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As a culture and as human beings, we spend just about as much time talking about and thinking about our relationships, and our relationship status as we do about how we are going to pay our bills and lose 5 lbs. Millions of dollars, maybe even trillions of dollars, are spent trying to find the one, make the one we have better, and decide if the one we have is really the one we want! 

In all of these questions about our 'relationships' we often get mixed up and lose sight of what we are really after - LOVE. So we continue to live with a craving that never gets satisfied - we are hungry for love, but we are feeding ourselves the wrong food. It's not your fault, your mind has gotten all confused because of the misunderstandings about love that run rampant in our society. Today we take a step towards getting your mind and your life in alignment with the truth about love by empowering you with three of the most powerful rules of love and daring acts that will help you employ them - which when applied will not only give you the relationships you want, but more importantly the love that you need.

Love Rule #1: Focus on Love not Relationships.

There is a big misunderstanding that love and relationships are the same thing - while they are related, they are not the same. Most of us walk around saying or thinking we want a 'relationship' when in reality what we really need and desire is more love, in one of its many forms - connection, friendship, intimacy, compassion, companionship, affection, acknowledgement, and the list goes on. Change your focus to cultivating love and to generating the energy of that love you desire in your life instead of on finding or fixing a relationship and you'll find that you have more love and better relationships as a result.

 

Daring Act of Love: Ask for what you really want - LOVE. If you are single, stop saying "I want a relationship." Start being specific about the love energy you want to pull in, "I am so ready to receive love from an awesome, compassionate, loving life partner" or "I am so ready to receive love from a sexy, sweet lover and companion." If you are in relationship and desire more, be specific about what you desire to receive from this person, and be willing to give it too, "I'd love to receive more affection and intimacy" or "I'd love to receive more companionship and closeness." Notice how saying these words invokes the energy of the L-O-V-E right away! Which leads to #2.

 

Love Rule #2: Every relationship starts with the relationship you have with yourself.

Okay, so you've probably heard this one but are you really living it? I haven't met a person yet who couldn't stand to improve the relationship that they have with themselves. And if something isn't working for you in getting the love you desire from out there, then you need to find what's first not working with the love and relationship you have with yourself.

Daring Act of Love:  Take Yourself Out On A Romantic Date, Ask Yourself What You Really Need, And Listen. When's the last time you had a heart to heart with yourself. How long would you put up with a person you were dating or married to if they weren't having deep and personal conversations with you - hopefully not very long! Create intimacy with yourself by spending the evening journaling on the question "What do I really need right now? To feel loved? To be happy? To be healthy? To feel safe and secure? To feel seen?" Then after you get all that information from yourself, make a promise to yourself to make sure you receive the love you need. 

 

Love Rule #3:  Love Always Creates More Love.

Not getting the love you need? Then BE LOVE. The energy you feel inside and that you put out there into the world comes back to you - simple Law of Attraction. 

Daring Act of Love:  Be a Love Generator and make love for yourself. Don't wait to receive love from someone else - you have the power to create it right now for yourself. Here's how - do a Self Love Soak every morning! Before you get out of bed, close your eyes, curl up in a loving ball, hug yourself, and tell yourself, "Your Name, I love you." Keep saying these love words until you generate love, until you feel that warm tingly feeling of love in your body. Even if it's just a little bit at first, keep generating love this way until it comes naturally and in big waves. Fake it til you make it - make love that is!

 

And here's a bonus rule - Be unafraid to admit you need love - we all do. If you fear people thinking you are weak for needing love, then you weaken your ability to receive it. Be daring - desire love, need

And if you're ready to take action to create SUPER LOVING relationships now -- consider yourself invited to join me for this 40-day self love practice ... go here to check it out.

"I can fix him."
"He will change for me."
"Just give him some time, he'll come around."
"When we get married, move in together, have kids he will change."

If these statements, or words like them, have ever traveled across your lips, welcome to the "Queen of Illusion" Club. This club is reserved for women who have ever tried to change their mate, which essentially means all women. Because somewhere between bassinette and cap and gown, we've all gotten the message: "If I just love him more, employ the right dating/relationship rule or sacrifice myself more, he will be different, and we will be happy."

Think about all the times and ways in which you have dated or married a man's potential, instead of seeing him for the truth of who he chooses to be. Remember the energy, time and emotion you spent on trying to get this man to morph into your picture of who he could be. How well did that/is that working for you?

Probably not too well, and here is why. Trying to fix your man requires you to lie to the most important person in your life, yourself. This lack of self-honesty, not your lack of effort, is what stops you from having the partner you truly want. Want to fix your man? Get that partner that your heart's been craving? Then turn your focus from HE to ME, splash some cold water on your face, and swallow these love truths:

1. Get over yourself.  Appointing yourself as a fixer is arrogant. No matter how special you are, you have no more power than any other woman to change this man. No matter how much love, effort, sex or money you throw at this guy, there is only one person he will truly ever change for and that is himself. Not even your love is powerful enough to change a man who doesn't want to do the hard work, and make no mistake, becoming a better person is hard work. Give up the idea that you have super powers to help your guy, and realize that only he has the power to empower himself.
 
2.  Look in the mirror. Focusing on fixing someone else is a sure sign that you are avoiding something in your own life. Fixers love to focus on other people because it keeps the attention off their own problems. Turn the mirror from your guy to yourself and ask yourself these questions, "What truth about myself am I avoiding? What about myself can I not be with? What needs fixing inside of me?" Can't find the answer? Ask a trusted friend to give you their loving opinion, and listen openly.

3.  Give up suffering. Dedicating your life and energy to the cause of 'fixing your mate' will lead you straight to the land of suffering, do not pass Go. With all the suffering that goes on in this world, do you really want to add unnecessarily to the pile? The truth is that suffering is not a mandatory part of relationships, although based on how much we of it we create and put up with you would think it was.  Erase any notion equating pain to honor or love. Adopt the belief that relationships need care, not suffering and sacrifice.

4. Save your saving for helpless animals and children. Sure, your guy has had some rough times in his life - a death of a parent, a tough upbringing, hard circumstances - and yes, have sympathy for him, but it's not your job to save that little boy from the hurt. Saving and fixing are close cousins, both are co-dependent, and both will keep you in a relationship for all the wrong reasons. Throw your guy a life preserver, but let him be the one who swims. You can inspire your mate, you cannot fix him.

5. Date his reality, not his potential. Just because you can see your guy's potential, promise or possibility does not mean he can or wants to, or that he has the ambition to ever be the great person you see in him. Your guy will tell you who he is by his actions and his words, believe him when he does.


In my book, Choosing ME before WE, http://www.mebeforewe.com I ask you to take the vow of self-honesty with yourself. Here is it, I invite you to take it and keep it:


When you are honest with your most important partner, yourself, every other partnership automatically falls in line, and your guy will fix himself, saving you (and him) from having to take on another project. 

Notes from the Self-Love Train...
Inspiration From My Portland Trip


This past Sunday I spent four hours with 12 women in Portland, Oregon -- the first ever Choosing ME before WE Book Club Chat. I anticipated that it would be an afternoon well spent, what I got was so much more. Of course there was wine, cheese, and conversation... but there was also laughter, tears and healing. I knew we would laugh and share stories, that is what we do when we get together as women, right? But what struck me most, what always strikes me most when I sit with a group of women, is the deep healing that can come when two or more of us get together and just witness each others truth. We didn't have to solve each others problems, we didn't have to figure anything out, we just had to sit there and listen, through the tears and the honest to goodness, damn-straight truth, and give witness to this and this woman's story, who of course was so similar to my own. Our stories are really not so different - different men, women and details, but the underpining storyline - same.

Although we talked about so much that day, the one thing that really struck my heart was the story of "I did something that hurt ... and I need to forgive myself" that I heard over and over again - different details, same story. And it reminded me of how many times I have faced that myself... and how the only way through it was through it, with love for myself.

ME LOVE MESSAGE TO SELF:   I FORGIVE YOU!

There is no one it is harder for us to forgive than ourselves. I know for me, it took me only a year to forgive my ex-person - who was a real jerk to me -- and it took me 5 years to forgive myself. 5 years to forgive ME for putting myself in an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship, for compromising what I really wanted to keep him in my life, for passing up great opportunities for fear of losing him, for begging this man to love me, for loving a man even after he spit in my face, for lying to myself about the truth of our relationship.

When I heard these same stories - different details - in Portland, it reminded me how important it is for every woman to be aware that when she doesn't forgive herself, she carries around a whole lot of unnecessary, and frickin' heavy pain. And when she does utter those words and means them, -- especially when it's in front of other women -- "I forgive ME!" WHEW!! What a load is lifted and WOW! how much more free she is!

Forgiving ME is a process, unfortunately there is no magic pill, although I think some of us have tried that route. I really believe that it starts with just plain admiting that we have something to forgive ourselves for. Admitting that we are mad at ME, that we let ourselves down, that we f**ed up, that we put ourselves in a bad situation... we just literally need to throw up those words, expel them from our being, so that we can feel the pain that's there and let it go... so that finally we can be clean and clear to have the space inside of us to love ourselves to the other side. So I guess in a way there is a magic pill - self-love. And there is a magic pathway -- doing it with other women as witnesses, because every time we show our pain, let it go and let the love in, we do the same for the women watching.

One book that really helped me was little book called The Way to Love by Anthony DeMello. That book saved my life. Check it out... http://tinyurl.com/mstpdt

And another that I found years later that has great stuff is Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping.  And just cuz i like threes, you can also find some great ideas for amping that ME-Love affair up by downloading the free Madly in Love with ME Guide at http://www.madlyinlovewithme.com

Okay, I know it sounds harsh, but it's the truth... settling in our relationships is stupid, and after spending a week talking about it on the radio, coaching on it with clients, counseling it to friends thinking of leaving their husbands, and remembering the years I myself settled, I have to just say it out loud for everyone to hear, "Let's all get this one statement straight in our heads and hearts, Settling is a dumb choice, don't do it!"

And okay, I get that just because it's dumb, doesn't stop us from settling. I know that better than most because I did it for 15 years. And I'm not alone, we've all settled at some point in our relationship. If you say you haven't, please write me a note because I want to know who your parents were so I can send them a gold star!

So the why... as far as I can deduce from my own escapades as well as those of my friends and clients, here are two common reasons why we settle:

1. We are too afraid to leave the relationship and ask for more. Instead we brainwash and bargain with ourselves. I call it Love Poker, in which we keep dealing and playing, staying in the relationship and the game, hoping that we will win back our chips, that we will get whatever we feel we are missing. We are too afraid to fold and walk away from the table, to end the relationship, so instead, we convince ourselves of crazy thoughts like, "Well, he's not always so bad" and "Maybe I am the crazy one to want these things. Maybe I am being unreasonable." We brainwash ourselves! Sure if you are harping on your mate cuz he's not the perfect housekeeper or the biggest breadwinner, then yes, get over yourself. But if you aren't getting the partnership, unconditional love and respect your heart and soul crave, "You deserve to have it, Period! Stop settling."

2. We are on the escalator to death.  We are on a mission to get to that next life stage -- marriage, babies, big house -- no matter who we have to settle for to get there. Our focus becomes on attaining the 'thing' vs. actually stopping and asking ourselves why it's really not showing up in our lives, and being real about whether it's actually what we want, or if we've fallen prey to the brainwashing of society that until we have it, we won't be happy. I've been there myself. When I turned 30, it was time to get married. I demanded an engagement and a ring. I got it, only to be broken up with six months later. It would have been a heck of lot less painful if I had just been honest that I was trying to marry this guy for all the wrong reasons, including beating my friends to the altar. It's demented, but it's true, and I know I am not the only one.

Which is what compelled me to start a life long love affair with me so that I could stop settling in love by learning to love ME first. After I got that straight in my head, love from another literally showed up on my doorstep when I wasn't expecting it in the form of a 6 foot 3 inch bald guy named Noah. What did I 'do' to make that happen? What can you do to make sure you don't settle in love? People always ask me this question, and while there are many layers to this, it all starts with two ME-Vows you have to make to you.

Vow #1.  I promise not to settle for less than my heart and soul - not my pocketbook, fear, ego, or parents -- really desire. I honor and respect myself so deeply that I only have relationships that do the same.

Vow #2. I promise to be honest with myself, always. Uncompromising, unwavering honesty, about my motivations, my actions and my reality. When I can't be honest, I will seek out people who can help me find Truth, and listen.

Not settling is a promise and a practice. It's something that you have to commit to and choose whenever the option to waver comes up. Here's what I tell myself whenever it seems hard or confusing... Remember that you were given a great gift, your life. Do you want to live it fully and be so happy that joy is streaming out of your ears, or do you want to struggle and suffer because you were too afraid to go after what your heart and soul craved and desired? Choose to live. It's not that life is too short - it's that life is too magical, fabulous and precious!

If you want that great love and partnership, be willing to be that love and partner yourself first, and then accept nothing less from another.

To start your ME-love affair today, visit http://madlyinlovewithme.com for a FREE self-love starter kit.