Sunday, December 21, 2014

Yes, Santa, I have made some mistakes in love. My Christmas wish is ...

What do you want for Christmas this year? For many it is jewelry, clothes, toys. Most of us we want to be surrounded by people we love and who love us.

Maybe you are one of the many single people who just want to find that special someone. Someone who will fill up our stockings with joy and our hearts with love.

Christmas used to be such a basic part of our life. Was it for you? All you had to do when you were a kid was get excited, get more excited, and wake up and PRESTO! It was Christmas morning and there were gifts and family and laughter and food and love.

Then we grew up. Life got complicated.  Love seemed to fade away. We found years of love in a relationship and then even that went away. Now you might find yourself alone on Christmas and struggling. Asking, why am I alone again on Christmas.

If that is you, then simply say this...

My Christmas wish is to find the love of my life.

And that my friends is who you start this ball rolling so that you will now put into motion a series of happenings that will bring the love of your life into your life so that you won't be alone for Christmas.

I know, way too simple. Aw, Steve, you are saying - I've done that every year for the last five years! - I did that last year! - I'm not going to do that because that's stupid! - Steve, I'm not going to do that because I am done with love.

And I don’t' blame you. I bet I said that 50 times over the last ten years. I said things like, why do I even try! What the heck is wrong with me? Why can't I find someone to love? 

And you have probably had disappointment after disappointment trying to find love. It's just easier to say, forget about it.

But you've never had an elf like me on your side before. If what you really want is to find the love of your life then what you really need is some great help. All great people have coaches, don’t' they? Every successful athlete has had a couple great coaches to teach them things they either didn’t know or to help them hone those skills they do have into a professional level skill.

Now you do to! Well, sort of, you do. 

So let's start with a Christmas wish that will become your mantra for love. Are you ready? Here's what I would like for you to say -  what I really want is to find that special someone I can call the love of my life - I know, but would you say it out loud? Even if it's a whisper... please? - What I really want is to find the love of my life -   ok?

Now that we have said it then you should subscribe to this blog because over the next few weeks I will be sharing with you new ideas, links to videos, podcasts and more information about how you will make that happen. How you will write to me one day and say, STEVE! I have found that special someone that loves me and that I can love. 

You see, that is one of my Christmas wishes... for you to find the love of your life.

Yes, Santa, we have all made mistakes and now I want to learn how to get past those mistakes, love myself, and find out how to love someone else and allow them to love me.

I believe in you. I believe that you believe in you too.

Now subscribe, please? And let's start this new year off right. With a great outlook and a new chance, yes, it's just a chance, that you will find the love of your life this year. 
I wrote the book The Twenty, which you can order off of my website or go to Amazon and download it as an eBook. It will help you start. It will make a difference to you. Then connect with me.

Let's make this an amazing year for so many great reasons. Love is one of them.

I am Steve Sapato, relationship coach, author and speaker wishing you an amazing new year.


www.stevesapato.com


Thursday, December 11, 2014

The Dog that I call love.

The Dog that I call love.

Now what does that mean? Love is what you decide it is. Love for me is being and finding a partner that I will treat like a dog and they will do the same for me. I know, that offends some people because they want to jump to all kinds of conclusions.

But what I am hoping I have found and what I am hoping my partner has found is that amazing sweetness that a dog offers to you, unconditionally.

A partner who never takes offense even when you inadvertently hurt them. One who is always excited to see you. One who gets off of their chair when you get home just to give you kisses. And one who loves to snuggle and be near to you.

One who, when you leave, misses you and even if you are gone for a few minutes or a few days is just as excited that you came back!

One who looks at you with all the love in their hearts and offers that to you every day of their life until they take that last breath.

Yes, and I am offering that love that I call Dog.

And I hope you find the love you are looking for also.

Steve Sapato



Relationship Coach and mentor to help you find the love of your life. When you are ready to be coached to a great life in love drop Steve a note steve@stevesapato.com

and order The Twenty, things you need to learn in order to find the love of your life
http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Steve-Sapato/dp/098305570X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365737934&sr=1-1&keywords=the+twenty+by+steve+sapato




Thursday, November 27, 2014

Love is all about you. Why love is never easy and often doesn't last.

Whenever I speak on love I consistently find people who are frustrated that they cannot find love. I am asked, why is love so hard to find?

The answer is simple: love is easy to find but a lasting, loving relationship is extremely hard to find. And that is because we are looking for someone who matches up with us. We are looking for someone who will love us enough because that is what we expect. That's what all the movies tell us; all the novels. My gosh, even 50 Shades says, even though we start off as a sex object it will turn into a long lasting, fulfilling, relationship filled with love.

And that is not how the world really works. We want someone to be our perfect match. They never will be.

What we should be looking for is how we can fill up someone else with our love and then, hopefully, in return, they will want to fill up our love tank and help us feel loved and fulfilled. But we won't know that until we give ourselves to another.

Yes, I understand, you have given yourself to so many others already but you have not met anyone who will do the same for you. Isn't that how you are feeling?

The answer again is, then you have not met the right person.

Oh my gosh! How many people do I have to meet? The answer is, you have to go through a lot of frogs to find your prince. I am sure you have heard something like that many times before.

The real key is, knowing yourself. Knowing what, exactly, you want. Once you find a person you think you might be the right one then you have to evaluate the other parts of your relationship. It's easy to say, I love you. It's easy to say I am in love. It's easy to say, this is the one!

It's another thing to really evaluate if you can fill them up or if this person will continue to fill you up. Do you know what makes you feel loved? Do you know what your love languages are and what makes you feel loved? Do you understand whether they will be able to keep you filled up? Do you know if you will be able to keep them filled up?

Don't misunderstand. Just because they can make you feel loved for a few weeks or even a couple months does not mean they will continue to do that for you for years to come. It takes a huge committment, a great sacrifice to make someone feel loved every day. Can you? Can they?

But this is your tie to be selfish. It is your time to care only about you. It is your time to make sure that you will find that happiness. Because if you are not happy, you will find it impossible to help others find happiness. If you are not happy you will find it unrewarding to keep filling another persons love tank.

Here are some questions you must ask yourself when you are involved in a relationship: have you asked your partner, every day, what you can do to make them happier today? Have you asked yourself, has my partner asked me what can make me happier in our relationship? Do you talk to each other about your dreams and goals? Do you share your deepest desires with your partner and do they accept them?

Those are keys to your happiness. Is your partner willing to be uncomfortable, even for a little while, to do something that makes you feel loved?

You see, your love language will determine that. If your love language is acts of service, then, will they do the dishes? Cook a meal? Take out the garbage? To make you feel more loved? If your love language is physical touch, will they rub your neck, shoulders or back to make you feel more loved? If your love language is quality time, will they shop with you, sit with you , walk with you, spend time just to make you feel more loved? If your love language is gifts, will they bring you little things to show they were thinking of you, buy you something to make you feel loved? If your love language is words of affirmation, will they compliment you, tell you great things, tell you how proud they are,

just to make you feel more loved.

And ... will they do this for years to come?

What typically happens is, they will do it for a short time but soon it becomes a burden. And without your love languages being given, being acted upon, soon you will feel less loved. And less loved, leads to other things.

So lets go back to the title of this article, love is all about you which means, it's all about them also.

Love is never easy to find and even more difficult to keep. Unless you find that special someone who knows how and why it's important to make you feel loved.

I am Steve Sapato. I wrote The Twenty book about how to find love. I know it's possible and I know how difficult it will be. But I believe.

www.stevesapato.com
steve@stevesapato.com




Thursday, July 10, 2014

Ah Love~ is yours just like in the movies?

Don't you just love how the movies and stories portray love. Wheeeeee so wonderful. No problems ever. No one upset because someone looked at the wrong person the wrong way. No one upset because someone didn't take out the garbage or forgot to buy them flowers. No one perturbed (is that how you spell it?) because they disagreed about politics or which TV show to watch or which restaurant to go to for dinner, or why you didn’t bring me a glass of water when you got one for yourself. Ah yes, love~ Now explain to me what you think love is. Yes, what you think love is and why it is or isn’t working for you. What I have found from speaking with hundreds of people is that most of us have this ‘rose colored glasses’ view of love. Most people I speak with are angry at having failed at love and if you look at the cover of my book, The Twenty available on Amazon, the word love is crossed out and written again above it to signify how we have all been wrong in love before. And most of us are so stubborn that when we talk about how to love we say things like, ‘why do I have to change’, ‘why can’t someone love me just as I am’, or ‘I won’t change who I am for someone else’. What I do find oddly funny about those statements is that we are all in a constant state of change no matter how small or insignificant those changes might appear to be. The greatest change people need to make in their quest to find love is in the way in which we communicate. I always recommend two books, of course my book, The Twenty for single people but I talk about the most significant book I have ever read on relationships, one that I teach on in my seminars and that is, The Five love Languages by Gary Chapman. That book should be read by everyone because once you learn what your partners Love Language is and they learn yours it should be an easier task to offer and give them what makes them feel loved and that alone is a HUGE overcoming in any relationship. You make your partner feel loved and they can and probably will forgive most of your shortcomings as you will theirs. That feeling of being loved is such a rare feeling that most of us will give ourselves willing to that partner who once we love them and they make us feel that loved, well, the rest should be history. And therein lays the truth of communication. How we communicate, not just with our words, or our vocal tones, or our body language but with our hearts, souls and minds in offering them the truth, the proving our love by how we give them their love language, how we make them feel loved is the entire key to making your love, the love of your life and living ‘happily ever after’. I hope you do. I have.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Staying in love is hard

I understand your skepticism. I used to be a skeptic also. Then after years of training, seminars and personal learning I have come to the conclusion that OSMOSIS is alive and well in your head! I know, what does that mean, you are asking. Others might call it, subliminal messaging while others call it influence. Whatever you call it I will challenge you to prove me wrong, and that is that things you hear, read and people you hang with will completely influence your thoughts, attitudes, behaviors and FUTURES! Yes, I said your futures! So if what you are doing currently in your life and where you are headed in your life is where you are completely happy then keep doing what you have been doing. If you are not happy with where you are or where you are headed then ... guess what? You might need to change some things you are doing. I have been saying for decades that it's the things you read, the things you listen to and the friends you are hanging out with that will determine your future. That means that if you are hanging out with people who are not happy in their love lives you probably won't be either. If you are hanging out with people who are unhappy in their relationship you probably won't be either. Skeptical? Then don't just believe me, research by sociologist James H. Fowler found that if a sibling divorces, we are 22 percent more likely to get divorced ourselves. And when our friends get divorced, it’s even more influential: people who had a divorced friend were 147 percent more likely to get divorced than people whose friends’ marriages were intact. Divorce, it appears, is contagious. That was the very headline recently regarding a study from Brown University conducted in Framingham, MA—also by James H. Fowler, as well as Rose McDermott. The authors found that 75 percent of participants were more likely to get divorced if a friend was divorced, and 33 percent were more likely to end their marriage even if a friend of a friend got divorced. Here’s a link to Pew’s coverage of this study back in October 2013 Holy cow! Now you should be really rethinking who you are running around with? Ask yourself this, before you had the friends you currently have, were you happier in your relationship or unhappier? Maybe that will be a real eye opener for what is happening in your life. Maybe it will be a really good reason why you are feeling how you are feeling. When I am doing my seminars I am often asked, Steve, how can we stay in love and keep the feelings that we started with. Well, here is one key, hang out with people who are in love like you are in love. Hang out with people who are happy in their relationships. And if you have friends who are downers, guess what you should do? And of course I am asked, but these people are FAMILY! What now? And I still say, maintain the relationships with people who will help you enhance and grow your love and relationships. You may already have found that staying in love, holding onto the great relationship is hard. It can slip away so easily and if your friends or family members are not encouraging that love, affection and relationship by not being encouraging for their own, then guess what? Reduce the time you spend with them. Love is easy, staying in love is hard! I hope if you need support or guidance that you get it early and I will be happy to become one of your mentors and your relationship coach. Because~ I believe in you and I believe in LOVE! Blessings Steve Sapato steve@stevesapato.com

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Love, Lust and Puppy Love~ what's the difference~

I recently posted on Facebook how it doesn't matter whether you are in love for two days or twenty years, whether you call is lust or love. What matters is that it feels so amazing that you are open to falling again! I had several people ask me the difference between Love and Lust and then I always insert "Puppy Love" into this conversation because so many people tell the young people that it's not a serious love that it's only puppy love. And yet, there are more teen suicides and violence because of unrequited love than for adults. So is it real love? Obviously it must be. Is it TRUE love, I would say no because true love should never be anything but giving and loving and happiness driven. And 'puppy love' is seldom understanding or giving but typically mostly selfish. When I recommend to people that they go have a great time I am reminded of all of the songs of the past that talk about "love the one you're with" or "just love somebody". Indicating anyone will do! and while on some level I might agree overall those kinds of things are not about love but mostly about sex. So what is the difference between love and lust? My explanation is typically, Love lasts longer while lust is much more superficial. Here's the catch. It isn't when you are going through it. Love and lust feel the same when you are experiencing them. As I interviewed people I had so many people say, "Looking back I now understand what I felt was lust." But many will still deny lust and swear it was love even though they are not feeling that same way towards that partner that they loved then. Lust can be so short and then we understand it is lust because our feelings are gone almost immediately. But for many, lust hangs on to them. So how can we tell the difference between love and lust? Well, lets start of by my reminding you that in my book, The Twenty, I describe how a good relationship might take two or three months to have sex. I know, most of you are screaming WHAT? No way! But all I intend in that is that before we jump into bed that we learn about one another, learn if we are attracted to the person and not the sex. If we laugh and find joy in the relationship and not just in the push and pull of diving into bed. I know for some of you, sex is a very serious endeavor but for others it's pretty routine. A couple dates and our hormones are craving satisfaction. And this IS where love and lust can be separated. If what we are feeling is genuine and loving then when we have sex, make love, fool around, whatever you might call it, we still have a desire moving forward to see that person. And maybe even the next time we see them we won't have sex but completely enjoy the relationship. But way too often, lustful sex leads to that wonderful encounter and the next day you are not even interested in that person. What? Why? How? When what we were feeling seemed so darn genuine. Yes, it is difficult to tell them apart in the beginning. There is another way. Love is about your partner. It always has been and always will be. Lust is all about self. A huge difference for some people but many people can't tell the difference because their idea of LOVE is all about self. Sexually it's all about how I feel and while I care about how my partner feels it is less important than how I feel. Love should always be about your partners happiness. What you can do for them, how you can make them happier by giving them their love language. How you have a need to see them smile, hear them laugh or, sexually, here their pleasure. Now does that help? Lust and Puppy Love are just as intense as falling in Love and maybe even more powerful and almost always short lived. While love can be just as emotionally charged, just as exciting and passionate and will be more fulfilling. Love lingers and keeps a smile on our face for a long long time while lust typically brings a completely different attitude and few smiles after the event. Now that you know the difference I hope you seek to understand love better and that you find that love you have been searching for. Blessings and love Steve Sapato steve@stevesapato.com facebook.com/stevesapato

Friday, January 17, 2014

What can you do to have a great relationship?

What seems to have been such an easy thing to do when we were young turns into a painstaking process for so many as we get older. The question I seem to get in my counseling and speaking engagements is, Steve, why is it so difficult to find the right person. And I hear a lot, I just gave up. So let's talk about why that is. Because when we were young we had very few real expectations: we thought we would just fall in love and live happily ever after. Is that how it worked out for you? For most of us that isn't even close. We have gone through at least one and often times two and three marriages or significant relationships. So? What went wrong? Nothing. We experienced what we needed to experience in order to grow to a place where we truly start a learning process. I know, sounds so trite doesn't it? But when we were young we just expected our marriages to work out and when we realized a marriage/relationship requires so much more than just emotion well, it was usually too late. I wrote The Twenty because everyone seems to be in that same boat of wanting but not getting a great long lasting relationship. So what can we do to find and have a great relationship? Obviously I could write another book about this but... what we can do is understand that we are looking for one special person who can be all that we are looking for (with a couple of exceptions of course). Be patient, be vigilant, be observant and MOST importantly, be willing to go outside of our comfort zone, be willing to change, adapt and grow to become a person who is able to have a great long lasting relationship. And by that I mean... you will have to become the person you are looking for and allow them to be the person they already are. Love them for who they are and change for who they need you to be. If BOTH people are doing this same thing imagine how wonderful your relationship would be? And of course the right person you are looking for will do what you need just like you will do what they need to make your relationship an extraordinary experience for a lifetime. So, what can you do to have a great relationship? Keep looking for the right person and stop trying to make the wrong person fit into your life. Steve~ steve@stevesapato.com is a relationshuip coach and can help you through the difficult times of your life. Write and find out how he can make a difference in your life.