Live Life by Principles

love comes from the peace you have when you are being your true authentic self, especially in the company of others.

People tend to think they have to “do” to be accepted, to be wanted, or to be loved by others. That’s why it’s so important to be able to do that for yourself, to fall wildly in love with the life you have and be so satisfied with it that you’re not interested in the external to the point that you need to lie to yourself, about yourself, or to others to receive this life-force of love. It comes from within, and when you have this, it’s magnetic. People see it. People feel it when you’re in the room. Your mere presence attracts attention—they can’t ignore the fullness of your spirit. And it’s because you’re carrying with you the confidence that comes from you being both the most absolute best you in that moment, and you’re not distracted by trying to impress, attract, or do.

So, knowing the difference between what it feels like to be free, empowered, and authentic compared to feeling that you must please, perform, or conform to meet the expectations or desires of others is key. When you’re being yourself, when your presence in the fullness of all you are attracts someone else, and they feel free to be all they are, and you crave this matched authenticity when you’re together, that’s what love feels like.

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Pay Attention to the Signs

On the highway of love, it’s important to respond appropriately when we see “red lights” in relationships. A red light is a situation or problem that needs attention. This might seem obvious, but for many people who grew up with chaotic love modeling, this can be incredibly challenging. It happens a lot! To many, chaos in a relationship is exciting. There are people who are turned on by intense arguments, and then they look forward to “make-up sex.” They find calm, supportive relationships with healthy communication boring and a turn-off. This is so common that as you’re reading this you might very well be thinking, “What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that love?”

Here are a few things that authentic and healthy love is not: it isn’t dependent, needy, restrictive, insulting, reckless, intimidating, dangerous, callous, degrading, angry, isolating, controlling, manipulative, dishonest, paranoid, jealous, clingy, suffocating, aloof, etc. This list could go on for pages. And again, as obvious as this might seem, there are lots of people who get into or who are currently in relationships that present with one too many of these traits. These are all red lights.

Red lights aren’t sexy. Red lights are warnings. When red lights appear, it’s not always an indication that the other person is toxic. It is an indication that parts of the relationship are toxic and need to be addressed. When you see a red light, the appropriate response is to stop and act immediately. Identify the incident/experience/attitude/emotion and seek to resolve it. If you both aren’t willing to work together to solve serious issues in your relationship, the relationship could become a source of anguish for as long as you stay in it. Always know that you can release yourself and your partner from any relationship that isn’t working if working it out together isn’t an option.

Like the red lights, there are “green lights.” Green lights are signs and signals that a relationship is nourishing and healthy to be involved in. This list is customizable, but healthy authentic love can be described as interdependent, supportive, enjoyable, encouraging, exciting, calming, honest, helpful, responsible, inclusive, safe, affirming, freeing, fun, trusting,

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communicative, etc. This list could also go on for pages.

Avoid Fictional Relationships

Sometimes we get into situations because we believe we need the other person, or we believe they need us, or we need to be needed, and we end up in fictional relationships with people to get what we want or what we think we want to get our needs met. And to be perfectly honest, our wants have come from ideals that we’ve only seen and we believe that’s what we want because we think it’s what we should want. After all, who decided that the standard is “tall, dark, and handsome” without asking us first? These wants become normalized and seep into the lexicon of cultural ideals because it’s what we see daily. We see fictional relationships portrayed on television and in movies, magazines, and social media nonstop. We also see celebrity dramas played out in tabloid articles and even in courtrooms while the lines between what is real, what has been dramatized, and what is massively toxic get blurred and confused as a social norm. None of this is normal, though.

So, we think we’re only interested in the hottest of potential partners who are financially wealthy and willing to support us, or who are attractive, exciting, and larger than life, though they may be psychologically unstable. And we look at all of this excitement thinking this would make a dream life for us because it looks that way in the cinema or on Instagram. We’ve developed a very myopic view of our dream relationships so much so that we’ve forgotten to imagine how all this will play out down the road when the reality of day-to-day life strikes and we need to agree on finances, or raising children, or what to do when other life-changing events happen. Have we even thought about whether we’re going to enjoy spending time with this person a week, a year… or more from now?

Not that relationships need to last long to be fulfilling, but whether it will be fulfilling for us at all should be strongly considered and based in reality. What if they never reach that potential we’ve been waiting on? What if something goes wrong in terms of health or finances? Those images we see in advertising may not feel as good as they look when we have them in dayto-day life.

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