Let me tell you about love.
When it comes to love I’m an idealist. At least I think that’s the word. Which by this definition kinda works right?
“An idealist is a noun that means someone not guided by practical considerations. An idealist is someone who envisions an ideal world rather than the real one. Some people consider idealists to be naive, impractical, and out of touch with reality….” – the Internet.
In an ideal world people love each other and demonstrate that daily and are kind and real and true. Relationships are magical things where two people get each other and spend their time loving, supporting and accepting. That kind of ideal. Being an idealist helped me find love many times, and it harmed me because in that “ideal” I chose to ignore or excuse the things that didn’t fit and thus often created magical fairy-tales full of flawed characters and all kinds of missing. Holes. Fairy-tales full of holes.
When I became a relationship coach, my idealistic nature meant that I could with love and passion and empathy help people fight for their relationships. Because on a whole I believed in the magic of love and I can always see the energy that exists between two people – even if most of that energy is shared in destructive ways. More and more people wanted to work with me, and at the height of my coaching success (as in the MOST relationship clients I had) my own relationship crashed and burned in an inferno of crazy-assedness like no other. They watched me, my clients, with their own loving eyes, as I gathered my idealised view of love and tried to patch it back up. I did it for them I thought. But I guess I mostly did it for me. Because if I couldn’t believe in that what could I believe in?
And then this thing happened, which was that I found out that I had to believe in ME. That love (in its ideal magical romance novel idea in my head) wouldn’t save me. That someone choosing me wouldn’t save me. That the ideal, the real ideal, was that if I sorted out me, and loved me back out of the heartbreak I would become a better coach because of it.
At times, I’ve found the process of relationship coaching very frustrating (I know any of my clients who read this and have had a shit session on the couch with me will think this is about them, but it’s not really. It’s about all of you and none of you. It’s about me really, so like I’m always teaching you PLEASE don’t take this personally). Sometimes I have wanted to smack the heads together of two amazing people and just screech “just fucking love each other OK???”. Sometimes I’ve wanted to go get into bed afterwards. Sometimes they say things to each other that make my heart sing. I know that as my business has moved into purpose, and the realisation that if I can help people find their purpose (find them, find themselves and find a reason to exist), then that actually helps with relationships too. I thought that was only for women, but then funnily enough couples have started doing my stuff and men on their own. And I laugh because somehow HOW I get to achieve what I hope for is based on some kind of idealism. Some magical mash-up of everything I hold true, which includes love and trust and being real and kind and true. I think it works in whatever context. I really, truly do.
I have some couples I am still working with. I honour you and my commitment to you. I won’t be taking on any new couples though, because I think there is a better way for me to serve people and it’s through my purpose work. And once I found out WHY, the HOW I would do that became clear. So much clearer.
So here’s what I’d like you to consider in the context of what you currently do….do you know WHY you believe in love/want people to be healthy/want people to find peace/want to help people get fit/create art (interchange here whatever it is you currently do)? Do you know WHY you want people to find ways to love and support each other kindly and lovingly and be great parents to their kids and have fun together and all that stuff? I wanted people to have that so their relationship could be part of the solid foundation that allowed them to go out and get on with their magic in their world. Their thing. Their gift. Their purpose. I wanted them to stop fighting and getting distracted by the relationship SHIT and get on with being amazing. If you know my story you will know that for far too many years I allowed the relationship SHIT to be the reason I didn’t do this sooner. I say that without regret, but let it be know that I took one (well a few actually) for the team so YOU DON’T HAVE TO.
And I still believe in love. When it comes to love I’m an idealist. But I know some other things too. And those things? They change everything.
