Learning to love is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do
Understanding, Unlearning, Becoming – Galina Singer Weekly Journal #3
Celebrating life.
During the weekend I was celebrating!
I was celebrating with every fiber of my being.
I was celebrating like I haven’t dared to in a very long time! Perhaps never.
Swimming, eating, drinking, and dancing!
I was celebrating life.
Took a whole day off, took my children and husband to a beach restaurant, loved every moment as did they, and then:
I PAID FOR IT ALL!
Because I can!
Because I no longer need or expect my husband to pay.
Because I am turning my life into an example for my daughters.
How we turn trauma into triumph and how we unravel centuries of conditioning.
I’m remembering to celebrate Every Single Thing.
Thank you Thank you Thank you
And you know what else?
I was dancing with my husband of 30+ years. The one I’ve been planning to leave for years…
I invited him to dance.
You know why?
Because I was so abundant, so in my pleasure, so in the present moment … that I forgot all the damn scripts! The grievances, the eye rolls, the expectations and the projections.
Yes! I’ve been healing my PTSD, which allows me to be present for my life, for the actual people in it, for all the pleasures and abundance.
I’m learning to receive from life without controlling how it has to look.
Also, I’m learning to let my light shine brightly!
Without fear of judgment or the need to manage the discomfort of others. Letting go of superstition or fear of evil eyes.
I’m dancing with the universe – the more I shine, the more I attract reasons to shine and celebrate!
My husband did not change. I did.
I have received the outpouring of your good wishes and expressions of love to my celebration post which I am infinitely grateful for!
Thank you from deep within my heart for joining me in my celebration of life and love.
I understand how much we all need a “happy end” to all of our struggles these days, but I will not mislead you, no matter how picturesque was the photo I posted yesterday.
The real love story that you witness unfolding in my writing is my story of growing to love myself.
My husband did not change.
I did.
I spent many years wanting him to change, expecting, demanding, throwing temper tantrums.
He didn’t.
Or maybe he couldn’t.
Maybe the nagging, critical and depressed wife was not enough of motivation or invitation.
What changed in my love story is me.
What you witnessed yesterday is me shining my light. Me being in the present moment, removing the block to my own love, releasing my true nature from behind my own gated and boarded-up woundedness.
Love is not anything we get from outside! Our joy or lack of it, our light or apathy, our fear or curiosity is what we bring into our relationships, into our life.
No one dims our light. We do!
Yes trauma, yes wounds, yes narcissists (how did everyone become a narcissist?!! Who raises them anyway?! 😉😉) but the healing is with each one of us.
And let us remember: there’s no mountaintop that we get to, perfect and healed, no “happily ever after!”
Life is a daily choosing how we want to show up: dimming our light, hiding behind our boarded-up woundedness and projections or going all in, shining bright, releasing the pent-up abundance.
What you see in the photo above is this: me shining, my family basking in my light.
However…
Learning to love is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
After more than 30 years of life together—I am learning to love my husband.
I want to learn to love in such a way that the evolution in the structure of our relationship or any changes that each of us may still undergo will not kill the love.
Committed to filling my own needs, I no longer look for relationships to complete me.
I am learning to love people beyond what I can get from them, beyond my needs for safety, stability, or fear of the unknown.
In fact, learning to love is not even about other people. It is all about how much I can stretch my own capacity to love.
How inclusive can I make my heart? How can I love the other in the full range of who they are?
One thing is certain: you will forever be the father of my children – forever a very important person in my heart.
You can read my article on this subject here: It’s not about Staying or Leaving—it’s about Learning to Love.
On this note, it is important to know that what we admire in others are aspects of ourselves that are underdeveloped and that we haven’t yet owned in ourselves.
Same when we reject aspects of people in relationship with us: we are really just unable to accept, own and integrate those traits in ourselves.
For example, if we feel a lack of security in our lives, it points to a lack of masculine energy readily available within.
The purpose of relationships is not to seek what we think we are missing within from external others, but learn to bring those qualities out in ourselves.
Relationships, therefore, serve to bring us to our own wholeness.
Showing up fully without holding anything back.
Most of us do not relate to people as they are, in the present moment.
We relate to people as they should be, then get stuck in frustration and resentment patterns because of our disappointments.
Getting out of our own future projections (agendas) or past experiences and pain (the baggage we bring into our relationships), to be in the present moment is the only way to be in relationship in real time.
Dropping the script and looking at others beyond agendas, expectations and shoulds is sobering.
We are finally relating to the person in front of us.
Can we live with this person if they never change according to our preferences and remain who they are?
Can we take a risk and trust?
I am not talking about trusting the other person. I’m talking about trusting ourselves, our own inner resources to handle whatever comes next?
Relating happens in the present moment, with the person as they are now, while we show up fully without holding anything back.
Final thoughts on relating in relationships.
The ability to be present at the moment is the only way we can truly relate
Relating happens in the present moment, with the person as they are now, while we show up fully without holding anything back.
Most of us do not relate to people as they are, in the present moment.
We relate to people as they should be, then get stuck in frustration and resentment patterns because of our disappointments.
Getting out of our own future projections (agendas) or past experiences and pain (the baggage we bring into our relationships), to be in the present moment is the only way to be in relationship in real time.
Click on the image to watch my video
You are the main character in your life story.
Everyone else—partners, children, bosses, siblings, and friends—is the supporting cast.
I will show you how to make decisions from this new vision of your reality.
You will learn that when we love and take care of ourselves so well that our inner light starts to shine brightly, all the people in our life story get to bask in it.
Meet me for a 30-minute introductory conversation >>
Your relationships begin with you.