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
545 Comments
There are so many expectations of what days like valentines day will mean and represent. Its brilliant Adele that you could go way beyond this sugar coated (or should I say chocolate coated) day and be super real and very loving with your partner. To me that is the essence of what our relationships are about. Supporting each other to evolve out of the caves in which we retreat within, so we don’t live who we all are.
Gutsy 6-hours and gutsy sharing this with us all. Hats off to you both. A cracker of an article about the reality of love and how it can be uncomfortable to ‘go there’ but you did and look at the miracles that happened. I loved this one particularly – ‘We came to a mutual understanding of not needing the other to change, but everything had already changed.’
Being nice to each other is highly rated, but in my experience is often just a mask for an underlying holding back. I choose truth over nice any day.
Me too Heather, although it is worth clarifying that choosing truth is Love, and that choosing nice can be a mask that feels anything but Love.
So many things are left unsaid in relationships and so much resentment and frustration is built up from lack of expressing how we feel so your blog Adele feels like a breath of fresh air and shows how if we are willing to give it a go and be honest then we feel much closer to and more deeply in love with ourselves and others.
Being open and willing to go there and expose the frustration and resentment with understanding instead of judgement is deeply healing.
Adele – this is glorious to read – love your commitment to stay with the communication and be in vulnerability as never before and clear away the emotional stuff lingering between your relationship. Very inspiring.
Stephanie the commitment to stay vulnerable and real in any relationship is a breath of fresh air. No niceness, just realness, intimacy and pulling each other up. Love is reimprinted.
Gorgeous Adele – thank you for sharing. I can see how a day like Valantine’s day means we mask whatever has been before it. We put aside our differences because we ‘should’ be happy and in love and celebrating. But what you present is 2 people who are truly working on themselves and their relationship and are prepared to go where it is uncomfortable with the knowing that that is true love.
What is true has to be felt, emanating from deep within. Pictures and gestures on their own may or may not be genuine expressions/presentations of love.
We so often opt for playing it nice and not bring anything up or address anything on so-called special days like these… yet with in that there is not an ounce of love and what are we really offering each other when we play this game? There is so much you have both offered the reader in sharing your experience. For me, it highlights getting off the roller coaster of up and downs of being nice and acceptable and then being real and open.
I find valentines days comes with so many expectations, images, and pictures of how couples should be. I finally let them go a few years ago and decided to no longer play the game. Why wait for one day of the year to express how much you love and care for each other?
There is such an ideal and perfect pictures of how a relationship and family should look, everything in harmony and happy, but how do we get here? It can certainly happen but the process comes from deep honesty and not ever withholding Expression even if it gets tricky, be love and be love no matter what, that is my understanding from experience.
If a day has to be “perfect” this does not happen with masking anything. It has to be prepared by every step we take in all the days before this day, to come to what we have lived, and the perfection also does not come in a picture given to us by the world, it is felt within the body and then shared with the world.
Exactly changing the way we view our relationships and making them about true love.
Awesomely real and honest Adele… I love that you have continued the not hiding yourself, by sharing this here with everyone.
To be free of pictures leaves us free to build true relationships… this is an appreciation of love that no amount of red roses can surpass.
I love it, Adele! Being transparent and open doesn’t necessarily mean sharing our issues, but it does mean daring to show our power, delicateness and all of you.
Great point Monika. Daring to bare our vulnerabilities will dare us to bare our power too, for ultimately it is the same honesty and transparency we have with ourselves.
To truly feel love in a time of ‘conflict’ and resolution is a great thing indeed. So many of us can learn a thing or two here from your experience, Adele.
Rachel I’m now understanding that obedience to evolve is really just natural. The face of calamity has a stillness that magnetizes.
I enjoyed reading your play on words about love Adele. There is nothing like feeling the truth in words — it is love.
The widespread bastardisation of words, including that on the word love, is exposed if we start living the truth of the words we all know from within us. Our whole body just wants to return to Truth by never holding back Living it when love is our choice.
“It was the deepest vulnerability we have ever offered to each other.”
A scenario where many couples would react, shut down or even walk out, its game changing Adele to feel how your shared commitment and dedication to work this through offered an opportunity for greater intimacy and in turn greater truth – for chocolates and roses only continue to feed the pictures, true evolution is peeling them back.
I ask myself constantly why would I never give up on going deeper in a relationship? Because it is so much more precious no matter what is faced along the way, then staying stagnant and feeding a picture that keeps me empty. No way Jose.
Apart from the obvious gorgeousness of your blog it is not surprising that stuff comes up on Valentine’s Day. A lot of people have all sorts of emotions on that day in relation to whether they have a partner or not or one that is so called loving or not and all that sort of thing. None of this has anything to do with true love which does not have one ounce of emotion in it.
Also the most gorgeous thing we can possibly share with our partners is to evolve together. Note that the word evolve has the word love in it – so it sounds like you had a very loving day.
It is true we had a loving day Nicola and it’s time the world see more reflections of what love really is.
This is a good confirmation showing how important our movements are. In my experience they are far more important these days than we realise.
Our body does not lie and it’s true that sometimes I get confused when just listening to words imparted by the mouth but seeing how another moves, there is no mistake.
Wow! Now that’s a Valentine’s Day to remember! So raw and true. No fluff and niceness. True power and love. Amazing. Thank you Adel.
Absolutely agree Rebecca true love has nothing to do with being polite and nice and everything to do with rawness and honesty.
Awesome. Thank you Adele. The commitment and responsibility that you have shown to yourselves and your relationship is inspiring and it is wonderful to feel what a Valentines day can be, a day of deepening and evolution.
Adele this is so inspiring to read and so confirming of those same qualities within us all which most of us are tentative about sharing with the world. Thank you.
I love the power that leaps off the page and invites us to join in.
Very powerful sharing, Adele. To not play nice or conform to the ideals of relationship is a testament to the strength of your love for one another in your willingness to both ‘go there’, to a deeper level of truth.
“That before we open our mouths to express love, this love is first lived and felt within us.” A master piece in how to build relationships. This takes complete commitment to live and is not always plain sailing, but when we adhere to the principles of Love, to remain open, firm and steady, it empowers us to expose all the ‘no-go’ zones and get them out in the light so we can lovingly observe all the ugly bits and bring a deeper understanding to why we are allowing them to exist. What an awesome day!
YES! What an awesome day indeed Rowena. Wouldn’t want it any other way.
Absolutely gorgeous Adele, thank you. It is how we live that is the truth of love, not the ideals and beliefs of how love should be.
“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.”
That is gorgeous. Rather than canoodling (and colluding!) in that comfort zone that doesn’t go into the places that stir up our issues you both went there. If you can’t go there with another then it’s not a relationship but an agreement “You don’t push my issues and I won’t push yours”. But when we do go there openly and honestly we can grow.
I agree Leigh—going deeper with myself is always an invite to go deeper with others when I don’t hold myself back and the acceptance of this feels like true relationship—when we give and we receive in full, ah, love is very full.
Adele this is so inspiring and refreshing to read, thankyou. Most relationships when you truly look around lack this level of depth, equality, respect and vulnerability. What you share is it is a choice to live with this first within ourselves and then with others.
Absolutely wonderful Adele. There were so many inspiring moments throughout what you have so honestly shared but the words that stood out for me were: “We received no niceness and gave none”. How often do we go into being nice when we want to solve a problem and not upset the other person? I have learnt that niceness simply digs us into a bigger hole. This is one blog I will be sharing, especially when Valentine’s Day rolls around again with all its distorted messages of what we have been lead to believe love is.
Adele this a powerful blog. Thank you for sharing your experiences, your learning and your wisdom.
“It was the deepest vulnerability we have ever offered to each other” – so beautiful I can really feel this Adele. What a raw and moving account of the reality of love in relating and relationship.. and one that led [you] back in to a deeper enriched love, thank you for sharing this here for our inspiration.
It sounds like what you will end up with is a relationship of truth and total transparency, what a beautiful foundation to experience what love is capable of and what love actually is.
It turns what we have come to think love is on its head yet expression in a relationship is everything; it is love in the true sense of the word. How can exposing that which is not love be not love? Exposing through expression can be uncomfortable and can bring up a reaction in us but how do we evolve if we are not being pulled up through the means of expressing how we feel?
It’s so important to let go of the pictures around love and feel it for ourselves because it may be like nothing we expected when we experience love in it’s true quality.
I can relatie to what you are sharing about feeling vulnareble about sharing confidence in expression and authority. You would say tenderness is hard to express for many women but true authority is for me more challenging. It is like showing all of me and that with that that all that I expressed before was holding back.
The ideals that have bound me of what a woman is has kept me small and quiet, as that was how I would be loved or so I thought. But when the love felt within my body no longer matched these pictures, I had to just go with it and these pictures I had bought into started to lose power. As the truth felt inside is much more real and powerful than the in-truth empty feeling of any image, even though it may be a picture accepted by many.
Thankyou for sharing the vulnerability you both experienced at that time. Sometimes we need to deconstruct before rebuilding – where we often refuse to go, preferring to paper over the cracks and have an arrangement instead of a true relationship. You now have a true core foundation for your love.
So true Sueq2012. The deconstruction is important and never fear to go there when we know that is it Truth we really would like to re-construct.
We fight so hard to maintain an appearance of harmony – but if we have no understanding, or connection, there’s no love so it’s all in vain. So much better to unmask the junk that isn’t true to get to be real and clear. After all that’s why we are all here.
What is harmony? It’s not a picture. It’s every day and every moment being up for life, feeling and expressing and even when vulnerable not holding back going there, appreciating, confirming, surrendering, being raw and feeling strength, to start all over again with smiles.
I love the way you’ve written this. I felt everything that you felt, and I can sense the vitality and power of that day. Your relationship has expanded, deepened and we are all blessed by it.
That is beautiful Regina and so natural too. Every choice to love goes to the whole world and received by the whole world. Love never holds back or leaves anyone behind.
True love has no rules on how to behave, how to move or what to say, we are only expected to be raw and real and in that the love that we are will take care of the rest.
Yes trusting that we will know what is needed in any moment and staying open to that communication is key.
Why can we put acceptance above the truth that we are and in that behaviour and choose to live a lie?
Stunning Adele, how you offered each other so much more than a gift or special dinner for Valentine’s Day. You made it about love and it being another day to expose what is not love and letting it go together.
Rebuilding a body of love is not always a pretty process, but it is a deeply exquisite one. Your sharing here Adele allows us, by virtue of that which you and your partner reflect through this experience, to also break free of the chains that bind us and let more of our true selves out in the world to be seen and shared with all. Thank you both.
Thank you, Liane. ‘Rebuilding a body of love is not always a pretty process’… letting go of pictures and control can feel raw and exposing but as has been shared, to actually have a foundation of love means the trajectory is out of this world.
Yes Liane the body is our temple to return to love and by each step to honor all its rawness, love gets to be felt more real, goodbye to the perfect pictures we set ourselves up with in life, and hello to honesty and eventually Truth.
Wow, such honesty, openness, sheer rawness even. And woven together with such delicacy, strength and power. I am floored and can only just tiptoe, ever so gently, towards what this day provided, what you offered each other and now the reader.
And Love says I can only love and love you and you and all of you.
Gorgeous Adele and deeply moving…that there is to be no pictures in relationships, only expression, the willingness to be vulnerable and to support each other as we drop the facades and come to a more truthful way of being together.