I am just about to reveal how I made love for 14 full hours over the weekend in a hot hotel in London.   I’m hoping that this is not too much information for a Monday morning. So, before you choke on your cornflakes, you should know that it was all in the interest of helping you guys reclaim the love for yourself and your relationship, I promise!

And just in case you were wondering, it was all done with clothes on – or as little as I could get away with, as London has been languishing in the sunshine once again.

I know that for some of you out there, this weekend may have been steamy for other more upsetting reasons and emotional temperatures, as well as seasonal ones, may well have been raised in your neck of the woods.  That’s why I am going to give you a perspective to start the week with, which I hope will help you get your breath back and get your heart beating normally.

So, what on earth have I been up to?  Well, I spent the weekend with the wonderful Robert Holden (www.happiness.co.uk) on a workshop called Love and Fear, based on an amazing volume called the Course in Miracles.   Now, I can hear some of you saying, ‘that does not sound like summer fun to me’, but I promise you, ‘making love’ with Robert Holden (and 50 other people – see, it gets better and better) is always a gorgeous experience and as a life long learner dedicated to bringing the best and newest strategies to my own work, a weekend with Robert is like bringing sunshine into your heart regardless of whether its hot or cold outside.    (BTW, Mr. Holden will be running this workshop again in the winter months so do check out his website for yourself).

Today, I’m going to share my bite-sized interpretation from the workshop in order to give you a flavour to taste. Carrying on from my last blog about FEAR, and taking it one step further, the premise is that we are either in Love or in FEAR/PEAR. (Just to recap, my acronym for FEAR is Future Expectations Appearing Real and PEAR is Past Experiences Appearing Real)

Anything that blocks us being in love in our relationships and in love with ourselves is based on FEAR/PEAR. So to reiterate, anything that is blocking you right now in your relationship with another person or in feeling good about yourself is based on a FEAR/PEAR either from the past or projected into the future.

FEAR's and PEAR's are ways to defend yourself against love. But why would a person want to do that? Well, defending yourself against Love is a tactic many people use to stop themselves being open and vulnerable to the risks that they perceive love presents. Of course the downside of this means that they never really get to experience being fully in love with another person or with themselves. Defenses express themselves in this kind of language:

I might lose my independence
He/She should…
All men/women are
I’m not changing for anybody
I’m playing it cool this time
I need my space

And a favourite one of my mine from Robert’s list of 40 defenses:

Love is a fairy tale, a Grimm fairy tale!

With FEAR's and PEAR's like those, Love is going to have a hard time being present and hanging around for very long.

Love is a different entity. Love does not condemn, judge, defend, blame, victimize, criticize, withhold, control, manipulate and it does not create guilt, include neediness, cause hurt or virtually any other verb with negative connotations.

If you are in a relationship that you perceive contains any of the above or other negativities in it, you can be sure that you are not experiencing love from the other person or giving it them and unsurprisingly, neither are you giving it to yourself. If you were being loving to you, and I mean really loving to yourself, I know that you would not be sticking around to give or receive pain of any kind. And if you are, then we are right back to your FEAR’s and PEAR’s. See how it works?

So here are a couple of inquiries for you as we start a new week:

a) How many reasons can you find for not being fully in relationship with your partner right now? (And notice how justified you feel as you write them down). 

b) What’s the FEAR or PEAR that stops you being in relationship right now?

I’d love to hear your comments on this so we can start a conversation around this topic and if you’d like to take it one step further and work with me personally, you know where to find me.

Till tomorrow,

Love Francine