heart over to someone and the relationship doesn’t work out, you lose that heart. It doesn’t matter if things didn’t work out because of them, or because you screwed things up. It doesn’t even matter if there is no one to blame. If you were certain that you would spend your lives together and have to face the reality that the future you have been looking forward to for so long has just been taken away from you, it’s going to hurt, and it's going to hurt a lot!

Sad to say, it’s not a pain that goes away quickly. It takes time to heal, and you will most definitely need some healing. More importantly, you’re going to need some fixing. Someone is going to need to take the pieces of you lying sprawled out across the ground, and put you back together. The question is who? Who is it that can love a broken person? The answer is simple. Only one of three people in the world can love you when you’re dealing with the aftermath of being broken: either someone new who has yet to break your heart, the someone who did break your heart, or the one who has been broken themselves. 

Each one of those three options has its benefits, but also has its tradeoffs too. Finding someone new to love is usually our go-to emotion. Most people very strongly believe that finding a new love to take the place of the old one is the best way to go, and for a good reason: because it works! If you fall in love with someone new, the pain from the old love goes away, at least for the time being. The problems with this is obvious. Finding someone new to love only works for as long as the love stays alive. As soon as the love fades or the relationship fails, that heartbreak you buried way back when will likely resurface itself. The only reason it wouldn’t resurface would be if you were dealing with the pain from that heartbreak. New love trumps old love just as new heartbreak trumps old heartbreak.

Then we have the second option of getting back together with the person who broke you in the first place. I feel like I need to put some sort of disclaimer here: Although it is possible for your old love to fix you, mend your heart and make you happier than you ever thought imaginable, its 100 percent possible; but at the same time it’s highly unlikely. The person who broke you will almost never be the person who will fix you. Things always have a reason for not working out. Even if the reason is poor timing or lack of maturity, you are still carrying around a whole lot of baggage from the last time you two were together. 

Once a relationship fails, it almost always fails every consecutive time. When you break someone’s heart, you lose that person’s trust. If you are one of those people who doesn’t believe trust is the most important part of any relationship, then you know absolutely nothing about relationships. Is trust re-gainable? I’m sure that it is, but depending on the circumstance, you may be able to get past all the broken promises, all the painful memories, all the unpleasant emotions that arise every so often almost out of the blue. In most cases unfortunately, the friendship may be there, but the trust is gone for good.

Nothing is impossible, but going after the incredibly unlikely isn’t always in our best interest. Sometimes you have to accept that he or she will never again feel safe in your arms, and let him or her go. It’s not always easy to move on. Sometimes it seems impossible to move from that, but you need to believe you will find someone else to love when the time is right. Statistically speaking, it’s almost impossible for there not to be another suitable match for you. Keep searching, be patient and you will find that person one day. Until that day comes, work on fixing yourself. Love does as much damage as it does, because we allow ourselves to wallow in that misery. We hone in on it and allow the painful thoughts and memories to fill our minds and seep into all the nooks and crannies of our lives. We wait to be fixed, and by doing so, we gradually become more and more broken.

You may be able to find someone to piece you back together, but there is only one person in the world who is guaranteed to do the job right. Only you can fix yourself the way you need to be fixed. Finding another lover can help, but it isn’t necessary. Waiting to get back with that one that got away is emotionally dangerous. Maybe you’ll get back together with the one who made you simultaneously happier and more miserable than you have ever been in your life, but you can’t wait for someone else to motivate you to get your life straight.

Remember, one of the main reasons we’re capable of loving another person as much as we do, is how he or she makes us want to improve ourselves and the lives we lead. Other people never really fix you, they only help you fix yourself. Be smart and fix yourself before you fall in love again. The better the person you are, the more likely you're able to find your happily ever after...

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Poor Relationship Credit

Today is going to be a short entry, mostly because there is something I have to address after the blog, and I don't want to overwhelm you with a long post (I know some of my critics are sitting up at attention now that I said it). I was talking to one of my blogging friends who I am super proud of because she is blowing up in her own way, and she said something to me that made me pause and really think over. 

Some women have forgotten the lost art of "weeding out the competition" and letting a man prove himself if he is going to be in the picture. Far too many are grabbing a man solely on the "at least he wants me" premise, and it is causing unnecessary heartache. My friend and I spent most of the afternoon Sunday giving references to loving men with "poor relationship credit" and how they will eventually bring your score down because by association you are dealing with someone so risky for your heart. 

People with a poor relationship credit score have the tendency to move from relationship to relationship without as much as investigating how or why their score is so bad. I'm not saying you should ask anyone what their credit score is on a date, but when it comes to relationships, you should look for signs that will easily identify them as someone who is questionable at best. Given today's climate, people with poor relationship credit will come to the surface all on its own, but if you get snared up by looks and charm, you'll never see that he or she has filed for "relationship bankruptcy" prior to hooking up with you. Just because he or she wants you, doesn't mean you drop your guard. Keep your standards, have some requirements, and I suggest you find some if you don't have any. 

Guard your heart, that's all...

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Now for what I want to address. I've been moving closer and closer to talk radio, and with the help of some very good friends, I have been a guest on several talk show programs locally and nationally. It has always been my desire to get back on the air with my own show, something I haven't done since my college days. I now have the chance to take the blog to an internet radio station based here in Chicago that will be heard all around the world, so everyone who enjoys the blog can hear it 3 days a week just like everyone around the world reads it 3 days a week. I've started a funding project on Kickstarter, and you go to this link to find out all about it and support it any way you can. It's my desire to help the world, but I'm a proud man who wants to do it all myself. Now that I'm close to my goal, I can't operate that way any longer. So, if this blog has helped you in any way via information or entertainment, please help me help the world in this new way to share my lessons. Thank you for your support...

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Sexual Healing

This blog is not meant to be anything but real. With that said, you might want to hold on tight, because today is about to be as real as it can possibly get. My life, my story...

I’ve loved sex ever since I first learned about it as a teenager. Growing up, I used to read all the books, The Sensuous Man, The Sensuous Woman, and The Joy of Sex. Sex was always a quest for me. I remember losing my virginity and how amazing sex felt. I remember in my 20’s using sex as an ego validation. I also remember my mother telling me to respect women, and I've always tried to follow her advice, but admittedly sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't. I’ve had all kinds of sex. I’ve had romantic sex. I’ve had love making sex, and I’ve had plain old screwing. I’ve had validation sex, and I’ve had one-night stands. I’ve had everything under the sun. I’ve enjoyed every stage of my life being a sexually free being. But recently something inside me changed.

I was dating a woman back in 2012. It was an amazing sexual relationship. We had that incredible chemistry where our bodies knew exactly how to speak to each other. We were so into every moment. Sex would last hours, and it was always fun. The foreplay was amazing, bringing each other to orgasm was intense. I could literally feel every bit of her. But missing in that relationship was the emotional connection I wanted. I kept hoping one would develop but it just wasn’t there. When that relationship ended, I sat down with a few of my closest friends and announced “I’m not going to have sex anymore until I have everything I need.” They looked at me and laughed. They said, “No way, man! You’re someone who has to have sex. You’re just saying that because the relationship ended.” My friends were wrong, and here is why...

I’m at a stage at my life where I have experienced bits of soul connecting sex. I have experienced some really deep things during sex, but I believe now that sex comes with a responsibility. I don’t want to go down that road anymore, unless it’s down a road I've never been on: a new road of sexual exploration, mutual respect, of feeling comfortable and safe. The last two years have been two years without sex. It’s not like I haven’t had opportunities, but I didn’t act on them. Instead, I started thinking about the responsibility of sex. I started thinking about what it means to truly be authentic as a man.

It’s like I’ve become the woman now. I really want to have sex, but I want it to be special. I want to get deep and connective and I want to go places I’ve never been before. I stopped having sex because I’m tired of it not going anywhere. I wanted the whole picture. In my mind and in my heart, I want to experience something I’ve never experienced before. Just having sex for the sake of having sex was definitely not where I wanted to go. Here is the funny thing about it, I’m not that frustrated. I’ve been sleeping great lately, and I don’t think that much about sex. It’s like I’ve used that energy to channel elsewhere to get in my mind, in my heart and in my soul.

Like I said, I’d like to go somewhere I’ve never been before. I don’t want the same old, same old. I stopped having sex because I want to connect on a much deeper level. If I start having sex with somebody just for the sake of having sex, I’m going to take my energy away from being able to connect and meet somebody on a deeper level (I know I said that here already, but I tend to repeat things during this time). Two years without sex, since Christmas 2012, but I’m happy with my decision. I feel like I’ve grown as a man. I feel like now, I can speak my truth, like I’m no longer ruled by the little man down below. I feel like my heart is in the right space, and my ego is no longer making decisions. I’ve taken the ego out of it. It’s amazing because now I’ve become a vulnerable, feeling, open, raw man. That feeling alone is an amazing experience.

I wanted to confess this to you because I want you to realize that not all men are thinking with their little man down below. Not all men are just looking to get laid. I want you to know there are other men like me. Several of my friends have done the same thing. These are men who have grown past their ego validation days of sex. There are a lot of men out there that are just like me waiting to connect deeper, experience that soulful loving connection that leads to soul connecting sex.

If that’s what you are looking for in a man, you don’t have to settle. Tell the universe you desire a deep, soulful and physical connection with a man. Tell the universe that you’re not going to settle for anything less. Then watch what the universe presents to you. It will change your life, like it has changed mine.

This is my story, and I make no apologies…

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The Promises I Promise To Promise (part deux)

Last time, I gave you five promises, and I owe you five more. Like I said last week, marriages have become lost its luster and it might be because couples have lost their desire to keep the fire burning. I can admit that I lost my fire, and it showed because I lost the best thing that ever happened to me. Now that I've had some time to regroup and think, I'm prepared to make the promises that I couldn't make before. Click here if you want to review the previous five, but here we go with the last five...

“I promise I will do my best for our child.”

I can speak to the obviously large challenges that come along with this, and what I can do is appreciate the importance of making our son a priority in our lives and doing everything I can to love, teach, and raise him into an adult we can be proud of. You can read all of the books you want, talk to all of the parents you want, and be as prepared as anyone could be, but one can imagine there are endless unique challenges that every set of parents face. When I make the promise to The One that I will do the best I can and figure it out together along the way, that’s exactly what will happen.

“I promise I will accept and love you fully.”

We all have flaws. We all have insecurities. We all have things we want to change about ourselves. We cannot expect to like every single little thing about our spouse, but what we need to do is promise that we accept all of their traits, and love them to their very core, just the same.

“I promise I do not love you for your beauty.”

Yes, of course you should love someone’s beauty. Yes, of course you should be physically attracted to the person you are with. Yes, of course you should love making love to them. But all of these things are very different than loving someone for their beauty. My mother always said to never fall in love with someone for their hair, teeth, looks, or money because they can lose all of it. When marriage is part of the conversation, when true love is part of the conversation, all of these things take a back seat to who this person is at their very center. In their heart, who they would be if everything that made them beautiful got taken away. If it did, would you still love the person underneath it all?

“I promise I will not let myself go.”

Is this a contradiction to the previous point? I think not. There is an important distinction to be made between someone who reaches old age, and someone who figures “hey, I’m married now, I can stop trying.” Of course bodies and appearance change as we age, but the point here is to not become a giant lump on the couch just because you’ve gotten yourself a husband or wife. It is important we continue to live a healthy lifestyle. To eat right. To take care of the only body we have in this life. To show the man or woman you love that you will still put in effort for them and not become too comfortable. Just because you are in a long term, committed relationship, does not mean that your partner deserves a lesser version of you.

“I promise I am in this until the end.”

Scary, isn’t it? The rest of your life. Death. Possible illness. Forever. Hell yes, it’s scary. To be honest, it scares the living daylights out of me. I am watching my parents age, and it kills me to think that we are all looking out into the same future. It is not always romantic or glamorous or beautiful, but for them, they still have each other. It is reality. It is love. It is commitment, and it is marriage. When you pledge the rest of your life to someone, that is exactly what you’re doing. I think this is so far outside of our realities that it’s almost not an ‘actual’ promise we feel like we are making. 20 or 30 years down the road, who knows what the future will bring? We may have to cross that bridge when we come to it, but I know one thing, I want to cross that bridge with her. When you marry someone, you are making the promise that you will be crossing any bridges you reach together. You will do it whether you are walking side by side holding hands, or whether one of you is pushing the other in a wheelchair. You will cross each bridge you find along your journey with the quiet confidence that your partner is going to be stepping onto the other side with you.

How can they be sure you will be there? Because you promised them, and that should mean something...

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