"I've been such a bitch lately. It's no wonder he doesn't believe me. In fact it's a wonder he ever loved me really, I certainly don't deserve to be loved!"
She'd spat the words with such force. To me, it was as excruciating as fingernails down a blackboard, or a tray of glasses shattering on a concrete floor! The words ricocheted around the stunned silence in the office. Even she was surprised at what had just come out of her mouth!
Secrets - Poisonous to Relationships!
We've all seen movies, read books and articles, or watched documentaries that demonstrate how destructive secrets can be in our lives.
When I set up Pink Apple, as a Relationship Specialist service, it was to allow me to share my knowledge of the Secrets of Successful Relationships.
I hadn't realised there WERE SECRETS till I wanted something better myself. Once I'd got that bit sorted, I discovered many people were in the same boat as me, and had no idea how to be in a relationship.
In my typical fashion, once I knew there was information to be found, and gathered, and sifted, and interpreted, and used, and improved, I had to do it. I also KNEW I had to share what I'd researched and learned.
Pink Apple's BAG (Big Audacious Goal)
My ambitious plan for Pink Apple is to see to it that those secrets don't stay secret any longer than I can help!
It's supposedly simple stuff. Like how to talk, how to listen, how to get what it's like to be living in someone else's skin. How to recognise what's going on inside you, and decide what to do with the extremes of emotions we all get, but channel in different ways, and into different behaviours.
Uncovering A Secret - Reduces its Poison
But let's go back to the couple sitting in my office. In that shattering moment, I wanted them BOTH to discover that beliefs like that will destroy your chances of a successful relationship.
Self-loathing as the words may have been, there was an up-side. She'd actually said out loud what she'd only ever silently thought before!
The challenge was to allow both she and her partner,sitting horrified on the other chair, to hear these irrational thoughts and find out what they really meant.
Some Beliefs NEED a Good Dose Of Reality Testing
Imagine believing that you don't deserve to have a roof over you head, or don't deserve to have a job, or don't deserve to have kids? Any, or all, of those things around which so many of us build our dreams and our lives.
Imagine how long such negative words must have been buzzing around in her head? And while they buzzed, gathering toxicity, there was nothing to challenge them. Nothing to say "what crap!"; to test; to gather evidence; to prove, one way or the other, the truth behind such an apparently farcical claim.
It could have been any of us, man or woman, who'd allowed such a deadly secret to have hold over our mind for so long!
She didn't think she was worth even that simple necessity of life - to be loved by someone.
Of course, we've all come across people with opposingly INFLATED opinions of their worth. Both inflating and deflating beliefs are toxic in relationships, and both are secrets that need to be uncovered!
Even simple irrational beliefs can distort your thinking to such an extent that you believe the nasty little demons (negative self-talk) and their incessant messages.
It becomes like an elephant growing inside an ever-diminishing space. Everyone's constantly stepping around it, but no-one actually recognises it's there, or that it's out of place!
So, one Secret to Staying Together is to release the toxic Secrets in our heads.
To that end, let's explore what YOU deserve.
Some questions on DESERVING:
- So how much do you value you?
- How much do you believe you bring to your relationship?
- What do you deserve? Or NOT deserve?
- Do YOU deserve to be loved? Do you love YOU? Can you accept YOU, warts and all, as worthy of being loved?
- What are all the reasons why you DESERVE a successful relationship?
- How are your beliefs impacting on your relationship?
