1. Love wakes up the gift of life
If today was your last day on earth, what would you say to your loved ones?
There is a lot of emotion around the area of our lives that we call relationships, and the reason for all that emotion is because we tend to make relationships life and death.
We do that because whenever we enter into a relationship we come face-to-face with our deepest fears.
Our partners, intimate and familial, our dearest friends, our kids, our parents — those for whom we care most deeply — are the most vivid mirrors life has to offer. Relationships reflect back to us our conditioning, driving needs and our belief systems. That’s why the quality of your life really is the quality of your relationships.
So it’s no wonder relationships are so critical to us, and also the reason our relationships carry with them such strong charge. If there is one thing that Sage and I want to do, it’s to help neutralize the charge we bring to pure love.
The truth is, you can solve anything with the ones you love if you drop the charge of blame. Every relationship offers us the opportunity to learn something, including the things that make us angry, frustrated or afraid. Those upsets aren’t coming from our partners, they’re coming from our conditioning, past impressions and our models of the world. (Including the models we don’t even like.)
From those models of the world come all of the expectations we hold of ourselves and our partners. The upsets come from our own rules and expectations and the stories of blame we tell. So here’s something to think about EVERY DAY of the YEAR:
If you knew today was your last day on earth, what would you communicate to your beloved ones?
How would you love?
What stories would you let go of?
If you had the luxury of knowing it was the very last time you would see them, what wouldn’t be worth the upset anymore?
Wouldn’t all the upsets you have with the ones you love disappear if you knew this was the last moment you’d ever have with them? We challenge you to live from this place of a higher truth today and every day. The hurt comes from the love we force our heart to withhold. The pain comes from punishing our partners. That’s not love. A relationship is a place we go to give something, not a place we go to get our needs met. Let LOVE wake you up to the GIFT of LIFE.
DECIDE how YOU will SHOW UP. Who are YOU willing to BECOME for the ones you love. What STATE would you be in if this was the last moment you had together?
2. Is your partner your #1 fan?
One of the most important goals you can strive for in business is to understand, anticipate and consistently fulfill the deepest needs of your clients. Because the more value you are able to add to your customer, the more success you will have. We call this creating a “raving fan customer,” and it’s one of Tony’s 7 Forces of Business Mastery. But did you know this principle can also be used to better your relationship?
By focusing on creating a raving fan culture at home, you can put yourself into the positive, loving and relationship-focused mindset that is necessary to build a strong, committed, secure partnership. This is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your partner — and to yourself. Because your partner will in turn reciprocate, and the relationship will enter a positive cycle that allows your bond to strengthen and grow.
- Exceed expectations
It’s easy to get lazy in a relationship, to grow complacent and merely meet the minimum requirements of being a “good partner.” But creating a raving fan culture at home means always giving more than your partner would expect. Whenever there is a chance to go the extra mile, surprise and delight your partner, they will reciprocate in kind with loyalty and adoration. 2. Recognize your partners’ needs
Recognizing and meeting your partners’ emotional needs fosters a sense of intimacy, trust and a feeling of true love. Make it a point to discover what your partners’ love language is. Ask her what she needs in her life to feel loved. Ask him what he needs you to do, or to say. Even the attempt of having this conversation will help you start to better understand your partner’s inner world. And this type of compassion and caring can only help your partner feel more safe and more secure in the relationship. 3. Reward your partner
Being in a serious relationship with someone doesn’t mean you get to stop dating them. Planning dates for your partner or even surprising him or her will help you keep the spark and excitement alive. And so will verbalizing your appreciation for having your partner in your life. Let your partner know that you like having her around. Tell your partner how lucky you feel to be with him. Share with her what she brings to your life. Compliment him, notice her, let your partner know that he is a priority for you. Your partner deserves to be your number one priority and that includes receiving personalized communication. 4. Constantly be evolving
Change is inevitable, and all too often, It can lead to disagreements and arguments. This is especially true when people feel unheard, disrespected and not acknowledged. Different stages in life mean different emotional needs. This is why you must always be striving to improve yourself and find how to effectively meet your partners’ needs (and wants) in unique and powerful ways.
3. Why is love blind? How we love from our heads and our hearts
Love: It’s one of the few things in life that can create intense pleasure or intense pain in our lives. It’s the one force that has the power to put you on top of the clouds or in a deep, dark hole. Yet, no matter how much experience we gain in love, it seems like we’re all still figuring it out as we go.
Is love blind?
As neuroscientist and best-selling author Abhijit Naskar once said, “The brain becomes illogical in the throes of new romance.” Something that makes it hard to figure out how to build healthy expectations and a sustainable connection is that in the beginning, love is blind. When you are in the midst of deep love, when the world is filled with rainbows and butterflies, everything your partner does is right. This is where the term “love is blind” comes from. You are so “blinded” by love that you cannot see any of your lover’s flaws.
Why is love blind? Why do we feel this way? Why do we act as though our partner doesn’t have any perceivable flaws or shortcomings? Because in the beginning, we are loving from our hearts, not our heads.
When you first get together with a romantic partner, it’s easy to block out any red flags or character flaws. You’re in the lusting phase of your relationship. In this heightened state of attraction, we tend to give our partners more leeway. There’s more space for them to make mistakes because the rules we have created within the relationships are different, and we have fewer of them. And in many cases, you don’t have any rules — you’re just thrilled to be in the same room with them. You feel lucky to have the opportunity to make them happy. No matter what they do or what they say, you are infatuated with the idea of them.
Why love is blind
When you’re at the beginning of your relationship, you’re fully loving from the heart, instead of the head. You’re throwing caution to the wind and fully embracing this feeling of love and infatuation. This is why love is blind. When someone is loving from the heart, their thought process sounds like this:
“What would make my partner happy? What would turn them on? I am going to go to the ends of the earth to find out – and I’m going to have fun doing it. I’m going to have fun learning about them and enjoy exploring all kinds of things together. I’m going to feel alive, I’m going to make this relationship perfect.”
This experience happens to many of us. That’s why there are so many love is blind quotes and stories about this exact topic – it is incredibly relatable. At some point in our lives, almost all of us will meet someone who sweeps us off of our feet.. We will want to do everything in our power to keep the relationship going, regardless of the price on our mental or emotional health.
Where are the doubts? Where are the rules? If relationships were truly this easy, then every person on the planet would be in a happy union.
Where is the measuring of how much you are doing for your partner? How much are they doing for you? That’s right — it’s not there. When you are loving from your heart, in the “blind” stage, you don’t think about how much you are giving, and you don’t create ideals of how your partner doesn’t match up to the perfect partner in your mind.
So what brings that stage to an end? Why do we stop loving from the heart? When is love no longer blind? Loving with your head
Rabbi Julius Gordon said, “Love is not blind. It sees more and not less, but because it sees more, it is willing to see less.” Once your head takes over, you start to become more aware of the traits you ignored in the beginning of your relationship. You start to use logic more as you fall out of the honeymoon stage. Logic is a valuable intellectual trait but it can also be destructive, especially in relationships.
Here is the train of thought of someone who is in their head, instead of fully loving with their heart: Loving with your head
The answer is: Your head takes over. Logic is a valuable intellectual trait, but in the realm of relationships, it can be destructive. Here is the train of thought of someone who is in their head, instead of fully loving with their heart:
“I wonder what they’re going to do for me for my birthday. I planned such a great day for their birthday, and they loved it. But they haven’t even mentioned my birthday yet this year. What if they forget completely? Like they forgot to congratulate me when I got that promotion. Or like how they forget even the little things, like the fact that I don’t like ginger. How can I have a partner who doesn’t know I don’t like ginger?!”
At this point, the rules that you’ve made up in your head about how a partner will behave, what your relationship will be like and what you deserve have completely overtaken all of the positive emotions you had before when your love was still blind. Things our partner does are no longer thrilling. Their flaws are no longer “cute.” Instead, their flaws become annoying when love is no longer blind.
When we start to let the little things stack up, we begin feeling resentment or built-up tension toward our partners. We start to punish our partners for their flaws. That can escalate into a series of rejections that become toxic or abrasive – and ultimately simmers into a general feeling of repression, or learned helplessness, where you lower your expectations so much that you no longer feel any needs being met in the relationship. When this happens, you turn to other outlets for your love and attention, like your work, children, friend group or hobbies.
Sounds terrible, right? The good news is that you can learn the five disciplines of love and learn how to maintain a feeling of attraction to your partner through the power of polarity.
As Tony says, when you’re in attraction, love is easy. Love is blind. When you’re not attracted, you get in your head. You leave your heart and your body and you go to your head.
To get a deep dive into polarization and what it means for your relationship, consider attending Tony’s marquee event, Date With Destiny. You can also gain clarity on how to build a passionate and strong relationship with Tony’s Ultimate Relationship Program. If your relationship matters to you, it’s not too late to save it. Love may be blind early on in new relationships, but with the proper insights and principles, you can find a way to clearly see and appreciate your partner as time goes on.