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Couples, Relationships 545 Comments on Reflecting Love on Valentine’s Day

Reflecting Love on Valentine’s Day

By Adele Leung · On July 19, 2018 ·Photography by Leonne Barker

It was Valentine’s Day yesterday. In the eyes of the world, it may be considered that I have had the worst day of my life.

I had a disagreement with my partner which lasted for six hours. We did not just ignore each other but rather, we continuously communicated throughout these six hours almost non-stop, except for a brief period where we bought food, cooked and ate dinner at almost midnight!

Everything was so imperfect and completely in contrast to the picture-perfect images that were bombarding us all around on this day of love. We did not give each other gifts, we did not have a special dinner; there was no sweet photo of us together. We were in disagreement but the truth was, I have never felt a love so true.

Why would I say that?

In our commitment to get to the heart of the matter of this argument we dealt with many different topics, such as the consciousness relating to genders, money, doubt, insecurity, judgement, imposition, brotherhood etc., to get to the core issues of responsibility, attachment and need. That the truth is, we know the both of us are more than how we have chosen to live. So we got to feel what that was like. In the process, we received all of our honesty from feeling genuine frustration and stress, insecurity and reactions. In effect, we blatantly received all of our patterns and their consequences and during this, I felt a point of clarity of choice.

At that point, I also felt the deep touch of my partner who bared his vulnerability and threw away his protection to tell me how he was feeling. We received no niceness and gave none: we received no ‘holding back’ and gave none. It was the deepest vulnerability we have ever offered to each other.

Throughout most of our night, I observed myself. My movements also testified that no matter what, through thick and thin, I will always be by our side. Whenever I felt like protecting myself and wanting to cross my legs, I opened them again. I made sure I felt warm. I did not shout but my tone and manner was firm. I looked my partner in the eye. I sat beside him. We went to buy food together and ate our light dinner together. And I observed my partner’s movements changing from frustration to patience. We came to a mutual understanding of not needing the other to change, but everything had already changed.

We did not have any sweet words or gestures. We went to bed separately, but the fullness and equality I felt within myself gave me the deepest sleep. When my partner and I woke up in the morning, we naturally cuddled together, now ever more in understanding and love for each other.

Our imperfections lived have knocked down the ideals of what love should look like, how love should be expressed for a man and woman, exposing the judgements we have between genders. As a woman, knowing how as a culture/gender we hold back our power and the truth of who we are. I take the responsibility to be seen by my partner, all the parts of me that I felt uncomfortable in showing, the qualities that I do not know how to handle or may feel embarrassed about because it would mean greater responsibility.

Qualities like being naturally in authority and expressive, having the ability to feel deeply and the ease in communicating these feelings, but always being faced with the resistance that, to be accepted, these are ‘no go’ zones. And what I felt was a man who has never wanted anything less from me. I have never felt equality like this before as a woman by not hiding myself.

Today as a man and a woman, we are re-building our foundations of how love is felt within our bodies. That before we open our mouths to express love, this love is first lived and felt within us.

Published with permission from my partner.

By Adele Leung, Hong Kong

Further Reading:
No Passport required: making Relationships about Love
What is true love?
Unconditional Love

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Adele Leung

Has recently re-discovered the playfulness of hanging out with her soul, and hence forth found many new discoveries such as – that she actually loves people more than mountains and that simplicity is her new black. Living in Hong Kong, and enjoying intimacy with 7 million others.

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545 Comments

  • Mary says: March 30, 2020 at 3:47 pm

    It now makes no sense to me that we communicate our love to each other on one day of the year. Surely we should be communicating love with ourselves and each other every day of the year? Why have we decided that this can only happen on Valentine’s Day, it doesn’t make any sense to me. We have so many rules and regulations in life and about life that do not make any sense? who made them up and then implemented them?

    Reply
  • Mary Adler says: August 30, 2019 at 1:26 pm

    ” It was the deepest vulnerability we have ever offered to each other.” A beautiful commitment to love.

    Reply
  • Greg Barnes says: August 26, 2019 at 8:11 am

    Thank you Adele, as I can feel the appreciation you hold yourself in (your essence) and thus not allowing yourself to dip or drop and as it is True Appreciation you also feel the essence of your partner and appreciate that in him. Creating True-intimacy, as we can not have appreciation without intimacy and the authority and confirmation of the essence you hold yourself in, gives you the most power-full divine purpose.

    Reply
  • Vicky Cooke says: July 9, 2019 at 12:18 pm

    The beautifull thing that I know and understand about you and your partners’ relationship is that every day, in fact every moment, truly seems to be about love therefore why be held to ransom on one day about what a relationship ‘should’ be like when in truth this day is made only for the commercial and retail industry, it is not about true love at all. As you have shared we need to knock down ‘the ideals of what love should look like, how love should be expressed for a man and woman’ or same sex couple. #lettinggoofthepictures #lettinggoofidealsandbeliefs #makingitabouttrueexpression ❤️

    Reply
  • Annoymous says: April 5, 2019 at 3:10 pm

    When another opens up and shares their vulnerability with us we are offered the opportunity of going deeper in love with both them and ourselves.

    Reply
  • LE says: March 31, 2019 at 8:31 am

    Before we can say I love you we really need to know what love is, unfortuantly world wide there are many of us who think we know what love is yet fail to understand it is already in us.

    Reply
    • Vicky Cooke says: July 9, 2019 at 12:20 pm

      I agree it is easy to say the word love but are we truly living this? Equally do we truly deeply love ourselves before we love another? Anyone can be in a relationship but what is the quality of the relationship?

      Reply
  • LE says: March 19, 2019 at 8:05 am

    Vulnerability is such beautiful thing, seriously more people are going to be genuine and care for you when you are able to open up and show them that vulnerable side.

    Reply
  • Lorraine Wellman says: February 26, 2019 at 6:36 pm

    How can we express love if we have not felt and experienced it within ourselves first, so we express from a known, ‘That before we open our mouths to express love, this love is first lived and felt within us.’

    Reply
  • Leigh Matson says: February 14, 2019 at 8:38 pm

    Being honest and sharing how we feel is far greater than any niceness or protecting ourselves against another we claim to ‘love’.

    Reply
  • Ariana says: February 13, 2019 at 6:48 pm

    And here it is coming around again. We accept the tokenism of love when the truth of love is within us all, waiting to be connected to.

    Reply
  • Brigette Evans says: January 4, 2019 at 12:38 am

    Adele, the livingness of your expression and the depth of your lived love is flowing from your blog off the page and into life itself. Thank you for sharing…..I thank you with my all.

    Reply
  • Matilda Bathurst says: December 29, 2018 at 6:06 pm

    When we let love be the foundation of our relationship with ourselves we are totally open to letting love be in our relationship with others… this magnificence first and then all the imperfections we have as humans.

    Reply
  • Greg Barnes says: December 19, 2018 at 9:26 pm

    The most powerful way of living is to simply reflect the love we are and then in this transparency we can feel how our relationships can expand or evolve and this is not just for couples. for everyone we meet we have a relationship with..

    Reply
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