Are Healthy Romantic Relationships Really Possible?

Is a healthy, long lasting romantic relationship even possible? I mean, isn't that just kind of a fantasy put forth by songs and pop culture and media? Isn't the truth that love degrades over time? That passion fades? That people just sort of settle or end relationships in pain and ruin and divorce? Isn't that just how it is? These questions rattling in your mind? These are exact questions that I heard speaking with a client just the other day. I'm Dr. Sz. I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence and a confidence expert. And just recently I was doing a live event. And this client was at the live event, and then he started to work more closely with me. And at the live event we had a relationship panel. This was unlimited dating and relationship confidence, and we had a relationships panel. And so that we had a number of couples or people that were parts of couples that had been together from all different lengths of time, ranging from five years to 20 plus years. And we're having extraordinary relationships. And for me, an extraordinary relationship is one that lasts and gets better and better and better every year. And the challenge was that as they were sharing and they were sharing the tips, they had the insights, and it wasn't just their ideas, but it was the way they related to each other. You could see so much love. And the challenge, the problem there was that for this particular client in the audience, he said that was like the most painful part of the event. He's just like, it was like burning to watch that. It hurts so much because he's like, you know what? When I look at my family, my upbringing, all my past relationships, it's nothing like that. I mean, those people might as well have been speaking a different language. And it was crushing for him. And then out of that comes all this doubt, like, is that even possible? And I wanted to make this video because I know he's not alone. I know there's millions of people out there and you might be one of them who has this sort of, like, is that even really possible? And it might not be so, like, I don't know, depressed or demoralized about it, like, is that even possible? But it's still a little bit in there. Like, is that really even possible? Like, I could date, but I don't know. And maybe it's possible objectively out there for humans, but for me, and that's really what this client was saying is it's. It's not possible for me because he wasn't denying what he saw on the panel, but he's saying it's not possible for me. And if you get stuck in that, it can be a really painful place to go further and further down because you start saying, well, why is it not possible for me? Well, your critics, like, you want the laundry list. All right, rolling up my sleeves. You, you know, it starts to tick off. All the reasons why. Well, you're this and you're that and you never were this. And then look at your past experiences and look at your family. And you know what it does? It just goes 100% on the past and just starts pulling out evidence, like tissues from a box. Evidence, evidence, evidence, all from your past as to why it's not possible. And that's where this client was really getting stuck. I said, okay, you have an endless amount of evidence, and as to why, how it goes, poorly or not, the way that you want in love. And your mind is saying, the future will equal the past for me in this area of my life. And I said, but do you want to change it? Do you want to experience something new, something different, something better? And he's like, yeah, that's why I'm working with you. I said, great. Well, at least we know that much, right? I mean, that's the desire to. For something to change is a necessary part of the process. So huzzah. But then we need to go further than that, right? And it was really interesting. Cause I asked him, like, do you have any friendships? And he started to explain his friendships. He's like, oh yeah, I got great friendships. And his voice changed when he was talking about relationship. It was like a train wreck. His voice was so tight. And it was just stories of woe and pain and, you know, betrayal. And then his friendships, he's like, he lit up and he's like, oh, yeah, you know, we're real with each other. We have each other's back. You know, we're vulnerable. I can tell them anything. And I know, you know, it's just about bettering our relationship. We do things together, we respect each other, we love sharing activities together. I was like, huh? And I didn't even have to say this. He just said, you know, as I'm talking, I'd imagine this sounds like what a good romantic relationship would be. And I was like, uh huh, yeah. Plus an element of physical desire and passion and intimacy and even more depth. Yeah, you got it. So he had a sense of like, okay, all right. Maybe I sort of have an understanding of how that might work if it's like these friendships. But how, how, you know, and that I think is one of the biggest challenges. One of my mentors told me that how is the dream killer? And I think my little adaptation of that is how asked too early is the dream killer. At one point we do need to ask how, but it's usually like how to do this next step in the process. If we ask how is this whole big transformation gonna happen? We don't know. I don't know. And I even told him, I was like, I don't know. I know it can and I know it will. And here's what we need to do though. If you wanna go in that direction, I wanna support you in that direction. And we need to get like, focus on that you want and then get your head down in this moment and look at like, what do I need to cultivate in myself now to be open to that kind of thing? And there were three huge things that he needed to cultivate. And I'm gonna share them with you now because they might be things that you need to cultivate as well. And the first one was trust. I mean, he could trust friends all day long deeply. And he did. When it came to love and connection, total lack of trust, right? Like, no, no way in hell am I gonna do that. Now he. And you might be saying, okay, yeah, yeah, but how, how, how, how do I trust? And I was like, slow down, slow down. We're just, we're just getting the map ahead. How asked too early is the dream killer. So first we need to cultivate, or not first, but one of the three is cultivating a sense of trust in belief that, okay, someone else that I'm attracted to could actually be a really good person who's going to treat me well and I'm going to do the same. The second thing is forgiveness. And he's like, do you mean like forgiveness of my past, you know, my ex wife? Because he had a lot of bitterness and stuff. And I was like, maybe, yeah, eventually. But I'm talking about forgiveness of you. Because you just go on and on about how bad you are in relationships and how many mistakes you made and what a fail you are. And it's just so much self judgment there. And I do not. I mean, there's like such a hardness there and love and connection, there's like a softness, there's an opening. How on earth could you open to someone when there's so much self blame there? So forgiveness, deep forgiveness of yourself and then maybe eventually others. But you gotta start with you. And third is you gotta get control of those voices in Your head. Cause those voices in his head will tell him, you're never gonna have a relationship. It's not possible for you. And he's like, you gotta shit. You got me, right? You know what I'm talking about. Those voices in your head. And it could be for you about love and relationships, could be about something totally different. Yeah, you're gonna get fired. You're just a failure at your job. You're. And you're like, damn, some brutal truths you're laying on me today, critic. I guess I'll go to work though, because I'm not fired yet. Right. And so we just take it in. I was like, you gotta get control. You gotta regain control. And that doesn't mean those voices stop entirely. It means you are the captain of the ship and that you can hear that voice, but it doesn't grab control of the boat and start steering it. So those are the three things he needed to cultivate. How. How are we going to do all this? That's the journey. I said, step one is let's work on those voices in your head. Let's have you start to dialogue with that voice that tells you why you're not good enough, why it's not going to work. And this is something I talk a lot about. And we teach you how to do exactly in my book Omos, which is coming out in early 2020. I'm super excited about it. It's called On My Own side. And we'll send you all the details about as it gets closer to that release. But that's like the manual for how to regain control in your head and get on your own side and stop these voices from kicking you around. So I was giving him some exercises from that book to do, and I'll be sharing a lot more of those in these videos. But the takeaway from this one is that process. Not needing to know how, just that's the vision. And the answer is, yes, it's absolutely possible to have that. And yes, it's absolutely possible to have that relationship for you. No matter what your history, no matter what your background, no matter how messed up you think you are. But the key is to like, what are the things that I need to cultivate in myself? Is it trust? Is it forgiveness? Is it more self compassion and getting control of the voices in your head? Is it something else? And then start to focus on how to cultivate those bit by bit. And not like, okay, I cultivated a little more forgiveness today. Is Mr. Right around the corner. Is she going to be my wife? You know, like, just let it be, Let it emerge over time and just be in that process of cultivating yourself, of growing yourself, and you'll be amazed what can come to you as you've grown and outgrown some of those old patterns that you run in the past. Beautiful. So share below what you're learning, what you're finding most valuable in the comments. I love reading those and seeing how we can all support each other in our growth and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.