Expressing Your Needs

You know the Five Love Languages, right? 

The idea is that we each give and receive love in different ways and that relationships can be improved when we know what works best for us and for our partners. 

The Five Love Languages:

Acts of Service

Words of Affirmation 

Physical Touch

Quality Time

Gifts

But, it’s not so simple. 

One of the challenges is that you have to be in tune enough with yourself to know your own needs. And then you have to express them! Not the easiest task for anyone slightly on the codependent spectrum, where it's difficult or foreign to have ... "needs."

The other tricky part is figuring out what your loved ones actually want. Our habitual ways of showing up may not actually do much for them. 

You may be leaving them special love notes and feeling all snazzy about yourself and surely your partner enjoys them, but does that realllly make them feel super-duper-loved?

Perhaps you noticed them ogling a little gift shop on your evening walk. If you go back and get them a little trinket from there, they may be extremely touched that you noticed and remembered their interest in the shop.

Part of the fun of being a good partner or friend is to know the other person well enough to help read the subtext of their desires, without them needing to say.

Because it can be hard to ask for what we need.

It’s not our job to read each other’s minds.

But in every conversation there is text and subtext.

And the most skillful communicators understand that not everything is said out loud.

Image: Hilma af Klint: "Possible Worlds"

To Be a More Artful & Successful Lover

"Good Questions to ask as You Work to Become a More Artful and Successful Lover:

* What qualities do you look for in a lover that you would benefit from developing more fully in yourself?

* What do you think are your biggest delusions about the way love works?

* Is there anything you can do to make yourself more lovable?

* Is there anything you can do to be more loving?

* Are you willing to deal with the fact that any intimate relationship worth pursuing will inevitably evoke the most shadowy aspects of both partners - and prod both partners to heal their oldest wounds?"

- Rob Brezsny @robbrezsny

🎥 “Playboy Love Scenes,” 1973

How Much Can I Change My Partner?

"Aren't people supposed to evolve and change and make requests of each other to bend and grow and expand?"

- Taffy Brodesser-Akner, "Fleishman Is In Trouble"

We all know we can’t change our partners, right? But, I like this quote! Isn't it reasonable to make these kinds of requests?

So ... Which are the things that can change and what should we accept as is?

Are there non-negotiables that need to change? What are they?

Or do I have lists of things that I’d like to be different if I could have my way?

Are those wishes based on my (potentially unrealistic) comparison to other relationships? And to my ideal version of what a relationship should be?

In what ways am I willing to change?

What if I change and my partner doesn't??

What if nothing changes.

What if I get the changes I want? Then what??? 🤔

Image: Energy Ecstasy and Your Seven Vital Chakras, Bernard Gunther (North Hollywood: Newcastle Publishing Co., 1983), p107

Love Addiction🥀

"Love addicts use love, or the pursuit of love, as a way of distracting themselves from uncomfortable feelings or emotions.

Love addiction is deeply rooted in a constant need for attention, validation, nurturing, and connection.

Some love addicts get caught in toxic relationships and become codependent. Love addiction and codependency often go hand-in-hand as love addicts will do anything to take care of their partners.

Toxic care-taking can be in the form of enabling immature behaviors or 'rescuing' in hopes that they will not be abandoned.

Love addicts allocate an unbalanced amount of time, attention and value to the person that they are addicted to and this focus usually has an obsessive quality.

🌹 Therapy can lead to a deeper awareness regarding the underlying causes of the obsessive needs. Learning about codependent patterns leads to a better understanding of oneself which can lead to improved self esteem and healthier love connections." - Alexandra Katehakis

Anything here resonate? Give a call, we can help!

Image: "Zabriskie Point," 1970, dir by Michaelangelo Antonioni

"Manifesting" an Available Partner

On Gina Minardi's podcast, "Spaces Between," I spoke about my attraction to unavailable men and my ongoing process of changing this pattern.

I was used to a push-pull feeling in relationship, challenge, unpredictability. Love wasn't readily given to me, I had to earn it. I never really felt comfortable, but it was exciting and stimulating.

Changing these patterns of attraction is complicated. Now that I'm in a healthy, available, loving relationship, I find ways to push it away.

But I'm realizing I don't need to work to receive love and I don't need to create drama in my life. Life serves up enough.

My 4-Steps to "manifesting" a loving, available partner:

Of course, this was in addition to years of inner work to let go of what I "thought" I needed in my life in order to be happy. I was 40 years old, divorced, dating unavailable men, and had 18 frozen eggs.

What's a girl to do?

I re-wrote my narrative by finding love, purpose, identity, and connection in other ways beyond dating. I deepened my friendships, my spiritual practices. I birthed a business, I created a beautiful home, and I became comfortable with silence & solitude.

The final piece was this manifestation process, which was inspired by my friend @astroccult.

I met my partner 2 months later. ❤️

Note: For the photo wall, you can use pictures of celebrity or fictional couples who inspire you. Some of my favorites are Michelle & Barack and Coach T & Tami from "Friday Night Lights."

Listen to the full interview on Gina Minardi's podcast, "Spaces Between."

x Jori