Saturday, January 1, 2011

giving yourself. That is hard

When I counsel people on their relationships many times I hear, 'but that's not who I am'. In the book, The Twenty, it talks about the selfishness of your new life. Being selfish while you are looking for the love of your life is not only understandable but required. Because you are looking for what makes you happy. Now after you find the person you have CHOSEN to give your heart to that is the time to become completely unselfish.

You need to understand that love, real love, is giving yourself to your partner to make them happy. And that is hard.

So many times I hear people say I shouldn't have to change to make them happy. They should love me just the way I am. If I give 100% that is enough. But here is my visual... put both your hands together, palms facing, fingers straight up. You can give each hand to another, 100% committment and they push against each other, forming a type of bond. But pull them apart and they come apart easily.

Now if one hand were to interlink fingers an grasp the other then you have a bending and accepting side that is giving and offering additional strength to the union. But if the other hand does not wrap itself around then you only have a one sided union. This union can make the one side feel trapped if it tries to break free or move away and yet it is still a stronger bond than the two hands facing and touching without grapsing.

But if BOTH hands wrap around one another and truly desire to hold on, this becomes an almost unbreakable grasp.

This does not change the concept of the hand but it certainly requires completely different us of the hand, just as giving yourself to your partner does not change the basic you but does change how you act, react, and what you do in order to keep the bond strong and unbreakable.

Giving yourself is very hard to do IF you are unwilling to offer yourself, to change yourself or to become different in your behavior in how you offer yourself to your partner.

Love is easy, relationships are hard.

Steve Sapato wrote the relationship book, The Twenty, is an author, speaker and coach. You can reach Steve at www.stevesapato.com