Part 1 of this blog series looked at how essential it is to have healthy personal boundaries when you are open to meeting a suitable partner for a love relationship. What we say “Yes” to and what we say “No” to in life does, after all, shape our experience. This part of the blog explores why you need a healthy Yes and No as you begin to connect with someone more deeply and move into the early stages of a relationship.
It can be really exciting (and/or scary!) when you first meet someone you have a romantic interest in. You’re enjoying getting to know them, your feelings are growing, you find yourself thinking about them more and more, and it feels pretty good (and/or pretty scary!). Maybe you’re even finding yourself falling in love, your heart is exploding with joy, your body is alive with desire and your head is somewhere in the clouds! You are feeling a big “YES!” to being with this person, and it feels wonderful.
And, to have a healthy big “YES!” you need a healthy NO. Your Yes doesn’t mean anything unless you also have a No that you’re willing to pull out of your rucksack when you need it. In other words, in the midst of your big Yes, you need to continue listening deeply to your inner self from moment to moment, so that if a “No” arises within you, you can still hear it, and express it. Say, for example, your new partner wants to introduce you to their family, and although you like the idea, you have a subtle, niggling “No” feeling inside. Perhaps things are moving a little too fast for you and you need more time to settle into the relationship first.
It might be tempting to ignore this subtle feeling and just say Yes. Perhaps you want to please your new partner, or you’re so swept up in the romance and excitement that it’s all you’re willing to let yourself feel. By not listening to, and honoring, ALL your feelings, you are not taking true care of yourself and your needs, and you are not staying connected with your whole self.
Staying connected with yourself and your inner truth is an essential part of saying Yes to a love relationship. The first relationship you need to tend to is your relationship with yourself; it is not possible to connect deeply with someone else unless you are first deeply connected with yourself.
If you find yourself in a big whirlwind of romance and you have a subtle (or not so subtle!) sense of losing your own ground, or that you’re “getting lost” in your partner, it can really help to slow things down. Learn to listen deeply to yourself. Communicate your Yes and No feelings openly and honestly with your partner. As well as keeping you connected with yourself, this will help deepen your connection with your partner.
A healthy Yes and No are essential ingredients for a healthy and fulfilling relationship. If you listen to them and honor them, they will guide you into deeper connection. When you welcome your own – and your partner’s – authentic Yes and No as they arise, they will show you the pathway to a truly authentic and loving relationship, with both yourself, and with your new love.
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I've always wanted to make the lifelong commitment of partnership in marriage, and it's been a very long journey for me to get to my wedding day at age 47. I spent a lot of my adult life in painful patterns when it came to romantic relationship, which included being attracted to those who weren't really available, and not able, for their own reasons - and I say this without any blame - to meet and love me in all the ways I wanted to be met and loved. And I wasn't willing to settle for a relationship that wasn't truly right for me.
It has taken a lot of determination, courage and persistence to overcome and heal the obstacles within me that got in the way of experiencing the relationship I wanted, and indeed to become the kind partner that I would myself want to commit to.
I could write a whole book about the process (maybe one day I will), but for now I'll just say that the most important aspect of it has been (and always will be) my commitment to Love in my primary relationship - my relationship with myself.
Love with a capital "L" is unconditional - it can't be fallen out of. So even when I fall out of "like" with myself, it's always in the greater context of my commitment to loving myself, which means I always come back to the recognition that I am unconditionally loveable and worthy of love.
We all know that Self-Love can be a real challenge. It requires commitment to doing what it takes to have a truly healthy relationship with ourselves - an ongoing deepening of self-awareness, attunement and kind responsiveness to our needs and feelings, being open to seeing things about ourselves that are hard to look at and own, and learning to embrace parts of us that we feel the impulse to push away and disconnect from.
But it is so incredibly worth it - and the alternative certainly isn't a recipe for happiness - because self-love, or the lack of it, sets the tone - and determines the quality - of all of our relationships. Whilst I'm loving and embracing myself, I can't not be loving my husband... I can't not be loving everyone (which definitely includes setting healthy boundaries, and sometimes walking away, of course).
Even when I don't like parts of them. Even when there's conflict and it's painful. My commitment to Love guides me back home to my deepest self and invites me to do the work I need to do to meet the other with Love - whether it's learning to communicate more clearly and kindly, listening openly to feedback, or soothing and holding the vulnerable parts of myself more fully and compassionately when there's reactivity in our relating, to name a few examples.
Whether I'm coaching an individual or a couple around their relationships, I see that the most important part of my job is to keep inviting folk back to their relationship with themselves. That's always what needs kind and loving tending to first, whatever is happening in their relationships with others.
Which is why I'm so passionate about supporting people with self-love, and with making it practical - so it's more than just an idea, or yet another thing to have to achieve or "get right".
If you’re interested in finding out more about the coaching and workshops I offer, please do get in touch at info@nicola-madden.com
Ps. I am definitely not saying "you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you". This is a very unhelpful idea! And is simply not true.