2023 Reflections on Love, Relationships & Leadership

If I look back at 2023, the greatest lessons I’ve learned have been about the nature of love and relationships.

It seemed appropriate to share this article here, given that we all have experienced, are experiencing, or will experience relationships in our life, whether romantic, familial, parental, collegial, or otherwise.

I hope these reflections help you:

• In your relationships with your loved ones - honouring them through daily actions, and nurturing your love rather than letting it diminish under the comings and goings of daily life.
• In your relationship with yourself - embodying more unconditional love and self-compassion.
• As you adopt 'caring responsibilities' over the course of your life (e.g. kids, elderly parents, etc.) - how to transform a 'burden' into a blessing.
• In leading others - cultivating our empathy, thoughtful communication, and being fully present.

The 5 reflections in this article are:

1. Why My Wife And I Got Married - a brief overview of our journey, the adversities we are facing, and our decision-making process for lifelong commitment.
2. Love as a Verb - the 7 keys that prevent me from choosing more 'loving' actions, and the consequences that occur if I am not mindful of them.
3. Conditional vs Unconditional Love - how our societal conditioning drives us towards conditional love, how to love unconditionally and expand the varieties of love we experience, and how to create an 'antifragile' love.
4. Loving Through Discomfort - becoming aware of the 7 ways that discomfort manifests in times of conflict and adversity. I have experienced every one of these.
5. 10 Keys To Nurturing Love In Daily Life - some will be relevant for you, some won't be. Number 7 is something I recommend to every single person.
6. A bonus story on the one loving action I commit to every day.

(PS: If you're reading this on Android, I've been told the formatting of LI articles can get pretty bad. I originally wrote this post on my SubStack - you can access it by clicking here!)

Reflection 1: Why My Wife and I Got Married

One of the biggest highlights of 2023 is that I got married to the love of my life.

It was a small, intimate ceremony - a day filled with magical moments.

And the honeymoon in Morocco was a dream come true. We went straight to the Atlas Mountains and enjoyed gentle hikes, beautiful weather, and stunning views.

The love I share with my wife is something I cherish deeply; from the circumstances of our meeting, through to the breadth of experiences we’ve encountered in 5 short years.

She is the bravest, strongest, kindest and most loving person I’ve ever met. She helps me grow in ways I never imagined possible. But I would argue - more importantly - I just love being with her. In her presence. Each day. Each moment.

But love doesn’t have to mean marriage - so, why did we make this choice?

Well, one of the obstacles to our union was that we both perceived ourselves as not being close to our ideal selves.

• For me: I am still growing my business & creating the financial sustainability to provide for a family while learning how to care for her better.
• For her: She is battling with a 1 in 1,000,000 chronic health issue that sadly has no medical cure. Her courage and determination are second-to-none as she takes actions to heal her body and mind each day, but the efforts of living with debilitating pain, emotional trauma, and existential uncertainty take their toll.

Ironically, in both of our cases, what we fear most has manifested.

• For me: My fear of seeing a loved one suffer, and being ‘helpless’ to alleviate their suffering. (A fear many people share!)
• For my wife: Her fear of pain, suffering, and death. (A fear many people share!)

But after much reflection, we chose to get married for a combination of practical, emotional, and what could be described as ‘spiritual’ reasons:

• Practical: Our values are deeply aligned. We love learning and reflection, embrace health as a focal point in our lives, wish to pursue meaningful careers that resonate with us & positively impact others, and are not materially-focused. We are open to the idea of having a family one day, but not attached to it given our current life circumstances.
• Practical: We are similar, but more importantly, our differences augment each other. She is flexible, flowing, and creative. She forms the branches, leaves, and blossoms of our tree. I provide stability, structure, and consistency. I nourish the roots of our relationship that form the foundation of our tree. Rather than resist what the other brings, we embrace it and adopt elements of it. I become more creative and spontaneous. She becomes more grounded and consistent. In so doing, we are not ‘completing each other’ (what does that even mean?) - we are accessing elements to ourselves we already possess, but have been hitherto unexplored. We are expanding our experience of the multitudes of ‘self’ lying dormant within us.
• Practical: One of the consequences of my wife’s illness is limited physical, mental & emotional energy. This means that there are constraints around the activities we can do together. However, this has led us to develop something crucial for long-term happiness: we don’t fall into the trap of using shared activities as a proxy for genuine connection. We don’t need to go hiking together, play tennis together, watch shows together, go to events together, (etc.) to feel connected - we can derive that sense of love and connection from just sitting together, holding each other, and speaking & listening to each other. This bodes well for the future, when by virtue of life situation changes (e.g. kids, finances) or old age (and the constraints that come with it), we don’t need anything other than each other’s full presence & authentic expression to feel connected.
• Practical: A ‘Game Theory’ concept of a commitment strategy. I see marriage as a lifelong commitment. Therefore, when we encounter adversity, my mindset is, “how do we solve this together?”. This allows for more creativity, resourcefulness, and ultimately better solutions compared to not committing and when faced with adversity, having the subtle option of asking ourselves, “is this a problem I even want to experience?” In this latter case, without a commitment strategy, we exist in a state where an exit is a feasible option, and therefore this becomes a conceivable option when facing tough challenges. Unfortunately, having the option to exit from a challenge is tempting due to our brain’s ‘discomfort avoidance’ preferences. Having this option limits the mental resources (and imagination!) we have available to dedicate to solving the problem. As such, we would be less likely to fully devote ourselves to creatively resolving the problem together.
• Emotional: There is nothing I want more than to build a life with her, and to share each day with her - no matter what those days bring.
• Emotional: Marrying each other now is an affirmation that being worthy of love is not conditional on our success, health, or otherwise. This helps to ‘heal’ the subtle conditioning both of us have experienced in our lives.
• Emotional: Similar to the above, our being worthy of love is not conditional on being closer to a ‘finished product’.
• Spiritual: Committing to each other is about committing to every experience we share - the good and the bad. The degree to which we face uncertainty and unpredictability is higher than many of those we know - but these same challenges also breed a sense of maturity, companionship, and mindfulness. We cannot rely on future hopes to ‘push’ through today - we must embrace each day as it is, and adapt as best we can. The full spectrum of life can be experienced in each day - moments of deep joy and connection, and moments of deep suffering. In this way, we explore what it really means to love fully and to live fully.
• Spiritual: The medicine for our ‘detachment’ from ego is that which we fear most. Both of our fears have come into existence - so perhaps, on some spiritual level, we can learn the most meaningful lessons from these experiences. Our capacity to love is bounded only by our fears - ultimately, if we can learn from our current life situation, it can lead to an even deeper love and fulfilment than we could imagine!

Now - these ‘reasons’ for marriage are not an appropriate heuristic for everyone!

It’s important to consider your individual natures, your desires around practicalities of life, and your spiritual perception of love when you choose to commit to a life partner.

In our case, at the time of getting married, our love had been forged by 5 years of joys and adversities. Many of those adversities are those which couples won’t face until old age. Facing them earlier has been challenging - but it’s helped us to grow, and we’ve allowed it to help our love to grow.

And as I look back at the last 8 months of marriage - and one of the roughest health-related period of our lives we’ve faced for the last 2-4 months - I can hand on my heart say that there is no greater feeling than being able to call her ‘my wife’, and to do my utmost to honour that through my actions each day.

Reflection 2: Love As A Verb

One of my biggest learnings amidst the uncertainty & unpredictability of my wife’s condition is that love is a verb.

In any moment, I am acting in a way that is ‘loving’, or I am acting in a way that is ‘not loving’. I am speaking words that are ‘loving’, or I am speaking words that are ‘not loving’. My tone is one that is ‘loving’, or it is one that is ‘not loving’.

The more ‘loving’ choices I consciously make in a day, and the more ‘loving’ choices she makes in a day, the more our love grows.

The less attention I pay to making ‘loving’ choices, the more likely I am to find that any residual emotion or diverted focus will obscure my ability to convey my love.

At worst, this causes pain, exacerbates traumas, and creates a psychologically unsafe environment.

At best, in these moments, I am not necessarily being ‘not loving’ - but I am not being ‘loving’ either.

These are wasted moments. We are sharing proximity. Time is passing. But our net love is not growing.

There have been 7 keys that have helped me to choose more loving actions.

1) Self-awareness, 2) self-compassion, 3) embracing guilt, 4) mindfulness, 5) creating space, 6) gratitude, and 7) being present.

Instead of just discussing the importance of the present of these, I've found it powerful to frame them in term of the consequences of the absence of them:

1. If I’m not aware of my own emotional states, they can sabotage the words I choose, tone I use, or actions I take. Self-awareness is key to identify my state, followed by self-regulation to choose a ‘loving’ action. You can’t unsay words or undo actions. Apologies are vital, but they don’t undo the damage caused to the safety and trust you’re building between you. It takes far longer to rebuild trust and safety than the un-emotionally regulated moments it took to break it.
2. If I don’t practice self-compassion, I won’t learn from my mistakes. We will inevitably make mistakes, in which case apologising when we do so and rectifying it is crucial. Some of these mistakes are unavoidable - one must be both willing to accept responsibility and apologise for our part, and be compassionate to ourselves in the aftermath so as to learn from it most effectively. As I’ve learned over time, many mistakes are avoidable in the first place through self-awareness and mindfulness. It is far wiser to not make the mistake in the first place rather than making it and apologising for it. But beating myself up about it only reinforces my self-image as a bad husband, and leads to emotional states of frustration, shame, and helplessness. On the other hand, being self-compassionate and accepting that I have room to grow nourishes my self-image as someone who is becoming a better husband each day. This translates to actively seeking to take more loving actions.
3. If I don’t embrace guilt, I may displace it into anger and project it onto my partner. When we hurt a loved one (inadvertently), we feel guilt - as is perfectly healthy and normal. Guilt is a painful emotion - but rather than look to the lessons it teaches us, we sometimes displace that self-directed guilt into anger at the loved one who is ‘making us’ feel that guilt (especially if we didn’t intend harm and feel our words/actions were misinterpreted)! It’s important not to see this guilt as a negative experience - it is merely feedback reminding us that our words/actions weren’t impeccable in the experience of the person we love, and that we now have a chance to learn how to love them ‘better’. If we don’t learn to perceive guilt (a signal to change our future words/actions) as a positive, we end up suppressing it, where it can mould into more dangerous emotions, such as resentment (for ourselves, not just the other person) and shame (an identity and self-image of not being enough, being a bad person, etc.)
4. If I’m not mindful, I am more likely to speak in a way that is ‘not loving’. Mindfulness allows me to choose better words in line with what my wife defines as ‘loving’. I used to speak with less thought, not fully considering how my words would impact my partner - now, I try to weigh up the quantity of ‘love’ within my words before I speak. I won’t get it right every time (which is where self-compassion is vital). But a gentle tone and kind words go a long way. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Open your mouth only if what you are going to say is. more beautiful than silence.”
5. If my wife or I are emotional, taking time/space apart to process our emotions is more loving than forcing the discussion to continue. If the ability to listen compassionately and speak kindly is not accessible to me in that moment (i.e. if I’m emotional), I’ve learnt that taking a moment to have some alone time / space (e.g. going for a 15-minute walk) is a valuable gift to both of us. Though the tension of a temporarily unresolved discussion is uncomfortable and feels counterintuitive, it is a far more honourable choice than risking causing more pain by not being able to convey empathy, listening, love, and compassion.
6. If I’m not able to connect with the gratitude I have for being with someone I love so deeply, I am less able to communicate with respect and kindness. If I’m caught up in my own emotional pain (‘negative’ emotion), I will naturally find it difficult to connect with the love (‘positive’ emotion) I have for my wife. Gratitude allows me to bridge that gap. In expressing my gratitude, I can hold space for both my pain in that moment, as well as the love I have for my wife. They are not mutually exclusive experiences. I can be in pain and still love my wife deeply. In holding space for both of these emotions, I can traverse the gap between them more easily - and in doing so, focus more of my mental bandwidth on love, and therefore choose more loving actions.
7. If I’m in my wife’s proximity but not fully present, I’m not being loving in that moment. So, when I’m in her proximity, I choose to give her as much presence as I can. If I find that my mind is occupied, I communicate this that so that she recognises why I may not seem in a ‘loving’ state. Existing in proximity with your loved one is not an obligation - it is a gift. If we’re not present enough to appreciate that, it is perhaps best to reflect on what is causing our inability to connect to this gift - and to rectify it immediately.

Reflection 3: Conditional vs Unconditional Love, Multitudes of Love, and Antifragile Love

As a result of my wife’s condition, there are times when I’ve had to adopt a ‘carer’ role for significant periods of each day.

Learning to be a ‘carer’ has been (and to this day remains) the most transformative experience I’ve encountered - and the most difficult.

To see your loved one suffer each day is not something I wish upon anybody.

It is my greatest fear come to life.

But as I said earlier, the medicine for ‘detachment’ from our ego-driven impulses (and therefore the attaining of wisdom, sustainable fulfilment, etc.) is by experiencing and ultimately transcending that which we fear most.

For me so far, this suffering has led to powerful insights on:

• What it means to transition from conditional to unconditional love.
• To use the understanding of unconditional love to expand the variety & diversity of love we feel.

Many of us (especially high-achievers) have sadly ‘learned’ through social & parental conditioning that our worthiness (i.e. our lovability) is conditional upon how much we achieve. Getting good grades. A well-paid job. Looking a certain way. And so on.

Similarly, we ‘learned’ that our worth was less when we were sad, depressed, anxious, or otherwise. We were told to not be cry-babies, to not be so sensitive, to keep calm and carry on, to not be weak.

We receive these messages from our parents, our teachers, and our peers and we interpret it as such: love is conditional.

Without our conscious awareness, we direct these standards of ‘conditional love’ towards ourselves. It’s why many of us struggle to embrace ‘self-love’ as a concept - we see it as being only accessible if we are perfect in every way. Anything short of that perfect ideal is unworthy of love.

Worse still, we risk holding those close to us to these same ‘conditional love’ standards. We show them love when they do the ‘right’ actions in line with our own value set; we withdraw our love when their actions deviate from them. We ‘love’ them when they’re making us feel good; we pull away from them when they’re making us feel bad.

Unlearning these conditional love ‘rules’ is vital for the flourishing of the love between two people.

We do so by returning to our younger selves.

What the younger versions of us all needed in times of pain was to be hugged, to be listened to, and to be affirmed. To feel safe, to feel heard, and to feel validated.

Contrary to what many of us think, this doesn’t lead to weakness, complacency or dependency; it leads to a nurturing of self-belief and self-empowerment.

As part of this journey, we must all learn that it is not for us to solve the problems of another. (Especially when it is not solicited!)

A key component of relationships is learning to love with depth and variety.

Loving more deeply means being able to love without condition.

Loving with more variety means being able to access different 'multitudes' of love at any moment in time, without fear of the ‘other’ forms of love departing in the meantime.

For example, when our loved one is struggling, suffering, or hurting, the love we show them won’t be sexual in nature. But in a different circumstance (e.g. after a lovely date together), the most loving gesture could focus on an expression of love that is more sensual and creative, rather than one which requires more caring and consoling-based expressions.

While in a singular moment these may not coexist, they are not mutually exclusive as a whole. Expressing one form of love does not need to diminish our ability to access the other.

Our capacity to love is vast. Just as we access many of our own multitudes during a day (our work self, our hobby self, our parent self, our friend self, etc.), with awareness, we can learn to shift from one form of loving expression to another.

Nurture the seeds of unconditional love. Expand your repertoire of the different varieties of love you can experience for your loved ones.

In doing so, the unconditional depth and diversity of our love creates an ‘antifragile’ love - one which only grows stronger and more expansive through adversity.

Reflection 4: Loving Through Discomfort

Our ‘discomfort-avoidance’ instinct combined with our learned ‘conditional love’ means that we struggle to express love when our loved ones are suffering.

We feel uncomfortable around others’ suffering. This is amplified when that ‘other’ is someone we deeply love, and the empathy we possess means we take on their emotion.

We want nothing more than to alleviate their pain - because it would also alleviate our own pain that we feel as a result of their pain!

Mostly, we try to alleviate that suffering immediately - as I said, not just for them, but also to reduce our own discomfort at thinking about & seeing them suffer.

This inability to tolerate emotional discomfort leads us to take 7 fear-based actions/ identities:

1. We try to solve others’ problems. We want them to fix things quickly so that we can get back to the comfort and happiness we seek. In the process, we invalidate, we disempower, and we subtly reinforce the narrative that the other person is not capable of solving their own problems. We assume we know best, when we couldn’t possibly fully understand each facet of someone else’s full inner world.
2. We feel helpless to fix their problem, so we get angry. Angry at ourselves for our helplessness. Angry at them for highlighting our own helplessness. Angry at the Universe/God/life for our helplessness. We may end up projecting this anger towards ourselves, or at others around us - including our loved one.
3. We distance ourselves from them and their suffering. Averting from discomfort by creating emotional distance. In the process, we perpetuate a sense of disconnection between us, thus leading to a rift in the relationship.
4. We deny the extent of their suffering. We do this to justify to ourselves that things will be alright - maybe they will, maybe they won’t, we must make peace with whatever outcome. But if this transforms into impatience, frustration, or giving unsolicited advice, our words and actions will do far more harm.
5. We dissociate emotionally when they’re venting or processing their pain. This may temporarily allow us to ‘hear’ them without taking on their suffering. But this is an unsustainable strategy. Numbing ourselves to the bad also numbs us to the good. This suppression of emotion is not a selective process - in reducing our ability to experience pain, we also reduce our ability to experience joy.
6. We perceive ourselves as a martyr. We become the victims of our own story, playing the martyr who sacrifices their own needs to take care of another. This only leads to resentment towards others, anger at life (or some universal entity), and manifests in grasping at short-term gratification since we can’t count on fulfilling our long-term needs.
7. We become anxious and erratic. Our lack of ‘control’ over our own life due to the need to adapt at a moment’s notice to the needs of another means we feel powerless to carve our own future, attain our own goals, or prioritise our own self-care. We feel unable to plan for the future, because there is great unpredictability in what the next day will bring.

I have done ALL OF THE ABOVE in the past 5 years.

I have lived all of them.

And I have experienced the consequences of all of them.

Now that I have become aware of them, I am one step closer to managing them.

There will be many other forms of discomfort-avoidance mechanisms I’ll encounter in the years to come - this list is not exhaustive - but I know more now than I did before.

And only now, having gone through the hardest period of our lives a few months ago, do I conceptually grasp what a significant part of the solution is…

Reflection 5: 10 Keys To Love In Daily Life

Believe me, all of the points you’ll read here are things I’m still learning to apply each day.

But as we reach the end of 2023, I know I’m a lot closer than I was 5 years and 8 months ago when we started dating…and even a lot closer than I was 8 months ago when we got married.

The solution lies within these 10 points, many of which I am still trying to master:

1. Recognising that every action that is ‘loving’ (as interpreted by the recipient) is healing those around us - and therefore, as long as we have the capacity to act, we are not helpless.In a similar vein, recognising that every action that is ‘not loving’ has the potential to further harm those around us - and therefore, as long as we choose to minimise these actions, we are not helpless.These also apply in relation to our own energetic state. Fear-driven actions deplete our energy, whereas loving actions enrich our energy. If I’m listening to my wife process her emotions but doing so out of fear (e.g. that if I don’t, she’ll feel worse), or caught up in my own anxiety about her health or my career, I’ll feel depleted at the end of it. But if I’m listening to her process emotions with full presence, gratitude, and deeply connected with the love I have for this being, I’ll feel enriched. I can still feel pain at her suffering in the moment as she releases her pain. But when the moment passes, I don’t feel depleted - I feel enriched for my next task. When we don’t resist the emotional experience of pain or suffering, it is far quicker to depart.
2. Infuse as many interactions as possible with fun, presence and love - our only constraint is our imagination.One of the traits I love and admire most in my wife is her creativity. Though living with illness is hard, her zest for life and love for learning shine through. Because of this, we can create fun, joy, and connection in so many ways that don’t require exorbitant time or financial commitments.When I think of the highlight moments of 2023 with her, I don’t just think of our amazing hikes in Morocco, exploring Lisbon, and relaxing on beaches in Gran Canaria - I think about our adventures seeking cauliflower and avocados in the strangest places to help her adhere to her healing protocol. I think about visiting exhibits on Trans-Atlantic Slavery and going to lectures on Iranian History together.I think about what I learned from her summaries of the books she read. I think about our short walks around our local park, discussing both the lightest and heaviest topics of life. I think of our coffee shop dates, reading or working on our passion projects, occasionally glancing up and smiling warmly at each other. I think about embracing as we watch an epic fantasy series, holding each other while talking about our hopes and dreams, or just sitting close to each other in gentle, loving silence. I had never experienced being so closely held before I met her. Now I cherish each and every moment.
3. Support each others’ goals with unwavering belief, unfettered enthusiasm, genuine praise, and an abundance of gratitude.No matter what my wife may be going through, she is my biggest advocate. She has always supported me in chasing my dreams. Despite the pain she was going through, she was my staunchest supporter in doing my Masters degree in Coaching at Cambridge University (and helped proof-read my first assignment!). She celebrates every client session, every workshop, and every course sale. She tells me so often how proud she is of me for chasing my dreams. She consoles me when I feel exhausted and filled with doubt. She indulges me as I share extensive details on my tennis games and gym sessions. And she thanks me every single time I help prepare her 26oz healing smoothie, concoction of raw kale, pak choi, cauliflower and cabbage (yes, she takes healing more seriously than most of us can imagine.)I do my utmost to give her the same. I love that she’s doing Oxford courses on English Literature, while learning Portuguese and Farsi. I thank her for opening my mind to knowledge and new experiences through the books she reads, courses she studies, plays she watches, and exhibits she attends. I praise her for every walk, every meditation, every journal entry, every smoothie, every spoonful of vitamins, every ounce of effort she puts into fighting for a full life. I cherish every mini-adventure we go on, from date days in Cambridge through to relaxing in our local spa.Despite the darkness she’s encountered, my wife is full of light, full of life, and full of dreams. I hope to share more of them with you in the coming years.
4. Sending ourselves love, patience and grace as often as we can.Suffering because a loved one is in pain is natural. Of course it hurts! We love someone… and they’re suffering!Unfortunately, we may perceive our love (and this person) as the source of our pain - which is why we respond in the ways I noted in the 'Loving Through Discomfort' reflection.But love is also the antidote to our pain.By sending love to ourselves, giving ourselves space to process our experiences, and acknowledging our own courage to choose love over fear, we fill our own cup.By showing ourselves this love, we expand our capacity to love our partner.And with time, we’ll come to understand that love and compassion actually protect our time, energy, and wellbeing. Not like armour protecting us from the impact of suffering; more like a force-field that radiates from us and extends beyond us. Suffering may still permeate it on occasion, but the pain from it is diminished significantly. Best of all, this becomes sustainable - our energy gain from these interactions is greater than the energy drain from feeling pain and suffering.
5. Perceiving any time spent loving someone (including ourselves) as the most precious use of time and energy.We can retrain ourselves to see actions of love as more meaningful and joyful than addictive, short-term gratifying actions (e.g. watching shows, scrolling through phones).As we cultivate self-love, we can love ourselves so fully that we cut out actions or people that don’t nourish our energy, and don’t expand our capacity to love.I have done a lot of this in 2023. It has been difficult at times, and I'm far from perfect at it. But daily reflections help me to better understand what actions diminished, rather than enriched my energy. I then have the choice to use this information to choose different actions in the future.
6. Expanding the variety of love we can access and express.As I alluded to earlier, the biggest limitation many of us experience is being unable to hold space for different kinds of love in our relationship.Many of us fear that some kinds of love will go ‘extinct’ if not constantly exhibited (often around expressive forms of sexual or sensual love).In these moments, I consider the idea of ‘active’ love and ‘dormant’ love. Just because one form of love is more active in this moment, it doesn’t mean the other forms cease to exist. They are merely dormant. The seeds of these forms of love may need a bit of nourishing if they haven’t been expressed in a while, but they never fully leave us as long as we remain deeply aware of them.
7. Letting go of the stories our younger-selves created about how we envisioned our future to be.Our younger-selves made many promises to us about the future to justify the pain and uncertainty they were going through. These futures often involve lots of easiness, success, comfort, riches, adventure (etc.).I was enslaved by these promises for a long time. A future of ease, love, and comfort that would make all the years of bullying at school, grafting at university, and commitment to personal growth worth the effort, the sadness, and the pain I also experienced.Let go of these illusions as soon as you can. We made these illusions out of fear because we couldn’t handle the emotional pain we were experiencing when we were younger, and we didn’t feel in control of our lives.But we’re older now. We’re wiser. We’re braver. There is nothing fulfilling about that illusion.Be brave instead, and choose a meaningful journey, rather than an easy one. What this year has taught me is that there is nothing more meaningful than learning what it means to truly love. To love ourselves. To love others. To make our actions love-driven, not fear-driven.
8. Embracing courage in processing our own emotions.Yes, it hurts to see our loved one suffer. Yes, we should absolutely cry about it. Yes, we should write about it as honestly and openly as we can, even if we don’t want to admit the emotions we’re feeling. Because those words release fears so that love can take up that mental space.It’s hard to admit we’re feeling resentment or guilt, or that we’re stuck in cycles of gratifying actions and victim mentality mindsets. But if we’re experiencing this, we can’t run away from it. Admit it. Acknowledge it. Then you have the power to change it. Our capacity to love is bounded only by our fears - the more we process and release them, the more our capacity to love grows.
9. Creating support groups to process your emotions.Our experience may be tough, and validating the ‘toughness’ of our situation by expressing it may feel like a necessary act of love for ourselves (it certainly has for me).But it isn’t a loving action to share these feelings with our loved one who is suffering - they already feel like a burden, and it is their deepest fear that their state is impacting us negatively! It is not loving to those we care for to express this.So, speak to someone external - find a counsellor, a therapist, a friend. Experiment with having conversations with different external people until you find one who makes you feel supported.Or if finances are a constraint, you can try what I do first: send voice notes to yourself. I just release a stream of thoughts (and tears) as I voice note myself about how I’m feeling in its most raw form - no judgement, no shame. As I do so, at some point, I imagine an ‘older’ version of me (a ‘higher’ self), and on the same voice note, speak the words they would use to console me, acknowledge how hard things are, and to reassure me of my bravery, strength, honour - whatever I need to hear that would validate my experience. Best of all, a voice note is always accessible to you (just take a walk or go somewhere private) - you don’t need to bottle it up until a therapist session.
10. Setting loose outcome goals for other areas of our lives, but firm process and identity goals.Life is unpredictable. As a carer or parent, it is arguably more unpredictable. It may not be honourable to put our outcome goals (e.g. work-related) above our commitment to love.Outcomes are often not fully in our control - and when you dedicate some of that time and energy to caring responsibilities at unpredictable times, they feel even less so. But, we are of this world, and we have rent to pay, groceries to buy, and utilities to acquire.How do we reconcile this?Define what an honourable ‘process’ looks like for our caring responsibilities (e.g. preparing their meal with a mindset of gratitude), and our work responsibilities (e.g. in my case, I set one hour each day as a ‘client session’ which actually isn’t a client session, but a time to do necessary admin work). Boundaries are an important element of creating sustainable processes.Most importantly, set identity goals - what kind of person are you becoming through honouring these loving actions you’ve defined? The more clear you are about the person you’re becoming through these actions, and the more aligned those small actions & identity goals are with your values, the more energy you derive from taking loving actions. They feel honourable and purposeful.

Bonus Reflection 6: The Daily Email

I'll end with a story-based reflection, as this article has already become very long!

A few years ago, when the hospital trips first started, I started writing an email to my wife (girlfriend at the time) each night proclaiming my love for her, how proud I was of her, some highlights from the day we had, and affirming the kind of day we’ll create tomorrow.

I’ve now done this every night since, without fail. (Yes, that’s over 2 years of writing a 5-10 minute email each night).

This love-letter email is a non-negotiable.

And I’ll be honest - I write it more for me than I do for her.

In fact, she once lovingly told me that while she deeply appreciates the email, she doesn’t get as much out of them as she did initially. I fully understood that - they can sometimes sound a little bit repetitive! She said she would rather I show her that love each day through my actions, rather than words in an email. Again, I fully understood this, and I appreciated and respected her clarity around her love languages.

But it was at this point that I realised that I wrote these emails less for her, and more for myself.

Because, in those 5-10 minutes, no matter what challenges the day has brought, I get to connect deeply with the love I have for my wife.

Writing this love-letter allows me to connect with the incredible qualities she has - her resilience, her strength, her courage, her determination, her curiosity, her creativity, her kindness, her intellect, and her fighting spirit. It nourishes the seeds of the varieties of love I have for her - from compassionate caring through to passionate attraction. It allows me to acknowledge all the incredible actions she takes daily in line with her healing journey.

Ultimately, it makes me feel even more attracted to her, more grateful for her, and to fall more in love with her each day.

And that leads me to take more loving actions in the 24 hours to come.

I could have been in tears of suffering hours before writing the email - whether relationship-related, work-related, or otherwise.

But as I write the email, I know I wouldn’t trade those tears for the world.

Tears of love are honourable tears.

They are a consequence of something deeply beautiful and brave: choosing love over fear.

And that is the kind of person I wish to embody more each day, in 2024 and beyond.

So, yes, my wife and I are going through a hard situation.

But I wouldn’t trade the love we’ve created for anything.

There have been tough days, and there may be tougher ones still to come.

But no matter what, every night, I’ll write that email.

I’ll take as many loving actions as I can - and be compassionate to myself when I don't.

I’ll choose love at every opportunity - and do my utmost not to take a moment of it for granted.

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Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Wishing you all a blessed and abundant year ahead in 2024.

With love and gratitude,

Kam