TIME

Time has a value. People have values. What if someone else’s time allocation does not match your values? To consistently feel like you are at the tail end of someones priorities as time is moved around and you are expected to without question, adapt, is confusing, annoying and then gutting. It can probably be accepted for a while, but in time, feelings of frustration and neglect tear away at self worth.

Even worse is if communication is stonewalled leaving isolation and a deep feeling of despair. Choices made, leave a face slapping sense of reality and an understanding that there will never be understanding.

Stoney silence, a dark room and a sad heart.

CONDITIONAL LOVE

True love is unconditional, zero expectation. It’s a wholehearted love, adoration, unselfish.

Unconditional love about communication. If you love someone truly, and if you’re a good person, then you want to see the other person happy and flourishing, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Communication is kind and lacks judgement. There’s no room for mind games, no time to withhold how you feel, no space to create doubt in the other. It’s about honest and transparent communication of feelings, the alternative is about control.

Unconditional love is not complete without self-love. Security and self belief are a good foundation to love another. It means you’re already whole and don’t need to take from another to feel good. It’s loving someone deeply for who they are, not for what they do for you.

Conditional love waits for a return. It leads to resentment, bitterness and disappointment if expectations are not met, unattractive qualities.

Conditional ‘love’ is not love in my eyes. Conditions mean control and control is not a way to love. Control is dissatisfaction, it’s a desire for change, manipulation and that’s a warped type of love. Manipulation is abusive, it plays with another soul, it’s confusing and isolating. NOT love.

Conditional love is not love. Unconditional love is where it’s at.

COMMUNICATION

When I consider communication, it’s a lack of communication, in-particular, silent treatment, that’s of significance to me.

I can’t do silent treatment. At all. I’ll never deliver silent treatment and being on the receiving end of it impacts me greatly. It’s most definitely a strong trigger point and here’s why.

I’d been on the receiving end of the silent treatment game for years. It was so ingrained that I came to expect it. I knew that one false move and that was it, silent. For days. It wasn’t an act of love, quite the opposite, it was calculated control, passive aggressive.

The aim was to claim power over me, my feelings were irrelevant. I was told that my feelings were just feelings and not real, that I lived in a fantasy-land. Gas lighting.

The result was confusion, isolation, rejection, loneliness and at times, despair. It attacked my self-worth and self-esteem, left me questioning and doubting myself, ate away at my core. I experienced dissociation and displacement. Brain freeze. It affected my ability to think and process and make sense of the world around me.

Others saw it in me. They commented on it, on my face and demeanour, that I had retreated and my mind was often daydreaming elsewhere. Escaping. Still I said nothing. I was ‘fine’, conditioned to not speak the truth, keep the secret.

My own speech was affected, words were withheld, swallowed, creating a lump in my throat that was audible when I did try to speak. I wondered who would want to hear it anyway.

I carry these experiences with me, they are historical but they had a huge toll. I identify it, I know the cues when this is triggered in my new life and I deal with confrontation immediately, resole problems and drama. I ask for communication, use my words.

Don’t ignore me or disregard my feelings, show compassion, talk to me. Communicate.

Finally, I will never go to sleep silenced. Everyone deserves a peaceful sleep. Including me.

LOVE

This one has challenged me and it’s been revisited many times. Provide another topic and I can work it but this one, not easy. Perhaps that means it’s my subject, that it’s the one I need to pen. Is it because it’s so broad? Or maybe because there are so many types of love and I need to focus on one. I dunno.

Expectations. Real love does not have them, apparently. I embrace those I love, and they feel it. Although ‘nice’ to be reciprocated, real love should be minus expectation. Individual love is demonstrated differently from person to person and that‘s where complexity lies, and miscommunication, and heartache.

I think true love is loving someone so completely that you don’t want to change a thing about them. Understanding and seeing what makes them so intrinsically beautiful and letting it be. Intrinsic beauty is difficult to define but for me it’s an inner confidence, an authentic sense of self, a calm centredness, an honesty of self, a vulnerability.

Loving someone is holding them firmly, yet lightly without pressure, letting their soul breathe. Love is extending hand and heart. Real love is that feeling deep, deep in your soul. Its a feeling of knowing, almost nostalgic, of having being here before. It’s not a new feeling, it’s an old world feeling of perhaps paths crossed or previous lives shared. It’s white and gold, floaty and precious. It’s not to be shared, it’s you and them, there’s no room for more, it’s a magnetism, you can’t walk away. And you don’t want to.

It’s wanting the world for them. It’s a desire to help towards potential while not intruding or suffocating. It’s about giving space while being right there.

Soulmate love is undeniable and I for one have only felt it once. Is it something only felt once in a lifetime?