There is obviously more to life then love and the same goes for relationships as well. For years I lived under the misconceived notion that being in love was all a person needed and that once you had that you had it made. After quite a few bad relationships in which all that was going for them was the love, I slowly and painfully began to realize the truth. Love may just be the last thing that holds a relationship together. That’s not saying that love is the insignificant part of the relationship. It’s just that when there are so many underlying factors that are a major component in the glue holding relationships together, saying “But I Love You” may seem like a last stitch effort to mask all of the other problems that can’t be fixed.
One of the number one reasons that a relationship either doesn’t make it to the marriage phase or why the marriage itself doesn’t work is financial. Here is where saying I love you just doesn’t solve everything. The person that you select to be your mate has to be evenly yoked with you, if not on any other level, but financially. You need to be on the same page about what you want your finances to be or things are just not going to work out. I’ve seen too many people not go to the next step with a person because not only were their finances messed up (which they could’ve dealt with) but they seemed to have no immediate interest in fixing them. Planning a future means talking about finances and where the two of you stand on them and this card trumps love any day of the week because love can not keep a roof over your head or send your children to good school.
One of the other major things that dissolve a relationship or a marriage is SEX. Yes you may think that sex and love go hand in hand and often times they do. But with that love must come some chemistry and passion and compatibility. If your mate likes to try lots of new and experimental things and you are a straight laced, missionary position only type of person then unless you are willing to be more open minded and uninhibited then the two of you will not last a very long time and vice versa. The same also goes for if you are a person that likes to have sex several times a week whereas your mate is content and happy with just once a week and doesn’t really like it any more then that then that is going to be a problem as well. You know what you like and what you don’t so why waste time with someone who isn’t going to or willing to join you in those same likes or dislikes. But for the people who swear they can make it work they end up learning the hard way that you can not force compatibility.
There are a number of general requirements that help hold a relationship or marriage together such as communication, respect, compromise and sacrifice, creativity, compassion, generosity, trust, patience, energy, time, maturity, forgiveness, and the list goes on. But the thing is that if you don’t have ALL or at least MOST of those things then love doesn’t really do you any good. What good is loving someone you can’t communicate with, or feel compassion for, or even have respect for? The divorce rate isn’t nearly 50% because the two people don’t love each other. The divorce rate is that high because that love couldn’t hold them together when everything else is lacking. Love does not conquer all and I think that the sooner we all realize that then the closer we can get to actually having the type of relationship that we really want. A relationship where everything works and where the glue holding it together isn’t missing a single ingredient.
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date TBA)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://freemynd.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The Idea of Being In Love
When is the last time that you checked in on your relationship with yourself? One of the keys to a healthy relationship and a happy life is expressing love for yourself first. A lot of us, women in particular, are so concerned with finding love from someone else and wanting someone to be in love with us that I think we’ve forgotten that loving ourselves can be enough. That maybe we should be in love with ourselves first before we put all of our focus on having someone else fall in love with us. After all, how can you ever expect someone else to love you unconditionally if you can’t love yourself unconditionally just the way you are? When it comes to the idea of falling in love, don’t be afraid to fall in love with yourself.
Your relationship with yourself is the central relationship in your life from which all other relationships around you are formed. It should be the most powerful relationship that you ever have. Loving yourself is a prerequisite to creating a successful and authentic union with other people. At the heart of all the elements that make up your life experience, whether it is with family, friends, romantic relationships, or professional relationships, is you. You can’t expect to have a good relationship with others if the depth and quality of the relationship that you have with yourself is not a good one. If you desire to better the relationships that you have with the people in your life then you must first learn to love, honor, and cherish yourself as the truly precious human being that you are.
At its core, loving yourself simply means believing in your own self-worth and taking care of yourself; mind, body, heart and soul. Only when you have successfully learned to love the “whole you” and master taking care of your own needs, can you know how to extend that same attention and love to others. To become completely okay with you and nurture the relationship that you have with yourself you have to be able to fully appreciate yourself. Truly fall in love with who you are now, as well as who you have been in the past and who you can be in the future. You can not truly love yourself unconditionally if you are constantly dwelling on the mistakes of your past instead of embracing them as the life lessons that they are. Loving yourself is the best way to learn how to effectively love others.
The place within you that generates self-love is the exact same place that attracts authentic love from others. Keeping your relationship with you in tact means knowing that you are worthy of the best that this life has to offer you. It is maintaining the treatment of royalty to yourself because you know that you are royalty. The relationship that you have with yourself sets the tone for all other relationships that you will have surrounding you. You tend to attract people who treat you the way that you allow them to but if you think about it the way that you allow others to treat you is most likely the way that you treat yourself. Women need to stop focusing so much on trying to be in love with someone else and making it seem as though if they are not involved that their life is not as good as it should be. Your life is what you make it and our every hope and dream for our lives should not hinge on whether we are involved in a romantic relationship or not. If you think about it you are in a constant relationship-with you. Make it a good, life-long relationship and even as important, make it a strong powerful relationship because nobody can ever love YOU as good as YOU can.
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date To Be Announced)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter
Your relationship with yourself is the central relationship in your life from which all other relationships around you are formed. It should be the most powerful relationship that you ever have. Loving yourself is a prerequisite to creating a successful and authentic union with other people. At the heart of all the elements that make up your life experience, whether it is with family, friends, romantic relationships, or professional relationships, is you. You can’t expect to have a good relationship with others if the depth and quality of the relationship that you have with yourself is not a good one. If you desire to better the relationships that you have with the people in your life then you must first learn to love, honor, and cherish yourself as the truly precious human being that you are.
At its core, loving yourself simply means believing in your own self-worth and taking care of yourself; mind, body, heart and soul. Only when you have successfully learned to love the “whole you” and master taking care of your own needs, can you know how to extend that same attention and love to others. To become completely okay with you and nurture the relationship that you have with yourself you have to be able to fully appreciate yourself. Truly fall in love with who you are now, as well as who you have been in the past and who you can be in the future. You can not truly love yourself unconditionally if you are constantly dwelling on the mistakes of your past instead of embracing them as the life lessons that they are. Loving yourself is the best way to learn how to effectively love others.
The place within you that generates self-love is the exact same place that attracts authentic love from others. Keeping your relationship with you in tact means knowing that you are worthy of the best that this life has to offer you. It is maintaining the treatment of royalty to yourself because you know that you are royalty. The relationship that you have with yourself sets the tone for all other relationships that you will have surrounding you. You tend to attract people who treat you the way that you allow them to but if you think about it the way that you allow others to treat you is most likely the way that you treat yourself. Women need to stop focusing so much on trying to be in love with someone else and making it seem as though if they are not involved that their life is not as good as it should be. Your life is what you make it and our every hope and dream for our lives should not hinge on whether we are involved in a romantic relationship or not. If you think about it you are in a constant relationship-with you. Make it a good, life-long relationship and even as important, make it a strong powerful relationship because nobody can ever love YOU as good as YOU can.
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date To Be Announced)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Excess Baggage
Every time you take another step in life towards the ideal lifestyle you want to lead it’s logical to make constant notations of your purpose, your goals, and your priorities but one of the most important things I think that we need to be mindful of is the luggage that we carry along with us from step to step. The baggage that we saddle ourselves with on our journey in life, be it mental or emotional, can be more damaging if we take it with us rather then if we were to just let it go and leave it behind. But saying that you forgive and actually having forgiveness in your heart and letting go are two very different things and the two often get misconstrued. I say all of this having recently discovered that the things and people I thought I had forgiven because I said I forgave them I had not. I had not yet let the anger and resentment go which meant I was in fact still holding on and thus hurting no one more then I was hurting myself.
Forgiveness allows for us to clean the slate of negative emotions and allows for a fresh new start. It means you are letting go of your anger which does not imply that you bury your feelings but rather you change the way you look at that particular situation. You have to move out of the past and into the present before you can move into the future which requires you to let whatever it is that you insist on holding onto go. Now that’s not to say that this is an easy task because I am finding it to be extremely difficult but I feel as though I have to try because I realize that what I am holding onto so tightly is holding me back and bogging me down at the same time. It’s keeping me from reaching up and grabbing that peace of mind and all of the blessings that I am deserving of which are right there at my fingertips but I can’t because I am so weighed down.
Let’s face it, we all have things that have happened to us in the past that hurt us and people who have wronged us and we’ve all been angry to the point of wanting revenge and sometimes to the point of actual retaliation. We have all had grudges that we held onto with all of our might but if we hold onto those grudges they will bind us to the past and hold us in place so that we can not move on until we have come to a point of forgiveness. By refusing to let go we inadvertently begin to harden our hearts and building up emotional walls which is what we use to try and protect ourselves from being hurt again. However, hardening our hearts is not the answer because not only does it keep us from opening up and receiving good heart felt emotions but also it stifles us and keeps us from growing and moving forward with our lives.
This is not just a philosophy that holds true for our professional lives but also our romantic relationships as well. When we are so focused on the person or people in the past who have hurt us in whatever way then how can we expect to be able to attract someone who isn’t going to do the same thing because that’s all we’re focused on. Also how can we be able to allow ourselves to see someone good that may be right in front of us because we’re too concentrated on what has happened before? We can not change what has happened to us in the past but we can make our present worthwhile and even improve upon our future. Whenever entering a new relationship or a new situation in life we have to learn not to let the past begin to weigh us down and start to leave our luggage from our previous trip at the door.
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date TBA)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter
Forgiveness allows for us to clean the slate of negative emotions and allows for a fresh new start. It means you are letting go of your anger which does not imply that you bury your feelings but rather you change the way you look at that particular situation. You have to move out of the past and into the present before you can move into the future which requires you to let whatever it is that you insist on holding onto go. Now that’s not to say that this is an easy task because I am finding it to be extremely difficult but I feel as though I have to try because I realize that what I am holding onto so tightly is holding me back and bogging me down at the same time. It’s keeping me from reaching up and grabbing that peace of mind and all of the blessings that I am deserving of which are right there at my fingertips but I can’t because I am so weighed down.
Let’s face it, we all have things that have happened to us in the past that hurt us and people who have wronged us and we’ve all been angry to the point of wanting revenge and sometimes to the point of actual retaliation. We have all had grudges that we held onto with all of our might but if we hold onto those grudges they will bind us to the past and hold us in place so that we can not move on until we have come to a point of forgiveness. By refusing to let go we inadvertently begin to harden our hearts and building up emotional walls which is what we use to try and protect ourselves from being hurt again. However, hardening our hearts is not the answer because not only does it keep us from opening up and receiving good heart felt emotions but also it stifles us and keeps us from growing and moving forward with our lives.
This is not just a philosophy that holds true for our professional lives but also our romantic relationships as well. When we are so focused on the person or people in the past who have hurt us in whatever way then how can we expect to be able to attract someone who isn’t going to do the same thing because that’s all we’re focused on. Also how can we be able to allow ourselves to see someone good that may be right in front of us because we’re too concentrated on what has happened before? We can not change what has happened to us in the past but we can make our present worthwhile and even improve upon our future. Whenever entering a new relationship or a new situation in life we have to learn not to let the past begin to weigh us down and start to leave our luggage from our previous trip at the door.
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Release Date TBA)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
www.freefalllit.com
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://writetobe.wordpress.com/
http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/jcladyluv
www.lulu.com/ladybugpress
www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter
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