Often it comes down to a one of two things, and the first one is when people say something like 'I always seem to meet the wrong guy (or girl)'. Now it's very unlikely that this person only meets the wrong people, and often people use words like 'always' to generalise their whole experience, linguistically these words are known as universal quantifiers. Usually what it comes down to is the person's tendency to create their world from the outside in, meaning that they are looking for love to come from outside of them , in the this case from the 'wrong kind of guys (or girls)'. And it's when people are coming from a place of need that it sets up a pattern where they are looking for love to come from outside of them.
Michael Neill uses a great story around this which goes, there are two girl friends chatting over coffee and one of the woman has been telling the other about her lastest failed relationship and complaining that she never seems to meet the right guy and her friend who has no doubt heard this all before replies, 'honey it's not that you're meeting the wrong guys, it's that you're sleeping with them!'.. Which makes the choice nice and simple and that is, you go out with people you like and you don't go out with the people you don't like
Creating your world from the inside out is a wonderful and effective mindset for going into and being in a loving relationship. It's about understanding that you don't have get love from someone, because when you think about it you create those feelings internally and actually you bring that love to the relationship. When you get that you never have to come from place of need, you're going to find your relationships are going to improve because you will naturally gravitate and be around those people who want to share in this rather than use it like a bargining tool.
Which takes me on the this excellent metaphor of the 'Magical Kitchen' by Don Miguel Ruiz in his book The Mastery of Love. I have pasted the fully story below because it really captures why people put up with so much crap in their relationships and gives a way of 'being' in relationships.
Imagine that you have a magical kitchen in your home. In that magical kitchen, you can have any food you want from any place in the world in any quantity. You never worry about what to eat; whatever you wish for, you can have at your table. You are very generous with your food; you give your food unconditionally to others, not because you want something in return from them. Whoever comes to your home, you feed just for the pleasure of sharing your food, and your house is always full of people who come to eat the food from your magical kitchen.
Then one day someone knocks at your door, and it’s a person with a pizza. You open the door, and the person looks at you and says, "Hey, do you see this pizza? I’ll give you this pizza if you let me control your life, if you just do whatever I want you to do. You are never going to starve because I can bring pizza every day. You just have to be good to me."
Can you imagine your reaction? In your kitchen you can have the same pizza - even better. Yet this person comes to you and offers you food, if you just do whatever he wants you to do. You are going to laugh and say, "No, thank you! I don’t need your food; I have plenty of food. You can come into my house and eat whatever you want, and you don’t have to do anything. Don’t believe I’m going to do whatever you want me to do. No one will manipulate me with food."
Now imagine exactly the opposite. Several weeks have gone by, and you haven’t eaten. You are starving, and you have no money in your pocket to buy food. The person comes with the pizza and says, "Hey, there’s food here. You can have this food if you just do what I want you to do." You can smell the food, and you are starving. You decide to accept the food and do whatever that person asks of you. You eat some food, and he says, "If you want more, you can have more, but you have to keep doing what I want you to do."
You have food today, but tomorrow you may not have food, so you agree to do whatever you can for food. You can become a slave because of food, because you need food, because you don’t have it. Then after a certain time you have doubts. You say, "What am I going to do without my pizza? I cannot live without my pizza. What if my partner decides to give the pizza to someone else mypizza?"
Now imagine that instead of food, we are talking about love. You have an abundance of love in your heart. You have love not just for yourself, but for the whole world. You love so much that you don’t need anyone’s love. You share your love without condition; you don’t love if. You are a millionaire in love, and someone knocks on your door and says, "Hey, I have love for you here. You can have my love, if you just do whatever I want you to do."
When you are full of love, what is going to be your reaction? You will laugh and say, "Thank you, but I don’t need your love. I have the same love here in my heart, even bigger and better, and I share my love without condition."
But what is going to happen if you are starving for love, if you don’t have that love in your heart, and someone comes and says, "You want a little love? You can have my love if you just do what I want you to do." If you are starving for love, and you taste that love, you are going to do whatever you can for that love. You can even be so needy that you give your whole soul just for a little attention.
Your heart is like that magical kitchen. If you open your heart, you already have all the love you need. There’s no need to go around the world begging for love: "Please, someone love me, to prove that I’m worthy of love." We have love right here inside us, but we don’t see this love.
Lenny
For more information about Lenny Deverill-West and making changes with Cognitive Hypnotherapy & NLP check out www.startlivingtoday.co.uk
