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This episode, Mike, Snake, Steve and special guest Karina Anderson talk about how to ‘keep love alive’ under both normal circumstances and trying ones!
Long-term relationships are among the greatest emotional challenges we all face. During the pandemic, with no choice but to remain together in close quarters, some relationships have come under tremendous strain 鈥� while others have thrived.
What are the latter group doing that the former are not? What emotional intelligence skills are required to balance two sets of needs? How do we know when to compromise, and when to draw a boundary? What can we do to make things better, rather than wishing our partner felt differently?
Joining Mike, Snake and Steve is coach and therapist Karina Andersen. Karina is a sought after travel companion and intuitive depth coach. She teaches awakened leadership paths to leaders, coaches and entrepreneurs and is known for harnessing the listening environment with a level of adeptness that allows her to skilfully guide her diverse clientele towards full potential.
Here’s Snake’s blog on the subject, reprinted for your convenience right below:
Love鈥檚 habitat is enormous and spans the broad expanse of an entire lifetime. Feeding a creature that continually changes shape makes keeping love alive a challenge. Few predators threaten love: yet it鈥檚 wise to keep an eye out for bitterness, resentment and fear.
Throughout history, philosophers have endeavoured to define love. Their efforts have been largely an exercise in futility; simply because love thrives in a free-range environment and suffers in captivity. Love prefers the taste of the human heart above all else and remains the most tender, yet ferocious, creature known to man or woman.
A common reductionist view is to singularly envision romance when love is mentioned. And there鈥檚 no question that, arriving at the intersection of attraction, desire and novelty, romance can trigger a chemical brainstorm of epic proportion. All the pleasure drugs found in the brain assemble for duty. Flooded with dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins, our bodies become so eager to conspire, it鈥檚 nearly impossible to resist the pull.
An invigorating experience, the initial heat of romance has a short lifespan and perhaps it鈥檚 for the best. A merciful process, in that to live full-time at the intersection of attraction, desire and novelty is not only unrealistic, but attempting to sustain this high level of intensity is certain to burn out all our circuits.
Romance wanders into our lives a cute fluffy puppy, and rapidly grows into a rather large rangy dog. Nurtured, fed and maintained romance continues long after the flames die down. But make no mistake, romance will evolve as novelty becomes familiarity.
There鈥檚 little need to panic or throw your hands up in despair. Romance and passion survive if nurtured. One of many gateways into the landscape of love, romance remains a delightful place to visit but not a final destination. When brain chemistry stabilises and the hazy fog of romance begins to clear, the 鈥榗hop wood, carry water鈥� aspect of life comes back into focus.
Daily responsibilities and the realities of work, food and shelter place demands on fresh love, and refuse to be ignored or neglected. Grieve the puppy if you must, then take the adult dog for a walk.
Within a primary relationship we discover the motivation to keep love alive. Safety and security become a shared endeavour and no longer a solitary action. Commitments begin to intertwine and we grow interdependent. Love requires sacrifice, generosity and negotiation, yet needn鈥檛 be a slog through the mud.
鈥楩amiliarity breeds contempt.鈥� This unfortunate although often true statement is a challenge many relationships confront. But contempt is a choice.
Loving relationships are rarely equal so it鈥檚 meaningless to keep a ledger. The most enduring relationships are reciprocal. With effort love softens the loss of novelty and replaces it with intimacy.
Familiarity also breeds security, comfort. It feeds the human desire for connection. Best navigated with emotional generosity, intimacy promises love an opportunity to flex its muscles. The give-and-take quality required of intimacy remains a feature of love with a reach greater than simple compatibility.
Consider the following鈥�
Are you free to communicate honestly and feel understood?
Are you accepted in the present as you are?
Are you at ease sharing insecurities and dreams?
Are you genuinely seen, understood and appreciated?
Are you independent yet not alone or disconnected?
Are you able to respect differences and learn from them?
Are you willing to freely offer encouragement and support growth?
Are you accountable and willing to hold others accountable with compassion?
Are you vulnerable and reliable?
As intimacy evolves we increase our capacity to give and receive love. Certainly within a primary relationship, yet if we peer deeper all relationships promise fertile ground for growth.
Love provides endless opportunities. In addition to primary relationships and friendships we lavish love on children, literature, sailing, sports and an endless variety of passionate interests. A close friend is passionate about feeding people he cares for. He loves to cook and feeding others is a delicious expression of his love. I visit often鈥� seems the least I can do.
Love is never all unicorns and rainbows. Hard times challenge and test our capacity for love as well as our individual appetite for anger, resentment and contempt. Alone or within a relationship, aimed at another human or fuelling an external passion, love may be humbled yet rarely defeated. In skinny times love even has the mysterious ability to sustain itself and thrive on the gristle and bone of loss, grief and heartbreak.
There exists a master鈥檚 class in the care and feeding of love. When we stepped into love鈥檚 habitat we unwittingly enrolled. The curriculum includes the heat of romance, the maturing of intimacy and meagre meals provided by loss or heartbreak.
The master鈥檚 class builds on the external expression of love by transforming it into an internal expression. Go figure, we feed this shape-shifting creature called love and unexpectedly come to realise we鈥檝e gained the raw skills to also nurture, accept and love ourselves.
I鈥檓 of the belief the effort invested in keeping love alive gives birth to an internal and external maturing process. Either coincidental or by design the process is interdependent and informed by experience. If I edit my previous list slightly, the internal process of intimacy can be examined:
I accept myself in the present.
I freely communicate honestly and feel understood.
I share insecurities and dreams.
I am seen, understood and appreciated.
I am independent yet not alone or disconnected.
I willing offer encouragement and support growth.
I am accountable and hold others accountable with compassion.
I respect differences and learn from them.
I am vulnerable and reliable.
When we discover the confidence to speak both lists with authority and integrity, we can be assured keeping love alive, internal and external is well underway. Over the course of a lifetime we strive to approach our friends and lovers with kindness and a generous heart. We learn to love ourselves in the process.
The master鈥檚 class never ends. Keeping love alive remains the journey of a lifetime.