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
395 Comments
Going to those ‘no go zones’ is where we need to go so there’s nothing in the way of being intimate with one another. Any time I smooth over what I feel the world becomes dull and loses its magic. In the past I’ve put on a great show of pretence that all is ok. Reading this I’m inspired to go deeper and clear out what doesn’t belong.
Is tearing down our walls and exposing who we have hidden for lifetimes, the most loving gift we could ever offer ourselves and those around us!
What have we done to the nature of the day when days like Valentine’s Day, birthdays and Christmas day are filled with so much expectation and pressure?
There is a true quality in true relationships and when that is disturbed you feel it and just want to work it trough and come back to that loving quality of Harmony in full again.
We need so many more reflections in the world that are shinning forth the light of who we innately are. Every light is precious and crucial for all.
“We came to a mutual understanding of not needing the other to change, but everything had already changed” – that’s so beautiful Adele, the change that occurred being the realisation of this.
Actually we all are longing for love and to have that reflected in our (intimate) relationships. The only way to let this happen is to let go all the guards, ideas, beliefs and any picture and to fully rely on the rawness that is underneath. The love that then can surface will show us the way and what true love in a relationship is. It is purely divine and with respect, decency and enormous appreciation for the being being exposed in its rawness and vulnerability.
The beauty of having an argument that starts of with all the hurt we then feel and tend to blame on the other is in the end in the understanding that it is our own responsibility to become open and transparant and deal with these hurts in a way that they do not work out on the other. Nobody has to change, but everything then has already changed because this is not the normal way people tend to deal with their hurts.
Rather than trying to fit the pictures of romantic love in life, can we first live the love that we are in essence with each other.
I definitely feel it’s best to ditch the picture-perfect images and instead to honour what we sense and learn is true love from our lived experience and body.
This is a beautiful example of commitment to truth, to bringing the utmost honesty to relationship – whether that takes 5mins, 5 hours or 5 days … rather than covering things over with ‘should do’s’ such as flowers, hearts and chocolates on one day of the year.
I love your Valentine’s Day – no gadgets, tricks or impositions but total honesty and delicious transparency, warts and all. It is rare we allow ourselves to fathom these depths but, when we do, the results speak for themselves.
The results do not only speak for themselves, they are emanated in space as a role model so to say available for others to choose and experiment with. It is so much grander what we are earthing in energy when we are deepening our connection with the love we are from than we only experience in the physical.
So many of us can have superficial or convenient relationships that can tick all the boxes and look great from the outside but are slowly but surely killing us inside so committing to truth as a stepping stone to true love is really the only option.
Being perfect on the outside is impossible but when we need to upkeep this appearance, it is deeply straining without the inner foundation. What I question is, the couples who show their perfected but empty relationships in public—what are we really telling the public? That that is already sufficient in a relationship. Just for show is good enough. But we can all feel the emptiness and we accept the lies and this has become our marker of love.
“My movements also testified that no matter what, through thick and thin, I will always be by our side.” I love this because our body does not lie, so your commitment can be felt by the authority in your movements and this has more power and honesty than any words can offer.
Beautiful expression – our love is whole, never a part. What I got from this is that there is no reason to stop loving or to be more loving on Valentine’s Day than any other day.. I am inspired by The Way of The Livingness to make life more about love and the fact that our love is an endless movement we can connect to or either move away from.
Commitment is key to have a flourishing relationship with ourselves and all others. A commitment to consistent exploration of what is true and is not true, with a humbleness to always be open to learn.
The fact that you spent Valentine’s day without the exchange of gifts, did not have a special dinner or instagrammed photos of you together… and were in disagreement to boot, yet had never felt a love so true is reason to look much more deeply into what love is, and what have we accepted love to be – that in truth, is not.
We have fallen for an emotional, romanticised ideal of love, borrowed from fairy tales and Walt Disney – to our great detriment and at a huge loss to true settlement.
We’re here to reflect love on every day, to be a constant terminal of love.
We can get carried away with a picture of love – the romantic emotional type where Valentine’s Day is measured by the flowers and nice things people do – but I know love to be a different feeling – that it is always developing and deepening and that we cannot have a picture of it because it is always about a relationship we have with ourselves and others.
I love the practical elements you’ve brought in here Adele with paying attention to what you were feeling and keeping your body warm, to support yourself to keep going for it and to keep expressing. How often do we do that regularly in our day to day life, let alone situations that we might find challenging?
Tools we can apply to every challenging situation Bryony, to come back first to the connection with ourselves.
What I can really feel in what you share Adele is the commitment to communicating and the deep honouring of loving ourselves first and bringing those to our foundations in relationships.
So true Natalie the commitment to communicate opens the door to returning to and deepening of love. Otherwise it’s a dead end.
There is a whole relationship course in what you have shared Adele especially how you came back and looked after yourself but kept yourself open not closed. In not wanting another to change, we have also changed allowing another the space and possibility to come out of the emotional state they are in.
It would be awesome to share this in a course/courses, as relationship is in everywhere in life, everywhere we go we are talking about relationship.
I love the commitment to sorting things out, to keep expressing and delving into how you both feel. This is the love we should be celebrating not the once a year ‘flowers and chocolates’ kind of love.
Fiona it is through our communication and Expression that love can be deepened, what an amazing tool to have.
What a great sharing of the ideals and beliefs that go with one day of LOVE that is sold to us yet the true love is the commitment to delving and expressing ourselves with each other.