Have you ever had the opportunity to experience love, only to run a million miles or go into self-destruct or sabotage mode, often without even realising it until it is too late?
I had just this; an incredible relationship, an amazing man who adored me, and most of all could see me for the incredible woman I was, even though I was not choosing to live that woman at the time of our relationship.
I knew how much he loved me, that he would always be there for me, and to be honest, it has only been recently I have been able to admit and see just how far I went to push him away and end our relationship.
I constantly went into self-doubt, always questioning him about where he had been, and my mind would have a field day with me, coming up with all sorts of scenarios while he was out with his friends.
Yes, I was young, but deep down I knew he was not up to anything, that he was totally trustworthy, but because of my own insecurities and lack of self-worth I would go into self-destruct mode and on would come the arguments, which just confirmed for me that there was something more than what he said was going on, even though I would be the one to instigate the arguments to begin with.
I would think that if he became argumentative in return then there had to be more to it, or if he walked away or didn’t want to talk about it, then again there had to be more to it.
Absurd, crazy and totally unnecessary, but for me, holding myself back, not allowing myself to truly be loved or to live the love and the woman I was, was a self-defence mechanism I had created to keep others away, no matter how much I loved or cared for them. I had so much fear around being hurt I wanted to get in first.
The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself, and then to others, as an end result of my own issues I was not choosing to deal with or allowing myself to feel.
Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves. It is this holding back, the constant guard and protection that we hold so dearly, that contrasts with the absolute love that we should be holding dear – the absoluteness that allows us to stop and connect to ourselves and others, to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.
I was lucky enough to have such a relationship presented to me at a young age. Sure it was not perfect but there was a love there that could have supported it to deepen and develop into something that was true if the choice had been made.
It was not until recently that I realised I had held regret for the choices I had made, as well as the hurt I still held in my body for not choosing love over my own insecurities and hurts.
What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.
To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.
It is for me an ongoing commitment, one that I am developing and deepening daily, constantly observing my choices. If they are a step towards the love I am, or away, do I choose to open up and let others in or am I choosing to hide behind the protection that I create in order to not be seen for, or live, the amazingness I am?
True relationships develop, as do we, and it has been with the ongoing love, support and reflections of Serge Benhayon, his family and Universal Medicine that I have had my own journey of re-connection and development of what it is to live as the woman I am today, and to discover and allow myself to begin to live in, and part of, true relationships.
By Nicole Serafin, Age 44, Tintenbar NSW, Woman, wife, mother, hairdresser
Further Reading:
Discovering my True Strength being the Delicate Woman I Am
True Responsibility – My Understanding
From Searching for Love to Self-Love
Nicole we can also be self destructive with ourselves through our lack of self love, when we lack self love the thoughts come in and smash us. When we start to love ourselves, the thoughts have less room almost to enter our minds.
Reconnecting to true love is to reconnect to the truth of who you are.
‘Have you ever had the opportunity to experience love, only to run a million miles or go into self-destruct or sabotage mode, often without even realising it until it is too late?’ What I am learning more and more is how much I have sabotaged the love within me let alone with another! So it is really gorgeous that the table is now turning and no longer am I sabotaging love with myself and others even in subtle ways but instead am loving far more than I have ever done and this is just the beginning.
I am being shown so much about absolute love and what that really looks like, not the soppy emotional love we are saturated with. I have observed delicate moments between two people as they have just touched hands as they passed each other; it was like a bomb going off. There was total communication of the universe in such a delicate touch that I could feel the expansion of space that resulted in just such a delicate movement.
WOW! Yep too am allowing myself to let love in far more than ever before. Absolutely crazy that I have spent so much time blocking or sabotaging it.
Love can be felt in the smallest of touches and yet the most decadent displays of affection can be utterly devoid of love.
I totally agree with you, I was watching an interaction between a man and a woman recently the way the woman was behaving towards this man it was obvious that they were not a couple that this was a paid service utterly devoid of love it was a showmanship. It felt as though the man concerned was bragging to his fellow males a one-up–man-ship, look at me, and look at what I have and you haven’t. It’s completely false because it was a paid for service so the only reason he was getting such sexual attention was because he had paid for it. So it was complete lie and who is fooling who and why is it that we cannot admit that we are all desperately seeking love but at the same time run a million miles from it through fear of rejection.
What an amazing learning you allowed yourself to have here ✨
Thank you Nicole, adding to what you have shared, so by Loving and appreciation of the true-self, this is the appreciative-love of our essences, so that in this knowing we are choosing to deepen our relationship with our essences, and thus the humble-deepening-appreciative-ness of who we truly are is know and lived, and so it can be said we are more than human as known by our essences.
“I constantly went into self-doubt, always questioning him about where he had been, and my mind would have a field day with me, coming up with all sorts of scenarios while he was out with his friends.” Self doubt is that killer, self doubt can literally destroy anything that is truly good if we let it.
As judge-ments go self-doubt is definitely a kill-joy and getting back on track, so our movements starting with our gentle breath ,and then how we walk brings us back to our essences.
Regret delays evolution; letting go of regret opens the door to new opportunities to come our way.
‘What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.’ I am also learning this. I can feel how I have a protection and that I have an expectation that others be loving to me first and that then I will be open and loving with them – I have felt lately how this stops me being consistently loving and open and harms me and the people that I am in relationship with.
This needs to be known from day one for all children, and the education system could re-enforce children’s understanding of this fact,’To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’
It sets the foundation in every relationship when we hold another in all the beauty and amazingness they are even though they may not be living it and likewise it is very, very beautiful when we are truly met, constellated in a relationship where the man or woman can see us for who we truly are – amazing, tender and powerful human beings even though we may choose not to live that man or woman.
Committing to ourselves first is absolutely fundamental before any other relationship, and we get countless opportunities throughout the day to practice this: our every thought, movement or action can either erode our sense of who we are and know ourselves to be, or confirm and affirm it.
This does remind me of when I was younger how when a really decent guy came along I would sabotage the relationship because of my lack of self-worth. There was something inside of me that could not handle having someone who accepted me as I was, perceived flaws and all.
The opportunity to love ourselves is always on offer. The more I do so – the more love I feel for people around me.
Very true Hm, every loving movement big or small we make towards ourselves the more ripples of love we offer to those around us. We cannot ever underestimate any movement that is made in love.
Yes, the more love we build and embody for self, the more there is for other people.
It’s interesting that deep down we absolutely know the truth of who someone is and how they are, but we allow ourselves to get taken out by thoughts of them being this or that – a corrupted version of who we deeply know them to be, when we’re not present, and not with ourselves. The more we build a loving relationship with ourselves, listening to and honouring what it is that we need, we learn to know ourselves, inside out, and the truth of how and what we feel is given permission to come to the surface for us to feel and know it in a more tangible, clear way.
Even though we want love more than anything, we are very good at pushing it away. For some it’s not feeling worthy of it, or others the fear that it will leave. As the author has shared, you need to develop true love with yourself first, so it feels familiar and natural when presented by someone else. I am also realising just how important it is to put old hurts to rest by feeling and nominating them, as they are like a cancer that eats away at the potential for love.
It is crucial to become honest if you tend to project your hurts onto another person. Only when you deal with your hurt you will be open to see another with pure and untainted eyes. For as no one ever will have a chance to come close to you.
The moment we resist more intimacy and love we will find a million reasons and distractions, which are connected with the other person, only to avoid expanding in ourselves and becoming more.
How can we other than connect to who we are (with ourselves), build relationships with other people? We would have no basis to grow from. That is why a relationship must be built first from within, to make it truly the success it can truly be.
Self doubt is super insidious, it festers and grows and causes much harm, the problem is that it is so ‘normal’ you are considered abnormal if you don’t have it.
Starting to call out this imposter is super important if we want to claim back our lives.
Life is about relationships, Lets face it when our relationships are going great then life too is great – have problems in our relationships and life loses that sparkle – well worth the investment in.
If we don’t have a loving and honest relationship with ourselves then it becomes imposssible to have that with others, What you share here shows how we need to deeply appreciate ourselves first so we can see the love offered in a relationship – otherwise we can bring in things to disrupt it. It is crazy to think about all the games we play when we do not want to let love in.
It’s great to acknowledge that our insecurities and when we don’t deal with our stuff actually damages all our relationships. It’s worth knowing what you are worth, otherwise we can destroy the opportunity to have most amazing relationships.
Self doubt is absolute killer in relationships, the crazy thing is it that we blame self doubt when we it is us that actually choose to go into it.
I have run away from true love for life times and this life I am only just opening one eye to it, but more will unfold. I have been in a relationship for a while and it has been staring me in the face that this is true, the real deal, but for years I have held out and sabotaged….now I am beginning to surrender to it and doing so, I realise that it is love that is within us all and holding us all, that I surrender to and that is not just about one person that is a way of being with the All, with our bodies and with our divinity.
When we hold ourselves back in any relationship we don’t get to feel the potential we are offered to know ourselves and others for all that we are.
It is quite a huge deal, to not hold back and to allow oneself to be vulnerable in a relationship, especially the intimate ones. Because there is always some form of hurt, there is never life without hurt and personally I find this much easier to deal with when it comes from a stranger, but subsequently this means that I feel safer with strangers and so keeping very dearly close loved ones out and protected away from has become the normal way… a way that perhaps needs to end.
I remember a time in the past when love was offered to me, it was so hard for me to stay in that presence of such love, because it reflected how much I did not love myself, but gradually over time as my love for my self grew I was able to accept more of the love offered and be able to express love back.
Provoking others first to sabotage a relationship, means that we remain in a pattern of protection and defence that really never delivers us the connection and intimacy that we are really seeking.
Crazy how we push away what we crave the most – love, connection and intimacy – because we’re so afraid of being hurt. When we learn to love ourselves, then everything else becomes an extension of what we’re already feeling, already connected to – and nothing can take away that feeling we have within, because it comes from us, and is backed up by us, without depending on anything beyond or outside of it.
A lot of us think that once you find the perfect partner and experience a true sense of love that that is it. There is no need for more and the love matching is done and dusted. Yet soon come the fights, conflicts and quarrels which only come about because we have not committed to love any more and if we have not committed to love then what have we said yes to?
“The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself, and then to others”. I love the self-awareness and honesty here. Most of the time when we have hurts our first response is to blame anyone and anyone, rather than look at what the cause is within ourselves. But that just leaves us in protection and trying to control situations, in the constant tension of worrying when our hurts will get triggered next.
“It was not until recently that I realised I had held regret for the choices I had made, as well as the hurt I still held in my body for not choosing love over my own insecurities and hurts.” – This statement really hit home for me while reading it, and I feel that the mental self-flagellation for making many choices to hold myself back from love for myself and from others tends to do far more damage than the actual acts themselves of sabotage, whether it be via eating something that dulls, stimulates, or creating issues that don’t really exist as distractions from going deeper in our relationships. For me, dealing with the lack of acceptance I may have for all my imperfections is now key to letting love both out and in.
I totally agree Michael. Regret is like a poison in the body and can continue to haunt us for years if we do not address it and seek to dig out it’s roots.
“all relationships begin with you” This is all part of our confusion that we think a relationship is about the other person and what they offer us without stopping to look at what what we bring to any relationship. Our relationship with God begins with the love that we bring to the relationship.
Beautiful Nicole, thank you for writing this. It touches the deeper part of me, my heart.
It is fascinating and disturbing to observe what behaviours we pull in to sabotage the call we feel or have said ‘yes’ to, to go to a deeper quality of love within ourselves and with another. We create issues to avoid going deeper with honesty, knowing the responsibility that is there to step up into. As soon as we resist love we are instead moved by all that is not love, with all the emotions, self-doubt, lack of self-worth and whatever other issues our minds can come up with to make us think that there is a problem as such keeping us very distracted. Being honest about what we are allowing to play out is what brings awareness as to why we have resisted love, the quality we always seek to return to whenever we have chosen to separate from its beholding light.
It shows that we definitely know love inside and out because we can sniff it a mile away and make choices to either accept it or avoid it.
It is an illusion that we can protect ourselves from hurt. As the hurt can only occur by being in alert and tightness in the body before already. The key for me was to learn to surrender, step by step. The more my body could let go, the more I dared to let myself be seen and as a result letting others in. Plus the fact, the surrender in my body helped me become an excellent observer of energies and challenging situations. As we are all vessels of energy, I could understand the game behind certain reactions and incidents, that wanted me to withdrawn from love and people again. So it only makes sense that I must be very powerful when I am in openness, connection and expressing all that I am- why would otherwise an energy be interested and do everything to get me to shut down again?!
It is so very easy to not want to look at the hurts we are carrying and then project them onto others and in this, because of the position we have chosen, it feels very real and our eyes see what we have positioned ourselves to see.
How very beautiful to understand in relationship that we are not perfect and are going to go through things but to have a commitment to going deeper, holding steady and allowing things to come up but making it about love.
A very wise man ( Serge Benhayon) once said to me after a lot of trying to solve the problems of the relationship : “You have to choose expansion for yourself first”. Since I ´ve done that my whole relationship changed, I grew instantly into more and my power, which then offered a whole lot of different reflection for my partner. Because in fact I said YES to myself. I said Yes, with no “but”.
Wow very wise indeed! “You have to choose expansion for yourself first”… I have held this silly belief and held it against my family, that I can only expand if they also do. But this isn’t it, such a beautiful reminder, thank you.
Great point. It is a choice, an allowing of this expansion for yourself first. Love it. Then it will reflect to all and within all the relationships I have, so these can also expand. Thanks for sharing this gem!
It is often when we are offered these qualities that we run from them as we have been so conditioned to want less and live less.
I have a partner who loves me just who I am. From the start I very quickly became aware that any disruptions, quarrels etc. were created by me trying to project on him my own uneasiness, not letting him in and/or become more intimate with him. He was and is a person who does not even hurt a fly – Dutch expression. I knew the pointed finger towards him had to be directed at me. That frustrated me in the beginning, but I knew this was a speed course of taking responsibility and learning to deepen my relationship with myself ánd him. Still learning….
Saying YES to a constellation in not pointing the finger out to the other but bringing it always back to yourself is in deed an absolute evolving booster. Imagine we would use every relationship we have as a gem to learn and to move on, no matter, if we have to learn or bring more understanding to the other? !
When you look at the way we live in the world, the way we fight and resist Love – it’s crazy! The only thing I have found that comes close to explaining what’s going on is the fact of spirit and soul as presented by Serge Benhayon. When you know there is a part of us that fights unity and clings to individuality it starts to make sense of the absurdity we see in the world. Thank you Nicole.
There must be a part in us, that sincerely fights and wants to be apart from our soul. As our souls only know togetherness, love and expansion. Our soul carries no hurt, it is the other part that does everything to not get rocked in their supremacy. And it will hold onto hurts as long as possible, until the moment, when we realise that the greatest hurt was, living separated by our soul and not expressing from it.
How often do we wish we had a partner who was caring, loving, deeply respectful and trustworthy, someone who listened and was there for us? But how often are we willing to be all those things for ourselves, and how often do we unreservedly express those things to another person? We can’t expect from another anything we can’t give ourselves, and equally no one will be able to truly be all those things consistently without first and foremost loving themselves.
Very wise words Rebecca. And this relationship with ourselves never stops deepening if we allow it.
I totally agree with you Rebecca we are not taught to love ourselves first, society is set up in a way that encourages us to look outside of ourselves for love which is the lie we all fall for and keeps us entrapped.
Being in a relationship with another partner or not is a magnification of the relationship you have with yourself. That’s why it’s extremely valuable to embrace being with any other no matter how raw you are.
Rik what you have shared is well worth pondering on, because I know for myself, I do not allow myself to be all that I know I can be. I can feel I’m holding back; I have the brake on just in case I hurt myself again. This is an ingrained pattern of many lifetimes that I’m still working on.
What I am learning is how to deepen in a relationship – there is more I can feel on any given subject. I may have an understanding of one thing or another… tenderness, surrender, sharing and so on, but if I open up in any relationship I can feel this edge of where I have got to so far…. and then depending on how open I am willing to be I can stay comfortable thinking ‘cool I know this much’ or allow myself to take the extra step into the unknown and discover more of me, more depth and wisdom – always supported by the relationship I am in.
`We are shown that the world is in our hands – by us all re-imprinting our lives and attuning to the higher and known wisdom/truth. We need to live what we have lived before. Start afresh by honesty and letting go.
What a revelation to realise we are the ones that hurt ourselves the most by withholding the love we are.
Yes Ariana, if we have a picture we are still not allowing the whole Universe to be a possibility! Our movements determine so much more than we appreciate, therefore changing the way we are physically with ourselves is what will offer that change in our relationships with others – how can we have a picture of that when there are so many endless possibilities?!
The hurt we have living within us as our ‘normal’ has an outplay. It is not love, therefore it is not who we are which means it always shows itself somewhere. Relationships seem to be the best way to expose where our hurts lie as we have expectations and fears that come to the surface quicker than we can logically explain them away. Embracing those opportunities rather than running from them is where we unshackle ourselves and develop truly loving relationships with ourselves and therefore others.
I like your honesty Nicole, and can relate to also having been like this in the past, ‘holding myself back, not allowing myself to truly be loved or to live the love and the woman I was’.
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” A simply gorgeous reminder of the honesty and vulnerability we can choose in any moment to simply surrender to who we are and let love in. Thank you Nicole.
Its interesting cause at the start of the blog I’m reading it and assuming all the blame is your side of the relationship, but that is not it at all. In any relationship, there are two people equally responsible for their part in the merry dance. If one person is manipulating, the other is allowing that. If one is being nice the other enjoins the comfort that brings. Relationships are about growing together and that means looking at both sides of the coin to see what can be learnt and then both evolve.
It is love that we truly want in our relationships and not to settle for a comfortable arrangement which serves at the time.
Absolutely, it is important that we all understand this, ‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’
The relationship with ourselves is the foundation to all other relationships. However we are with ourselves is how we will be in relationship with others. The more we deepen our relationship with ourselves the more permission we are giving ourselves to deepen with others.
Yes I can relate to having pushed love away, when I have not felt good within myself or when I have resisted relationships going deeper, out of a fear of possibly being hurt, I have run away from this. In the end it hurts you as then you don’t have the love in your life that you crave.
Its an interesting thing that we do…..pushing away opportunities in relationships, more love, taking it deeper etc, even though that’s precisely what we want. We fear so much getting hurt even though in the scheme of our whole lives how many people we have felt hurt by is the minimum. Or are we scared to go for it, take that risk because we are scared of what we might learn about ourselves?
It is amazing and sad the lengths we go to sabotage our relationship with ourselves and others. However, as you have shared and from experience even when we have done this we can, when we choose always come back to love be it with ourselves or another as it never left us in the first place!
I agree with you Vicky when you say that Love has never have left, we turn our backs on love and once we have done this there is an energy that fills that space which we let in that then is determined to keep the separation, so that it can have its way in separation to the love that is constantly on offer. We are constantly playing with energy whether we realise this or not. And the energy that keeps us in separation is the one that manipulates us from behind the scenes as it were. There are only 2 energies to choose from which one we chose determines the outplay of our lives.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’ Over the years I am seeing this as so true. I have been inspired by people like yourself to put aside self-doubt and let go of protection. Finding many layers but know it’s worth it as the intimacy that’s possible is truly amazing.
I agree with you Karin when you say
“it’s worth it as the intimacy that’s possible is truly amazing.”
Humanity has been shown that there is a different way to interact with ourselves and all others and when we allow the intimacy between us it is incredible and brings a re-evaluation to our lives of what is possible.
It really is incredible just how many different ways we can use the self destruct button to avoid the love on offer to us from another, or even from ourselves. Rather than letting go and just allowing the love in we do everything to push it away – is it really a lack of worth, or a knowing of the magnificence on offer if we let go?
Rebecca speaking from experience I feel that we are not confirmed as children to be and live the magnificence we naturally are, our natural sensitivity to the world around us is crushed by a society that doesn’t want a reflection of the grandness we all come from. So we do know the magnificence we are, we just do not allow ourselves the opportunity to live it and those that do live their magnificence are ostracised from society as their reflection is too disturbing.
This morning I am observing my choice to express my truth to an agency I work for which may mean I will no longer work for them, and I do not have anything else lined up. However, it feels truly self-loving to honour my truth and to express it – which will of course influence my next choice to stand for truth and as I do – I deepen the relationship with myself and open myself up to more love….
jacqmcfadden04 you are bringing in another aspect here which revolves around security of work, do we stand up for truth or do we walk by truth because we feel that having a secure job with money coming in to pay for the mortgage etc is more important. (We chose comfort over truth)
In the dark ages during the times of the witch hunts and the inquisitions when it was almost impossible to speak the truth, the choice then was do we risk our lives for the truth or were we willing to die because we know the truth of who we are? We have put so much emphasis on this one life thinking it is all we are. I remember being told when young in a science lesson we are made of energy and it is impossible to destroy energy, so where does this energy that makes up who we are go when we die? Is it possible that the energy reincarnates using another body to rejoin the circle of life? So, is it possible we can speak our truth knowing we can never really die?
Nicole it does not surprise me that you only recently got to see this pattern within yourself as it requires a foundation of self love and from that honesty to really look at the level of protection we are carrying and to look at our own patterns and behaviours without judgement. And so, as you say the way to a truly loving relationship starts with loving ourselves.
It is arrogant to assume the other is always there for you if you are not willing to equally be there for yourself.
Relationships are everything to me- there is no grander mirror to get reflected and no bigger possibility to grow. In reflection with another we recognise us and our little go-tos and weaknesses we still carry. It is never about the other person. Never! The other person is just a diamond you have as a ring on your finger you choose to wear to get the reflection you need and become who you truly are again.
Gorgeous sharing Stefanie, and very true, all our relationships are a super support for the reflection they bring and the potential to expand when we make it about love.
“Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves.” So true Nicole. It is so common to hold back – even just a smidgin – ‘just in case we get hurt again’. But this can be felt by the other – who then may also not commit in full. When you see young children express all of their love there is no holding back, yet somewhere along the line – in home or at school – we get ridiculed for doing this and then start to shut down.
This photo.. with its open tender palm, being held by another equally open hand – depicts the warmth that is true love.
‘holding myself back, not allowing myself to truly be loved or to live the love and the woman I was, was a self-defence mechanism I had created to keep others away’, This was my old way too, but thankfully I have learned to share more of myself, I let others in and love to connect with people, thus all my relationships are so much easier simply because I appreciate and value all that I bring.
Regret is a pure creation. It is a reaction to our past unwise choices. But that’s the thing, it is a choice to still live in the past because already in your life is the opportunity to learn and move on. These opportunities are forever with us as we relearn to be our amazing true divine selves again.
Self doubt is an absolute killer for our confidence and completely sabotages our potential.
Yes what I am finding is that if I do not hold myself in love then I expect others to love me which sets me up to be hurt and to react in relationships.
I can so relate to having self-worth issues and not being able to receive love from the other, and I actually kept people at a safe distance believing I would not get hurt, but actually I hurt myself because what I truly wanted was to connect with others – through working on my old hurts with an Esoteric practitioner and attending courses with Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine – my life has completely transformed but only because I was willing to go there – to face myself – which we all must do!
The world has been given such a Golden opportunity for change through the teachings and presentations of Serge Benhayon. Whether we make the changes on offer is down to free will and choice, but humanity cannot say they don’t know because we can feel what is happening all around us. The reason I know this is because the world is in such turmoil. Humanity is waking up but as yet is not sure what to do with their reawakening.
More and more I am realising just how imperative it is to be aware of and honest about the nature of the relationship we hold with ourselves. For this is the foundation in which all other relationships are developed. How could it be any other way? If we do not know what it is to be in a loving relationship with ourselves how can we share love with another.
It is especially hard when you know that someone who you dearly love is making choices to walk away, and to let them go because that is the loving thing to do.
This is another example that confirms we can’t love others without loving ourselves first.
There is no control or holding back in True Love for Love is unifying and beholding of all and never measures or pits one against another.
How deeply we isolate and prevent true love in our lives by our protection – for we keep the world at bay and do not let love in or our love to be expressed forth.
“Yes, I was young, but deep down I knew he was not up to anything, that he was totally trustworthy” This is key as we do know deep down when someone is indeed up to something that is not right but when we do not choose love because we are frightened to be hurt or to truly let love in, we say yes to all that is not love and that explains then why people who love each other can fight so much and push each other away. We all do this as a society and then we think it is normal but it actually is not normal to fight and push each other constantly away. In fact it is very possible to live a loving relationship without fights and that is our normal but we have to start with loving ourselves.
Sabotage is a big part of what often stops a true relationship from reaching its potential. The bag of tricks we can so often pull out to protect ourselves when the other person is offering us a realness and rareness that we are not ready to open to, yet deep inside know is the openness we crave to be met with.
“this holding back, the constant guard and protection that we hold so dearly, that contrasts with the absolute love that we should be holding dear – the absoluteness that allows us to stop and connect to ourselves and others, to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.”-
I can so relate to this- holding back momentum- putting up a false guard of protection in my life, holding people to ransom unless my image of what a loving relationship looks like is shown to me first. It is me not trusting others ,because I am not trusting that I am enough already, just the way I am. I have realised that it is in the self appreciation first that then allows you to appreciate another.
‘Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves’. I can feel I still hold back in all my relationships, it also feels an old and ingrained pattern, and it is time to re-imprint and to open to allowing and receiving more love – as I have not been very good at receiving.
This is a great point – everything begins with us and our willingness to express the love we are in full without holding back.
From reading this piece I can see how important self-acceptance is when we have relationships with eachother, because if you are letting yourself be loved by you, then it stands to reason that you would let in the love of another and not hold back from expression your love towards them. But it all starts with you accepting yourself for who you are, which is totally huge but also so very simple.
And there is a simplicity to this which I really enjoy… there is no wriggle room to blame or be a victim of circumstance… my relationship with me informs all areas of my life.
There is an exquisite and extraordinary simplicity that is coming into my life the more I realise that everything is informed by my relationship with me first… the quality with which I choose to live is the foundation for everything else. This has also meant that there is no dodging responsibility which is an interesting process…
I thought I was ready for a significant other relationship but when this presented itself I sabotaged it , I was clearly not ready . My relationship with myself took a wobble too but now I feel the commitment returning and this blog is very supportive in reminding me of staying with myself, loving myself, truly caring for myself. Thank you Nicole.
Elaine, I had the same experience, I thought I was ready too for a relationship, but when one presented itself, I was so not ready….nevertheless, it was a great learning and a great reflection, in that I observed where I had to deepen the relationship with myself.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.”- great advice Nicole. I feel inspired to revisit what this truly means in my livingness.
There is something about the love that resides in all of us, the universal love that is the core of every human. While we all are longing so much for it we are at the same time rejecting it when it comes to us and asks us to live to its full potential. This is a contradiction in us that to me is the root cause of all of the atrocities we experience in our nowadays societies and to all the illness and disease that humanity is experiencing.
Love the wisdom you share Nico, especially the part that while we long for love, yet we reject it when it comes to us and asks us to live its full potential….it seems crazy but this is exactly what happens. Perhaps the underlying issue is one of self-acceptance, and accepting the grandness that we all are and come from.
A wonderfully informative sharing Nicole.
True relationships develop, they can’t be forced or made to happen. it is something we build between each other from a deep respect and care, staying open and not going into protection or reaction. It is something I am learning daily and that we have a relationship with everyone we meet not just the people close to us.
Not going into reaction – was a work in progress for me for some time, but more and more as I get myself out of the way and make life about service and making a difference in this world, there is so much to to do, and with purpose and focus, reaction just drops away, why waste time in reacting when their is true work to be done…
I love the openness of the two hands in the picture, the tenderness in which the hands are touching each other as an offering never to impose on one another.
The more I love myself, the more I love everyone else and also the more I let love in. Guess it works the other way in reverse so it is well worth loving ourselves!
It seems to be a common human trait that we want to run away from the very thing we yearn for most – to be truly loved and cherished, to be met for who we truly are.
Indeed Gabriele, I do recognise that too. How easy people can react in anger or dismissiveness to one another and how difficult it is to truly recognise the love in one another for just the lovely beings we all are.
The inability to receive love is one of the most destructive patterns we have in relationships. When we cant believe we are worthy of love or are scared that it will leave, we will sabotage the fullness of the love on offer and do our best to push it away.
Our loving relationship with ourselves is the absolute key to all relationships, I know from experience that if I’m half hearted about how I feel and care for myself that is exactly what is reflected back – but in stereo because it comes from everywhere. This I’ve discovered is a loving reflection offering me the opportunity to truly care, love and honour myself , so I can reflect this out and so the ripple effect goes.
I am regularly touched and inspired by the impact of the smallest gestures of care I have for myself and how they ripple out into every interaction (relationship) I have with others.
There is a great sense of no judgement in this piece, it is just very clear and simple the fact that we all make choices and then some more and then some more. so it is never a needed point to judge ourselves or eachother, but simply to learn and to, to the best of our abilities, be the love that we all are.
The true experience of what love is comes through the loving of ourselves and in this we learn what to accept from others and what to bring in our relationship with others. The wisdom of the body already has a true template of how to be in this – all we have to do is listen.
We learn from every relationship in our lives and there is bound to be some regret! I can see Nicole that your life now seems to be all you could hope for through your own loving work on yourself, and not being afraid to take a chance on Love.
What has popped up to clear and heal is this old belief; I have to do it all on my own, which keeps me closed from receiving so much support that is there and available….. ouch!
I can feel I have not honoured myself this week and I can also feel how yucky that feels. I said yes to extra hours at work which meant 2 very long days ( 14 hours) which has left me feeling rather flat. But I am not going to beat myself up, because I know the reason that drove me to agreeing to this in the first place, which has popped up to clear and heal.
True love is an ongoing commitment to move with life and to learn as much as we can about ourselves and our choices in the process. it is then from these movements we gain a greater understanding of the world and how we in turn connect to it and the unwavering love available if we so choose.
If every day there is a commitment to evolving, so too do all of our relationships hold that quality.
It is refreshing to read such honest writing.
Committing to develop a relationship with self first creates a foundation of truth that can be shared with another with purpose to evolve.
What I love about true relationships is that they cannot but deepen. If we’re staying still we have stagnated. There is always more to us and always more to the relationship and what we are here to bring for each other. A relationship with another when we commit to making it true is in fact a mirror, to our own soul.
Letting another in can seem like a big challenge especially if we are so used to having relationships from behind our guarded wall. Yet living with protection, keeping others out and ourselves in is far more uncomfortable in the long term that the challenging moment where we give it a go and let another in and ourselves out.
Just gorgeous to re read this again Nicole, I am so inspired by how you live and the openness with which you share yourself. It is beautiful and heart warming.
True Love is like this hand-holding photo Nicole, the open gentle hold of another and in this the natural openness and blossoming of them in absolute surrender to the love they are being beheld in and truly supported by.
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” When we understand that absolutely everything is a choice it becomes much simpler to see that we can actually change the otheriwse inevitable path of our lives. I find the more I open and commit to myself, the steadier I am and therefore am more of a true reflection to others which inspires them to make changes in their own lives. We cannot underestimate the power of making such loving choices for ourselves.
“True love or not” – Nicole this is a great question to ask of anything in life, or about life….and the determining factor i’ve realised over the years is being in complete transparency – with oneself, because without such sight, such intimacy, there is only blindness, and in blindness truth cannot ever be (seen).
Loving and appreciating ourselves first is strangely not something we would call normal. We’re so busy thinking we are loving and caring for others and being nice to everyone, that we somehow end up at the bottom of the food chain.
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” This is beautiful Nicole. I can feel that if we were to apply this to all our relationships the love would just keep on expanding.
I used to get so upset when I was younger that girls would turn me down even though I loved and cared for them so deeply. This now makes sense to me and your blog is a beautiful confirmation of that Nicole.
Nicole, this is really interesting; ‘it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.’ I can feel how I can hold onto protection and hurts in relationships rather than being open and being myself in full, much to ponder on, thank you.
Thank you for such an honest read. This is such a supportive way to understand the many games we can play to sabotage the possibility of a loving and true relationship. The willingness not to create pictures and rush with set ideals and beliefs gives space for quality to grow and an openness to understand more when there may be times when both people are feeling out of sorts.
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” This is something I am learning too Nicole, and when I do there is no room for judgement or criticism, just the openness to love another, it is a love that allows another to be, is unimposing and very beautiful to feel.
Great blog to reread and assess at how I’m going in the relationship with myself and the choices I am making. Are they loving choices or are they still going from a protected place to sabotage my evolution.
Amazing blog Nicole it is so true of us as women… we can often resist the true love that’s offered for a variety of reasons all of which come back to a lack of self worth.
Realising that it all starts with us is key, and that the relationships we end up with are a direct reflection of the one we have with ourselves. Sometimes someone comes along however who reflects where we COULD be, and not where we’ve chosen to be… and that is a true gift. You are a prime example Nicole, thanks for sharing your story.
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” I love the simplicity of this line Nicole asks nothing of us but to continue to explore, deepen and discover what truly makes us tick and how we then are in all other relationships thereafter. Simply glorious.
‘Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves.’ I have always found it difficult to commit in relationships which only highlighted my own unresolved issues which I have been working on over the last few years. I can feel I am more than ready to commit not only in relationships but in all areas of my life, which feels very empowering and purposeful.
Real love is all about God, when we truly love ourselves we are in fact just letting God in, or rather should I say we are just letting God out.
Gorgeous Samantha, when we let God in, it is automatic that we express and share all that God is.
Great blog Nicole. It is very freeing to take responsibility for what we do in relationships. It can seem so much easier to blame the other person but looking at our own part and what we create in a relationship changes everything. Do we allow a relationship to be what it is or do we bring in stuff and create it so that the relationship forever struggles to be true?
It is energetically impossible to fully love another and let them in to love us if we do not love ourselves in full.
It was like reading this for the very first time, yet I see I have before, that is the beauty of reading another’s sharing we can all relate in some other way. So 4 months on from reading it the first time, my level of love and connection with myself and then others and my partner has changed hugely. Things that would usually ‘press my buttons’ per say now don’t even touch the sides, I just feel the love that we are and we deal with more important things and starting to bring more playfulness in to our relationship.
True love is never a projection, it is an emanation.
Hello Nicole, thanks for your blog, it’s another read for me today and I could feel the new depths I have gone to within myself to consider your words again within the context of my own life, which has given me lots of new realisations. This is a great line “The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself, and then to others…” For me this highlights how entangled we can get with others because of our own hurts, seeking a picture of love outside of ourselves and making demands of others to meet this, instead of reconnecting to the love we are in essence. We so desperately don’t want to be hurt yet we don’t realise the power of love within ourselves.
” – the absoluteness that allows us to stop and connect to ourselves and others, to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.” I like this, it is so simple and yet so very enormous.
I am realising more and more how much holding back keeps us stuck and retards our growth and in how many ways one can hold back….fear is something we create to justify this holding back and in that we are not just holding back ourselves but everyone and the whole world.
“….it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” And unless we are willing to make that choice, we will always find something outside of ourselves to blame for the lack of honouring, and for the lack of gentleness and tenderness that we have in our lives.
It takes a true connection with self to be open to connection with another, and rather than a relationship being about the other person, it is first about the relationship within.
True love can’t be based on any pictures or expectations. The moment these are allowed we are avoiding feeling and receiving the love that is already there.
Thank you Nicole. I can deeply relate to carrying the hurts and holding back with others, and have recently come to feel how I use this to shut down any possibility of true love and relationship. Your honesty is beautiful and allows me to see where I can at times go into blame and need for another to be or respond a certain way and that this only creates complication and coldness in our relationships with others, yet coming back to the simple choice of nurturing and connecting and expressing with ourselves can bring true change.
When we start to love ourselves and make more loving choices in terms of taking care of our bodies, all our relationships start to improve because the self doubting and insecurities start to drop away, and we begin to express more openly and honestly first with ourselves and then with all others.
‘What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are’. This is so true and is something I experienced very recently, except that I did hold back and I could feel how that does not serve me or the other, which was great to feel as now i make the choice to not hold back ever again!
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” This is where true love begins, it is with claiming our love and nurturing that love with tender loving care and then bringing that same love to all our relationships.
I’ve been really intrigued by you mentioning the hurt that you held in your body from choosing insecurity and hurts over love. Already I know that the ill effects are people living so much less than who they truly are; and the what is not takes full advantage of this to come through them. This is harm I can feel is felt in the body big time.
This is such an interesting article. Jealousy and mistrust in relationships are actually quite common and it is really easy to get swept away in the drama of the situation without truly taking the time to look at what is below the surface. “It was not until recently that I realised I had held regret for the choices I had made, as well as the hurt I still held in my body for not choosing love over my own insecurities and hurts.” I had to read this sentence a few times before I understood there is more to understand about ourselves than others if we are to end a pattern of behaviour.
In seemingly ‘protecting’ ourselves, we keep true love at bay and whilst doing so, will never know its living Grace and Truth.
It’s certainly a process to let love in, and I mean, really let it in. I’m only starting to appreciate the fact that I’m worth the time and space to love myself, and by doing that, it seems to be a little easier to let others love me also. My awareness around how much I protect myself has heightened of late which is great, because from that I have a choice to either stay in that, or practice letting go. I’ve nothing to lose.
Basing our relationships around pictures is so destructive for both parties as there is a constant discontentment for the relationship never being right but also the torture of mistrust and self-doubt within each other.
Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves. Without holding back any of ourselves, is absolutely the key Nicole, in all of our relationships, which includes ourselves. Learning to not hold back when something comes our way can be tricky when you’ve said yes to the complication or basically focussed on what you think needs changing or fixing, and are fully into it, and so then holding back your love. It’s in the holding back that there is no flow, and our movements keep us in this unloving pattern. When we come back to our love, we confirm us and move as one again.
this is truly beautiful to read, to live the love that will give us the opportunity to truly love another. I have had an experience in which I chose my own protection over letting in the love of another. It hurts the most to let ourselves down, but it is also building a strength to allow ourselves to see what happened and make a choice to deepen the love that we have. Living in appreciation of the beautiful human beings we are.
Ah you can think you are above it, that this issue won’t happen here, that you and your partner are super clear, but if you don’t love yourself what you will find is energy creeps in via your mind. Thoughts and beliefs will help them to make mountains inside of you and suddenly what was going so well becomes like a war zone. Pretty soon – it looks like you need to leave. The only way out of this predicament I can see is for us to make everything about moving with Love, for as soon as we get agitated, frustrated or upset – we know we have gone off. Our body never lies and will be our honest friend and support us to have better relationships then, and not run for the hills when Love comes to town. Thank you Nicole for this beautiful blog and cautionary tale.
What a beautiful sharing and offering of understanding of relationships true love or not in the world . If we could really see the truth of what plays out and the self doubt and lack of self love so many of us carry relationships would be very different and a natural honouring way of being would be our norm and all else would simply no longer be allowed to disturb the natural harmony and flow from within us all .
Holding back serves no one – it keeps us contained in the tension of unexpressed love, it keeps us removed from others that we naturally are impulsed to connect with and it inspires no greatness, power or truth.
Breaking down beliefs that we are not worth investing our time in and worth nurturing really is a change in the way we can be in relationships. When we do take the time to self-reflect, self-nurture, self-care and self-adore then we become completely different people. Then our relationship have a transformation of a life time!
I’ve been pondering on my pictures around relationships – a man that looks a certain way, is at least taller than me but also in relation to how I feel in a relationship – that there should be some sort of chemical spark and a certain feeling of bliss. What if none of this is it? What if there is a gorgeous man out there who will challenge me to be more of me, not stand for any games I play and will call me to account in everything I do. All of this in addition to adoring me. What if his gorgeousness is not about how he looks but in how he is energetically. Everything changes.
Thank you Nicole for being so clearly honest about what is actually love and what is not. It is for us to feel when we resist and being less open, at those moments to break through – by choice , that we are so much more worth than we at that time had chosen.
it’s interesting how much our mind can come up with to fuel doubt and fears when there need not be any. I know if I am consciously present in my body, very little else can enter to give rise to such concerns.
Everything is about connecting to the true self our inner-most before any true connection can happen with another and as that love deepens so to do all our relationships expand.
We all have a relationship with ourselves whether we acknowledge it or not. Sometimes we are loving and sweet with ourselves, sometimes we are horrible, demanding and abusive with ourselves. The first step is admitting we do have a relationship with ourself that needs nurturing, and developing, and from there we can begin the path of self-care, self-nurturing and self-love.
When I go anywhere near a romantic relationship I get myself into a total mess! Best to work on my relationship with myself. When I am ready, a relationship will appear, if it is true.
I have come back to revisit this blog, because I am getting a much deeper understanding of what it is to be in a relationship with myself. I am becoming more aware of the perpetual self-judgement that plagued me for most of my life, so until recently there was very little care, kindness or love towards myself at all. It is so beautifully heart-warming to now wake up in the morning and be joyful to be with me!
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” This is a most important choice to make every morning before getting out of bed for all situations.
Nicole, I am also learning to not hold back giving and receiving love; also to let go of the regrets and recriminations of past choices. Your blog is a wonderful reminder to commit to a relationship with myself as well as others, thank you.
We have conjured up so many ways and means of avoiding love just so we won’t get hurt, have to be responsible, or be more of our amazing selves. Which seems silly really, as the very thing we are made of is the very thing we are denying for ourselves by our choices.
Truly ironic really, makes you wonder what’s really going on. Thank goodness for Universal Medicine without which it would all remain a mystery. However, now we have, keys, understandings, true religion and livingness that works.
Committing to a relationship isn’t just committing to that person but also a whole process of evolution and learning, which can be absolutely priceless and a lot of fun, with a partner, friend or family member.
I have come to realize that any destructive relationship starts with ourselves. If I am presented with absolute love, I will reject this unless I am willing to go there myself. If I am open to it – then so begins a relationship of ever deepening love.
I have recently cleared a whole load of issues that have been with me for what feels like forever. These issues have been controlling my behaviour for as long as I can remember. They have influenced why and how I have been in relationships and how I interact in them. Having recently exposed them and seen them for what they are I now know and can feel that none of the relationships I have had in the past have been true. I have been manipulated and have been manipulating my way through life in order to get what I want. Seeing them for what they are and having let them go I feel completely different, and free to step forward onto fresh ground and make true choices without being influenced by what I need. It feels amazing and full of new potential.
It is amazing how we can be our own best saboteurs of real Love, I know looking back on my life there have been times where I have shut down and allowed insecurity to run me rather then feeling the love that is there to be felt.
Beautiful blog Nicole – a true love story.
I meet this man 12 years ago and I married him, it has been an ongoing journey to be open with each other and allow the true love and potential that is already very much there to be experienced, we have been healing our so called overcoats of hurt and learning to let each other in and let our true selves out. There were times when I thought maybe this is too tough or not really it, we both have had these doubts, but they never last long enough to feel real…If you feel that initial potential and true love then I say give it a go….it is immensely evolving to open up to what relationships offer us. (written with my husbands permission)
We seek connection with others yet do we firstly connect to ourselves and take the real and true us to those relationships? This is worth considering.
Relationships reveal a lot about ourselves – are we willing to be open, transparent and trust or do we keep another at bay and reflect to the world to stay closed, distrusting and aloof?
This is beautiful to read, and exposing the fact that it is holding back that is keeping us away from true love it is our responsibility to allow ourselves to regain our love for ourselves and thus create a space for ourselves to be love and let love in for others and ourselves to enjoy.
We hear it all the time – how important it is to love yourself first before you can truly love another, but we don’t really listen to what’s being offered. Often I find it’s because the person delivering it, isn’t actually living it for themselves, and hence our bodies don’t respond to it as a truth because all we feel is the person and their own lived ways. This is where the difference comes in with the many people I’ve been in contact with and know through Universal Medicine. Many will live it first, and then share from their livingness which then creates space for others to feel first what’s being said, rather than just hearing instructional words.
I love the honesty in this article Nicole, isn’t it interesting how we can sabotage a relationship ourselves, when what is on offer is actually truly loving. I guess this is where honesty really pays, as we can look at what it is we are resisting when we know deep down another is trustworthy and that our own introspection may offer a way to heal and move past our own distrust and understand what we have put in the way.
What you describe here in the beginning shows clearly how we create our own reality and how if we do not want to look at our own next step that needs to be taken to deepen the love for ourselves. We blame anyone and everything creating stories and drama.
Mary it is gorgeous to read that you have put down the self bashing tools and let go of an old ideal and belief to keep yourself small and instead to celebrate being part ofGod’s grandness.
Nicole, this is a great blog to re-visit. Holding back from our true expression of the love that we innately are, is one of the deepest hurts that needs healing. The self defence patterns and momentums continue to harden and haunt us until they are dealt with. Only then can we begin to allow others in and accept and appreciate others without fear.
“Absurd, crazy and totally unnecessary, but for me, holding myself back, not allowing myself to truly be loved or to live the love and the woman I was, was a self-defence mechanism I had created to keep others away, no matter how much I loved or cared for them”.
Brilliant blog Nicole and one I appreciate coming back to often. It’s become increasingly apparent to me that I had not just the concept of relationships, upside down. I seem to have had so many expectations that someone else will Love me and confirm my way, support me and give me the strength to go forward every day. Whilst others can support us it’s true, I could not have been more wrong about What they should do. The true beginning and end of relationships is the one you have with yourself. The Love we have here governs all else.
We often claim that we want love, true love and only love. Yet when I would say that I actually was wanting my version of love – something that suited me and that gave me what I wanted. When I was then presented with a choice of true love I struggled as it did not fit what I thought or wanted love to be. This I feel plays out around the world in so many situations as until we embrace love and evolution in the truth of quality of vibration then we will always be having different versions of love and when true love is in front of us we will most likely reject it.
Well said DN. True love comes in many different ways. If we are not open to truly receiving it, we can turn our back, walk away, justifiedly so, and miss out on the grand offering that was right there at our doorstep. This is how love works. It is a choice to receive it or reject it.
We can develop so many ways to push people away or sabotage relationships when love is being offered. All so we don’t get hurt or rejected and yet it means that we keep the connection at bay that we so want and crave.
Nicole, this feels very true from my experience and from what I have observed, ‘Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves’. I can feel how there can be so much judgment and expectations and pictures of how things should be in a relationship, rather than accepting the other person as they are and allowing ourselves to be true, open and honest in the relationship.
When I started to see the illusion we are living in and not questioning what we call love and if it really is Love things made so much more sense. Thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I got to truly what Love is and that it is in everyone equally so, this is what ignited us and when I look around we are so very far away to where we originate from. Nothing will change until we all start to live with what we know is our truth.
‘ it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are’… beautiful words for me to read today, thankyou!
Reading this makes me consider a conversation I was having with a friend the other day about drama. How much making things dramatic envelops our lives, and sometimes it is subtle and sounds plausible, like when we recall a story of someone being unreasonable, but we lace it, often in subtle ways with drama and emotion. All just to not feel how simple life is and how powerful we can be, because a life free of drama and emotion leaves a lot of space for something much more special and to be honest that can sometimes sound pretty scary.
Universal Medicine is an organisation that is supporting people to deal with their root issues and will continue to do so for hundreds of years to come. I say that from my own personal experience of healing my hurts through the techniques Universal Medicine offers and it also comes from witnessing hundreds and hundreds of other people doing so as well. What has been extraordinary is feeling and know that the hurts that have been long held onto are no longer dominating or even in the picture anymore. We all have issues that we need to heal. Thanks goodness for Universal Medicine is all I can say.
Truly staying yourself in relationships can be challenging – we are used to aligning to please, because of our insecurities…. there are many reasons. In a recent situation, I found myself holding firm in the love that I know I am, and as I looked up into the spaciousness of the sky, I knew that I would never give myself away again. It is building the body of Love that brings Love, and then one simply can’t allow anything else in one’s life.
This blog sounds all so familiar Nicole in particular how we can build walls of protection and doubt to keep out the ones who are truly loving in every way with us. My experience changed only when I was willing to accept the levels of love for myself that I could allow that from another. A work in progress that has been life changing and inspiring to read and confirm from this blog.
Beautiful Nicole, and I deeply appreciate what you have written here.. it is so true and felt what you have written. And so clear that a commitment to your relationship with yourself has to be first made, as otherwise you will walk on empty shells.
Having a relationship with myself, and developing the way I see myself, and all of who I am has been, and continues to be a great path thanks to the Way of the Livingness. This way of living is from the heart, not in a fluffy way, but in a practical, honest and deeply caring way. It is an immense gift.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” Beautifully said Nicole. If we cannot love and accept ourselves for who we are, we end up giving our love away to others, leaving us empty, and always seeking the reassurance from another that if we are loved by them, then thats enough. But when that love is no longer there, we still have the inner void where our own love for ourselves was always lacking.
Reading this again the word regret stood out for me, which is still a part of that protection as it still keeps us away from the love that we are. A perception that we’ve missed a moment that can never be regained. But what I am learning is that we live in cycles, everything repeats so nothing is lost and gone forever, we get I don’t even know how many choices to repeat over and over again to be the love that we are or not.
“Have you ever had the opportunity to experience love, only to run a million miles or go into self-destruct or sabotage mode, often without even realising it until it is too late?” Yes I have. I met the Benhayon and all their love, then ran as far as possible, only to return years later to an even greater love for me. Truly astonishing.
“it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” Yes this is so true, we allow ourselves to just go with the flow, allow old patterns of behaviour to come in, which are so there ready to take over, if we are not consciously choosing to be open, loving and tender.
We often don’t realise just how much our own insecurities colour our perception of relationship and love. We can make up wild stories in our mind that are completely off track . Surrendering to true love and intimacy is the most beautiful journey… vulnerable, tender and powerful. Thanks for sharing your inspirational story Nicole.
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” This is so true Nicole and when we are willing to do this it is quite extraordinary how others will open up in the same way, because they can feel that it is safe to do so without being judged or criticised.
When I was seventeen I met a boy and fell in love. I knew we were going to get married, it was so beautiful – it was April in the UK, the skies were blue, the pink cherry blossom was everywhere, he wrote me a letter or called me every day whenever we were apart, I was so bowled over by his attention, I was completely blind to the truth of what we were each seeking in terms of the relationship. I think the bluebirds flew away 6 months into the marriage as day to day life kicked in. We stayed together a long time, but we were destroying each other mentally with our lack of appreciation and lack of true love. All we need is love, and I know now that it is inside us first, we cannot expect it from another because they cannot provide OUR love. I left the marriage and lived on my own for seven years, developing a way of loving myself that eventually led to me meeting a beautiful new man and together we are exploring the meaning of love, with no agenda, no expectations, no needing approval, but simply appreciating each other for what we bring to the relationship and the world.
This is beautiful and inspirational Carmel. It is never too late to change how we are in our relationships and to experience true love in this way.
Hold another in the Love we are and observe the Alchemy on offer.
Holding back prevents us from first and foremost having a true relationship with ourselves and is a barrier therefore in every way to true relationships with others.
Recently it became much clearer to me how I can contract when another feels uncomfortable in my presence and instead of letting them in I go into reaction to protect myself. It was very clear even at the time how uncomfortable I felt not because of the other’s reaction but the fact that I was choosing to be less instead of evolution.
Nicole you really got me pondering about why we choose low worth and issues over love. It’s a great question, why not just let love in? I also appreciated the power and simplicity of your words about choices, and “If they are a step towards the love I am, or away, do I choose to open up and let others in or am I choosing to hide behind the protection that I create in order to not be seen for, or live, the amazingness I am?” This is really great to reflect on each day, thank you.
Sometimes I think that relationships are too hard. Sometimes I think that people are unfair. Sometimes I think that they are to blame. Then I eventually come to see that these thoughts are not true and not from me. For the truth that I know, and which is written large in the words of this blog, is that life is a continual learning to be consistent and to be Love. It is our responsibility in everything, and if ever you point the finger, it comes back to you and the issues you have to clear. It can be unpleasant to face, but thanks to God we are given every support and with such grace. Thank you Nicole for this beautiful reminder I feel I will always keep coming back to read.
Thanks Joseph, the reality of responsibility – we are the only one we can change. Beautiful words about the grace waiting to support us when we do take responsibility.
This is an amazing sharing about love and relationships with the reality that it all starts with loving ourselves first and our own relationship, developing this allows all other relationships to blossom from this loving connection and openness to be love and not hold back.
Nicole on reading this line ‘Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves’ really got me to see how most of us are holding back most of ourselves and really only offering a very tiny sanitised version of ourselves to others. So basically we are all having teeny tiny relationships with teeny tiny parts of each other. How hideous and how incredibly unnatural considering we are, in truth, one United whole
I have come to know how we can love others as much as we can love ourselves. A while ago I was looking for a man to complete me and make me fee good about myself because I hated my body – and as a result I never had a boyfriend. But now I can see how developing a relationship with myself has a purpose of them allowing love in and loving someone else in full.
It is beautiful how true relationships constantly unfold to become greater and greater forms of themselves. An ever deepening and evolving process bringing us back to more and more of our true selves.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount’. Nicole, this is a key statement for otherwise our self gets in the way and distorts a relationship but with such an ongoing commitment we are less likely to blame another and more likely to take responsibility for our part, dealing with any issues that may present but also deeply appreciating ourselves, which sets a foundation for developing a true relationship with others.
How beautiful it is that you are able to express this with not one milligram of regret.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” How amazing would it be if we all grew up knowing this before we went into any relationship? What a different world we would live in.
As we know, we can stand in our strength or the absence of that which will then be replaced for any emotion or behavior whatsoever.. But the key is to feel if what source we are connecting to – love or evil, as once assessed we can choose to get back on track of choosing truth again, as love always brings us back to truth and exposes the evil, even if you had chosen that to be your source 5 mins ago. The strength of our choice is HUGE and once we start to truly use it in evolution we will truly grow and eventually expand.
Nicole, you have brought attention to a dynamic that often ruins a relationship – this ‘self-defence mechanism’ we create to keep others away so we don’t get hurt. As you say it is ‘absurd’ and ‘crazy’ yet at the time we believe that we need this odd form of ‘protection’. What a poor trade-off for the love we could be acknowledging and expanding.
“Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves. ” this is something that I am working on in my relationship, to allow that vulnerability in full with my partner and myself. The more I allow myself to be at ease with my own vulnerability and the more I then open up to another the more beauty and purpose I feel. It’s quite amazing that to truly commit in full is all about the quality of energy we bring and willingness not to hide but to have evolution as a founding seen in relationship. This is something I’ve seen is possible with all, once we’ve allowed it with a one and then a few.
Never can we be truly disconnected from love as we are constantly surrounded by it. Only in the loveless energy of our minds can we cow tow to the illusion of not being with it and therefore feel we are alone.
We have become very good at trying to manipulate relationships in even the most subtle ways to avoid the truth of what is on offer when we are held in true love.
I so agree, manipulation hides in dark corners and steers us away from honesty way too many times, justifying our own behaviour and blaming another for the pain we then experience in relationships. There is always a choice – even if that choice is to walk away because the relationship is abusive.
Choices: we can like them or not but eventually we need to come to realize that whatever choices we make it is us who have to bear the consequence of making the choice. This is a beautiful thing and a great opportunity to discern what choices support us or not.
My experience in a recent relationship has been to feel just how often I react and it is simply because I set up expectations (needs?) and these can never be fulfilled because life simply isn’t like that. Letting go of pictures has been very important for me, as is recognising my responsibility for my reactions, letting go of any judgment and allowing everyone to be who they are.
I used to be an avid relationship avoider now I deeply appreciate the relationships in my life and through the support, understanding and insight gained from the Universal Medicine courses I am finding I am a lot less guarded and now much more open with others- it has been an amazing unfoldment- something I didn’t feel was possible for me previously.
I remember as a teenager how incredibly uncomfortable I’d feel when I could feel a guy liked me for who I truly was, in truth they saw more in me than I saw in myself – the key to be able to accept so much love is definitely in they way we love ourselves – that definitely needs to come first.
I can relate to not appreciating the love that is offered to me, not just in relationships but through friends and colleagues. Knowing that holding onto my hurts affects everyone and keeps others at bay is something I am learning daily.
There is no true love without true love for myself. If I am loving and valuing myself to the max why would I need to seek out love from someone else? If I am not loving myself then I will be seeking elsewhere for it out of need. But this will not be true love.
There are always those things away from the inner connection to the love between us which will try to get in the way but the more we commit to building a foundation of love and understanding the less chance they have of even getting close.
To love and appreciate yourself and what you bring first is paramount, it’s evertything before anything else. Without this foundational love, it’s impossible to have any true relationships.
It’s a big one, not allowing ourselves to feel love. I think it is bigger than allowing ourselves to love.
It is strange but being more open to love is sometimes the scariest thing to do. I often felt this but I am now noticing it really is a choice. Sometimes just ignoring the panic and just committing to what I know is true (committing to loving my partner and self) is all that is needed.
This is so true, Nicole – “Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves.” This holding pattern of protection has certainly been prevalent for most of my life, as I would only let people in so far. I am pleased to say that this is beginning to change in my relationships.
Relationships are a wonderful way for us to grow and develop and can be a lot of fun in the process. Yes, not all of it is fun but it I am amazed at how good it can be, certainly far better than I thought possible.
It is equally important to let love in as it is to let love out.
What it’s taken me a while to understand is that true love sometimes means being firm enough to speak our truth and stand by it without pandering for fear of reaction. Being liked has nothing to do with true love.
The longer we keep putting up the protection, the longer we have to suffer what is not love which is hurting us more than we can be hurt by allowing that love in. I understand fully the whole holding back thing as I was hurt so deeply when I was young and couldn’t at the time express to anyone how hurt I was, so a few dozen bottles of beer and numerous bottles of Jack Daniels later I emerge as a harder, tougher totally protected man only willing to let people in just a little. Now through Universal Medicine that protection definitely is not what it used to be.
Without feeling the fullness of love within we will be forever looking to fill the void we feel from the outside. Whether that be from a relationship or from any other distraction we may choose.
This is so true, Nicole. For most of my life I have harboured feelings of self-worthlessness, so how could I have ever felt I deserved the love that was on offer. It is only now that I can let love in, simply because I know I am worthy of it, and feel the preciousness within me.
Nicole there are so many different ways or things we are told is and are true love, so many false versions and romantic ideals that are not actually love but touted as love. My experience has been that I and many others are so used to these that we get challenged and often reject true love when it’s there in front of us and part of our healing is claiming back true love that we innately are ourselves.
True Love–I remind myself every day to not fall into the picture of what True Love may look like, and simply just respond as how my body feels. True Love is never a destination, like everything, it is a process of returning and deepening. Ironic though it may seem, stop chasing for what is true Love and accepting and even loving what are all my needs, has brought me closer to love than ever before, how do I know? My body tells me so.
Thanks, Adele. A beautifully simple principle to live and love by.
This is a beautiful blog, exposing the truth about our protections and how deep they go, so much so that we even reject true love. The love that is without need truly honoring the person you are.
Nicole you are spot on when you are sharing that love starts with us and to me I had to be gentle and then moving to self-love. When I first started to connect to gentleness there was no way I could have been self-loving.
In all my early relationships I never had any self worth whatsoever. I would enter a relationship knowing it was going to end, and so when it did it just confirmed my expectations. What I never realised that I was in total protection and holding myself back and so offering very little of the real me to the relationship. It is true when love is staring us in the face with open arms we can still run away even though this is what we want the most. It is only through Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon that I have been able to accept that I am worthy to be loved and be able to be love.
Opening to be in a relationship with another inherently requires that we are open to the love and appreciation of ourselves. Relationships based on this love are not just reserved for our partners, but that openness can be there between any two people, our family, our work colleagues, our postman and our shop keepers. Love is not something reserved just for our intimate relationship.
Yes, love is love and it is not selective. It is beautiful to feel true intimacy when we allow ourselves to be open and loving with ourselves, and this naturally flows out and touches others.
Peeling away the layers of hurt I was harbouring has totally changed my outlook on life. I could begin to see how I imposed pictures on all my relationships through eyes of hurt. Learning how to ‘be love’ has been, and continues to be a beautiful unfolding that brings reflections in my life that amaze me daily.
Absolutely Nicole, your blog could not be more appropriate for me to read now. I can see how my own irresponsibility and lack of self-love fights and keeps other people out. Our misconception as a race of the true meaning of ‘Love’ is not a coincidence or happenstance, but a specifically designed arrangement to keep us playing dumb about the amazing power we can bring. And this is not dependent on others at all, but has a ripple effect on those all around. Watch out world when we all start to wake up to this fact.
It gets to the point where it is too painful to carry on pushing everyone away, subconsciously or not.. At least I know in my body what love feels like through the esoteric healing sessions which powerfully connect me to my connection to the all, in this place of healing I am surrendered.
Yes, we all want love more than anything and yet we push everyone away. Thank heavens for the Universal Medicine modalities and their support to shed the layers of hurt and protection which keep us from what we truly long for.
It is crazy how we hurt ourselves and others out of a false sense of protection. The need for protection comes from unresolved hurts. Heal these and the need for protection no longer exists. A powerful means of achieving this is through the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom as presented by Serge Benhayon.
“…..it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” Abolutely true Nicole. When we are able to understand that everything we do is a choice we can start to see more clearly why certain events in our lives turn out the way that they do and can consequently be more accepting of them.
I’ve pressed the self-destruct button in many relationships and friendships. Without an inner foundation that is deeply self-loving and honouring, it is impossible to be in true relationship with another.
We spend so much time looking outside, I am growing to appreciate that the deeper relationship I have with myself, the deeper relationships are with others… “True relationships develop, as do we,” when I hold back, resist learning, then my relationships show this choice and vice versa.
When you surrender to the boundless love that you naturally are, it’s such an exquisite, all encompassing feeling that is full of joy and life. No-one can give this to you, as it is who we are.
“Not allowing ourselves to be truly loved”
I have found that as I re-learn to love myself, i feel the resistance to love drop away, a drop in my body that feels more accepting and open to what is on offer.
What I have found is that sooner or later what any relationship brings around is the question of how much you are willing to Love yourself, whatever goes down. We can says vows and pretty phrases, but ultimately none of that adds up to much without self-love. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining Nicole why so many relationships falter? Not because there is a lack of Love on offer, but we run from what we are being asked to step up and be.
Well said Joseph, it seems that we hold ourselves in the same place for years within a relationship and then one day, one of the pair will move on just ever so slightly and the gap feels enormous – we are not designed to stay stagnant within a relationship (with self or others), so is it any wonder that people become bored with each other.
This is a great blog Nicole; I particularly love what you have expressed here; a learning for yourself which I really appreciate you sharing with us;
“it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are”.
We can create so many defence mechanisms to keep our distance from those we truly love, avoiding intimacy by judging, distracting, and speaking in a way that does not encourage sharing on either side. We can learn so much from being in relationship with another and a deep, truly loving partnership can help us to evolve.
It’s great when we recognise a regret that we still hold, for these do not sit well in the body and by bringing out the regret and exploring it further we can see, in the full light of day, what is really going on. Coupling that with talking about it with an experienced Esoteric Counsellor we can unravel the complication that has been holding us back. Being clear, moving forward again, we are free of that impediment and can live more of our potential.
For me there is no doubt that it was only after I made my life about my relationship with myself first that I started to understand and more importantly feel in my body what true love was and is. Today I notice that if I let go of my relationship with myself I feel like I am abusing and hurting myself. It is a beautiful thing as it shows my commitment to true love in each moment.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” It’s a bit of a realisation to develop an understanding of – the fact that many of us have to re-connect to loving ourselves fully first. Once we get past the disbelief of the denial about such a possibility; the opening up of ourselves to ourselves and everyone else starts to flow.
The concept of True love has been an interesting one, I remember when younger always wondering what true love was, being told as a child/teenager “you don’t know what love is” when in fact those saying that to me were not living love either. What is quite amazing is when I reconnected to true love, to myself as inspired during a workshop by Serge that i reconnected to the feeling I knew as a child and what that confirmed is that I did know true love as I am from love.
This is so true “To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another. ” I learnt the hard way too, I was also pushing people away and not letting anyone in. Now I have started to build a loving relationship with myself, all my relationships with others have been changing.
Relationships show us so much, and relationships are around us everyday in some form or another. By taking care of the relationship with ourselves it determines how we are going to be able to deal with relationships with others. If we don’t love ourselves how can we possibly truly love someone else?
Absolutely Rebecca, this is the bed rock, the salvation of self responsibility.
Any relationship starts with self first, loving yourself deeply and so having no needs of others, ‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’
What I am learning about relationships is that the other person cannot hurt us, only they reflect what we have chosen or not chosen in regards to the love we allow in and the love we bring out. A commitment to any relationship starts with committing to taking these reflections from others, appreciating them and learning how I can be more loving with myself first and foremost.
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” Beautifully said Nicole.
It’s only been in recent years that I’ve truly understood what a true relationship is. I can look back, very sheepishly, at all the times I’ve blamed others when things haven’t felt right in a relationship, when the real problem has been my relationship with myself. Now when I am feeling any tension within a relationship, I know that the first place for me to look is, with me.
‘because of my own insecurities and lack of self-worth I would go into self-destruct mode’ …. I can totally relate to this Nicole. It feels like the ‘self-destruction’ is our fury at the reflection being offered when another holds us in the love that we are, when we are not choosing that for ourselves.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’ Since attending Universal Medicine and appreciating what this actually means life has started to make more sense. I certainly wasn’t brought up to love myself first and with the understanding the importance of this. That this is our foundation to all relationships.
Gorgeous to re-read this blog – it was only yesterday that I was driving and realising how much I can take my relationship for granted and felt a true appreciation for the amazing woman I am married to, our relationship which we have continually worked on and the opportunities it provides to us.
My mind used to be like a hair trigger and would go of in any direction and keep me in the realm of a fantasyland as long as I allowed. I am now learning to connect to my inner-most and stay clear of any idealistic day dreams that would keep my essence from flowering. As I work on my inner-most essence, which is one and the same I feel it is becoming simpler to catch those idle thoughts that use to derail my true expression.
The relationships I have with others, are a great reflection of my own relationship with myself. If there is someone I am not being truly me with, I can ask myself the question, why are you holding back love from yourself (this person) and how are you doing that?
The tenderness and understanding in which you reflect upon your past is remarkable and deeply felt and a beautiful reflection of how very loving we can be with ourselves.
It is so interesting how self doubt can enter so quickly when we are not solid within ourselves.
True love is never a concept or a thought, but is felt in the moment.
It is true of many relationships that we fail to appreciate what is offered and what we have, become complacent and comfortable and fail to deepen the relationship or develop ourselves and the potential that is ever-present between us.
When I am connected to all that I am, Love is all there is. Others can do whatever they will and the love within me remains unchanged. When I am needing a reciprocal response, when I reach out to give or to receive, when I demand, when I have any pictures and expectations what-so-ever, I may still call it love but deep down I know it is something quite different.
To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another. I can definitely vouch for this truth as my experience of a long term relationship that didn’t have me holding and supporting myself in this way, was exactly like you describe Nicole, feeling insecure and always thinking the worst, which eventually came to pass.
This article is quite telling in how we can choose to avoid evolution, we can be offered something quite beautiful and true yet we muster up all the energy we can to deny and fight this, when in truth deep down it is what we truly want. = crazy!
Absolutely Samantha it is crazy that we actively have to pull in force to counter the love that we so deeply crave.
It is amazing how much we can feel the love that is available to us when we make the choice to let people in
It’s fascinating that we all truly want love above all else; and yet, can run a million miles when it is presented. It goes to show that we are so much more than merely human and there is something else running the show – which we rarely dare admit.
Yes, Richard. The solid foundation of self love holds us steady and enables us to bring all of ourselves to a relationship.
Yes, Nicole. It is such a waste when we live in protection, as there is so much potential in every day to share, learn and grow in relationships of all kinds – a constant opportunity for evolution.
For many years I’ve heard ones most important relationship is with oneself, that unless one loves oneself then one cannot feel the fullness of being held in love by another or letting that love in. It is only seeing people like Serge Benhayon who actually live being love with themselves that I have begun to trust this enough to open myself up to the possibility of being the love that I am. A very beautiful discovery unfolding.
I was listening to an radio interview the other day and someone shared that they are horrible single, and that they needed the other person to keep them sane. They both laughed and I would suspect many listeners would have too.
But in that moment I realised how unfair that actually is. It is like you are not wanting to take responsibility for your own stuff, so you basically package it up and hand it on to someone else and ask them to be the custodians. Now many people are willing recipients of this because there is a pay-off – they are needed, wanted etc.. but none of it is true solid foundation to have a relationship on.
I recall recently having this realisation about how I was relating my expectations of a relationship I was seeking, that the expectations were putting the onus on someone else to deliver to me what I had not taken responsibility of living for myself. When we take responsibility for the love, connection and purpose we live in our own life, then relationship with another can remain a gift of space for the two of you to explore and evolve together.
I never clocked how much the insecurities and doubts are a way of self-defence that I have created to not be open and feel love and loved because of hurts. This is crazy, as I am confident and loving by nature, the total opposite of what I am living sometimes.
I was talking to a friend about the valentines days she has experianced in her life and she told me about one of her first dates that was actualy very very sweet and romantic but at the time she just didnt know how to handle that attention and appreication. Its funny how this can be exactly what we crave but we dont know how to accept it
It is true many of us want intimate relationships and yet often when we get a true opportunity we recoil and resist what is being offered, I know I have done this to some degree, it is taking those steps to be willing to be open to another and I have found that this can only happen when I am willing to be more open to what I have available from within myself first. Connect with myself and know myself well.
Its true Samantha, when we are willing to fully clock and observe our reactions, those protective mechanisms that we we have leant and lived for so long. Beating ourselves up only exacerbates this cycle, stepping off is learning to appreciate that these behaviours are no actually part of our blueprint.
The best feeling in the world is how my body feels when I have taken the time to truly care for it. Without this it is obvious why we would look outside of ourselves for something or someone to make us feel good or better. In the latter case it is purely a case of using someone, and does not involve love at all.
It is a sad reality that the pictures that constantly run through our minds are in fact running our lives – until such time that we are able to call them out with honesty and step by step start to let go of them and no longer give them any power. To learn to deeply honor, appreciate and confirm ourselves is something that can support us to come out of this imprisonment.
Thank you for sharing your awesome blog. By holding onto our hurts, holding ourselves back, going into protection, not letting anyone in, what are we missing out on? We are not only missing out on the love we truly are, but nobody else gets our gorgeous emanation of who we truly are either, which could inspire a life or many lives. We are all a piece of this huge puzzle and we all have our piece to be, it first starts with committing, to having a true relationship with ourselves first, then letting people in. Relationships are huge, if they start with the love we are first without any need ,there can be this domino affect of love of true relationships, that can flow in many different relationships. It’s not just about us as an individual … it is about us all as a whole. Something for us all to ponder on.
How healing it is for another to deal with our hurts and to let go of any threads of insecurity and protection – to open our hearts wide to each other and to accept ourself and all others as
the full grandness of God.
I used to think true love was finding the perfect partner and then having kids etc.. but now know that unless I have a deeply loving relationship with myself I cannot have it with anybody else. I have also come to know that if we try to love someone more than another it does not work because love, true love that is, cannot be directed at any one person rather shared with all. After all if we think about if we go out to work and are not love throughout our day how can we come home and expect to be truly loving?
This is a classic trap James – coming home from work in a miserable state and expecting everything to change the moment we walk through the front door. A wise man has said that Life reflects our energetic state of being. So we need to always look at what energy our movements come from – there is no off time from energy.
It is just a question that pops up in my mind and that question is why are we in fact choosing to not to have that loving relationship with ourselves as a natural choice? Why are we choosing protection and separation instead? because when we are honest, the protection and separation does actually bring the hurt to us as we are naturally love and in constant connection with one another.
True Love or not – the picture chosen for this blog says so much about love, how deep it runs and how simple it is when we choose to hold ourselves in love whilst holding another in Love. Thanks Nicole.
All relationships begin with the relationship we have with ourselves. This article makes so much sense of the patterns that have played out in my relationships. I have definitely spent a lot of time looking for someone to fix my problems when it was really only I that carried the tools. I am finding that it is a very beautiful thing to start to develop responsibility.
Thank you Nicole, perfect timing to read this again today. I can relate to not living me in full, in all my amazingness, because of the risk I feel in letting others see me and love me for who I truly am. Not living the fullness of me is the wall.
“Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves.” This is so true Nicole and something that has made me question how much do I hold back in my own relationships. Pondering on it, its probably more than I had realised…
True love is void of need. The need kills any joy that might otherwise be there.Deal with the need and we are free to truly love.
Relationships are like a fast track to seeing what is unresolved in life. They are a constant reflection and marker of where we are at in a relationship with ourselves and then with another. And this doesn’t have to be a one-on-one intimate relationship either, all relationships have the ability to bring clarity and attention to our unresolved hurts and situations.
Until I came across Universal Medicine I hadn’t clocked that emotional love wasn’t true love. Emotional love is the thing that is portrayed in all books and films and something we all subscribe to. Imagine if books and films presented that love starts with self and that there is a huge amount of need in emotional love (which isn’t love at all) what understanding that would bring…it wouldn’t be the stimulation of high drama and escape we are all seeking, but it would give us an inspiration to live with a greater connection with ourselves and others.
When we question and doubt another it can reflect how we have not dealt with our own insecurities and allows an opening to know what we are reading and aware of in life situations.
A lack of self worth kills a relationship because it seeps into everything and allows doubt, mistrust, misunderstanding and more to come in. A sense of worth and love for ourselves is the foundation for any relationship.
It is interesting why we may choose to run away when we are presented with true love. What comes to mind is, maybe we have a lack of self-worth and perhaps not feeling we are deserving of love, these may be some of the things that leads to driving us further away from love but the truth is we are all love. So, when we choose to run away from someone who is reflecting love back to us, it could simply be us rejecting our own love in the first place.
If we don’t hold regrets but instead allow ourselves to learn from our past experiences then it is a lot more healing for the body. In holding onto regrets we are not allowing ourselves to move on and be all that we truly are.
I agree Vicky – holding onto anything, hurts, regrets, ideals, beliefs or expectations has a more detrimental effect on the body and our lives then some care to realise. We pin illness and disease on genetics and smoking and drinking alcohol – but what is holding onto hurts and protecting ourselves from potential hurts can actually cause illness and disease too?
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’ Beautiful words Nicole that have the power to transform all relationships – what you express here is the missing key in so many relationships.
Deep down everyone wants a true and loving relationship, life is about relationships, and we’re in constant relationship with people, but are we really maximising what is possible in these relationships when everyone is holding back? If there is the possibility of love we should be going for it with everything we have, not dawdling on the doorstep of uncertainty!
It makes sense that we reflect our connection with the love that we know and feel within us. When it is not felt we can demand others to give it to us and that demand can occur in many different ways – spoken and unspoken.
After reading this I wondered, do I create drama in the relationship with myself? To avoid the love within myself. And the answer was yes, such as holding onto beliefs that don’t question or even bring an excuse to why I check out from what I am feeling. I then asked myself how this creation of drama and stories to avoid the love within feels and my whole body became cold! Now I am curious – is it worth living in this cold with these excuses? And I feel for me to love myself, and thus love and accept love from others, is to say no to this cold within my relationship with myself and feel what is underneath all of this. Thank You Nicole.
I have done this in relationships, testing to see how far I can push them, for it was about proving they where going to be there and flake out on me…judgement hey! Obvious feeling of being let down…The only way I have been shifting this behaviour is through making the choice to be more loving with myself, this has enabled me to stop looking outside so much for reassurance. With my husband, when we first meet, I was needy, no doubt but I also used to test him and push him away, a whole mixed bag, he had his stuff also, but there has never been a doubt that he loved me and we are worth giving us a go….stuff gets in the way of our relationships, it is our responsibility let that stuff go and enjoy the potential we have at our fingertips, already there to enjoy.
Any whiff of distrust, lack of self-esteem and insecurity will come to the fore when we are in relationship with another… and so it must for none of these behaviours are true of who we each are, our true expression and the love we know.
Our insecurities and hurts and the fear of being hurt again are what get in the way of letting love in and letting the love out that we naturally are.
“If they are a step towards the love I am, or away, do I choose to open up and let others in or am I choosing to hide behind the protection that I create in order to not be seen for, or live, the amazingness I am”? Great words Nicole for me to ponder on, why would I not want to be seen for the amazingness that I am, I have felt true love expressed to me and have shied away from it not wanting to feel the lack of love within myself.
It struck me when I was reading this that it is not nice to feel when another does not fully accept the love you offer .. but in truth it hurts more to feel when another is not choosing to be themselves. After all when another is not themselves they are expressing anything other than the love they innately are. It shows that in all relationships including with ourselves there must crucially be a level of understanding and holding of another to allow them to come to that love when they are ready to.
True love for me is everything worth living for. Without true love there is no real purpose in life. I am not talking about love with a partner rather love with myself, God and all of humanity equally so. Nothing else in this world, no matter what extremes we can go to will ever compare with the depth of love felt within the inner heart.
It is beautiful to read your blog, and feel that it is all for protection off ourselves that we deny the love that we innately have for ourselves and others. It is our connection that is most important as when that’s there the need from love from outside of ourselves stops and leaves us in love with the all. I know all the ways to deny this and see it as an opportunity to be more honest and reveal the true love that I am.
This is beautiful and such an amazing learning ” it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” Thank you Nicole for sharing of the truth about relationships and how much we can hold back and destroy love by not living it and truly accepting ourselves first.
I find that when I react, even if the reaction is really off, there is usually something important to understand and quite often my reaction was too strong but what I reacted to needed addressing. Sometimes in a relationship a reaction can be an important clue for both partners.
When true love knocks on our door in order to embrace it with open arms and embody it we must let go of that which is not truth which has kept us longing for something that is so innate within us all.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another’. Just love when truth is simply delivered.
‘The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself’. WE humans are great at hurting and abusing ourselves and then like to blame others for hurting us, which is crazy indeed….But when we deal with our own issues and hurts, we begin to see more clearly and as we begin to understand ourselves and our choices, we begin to understand others in their choices and as a result we become less judging firstly of ourselves and then others.
It seems funny now, when I feel into myself and the love that I know I am, and then to reflect back on myself and how empty I was within relationships only 8 or so years ago. They seem like to totally different people, and I can really see how my version of love was quite skewed and needy, because I never felt enough as a woman. Now, how I feel is an absolute turnaround of that and I am now allowing myself to be and live the joy that I feel inside, and not hold it back.
So many of us want love yet how many of us denied it every time it comes knocking.
I say no matter how uncomfortable keep going and continue to deepen.
Whatever we have thought love to be is likely to be untrue, as love is something we feel, not think.
This is a very interesting observation. We know we are searching for true love and we feel the pain of missing that deep connection with ourselves and others, and we tend tp believe that it is a long way away, but what if we actually had that connection all there ready to go, right in front of us. Would we actually be able to accept it and grab it with both hands? Or is there part of us that perhaps prefers to be in the lack of love and remaining in that suffering?
I consider it a blessing to come to the awareness that some aspects of true love have met me and yet I failed to see it, as that only meant the level of love within myself has deepened. When love has deepened within, it can only be reflected equally on the outside. This then would be a letting go of the expectation/picture of how love would look like.
Those head games are amazing aren’t they? But we ultimately know the truth because we know the person and can feel into them. And it doesn’t just have to be close relationships. There is a knowingness I have overridden for years, taking what I feel to my head to dissect and create an outcome. I’m now learning to trust that knowingness deep inside. It makes me feel like I’ve got super hero skills!!
It seems we are very good at putting up walls of protection and only willing to be a certain part of ourselves in relationships, but at the end of the day we only hurt ourselves because we aren’t being all of who we are – and we are the only ones holding us back! Crazy but a cycle I was part of – but this stemmed from the fact that I did not love myself in full. The more I am starting to love and appreciate who I am and what i bring, the more my relationships deepen with everyone around me.
Your words stay with me as all too often we consider that relationships make us whole, whereas to commit to loving yourself first means you bring a whole to the relationship, you don’t need another to fill you or complete you, you are there in full ready to be equal in the relationship. From this place it is possible to grow with another, this applies to relationships with our children, our partners, our friends – everyone. It starts with us.
To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.
When I have not the livingness of what it means to have a connection with myself, I would not recognize this quality in another. I may judge this as difficult behavior. But when I began truly embodying a relationship with myself, I start to deeply appreciate this quality when I meet others who live this too.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount’ I’ve lived most of my life in the belief it was the other way around and it brought me nothing except frustration, exhaustion and resentment. Ignoring and not wanting to feel the consequences of holding back my love. Only recently I’ve discovered how I have chosen not to be aware of what is going on in relationships I am involved in, how I have played safe and to did not let my love out in full. Your blog, Nicole is a powerful reminder to go for nothing less than love and commit in full to the love that I am.
Letting your love out in full and being ready to let love in in full are two of the most beautiful things in life. Well done, Annelies!
I feel the only way that I stop my mind from racing of every which way, is to be obedient to being first with my own breath and then I can feel that the out of control thoughts that need not to be given any attention are easily dropped.
We all say we want true love, but when presented are we able to accept it? We can put so much in the way that stops us – hurts, ideals, beliefs, pictures. How much of a chance does true love really stand? Or does it have to prove itself first and jump a million hurdles just so that you really can see it is true and real and ready to adore you right to the bone and in every particle of your body?
Amazingly relationships deepen when we love and adore ourselves because then it is impossible to not love and adore others. Your heart simply melts with the warmth and joy that comes into the body, so much so another cannot but feel it is there for them too.
That’s a very beautiful and important realisation, that “there was a love there that could have supported it to deepen”. So often we look for the faults in others (not wanting to look inwards) but which blind us of the loving relationship that could easily blossom if we are prepared to look at what it is we are so actively avoiding.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another” Choosing to make a full commitment to ourselves is the absolute key here and is something that personally I have avoided for a long time. But as I make tiny changes to how I do things, even the way I get into my car, or turn on a tap, the more I can feel the appreciation for myself growing in me and in turn my body is responding. And the more I accept and truly love who I am, the more I am able to let other people in. So yes, I can absolutley to relate to this!
I can feel this choice that you speak of in this blog Nicole – to be open and transparent in my relationships or carry on holding on to the protection shielding the hurts. And I can also feel that in order for my relationships to deepen and develop and continue growing I need to choose love rather than protection.
You beautifully explain Nicole that no matter how much we are loved and cared for if we do not let it in and know that we are that love it is not embodied.
“Have you ever had the opportunity to experience love, only to run a million miles or go into self-destruct or sabotage mode, often without even realising it until it is too late?” I can so relate and I am sure many millions can also. We are so focused on the drama and emotional love that often we lose site of the real love that is already there. In every relationship we are given the opportunity to see the universe yet to often we reject this to focus on the mundane.
At the moment I am learning how to fully claim myself within a relationship – something I have never done before. I have always lost myself in relationships and therefore have had to leave in order to get myself back. Somewhere in the middle is the opportunity to love another but also learn to love myself enough to be true to myself.
What we do not hold back in a relationship is our love. When there is any wobble in a relationship, it always goes back to our relationship with ourselves. Then I discover I have said yes in certain situations when I wanted to say no. I have allowed something else to be more important than the relationship with myself. Having a strong relationship with myself, saying yes to only that supports myself, but allowing myself to still remain open is possible.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another” – how true Nicole, and the majority reality is we look for relationship to complete us, make us whole, when in fact we are already complete and whole — if only we took the time and space (however long) to see, feel, know and appreciate this, which, in all my years of being single, has thankfully erased the former anxiousness and insecurity i used to have about ‘not having a boyfriend/being in a relationship’ [by a certain age].
When we stop to look at our psychology from an observational point of view it does seem bizarre what we choose to do in the name of not being hurt. The first one I notice is to self-crtique and self-bash before anyone else can get in, but the problem is that I tint everyone’s response thinking they are criticising when in fact they are not. It’s like I am bracing myself for criticism tirade from the outside world, but it’s coming from inside me first.
‘Have you ever had the opportunity to experience love, only to run a million miles or go into self-destruct or sabotage mode, often without even realising it until it is too late?’. Yes and on reflection expression … or rather lack of, is what sabotaged it. Not feeling I could express everything I wanted and not truly knowing and connecting with me to know what I wanted to express. However, since knowing Universal Medicine this has changed vastly for me ✨ How could it not when one of the teaching is ‘Expression is Everything”, Serge Benhayon.
Nicole, there is such a need to write about what Love truly means. Our humanity has so many different interpretations for this word, it is totally misused and misrepresented. No wonder relationships don’t work so well for so many people; we have completely false pictures – like fairy tales – of what Love should look like. And then we get hurt and run away. Starting to see that love is firstly how I am with myself, how I hold myself, how I care for myself truly, building the knowing of who I am deep within. That’s the foundation for all the love that is then presented to me, reflected back to me.
“The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself, and then to others, as an end result of my own issues I was not choosing to deal with or allowing myself to feel.” – This is such a realisation when we get to this part isn’t it, so helpful then for healing and reflecting…
We are so deeply loved by many people but if we do not let it in we cannot feel it.
Your blog reminded me that we don’t just run a thousand miles from true love, we also run just as far and fast from our power and magnificence; in fact, we run from everything we truly want and deserve, every single one of us. Sometimes we run and other times we negate and sabotage it in whatever way we see fit. But the end result is the same.
It is truly astonishing isn’t it, that this is how we operate. Why on earth would we want to do the exact opposite to all we really want – namely be and express love and being held in the same? Makes no sense at all…
Everytime I read this blog, Nicole, I can see clearer and clearer that it is not enough or really Love to just be ‘open’ or honest, true care comes with tenderness and appreciation that is simply divine. How many conversations I have had where I think I am being transparent with someone else, but as long as we see it as them vs me, then we miss the true beauty of what Love is about. We are all equaly, deeply beautiful Sons of God, and that is the place all our conversations and relationships should start off.
Sabotaging ourselves and shutting down the possibility of true love in our lives seems to be a bit of an epidemic in the world. Why are we so afraid of the thing we want most? If we feel unworthy of it naturally we are not going to accept it or seek it in ourselves let alone with others. This is a great blog for exposing and understanding why this could be.
We argue all the time that the other person ‘isn’t committing in full’ to our relationships, but what if commitment, honesty, love and all the other things we point fingers at our partners, friends or family for ‘not doing’ are something we should be supporting them to have with themselves first and foremost because this allows them to be it with us and everyone else too?
Nicole this is a really big one “It was not until recently that I realised I had held regret for the choices I had made, as well as the hurt I still held in my body for not choosing love over my own insecurities and hurts.” the hurt we hold for not choosing love over our own hurts or insecurities, its massive and for me as I read that I felt how that then limits the love that I am allowing to feel in the present. Something to express and heal.
Something I have learnt is that we can be presented with everything, all the love in the universe and reject it. But why? For me it has been because I have not been giving myself that love and so have felt I am not ready for it or do not deserve which is crazy given that I am, as we all are from love. The other crazy thing is that nothing is ever placed before us that we are not already equipped to deal with and so to say we are not ready, need more time etc.. is merely a mechanism to say I want to stay where I am because I do not want to deal with what is currently going on for me, ie. my hurts because to be and live more of the love that we are means the undealt with hurts and issues have to come up. But they come up in a loving way because after all the more love we are and embody the less space there is for anything that is not love.
My commitment to a relationship with myself and then others is forever expanding in all I do to the best of my ability. When I react or go into any sort of critique I can feel what is happening in my body and it is never expanding but brings about a contraction. I think I have always felt myself either expand or contract but simply shut down to it and never truly wanted to learn from my experiences in this area of my life. These days when I go into contraction I feel the immediate effect it has on my body. As part of this learning curve I am becoming more aware of how these situations arise so I can nip them in the bud before it starts.
We dip in our toes to relationships then turn around and say they are not working and we don’t like them anyway. We drive with the handbrake on, and foot to the floor and say that there is something wrong with the car. We say what we think others want to hear but not the full package of just what we feel. We walk around rushing and absent mindedly bustling but not with full presence and care, then complain that we are out of sorts at the end of the day. With this blog Nicole you beautifully show how it is all just a set up for things to not work, when we hold back from being ‘all in’. There is no ‘maybe, not quite sure’ switch in life, in this way it is quite black and white, just like day and night.
Every relationship, with all others offers us a potential for growth and learning… we may stumble, we may not but at the completion of each day’s cycle we have either evolved with our choices or we have buried ourselves deeper in the fog of our making.
This blogs proposes a truer meaning of what it is to be committed in a relationship, i.e. bringing all of us to the relationship rather than the idea of duty or obligation in relationship where we meet another’s needs.
‘it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.’ This is beautiful as it brings us back to responsibility and our own choices first not deflecting the blame onto others.
Yes so true and blame has never done anything for anyone but brought pain and harm. Transparency in our communications and expressing out of the fullness we are, including like you said our tenderness and fragility, is a great way forward to reflecting a much truer way of living and relating to ourselves as well as to others …
I love this photo that accompanies this blog as is seems to symbolize how we all could feel and be held by the love that we are and that others are if we only surrender and allow this to express forth.
It’s crazy, is it not, how when we get hurt by a situation, an almost default reaction is to push away the love that is there holding us there in the first place?! I have noticed myself how when someone expresses more love to me and I am asked to let it all in, it does bring up old hurts, patterns and issues which can feel very raw and real and in someways take more precedence over the underlying love that is there offering all the support I need in the first place. We have to be always open to going deeper, with ourselves and with others.
Everyone knows true love otherwise, we couldn´t miss, seek or avoid it. It is the ability to live lovingly, to express and let in love, that makes a relationship what it can be in truth – missing, seeking, avoiding only create the issues we then have in relationships.
Hear hear so true, how odd that this is what we do when all we really are all wanting is to connect in love …
An amazing blog Nicole sharing the real importance of loving oneself and building this relationship first forever expanding from there to include another and others everywhere. As you share so clearly due to our own lack of love and self worth for ourselves otherwise we set out to destroy ourselves by our relationships with others anyway. “because of my own insecurities and lack of self-worth I would go into self-destruct mode and on would come the arguments…” this is something very important to see and make changes to allow us the be the love and oneness of our divinity to be open and in appreciation of ourselves and others naturally.
In surrendering to love in a relationship we also must have surrendered to love itself which means our own love also. This can mean allowing ourselves to be open and therefore we can feel vulnerable but it actually in that which lies all of our true strength.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another’. I love when truth is delivered simply and clearly.
‘The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself, and then to others, as an end result of my own issues I was not choosing to deal with or allowing myself to feel’. It is so crazy how we hurt ourselves which can become so ingrained that it becomes normal…and then we need a wake up call which the body delivers in the form of an illness or disease, or a relationship ending, which then brings us to stop giving us time to reassess with the opportunity to choose differently.
“The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself,” I am sure so many of us can relate. Abuse to ourselves comes first before it can come from another.
Nicole, I have spent my whole life running away from true love, only to find it appearing again and again around every corner I would try to hide behind. Love, it seems, never gives up.
Love does not give up seems to be such a true statement; especially with the understanding God is love so why would he give up?
‘ It is this holding back, the constant guard and protection that we hold so dearly, that contrasts with the absolute love that we should be holding dear – the absoluteness that allows us to stop and connect to ourselves and others, to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.’ This is useful advice for anyone entering into a new relationship, to stay open and not hold back. To connect within and be fully aware of everything that is gong on in terms of our own reactions to life events, our hurts, and to open ourselves up to appreciation of all that is before us.
One of the most challenging and exposing issues in any relationship is the question if I allow myself to simply be who I am? Of course, it needs some inquiry of what it means to be oneself in truth, what I am referring to for now is just the difficulty of holding oneself and therefore another by any expectations and pictures. It is the expectations combined with blame, disappointment, guilt etc that hinder love to be the way. No one is free of pictures but how much are we aware of it and willing to let go?
Nicole, this really stands out for me . ‘to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.’ I can feel reading this how I can have expectations of how someone should be or how I would like them to be – less so nowadays but these expectations and pictures can still be there; a picture of how our relationship should be and a lack of acceptance of another as they are, I can feel how I sometimes am wanting another to change and live up to my picture. It is beautiful to read this and feel how it is possible to accept and love another just as they are.
i can very much understand and relate to what you have shared Nicole, it has presented slightly differently in my experience, with me constantly being in reaction to my partner, work relationships, family. It has been my defence mechanism, my protection from not truly wanting to feel what I was feeling. This is shifting and has a lot, but can still present at times, when it does I feel it as a marker for myself be aware that there is something I am not wanting to feel.
When in the presence of true love we are asked to be more of the essence of who we truly are and that can be challenging for some who would prefer to identify with the emotional type of love. It is a choice of meeting life through our bodies and an open heart or our heads with the images and complications of life.
Thank you Nicole for showing us that love is worth living for, or actually in and by. It is the way we live in connection or not that establishes a life of love-fullness or a compartmentalised life where love is missing. This blog shows us the way and honest reflection of where we are at.
“…To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another…” What truth there is in this statement!
Nicole, you make a very valid point when you say that relationships are something most people would say they want yet we seem to think that they are just going to happen magically without us putting the effort into themselves. Relationships expose a lot about ourselves, which means of course that there is a great opportunity to grow and evolve within them if we allow that for ourselves.
We seek love with people from two sources – the eternal knowing of what true love as it is our divine origin and the very hurt being that has developed mechanisms of protection to avoid further pain. The dilemma is that we seek the original true love we come from in the expectation to get hurt once again thus enter relationships with protection, not offering the love we seek. No wonder that most relationships turn out to be a mine field of hurts, strategies, hopes and disappointments. We cannot expect from but need to bring love to the relationship for it to be loving otherwise we just continue to repeat and confirm the hurts of the past.
“there was a love there that could have supported it to deepen and develop into something that was true if the choice had been made.” This is such a good point. Relationships may not be true to begin with, but the potential is there to deepen and develop into something that IS true. It is us who needs to do the work, and if the potential is there it seems crazy to run away.
I know when I felt myself in my full-ness for the first time that I scared myself, maybe it is time for me to get back on that horse and allow myself to be in a true relationship with my-self.
How our unresolved hurts and insecurities can muddy the most crystal of waters…preventing us from seeing the crystal clear reflections on offer, the depth of love on offer and the potential for the greater ocean.
Deepening my relationship with myself and God is the key to the quality of all other relationships; thank you Nicole for the gorgeous timely reminder.
When we push others away could it be that we are first pushing ourselves away and not allowing to just be all the love we are. There is no trying with this it is just a surrendering.
This is a great blog Nicole, exposing how difficult it is to have a truly loving relationship with another, when we have not built up a truly loving relationship with ourselves first, and use the unease we feel within ourselves against another.
While we seek love in relationship often we don´t even know how to be loving and or how to live love. There´s much to learn, heal and develop by choice to make our relationships really loving and not just hoping or wishing for it to bring us the love we miss.
True Alex
…such a relationship begins with ourselves and is a constant development requiring a willingness to heal and let go of all that is not true.
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” It wasn’t until the last few words of this sentence that I was stopped in my tracks. Tenderness and fragility? These are new concepts for me; in this next phase of my life I intend to make them very much a predominant way of being in relationship with myself first and then with others. As I have been ashamed to be fragile, seemingly because so much emphasis is put on toughening up in life. My body is ready for another choice now and it is a joy to feel this new way.
You really know that you’re not with yourself when your head starts telling all sorts of things about yourself or another and you then close down to them and yourself. This is a sure sign that your own love is missing and a great time to call it out and claim the souls love as you, as it’s in absolute sync with you when you say yes to it, and there is no room for anything else.
We can self abuse in many differing ways it can come from drinking, taking drugs, self harm by cutting and also we can abuse ourselves by not letting the love in from another. When we refuse to let the love of another in we are deeply harming ourselves.
‘ the hurt I still held in my body for not choosing love over my own insecurities and hurts.’ I feel this is true with all my relationships to varying degrees. I’m choosing to let love in more and be open to this unfolding despite insecurities – but feeling the hurt in my body for being closed down is such a great antidote for not being open because protection hurts. And it’s not that I would have had great, amazing relationships, it is more that many wouldn’t have happened at all and some would have lasted a shorter while, but I would have been true to love and myself and given the other person a clearer choice to be love, or not.
In relationships the desire to be right, over the desire to be loving is a constant detraction from the love that is on offer.
Committing to let go of past regrets and hurts allows us to be open and transparent in our relationships where we can be ourselves with no need of protection or holding back only the opportunity to create a deeper level of intimacy with all.
Protective behaviours are never worth it – they keep us distant, removed and at odds with the Love we all deeply know and is there to be lived and with the people we otherwise will live in harmony with.
I love it Nicole, your openness and honesty about the choices you made and why you made them l’m sure many can relate to, I certainly can. Understanding that without a foundation of loving ourselves, there is nothing anyone else can do to ‘love us’ that will penetrate our own guards and walls of protection. That is what hurts as you say, and that is where letting love in begins.
Not dealing with one’s issues and not being honest with how one is feeling is a recipe for disaster. Truth and transparency are solid foundations for a life of love.
Accepting our past decisions to be closed off and protected is part of the healing required to live open and willing to be in relationship with self and others.
It is so very true we can put the emphasis of looking after ourselves in the area where we contract and cause more of the same. Protection brings exactly that, the love and our loveliness we can confirm and bestow on our selves brings and reflects that. With true love flowing in and out of us – protection is just a word that at best might apply if we need to put on wet weather gear – even then we might truly be loving and choose not to go out in really bad weather.
I always thought that ‘loving’ in a relationship was about loving outwardly with all that I have, in order for others to feel loved, but now also realise the importance of ‘letting love in’.
Relationships are about getting self out of the way, so that the magic of a relationship can be experienced.
A beautiful sharing “it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are. “This is something we are often not fully aware of and it is very empowering to know and make the loving choice to simply be love with ourselves first and from there with the world.
” it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” When I have opened myself up to love allowed it in and allowed myself to be fragile and vunrable it is the most amazing feeling, we are so ingrained to protect ourselves that allowing love in can actually feel quite strange, but to be open is so totally worth it
Yes I think it is really cool to acknowledge that it can feel strange at first but I know that it is definitely a ‘strange’ that is worth busting through because beyond is the ‘most amazing feeling’.
“It is for me an ongoing commitment, one that I am developing and deepening daily, constantly observing my choices. If they are a step towards the love I am, or away,…” This is the key…to notice if our choices take us away from ourselves or are from true love for ourselves and therefore bring us back. I find this is a battle between love and need.
I realised times in my life where I brushed off gorgeous, tender men who were offering love. As much as I can look back and say that I have always wanted love, I can also look back and say that I have not always been ready to accept it. Why not? Because I did not feel worthy of the love.
Its a hard realization to confront, how we have allowed our hurts and insecurities to interfere with connection and love.
Yes Joe and it takes a lot of honesty to go there, it’s so much easier to blame another person for the way we end up. The pay-off however as Nicole clearly shows is a life full of love, starting with your own.
True Love is an expression that needs nothing for Love is complete and beholding of the all.
This is such an important message about commitment to love with yourself so that you may be love with all others. I find that each day this commitment changes, as it deepens or it struggles, but never is it the same all the time, there is a constant movement that is commitment in response to the changing situations of life.
I got the feeling from reading your blog Nicole that true love is always there and if you are both committed to looking at whatever is not love (usually there is plenty) or what is stopping the love coming through. To get it out in the open, see it, understand it, clear it, and move on is making space for the love that was always there. There is nothing more loving than that and the love that is built is so glorious it is well worth the discomfort of going deeper.
‘I was lucky enough to have such a relationship presented to me at a young age. Sure it was not perfect but there was a love there that could have supported it to deepen and develop into something that was true if the choice had been made.’ – I feel it is truly important what you are highlighting here Nicole, that it is always a choice no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in, we have a choice to how to respond to the situation.
Your words are so inspiring Nicole and expressed with honesty and clarity – it felt really healing to read your words.- and they offer much to reflect on. Self doubt is so insidious and can tie us up in knots once we allow ourselves to jump on the merry go round. I am finding that as I value myself more then I am able to observe the games I play with life and allow more space to expand within which offer moments of reflection – and appreciation.
I can feel the solid foundation of love that you have for yourself and appreciate that you could share where you have come from with us. Many of us live with insecurity that inhibits our opening to love in full. It seems to me that every day we are given opportunities to open more fully and express with more honesty and truth how we are feeling and what is going on for us. Our relationships with ourselves grow and deepen, if we allow them, with a continual letting go of any hindrance to true relationship. Having ongoing sessions with experienced Universal Medicine practitioners has helped me enormously, and still does, to keep on expanding and not get too comfortable with the present status quo.
Thank you Nicole, for your honesty and willingness to show the world how so many of our relationship issues arise not because of how others behave, but because of how much we try to protect our selves from getting hurt, by doing the hurting first. Quite insane really. This simply confirms to me just how deeply important the work of Serge Benhayon is in supporting so many people to start at the beginning again, to build a true relationship with our selves so that we have a solid foundation within from which to enjoy really loving, supportive relationships with others. Pure gold.
True love is expansion leading to expansion, what is not true love is contraction leading to contraction. One frees us, the other incarcerates us. We are choosing one or the other all of the time.
My first commitment is to evolution, this then shows me the quality of relationship I need to have with myself and all others equally.
‘an amazing man who adored me, and most of all could see me for the incredible woman I was’ …. to be seen and met for who we are is the most incredible gift. A gift that I know I am not always offering myself first. I can feel how this then has a knock on effect into all my relationships.
I recently had a few different conversations with people about relationships and it was a great conversation to have – about all the pictures we have been sold by magazines and media, family and friends about what relationships should look like that totally get in the way of having true loving relationships because we just can’t see through all the filters and ideas we have, allowing what we think true love should look like getting in the way of actually having true love.
‘Have you ever had the opportunity to experience love, only to run a million miles or go into self-destruct or sabotage mode, often without even realising it until it is too late?’ – Indeed, for a long period of time that was the story of my life. Though through the profound teachings by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine did I realise that there is no way we can be truly open to love and life unless we learn to love and appreciate ourselves first.
True love can be found in all our relationships when we stop running away from ourselves. Sharing a house with two other women has shown me what is possible when we are open and honest about what is going on and how every conversation can lead to an expansion of that love.
Once again you have produced an amazing blog Nicole, sharing your gorgeous lived experience. Very healing to feel and read about your understanding of and commitment to Love.
‘It is for me an ongoing commitment, one that I am developing and deepening daily, constantly observing my choices.’ And it is just this, isn’t it. Every moment in life is either a choice to confirm our love or deny it and it is a commitment that never ends because we never end. Our commitment to love, to people, to ourselves is always open for expansion and deepening.
We hold ourselves back to ‘fit in’, not stand on others toes and play safe, but is the damage to our body really worth it, especially when letting these restrictions and conditions go can cause total miracles.
It is true that the more I have committed to a relationship with myself, the deeper all of my other relationships have become and particularly with my husband I have become more open and committed to being close and vulnerable. So no need to hold protections a I once did, I now hold myself in more love and this supports everyone.
I have noticed this in life also Samantha. Every aspect or relationship or quality that I deepen with in one area or one person – then there is a pull for that level and depth to occur with all other areas in my life. And this I see as the love of the soul constant calling us to be more of the love we are with all others.
Wow Nicole this is a beautiful insight into relationships and brings a clear understanding to the way we are and how different it can be when we build a loving relationship with ourselves first. “holding myself back, not allowing myself to truly be loved or to live the love and the woman I was, was a self-defence mechanism I had created to keep others away, no matter how much I loved or cared for them” What a difference being able to let love in and the way we live can make.
Nicole what I am feeling from what you share here is also that this applies to all types of relationships, at the moment as I work with a group of people and present love and purpose the fight and the resistance comes back. It’s making me realise that when we run from love we can be doing that standing still simply by the choices and the energy we call in to go against the love that is presented to us.
Love is a quality that wants to be everywhere all at once.
Relationships are based on the quality we choose to align with (quality that impulse our movements and gets embodied thanks to them) and gets played out with another one. The truth is that they get as far as they do based on this choice from both the involved parties.
Spot on Eduardo. Our movements call for a level and depth of love. We must choose this for ourselves as a commitment so our love is fully embodied then it gorgeously filters out to those we connect with. Connections do not always need to be talking but simply walking past someone in your fullness and care is a reflection.
Great and honest sharing Nicole. You say: “Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full” and I agree just like to question if what ‘we want’ is truly a relationship or rather a wish to not be alone and so looking for an arrangement where we can keep each other in the illusion of a relationship… And I see this in my every day living with my partner. How often do I create an issue to give myself the permission to disown from our connection. When I feel hurt I take a step back, harden, feel I can not trust, close myself and so, act against our relationship. I use the hurt to disown, to not deepen our connection and the responsibility it comes with.
Good to realize these tricks and observe what is going on. To become very honest with ourselves is the base of honesty with others and this supports the openness and flow of connection.
Gorgeous awareness and sharing Sandra. I have been nominating, exploring, unpacking and exposing the sneaky tricks I can use when I feel hurt. I have chosen to do this because the tricks just keep me in further separation from my heart and from others – and that’s not love. I want life to be love so staying in connection, being honest, opening up and being vulnerable to talk about these tricks is all part of it. I love that I am with a man where we have chosen to develop this honest communication with each other as a commitment to our love for us and humanity.
When we become more aware of this in ourselves we are then able to see how others use behaviours snd techniques to hold love back or close them self down from it. And with this comes the understanding of why it happens.
There has been a huge hurdle for me to overcome in understanding and valuing the importance of my relationship with myself, since I frame-worked my life on being the carer that put others before me. I feel more and more that the quality of the care I can share with others is founded on the quality of my relationship with me and that this responsibility is one to willingly step up to.
I can so relate to this too Matilda and just this week have had a bit of a break through with this where I can now feel more of me – it simply started with me understanding that my words or thoughts were contrived to make me get somewhere when I am already there. Eg. I am now saying and knowing that I AM DELICATE and from here I treat myself with that quality rather than saying be delicate to make me feel delicate.
When I began a relationship with myself, I began to live an openness with myself. I began to observe and accept who I am—the past choices I have made, the present choices I am making. Every relationship is built on the foundation of openness and understanding. I am never perfect, but I can always give myself understanding and come back to harmony with myself. This then became a foundation and a commitment when I am with other people.
So true and I’d say this goes for the majority of people – looking to the outside to fill the void on the inside. But how can we if we all are in that place, trying to fill another’s void with our own? True connection to our selves first and living this in our daily lives is a way to reconnect with others on a much deeper and meaningful level without the need to look for something in them that we then know we already carry within ourselves.
“… holding myself back, not allowing myself to truly be loved or to live the love and the woman I was, was a self-defence mechanism I had created to keep others away, no matter how much I loved or cared for them. I had so much fear around being hurt I wanted to get in first.” How many of us can relate to this – I certainly can as I used to be like this too. Thanks to all the inner work over the last 2 decades + I have come to truly feel the loveable being that I am and with that knowing and feeling have also been able to let more people in, and the fear of being hurt has diminished tremendously. Hurts will still happen of course, yet it is our choice as to how much we let these hurts affect us and for how long we want to run with it …
True love is what sits constantly under what is not true love and the only thing that will ever change about that is that one day there will be no-thing other than true love.
This has brought up a lot of questions for me. It’s so clear to see how we can avoid intimate relationships, finding all the reasons to not commit.
The answer to the puzzle is in identification, that a person can identify themselves in pain as much as they can in love. Modern pscychology is very good at naming the sabotage patterns we go into, and assisting us to unravel the story as to how we got there, and why we did so – to a point. If you expand your understanding of life, however, to consider what actually drives the human being, then the reading on what is truly going on changes, and that is the revelation that we are not just human, but owe our living essence to the fact that we driven by our reincarnating spirit, a spirit which is a reduced version of our true divine essence, that of our Soul. This is important, for this is what is at the basis of all esoteric teachings. When you understand and ponder on this teaching, many missing parts of why the world is as it is start to fall into place.
After all, why would you sabotage love, even if you had a difficult childhood? Surely if you had a difficult childhood, logic says you would embrace love if you came across it.
Of course, we know this not to be so in all cases. And so it seems to be quite the conundrum on face value of course. Nature versus nurture does not provide the answer on its own, and so whilst humanity might not be quite ready to embrace the philosophy presented by the Ageless Wisdom, given our difficulty in making sense of the world, at least we need to remain open to the possibility that our lifeforce is not the mere product of a lightning strike in a pool of mud, and if it is not so, that there are driving forces dictating our behaviour that go way beyond the pure outplay of physical life.
We can never truly walk away from love… only step away until such time that we choose to step back. We are only ever a step away, even though it may feel like a thousand.
True love is unwavering with nothing to think about or do but to constantly feel the feeling.
Particularly as a woman, something I have learnt is that it is vitally important to look deeply and honestly at our own ‘stuff’ – the hurts we hold that, left undealt with, can so readily lead to behaviours (from us) that set up reaction, conflict and further hurtful situations in our relationships.
If we have not established the relationship of love with ourselves first and foremost, we can be very manipulative – often in subtle ways – at ‘inducing’ reactions and these further situations of conflict and hurt and emotionality, there being a part of us that would prefer, it seems, to confirm what we are holding onto about men, others, humanity and the world… Essentially, we need to get very real about how we resist love in our lives, even though we may state that it’s what we truly are wanting.
Letting others into our lives and being the love we are requires that we will let the walls down, and let the love be a way of life.
How easy it is for us to blame another/others for the state of our relationships, and avoid the deeper exploration of the part we ourselves play in the quality of connection we hold. Very much appreciating the honesty here Nicole, and your willingness to look at what went on, or may indeed go on, for us personally, that can lead to setting up situations of conflict and sabotage with another.
“True relationships develop, as do we” Reading this I can feel that because of this it is important to be patient with ourselves and let ourselves develop into letting more and more love in and out.
The fact that we cannot let in the love of another until we truly love ourselves should be taught from day one, and would save us all oodles of time and wasted opportunities of not having what we all long for, even though it is right there.
In the face of love, we are given a mirror – to embrace or reject our own reflection.
How was your day today? How were the conversations you had? What about the care that was shared between you and others? Did you really feel it? Did you let it in? Or did you skim over the surface, package it up and move on? Your words here Nicole remind me that this is a way of living familiar to me. It left me cold and hard but thinking that I was safe. Yes I was numb you could say to painful things that might happen in my day but equally, I pushed away and said no to the Love that was there. I erected walls and barriers to letting tenderness and intimacy through. Then I wondered why I did not feel great or have connections that were true. Now as I am still taking these walls down brick by brick I would say to us all, walls are not the safety they seem but keep us locked up inside in the most horrible way. Thank God whatever we do Love is still there waiting for you and me.
It is crazy when we stop and really consider what true love is. It is what we all want, but when we are faced with it, and offered it on a plate, the thing we want to do most is run a million miles from it. I have done exactly that in my life, more than once, but know that the more I deepen and experience my relationship with my self, the more open I am to recieving true love from another.
When we do not connect to the love inside of us we have this constant nagging feeling of emptiness, that can make us do things just to not feel it or in the attempt to fill up this void in us. But the only thing that can fill this void is us allowing ourselves to feel our own love, preciousness and godliness – nothing else that is out there, not a man, not a million dollars will ever be able to fulfil us.
‘Yes, I was young, but deep down I knew he was not up to anything, that he was totally trustworthy’ We do know when someone is trustworthy or otherwise, it is our choice as to whether we want to see this or not.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’ Love cannot be known if I do not feel it and live it first within myself. I can then let it out and let it in, knowing that it asks nothing of me but just expands itself. Knowing this truth and learning to ive it is my commitment to myself and all others, without perfection.
‘It was not until recently that I realised I had held regret for the choices I had made, as well as the hurt I still held in my body for not choosing love over my own insecurities and hurts.’
Of much gold in this article it was this line that stopped me this morning; realising how much I have, over the years, kept myself incarcerated in the regret of things past, and that nowadays I have a different relationship with my observations of things I have chosen. There is a point of realisation and then the call of inspiration and learning… something like, ‘Now I know this and am unashamed and honest about it, I am free to choose differently’.
Not holding back and opening up are key ingredients in building relationships as without you factually are only building on an agreement in which you have agreed to only show a limited part of the whole.
Being open and honest about where you are with yourself and how you feel, clearly creates the space to check where your thoughts and actions are. This is self responsibility and supports you to move forward from your true nature, in a way that is respectful and beneficial for all.
A great explanation of the destructive dynamic we can set up in a relationship when we are operating from a need to protect ourselves from being hurt.
We can certainly run away from love, or dig our heels in and feel scared to ‘go there’ – because love asks us to drop all our guards, it asks us to be transparent and show ourselves, to bare ourselves, in effect to stand ‘naked’ and hide nothing.
In a world where we are taught to masquerade things all the time, to hide the truth and to present an image (mostly false), it is a big ask to then drop all this pretence and allow yourself to be who you are.
When we have played this game for a long long time, we forget to value the true preciousness we are and bring, and so when it comes to the moment of baring it all, we can feel inadequate from simply not valuing and loving ourselves, and rather than feel this, we can run a mile.
But what if there is another option? What if we can bring back the self love and self value so that we stand always with transparency? Would that not then gradually, bit by bit bridge us back to opening up to the true love that we all deserve?
In my experience this has been the case – increment by increment building back a relationship with myself that is more and more caring, loving and respectful, and hence allowing me to open up more to the love from another as well as my own. And it is an on-going process…constantly deepening. This is very special!
Not only do we think that there are different forms of love but we think that there are different degrees of love, neither of these things are true. Something is either love or it’s not, that is the only measure.
It takes honesty to confront our hurts Nicole, realising why we set up scenarios to avoid going back to the painful experience, but once we do the pattern can be broken and we are free to deepen in ourselves.
‘I constantly went into self-doubt, always questioning him about where he had been, and my mind would have a field day with me, coming up with all sorts of scenarios while he was out with his friends.’ When we allow images to play with us, we will always be thinking the worst. When we commit to a loving relationship with ourselves first we begin to lessen the images we have, and as we deepen our relationship with ourselves we become more open with our relationships with others.
We are so loved by so many but often we do not feel how loved we are because we have images of what we think love looks like and the love we receive does not fit the pictures, so it goes by unregistered.
Every choice that we make is either a step towards the love that we are, or a step away, and as no-thing is a sideways step then it is up to us to discern which camp every-thing falls into.
Time to change everything that society has made love into and get back to what is real, true and move forward in that way. As it first comes back to us, our love with ourselves, then in simple terms – it’s up to me to start. No matter how hurt something may make me, if I stay with and choose love then not only do I benefit but so does humanity. True love is something that I am learning each day but know innately.
I have been becoming more aware recently of the pictures, conclusions and stories that can jump into my head faster than I can think and which can firmly press the self-destruct button if I am not discerning the quality of these thoughts and whether they might actually be based on truth or not.
One person hurts you, and you forever hold the world to ransom. Whilst this showcases just how sensitive we are, the reverse of this equation is also true that if you let in the love of one person, it can change the world.
I really love your mathematics Adam, as the truth is that living love is equal to multiplying, it will naturally become more.
Relationships begin with ourselves.
If we are True and Loving in our inner relationship and say yes to the connection with God and brotherhood on offer than our lived Love will naturally extend to all whom we meet and relate with and blesses us all.
I have noticed if I am already steady and full of love because that is how I have chosen to relate to myself, be and live life, I can more easily respond to any unloving behaviour around me. It does not knock my ability to lovingly express. Yet whenever I have not been that caring or loving with myself, I react, I blame, I holdback… All sorts of patterns come out to play that spiral the situation further and further away from the love that is always possible. So true “all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another. “
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’ – I so agree with this line. I too experienced what it was like to have someone love me, but I did not hold myself as this, and so I was destructive to both of us. If the relationship I have with myself is strong, then I am able to support others. And in my marriage today, I feel this each moment, and that it is a constant building and developing for me and for us.
Thank you Nicole, love starts with our relationship with self first for, without that, there is not a true foundation to love another.
“It is this holding back, the constant guard and protection that we hold so dearly, that contrasts with the absolute love that we should be holding dear” – i get the image of a like push-me; pull-you effect, Nicole… …and that what we want so dearly is what we need to be ourselves first to create more a pull-me; pull-you (!)
Thank you so much, I feel like I have unfolded another layer of understanding with why we create the complication we do in relationships. It is there all the time, the protection from hurt, the guarding, the complication creation to avoid getting hurt. We are incredibly well practiced.
Through my commitment to self-care and self- love I now have a marker in my body of feeling the flow of love and openness within myself and also what this feels like with another. This has become a benchmark that I use so that when I don’t feel this, I know that I am out or going into protection. These days I recognise this fairly quickly and I then give myself the space to question what has gotten in the way of love.
Any ounce of holding back ourselves in relationship is a holding back of the love that we already are. I have found that transparency is a vital ingrediant in developing true relationships. By allowing another to fully see me warts and all, there is nothing left to try and hide and the walls of protection must come crumbling down.
Yup, I agree. Without the shadows of trying to present ourselves a certain way – ‘operation wart cover up’ – we are free of the shackles of guardedness with each other.
The fear of hurt / rejection is a familiar pattern that I have held, and something that most people do in an instant – we have never learnt to look closely at where the hurts come from, we only react to what we feel in each moment, not knowing or aware that it is an old hurt, a pattern, that has been activated.
It is interesting when we think about these self distrust moments, that our own lack of worth is what gets in the way of us being loved. It is a symptom of how we are raised and how society is around us, that we are not given this intrinsic knowing of our own worth and therefor run a million miles when we come across someone who can, without question, completely adore us.
Very powerful words Nicole – ‘What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are’. These words are not ones we want to hear as they speak honestly of the responsibility we have to honour ourselves and others and to be true in all we are and communicate to the world.
What a gorgeous sharing Nicole, thank you. I love what you have expressed here;
“What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are”.
We can often blame ourselves for relationships breaking up, thinking we have done something wrong, or that we are not good enough, or that something is wrong with us – but if truth be told, it is often nothing to do with us, it is simply the fact, as you have shared Nicole, that a person is rejecting love, they are not ready, or find it hard to accept and allow true love, or ready or willing to go to the level of love you are offering the relationship to go to, so as you say, they will sabotage it in any way, often blaming the other partner, using work, being too busy as an excuse, or we are too different, we don’t have anything in common, or the our personalities are different line. When really all it is is someone rejecting love not you.
Funny how once we get started we lay one hurt on top of another in a little game of self destruct, trying to pull other people into the maelstrom and blame them for it. Put like that no wonder relationships become complicated!
A true relationship? Isn’t this too good to be true? Because if that is possible and someone else can treasure me then surely I will have to see I can be the same way with the world, and myself. We moan and complain about life yet as your beautiful words show Nicole, the possibility to know joy, vitality and Love lives right here in our own hands and the choices that we make.
True relationships are the stock from which we’re made.
When we continually choose to commit to ourselves and deepen in that relationship it is beautiful how our relationships with others can also also deepen and flourish. We can not but help to want to connect with others when the love that we are is appreciated and confirmed.
” …when the love that we are is appreciated and confirmed.” Yes and that start with us first, to appreciate and confirm the love that we are in our daily livingness – that alone will make a huge difference in all aspects of our lives, and bringing this to our relationships with others offers an amazing reflection and connection.
I would say that most people who are in committed, long term relationships are, at the same time, also constantly running in the opposite direction to love.
I did not realise how much I pushed love away until I met Serge Benhayon and his family. They always held steady regardless of what behaviours I showed and this then started to expose how I approach relationships- always from protection and expecting something will go wrong and projecting these insecurities onto others which then just sets this up to happen. I am learning through this and discarding the patterns I had taken on that do not serve and letting out my true qualities which do.
How easily we set ourselves up to be hurt by not letting go of the hurts we already have stored within. We create images and expectations that when not fulfilled we then blame the other person for. There is no evolution in this way of being in any relationship either with someone or with ourselves. “it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” and in this way we remain open to love and our relationships to keep on evolving.
Holding on to our own hurts as Nicole has put it, means holding a barrier between people and means a relationship is really an arrangement saying you don’t trigger my hurts and I won’t trigger yours. But in such a situation, deep down knowing we want a relationship to ongoingly evolve in love, it can’t help occur that we become scared, insecure or resentful of each other. What we know and truly understand about love, means anything less and any thing stuck in comfort cannot offer us a quality of life that is complete.
Spot on Simon, relationships are here to help us grow – when we live with and love another, it shows us (it magnifies for us) the pockets that are not love (our hurts for example). This is not always pleasant to experience, but is a part of the process of learning from life, of learning from another. All relationships have something to teach us, just as every person has something to reflect to us about life and learning. The opportunities abound, it is really just a question of us making the most of each opportunity and giving ourselves permission to learn, to grow and to return back to living the enormity of love that we all come from and are.
Relationships are the ‘nurturance’ of the life we live and if we have an honest, deepening and holding relationship with ourselves then the foundation will be there for every other relationship we experience. When relationships are what life is about why would we avoid, push away or shut out what nurtures us? Your reflection of relationship and hurts is an opportunity to ponder more deeply on the hurts ‘real or imagined’ that we all hold and to question how our relationships are in the life we live. Thanks Nicole.
Honestly and beautifully said Nichole. We can create such a mine field of defence around ourselves that nobody can ever get through , and we then punish them for that.
I can relate to the running away from the love that is presented to me because I do not hold the same love for myself and the destructive notion this brings. Through learning to love myself by consciously caring for and being loving with myself this has changed a lot. This lets me face love with love from ‘my side’ and the need to make myself smaller has become less and less.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’ – Sadly most of us grow up to believe that being in a realtionship means that our partner is the one to deliver love to us and make us happy. How come we do not learn that it is the other way around? – a true relationship means that we treat ourselves with love and true care and when two people connect from that place, there are no needs that need to be fulfilled.
What a phenomenon when someone can see our entire grandness and beauty but we can be in the background questioning our amazingness. It feels like this surface game that we run is what is keeping us from realising the enormous potential in relationships and connecting with all that is on offer.
Love is an exploring, a feeling what is there, not from any expectation but an openness, a willingness to share ourselves openly and with no fear.
We can’t have too many reminders that without true love for ourselves we can not have true love with others.
So true Nicole; ‘Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full’. A massive part of the ‘ideal life’ that so many people want is to be in a relationship, but do we really take into account the commitment and responsibility involved when we dream of having a partner or ‘other half’? And, do we develop a seriously loving relationship with ourselves so that if someone were to come along we’d have a foundation to love them in full?
Great questions, Susie. Ones to attend to now rather than wait until our relationships expose those areas that we dismiss or do not fully love, and value ourselves.
We can sabotage any relationship but the one we sabotage most is the relationship we have with ourselves and that is the relationship that underpins all other relationships so what is the sense in that?
I can very much relate to creating scenarios and dramas in my life to avoid love and whilst the dramas have got less over the years they still arise. It’s interesting because only recently my husband made a comment how I am the one that picks a fight and starts an argument. It is very true and it made me pause to reflect on the truth of what had been said.
Nicole, this is very interesting, ‘Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves. It is this holding back, the constant guard and protection that we hold so dearly, that contrasts with the absolute love that we should be holding dear’ much to ponder on here.
To live appreciating the beauty and purpose of loving ourselves dearly with the utmost honouring and gentleness is truly one of the most delicious ways to be. Then we can recognize and appreciate true love when it arrives.
Every moment is an opportunity for evolution – if we can have the humility and commitment to see our part in it.
“…Relationships are something many of us want….” This is true. However, it is also true that relationships are something that we all have, the whole time, whether we want them or not. For even by choosing not to be in a relationship with someone is in fact a relationship. That is the point – we can’t avoid them; everything is relationship and so whilst we may believe that we are not in a relationship with someone and thus that “non-relationship’ can’t affect us, this is not the case and in fact every non-relationship is just as important as every relationship….this changes the game and I am beginning to realise the level of responsibility and commitment required in every single connection and interaction that I have.
Grumpy can only ever come from me the same as love and as I build more love in my body I have no need to feel grumpy. Thank you Jane, life definitely is all about learning and what better way to live life by learning to be love.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” Beautifully said Nicole and without this love for self we become stuck in old patterns and modes of protection that not only hold our bodies in hard and restrictive ways but deny our natural tenderness and fragility that our bodies relish oh so much.
I’m shaking my head here, so crazy that we (I) will go out of our way to avoid love, manufacture things in our mind to tell us we cant have it and then find ways to justify why we cant. I am observing in myself the not so obvious ways this still might happen and finding that coming back to my connection with me and deepening that without ‘beat up’ or further denigration of myself for doing so is the only way to come out of it. Thank goodness for Universal Medicine and their common sense approach to everyday psychological and philosophical issues. A true reflection for sure.
It takes a lot of honesty to fess up to need and neediness over actual love. I am discerning more where I have done that not only in partner relationships but also friendships, family or even workplace relationships. Every reflection I get shows me where I am at with myself. Recently I have had a huge amount of support from work colleagues at a very busy time. This is a lovely reflection of how I am supporting myself more now and not withholding myself from connecting more deeply with others. It is an ever unfolding. Often times challenging but so, so rewarding.
I really appreciate the confirmation here that all our interactions with everybody in our lives are our relationships, that they, and all the learning and connection on offer, are not confined to a select few people.
To keep on loving, even when you have been hurt is one that I am learning as a parent. To not let the hurts become bigger than the love that is there.
Everything you share here Nicole, I’m sure resonates for many of us! But you have taken it deeper that there is true love showing how our hurts and insecurities can get in the way. Instead of nurturing true love we can end up destroying relationships and even hating each other, where instead we can actually be living in loving relationships as within us all we are innately loving.
As you state Nicole, it starts from here:
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’
On reading your contribution again, your analysis of how we lash out in order to get in there first in the endless game of swapping hurts with each other struck me – we may think that behaviour keeps us safe but the exact opposite is true. And most importantly, we hurt ourselves first before we hurt each other.
It is a curious thing that we human beings crave love more than anything and yet protect ourselves from the possibility of having it in our lives. So many wasted opportunities and yet love continues to present itself every day regardless.
“All relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” It is actually still astonishing to me how true this and how incredible fast and immediate the effect of my relationship with self is, on my relationship with others. A hard-wired, un-breakable, un-changeable, un-dilutable connection between the two.
It is very true that a true relationship with another begins with ourselves.
It is wise therefore to commit in full to ourselves, to our learning, growth and to embrace all of the lessons and
reflections we are blessed with along the way.
“I constantly went into self-doubt, always questioning him about where he had been, and my mind would have a field day with me, coming up with all sorts of scenarios while he was out with his friends” – quite Nicole, i recall being riddled with similar ‘what if’ thoughts/scenarios that the muddle in my head would be extremely tiring and make me fractious. And i wonder today , thanks to the understanding of life being about energy — what exactly those muddling thoughts, second guessing, accusations would all look like if they were visible strands.. and if they were seen, whether we would then take responsibility for how we are and the quality we are emitting. When there is blindness, there is also blind-ignorance too; remove the blindness and we can no longer escape the bright shine of responsibility.
Our relationship with ourselves is key to how much love we allow in and how genuine and pure the love is that we offer to others. When we feel insecure or unworthy, we use emotional love to try to hold onto the relationship we have. This becomes a prison, is hard work to fortify, and leaves you in a constant worry of loss. It also means you completely miss out on any true love that is on offer.
1. “It is this holding back, the constant guard and protection that we hold so dearly.” Sadly this is often the relationship we foster and nurture the most, rather than the love that is available to and within us.
Well said Jane, and so it matters not if we stay in the relationship or not, but it is about the quality that we hold with ourselves, and with the other and others at all times, and the confirmation or the learning that comes from that. Every moment is an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and the love that we are and to develop more and more understanding.
For all of us, when we don’t fully appreciate all that we have, we can end up in the convenience of relationships. In other words, it is ‘easy’ in some regards, to live in a convenient relationship, one that does not ask oneself nor the other to grow and deepen the love that we all are (for deepening our relationship with ourselves and another can be a very scary thing to do). In the convenience there is no growth, in fact there is stagnancy and hence complications and staleness creep in. So relationships are about constant growth, and taking each opportunity as it presents. This is not always easy to do, as we can be scared to take ‘new’ steps, scared to open up and be totally seen by the other, allowing ourselves to be fully vulnerable. But we do have the choice to stay in our insecurities or to give the love that we are, a go. This is something I challenge myself with each day – sometimes I go for it whilst other times I feel myself dig my heels in. It is a process of learning and trusting that cannot be rushed, but can only be allowed.
This should be said in all marriage vows.. a full commitment to each other based on nothing but love that is equally a full and forever deepening commitment to loving and caring for ourselves too.
The choice to be open and to be love is the only true way to be and live and this is something you share here Nicole so simply and it is with the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine the world is being offered the inspiration and true way of being with an honesty and integrity beyond all else on earth.
So many opportunities in a day to be in love, it’s amazing.
I have known this in my head for years, but I am finally learning from experience that there is no way I can love anyone else or commit to anyone else if I am not first loving myself or being committed to myself. For me it has either been either / or, myself or a relationship. I either shut people out or lose myself. Time to develop love and commitment to myself without shutting people out. Time to open to people but remain true to me. Committing to me does not mean that I can’t have someone special in my life, although it has seemed that way. Holding myself in the face of anything and anyone is the most important thing to learn.
Yes, the most difficult and challenging relationship we have is often with ourselves and when we do not recognise this our relationships can become full of emotions and reactions. A very honest sharing, Nicole.
If we were encouraged as children to love ourselves unconditionally, perhaps all of our relationships would be very different. Learning to love ourselves is the first and foremost important thing we have to do before we can truly love another, so surely starting to learn this at a young age would be a very wise thing to do?
We like to blame others for the ‘faults’ in our relationships, but what if we were the ones who were shutting people out and who had a protective wall that stopped us from really connecting with people?
I have come to know that when I am “holding myself back” from others and from life that I am also holding myself back from me. And not only that, holding back actually hurts and exhausts my body which naturally wants to be all that it is meant to be. I am slowly learning what it feels like in my body when I hold back, and once I acknowledge this and allow myself to feel the associated tension and contractedness it doesn’t take me too long to connect to myself once again, and being me feels glorious
Gorgeous Nicole, ‘to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.’ It is really supportive for me to read this as I can feel how judgments and expectations stop the potential of a relationship, it feels as if something is being held against the other person and there is almost an expectation and waiting for them to be a certain way rather than simply accepting and loving them as they are. No one is perfect and we all have much to learn and deepen so it feels really important to be loving and gentle with ourselves and each other.
Relationships with another are such a deep and beautiful reflection of our own personal relationship. When I have issues in my relationships, I know I need to look within and heal my part. When the healing takes place, there is more room to feel love.
Ditto Donna, I also have to work on my relationship with the true love that I am so that all my relationships can expand.
How many of us mistake need for love or have untrue love that is purely of the emotional kind which is noting but toxic. I expect that this has been the experience from a young age, where no true love has been felt but when we stop to make loving choices towards ourselves first and be able to appreciate ourselves for how awesome we all are then the game will change forever.
Nicole, I really admire the openness and fragility with which you write. It takes a lot of strength to stand up and be so vulnerable in public, exposing your hurts and fears, and especially your mistakes. But you have done this so that we may all learn and grow together, which is beautiful and a testament to your true love for people.
I second this appreciation. Expression and honesty like this heals us all.
The pain we inflict on ourselves and each other even though ‘deep down I knew he was not up to anything, that he was totally trustworthy, but because of my own insecurities and lack of self-worth I would go into self-destruct mode’ needs to be acknowledged and felt because only then can we start working on our issues and making different choices. As long as we are putting the blame on the other person there is no way forward just a recipe for misunderstandings and hurt. Building a loving relationship with ourselves supports us to re-imprint the self-destructive behaviours that so many of us have used repeatedly further cementing the belief that other people cannot be trusted when the real trust issue is with ourselves.
“The crazy thing was it was me who was doing all the hurting; firstly, and most of all, to myself, and then to others…” How easy it is for us to want to blame others for making us feel rejected rather than look at what we are choosing first and how this impacts on those we are in relationship with.
Beautifully said Nicole, there are so many expectations and pictures we hold about what a relationship should be, that it should be ‘easy’, that we should be ‘happy’, we are not taught that it is about connection with ourselves first and foremost, because if we don’t have that relationship at least a little sorted, other relationships in our lives will just reflect that.
Wonderful Nicole I agree: “. . . all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” That is really something most of us should be more aware of instead of blaming the others.
It’s great to reflect on the relationships I have and how they have changed over the years. The most drastic changes have occurred when I have made changes in the way I chose to live with myself. The concept of a relationship with myself is very new. I know I have always had one but now that it is part of my conscious awareness I can see and have experienced how nurturing this relationship is the foundation upon which all my other relationships will be based on. I wish we taught this as a core topic in schools.
Isn’t it amazing Nicole just how many excuses we can come up with to avoid, in any which way – TRUE LOVE, when we are not love ourselves. That when we are in embracing receipt of love, feeling its divine quality, there is no longer further excuse, because there is nothing more that we want than to be with and to cherish this love.
It is so interesting that the thing we seek most – love – is also the thing that we seem to go out of our way to avoid, until we make the choice to find it in ourselves first.
True love and what is it… .we have been so mislead with fairy tales of princes and princesses, and the happy ever after ideals and beliefs. It is a shame as that is so far from the truth.
Beautiful Nicole, the punch line to all our relationships- if we do not love ourselves, how are we to truly love another in full. This I’ve discovered is impossible.
When we go into self-destruct I have found it imperative to distinguish between the part that is me being destructive – which is not me but calling something in, though there is a reason why I do that – the part that is because of some past momentum and only patience is needed for it to go away – and the part that is a reaction to something that genuinely needs to be addressed by our partner. Depending on the issue, the contribution each of these parts makes can be quite different.
It’s great to see this written about and to unlock and identify some of the ways we in fact shoot ourselves in the foot. We allow are thoughts to run and hey presto we create the very thing we have feared all along. So is it that we were right and could see into the future where things were going or was it that we created the picture and moved it into the future?We could say a bit of both as neither are true, this is true “To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” So at any point if this isn’t your dedication then you are literally at the mercy of your thoughts. You bring all you are to any relationship and so if you want your relationships to grow then use this as inspiration to grow yourself knowing that whatever you do to one will be there for all others. This doesn’t mean you close yourself off or stay single or anything like that. It just means reflect on how you are in any moment, how you feel and what your thoughts are about. This brings awareness out and through this awareness you are able to see more.
We hold our defenses and guards up for years in the illusion we are protecting ourselves from being hurt but in truth we are stopping ourselves from feeling love – our own and from others… and that hurts so much more than protecting ourselves from hurt because we are missing out on love – our very essence. Love is where we come from and what we innately are.
“Yes, I was young, but deep down I knew he was not up to anything,” This is very recognisable, we know always deep down what is true but not always act to this truth. We can try to blame it on the other person because they acted ‘suspicious’ and can manipulate them into actually showing the behaviour we blame them of. But what is so beautiful in your blog is that it shows it is never about them but about the relationship we have with ourselves and how able we are to let love in.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” A power-full and profound statement Nicole – and so very true. If we don’t know how to be deeply loving with ourselves then how can we offer love to another?
It is possible to completely destroy a relationship with constant judgment and criticism of each other whereas appreciation and celebrating of differences can lead to a more fulfilling communication. When we let go of the pictures and expectations it is easier to see what is truly being presented, and when we feel each other’s essence in absolute equalness, no judgment is possible.
I was on a destructive path of destroying my relationship with myself through judgment and criticism. No love, joy, tenderness and caring in that. It was a life changing moment when I realised I truly had a choice to turn it all around – with the deepest appreciation for presentations by Serge Benhayon.
Human beings are strange sometimes! We long to be loved and then when it is there we behave in all sorts of strange ways. Being loved for who we are is wonderful but if we do not love ourselves first we will react to it. So if we want to be loved we have to start with loving ourselves first and foremost.
I so agree Elizabeth, I also had to find out what true love actually is so that I could be love. In many ways I am still learning how to be deeply loving towards myself so that I do not resist the tension in my body.
Beautiful article Nicole. Self-destruction can be quite sneaky and we can do it in relationships, with work, success, life…the way you have presented it makes it very easy to see and feel. It can be uncomfortable to feel and take responsibility for but that is often the way with true healing.
Your opening question is very apt ¬– ‘Have you ever had the opportunity to experience love, only to run a million miles?’ When I considered this question I can see how this is true for me with certain people in my life but as well it got me thinking about my relationship with God and how he loves us absolutely and is in constant loving communication and for most of the time I am not embracing nor surrendering to the amount of love that is on hand.
I feel this as well Mary-Louise, and also I feel the tension in my own body from resisting my own love. My feeling is that I have to first deeply surrender to the loving tension I feel I am resisting and just accept that I am that love.
Ah yes, the self destruct button – I know it well, not only in relationships where I am presented total love and it makes me freak out and run for the hills, but also when my life is simple amazing, when I am amazing and there are no issues, I slam that button and make up all the issues you can think of to derail the upward trajectory my life is going in. When there are issues to focus on, we don’t have to turn and face the scariest thing of all – that actually when we let go, we don’t have issues and maybe, just maybe we might be whole and complete just as we are.
Fancy that! We can have the very thing we are searching for presented to us right there under our nose yet completely resist or deny it simply because it may not be what we expected it to be, or perhaps it brings to much up and challenges us. Yet we are ready for it as it is not there for any random reason.
Yes indeed, it is important to let go of any pictures that we might have around what love is and how it is going to be presented to us. Love can work in mysterious ways.
It is hard to imagine that you are holding back anything of who you are when you look at that shining face in the photograph. I agree it is a constant choice to remain open and let others in.
Such an open and honest blog Nicole…thank you.
It’s funny how we admire someone who has lived to an old age before they passed over and in the Eulogy we talk about what the person has achieved throughout their lives. Never does anyone talk about the quality of life they lived and how that was reflected to those in their lives.
To truly meet an amazing and deeply felt level of love in equalness, we have to know and live the love we are, no less and always more.
I love the way Nicole talks of the protection we hold. That we create our own protection to hide behind, so that we don’t have to be seen for the amazing being we are, ie so that we don’t have to take responsibility for the love that is inside us.
I have found that when a partner is in contraction, the other partner can then go into excess which can include pretty crazy or destructive behaviour in order to shake the other out of their black hole. The badly behaving one is clearly responsible for their behaviour but the, sometimes very subtle, contraction can at times be even more responsible.
Thanks Nicole – amazing insight and reflection for us all. Relationships have a way of exposing those things we hope we have buried never to re-visit again but of course if we have not claimed a true and loving relationship with ourselves we are going to be trying to fill the gap by being in relationship with another and the old patterns will come up again. I loved your honesty and the openness around the kinds of choices you would make in order to separate and protect yourself. True relationship are truly deepening and holding. Once we commit to bringing all of ourselves to relationships and claim responsibility in all we are feeling, a magical and evolving path then unfolds.
Yes these moments of true connection are priceless and so beautiful. A relationship without true connection feels dead in comparison.
Absolutely Richard, I couldn’t agree more, “a moment of true connection with another person is worth a lifetime lived in separation, protection and hurt.” I have had experience of both, and now have no doubt as to which one I would choose again.
Whenever I open up to having a relationship with a man I tend to get in a mess. It is such a minefield I just tend to lose myself in the process. It reveals to me where I am not faithful to myself and give myself over to what I want or need instead of holding firm in what I know to be true for me.
It is the relationship we have with ourselves that will determine how much love we allow in, and feel worthy of. Great sharing Nicole, thank you.
Over the years I have blocked so many relationships. It was not until I accepted that it was, “because of my own insecurities and lack of self-worth I would go into self-destruct mode” and then took responsibility for this that I have been able to start the process of dismantling my wall of defenses and allow myself to receive and truly give love.
Yes, Nicole, being met with true love can be confronting if we are not willing to accept and love ourselves. Our spirits identify with everything we are not, rather than staying connected to how absolutely lovable we are.
Being open to love, when I look back on my life, whether it is with friends family or a partner is something that I did not do. My version of love came with expectations and a need for people to be a certain way before I would show them love….this was not love but a way of protecting myself, just in case I got hurt. I now know this is a game I play, because I am already hurting myself by not staying open and loving. Knowing that we are love and come from love means that anything less than love is the pain we really feel, long before we feel the hurt from another.
I automatically made this about a person but realised I have this relationship with love itself, God. I play the same game rejecting, complicating etc rather than accepting and allowing the grace of God’s love in and through me.
‘It is for me an ongoing commitment, one that I am developing and deepening daily, constantly observing my choices.’ I too am doing the same Nicol, constantly observing my choices and learning from them.
And confirming and appreciating when we express love, regardless of the result.
Nicole, this is very true, ‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’ When I was younger I did not have a loving or caring relationship with myself, this meant that any relationship I went into was full of doubt and lack of confidence, there was not a true connection with the other person because I did not have the connection with myself first. It feels very different now committing to being in a relationship with someone and at the same time committing to deepening my relationship with myself, it feels much more solid and true.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” This is so simple isn’t it and yet so key to the working of all relationships. Until I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I was not fully aware of this fact and based all on my relationships on need, looking for them to bring me what I was not bringing myself.
Lovely blog by the way as always Nicole.
I have done this too, told myself I’m not ready, run away, shutting budding relationships down before they have an opportunity even, nervous like a skittish deer. Having very little feeling of worth or love for myself and holding onto old hurts were contributing factors. This is changing and in my relationship with myself I can see where I sometimes do those same things to myself. How crazy is that! Fortunately I am on to me now and catch myself out very quickly and I do this from a far more loving place than in the past, so, progress.:-)
This blog wakes me up to the fact of how much time we waste playing silly and down right stupid games, when that same amount of energy could be used to just love.
When my daughter was 2 years old and my husband and I were separating she asked me why and I said to her that I did not love daddy any more. She seemed quite perplexed by my answer and her response was ” How can you love some-one one day and not the next” She knew that true love never ends.
It’s interesting that we all crave love and all want it, yet if we don’t hold ourselves in love, when true love is presented we want to run a mile as we are reflected the ill choices that we have been making.
Love looking at the photo and those hands for what is emanating on the subject of true love – that love is something held without tension, has absolute ease, openness, lightness of touch… and balanced surrender to each other.
I very much appreciate the love you share with us all Nicole. This is the foundation of all relationships how you are with yourself. “Relationships are something many of us want, but not all of us allow ourselves to truly commit in full, without holding back any of ourselves.” It’s true. How can you not have it all, by allowing yourself to truly commit in full without holding back any of yourself? If the above is not lived there is an automatic tension. The tension becomes an issue and a fight within yourself what was once a feeling to feel, uphold, and express, but now something that is not love. In effect, we are letting ourselves down by holding back our love ❤️
How powerful is a consistently loving reflection. It can be quite disarming of all the layers of protection we may carry. When the layers are removed there IS only love ☺
Relationships are a reflection of the relationship we have with our selves first and foremost.
I love your ongoing commitment to you Nicole, for without that, love is lost. I know myself that my greatest sadness is the disconnection from my own true love, to my own inner heart, and it is only through those self-loving choices that will re-unite me with the true me, so let us all, hand in hand, through our commitment, re-unite and bring humanity back to true love.
Beautiful sharing Nicole. Our relationships surely so deepen as we deepen our relationship with us. We see through our own filters, all the ideals, expectation or hurts that we carry. I know there was a time I could not see the love that stood right beside me. Love cannot be contained though it is in us, and all around us…
Life is an ongoing journey, with many lessons and challenges along the way. Opportunities come to us and we may not recognise them at the time, and have regrets later. I had a similar experience to you Nicole, I let my insecurities, reactions, judgements, comparisons, you name it, I did it – I let them all get in the way of what could have been an amazing, loving relationship. But at the time I wasn’t ready, or was that an excuse to avoid true love and not wanting to deal with what came up…? For whatever reason, I realise now that it is the relationship with myself that is the important one, and if I focus on that, then whatever relationship comes my way in the future I will be more aware and therefore more equipped to deal with it.
It’s beautiful to develop an understanding of the behaviours we choose to protect ourselves. I am seeing more and more the ways I behave to make sure that others don’t hurt me, how I will play it safe and not express how I feel for fear of judgement, yet if I give myself a healthy dose of appreciation then I know that over time how others feel about me will not actually matter, and that much deeper more meaningful relationships form from this place.
This is pretty amazing how we play games to push people away – and test out love when at the end of the day that is the one thing we want. But as is shared here – the quality we carry others in is the quality we hold ourselves in and in fact relationships are just reflections back to us of how we are in ourselves.
I too appreciate Serge Benhayon and his famiiy for showing me that to truly love someone we must first truly love ourselves. To be in the livingness of this kind of Love, true Love, is a learning process that is ongoing for me. I have so much more awareness than before I came into connection with Universal Medicine . A lovely sharing Nicole.
‘The absoluteness that allows us to stop and connect to ourselves and others, to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.’ This is key – to have no expectations, as many have said, to carry our hurts from past relationships does not serve, we need to treat each moment as fresh.
Brilliant sharing Nicole. If we are willing to be honest with ourselves, it is so powerful to observe how we are and what we choose when we are met with love. It has been for me a great unfolding journey exploring just this. I have discovered that being met with love it is the quality of our essence that is being met, a quality that we may or may not be living, cherishing or honouring for ourselves. And so it is at this point we have the opportunity to feel the quality of our choices and if they are supporting us to be the love we are or not. As in every given moment we have the chance to make a change, a choice to return to or deepen the love we can live for ourselves, as is our birthright.
Nicole, I relate to what you’ve shared here about how our feelings of insecurity drive our behaviour in relationships. If we do not feel worthy of the love of another, then the relationship will always have some issue or drama because we will create it through mis-trust, neediness or doubt.
Relationships can be so different when given the space to evolve by taking responsibility for ourselves. As I develop a relationship with myself, deepening what I feel and caring for myself, I know I am transforming the relationships around me too.
Trusting my self to open up fully with others and letting them in unfolds as I allow my own inner love to deepen. One doesn’t happen with out the other.
This is such an important thing to talk about- so often we choose to go into our hurts and protection instead of choosing love. I can relate to this in nearly all of my relationships, not choosing to fully open up instead looking for anything that may be worth focusing on to justify being protected.
This is a beautiful sharing Nicole, so great that you can speak about it and learn from it. I know many would be afraid or feel weird bringing it up now that they have a new partner but what I feel is that with your honesty and ability to look at all parts of your life, it will have an effect on your current relationship.
Gorgeous sharing Nicole and very inspiring. The relationship we have with ourselves is what we will see reflected around us – if we are self-loving, love will come back to us; if we are not, then that lovelessness returns to us.
I love how you are pointing out that it is always a CHOICE whether we shut people and love out of our lives, or if we open up and let it in. The gatekeeper is always ourselves, if there is no true appreciation or care for ourselves, no one else can truly get past that gate.
What your experience shows Nicole is that we can feel the truth of evolution, dip our toes in it, like how it feels and even put all hands and feet up to want to embrace it. But when the moment comes to actually jump in and make the leap to do so, are we actually prepared to fully embrace it as our everyday and let its simplicity and glory into our lives in full?
Beautiful Nicole, you are showing us the love and depth of love in the choice when we commit to ourselves. And that only by virtue of choosing to connect to ourselves we can allow the love coming towards us, and accept it for what it truly is.. Without pushing it away! Brilliant and such a deep healing for mankind to read.
“It was not until recently that I realised I had held regret for the choices I had made, as well as the hurt I still held in my body for not choosing love over my own insecurities and hurts.” Reading this line I remembered a past relationship where I didn’t choose love either. It is incredible to feel how I still feel I hold a blame against myself for doing this. It also explains some behaviours I have now of always feeling like the ‘uncommitted’ one in the relationship, even though it doesn’t make sense in this situation. I can now understand though and let it go and move on without that.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.’ – Well said Nicole, true relationship starts with ourselves first and foremost.
I am very familiar with the old self sabotage technique. Even now I still dabble at times in it. Its like I feel the hurt coming towards me like a freight train and I brace myself with my arms up, my guard up, and in all the fear I lash out in a desperate attempt to stop the hurt train hitting me. Then I collapse on the floor, wishing I had not pushed the other person away, wishing I could take back the words I wheedled. Luckily enough I am now with a man that understands that I am not my issues, that even though I may hurt others when I feel hurt this is not who I am. So he picks me up when I am down, he comes back when I push him away and he keeps encouraging my relationship with myself to deepen because as you aptly point out in this article, all relationships begin with us.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another. Absolutely Nicole, if we have built a solid foundation of love with ourselves, then we are much better equipped with our own love to hold another in love, just as equally.
So true Julie – and by committing to love with ourselves first, we then have a marker and a knowing in the body for what love actually is rather than believing a story or fantasy about what it should be or look like. Then, we will not settle for anything less in relationships as we have set the standard for ourselves.
After my last intimate relationship was over nine years ago I went to the place of no-love-no-relationships-I-had-enough.
What I started to understand on a deeper level that it is not possible to live without love and relationships-thanks Serge Benhayon, his family and the students of The Way of the Livingness.
It is the core, it’s everywhere and whether I like it or not I am in relationship with all the people around me and far away.
Thank you,beloved Nicole, for confirming it once again and shining your light to many aspects of what love is.
This is a great point you are making Elena, we cannot avoid relationships as we are in relationship all of the time, be that the postman, the cash out person at the supermarket or a friend. The question is what is the quality we bring to those relationships?
“If they are a step towards the love I am, or away, do I choose to open up and let others in or am I choosing to hide behind the protection that I create in order to not be seen for, or live, the amazingness I am?”
How much does this sentence turn the reasons why we don’t allow another in on their head?
How many of us have made our reasons about another and not letting our love out because of them? I know I held tight to this way of believing life in the past. But when it is brought back to ourselves and the choice we make to not live our love because we don’t want to be seen and felt for our love. This is bringing responsibility out to be explored, lived and shared.
It is quite incredible what lengths we will go to to push away the very thing we want most – love.
Gorgeous Nicole. I was really touched by the way you appreciate your past relationship in this blog. Most people don’t have a lot of lovely things to say about past partners and some even construct reasons to dislike their past partners in order to avoid feeling how much it hurts to walk away from something loving that has true potential.
I really enjoyed reading your blog Nicole and I can relate in many ways. I have certainly experienced a lot of pain not being open to love, loving myself or allowing another to love me, and I can say it is certainly not worth it.
The world and the internet is full of tales about all the issues we have – the terrible problems and things that we do. But in my experience, so much of this comes not because we are treated harshly or unfairly in fact but because actually we run away from Love. I appreciate your honesty on this point Nicole and how you show that we are the responsible ones for cherishing nurturing ourselves and being open to receiving what we all truly deserve.
I have found it immensely valuable to sort out as many misunderstandings with your partner as possible. So often I was convinced of something, only for me to have misunderstood what was happening and in almost all cases the truth was better than what I understood. A great blog and very true.
Christoph is my husband and I love him to whole and the whole of him – super gorgeous man. Wonder why we have the expression love someone to bits because with love we are whole and don’t have holes or bits.
Oh how I can relate! and unfortunately I can still recognize some of these sabotaging behaviors in me today, though I am now more able to clock when I am allowing myself to be fed destructive and negative thoughts much more quicker When this does happens I shift my body take a breath and focus on what I do know to be true
The means by which to be totally open to love, and to love another, is first is to be totally open, honest and truthful with oneself to heal unresolved hurts. The presentations of Serge Benhayon and Sacred Esoteric Healing are the greatest support possible to do this.
Nicole your comment about a deepening relationship with ourselves before we can truly commit to another in relationship says it all. Lovely blog, thank you. This would completely alter the quality of all of our relationships, not just those we choose to have a partnership with.
Reading this felt so spot on relevant to my life right in this moment in terms of holding myself back in fear of rejection. But actually it’s all self-created, It’s like I’ve avoided being me to avoid the reflection of how I have not always chosen to live the love that I am. But the thing is in the last year or so I have been supported to see the actions of others in another way, as a display of behaviours that I can learn from, to either renounce or appreciate that I can live in the same way depending on how my body feels about that behaviour. If I don’t like another’s behaviours it’s because it’s showing me what I am doing to myself, so why hold back I now ask? because wouldn’t that show me how much more of me there is to love and let out? Such perception on relationships I never would of come to had I not had the support of Universal Medicine and brilliant articles like this, Thank you Nicole.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” So true Nicole. We can only really love another to the depth of love we have for ourselves. Is it possible we have misunderstood the true meaning of the word love?
Most of us have this idea that if we walk around totally closed off to people that we will stay safe and never get hurt. Most and more I am coming to see how that is not the case. If I bring all of me to any relationship then no-one can take that away and if the relationships ends I still have all of me.
Being closed off to others in order to protect oneself from hurt is such an illusion.
“I constantly went into self-doubt, always questioning him about where he had been, and my mind would have a field day with me, coming up with all sorts of scenarios while he was out with his friends.” A great point Nicole it is interesting that when we go into self doubt we don’t question ourselves, we put the blame on the other person and question whether they love us or not, and when we do this we can run a thousand different stories in our mind as to why they don’t or shouldn’t. I know in my case in my early relationships self-doubt was very crippling and held me back from being open and loving.
Yes, we really have to watch for ideas of ours that are not accurate and very destructive for our relationship with our partner. In my experience there have been many more such ideas than I thought possible.
I can relate to this, Nicole, and for me it was a fundamental feeling of not deserving to be loved, not being worthy as well as the fear of loosing that love if I allowed myself to be truly open to it. We miss out on so much by keeping the walls of protection well in place, and not addressing the hurts once and for all. The true healing starts, as you say, by accepting and loving ourselves.
I can also relate to what you share here Janet. Funny thing is we put the protection up thinking it will stop us from getting hurt, but it only stops the love from coming in, so what I can feel now is that it is protection that hurts us.
I too can relate Anna and Janet. This goes for all relationships – friends, family, partners, colleagues. It takes so much energy to hold onto hurts, only to miss out on what we truly want, true love.
Yes it is interesting to realise that when we feel a strong connection with someone we immediately feel the pull to go deeper with our awareness of who we are and to be more open and vulnerable. There is a pull to evolve or grow which we possibly resist more than the other person. So it looks like we are saying no to the other person but really we are saying no to taking it further with our relationship to ourselves, with life and with the universe.
Committing to a relationship also means committing to ourselves, and this latter part is often forgotten which is the downfall of many couples. How can you love each other if you’re not loving yourself?
I completely relate to everything you are sharing, Nicole. Lately, I have been very aware of how I have been holding myself back, because I’ve not wanted to address a deep hurt and as a consequence it has been affecting all of my relationships. People haven’t been met by my joyful, loving self because I’ve not wanted to take full responsibility for the relationship I have with myself first. It’s now so beautiful to feel the change in me with me and towards everyone else, now that I have chosen to stop and acknowledge this truth. It wasn’t onerous, or lengthy or even painful, it just took honesty, commitment and love.
Hi Nicole, this has been something I have been reflecting on in the last day or so, how I still hold back (even if it is much less than I used to!) of truly being me and how I can feel I am still holding onto some form of protection in my body so as not to get hurt. The irony is by me holding back and holding onto ‘protection’ this is hurting me as it is not natural or allowing myself to just be.
However with the awareness of this I am not allowing myself to let go of this final bit of protection I have held onto so tightly. I love what you have shared here ‘the absoluteness that allows us to stop and connect to ourselves and others, to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.’With regards to regrets if we hold onto these in our body it is again another thing that is harming us on an energetic level so it is great you have been able to really be honest, still see what is there that you have held onto or ‘regretted’ to finally let this go. Ultimately once we are aware of this it is just something we can learn from so we never do this again.
Unless we are willing to open up to our own loveliness it is impossible to accept Love from anyone else. I too have sabotaged relationships in the past because of not feeling worthy and it is only now that I am working on my relationship with myself that I am gradually lowering my protective guard and allowing others to see the real me. I can still find this scary and retreat but the more I build appreciation of myself the more willing I am to accept expressions of love from others and this is so amazing to experience that it supports me to open up more and more.
I continue to be deeply inspired by Serge Benhayon and the quality of relationship he has with people– Serge is so deeply connected to the Divine Essence within where there is no space for self doubt, self abuse or self disregard, only L O V E in its true, all-encompassing way. This is the primary relationship I now continue to re-kindle and re-awaken within myself, healing the deep hurts of separation that keep us all bound in emotional love with its demanding needs to be constantly filled by others outside of ourselves, rather than the constant fountain of love filling us up from within.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another”.
I can relate so easily to what you have shared here but for me it was a bit different I got hurt deeply with my first love who I trusted completely and was very loving and open with that I couldn’t accept that it had come to an end for him. I have lived very protected from that point which is devastating on the body and overall expression of my being. I am not unique in holding onto hurts and protecting myself, the world is made up of lots of people operating from a similar baseline. Healing this erroneous belief and becoming open to the love I am and others are is a joy to be reconnecting with. There is so much love in me letting it out is all that is required.
‘because of my own insecurities and lack of self-worth I would go into self-destruct mode’ ….. I know this well. It’s very interesting how when we are feeling tension in our bodies, and unrest from knowing things aren’t as they could be. From feeling our relationship could or even should be so much more, we can immediately look at our partner and start our ‘what is wrong with you’ list, rather than first being very honest with ourselves and asking if we are living and offering to our partner the fullness of who we are, the exquisitely loving, caring, nurturing man or woman that we are. And, most importantly, are we sharing that love with ourselves first.
Beautiful Nicole. We cannot truly love another unless we hold ourselves in love. So often people enter relationships to make themselves feel better, to fill a void, to stay feeling comfortable and safe. However true relationship is developed when there is a deep connection with oneself and then taking that commitment and connection to another not holding back, but offering yourself in full to another person/s.
Nicole, it strikes me that if it wasn’t for that relationship you mention, this great blog wouldn’t exist as it does. What a great experience – while it sounds like it was tough going at the time, and even afterwards, the learning you’ve gained from it and the willingness to share that helps us all. Thank you!
‘It is for me an ongoing commitment, one that I am developing and deepening daily, constantly observing my choices. If they are a step towards the love I am, or away, do I choose to open up and let others in or am I choosing to hide behind the protection that I create in order to not be seen for, or live, the amazingness I am?’ A great question to ask oneself at any time : Is this a step toward the love I am, toward true love, or a step away? So am I deepening the relationship with myself and others or opting out of the true responsibility I hold? We are so much more than we think we are.
Committing to loving myself is the first important step. I find that I have an ideal about being in a relationship that I can commit to, and when I’m in a relationship with someone I commit to the relationship but not to myself. I lose the relationship with myself that is so important therefore there is no true foundation in me to bring to the relationship. There can be no true love with another if there is no true love for myself.
It is easy to blame others for our relationship break downs but if we are honest with ourselves our hurts are really ruining the relationship, and from past experience due to low self worth I would reject the guys who would do anything for me as weak, and would freak out when they reflected back to me that I was worth loving.
After all there are no accidents with who we meet and we are reflecting back to each other all of the time, and there is so much to learn about ourselves by another’s reflection – what a gift.
I have never had a relationship that has been truly loving where I have run away from it, the only relationship and love I run away from deepening daily is the one with myself and God.
This I would say Gyl is the root of all relationship issues as it then reflects what we bring to all relationships.
Nicole, this is beautiful, ‘to have deep connections with no expectations, ideals, images or wanting of another to be anything but themselves.’ Reading this makes me realise that I have held images of how I think another should, what they should do etc.. and that this has caused much conflict in my relationships, rather than simply allowing another to be and accepting them as they are not trying to change them and make them into something or someone they are not.
How wonderful that you felt to share this…it is deeply honest. It’s bizarre what we do in terms of behaviour that we instigate through our own reserve, needs, hurts, guard and protection. The very thing we all crave is to be met and loved and yet we put up all kind of barriers to stop that taking place.
Nicole I can really relate to this and also how I can subtly hold onto different regrets in the past and not fully clear them and move on, so physically I’ve moved on but in the body they hold back different parts of my life and my expression. Do we run from love or embrace it in full, a moment by moment choice.
I know exactly what you mean Nicole – we can have love presented in full to us but then reject it thinking we cannot handle it. Yet we are never presented with anything we cannot handle – this is the key for me. The more I see each moment as an opportunity to learn the more life makes sense and the more love I let in.
Very touching Nicole – truly reflective.
“To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount: that all relationships begin with you and without that, you cannot truly commit to or love another.” This is the simple and profound truth that I have come to understand and appreciate through the teachings and living example of Serge Benhayon.
While reading this I saw such parallels in the relationships I have had, especially the one with myself. I still struggle with obtaining that deep love for myself which I know is not totally out of reach and that it is my responsibility to get there in order to have true relationships right across the board.
By holding back, all of our relationships are an old vinyl record that plays the same song over and over. We are still stuck in a groove, even when the song is changed. The end is already there only the speed that it plays out, changes. We have the LP that is our long relationships, the 45 was somewhere in the middle, and the short 33 1/3 was a bit of a fling… but all had a start and finish determined before it is even played!
“it is a choice to allow yourself to be open, to commit in full and not hold back, to honour yourself and another in the gentleness, tenderness and fragility we are.” This brings something very simple to life and being with ourself, it takes the push out, the must, the need to having to change, and allows space to be simple again and again choose that what we innately know and yearn for.
I could very much relate to pushing others away because of the loving relationship they offered. Most say how much they would love loving, honest and evolving relationships but we act and behave in ways that do not match. The quality of how we live, how much we adore and care for ourselves, how much we love ourselves is actually reflected by what plays out in our relationships. I find if I am disconnected from my body and very much in my head I feel needy and looking for my partner or family to fulfil me.
My younger self aged nineteen behaved in a very similar way. When I met and adored by a truly loving and gentle man, I rejected his love, because I had already rejected myself. The other aspect is when we don’t love for ourselves we are more likely to choose men who treat us with dis-regard. The foundation is always to love ourselves absolutely and with this we openly receive love from others. And when we are this way, the behaviour we are less likely to meet from others is dis-regard, and even if we meet it we do not accept it.
Many complain about being in abusive relationships but how many of us would be willing to put up with loving one.
The reason why I say ‘put up’ is because loving relationships are deeply challenging. Everyday we are asked to be more, love more and open ourselves up more. How many of us are willing to ‘put up’ with that?
How many of us were raised to know what a true relationship was? I certainly wasn’t, in fact the biggest message for me from the relationships in my proximity as I was growing up was that you compromised to keep them going; but compromise comes with many included emotions that will eventually impact on the relationship. To be raised to know that the greatest relationship of all is the one we have with ourselves is the golden foundation that all other relationships are based on.
Sure it is a choice to open up, to not hold back and to let others in. To truly understand the importance of this we have to look at energetic responsibility, as this is key in all of life. ‘Everything is energy and therefore everything is because of energy’. Realising the depth of this statement by Serge Benhayon, makes me ponder on how this does relate to holding back and opening up? What I understand of it is that In holding back I reject the flow of energy that is presented to me and with the holding back I put a stop on the further unfolding of the love that surrounds me, while when I open up, I let it in and work through me with which the amount of love is multiplied that is here on earth for all to be shared with. In a way it is not a difficult choice at all when I consider how easy it actually is to live that what I have walked away fromm but is my natural habitat whatever way of life or habitat I may have chosen in the past.
What I am feeling more and more lately is that it is not possible to be truly loving with another when that is not already happening with myself, and ‘love’ is not an ideal.
Yes I agree Nicole, coming from a place of deep hurt it is not a very harmonious way to have any relationship as everything is tainted by that hurt and so we miss out on what is truly there for us whilst we think that we are protecting our self and hurt loved ones in the bargain. Loving our self deeply takes away the need we impose on another and the protection that inevitably rejects our acceptance of love
Kathleen wise words, it starts with us and it ends with us, but if we do take that deep love and care it inspires and supports all others in the process.
It is interesting when we are not accepting that we are love, we tend to push love away and behave in a way that blocks people out, like making things complicated and create issues when there are none. When we accept who we are, accept love fully, life is joyful and our relationships flourish because true love is present.
When we are not accepting of love we can also reach for people out of need as a way of looking for the love that we don’t give ourselves. This is not love.
If we do not deal with our hurts from previous relationships we bring them into our current relationship and even though the same scenarios are not happening we project the past onto the present and this can cause unnecessary friction in our new relationship. It is our responsibility to heal our hurts and be able to enter into our new relationship without carried over issues .
A great article exposing how we can deny ourselves true love with another by denying it with ourselves first… sabotaging relationships that in truth are asking us to step up and into the light we are and can be if we were only willing to choose to stop hiding from living all that we are.
I agree Samantha – we cannot run a million miles from another peoples’ love if we haven’t already rejected loving ourselves.
All we really want is love, but we run a million miles when it is presented without us asking! I know the feeling of holding a guard against someone loving me, and the reason is “but what if it doesn’t last, what if the person changes?” Well even when such love is experienced it has a chance to go deeper and expand, it doesn’t stay static.
So true Harrison- everyone wants to feel loved, and met, but the funny thing is even when it is there infront of you to openly receive from others we can come up with games we play to sabotage it, due to our own issues/ hurts of lack of self worth or lack of self acceptance, which we haven’t dealt with.
I have not observed the rejection of love in the way to describe with this man, but I have observed the many and multiple ways that I constantly choose something other than love. In this case I use to word “love” in the true energetic meaning of the word as described in Unimedpedia Love: http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-love.html which is a quality of the Soul that does not contain one ounce of emotion.
A true source of reference for words otherwise twisted into a misleading representation. Reading from the unimedpedia allows the body to feel for itself the true meaning of words.
I recognise this, this mechanism of not letting love in or out. Keeping hurts away or so it seems. But in truth we hurt ourselves the most, by holding back the amazingness we are. And with this protection I never truly see the potential of the relationships I find myself in, in search for seeming ‘safety’.
A truly beautiful invitation Nicole for every relationship. To learn to be truly ourselves in each moment; allow ourselves to be seen for who we are. This level of honesty can only herald true relationships. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for sharing Bernadette, if Relationships are all about learning to be ourselves truly in each moment and be seen for all we are then naturally we all must love people and love relationships even if we may say otherwise!
Your words Nicole: “What I am learning is just that – it is a choice to allow yourself to be open…” – i think this openness has to be the most vital doesn’t it, as if we’re not open, trust becomes difficult, and when there’s no trust there is protection. “Being open” – something great to be asking ourselves in each moment – ‘am i being open right now’ – from reading this post, to a date, project, job opportunity, or work relationship.
Yes and to be truly open we have to be in love , that is loving ourselves first and foremost and then embodying love so that we are aware that we are Love and can live that all the time.
Relationships is a commitment to mutually living the love that we are in full with another person, for this commitment is a reflection and a livingness of love for all.
I love this, Adele. And of course that commitment is a choice first and foremost. Choose love and the possibilities are endless.
Beautifully expressed Adele, the humbleness, absolute equality and strength in this is what true relationships are all about.
Yes so true and not only for our intimate relationships but all relationships. When we can bring this commitment to love to all we meet – boy what a difference this would make in the world.
When I feel deeply into the relationship built with myself, all I can feel is love. The superficial layers of doubt, critique, regret etc. have no space in love, when I choose love, they simply dissolve. This is the power of self-love, it is an every day commitment, an observation of how the resistance to being love is so ingrained within the body, but to keep the commitment to return to unwaveringly live what is truth.
Beautiful Adele. It can be a great marker as to where I am at when I allow doubt or other negative emotions in but I know the antidote is self love and it is never too late to begin self loving movements that will support me to be the true love that I know I am.
So true Vicky, we make life more complicated than it is, or use excuses to not re-connect to that love that we are
I love your expression Adele – “…the power of self-love, it is an every day commitment, an observation of how the resistance to being love is so ingrained within the body, but to keep the commitment to return to unwaveringly live what is truth.” It is the everyday commitment that is keyword for me here – every and each day without missing a beat connecting to the love that we are within.
“An observation of how the resistance to being love is so ingrained within the body”
Observation is so key, the understanding & appreciation encompassed within this choice is to feel truly honoured.
Very true Bryony. Those thoughts are only ever possible when we aren’t being loving with ourselves. When we observe this it is a sure sign to re-connect. Even the thought that it can take a while to be loving again is fed to us, as in an instant we can choose to re-connect.
I recognise some of these behaviours in my younger self too Nicole. It’s interesting, beyond our own insecurities coming into play, I can also feel how there are consciousnesss out there that we, in our insecurity and lack of true self, are vulnerable to and which can then feed us such thoughts. The answer lies in becoming whole again, leaving no openings through which doubt and self-sabotaging thoughts can enter.
When I was 21 I fell in love and then ran to the other side of the world because I couldn’t bare the pain of him not loving me anymore. It took me years to get over the fact I’d run from love but reading this I ask myself am I still running? The answer is yes which is great to admit because I can change this by saying yes to love in all my life now. I don’t have to live in regrets and what ifs. I can say yes to love and live with love in all I am and do. Beautiful to be reminded of the fact that love never goes away. I have not missed out if I choose it in my life now.
These are great realisations to be sharing Nicole, thankyou. Our commitment needs to be first to the love that we are and our expression of this before it can be a commitment to others and thus a sharing of this love.
Hear hear exactly so Liane, first to ourselves and then in expression to others.
One of the most valuable lessons I have learned recently is that if I do make a choice that is unloving, it is to be observed but not dramatised. If I am open and willing to take every ounce of learning from that choice then it will offer me, with and from all the love that there is, all the support I need to evolve. It’s only when I attack myself for making an ill-choice that it gets a grip on me and is able to magnify and in many cases become a deeply entrenched hurt.
This is beautiful to read Lucy. I can feel your lack of judgement on yourself and I can feel how harsh I can be on myself at times. However, I can feel that with what you are saying it would be very easy for me to then give myself permission to make more ill unloving choices purely because I can choose not to give myself a hard time! This exposes the fact that the only way I have kept myself from making unloving choices in the past is by judging myself for them rather than simply choosing to make loving choices out of love for myself.
Nicole, your blog is beautiful and so timely for me. As I read this ‘True relationships develop, as do we,’ I realise how all my relationships are reflecting back to me how my relationship with myself is and within that all my choices whether they are loving or not.
Great point Jane. Every relationship offers us a different reflection, a different angle in which we can see what needs to be looked at to be healed.
That’s so very true Jane. Each and every relationship offers us a gift and they come in all sorts of packaging.
Love this point Jane, others reflecting back to us our unloving choices does seem to be more prominent than usual these days.
This is a great point Jane – “…my relationships are reflecting back to me how my relationship with myself is …” – something to really ponder upon and observe as much can be learnt from these observations.
I am also finding that my relationships are reflecting the relationship I have with myself more. Could avoiding these enhanced mirrors be one of the reasons screens, internet, soical media and VR (virtual reality) is taking off more and more these days?
And what an awesome reflection that can be Jane, we can then take responsibility for what our relationships reflect to us and stop blaming others for their behaviour towards us. What a great healing this can offer if we choose to go there.
Thank you Nicole, it’s absolutely true that it’s we ourselves that choose hurt by separating from our essence, but for years we can feel it’s to do with another’s behaviour. It’s really immense what the work of Serge Benhayon holds for us all – to know ourselves in essence as love and live that. It changes everything from how we relate to ourselves, to how we relate to others, work, parenting, etc, every facet of life. In living this love we find a true responsibility for self that delivers all we truly yearn for, and it exposes the illusion that life or another can deliver what we need, or are responsible for our hurts.
‘To love and commit to a relationship with yourself first is paramount’ – the more I commit to a relationship with myself the more all of my relationships blossom.
And what a lovely garden it becomes for all to in-joy!
And with that blossoming relationship with yourself there is no neediness or expectations towards others because you are enough just as you are, and that takes the trying out of building or deepening relationships because your reflection is enough for them to feel without the doing or the trying. Hope that makes sense!
Exactly Sandra. Relationships deepen naturally. Trying is then a warning that our relationship with ourselves is where the focus is to be.
The more we deepen our love then the more of our love we share with and are with others.
And isn’t that the opposite of what most of the world is doing, looking for love first on the outside rather than focussing on what we hold on the inside. I would have thought that this sounded like a fairy tale had I not experienced it myself, but until our own love is truly felt from the inside out, then there will always be a yearning for love from someone outside of ourselves.
Fiona I also loved this line as today I know this as a truth, as something that is a “basic” and absolute fact, yet previously I would have said someone is crazy to say this. To me this shows both how much I was caught in a picture of love that was all about filling my need and at the same time how much my life has changed since letting go of that picture.
Awesome blog Nicole… I’m only just starting to understand that what I’ve thought was love all my life is actually just need. Whilst in some ways, I’m super open, honest and do not hold back, something I’m realising since I’ve been single is that whenever I connect with a single man, and by connect I mean we have a moment where there are no words and my heart expands, I absolutely freak out and snap shut instantly by either saying something stupid or funny or quite literally by running away! I do this because every single man is now a potential boyfriend so I’m always assessing for suitability and therefore assume they are also doing the same to me; and either I want to be with them romantically so instantly shut down as I assume they would never reciprocate or I don’t want them in that way and so I shut down before they get the wrong idea. So I’m literally shutting everyone out, so like you say I will never get the love I want or deserve. I am beginning to accept that it’s ok to have this connection with anyone and everyone and that it doesn’t mean I have to have a physical relationship with them just because my heart opened…. But I am still baffled as to what it feels like over and above the connection, when the person comes along who I do want a relationship with. I’m finding it fascinating and can’t wait to find out! I do know it all starts with loving myself though as once I’m in love with myself, I will realise I don’t need anyone to give me anything I dont have already, and that will create the space to feel love without need❤️❤️❤️
It is true Rachaek, when you are in love with yourself you really don’t need anyone. I had this feeling once…. yes once, many years ago, I wasn’t quite sure what happened to me but for a few weeks I remember being in love with EVERYTHING and it was during this time that I realised that I really didn’t need anyone or anything at all. I couldn’t hold onto this feeling for long, yet it wasn’t really a feeling, I guess my heart opened and what I was experiencing was a connection to my true self. Imagine then, if we felt like this all of the time and THEN met someone, what an amazing experience that would be, true love without neediness, how awesome. I guess it would be quite heavenly 😉
Awesome to share your experience – what your describing, about shutting men out so they don’t get the wrong idea, or even because you believe they wouldn’t reciprocate your feelings is really interesting – I can very much relate to total backing off and cutting off all ties the minute I feel a guy is becoming interested and I don’t want him to be. Its amazing how many games and behaviours we bring to the seemingly simple act of friendship, connection etc, even before relationships.
It is great what you expose here, we are killing of every connection before we even appreciate how beautiful it is to have this with another person. I feel it is our own reflection of true love that we fear the most, coming to terms with feeling love for ourselves brings the ease in relationships with others.
And to be able to Love that last ounce of need we all have…deeply Loving, isn’t it?