Like the saying “once burned, twice shy,” a healthy relationship can be hard to trust if you’ve been burned in the past. The best relationships might even bring up more resistance because they can feel like unfamiliar territory. 

But one of the best things we can do to heal from past scars is to lay our defenses down and be open to allowing love and all its potential beauty the chance to come in. 

This episode is about not allowing yourself to push away something great, just because you’ve painted everyone with the brush of your past pain. Having the bravery to trust the growth and healing you’ve emerged from so you can fully receive the love of a healthy relationship. 

In this episode, we’re talking about:

• Healthy relationships
• Vulnerability and leaving our comfort zone 
• How to heal from bad relationships
• How to be ready for love
• Why we’re attracted to chaos
• Building self trust
• An exercise for confronting fears
• The risks of love

BTW…Room to Grow™ just celebrated its 5th anniversary! I’m so grateful for you listening and interacting with the podcast these past 5 years, and am so excited to continue to talk about all things human connection and relationships with you for many more to come! 

Please email me anytime or DM me on Instagram (@emilygoughcoach) to talk about this or any episode or topic we’ve covered, or a subject you’d like to hear more about in a future episode!

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RESOURCES

Episode 285 | When Healthy Love Feels Scary: Some People Aren’t Ready To Be Truly Seen

Episode 121 | Cutting Off The Breadcrumbs Of Hope With Megan Bruneau

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TRANSCRIPT

If you’re used to people not treating you well, you might even be feeling when this other, you know, new person comes along and is treating you like, like a queen, like a king, you know, whatever. You might even be feeling like the other person must be exaggerating or disingenuous or fake, or just trying to get something from you.

But I’m going to challenge you. Do not allow yourself to push away something great because you’ve painted everyone with the brush of your past encounters and paint. I’m Emily Gough, a human connection coach, writer, and speaker with an insatiable sense of curiosity and adventure, always asking more questions and using the power of stories to teach, learn, and Grow. We boldly explore relationships,

connection, and the nuances and complexities of the human experience with compassion, honesty, and a sense of humor. With both solo episodes and highly curated guests, sharing incredible stories, experiences and expertise. The Room to Grow Podcast takes the entire idea of growth to the next level, all while covering the uncomfortable topics many of us would like to avoid. There’s always more room to grow.

Let’s do this. Hey, hey, welcome back to The Room to Grow podcast Emily here. And today we’re gonna be talking about receiving love and opening to love in a healthy relationship. We talk a lot about pain on this podcast and converting pain into purpose and all these things. And, you know, I haven’t come out with a new episode in,

in a few weeks. And part of that is, is because portions of me had to die in June. And this is related to receiving love in, in a healthy relationship because I have come up against so much resistance within myself as I have gone deeper into the healthiest relationship that I’ve ever been in by far in my entire life. And I haven’t shared any of this publicly like that.

I’ve, I, you know, I I’m in a relationship with a really incredible human and, and all these, all these amazing things that have been unfolding in my life. And part there have been a variety of reasons for that. One is that I am incredibly private. I’m very protective of my personal life. I don’t really share things in real time.

And I, I share things with you when I am ready to, to talk about them on, on, you know, a more, a more public level. But I did think that this was really important to address because I talked to so many clients who, you know, when they finally get into a healthy relationship, there are all these fears and,

and so much resistance that can come up. And it’s sort of like, what the fuck? Like, it makes us wonder, okay, is this the wrong person? Is there something wrong with me? Why am I pushing away something fantastic? And it’s, it’s really interesting to see how this can unfold and the things that it can bring out within us,

parts of us that we didn’t even know existed. And this is why one of the best things that we can do for our healing is to get into a relationship. Now, obviously that’s not, you know, like the sole purpose. Like we, we, we need to really love and, and adore the person and, and want to, to explore that,

that growth with them. But it, there’s a lot of things floating around out there. And I have talked about this at grit length as well, about the healing that we have to do within ourselves, you know, kind of alongside being in a relationship and or before getting into a new relationship. And I continue to maintain that. There is so much power in that and,

and empowerment that you hold the reigns to your own life and to step into that, to own that, and to not project our, you know, our own bullshit onto other people and expect them to fix it for us. Like we have to do that, we have to own that. It’s our responsibility. And, and some of the best and most beautiful healing that you will ever experience in your lifetime is within the context of relationships.

Because they hold a mirror up to us, they reflect back to us what we want to see, and sometimes what we don’t want to see, and there is, is reason and purpose in both. And they’re both incredibly necessary parts of living this life to the fullest. So I, I’ve been, I’ve been kind of like slowly dripping out my, my story a little bit because actually that’s the other thing.

So this is the five year anniversary of The Room to Grow podcast, which is just mind boggling to me. I can’t believe that it’s been five years. We have like getting close to 400 episodes, you know, well over a hundred guests. Like it’s just been, it has been a ride. I have learned so much through the course of this podcast and how it has grown and evolved and all these things.

So in celebration of the podcast, turning five years old, my little baby is turning five. I I have been talking to the people who were signed up for my email list about some of the things that have transpired in the last five years, just in terms of how my story has unfolded. So if you’re curious and you know, don’t worry if you missed any of the emails,

like I’m gonna put the link in in the show notes to sign up. So sign up and then shoot me an email if you want the past emails sent to you, I will personally send them over to you so that you can see everything. I can just, I can go into more depth with, with email than I can with social media cuz you know,

there’s a, a character limit on social media posts and people are just scrolling by and whatever. But with email, I can go, I can go a lot deeper. So if you want access to that, I haven’t come out with the, some of the more recent turn of events yet. They’re still coming, so you are not too late to sign up for that.

So make sure to go jump on the email list and you’ll be receiving more detail from me. Okay, so just this whole idea though of like, you know, how to receive love in a healthy relationship. I, I actually came up with an episode two years ago, it was episode number 2 85 called When Healthy Love Feels Scary, some people aren’t ready to be truly seen.

That episode has proven to be wildly popular. It continues to blow me away because it was an episode from, you know, a couple years ago. It continues to pop up as a highly downloaded episode, and people reach out to me about that episode a lot. And when I came out with that particular episode about, you know, how scary it can,

it can feel like to be truly seen, I was in the midst of experiencing the opposite side of that. So I was the one who was in a relationship at the time who I, I I truly saw the other person and the other person was scared shitless and they were not able to show up for me the way that, that I needed for a,

a healthy, you know, mutually reciprocal connection because they were kind of self-sabotaging and running the other way. So there’s a lot of, of pain that can come from that on both sides. And what’s interesting is that more recently I have, I have experienced a little bit more of the other side where I have been truly seen and I’m like, whoa,

this is a lot, this is a lot. So yeah. Now, now that I’m in the best and healthiest relationship of my entire life, I’ve noticed some of these, these moments where the tables have been turned. And, and for the first time I was the one who had the instinct to bolt as I worked through a wide variety of fears.

And I’m gonna get into, into, into some specifics around that a little bit more. But it can be really hard because a healthy dynamic with someone, a healthy romantic relationship in particular, can be deeply confronting, deeply confronting. There is so much inherent vulnerability that is required to show up in a healthy relationship, to put your shit out on the table,

to let the other person see those messy parts of you. And to be able to hold the idea that someone will recognize the pieces of you that you spend so much effort and energy hiding away, or that you have spent so much energy and, and effort hiding away for your entire life. It’s difficult sometimes and there can be so much resistance that can come up,

like sometimes when the, the best and most beautiful relationship comes along might be when you feel the absolute most resistance happening. And that is exactly what I was going through in June. It’d already been, you know, like I’d already been in relationship with, with this, with this man for a little while. But it was too where things were starting to get much more serious and I was like,

Ooh, this is, this is a lot. And we can, we can find ourselves clinging to the remnants of our comfort zone, of our safe little cocoon. Even if we have been practically begging the universe to give us something different. If we’ve been, you know, manifesting and doing all the inner work and like all of these, all these amazing things,

when we start getting presented with these things that we have potentially spent days, weeks, months, or even years asking the universe for and working towards when they’re presented to us, it’s unsettling because we’ve grown so comfortable in pain or we’ve grown so comfortable in, in the, the place or the space that, that we were in, you know, either physically,

geographically, emotionally, spiritually, whatever that looks like, it’s, it’s comfortable because it’s familiar. So even as all of these beautiful new things might start pouring into your life, it is deeply confronting and it can cause a reaction within us that we are going to do everything e even subconsciously. We’re going to do everything in our power to hang onto those threads of the familiar,

no one ever said love was safe. It’s always going to come with the risk of heartbreak. The key is to ask yourself what you’re willing to go without and what you’re willing to go through with the possibilities of everything that love can bring into your life so beautifully. The idea that really comes to mind here, like the, the visual that really comes to mind here for me is,

is the butterfly fighting to escape the chrysalis after a long, difficult transition within the cocoon. So you’re no longer the caterpillar, you already know you’re the butterfly, you feel like the motherfucking butterfly. You’re like, yes, this shit is changing around here. I can feel it, but it’s just like that last little, that last little bit. And I don’t know if you’ve ever watched a,

a video of, of a butterfly looking to escape the, the chrysalis. But what’s interesting about it is you also, you can’t help the butterfly escape the chrysalis because if you do, if, if you know, you see a butterfly struggling to, to escape the, the remnants of the cocoon, it’s already got its wings, it’s got all of the things like it,

it has grown in there, it’s done its thing, it’s ready to go, but it’s still trying to escape the chrysalis. If you step in to help it, you know, you peel back the chrysalis a little bit to give it more space or whatever to be able to escape. You’re actually not doing it any favors because that butterfly, when it is pushing against the resistance of the chrysalis to escape,

it’s building the necessary strength that it needs in its body, in its wings to be able to survive and to be able to thrive. So we have to find ways to manage pushing through this resistance because we can feel that shit on the other side. So fucking close, it’s like, yes, just, just a little bit more, just a little bit more.

I’ve got this and you are the one who has to do this work. No one else can do this for you. But there’s so much beauty and again, empowerment in that because as you are pushing through this resistance, you’re building confidence, you are teaching yourself that you can handle shit. You are, are building the strength that you need for this beautiful next chapter that is unfolding for you.

When I was putting together the notes for this episode, the other, the other sort of idea that came to mind that I was playing with was, when it comes to a healthy relationship, if every other relationship you’ve ever had is basically the equivalent of, of breadcrumbs, and I did a whole podcast episode about that with the, the incredible Megan Bruno,

I will reference that episode. It has long been a highly, highly popular episode, even though we came up with it a few years ago. And I definitely recommend that we talked about the breadcrumbs of hope that can happen in a relationship. So I’ll reference that one in the show notes. But if ever relationship you’ve ever had, you have just been given breadcrumbs,

you then don’t trust the full meal when it arrives. It’s like, think about someone who is starving and has been for a long time, someone who has been starving for such a long time. If you place an incredibly rich, decadent and, and nourishing meal in front of them, they’ll eat it because they’re hungry. But there are two things that might happen here.

First is probably gonna throw off their digestive system because they aren’t used to having such rich food. And second, after experiencing food insecurity for so long, they’re likely going to think that this newfound access to healthy, nourishing meals is only temporary and that it will probably be taken away from them. And they’re probably gonna have a lot of difficulty believing that, that that’s actually there to stay and,

and difficulty trusting that like, depending on, on your past relationship history, when we put this in, you know, in the context more of like the actual relationship you might even be feeling if someone is showing up for you and in a beautiful way and they feel solid like they’re giving you the full meal, they, they are showing up in ways that,

that you had only dreamed about being possible. You know, you, you dreamed of experiencing, depending on your past relationship history, if, if you’re used to people not treating you well, you might even be feeling when this other, you know, new person comes along and is treating you like, like a queen, like a king, you know,

whatever. You might even be feeling like the other person must be exaggerating or disingenuous or fake or just trying to get something from you. But I’m going to challenge you. Do not allow yourself to push away something great because you’ve painted everyone with the brush of your past encounters and pain. Like we, we have to learn sometimes to relinquish control and to allow ourselves to have the experience,

to allow life to unfold and to trust yourself, to be able to move through it without judging yourself for, for hanging on to control for so long. Like control has probably been your survival strategy for most of your life in a world that has felt very unsafe. So show yourself compassion with that because it has it, that, that piece of you,

those parts of you that has been what has gotten you to where you are today. And it might actually be that once you get into a healthy relationship, one where you feel met, where someone is consistent, where their actions match their words, where you feel cherished, respected, honored, trusted, where you feel that you can trust them, the other person is showing up for you consistently where they feel safe.

If all you have ever been used to is the complete opposite. It’s understandable why you’re going to question if this is real. Because there may have been times in your past where you thought it was real and then it wasn’t. You thought it was real until it wasn’t. And no one wants to repeat heartbreak. No one wants to repeat this. We don’t wanna repeat the past.

But what if, what if the past is not your present? What if this is something wildly new and different? And what if it’s wildly new and different because you are wildly new and different because you have done the work, because you have shown up for yourself because you have you, you have grown in such incredible ways that you don’t even quite recognize within yourself just how much you have shifted within.

You can’t see your own wings because they’re on your back. You can’t see them. Everyone else can, but you can’t see them. And yet you have spent so much time, effort, and energy growing them, and they’re there, they’re just ready and waiting to be used. So sometimes we have to stop pushing so hard and we have to start a little bit like detaching from outcomes.

And someone, someone has said this to me recently, and I I really like it, that you could be attached to doing the work while being detached from the story of, of the outcome, how you believe things have to go according to your plan. You can be attached to the work of being in a relationship and hoping for a particular outcome while simultaneously detaching from the,

the determination that you have to create a an exact outcome. But there’s so much fear that can come up with this. There’s so much fear that can come up with this. The one day I was, I was having a really hard time, I was just like having a lot of emotional shit come to the surface. And, and here’s the other thing with that,

when that happens, that usually means that is coming to the surface to come up and out. It is coming up to be healed. And when we’re talking about the context of a healthy relationship, this is one of the reasons why it can be so confronting. But it’s also why it can be so healing because these, these types of relationships can, can bring all of our shit to the surface because our nervous systems are not used to,

to feeling this sense of safety. It’s like, oh my God, what, what is this? Is this actually safe? Can I believe myself? Can I believe my intuition that this feels safe? Is this my anxiety talking? Is this the intuition talking? What is this? So when you, you’re getting a view into the inside of my head right now,

by the way, I conversations that I ha have had with myself. So the one day I was having a really hard time, there were a lot of fears coming to the surface. Like everything I I could feel myself going down the, the spiraled rabbit hole a little bit. And a close friend of mine suggested, she’s like, listen, write down every single fear that you have right now,

no matter how, how ridiculous it seems. Let it come out. And I kind of, I was hesitant a little bit because I was like, okay, but if I do that, what, what if it makes it worse? Because then I start to spiral even more when I actually see, you know, the words written out black and white.

Is it gonna make me spiral even more? And she encouraged me to go ahead and do it anyway. And here’s, here’s the beauty in that because I, I did do that. And what it did was, and by the way, it was an embarrassingly long list, embarrassingly long list because I just let everything come out. I listed like one fear.

I was listing fears that like I knew full well were like literally absurd, but I was just listing them anyway. I’m like, nope, get it out. Get it out. Because what it does is it gives that part of yourself a voice. It lets, it lets that piece of you be acknowledged and sometimes that’s all you need. That’s all that part of you wants your protector just needs a voice sometimes to be heard,

just as all of us need to be heard. Give that part of you a voice. So some of the fears that have come up for me, I’m, I’m giving you some of the actual fears that I wrote down. One of them was, I’m afraid I only know how to sustain pain and I don’t know if I know how to sustain joy.

Another one was that I’m scared things will fall apart and I’ll be left disappointed, heartbroken and alone. I’m terrified to lose myself in relationship to repeat mistakes I’ve made before and allow the relationship to take over. I’m, I’m afraid of becoming a shell of myself in this relationship rather than having it grow me. Will it diminish and shrink me and, and dim my light and vitality along the way until I finally notice that it’s like too late.

And a another one was that I’m afraid he’s gonna dis disappoint me and that I’m gonna get hurt again. All of these fears and, and trust me, there were a lot more, I’m only giving you a tiny little snippet. There were way more. So then I took, I took the exercise for myself one step further, and after I wrote down every single fear,

I then went back into every single fear and I addressed each and every one head on. I I coached myself through it and by the time I finished, I did a word count. It was 6,000 words. I mean, I know, I know that I’m, I’m, you know, like a writer, but I was laughing at myself. I’m like,

wow, okay. But I have to tell you, I felt like a million dollars afterwards. I felt like a million dollars. And listen, not everybody pro processes things through writing. So maybe this is, maybe this is an exercise that you do with a really dear friend, you know, a dear trusted friend or something where you can like talk it out.

But I find writing to be incredibly therapeutic and it was really, really useful. And, and I went through every single one of these to look deep into them. Like for example, the one about, you know, I’m afraid that I’m going to that, that, you know, my, my partner’s gonna disappoint me. Yeah, you know what?

There are gonna be times where he does disappoint me and let me down just as there will be times when I do the same to him that does not diminish love between two people. And, and, you know, he and I both possess the skills to make things work beautifully together. Like let’s not panic about the possibility of something that probably won’t happen,

you know, months from now and enjoy every single moment that we have together in the present. When, when, when I looked at the fear of I’m terrified to lose myself in, in the relationship to make mistakes I made before and allow the relationship to take over. I, I, I just looked at that one. I’m like, you’re way too fucking smart for that.

Like, when I feel myself getting pulled away from my sense of self, I will feel it, I will feel it. I can feel that shit coming a mile away at this point. And I’ve already proven that to myself, you know, within this relationship and, and in, you know, several of, of my past relationships as well, I knew exactly when I need space to recharge and,

and I take it and I will continue to do so. And I have a partner who encourages me to do that for myself anyway because he and, and the relationship and I, we all benefit when each one of us is taking care of ourselves for our own sakes. So this is another really important part about being in a relationship too. I’m trying to look at some other ones here.

Like, I’m terrified of becoming a shell of myself in this relationship rather than having it grow me. That’s not who I am anymore. Like I went through everything that I, that I have up until this point so that I could learn what dimming myself and, and dimming my own light felt like. And it was the most painful experience I ever went through.

I will not do that again, and I will not be with someone who would ask, expect or put me in that position. And if I did, I’d correct it again, like it’s a self-trust piece. The, I’m literally reading you like some of the answers that, that I, that I wrote to myself because these were things that I needed to address head on.

So this is an exercise I’ve since used with, with a couple clients and it’s, it’s been really, really well received. So I recommend this. If you’re in a position where you’re having a lot of fears come up to the surface, let that part of you be hurt. Let let her or, or him or however, however that piece of you identifies,

let it come out and, and let it be seen and validated like that full list. And then go through every single fear and address it head on. If you have to think of it as though, think about each fear as though you know your best friend was coming to you with that, how would you respond to them? How would you talk them through that particular fear?

And the thing is, is that, you know, in the, in this relationship, like there’s more ease, beauty and joy in this relationship than I ever would’ve thought possible. Like, you know, every day I’m like, I get to be with him. Like we both feel so incredibly lucky to get to be with the other one and shit is gonna come up.

Shit is going to come up. That’s inevitable in any relationship. And that is part of the growth process. Just last week I was speaking to a client who, who found herself in, in a healthy relationship, yet she felt unable to say, I love you, but she has no issue saying that phrase to her girlfriends, to her children, you know,

her family members. It’s because it’s safe to say it to them because there’s a way lower risk of heartbreak. And that was a breakthrough moment for her when, you know, we, I kind of pointed that out and, and she came to her own conclusions around it. Like the difference there. Again, love is always going to come with the risk of heartbreak.

We can know that logically. We all really know that logically, but it doesn’t change the fact that our internal system will do everything possible to try and protect us. Even subconsciously. You, you need someone to work through these things sometimes with someone you are not in partnership with by the way. Because if you put it all on your partner and expect them to be all things to you,

it’s unnecessary pressure that can end up creating issues in the relationship, especially over the long term. Like everyone needs support. I didn’t get where I am today by myself. I have had endless amounts of help and support along the way, both paid and unpaid, like, like friends and and and mentors and then their coaches and stuff like that. Like people that I’ve actually paid to help me through these things.

I have needed support to get to the level that I’m at. And this is what I do. Like, I help people move through these moments so that you can have the beautiful, healthy relationships so that you can actually open to everything that is available to you. Everything that is on the other side of working through that chrysalis that is still holding you back right now,

even though you have your wings. And it is so much easier to hide in an unhealthy relationship dynamic when, when, when we’re in a shitty relationship, we don’t have to allow ourselves to be seen because we can even subconsciously point to the fact that we don’t trust the other person enough to fully open to them and that’s valid. But when we get involved with the right person where we can trust them,

there are no longer reasons or excuses to keep the door firmly shut to letting them in. And if they’re the right person, they’re also unlikely to tolerate a one-sided relationship when, where they’re, they are the ones who are putting in way more work to try and, and build the relationship. They are the ones who are being way more vulnerable, right?

So that means that in order to sustain a healthy relationship, it’s gonna require a lot more of you. It means letting them see the, the messy, raw, vulnerable pieces of you as well as the more polished portions, the ones that we have no problem letting the, the public see what, what are the pieces of you that you don’t want other people to see that you hide away?

What are the qualities perhaps about you? What, what is, what does a particular behavior you have? Like what does that look like for you? What are those parts of you it might be useful to actually identify them? What are those parts of you that you prefer to hide that you don’t want other people to see about you? The reality is that a healthy relationship is one of the most vulnerable experiences we can have.

It also has the potential to be the most powerful, expansive, influential and growth-oriented experiences of our entire lives. But the issues that often arise are things like self-sabotage or running away or picking up fight with your partner for no real reason or blaming them for something that might actually be more of an issue within you. Fear can come up again like these, this massive uncomfortable,

scary fears that can make you question the relationship even when there isn’t actually anything wrong. And when things are smooth and stable and consistent and safe, if all you’re used to is chaos, calm feels boring, calm feels wrong, calm feels like, and I actually am I actually attracted to this person because we have started to associate in, in our, within our bodies,

we’ve started to associate chaos with attraction and then calm can feel boring because it’s safe. And it’s like, oh, what is this? What is this? I don’t know what to do with this. I’ve done some episodes on that as well. So I’ll will definitely reference those for you to go back to as well. But when it comes to, to adjusting,

growing into the version of us that can hold a healthy relationship, one of the biggest things that I can suggest here is building self-trust, building self-trust. If you have been in relationships in the past where you have been manipulated, this is just one example, there can be a worry that the same thing will happen or, or that you will be lulled into a sense of ease in this new relationship.

Or maybe you are the one who has done something, some, someone else wrong in the past, and you’re afraid that you’ll end up repeating those mistakes and hurting this new person that you care so much about. I’m going to suggest, like, can you remind yourself that you’ve learned the lessons you need to navigate this new relationship? You would not be in the position that you are in to have this relationship open to you if you had not learned the lessons that you need to get there,

right? And sure what, what happens within that relationship? No one can predict or control that. And you play, you play a big part in that. You and your, your potential new partner both do. But can you allow yourself to have the experience of recognizing like, Hey, I’ve actually, I trust myself because I’ve, I’ve got this,

I’ve got this, I’ve gone through, you know, what I’ve gone through to get to where I’m at. And that’s not an accident. Sometimes when we’re afraid to be truly seen. What we really mean by that is that we don’t trust ourselves to handle the possibility of having our genuine, authentic selves be rejected or criticized. It might mean that we are hanging onto a belief that our true self isn’t wanted or welcomed.

And it could also mean that we might not feel ready or prepared to deal with how being fully seen could turn our world completely upside down as it restructures our relationships. Like the responsibility required to fully own and step into our power can seem too much. It, it, it can, it can feel overwhelming. So self-trust is, is a really significant part of managing this.

The other piece that I’m gonna suggest to you is that a requirement is also a willingness to put your own ego aside sometimes to go internally and look at all the messy parts that someone else might be pointing out to you or that you may know, you may notice for yourself reflected back to you within the context of the relationship. So for example, if you,

if you feel deeply unseen, ask yourself. If you are truly recognizing as seeing all the parts of you that you want another to recognize as well, or maybe you feel deeply unrecognized and unseen in your career where you are holding yourself back and, and feeling super unseen, then you can end up projecting that into your relationship, pointing to your partner going,

you don’t see me when it actually might just be something within you that you aren’t seeing yourself. Or there’s a different area of your life where you aren’t feeling seen and you’re projecting that onto this person that you’re in romantic relationship with. And sometimes yes, it definitely might be that you don’t feel seen in the relationship other times it’s about seeing yourself allowing the vulnerability of letting others see you deeply and trusting in your own magic and letting the light shine through brightly.

Like you are not who you once were. You have learned and healed and lived your way into fully owning exactly who the fuck you are. All you have to do is remember and to bring forth every ounce of your magic one step at a time. It doesn’t have to be an an overwhelming mountain that happens all at once. It’s, it’s one step forward and then the next and then the one after that.

You get it Like, you know in your heart that under the anxiety, you, you’ve got, you, you know that, I know that, you know that. And what if what if what we’ve been taught is all wrong? Like what if relationships aren’t as hard as we make them out to be and, and we’re actually allowed to invite ease in.

It doesn’t mean that there won’t be hard moments, but love isn’t hard. Love is not hard. It’s when one or both parties lack the skills to navigate the tricky moments or are unwilling to grow and evolve or are more determined to be right than to grow and develop as, as both individuals and as a couple. That is when relationships become very difficult.

But love itself is not hard. We, we’ve crossed some wires there about the way that we think about love. Love is not hard. And I’m going to suggest to you that maybe relationships don’t have to be as hard as we make them out to be. Sure, of course there’s gonna be hard moments. I I’m not, I I’m the first one to say that like there are going to be difficult moments and difficult seasons to navigate.

But what if relationships in general aren’t hard? What if we are allowed to invite at ease? Like healing means you have to take ownership and responsibility for the role you play in your own suffering. And sometimes it’s not a lack of love that ends a relationship, but the enormous presence of it that can feel overwhelming, it overwhelms our nervous system. And feeling the energy of such big love can be more than some people are willing to face because they’re afraid of what love might do to them.

People can run from love because they know that that true real deep love will also expose their deepest wounds and they’re not ready for that. It’s not only about cultivating love for yourself and for another, it’s about learning to tolerate and hold that love when it’s offered to you. So generously love alone isn’t enough, it’s not enough. You have to be willing to be brave to get it wrong,

to risk loss all in the name of growth and the growth of the relationship is not guaranteed because that takes two and you can only determine how you show up, not how the other person shows up or how it may affect the, the, the relational entity. But you can make a commitment to your own personal growth to vow, to keep showing up even when things are hard.

And to begin to understand that you are not here to suffer. You’re here to experience expand and grow. I have always maintained that, you know, pain, pain is inevitable. We are going to experience pain as humans and sometimes we’re going to suffer too. We are absolutely gonna suffer, but I don’t believe that there will be so much beauty in the world if we were only here to experience pain and suffering.

There’s something that my partner taught me about the loyal soldier. The loyal soldier, and it’s this idea that, you know, we have, we have, we all have a protector within us who is still fighting for us long after the war is over. This is a true there, there’s a true story actually that that really relates to that really well that years after World War II had ended,

they came across Japanese soldiers that had been washed up on an island who still fully believed that the world, that the, that the war was going on because they had lost contact with the outside world. So they were still fully in the belief that the war was, was very much on and they were still essentially ready to fight tooth and nail even though there was nothing to fight anymore.

And sometimes we can have that same internal experience if you have been so used to fighting all of the time and, and fighting to survive and, and, and fighting to, you know, make it through pain and to make a, a relationship that wasn’t working work. And, and all of these things that loyal soldier is still protecting you even when there’s nothing.

There’s nothing that you need protecting from. So I’m going to encourage you to put the sword down and to be braver than you’ve ever been, and trust how far you’ve come while opening to the possibilities. Instead of focusing on what might go wrong, lean into love, lean into love. That is what I want you to take away from this episode the most is to lean into love in every sense of the word.

And if you want help with this, I’ve got you. I’ve got you. So I do have 1 0 1 coaching spots available. I’m actually running a flash sale right now, which I, I’ve never done before, but I’m doing it in celebration of the, the five year, five-year anniversary of the Room to Grow podcast. So you can reach out if you want some help with this cuz I’m running a sale on single hour long coaching sessions.

So let me know if you want to talk more about that and if you want the emails as well. So where I am kind of going into more, more depth and detail about what has kind of transpired in my life the last few years, what it’s, you know, kind of going on with gi, giving a little bit more of an insight inside view into my relationship.

All these, all these things. Some insights that I’ve picked up along the way. Make sure to sign up for the emails and if you missed, you know, of this particular series that I’m doing right now, if you missed them, just let me know when you sign up for the emails and I can shoot them your way as well. Okay?

So send you lots of love. I am hoping that you lean into love and I will talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening. If you want more, one of the most common questions I get is where do I even start doing this work to create deeper connections and better relationships? I’ve got a free 15 page guide for you called,

where Do We Begin? This is the very foundation that you need to start building healthy relationships with others and with yourself. This is my gift to you and multiple people have referred to it as life-changing. You can find it over at Room to grow podcast.com or check the show notes to go download it and have it sent straight to your inbox. Thanks so much and stay tuned for more episodes weekly.