WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE?

First experiences of family life in a powerless child’s body often give you a sense of fear and a need to find a safe way to fit in your family environment in order to survive. Often these first experiences create a conditioning background in which you completely or partially lose your sense of wellbeing. At the same time, protection and trust are essential to your development and feeling “at home” in your surroundings and in your body.

As we are being taken care of by our parents, we receive our first lessons in loving, feeling accepted and being loved. While still in our mother’s body - even as an embryo - we receive our first imprints of what human love is all about.

What do you know about love?
Who were your first teachers of love?
Where and how did you receive your first love lessons?
Did you experience any trauma that made you feel betrayed, unwanted, or unloved?
How did you receive an understanding that you need to earn to be loved?
How did you relate to each member of your family separately and together, as a family unit?
What were your defense strategies that helped you protect your sense of self and your innate wholeness?

What kind of traditional relationship roles did you see in your original family?
Even in the most balanced families, children gradually lose their sense of being appreciated for who they are. After all, your parents are only human. They love you, yet they experience all the pressures, fears and responsibilities that come with their roles of being parents, guardians and providers for your physical, emotional and developmental needs. Soon enough these pressures are transferred into you, their child.

If you want to understand your love life, try to answer these questions and notice any of your early life experiences reflected in your love life now. As you grow up their expectations of you grow with you. At some point you may realize that your parents have their own understanding of love that does not match your perception of unconditional (parental) love. Their love expressed through worries, high demands, and desire to fulfill their unmet needs or social ambitions could make you feel confused. But being dependant on their approval and support, you are left with a choice to be disciplined for fulfilling your desires or forget what you really want or who you are in order to be accepted and loved by your family.

Looking for yourself where you are not (in the minds of your friends, parents or other members of your family) becomes a habit that leads you into the next step of separation – trying too hard to fit in the group that may (or may not!) satisfy your longing for unconditional love.

Notice:
Do you crave attention, security, admiration, acceptance appreciation, praise?
Are you giving up your truth for a sense of belonging and connection?
Are you trying to satisfy your need for caring support, a need to be desired, a need for loyalty and warm human touch?