The Working Mums Podcast

Ep #54 - Choosing Love: Finding Peace in Imperfect Relationships

• Nicky Bevan

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Do you find yourself feeling dislike or hate towards someone, only to wish you didn't have hate in your life? Well, welcome to this latest podcast episode all about unlocking the art of living a love-filled life, released just in time for Valentine's Day. 

Discover how choosing love over hate not only transforms your relationships but also enhances your personal well-being. I explore the concept of unconditional love, not as a romantic gesture, but as a powerful grounding force that allows you to be your best self. 

Drawing from insights gained at the Life Coach School, we discuss how the quality of our relationships hinges more on our thoughts than others' actions. With real-life examples, such as managing difficult family dynamics or dealing with challenging public figures, I illustrate how embracing unconditional love can lead to a calm, controlled, and positive life.

As the episode unfolds, I highlight the personal benefits of choosing love, focusing on how it can elevate your mood and empower interactions. Accepting imperfections, both in yourself and others, becomes a stepping stone to emotional balance and thoughtful decision-making. 

Whether you're sharing Valentine's Day with a partner or practicing self-love, I offer strategies to prioritize love over anger, creating a harmonious life. 

I encourage you to absorb these concepts and consider coaching as a tool for rapid growth, ensuring your interactions are always anchored in love.

Here's to a week filled with genuine, uplifting love.

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingMumsLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Speaker 1:

Welcome, welcome, welcome to this week's podcast, and it's going to be released on Valentine's Day, so I felt it very appropriate to talk about love and actually, more specifically, unconditional love. Now, this is not the romantic, sexy, soppy type of love. Now, this is not the romantic, sexy, soppy type of love. That's not what I'm talking about here. What I am referring to is the emotion of love that just feels so good in our body, versus hate. So hate doesn't feel good in our body. Love feels delicious, it feels warm and comforting and grounding, and when we choose the emotion of love, the emotion of love, we show up as our most amazing self. So choosing love is for your benefit, not for anybody else's. So unconditional love is a concept that I learned from the Life Coach School through my training, and it's really a way of building relationships. It's a way of creating a real connection with other people in your life, and even people that have passed into our unseen world. So you could even do this work on a relationship of a person that is no longer in your life, whether on this earth or in a different realm. You actually get to decide the quality of that relationship, because the quality of the relationship is based on your thoughts. I'm going to say that again. The quality of your relationships are based on your thoughts. So this actually has nothing to do with another person. Nothing to do with another person. It has everything to do with you and how you choose to feel based on thoughts that you're having in your head. Let me give you some examples. There may be a politician in the world that you have an opinion about that makes you feel angry. You may never even have met this politician, so how is it possible for that politician to make you feel angry? They can't. And all that's happening there is you create anger in your life, so you are the only one experiencing that anger. No one else feels our emotions. They are all feeling their own emotions based on what they're thinking. But when you're feeling angry, the way that you behave in your life has an effect on you. You behave in your life has an effect on you when you choose to unconditionally love that politician. Just hear me out for a second. When you choose to unconditionally love that politician, you now feel calm. That doesn't mean to say you agree with them. It doesn't mean to say that you think that they're right. It doesn't mean to say that you condone their behavior, but you feel calm and you feel love. So now we've added more love into the world rather than anger. And, oh my gosh, right now does the world need more love, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Another example might be an ex-partner or your current partner, if they're not ex yet and you have this thought process that they don't care about me, all they care about is money. They don't care about the kids, they only care about themselves. That thought process, whilst it may feel very true to you, is going to create a dislike towards that person and then, from a dislike, you're probably going to close off. Be a bit snappy, be a bit snidey. It's not going to feel good in your body. You are not going to show up as the best version of yourself.

Speaker 1:

When you understand that there is no perfect human, that every single one of us is perfectly imperfect and that another human cannot create your emotion, you can choose to unconditionally love that person, that husband or that partner, because then you feel good and from there you are then able to have a more effective conversation. You become the adult, regardless of their behavior. So we're focusing on you rather than focusing on them and how you want to feel and the emotion that you want to experience in your life, and for me, love never hurts, and love sometimes sounds like no, it's some. Excuse me, I've got the hiccups started. It sometimes sounds like it's because I love you that we are not having this conversation in this way and I am going to leave until we can have an adult conversation. Or it's because I love you that now this, this and this are going. I am going to do this, this and this. I am going to do this, this and this. You don't even need to say the it's because I love you out loud, but definitely say it to yourself, because that's how you're choosing to feel. This has got nothing to do with them. This has got everything to do with you and how you want to feel in your life.

Speaker 1:

The emotion that you want to generate more of Now, let's say, maybe it's a parent or a parent-in-law and you think that they make you feel something. The same applies. The connection that you have with that person will be based on the thoughts that you're having. This is the best news, because at a time when you can't change that person, you can always change you, and I think unconditional love is very easy to drop into when it comes to our children. So if you imagine your teenager or your toddler, they're in front of you and they're doing their toddler teenage thing and maybe it sounds like I hate you.

Speaker 1:

Being able to take that step back, take a breath and very deliberately choose how you want to feel gives you control. When you're busy trying to change other people, you feel out of control and that's a really horrible place to be in. You feel out of control and that's a really horrible place to be in. But when you focus on you and how you want to feel, you drop into that centered control feeling. And I know this sounds really shocking, but the way that I drop into unconditional love is I just imagine that they're no longer in my life. I imagine that they don't come home tomorrow and boom, in that moment I would give anything for them to be screaming at me and, like I said, love sometimes sounds like no.

Speaker 1:

So it might then be right. It's because I love you that you now need to go up to your room and cool down for half an hour. We will then have this conversation later. Or it's because I love you that now it screens off? You can deal with your tantrum in private. We will talk about it later. So love sometimes sounds like no, it is not letting someone off the hook, sometimes quite the opposite. But it does mean that you feel good and when you feel good you will be so much more effective in your conversation and that you feeling good creates so much more of a connection rather than a disconnect.

Speaker 1:

So it starts with you. It starts with you and making that choice of how you want to feel very deliberately, and this applies to your relationship with yourself. So if you are, if in your head it sounds like oh, I'm only going to be proud of myself, if my house is completely tidy, if my children are fed healthily, if everybody around me is happy, then I can love myself. And that is bullshit. You can choose to unconditionally love you and I would highly suggest practicing that as a belief system and it is a practice. It doesn't come naturally, but choosing to love yourself without condition, exactly how you are. And again, that might sound like no, so it might sound like right. It's because I'm learning to love you unconditionally, licky, that I am now not going to eat a fuck ton of chocolate. It's because I love you unconditionally, licky, that we are now going to start putting rest time into our calendar. It's because I'm learning to love you unconditionally, licky, that we are going to learn how to say no to some of the things that we don't want to do that drain us. So this applies to you as well, and it's a skill and it's a practice, and I really believe you get better at it with support.

Speaker 1:

I don't always think this is something that you can do on your own, but hearing this is going to start the mind sharing, and so the next time you're starting to feel tense or angry or you notice yourself blaming somebody, they made me feel just acknowledge that ABC. Acknowledge it without judgment or criticism. Take a really deep breath, calms your nervous system down. You're actually safe in this moment. If you're physically not safe, please dial 999.

Speaker 1:

But I'm guessing, if you're listening to this, you will be, and then you get to choose. You actually get to choose unconditional love, because that's going to make you feel so very, very amazing. So I'm just going to repeat that the concept of unconditional love is not for the other person, it's for you Choosing to unconditionally love another human because you realize that no one is perfect me included, you included but love makes you feel good. That is powerful. That is what gives you your control and that is what enables you to show up as the best version of yourself, regardless of the person that you're talking to. I really hope this helps. Don't just listen to this. Actually absorb it. Allow yourself to be willing to consider that you could actually learn this skill and, if you want to learn it quicker, 100% coaching is going to enable you to get there. Have the most amazing week. Have a wonderful, loving Valentine's Day, even if that's with yourself. I am sending you so much love. Have an amazing week. Bye.