Infatuation into love, so I've got a couple of other videos on this topic that I feel
are crucial because this is really a such a vital topic and there's so many misunderstandings
as to the difference between infatuation and love. In one of those videos I talk about
the differences between the two and in the other, I demonstrate them with a very clear
client example so I won't cover those again. The links to those will be in the description.
In short, infatuation is when someone unlocks something in you, usually a feeling that your
brain doesn't know how to unlock for itself or has shamed or for whatever it is is unable
to access. So that person, in this case a man becomes like a walking, talking password
to feeling a certain way and we become obsessed with that. In today's video, I want to show
you how one client moved from infatuation into love in her longterm relationship.
So this client starts out quite young. She was only 16 at the time and I didn't know
her at this stage, and that was when she was first at school and met this guy. Now, this
particular client had a fantastic upbringing, so she was, great parents, you know, she was
well supported. She was in a good suburb. She has had a good education. She had all
the standard stuff that we think will raise a healthy, balanced daughter. The one thing
she didn't feel within herself was popular. She never felt like the popular kid at school,
and soon she met this guy who was very much that. He was a Taekwando champion, very popular.
Lots of people loved him, and for a year she infatuated over this man. She became infatuated
with him. Now a year later, she actually became his girlfriend and she got what she wanted
and things were great for awhile. In her words, they were magical.
The problem was that relationship at some point in her very early twenties started to
deteriorate. So she'd been with him a little while when he started to develop narcissistic
and controlling tendencies after the two of them finished school. Now, unfortunately,
despite her great upbringing and despite her various things she had going for her, she
wasn't able to put her boundaries in place very effectively with this first guy. She
didn't want to break up with him because she loved him. And when we examined that, we realized
that the feeling she got from being with him, the popularity, the love, she put that first
and her boundaries started to go. Now, before she met him, she called herself fun, carefree,
bubbly. And by the time that relationship ended about two years ago, she did not feel
any of those things anymore. So this is a woman who had most of the traits, she just
didn't feel popular and then became infatuated with that popularity she had and she actually
let that cost her other feelings that she used to get for herself. So she meets guy
number two, which is the guy she came to me about. And I said, well, what was so amazing
about him? And she said, Mark, I know it was quickly after my last relationship, but it
was magical. And the key thing she said was he made me feel fun and carefree again. But
now 18 months later, she says, I didn't feel like that around him anymore. What, what's
going on? What's wrong with our relationship?
And what had happened. She's gone from one infatuation and it's actually cost her a feeling
of fun and carefree mode, if you want to call it that. And so when she's met this new guy
who brings back her fun and carefree mode, instantly, it's like he became the new password
that she had forgotten in her mind. And then because she confused infatuation with love,
18 months later she said, Hey, he doesn't make me feel this way anymore. Something must
be wrong. And I had to tell her the news that it's something with you not with him, so you
never healed from your first relationship and you never got that fun and carefree mode
back. This man happened to fly in, swipe you off your feet and do it for you for a while,
but of course that password never lasts and your brain will stop responding to that stimulus
eventually.
It doesn't know how to feel fun and carefree on its own, and you start to think something
must be wrong with him instead of realizing it's actually something with you. I had to
show this client who'd been infatuated with two different men for two very different reasons
how to get back those feelings in herself and only by doing this was she successfully
able to turn infatuation into love. Now, there's other things you can do that are more for
an early dating sense. You can slow things down. You know, you can make sure that you're
looking at the things you don't like as well cause everyone has negatives, no one's perfect.
There's different ways to do this and turn infatuation into love in the early stages.
I think what I want to focus on today is if you're finding you're at that 18 month or
two year, two and a half year point, and you'll finding he doesn't invoke something in you
anymore that you're expecting him to, then your expectations might be in the wrong place.
Really look at, well what did he invoke at the beginning and how do I design that in
myself? For this client, the answer was simple - she had to get her fun and carefree mode
back. That was more time with the girls away from him. That was doing things she loved
again. Basically all the stuff that she stopped doing in her first relationship that cost
her fun and carefree mode. That was the real solution for her in terms of turning infatuation
in a longterm relationship into love. I thought it was a beautiful story and it was a success
story as well. And if you're finding that you're in the situation where you felt something
very strongly, that may be you never used to, and then a man's brought it back and you've
gone further and it stops happening. This is how you can fix that. And that's the video.
Thank you so much for watching. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Let me know. Comments,
thoughts, questions as you always do in the space below. Hit the big red subscribe button
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