THE LOVE LESSON | The #1 Reason Relationships Fail and How to Find Love in Your Life Every Day
Love, or a perceived lack of it, is a core undercover cause found at the heart of the majority of my own and other people’s issues. Irrespective of what the presenting problem is, whether it be a physical condition, an emotional one or a life challenge, the antidote is most often love…
Irrespective of how traumatic the past significant emotional event happens to have been, again the antidote is love. And irrespective of the country, culture, age or background of the people from across the earth who I’ve worked with, love appears to be by far the most powerful force on the planet for bringing about miraculous healings and transformations.
If you are experiencing any kind of chronic condition or persistent life problem, then here is your love prescription: Do all you possibly can to increase the amount of love you feel towards yourself, other people and your life in general. Do you enjoy cooking, being out in nature, reading books, drinking coffee with friends? Whatever it is you love doing, do more of it. Consider this as the most fun prescription you’ve ever received!
Let love be your medicine… If you believe you can’t do this, due for example to physical or financial constraints, then you’ll need to be creative to work out ways to still do what you love, within these constraints. They say, where there’s a will there’s a way. I have confidence in you in finding ways to bring more of what you love into your life. Make it a high priority. Don’t view these activities as just “nice” things to do, but consider them as absolutely necessary for your self-healing, and commit to doing them. People with a positive purpose tend to prosper, compared to those who lack a love for life. Your purpose each and every day is to love as much as humanly possible.
“Love like your life depends on it, because it does.”
Unlimited Love
In this extract from my Mind Detox book (Findhorn Press, 2019) I share the Love Lesson, including two meditations for loving yourself and others, as doing so solves so much. Despite its life-saving impact, the lesson can be summarized in seven words:
You feel love when you give love.
Most of us have been taught to look for love on the outside. In an innocent way (because they didn’t know any better), parents, teachers and peers tend to act in ways that give the impression that love is something we earn and find from the outside, rather than an infinite wellspring existing within.
Due to the conditioning to look externally, it is common to fall into the trap of working hard to be loved by having the right kind of body, building a successful career, being surrounded by friends and family and, of course, by finding that special someone. Although all of these things can be lovely, looking to them as your source of love can lead to frustration, fear, hurt, sadness, let-downs and loneliness, and cause unnecessary stress and suffering. It did for me.
Many of my relationships ended in tears because of one core misconception in my attitude towards relationships, which led to either my partner or me reaching our final straws sooner or later. I believed that relationships were an opportunity to get love, when in reality, all relationships offer unlimited opportunities to give love. Every. Single. One. We feel love when we give love, but for decades I had the direction of love back to front.
This simple yet significant problem with my perceptions of love and relationships meant I had to perform to be deemed lovable by the outside world and perpetually wait to get love from other people. I believed the amount of love I experienced was down to them and, as a result, I didn’t feel the love that I yearned for. Not because people didn’t love me, but because I was withholding love by waiting to be loved. Consequently, I didn’t experience love and frequently felt hurt, played the blame game and defaulted to being the victim of an unloving world.
Due to my perceived lack of love, in my more intimate relationships, I spent the majority of my time on the sidelines; questioning whether I was with the right person, weighing up the pros and cons and inevitably finding evidence that perpetuated the problem of a lack of love that I perceived.
Outside-In Love
Turns out I wasn’t alone when it came to being confused about the direction that love flows. Rarely when working with people do I find that they come from a place in which their priority is to give love. Usually the focus is on the love that they didn’t get. With this focus on taking, inevitably we end up with more of an “outside-in love”, which puts us on the back foot and makes us more prone to being negatively impacted by what we receive from other people and life.
With this focus on outside-in love, it appears that someone or something else is in charge of how we feel. If we get the response we want then we are temporarily satisfied and soothed. However, if we don’t get it, then we can quickly end up hurt, sad, angry etc. Pointing the finger becomes commonplace as we believe that our lack of love (or current negative emotion) is caused by whatever someone else said or didn’t say, or what they did or didn’t do.
As long as we wait to give love after we get love, we are on the fast track to failure and frustration.
“I feel hurt, angry, unsafe, unloved... because of a parent, partner, peer ...” These days even the politicians get a mention. And although we feel justified in believing these external people are the source of our stress, suffering, upset or lack of love, if we continue to engage life with an outside-in approach, we will stay powerless victims of the whims of others and our love will remain limited.
As long as you believe other people are causing your anger, sadness, fear etc. you will spend your days dealing with the same conflicts, just with different people, or jump from one relationship to the next in the hope that you will finally find someone who is your perfect fit.
But if we are honest, with this flawed strategy all we are really doing is searching for people who won’t press our buttons, challenge our toxic beliefs or help us learn how to step up and wake up into the embodiment of more unconditionally loving human beings. Personally I want to let go of anything limiting my ability to love unlimited. If you, too, want to move from conflict to connection and find true contentment in love and life, it’s time to transcend this fatally flawed “outside-in” attitude towards love.
“It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than carpet the whole earth.”
Inside-Out Love
Wise people don’t pin their hopes for peace and love on the actions of others. The full quote by Anthony de Mello is: “If peace is what you want, seek to change yourself. It’s easier to protect your feet with slippers than carpet the whole of the earth.” I love this quote because it is a super reminder to be more empowered within relationships by adopting more of an “inside-out love” strategy.
Instead of being victim to the actions of others, look for opportunities to give love, where love has been lacking. Seek to see what button within you may have been pushed, then be willing to “heal thyself ” so that you can become the most peaceful and loving person you know. You’ll be amazed by how much better you feel whenever faced with people who you previously perceived as being problematic.
Love becomes limited if we love others with half an eye on whether they love us back. You want to love with every fibre of your body, mind and being. So much so that there is no part of you left to care if any love comes back. Trust me, if you are ever caring if someone loves you back, then you have fallen back into “outside-in love”.
We feel love when we are giving love, so if you are really giving all of your love – with no eye on whether it’s coming back – then there will be no sense of anything missing. We only feel a lack of love when we are withholding love; when we have accidentally started loving in a “what comes around goes around” type way. “I will only show love to you when you show love to me first.” This does not work and is completely back to front. Withholding love only hurts you and as long as you play that game, the other people are less likely to learn what real love is either.
Play instead with aiming to be the person in the room who’s raining love, without care or abandon for where it lands, and see how it blows the limits off the love you feel for yourself, other people and life.
CONSIDER THIS: It’s obviously nice to hear the words “I Love You” but how does hearing it compare to how you feel when you say “I Love You” and mean it? You feel love when you give love. That’s the secret. That’s the Love Lesson. The people who hurt you or let you down need your love so that they may know what love is. And you need to give them love, for you to find peace within your past and present-day life. It’s a genuine win-win. Love is the solution to so many problems.
Stop waiting to feel love by getting it from others. Start raining love and notice how it helps your body to heal and your life improve: after all, a successful life is one that is loved by the person living it.
“My only regret in life is that I have not said ‘I love you’ often enough.”
MEDITATION: Be Love Now
Want to experience more inside-out love? Use this meditation! Beginning with a guided relaxation, I then take you through a series of 3 mantras (with focus points) for being and experiencing more love. This meditation uses powerful Sanskrit words: SHUKRA - meaning ‘Purity of Love’, KARUNA - meaning ‘Compassion’, and PREMA - meaning the ‘Highest Love’. Use regularly for the best results.
TOP TIP: When Leaving Is a Loving Act
Just because you are giving love, it doesn’t mean you have to stay within “bad” relationships or stay around people who are unkind. Especially if there is any form of mental, emotional or physical abuse going on. On these occasions, it’s time to call it a day and walk away. It’s not your job to fix the other person or make them stop their destructive relationship patterns. It is their responsibility to resolve their toxic beliefs, attitudes and behaviours. If this sounds harsh, it is quite the opposite.
Walking away can be the very wake-up call they need to heal the stuff that’s preventing them from experiencing real love in this lifetime. If you stay, you can actually keep them from the lessons they need. If you find it hard to leave, then do a Mind Detox on why you feel the need to stay in an abusive or unhappy relationship.
Saying this, as long as there is no abuse going on, you may want to invite your friend or partner to read this book to see if they are willing to play within the arena of “inside-out” love; if they are, then there is hope for a much more loving and fulfilling relationship for the both of you.
MEDITATION: Pink Light Technique
If reading this chapter you have recognized that you’ve been more of an “outside-in” rather than an “inside-out” lover, then it’s time to turn things around, and this tool is a superb way to start. Through the active willingness to send love to everyone in your life, you can practise giving love without needing to get anything in return. The Pink Light Technique is used to heal relationships, especially if there is any hurt, anger or even abuse involved. It heals pain and suffering between the user and the subject. You stop waiting for people to change or behave more lovingly, and step up into the willingness to let go, be the love you want to see in the world and, if required, finally forgive.
Holding grudges hurts the hands that hold them.
I have no interest in holding grudges because it so clearly hurts me. Sometimes I meet people who I just don’t jell with. Other times, I’ve fallen out of harmony due to differences of opinion or a sense of being wronged, which is leading to a resistance or rejection of a person or group of people. In the past I would dwell upon how it was them that was the problem and then get caught up in my mind justifying why I’m right to dislike and reject them. These days I aim to use the Pink Light Technique as soon as I notice there is a block within me to love anyone in my life.
As you consistently use this short meditation every day, you can discover something quite magical: you are healing the part of you that is them. In other words, as spiritual teachers have always said, “we are all one”; the remarkable reality is that you cannot help but help yourself whenever you are willing to heal your relationship with “others”. Even if this doesn’t make sense right now, give it a go and see how things improve.
INSTRUCTIONS
The Pink Light Technique involves imagining yourself within a sphere of pink light, radiating from your heart, before one by one covering others in the pink light. For anyone you have a difficult relationship with, feel free to have them stand as far away as required to remain completely comfortable. It will even work if you imagine people standing at the horizon, facing away from you. You can also imagine people who make you feel safe standing all around you as you work on especially challenging individuals. No conversation with the other people is required or recommended, and it takes only a moment to cover each person in pink light.
It is best used as a daily practice, either on its own or at the end of your meditation or yoga practice. You only need to do it once a day and if you would like me to personally guide you through it, press play on the video below, or download the audio mp3 version.
CASE STUDY: I Cannot Love…
All my relationships end in tears when people I love leave.
Following a series of failed relationships, I wanted to get to the heart of the familiar feelings and habits that kept messing with my ability to love. I noticed all of my intimate relationships would unfold in a similar way: Things began great, I was relaxed, funny and confident and I saw the other person as my “perfect match”. Then, at some point, either I would realize I loved them or they would say they loved me and things would quickly head south. I would become jealous and judgemental, clingy and uneasy, and find countless convincing reasons for why they were no longer right for me.
We would have drawn-out arguments over stupid stuff. Do you know the kind? Whatever was said, I would have a smart reason not to accept their reassurances and we’d go around in circles. I wasn’t intentionally behaving this way; sucked into my emotions, nothing they said would soothe how I felt, and my trauma was doing most of the talking. When the argument finally ran out of steam, I’d be distant. In short, I was difficult to be around until they, quite rightly, left me. I would then be distraught over the loss; regretful for the part I played yet strangely satisfied. My series of failed relationships, and confusing sense of satisfaction when they ended, motivated me to do a Mind Detox.
“What event in my life is the cause of my failed relationships, the first event that, when resolved, will cause the problem to disappear. If I were to know, what age was I?” Age 14. I was catapulted, in my mind, back to being on my bicycle, riding towards my best friend’s house. I remembered turning in to the street where he lived and stopping outside his house. But before dropping my bike to run up and knock on his door, I noticed something strange. Looking into his front room, I saw all the furniture had vanished. The front room— no, wait, the entire house was empty. He was gone.
I felt: “Sad and abandoned because my best friend left me.” All of a sudden, my relationship failures made so much sense. As long as this root cause remained unresolved, I would be incapable of enjoying any long-term relationship with anyone I loved and/or who loved me. One thing the mind always wants to do is prove itself right.
As long as I believed ‘people I love leave me’, then I would feel the need to push people away until they eventually left.
As long as they stayed, something wouldn’t feel right, so I would find reasons to explain the way I felt. It also clarified my tendency towards jealousy, as I would always be searching for proof to support my subconscious expectation that they were eventually going to leave me.
“What can I know now that, if I had known it in the past, I would have never felt sad and abandoned because my best friend left me, in the first place?” My best friend was 14 years old and it was highly unlikely that it was his choice to pick up and leave. It was safe to assume that it was a decision made by his parents. I also had been away at my family’s caravan in the Highlands of Scotland for the entire summer holidays. Back then we didn’t have mobile phones, so there was no way he could let me know, even if he had wanted to. Therefore, it wasn’t personal and I wasn’t abandoned. I also made new friends and have always had great mates in my life.
After healing this memory and root-cause reason, did I go on to marry the next woman I met? No! However, I did find the old familiar feelings and habits that had ruined my previous relationships didn’t happen, and I’m very happy in love today.
IN CLOSING: Compassion Sets You Free
Compassion is a combination of unconditional love and wisdom. It is the ability and willingness to love others exactly as they are, in the knowledge that every person on the planet is doing the best they can and wants to experience peace of mind and love.
Being compassionate means that, if someone else is having a hard time or being difficult, you don’t necessarily join them by feeling bad too. Instead, you stay peaceful and loving and show them that it is possible for them to get out of the hole they’re in.
Although not feeling bad might sound a bit uncaring at first, in reality, it is a way to truly help others. If you always agree with the other person that they are broken, or get upset with them, you will tend to reinforce their justifications for being in the hole – which keeps them feeling bad for even longer. I’m sure you don’t want that for them, or yourself.
Imagine a friend calls you, upset because they’ve split up with yet another partner. They tell you, “All men are bastards, let’s go out and get drunk!” Compassion wouldn’t necessarily agree with them, because it might not be useful for them to continue believing that. If this person keeps creating similar relationships by attracting similar types of men, it is more useful to help them see why it’s happening and what they can do to enjoy more loving relationships.
Much better to compassionately say what you see, rather than blindly agree with your friend, talk about your failed relationships all night over too much wine and end up with a hangover the next day. (And perhaps even the start of yet another doomed relationship!)
But on a more serious note: what if you were abused or attacked? Compassion works in a similar way. Although difficult experiences like these often lead to feelings of hurt, sadness or fear, compassion can set you free from toxic emotions like these.
Rather than getting angry or upset about what someone did, for the sake of your own peace and well-being be willing to view them from a more compassionate perspective. They, like you, want to be happy and know they are loved. Every human, without exception, ultimately wants that; the desire (and need) is built in from birth. However, at that time in their lives they didn’t know how to love or be happy.To get angry at someone for not knowing how to experience peace, love or happiness makes no sense. To be compassionate does.
Maybe they had difficult upbringings without any positive role models, so they didn’t know how to treat you lovingly? Maybe they didn’t love themselves fully and so projected judgements on to you? Or perhaps they were so critical of you because they wanted to make sure you had the opportunities they didn’t? Who knows? Don’t try to figure it out; doing so would only be a mind-read. Instead, play with seeing the problematic person through more compassionate and loving eyes. You will be amazed at how free you can be, and how your love becomes unlimited.
“Every trauma is an opportunity to transform. To be courageous and take a leap of heart.”
About the Author
Sandy C. Newbigging is a therapist, meditation teacher, author and award-winning tutor. For eighteen years, his research, clinical work and academy courses have been dedicated to uncovering and curing the unconscious causes of physical, emotional and life issues.
Sandy specialises in releasing past traumas, understanding and harnessing the mind-body connection, improving mindset, and gaining an optimal relationship with life. He uses a combination of his personally-developed Mind Detox methods and also Q.E.C. To work with him, check out his Sessions, Mind Detox Club and Academy. Sandy recently won the FHT ‘Tutor of the Year’ award!
