Do you love with intention and purpose? Or are you like many people, loving when you receive what you want and unloving when you don't? Have you ever loved with full intention to love, no matter how the other person responded? Loving with a sense of full intention, with no holds-barred, can be a totally freeing experience.
If you really feel so good about yourself that you don't NEED to receive anything from your partner for you to feel okay, love can be an amazing experience.
If you KNOW that no matter what happens, you are okay and you can still love yourself, then your sense of confidence and love will certainly rub off on your partner.
Why do intimate relationships often become breeding grounds for intense emotional pain and suffering? At first, when our hormones are flooding our system in the early phases of attraction and lust, we may be totally focused on and mesmerized by our new partner.
We may do everything we can to please and satisfy him or her.
We provide unconditional, intentional love - compassion, attention, caring, focus and highest regard.
Gradually, however, real life, the real person behind our illusory image, the real difference between what we want and what we have, comes into our awareness.
We may feel disappointed, betrayed and baffled by the way this person seems to change right before our eyes.
That totally loving, totally receptive, totally attentive, and totally giving partner we fell in love with may begin to back away, withhold affection or sex, disagree and behave in an unsupportive or even abusive way.
Intentional loving on your part, not waiting to receive that from your partner, is the way back to intimate love.
When you do something pleasing for your partner, serotonin is released in their brain, helping them to feel relaxed and happy.
But it is not enough for you to take action.
It is important for you to find a way to elicit that same caring action from your partner toward you.
Giving is more powerful than receiving.
When you give and nurture another person, you also tend to feel more attached and more loving toward him or her.
When you receive nurturing, you may appreciate it and feel loved, but that may not translate into loving feelings toward that other person.
Just for today, become the lover you are desiring.
Love with intention.
Love with the purpose of serving and healing.
Love and honor your partner.
And don't forget to love yourself with that same intentional loving that you offer to your partner.
Bring out the love that is available within both of you.
Don't let go of your current relationship until you are sure you have really loved with intention.
Only allow yourself to let go when you are convinced it is a losing battle.
Intentional loving will quickly reveal what is possible, what is probable and what may be a lost cause.
But even some of the most hopeless situations can be turned around when at least one person loves with full intention.