Have you ever looked at your partner and thought “who the hell is this person?, this is not the same person I fell in love with?”
Maybe you’ve noticed your partner is often selfish, cold, mean and disrespectful to you?
When you first met, your partner was independent, self-assured, had strong opinions and frequently did loving, nice things for you.
The Honeymoon Phase and Love Drug Blinders
During the honeymoon phase, everything our partners do is Awesome. During this phase we are wearing what I call the “Love Drug Blinders”. We exaggerate the awesomeness of our partners at first and wear blinders to our partners “flaws” and their choices or preferences that we’d normally hate.
After the initial honeymoon phase of a relationship, we often become desensitized and used to all the loving, nice things our partners do for us. It’s the same as when you first wear a watch and you notice it constantly, but a couple days later you forget where you put it only to realize it’s on your wrist.
Once challenges and differences of opinion start to surface, your Love Drug Blinders usually come off and you may start to notice a lot of things about your partner you don’t like.
This is actually a good thing because during the honeymoon phase your “Love Drug Blinders” may lead you to overlook too many things. If you wore Love Drug Blinders forever you’d never be able to deal with normal relationship challenges.
So now the Love Drug Blinders are off and you’re able to see things you like and dislike about your partner. This is a great position to be in.
When Relationship Problems Attack
When challenges and problems build and start to overwhelm your relationship, you once again put your blinders on. This time your blinders prevent you from seeing anything loving or nice your partner does and keeps you focused on the things you dislike.
I call them Awesomeness Blinders
Awesomeness Blinders are terrible for your relationship. Not only do they get you to forget all the awesome things about your partner, but they also probably get you to view your partner’s previously desirable qualities as bad.
With your Awesomeness Blinders on, your partner’s initial independence is now selfishness. Strong opinions are now meanness and disrespect. His or her self-assurance is now “know it all-ness”.
Awesomeness Blinders will ruin any chances you have to fall in love all over again with your partner.
You might think to yourself, “But my partner really did change into an unlovable monster!”
Maybe you’re right and your relationship is one in a million. Even if that’s true, you’re still missing your partner’s awesomeness because everyone has some.
Most likely your partner hasn’t changed very much and it is only your view of your partner that’s changed. Maybe you are both wearing your awesomeness blinders and are overwhelmed with the problems in your relationship. We rarely act loving when overwhelmed with problems.
If you genuinely want to fall in love all over again with your partner, it is time to take your Awesomeness Blinders off!
How to Fall in love all over again
I believe that we are sorely missing the awesomeness of our loved ones. I’m on a mission to start a movement where we all celebrate each other’s awesomeness.
Celebrating the awesomeness of those closest to you is the most powerful and easiest way to skyrocket the success of your relationships.
Neil Pasricha wrote a book called “The Book of Awesome” and has a website1000awesomethings.com. If you are looking for real life examples of what I’m talking about, check out his website. He will get you to smile and appreciate even the smallest of life’s awesome moments.
Here are a couple of Neil’s examples of life’s awesomeness:
- Fixing electronics by smacking them
- Watching the Price is Right when you’re home sick
- Hitting a bunch of green lights in a row
- Waking up and realizing it’s Saturday
There is no place where we forget the sheer awesomeness of life more than in our intimate relationships. No matter what has happened in your intimate relationship you can celebrate the awesomeness of your partner.
How to Celebrate Your Partner’s Awesomeness & fall in love all over again:
1. Take some “Me Time” once a week for 5 minutes.
2. Sit in a place free of distraction and close your eyes.
3. Focus on taking deep breaths in and out.
4. No matter what challenges you’ve faced during the week, think about the tiniest awesome things your partner did this week.
5. Think about the smallest of your partner’s awesome qualities and choices, throughout the week and overall.
6. Imagine your partner doing these awesome things and displaying his or her awesome qualities. Genuinely see, hear and feel what you feel while experiencing your partner’s awesomeness.
7. Increase the Time you spend celebrating your partner’s awesomeness slowly, until you can do it for a couple of minutes each day.
No comments:
Post a Comment