Love and Swiss Cheese

Valentine’s Day - the day on which lovers express their Love for each other, by sending cards and gifts, often anonymously.

This tradition began in the middle ages when prospective lovers began exchanging love notes.

St Valentine was a Roman saint who was commemorated in western Christianity on February 14th.

Rumour has it he believed that because birds paired to mate in mid-February lovers should too.

After Christmas, Valentine’s Day is the most popular card-sending day of the year.

Why is this?

Because we’re ALL hard-wired to want connection.

Most of us long for Love deep down (even if we deny or won’t admit it).

The right kind of Love though...

True, deep, honest, heart-felt, healthy Love.

Many men I meet don’t know what this kind of Love is.

They’ve never experienced it before.

It’s our relationships that give our life meaning, stir our emotions more deeply than anything else and give us the warm fuzzies that mean the world to us.

They make us feel supported and cared for when we're struggling, and help us to thrive in all the other areas of our life.

Great Love can propel us forward like nothing else - enhancing every area of our lives, including our career.

So how do we achieve this great Love if we’ve never known it before?

By falling in Love with ourselves first.

Sounds corny, I know.

But we can’t connect with other people PROPERLY if we’re not connected to ourselves first.

We often look for a connection so that WE can feel whole...WE can feel admired and respected.

We look for connections to fill OUR emotional holes...to make us feel complete and to end the loneliness.

But most of us have got this all the wrong way round.

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Have you ever seen a piece of Swiss cheese – maybe Emmental or Gruyere?

It’s full of holes.

The Swiss cheese-makers Love the holes, they call them ‘eyes’.

A lot of the people I meet today are bit like Swiss cheese – they have holes – emotional ones.

This is exactly how I used to be.

I had a lot of emotional holes that needed closing.

Therapy, coaching and personal development did this for me years ago.

They literally saved me, and led me to a life of true happiness and fulfilment.

I work with clients every day that know they have issues, but they just don’t know how to overcome them.

Their issues (holes) make them feel empty, lonely, hollow, low...

Often they try to fill their emotional holes with too much food, alcohol, drugs, overwork, shopping, casual sex, porn any number of unhealthy things.

Instead of closing their holes, they end up creating even MORE holes... and then they feel even worse.

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When we have emotional holes, we’re like walking wounded that’s still bleeding.

The holes may have occurred in our childhood, teens or early years.

These early wounds (holes) can cause us to become emotionally stunted.

When we’re this way we often shut down and close off our emotions, because they’re just too uncomfortable to deal with.

We hide behind a mask of everything-is-fine, when it’s no-where-near-fine.

We spend all of our time in a logical state, sharing very little of ourselves with others, even close friends or spouses.

We may be married, or in a long-term relationship, but lonelier than ever.

The moment we start to feel something REAL we hide, run or distract ourselves.

We try to control everyone and everything in order to feel safe.

This means that we can inadvertently push away a healthy partner.

Conversely it can make us choose an unhealthy partner who mirrors our holes and treats us badly – this causes us lots of problems and creates even MORE holes.

Sometimes it can cause us to want to control our pain to such an extent that we numb our feelings altogether.

But when we do this, we can’t enjoy life. We can’t learn, grow or gain anything. We can’t feel happy.

None of these will ever lead us to REAL Love.

In order to experience REAL Love, we MUST close our holes, so that we can OPEN our hearts.

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Unfortunately, I believe this is almost impossible to do on our own.

If most people knew how, they would have done it by now.

It’s often impossible to see our own holes and blind-spots.

We need to have the right guide...someone who can clearly find the holes and help you close them.

And it doesn’t matter how many wounds/holes you have, or how long you’ve had them – if you’re committed to your growth and healing it’s completely possible to heal all of them and then thrive...

In Love and in every other area of your life too.

Do most people do this?

No.

Sadly they don’t.

They just go through life accumulating more holes, and feeling even more empty, lonely, hollow and low.

They might be doing their best to disguise these feelings, but they’re there.

Are you going to be different?

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To close your holes once-and-for-all you need to draw a line in the sand, set a strong intention, and take a leap of faith.

I promise you, you’ll never look back.

With the right guide, holding your hand every step of the way, you’ll speed up this process exponentially.

If you’re looking for REAL Love this Valentine’s Day please keep the faith.

There are still lots of lovely people out there for you, once you’ve closed your holes.

Your past disappointments can be used as fuel.

They can teach you – give you all the insights and lessons that you need to learn.

They can highlight all the areas that you need to give attention to.

It’s possible to date for growth and think of each relationship you’ve had as a stepping stone.

Allow your past experiences to show you what you want and what you don’t want in your next relationship.

Each new relationship is a fresh start....a blank slate....a new beginning.

If you bring the bricks of your old relationship with you every time, you’ll keep building the same house.

I want more than that for you.

A great relationship is built on Love, passion, trust, mutual respect, independence and OPEN, honest adult communication.

An emotionally balanced person allows themselves to feel, to identify WHAT they’re feeling and to EXPRESS it.

Your perfect partner should feed your soul, not your ego.

If you’re currently in a relationship, but it’s not fuelling you in any way, it may be past it’s sell by date.

Like anything you consume that’s out of date, it could be making you ill.

People come into our life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

Very few things, or people, are meant to stay with us forever.

If your relationship is toxic, then it’s definitely time to move on.

If you have children or a business together, commit to some kind of relationship counselling.

I'm happy to help you with this.

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Closing your holes can enable you to experience that true, deep, honest, heart-felt, healthy Love and a happiness that may have eluded you.

I’ve helped so many of my past clients to do this, why not let me help you?