It’s much easier to give love than it is to receive it.
Telling someone you love him or her, buying something thoughtful and showing you care comes quite naturally and easily for most.
Receiving love though, doesn’t come as easily as you might think. We’re never specifically taught how to receive the nourishing, all encompassing, non-judgmental type of love. Receiving love brings up feelings of unworthiness and causes us to question whether we are truly lovable and deserving of that love.
Below are 3 action steps to implement into your dating life immediately to begin receiving the kind of love you truly want and deserve.
- Seek to understand
When you seek to understand your partner with an inside out approach, more specifically how they tick, operate and set expectations, your relationship is not only going to be healthier but more meaningful and consistent.
Truly understanding your partner allows you the ability to anticipate their needs and help make up for what they lack.
If your partner tends to become stressed easily, you can be their voice of reason. If you partner tends to need more support with issues related to family, you can be their sounding board. If your partner likes to talk things out, you can be there to listen.
Clashing in relationships often occurs when you and your partner don’t put in the time, practice patience and prioritize your relationship. Until you fully understand your partner, both of your needs will not be met.
Why?
Because otherwise you’re taking what I like to call the blindfolded approach where you blindfold yourself and throw darts at a dartboard hoping to hit the bullseye.
- Communicate exactly what you need
Often people think they have a very clear idea of what they want and need from a partner. When it comes down to it though, they really haven’t a clue.
When you can’t clearly and succinctly share your needs with your partner, you’re simply not going to have your needs met.
Communicating exactly what you need can be difficult but it’s imperative as it provides your partner with a roadmap to get to the pot of gold. Without providing this roadmap, your partner is going to be completely lost, expending a lot of unnecessary energy hoping to find the pot. Only you can provide the directions.
If you need more support, make that known. If you need more affection, make that known. If you need more assurance, make that known.
Not only do you want to make your needs known, you also want to instruct your partner how you’d like that support, affection and assurance given. The more specific you can get, the more your partner understands, you’re then given more of what you need.
- Change your mindset
Accepting ourselves fully can be one the most challenging things we do as human beings. The fear of not being enough can be crippling.
When the fear takes over your mind- interrupt the thought, take a deep breath and tell yourself that are so deserving of someone else’s affection, time and unwavering commitment.
You must learn to accept yourself just the way you are, flaws and all. The more you learn to embrace and appreciate the real you, the more you will feel deserving of someone else’s love (we’re talking about the amazing, passionate, head over heels, stands the test of time kind of love).
Feeling lovable is not only incredibly meaningful but empowering. When you truly feel worthy of someone loving you wholeheartedly it opens the possibility for you to share your life with someone who respects you, adores you and understands you better than anyone else.
When someone loves the raw, unedited version of you that very few get to see, you know you’re authentically loved for exactly who you are.