We spend an inordinate amount of time in our relationships
trying to make the other person happy.
Trying to love them in a way where they really feel loved.
And yet we fall short.
For whatever reason it seems like our love is not getting through.
There's a miscommunication, and we don't understand why.
I did a YouTube video that was called:
What is Love
In that, I described the fact,
that love is to take something as part of yourself.
To see it, to feel it, to listen to it, to take it in
to the degree that you fully understand it.
But I'm going to go a step further.
I'm going to say that if you want
someone to feel loved you need to stop
trying to love them all together.
And instead start trying to understand them.
When you understand something
you know that thing on a mental, emotional and physical level.
And the best part about this is, is no longer a guessing game.
You don't have to guess what it needs and wants
and what's best for it.
you don't have to guess because you know.
As people we don't take the time or put forth the effort to really
under stand people.
We don't understand each other.
Instead we get Into relationships mostly subconsciously.
We just know we like the way we feel around that person.
We just feel compelled to get close to them.
And most of the time when we approach relationships
from this setpoint,
We are doing nothing more than falling in love
with an image that we have in our head.
Not even actually the real them.
We don't even know them.
To help you understand what a nightmare this type of relationship is,
I want to paint you a picture.
I want you to imagine that a small child is walking around
an aquarium and he just loves the jellyfish.
So what do his parents do?
They buy him a little aquarium with a little jellyfish inside.
He loves that jellyfish.
So what does he do?
He shows the jellyfish love in the way that he would feel love.
In the way you would love a person.
So what does he do?
He takes the jellyfish out of the aquarium
He hugs it, he wraps it up in a blanket.
He tries to feed it a candy bar.
He kisses it.
And eventually puts it back in the water
and by that point it's dead.
Now, this may sound far fetched but guess what?
This is us in most of our relationships.
Suddenly, our relationship is over
and we don't even know what the hell happened.
Our person we loved is telling us: "I never felt love by you."
And we're going: "What are you talking about?"
I spend every minute of my life trying to love you.
It's the exact same syndrome as this toddler would have.
This little child who loves the jellyfish.
He may even blame that jellyfish.
How could he die?
How could he do that to me?
It doesn't make any sense
when all I was doing was try to love it so much.
What was missing was understanding.
Obviously if that child had understood the jellyfish,
He wouldn't have taken it out of the aquarium.
He wouldn't have tried to feed it a candy bar.
He wouldn't have given it hugs with a blanket.
He would have loved it in the way that it would have felt loved.
When we do not understand another person
this is what being in a relationship with them can be like.
We do all the wrong things for them,
thinking they are the right things for them.
Also, here's the other thing.
If we don't fully understand another person
we can't fully know what their best interest is.
So, we can't even know if we are genuinely compatible to them.
Let's say you got to know somebody
deep enough that you knew that was was
genuinely in their best interest
was to have a partner that was available,
who is close to home,
who you could connect with really really quickly, right?
Now, let's say your not that kind of person.
Let's say that your best interest is to be home only half the time,
That's a super incompatible relationship.
That relationship is going to end in tears and breakup
and both partners are probably going to end up
in a puddle of low self esteem.
Not because there's anything wrong with either of them,
but because there is an incompatibility.
and until we understand each other we can't actually know
if that incompatibility exists.
As for how to understand someone,
this is not rocket science.
This is no different than when you were a kid
and you decided you loved horses.
What you do is you obsessively learn about it.
You come to know everything you can about it.
You immerse yourself in it.
let curiosity and the desire to know drag you mercilessly forward.
If you loved horses when you were young,
chances are you checked out every book on the subject,
you spent hours staring at them, you took riding lessons
you did anything you could do to become an expert on them.
And if a scientist become interested in something that is unknown,
he takes it upon himself to study it
so it becomes known.
What I am telling you is to let go of the concept of loving people
and start to understand them instead.
I want you to fully understand the people in your life
including your partner.
See into them, feel into them,
listen to them, come to know them.
Only by doing this will you know genuinely
what their best interests are.
And the best part is,
the minute you know what their best interests are
the minute you understand them,
loving them is not difficult at all.
It is a natural byproduct of it.
And you will know exactly how to love them
in the way that they will feel loved.
Have a good week!
Subtitles by: Kent Lisius & Tanya Duarte
Subtitles by the Amara.org community