Matters of the heart

A dear friend recently confided to me recently that she had love problems and whether I had any advice for her. My first reaction was, who am I to give anyone advice? I mean, I've only had a handful of serious relationships in my life, either because I was too shy and never told the guy how I felt or he was too shy and never told me how he felt or if he was bold enough and told me how he felt, I didn't feel the same way. So who am I to tell another person what to do? But I thought, I really wanna help this person, she's a really good person and deserves better. And then I took me mate Ross' lead and thought, why not write a post about it? He wrote a great post about controlling diabetes which was helpful advice to anyone, not just diabetes sufferers. Maybe someone else out there may find this post helpful, too, who knows? As he says, blogs are powerful stuff. So here goes...

..but before I start, like I said, I'm no bloody expert on these matters, far from it. This is really my gutt talking, how I personally feel about the whole situation, things I've derived from my own life experiences, other people's, books, my therapeutic singing classes and the like. Take it all with a good pinch of salt. They're not in any particular order, just me babbling...which reminds me, I promise to try not to babble on too much, which I am prone to do, being the granny that I am...

I love me, I love me not

Before you can have a successful relationship with someone else, you have to have a successful relationship with yourself. You have to feel good about yourself, feel at ease with yourself, love yourself, feel that you deserve a loving relationship. And then magically, others will feel the same. Humans are quite instinctive creatures, it's just that in this mechanical age, we've lost most of our instincts and given them up to logic. But there's still a little insticnt left in all of us (just ask our sympathetic nerves!), so what you feel on the inside, others will also sense and give what you feel about yourself right back to you. How to acheive this? There's no simple answer to that question. I know that personally, as I have been trying to give up the materialistic and be closer to nature, I feel better about myself. How to acheive it will be different for each individual.

Analyse this

When a person has had a string of bad relationships, they should sit down and ask themselves, "what went wrong?" and analyse the situation. Why do you choose the people you choose? See what similar "bad" traits were in the people you had relationships with and perhaps try to avoid having relationships with people with these traits in future. I'm currently reading a wonderful book called "the Tao of Equus" about therapy with horses (which I'll do a separate post or two about 'cause it's just great). In it is a story about a woman who had a string of bad relationships. When she was talking about her present bad relationship while grooming a horse, the horse started to get the jitters and bucked. Even though the woman hadn't picked up on it, her body was actually sending out "jittery", fight or flight messages, despite the fact that she was talking about saving the relationship with the guy. The message here is - trust your instincts and try avoiding people with bad traits you've gleaned from the past.

Shout to the top

I'm gonna let the author of one of my favourite books "The hidden messages in water" do the talking on this one:
No matter what your intentions, announcing them is an important step. I can say this with confidence based on many years of experience in business. From the time when I was a child, I was always telling people what I was thinking and what I wanted to do, and I was constantly being told that I talked too much. But the simple act of saying something is a way to gather energy towards you. Especially when you say something to other people, energy flows in your direction and helps you achieve your aims. If you express your intentions, the realisation of those intentions will follow.
The message being - tell the universe that you want a loving, successful relationship and the universe will do its best to send one your way.

Picture this

Now, a lot of you may laugh at what I'm about to say but...sometimes it's a good idea to actually visualise the thing you want, be it a new career or a new relationship. This is something that I've learnt at my therapeutic singing classes - you imagine the note is being sung by someone else, goes to your throat and then leaves through your chest, like you're not singing at all. Try to sit down, close your eyes and visualise your goal. It's really just a visual instead of vocal way of telling the universe what you want.

Birds of a feather...

...well, you know the rest. I have to say that I've made a lot of wonderful friendships at my choir and French classes. And if I had wanted to, something even deeper. Want to learn a new language? Learn how to do the foxtrot? Play the guitar? Go out and do it and who knows what happens? Besides learning something new and "working" on yourself, you may just meet a bird of a feather.

A bird in the hand...

...again, you know the rest. Sometimes we overlook the people in our inner circle and don't realise what wonderful relationships are looking at us right in the nose. A work colleague, a friend, a friend of a friend, a friend's brother or sister...these are people that know us pretty well and who we know pretty well too. Why not give them a chance? Who knows what a wonderful relationship awaits just around the corner - or cubicle.

Tell him that the sun and moon rise in his eyes

That's what Celine Dion says and who am I to disagree with her? And I can tell ya, this is definitely a mistake that I have made in the past. How I wish I had told certain guys how I felt about them. I think that when we're young, we're too shy or too chicken to tell the other person how we truly feel about them (that's how I was anyway). But then you get to a certain age (like me now) and think, it's now or never, we might never get this chance again, fuck it, let's do it. So if you do have feelings for someone, let them know. You might get a pleasant surprise. And if you don't, it's not the end of the world, believe me.

Come fly with me

I think that a change of scene and atmosphere is a wonderful way to forget the past, work on yourself, have new experiences and meet new people. So take a trip somewhere nice with a friend or by yourself and discover a whole new world. My recommendation is - Paris. Nowhere have men tried to "pick me up", big butt and all, as in Paris. Guess it must be the bold French spirit. And even if you don't take up any offers, a little flattery never did anyone any harm.

I don't know if this advice has or will help anyone. Even if it doesn't, I hope from the bottom of my heart that a loving, caring, successful relationship comes your way - ok universe, you heard it here - because everyone deserves it.

I'll leave ya with a lovely song by my favourite singer of all time, Eva Cassidy - True Colours. Let your true colours shine, dear friend, because they are beautiful like a rainbow and I know that there is someone out there who will appreciate them.