70. 7 love lessons for Valentine's Day

In this episode - I'm talking about some of the most common mind dramas that come up around Valentine's Day...

 And 7 key truths about love that will transform the way you feel in your relationships.

Whether you're single or in a relationship - this episode has something for YOU.

Mentioned in the episode:

• Self Esteem Building Kit
• MYRMD - May waitlist

Transcript

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Hey guys! How’s everyone doing this week? I have had a great week and I have a weekend filled with fun plans with my fiance - we’re going to see Simple Plan tomorrow night (which is tonight, Friday, when this is actually released) and then we’re going to do mini-golf and dinner Saturday night which will be fun. I’ll be honest I actually hate mini-golf, but I’ll share with you a fun thing that we’ve been doing each month.

So each month, we take it in turns to write 6-7 treat ideas onto paper and put them in a bowl for the other person to pick one out. So they get one mystery treat. And we take it in turns so one month she gets a treat and the next month I get a treat. And it could be something small like a chocolate bar, or it could be a voucher for her favourite shop, or once I won her doing the bins for an entire month! Which is amazing!

And so this month she’s won me arranging a date day for her. And she loves mini-golf, so there we go. I will go and I’m sure I will enjoy it! But if any of you like that idea as a cute thing to do for your partner - steal it - we love it! And it doesn’t have to be pricey treats, it could be they win a night of picking what you watch on TV or a romantic meal you’ll make for them. 

Any way that little anecdote fits in nicely with the theme of today’s episode which is 7 love lessons for Valentine’s Day. And of course - I believe that Valentine’s Day is just another day on the calendar - but I also know it’s something that a lot of us feel so much anxiety about and put so much pressure on. I also believe Valentine’s Day can be a great opportunity in our relationships - and not just our romantic relationships - but I’m jumping ahead, so I’ll get there! And I also want to say, whether you’re single or in a relationship - there is something in this episode for you. 

Okay let’s start with the first love lesson - number 1 - Just because you’d do something when you love and care about someone doesn’t mean they would. And this is a really important one. A lot of my clients this Valentine’s Day will have expectations of their partners. What they’d like them to do, how they’d like them to do it - and then if their partner doesn’t do those things their brain is just waiting to use it to prove how they don’t really care about them. 

And this is what we call having a manual - which I’ve done a whole other episode on - but we end up with very specific manuals for how we want other people to show up and show us that they love us, and a lot of the time we don’t even tell the person what the manual is! We don’t give them the heads up, hey - I love receiving flowers, I’d love some flowers this Valentine’s Day. No, we just think it, and then we make it mean something terrible if they don’t guess that that’s what we wanted. 

But it’s really important that we understand that our partner’s brains are not the same as our brains. Sounds super obvious right? But we all forget! And then we say things like ‘Well they should know I wanted to do something nice and be taken out’, ‘If they loved me they’d want to do those things’ - because we’re assuming that because OUR brains think about Valentine’s Day or gift giving in a certain way, that means that everyone else’s brain will too. But your partner’s brain is totally different to yours.

It may not share your way of thinking about Valentine’s Day or gift giving or flowers. And so they may not automatically think to do the things you’d like them to, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of love they feel for you or how much they care about you. 

If your brain is prone to making them not following your manual mean they don’t care - ask yourself, what is the evidence that they care about me? Do they show they love and care about me in ways I’m ignoring when I’m expecting them to do things my way? Because if we weren’t using Valentine’s Day, or any other day for that matter, to test how much our partner’s cared about us - we could just show up and enjoy being with them!

You could be like hey - let’s do something cute this Valentine’s Day, I’ve fancied trying this restaurant. Let’s book! Instead of sitting there feeling resentful and disconnected from them. Me and my partner were really upfront with what we were doing for Valentine’s Day - we’d go to the cinema and have a meal and we’d do cards, no presents. So if you know you want to do cards or presents - tell them! Ask them if they’re up for that. That way you’re 10x more likely to get what you actually want AND avoid unnecessary drama.

Okay number 2 - someone’s ability to love you has nothing to do with you or your lovaebility. This is so important, and I have another whole episode on loveability - episode 38 - so go check that one out if you haven’t already. But this concept really did change my life when I fully understood it. We often make someone’s ability to love us, a reflection of us. So many of my clients will say this - if I was more attractive, or my loveable THEN they would want to be with me.

But the amount of love someone feels for you is not a reflection of YOU, it’s a reflection of their brain and their thoughts. Their thoughts which are products of their upbringing, past experiences, societal conditioning, unique preferences and beliefs - all things you have zero control over. One person could have you as a partner and go ALL out for Valentine’s Day and buy you flowers and a card and book a surprise date night - and another could have you as a partner and do nothing. And YOU would be the same YOU. 

Your enoughness, attractiveness, or loveability doesn’t determine how much someone loves you OR how they show that love. So notice when you’re wishing your partner’s behaviour would change and ask yourself - what am I imagining I’d get to believe about myself if it did? If the answer is you’d get to believe you’re more loveable or important or good enough - that’s where your work lies.

Okay number 3 - What other people post on Instagram is not their full experience. It’s so easy for us to scroll through Instagram and see other people at nice restaurants, all dressed up, or with flowers and gifts and think - wow their life is amazing and so much better than mine. But what you’re not seeing, because it’s not posted to Instagram, is that person’s full 50/50. 

And what I mean by the full 50/50 is their full human experience - the 50/50 of positive and negative emotion. Because every human gets the 50/50. Every human as a mix of positive and negative emotion - simply because they have a human brain. But when you’re seeing their highlighted positive 50, you forget they also have the negative. Maybe they bickered in the car with their partner on the way to the restaurant, or they felt really insecure in their new dress, or they’ve got family drama that’s weighing on their mind. 

Their life isn’t better or worse than yours - it’s just a unique mix of the 50/50. Just like yours is. And if your brain tells you that someone else on Instagram has a better life than you - ask yourself, what emotion is it that I imagine that person gets to feel that I can’t feel right now? Because that’s what you're believing. You're believing that there’s some kind of emotional experience that they can have, that you’re unable to have. 

Maybe it’s happiness, love, confidence, security, peace - whatever it is - it’s available to you right now. Our emotions aren’t created by the number of nice meals we go for, or the house we live in, or the outfit we’re wearing. There are people who will go out for romantic date nights on Valentine’s Day and feel miserable, and there are people who will spend it at home, alone, and feel amazing. Because of what they’re thinking. Because your thoughts in any given situation will always determine your emotional experience.

Okay number 4 - this may be more relevant for listeners who are currently single. Romantic love is not the superior type of love. As a society we’ve really fetishised romantic love. Most of our music is about romantic love, we watch rom coms, we tell ourselves life is somehow better when we have a romantic partner. And yes - having a romantic partner is lovely. But similar to the previous love lesson - being in a romantic relationship doesn’t take you to a land of unicorns and rainbows where you no longer feel negative emotion.

I was coaching one of my 1:1 clients on this a few weeks ago, who’s currently single, and we were talking about how she feels like she’s in a waiting room - just waiting to be called through to another room. And in that room is where life is just amazing! And she’ll get to feel happy, and confident, and finally feel enough. But that’s a huge fantasy the brain loves to offer us.

Being in a relationship just means a new mix of the 50/50 - a new mix of positive and negative. Yes, you’ll have a bunch of positive thoughts about the person and the stuff you’ll do together - but you’ll also have a bunch of negative thoughts about the person and new shit to have mind drama about! And when we’re thinking about romantic love in this way, we’re not fully enjoying and appreciating the other forms of love we have in our lives. Other kinds of love that are just as enjoyable and beautiful - but that we’ve downgraded in our minds as not good enough.

The love we experience from our friends and family, so many people who love us and want to spend time with us - yet we often don’t let ourselves fully embrace that because we tell ourselves it doesn’t count. If you relate to this, I want you to really think about this idea over the next week. Why do you believe romantic love is some how superior? What do you make being in a romantic relationship mean about you? What are you believing would magically change when you’re in a romantic relationship? And when you’re believing this story, what love in your life are you dismissing or not fully embracing? 

Okay number 5 - the most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. This sounds so cheesy doesn’t it - and you’ve probably seen it written a million times on Instagram, but it is SO true. And you need to really understand why it is. You are the one person that you are stuck with for the rest of your life. And I want you to really think about the kind fo relationship you have with you.

So our relationships are really just our thoughts about the other person. If we have great thoughts about someone - we’ll think we have a great relationship with them. And if we have bad thoughts about someone - we’ll probably think we don’t have such a great relationship with them. It’s that simple. It’s all just our thoughts about that person. So for a moment, I want you to think about the thoughts you have about yourself.

What are your top 5 thoughts about yourself? Do you love yourself? Do you like yourself? Do you think you're amazing and beautiful - do you think you’re okay? Do you think you’re pretty terrible most of the time? We’re often so focused on how other people think about us - our partners, the person we’re dating, our friends - we spend so much mental energy trying to get THEM to like us and have nice thoughts about us.

But how much time do you spend trying to get YOU to have nicer thoughts about you? Your relationship with you deserves just as much, if not MORE, attention and importance placed on it as your relationship with anybody else. And it all begins by really doing a frank and honest audit of the thoughts you currently think about you. I have a freebie that’s really useful for this called the Self Esteem Building Kit, I’ll put the link to it in my shownotes.

And what working on your thoughts about yourself really involves is first noticing what you currently think about you - and then finding more neutral thoughts that feel even 10% better. And I’ll tell you the reason for this - a lot of us try affirmations and find they don’t really do anything, and that’s because you’re trying to believe thoughts that just don’t feel believable to you. Going from ‘I’m ugly’ to ‘I’m beautiful’ is just too much of a jump. Your brain is not going to get on board with believing that. So saying it to yourself in the mirror each morning won’t help.

The biggest shifts in your mindset come from continuous small steps. And those small steps come from practising more neutral sounding thoughts that DO feel believable right now. For example, ‘I’m beautiful’ might be too much of a jump, but ‘There are some things someone could find attractive about me’ could be more believable. So go check out that freebie if you haven’t already!

Okay number 6 - You don’t feel their love. I’m sorry Adele, but you can not make any of us feel your love. Because that’s not how it works. Most of us will say things like ‘He makes me feel so loved when he [insert thing]’ or ‘She makes me feel so unloved when she [whatever]’ - but another person’s actions is never what creates your experience of being loved. Because your brain is always what creates your emotions. 

So there actions happens, maybe they buy you flowers, or tell you they love you, or bring you soup when you’re poorly - and you have the thought ‘They love me!’ and then you feel a positive emotion. And we know this is true because I bet there’s been times when you’ve done what you felt was a loving action - maybe you’ve gone to give your partner a hug or bought them a present - and they haven’t felt loved. Maybe they’ve even felt a negative emotion. Because of what their brain thought in that moment. 

Your partner could take the bins out for you - and you could think, ‘Aww they love me!’ and feel good - but the whole time they could be thinking negative thoughts about you while they do it. Isn’t that crazy! You actually have no idea what emotion they’re feeling in their body, and the emotion they're feeling doesn’t create the emotion you will feel. There are people all over the world feeling incredibly unloved, who’s partners love them very much. 

Because love is an emotion in the body, caused by sentences in your mind. So if your partner thinks loving thoughts about you - they will feel the sensation of love in their body. And if you think loving thoughts about your partner - you will feel the sensation of love in your body. But you don’t feel each others. Yes, you may have nice thoughts about the actions they take when THEY’RE feeling love, but it’s your nice thoughts that create your positive emotion, not their action.

So if you notice you’re feeling ‘unloved’ this Valentine’s Day - I want you to get curious about the sentences in your own brain. Ask yourself - what are the facts of the person’s behaviour? And what are my thoughts about it? What am I making it mean? And is that really what it means? How might that not be true? When I make this mean they don’t care about me, what evidence am I ignoring that they do care? What I imagining they’re thinking in this moment? And what else could they be thinking?

Okay, finally - number 7. Focus on loving, rather than being loved. Often we are so focused on how we want other people to show us that they love us, that we don’t spend any time at all considering how we’re going to intentionally generate feelings of love for the other person.

And I want to really make this clear - women are often taught by society to be givers and not to ask for anything and to just focus on other people’s needs - and that is NOT what I’m talking about here. I’m not talking about focusing on giving love to others in a way that’s at our own expense. Trying to show them love so that they will finally love us back, and earn their approval. That is not it at all. You can feel love for someone and not take any action. You can feel love for someone and say no to what they’re asking of you. You can love someone deeply and have boundaries with them.

What I’m talking about here is YOU enjoying feeling  the emotion of love for the other humans in your life. Because remember - love is an emotion in your body, created by your own thoughts. Which means in any given moment, you get to think lovingly about anyone in your life and enjoy the feeling of that love in your body. This is a gift for YOU, because it feels amazing, not anybody else!

And sure - you may choose to go and take action based on those feelings, like doing something you think the other person will enjoy. But either way, this is just an amazing feeling you get to enjoy experiencing. I bet you have loved ones who have passed away, and when you think about them fondly you feel love. You don’t take any action, they’re not here for you to speak to and tell how much you love them - but you still get to feel it.

So what if instead of focusing on whether other people are feeling love for you this Valentine’s Day - you focused on how you could feel more love for other people? Think of all the amazing humans in your life, and why you love and appreciate them. Take time to think intentionally about them in that way, and enjoy feeling love for them. And consider, is there a way I’d love to express that love? Who do I want to be as a partner, friend or family member this Valentine’s Day? How do I want to show up for the people I appreciate the most? 

And imagine if you could do that - show up in that way - simply because it felt amazing for you! Not because you expected or needed something back in return? Not because you needed them to return it so you could believe you’re loveable. But just because loving feels good - for YOU. Use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to flex your own loving muscle - and improve your own ability to love the amazing, imperfect humans in your life. 

Okay guys, that’s all I’ve got for you today! I hope it was useful. And I hope however you spend Valentine's Day - you LOVE yourself fiercely. The next round of my group coaching is in May so I’ll put the link for the waitlist in the information section of his episode. 

If you’re loving this podcast, please could you do a little something for me? Could you give it a rating on whatever podcast it is you’re listening from? That would mean the absolute world to me and keep me reaching more and more people with this work! I hope you all have lovely weekends, and I will speak to you all next week - bye!