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The other day after a long day’s work I decided to watch some TV and happened on a bio pic about the model, Gia. Sadly, she died young of AIDS related to IV drug use. Throughout the move characters that represented Gia’s family and friends spoke about her. One thing that was talked about was an ongoing story she wrote when she was a little girl. She wrote about a girl with golden curls that everyone thought was beautiful. This girl with the golden hair lived in a beautiful house. The word beautiful was a running theme in her story. Gia herself had dark hair. Her mother was notably focused on Gia’s looks, noticing Gia’s pimples when she was in the process of detoxing from Heroine and making comments about her makeup. Gia was involved in a tumultuous attraction and relationship with another woman. That woman had blonder hair. She besieges this women with rooms of golden roses and calls her constantly until she finally tracks he down at her home. When she sees her she tells her “ You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen”

Gia not consider herself beautiful and had no sense of herself. She was terrified of being abandoned and clung desperately to her lover. She used drugs to kill the sense of discontent in herself. She found no sense in life.

It was clear from seeing Gia with her lover that Gia wasn’t having a relationship with this woman but what she needed that woman to be for her. To Gia, this was the beautiful girl she never got a chance to be because her mother never saw her real beauty. To Gia This was the woman that was going to love her and never leave her even if she stole or was violent. She was going to be loved no matter what no matter how bad a little girl she was.

Gia needed to be recognized and loved for who she was and to have the mother that was emotionally fully

there for her. The relationship wasn’t love because Gia was not present. Gia was stuck in her past as many people get stuck — not realizing they’re stuck in a loop and find themselves going from relationship to relationship looking for something they never got.

It made me think about true intimacy and what’s the difference between love and addiction.

“Tony” came to me “ feeling really stuck” because he’s miserable in a relationship triangle. He’s in a long-standing relationship that for years hasn’t been happy in. We’re like roommates now. But what’s really tearing me up is that their is someone at work who I’m crazy about. I can’t get her out of my mind when I’m not with her. She feels torn about our relationship and puts the break on and when she does that I can barely function. All I want is to hear her voice and see her again. It’s killing me.

She’s the only one I’ve ever wanted to spend my whole life with.

“ Sheryl” began session with me because she found someone that she fell in love with at firs site. The seen each other a few times but she feels unattractive around him. He looks at other woman when they are together but he feels to her like someone she’s knows her whole life. He’s my soul mate. I can’t explain it. But I go home and cry when I leave him because I lsit feel he doesn’t really see my worth. Why do I still get pulled into this. It’s so painful!

If you feel that its a male-female thing I can tell that t you change the sexes above the same holds true. If read you this and you feel your reading about you, you’re not alone. In our society we support the infatuated idea of love and encourage the addictive qualities of it. You can hear it in our songs and you’ll hear hear all the pain in what people call love. It’s no different for our movies and books. The pain of love is big box office.

One of the issues that people come to me for consistently is relationship. The issues range from being in abusive and toxic relationships to more subtle miseries of being in relationship that don’t feed the person in ways that are important to them.

Relationship loops are no different then having self limiting beliefs around money or chronic depression or anything else. Stuck is stuck is stuck.

These are the kinds of things I hear repeatedly. “I know this relationship isn’t good for me but I keep going back.”

“I love him so much I just can’t think of anything else when I’m away from him.” I get “almost panicky” when she doesn’t return my call.

Let’s talk about love at first sight. Or if it’s in social networking, love on first talk! You don’t know anything about the person and before your in “ love” with the person. One of my clients recently said it so beautifully. “ It was unnaturally smooth and before I even knew what was happening I was in it” Maybe that’s what we mean by “ falling” in love. The word itself tells it all — we are not choosing consciously we are pulled by something beyond ourselves.

What do you think is really going on?

When you feel that way so fast for anyone it’s not them that you’re responding to but how they make you feel. The feeling that you have that comes over you so fast is a tip off that something in you is being triggered. That something, as cliché as it sounds, I know you’re going to groan, is from your past. The feeling is usually connected to a caregiver that you needed as a source of love and approval for you as a child. Part of you has antennas out for people that will resonate and remind you of that caregiver.

“Dallas” is client of mine who came to me because he feels he can’t get out of a relationship that he knows is not good for him but “ I can’t’ seem to leave.” When I’m with her I feel insecure but strangely alive. There is a magnetism between us”

“Gerry” came ot me because she feels obsessed by her relationship. “When he doesn’t call me it tears me up inside. I can’t think of anything else.”

“Monica” says “i feel he completes me. I can’t imagine life without him. When he’s not around I feel this hole inside me.”

“Joseph” says when she doesn’t call I feel this nervous unsettled feeling inside me. Almost a desperation”

These are just some ways that people verbalize the addiction in their relationships that they call love.

Here are some things that will tip you off that what you call love is addiction.

• Feelings that you knew that person for a long time when in fact you just met them
• Feelings that you are irresistibly drawn to the person
• Feelings that you were meant to be together after barely meeting them
• Intense jealously and feelings of insecurity
• Feeling a sense of magnetism that you can’t explain
• Hearing yourself say “ I feel in love with him after an hour of talking to him”
• Feelings of deep loss when you’re not with him.
• Not being able to focus on your life fully when she’s not communicating with you.
• Seeing things that you don’t’ like about the person and making excuses for his behaviors.
• A feeling of being ungrounded in the feeling you call love.
• A feeling of insecurity when your with the person. Does he care about me. I’m never sure.
• Feelings that your high when your with her and life is dull when you’re not.

As apposed to genuine intamacy…

• Genuine intimacy comes through knowing you you are and a desire to experience all of who that other person is as your relationship unfolds in history with a person.
• Genuine love is grounded and makes you feel more secure when your not with that person.
• Genuine love is grounded and clear and makes both partners richer and stronger inside themselves and able to focus more easily and with more energy on their separate lives.
• Real love sees all the faults in the other person and doesn’t need to make excuses to feel good about being in the relationship.

How can EFT help?

EFT helps you identify the programs that are connected to the addictive behaviors and feelings that you’re having

The EFT process will allow you to quickly clear the self destructive patterns that have kept you being drawn into unhappy relationship loops.

With EFT it’s not about coming to terms with or understanding the programs that you run, There’s nothing wrong with that but it doesn’t change much on anything to know that. We need to clear programs os that we don’t play them anymore. EFT’s goal is our true freedom.

Look at your relationship. If they are addictive your being triggered by programs that your carrying from your past.

You owe it to yourself and your partner to clear those

programs so that you can see yourself and the other person clearly. Then and only then will you really be available to completely “stand” in LOVE.

Have a sweet day!

Shulamit

http://www.LimitFreeSelf.com