I am going to start this post with a short video. You may have even seen it before but it shows how powerful your words are and how important it is to formulate what you want to say in the best way possible. It is less than 2 minutes and VERY powerful!

 
Are you wondering what that has to do with me and Ole? Everything!

We talked to each other a lot. We would ALWAYS end our day with a good talk in bed. We would connect each night this way on what happened and how we were feeling about what was going on in our lives.

Was this important? YOU BET! There are far too many couples that lose touch with each other because they don’t talk. They let the kids, their jobs, the families, their hobbies, their friends, and all the other things life consists of get in the way of being CONNECTED and TOGETHER. 

Just because 2 people live together does not mean they are communicating on a regular basis. Oh sure they do the “How was your day? What did you do? Did you pick up the milk? Will you get the kids today?” And so it goes. 

But they never get into the meat and potatoes of their relationship and find out what is happening in their hearts, minds and souls. This is where relationships are built and this is where a relationship grows stronger.

Think back to this little video you just watched. What did you FEEL when you watched it? Take a minute and do this. You might find out you haven’t been checking in with yourself either. So take a minute and think about what you felt as you watched this video.

I have watched this video several times and I get teary each time. The Power of Words….amazing isn’t it!

Maybe the reason why it touches me so deeply is because I know my words were not always so kind. I know I have hurt people deeply with things I have said in the heat of a moment. And once those words are expressed, there is no going back. You can apologize as many times as you want but the words still hang in the air. Even if the person you said them to forgives and forgets, you never do.

What I am suggesting is just be aware of how you talk to each other and other people in general. Notice the tone of your voice and the words you use. You can still ask your sweetheart, “How are you?”. But the way you ask will give it a whole new meaning showing them that you are truly interested in what their answer will be.

Choose your words wisely. They are the building blocks to a romantic, wonderful life with your partner that you never dreamed possible. Make sure the words you use come from your heart and not that place where you think “This is what they want to hear.”…because that place is empty. Those words hold no weight and can be blown away along with your sincerity and the trust of your partner.

The Power of Words! Words can destroy quicker than the blink of an eye. But just by taking a second to think before you speak, your words can also build a beautiful, loving amazing experience.

Passionate regards….Brenda

I just read a fascinating article that stated Love Helps Ease Pain. How cool is that! Professor Arthur Aron of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who studies the neurology of love,  has linked that euphoric phase of a fresh romance to brain regions rich in the chemical dopamine.

What is dopamine and how does it work in the body? Think about the little lift you get when you eat chocolate. That is what dopamine does for you. It comes from the reward pathway in your brain, that feel-good place when you do certain activities or actions. It is the same place in your brain that addictive drugs go to, like cocaine for example, to produce those feel good feelings.

“When people are in love, in many ways it’s not dissimilar to what they get when they take amphetamines or stimulants: They’re very excited, have loss of appetite, sleep loss, they’re active, full of energy,” noted Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and a dopamine expert.

In Aron’s study, they used different ways to creat a moderate pain in their test subjects and found that if they were looking at a photo of their beloved while the pain stimulus was applied, there was less pain.

This is powerful stuff! So many sages of the ages have advocated that all we need is love. Maybe that is turning out to be truer than we know.

Think about the healing power of a mother’s kiss. When a small child bumps themself and runs crying to Mommy, all she has to do is apply a little tender loving care, a kiss on the boo-boo and perhaps a band-aid. The healing has begun!

I know there have been times when I have hurt myself like cut my finger really deep or knocked my head hard on a shelf. Then the tears started and all I wanted was to see Ole. This was before he died too but I still do that now. I just wanted to see him and feel his arms around me telling me I am okay. Giving me that healing dose of love.

I know I have been in situations with another person and they are hurt. Pain from a physical injury or a severe injury to their heart. I would sit with them and think, “Ole should be here. He would be good to help here.” And by just thinking about my sweetheart, I could keep myself calmer and more collected.

I get easily wrapped up in other people’s pain. At least I used to. I have learned to distance myself because I am no good to them if I sit here crying for them. But I think it is funny that even though it wasn’t MY pain, I was still looking to Ole to help ease the situation.

Love is VERY powerful. More so than we mere mortals will EVER know. Funny but I just thought of that movie Monsters Inc. The monsters were harnessing the power of the fear driven screams for the electricity in their world. But then they found out that the giggles, laughter and love produced a much more POWERFUL energy.

Try this little experiment this week. When someone upsets you or makes you angry(hence pain), why not think about someone you love instead of letting your words spill uncontrolled out of your mouth without your head engaged. Kick start your heart first by feeling the love this special someone gives you. Then, to the person that has just upset you, send a stream of love from your heart to them. See if that doesn’t help to calm the situation down some.

We will never fully understand the power of love but we can sure use it to help us, our neighbors and the world.

The last thing that was mentioned in this article was that in this study, they also found out that when the new love phase turns into commitment, this response comes from a different place in your brain. Aron said that by trying something new and exciting with your longterm partner will stimulate that passion again, “a good idea whether you’re in pain or not.”

Here’s to Passionate Loving!

Passionate regards….Brenda

When Ole died, I had a lot of people tell me I should write down my thoughts and feelings. It would help ease feeling the pain. How could I write the physical pain in my heart away?

To say the least, I didn’t do it. I could barely take care of our 2 dogs and cat. There were days the pain would be so great that it took me forever to go for a 10 minute walk with our dogs. No kidding! The action of putting one foot in front of the other was a huge effort.

But the pain, physical pain that I had in my chest was always there and nothing took it way. I took over the counter pain meds…no change. My doctor had x-rays taken. They showed nothing but the pain persisted. She suggested exercise. Like I said, walking was a chore.

She suggest antidepressants. I don’t know if they would have helped but I could not begin to think about going through this pain again after I went off them. I felt the best treatment for me was to face my feelings and move through them.

The reason I am bringing this up is because I just read an article on the pain people go through when a relationship ends. This article stated that this ‘real and physical’ pain that I felt was actually produced from my head. I guess on one level I knew that but I was hoping for a medical reason that I was hurting so much.

I never really thought about it before but when Ole and I would have an argument and if it wasn’t resolved before we went to bed, what a crappy sleep we both had. Tossing and turning and feeling sad and bad. I can’t say I noticed the pain so much in my chest, only that my heart, head and body hurt.

To understand what I mean, think about the last time you argued with someone you loved. How crappy was the rest of your day? How well did you sleep? How many times did you replay the argument in your mind? Did you eat well, if you did eat, or picked at this, that and other unhealthy food? Or did you eat and eat until your gut was screaming “NO MORE”? How many times were you sitting on the toilet and letting it all out? Or perhaps you held it in and had cramps or headaches.

Our minds have so much effect over how our bodies feel. Amazing to think that our minds can make us believe we have an actual physical pain in our heart when it is broken. But its true.

We all handle upset in our lives differently. Each one of us has to find the way that feels best to get through the difficult times. And that is not always easy to do because when you are going through a rough patch with a friend, family member or lover, you aren’t thinking about what is happening in your body. You focus on what has triggered this crappy feeling.

But I tell ya, when Ole and I did resolve the problem, we both felt SO much better and got back into the flow with our minds, bodies and each other.

I had to feel the pain from Ole’s death to move through it. I know I have learned a lot from this experience. The biggest thing that I learned was that there is nothing worth fighting over. It really is all small stuff.

Feeling the pain after an argument is so useless and harmful. Move through the pain and feel the love flow. Keep the lines of communication wide open. Then you will find the win-win solution and the painful times will be few and far between.

Passionate regards….Brenda

PS – In the article I read they suggested many things to help ease the pain. And a lot of medical and scientific studies to back up their findings. You can check it out for yourself. http://lifestyle.ca.msn.com/health-fitness/health/rodale-article.aspx?cp-documentid=23989279

Another great article about heart attack symptoms in relation to a broken heart http://lifestyle.ca.msn.com/health-fitness/health/rodale-article.aspx?cp-documentid=23729852

What causes you pleasure and pain in your relationship? I think we all know what brings us enormous amounts of pleasure in our relationship. But what about the pain half of the equation?

I agree that arguing with our better-half is a painful experience. I agree that being insensitive to your lover or them to you is painful. I agree that breaking up is maybe the most painful, short of actual physical pain.

I think that in many relationships there comes at least one time, the thought of ending the relationship. I have experienced that.

Our first year was difficult. The ‘honeymoon phase’ is a myth for many couples I believe. I had read so many times that this is the first phase of your marriage. Not ours I tell ya!

Ole and I both had strong ideas, opinions and needs when we became a couple. We both wanted different things perhaps. By that I mean where we wanted to grow and what we wanted to accomplish as a couple. It was very difficult for both us to have some of our needs met and this caused problems.

I can remember thinking I can’t go on this way. All we did was argue. At least that’s what it felt  at that moment. Then I would think about leaving and just getting out of this bad situation.

I would think about where I would live. What would I do for a job? I would think about what would Ole do? He was in a foreign country. He spoke excellent English but he didn’t know all the laws and rules land. What would happen to him?

That caused me a lot of pain. But the worst was yet to come. I would begin thinking about not waking up with him everyday. I would think about not laughing with him and not making love to him. I would think about not having him next to me to talk to when ever I wanted.

Then my heart, my pleasure center, would step into the conversation and would ask me “how could you EVER think you would want to live without him?” The anger would instantly stop and I would sob and howl at the thought that I was thinking about leaving my wonderful husband.

This shocking realisation made me think more clearly. Not acting out of my emotions but from my heart and head. I was willing to work through the problems and difficult times. I was willing to change in myself what I had to, to be able to have a better life with Ole. I was committed to our union and the love we shared. We both were.

In that first year, even when times were really hard for us which reflected in how we were handling our relationship, the pleasure I got from being with Ole was greater than the pain of thinking about leaving him. I have NEVER loved anyone as much as I loved him. And still do.

We talked a lot about what troubled us. We cried when we were frustrated and angry. We loved when we found a solution.

When Ole and I first moved back to Denmark, he was working with a company and he was gone from Monday morning until Thursday afternoon. I hated that we were separated like that. He hated it too.

Here I was, in a foreign country and the person I wanted to be with most was not available to me 24 hours everyday. So I watched a lot of movies. The worst were the sappy love stories or romantic comedies. By the end of the movie when the guy gets the girl and they were in each others arms, I was sobbing. Not just crying but SOBBING.

The pain of being away from Ole, even for those few days each week, was horrible. I would sit in our house and all I wanted was to feel his strong arms around me and his soft lips on mine. And yet he was in Copenhagen working and hating it as much as me. At that point, we had no idea how little time we had left together.

The pain of Ole’s death sits in my heart everyday. But the pleasure of having loved him for 9 years and experiencing a love like ours is greater than the pain I feel.

A least most days it is.

Passionate regards….Brenda

“Because that is what love does,” answered Papa.

I am loving this book ‘The Shack’ by Wm. Paul Young. I had yet another aha moment when I was reading the other day. This is a wonderful book I tell ya!

I got shivers up my spine when I read that line. I keep writing here how people saw the love Ole and I shared. I keep telling you how we would do anything for each other. I had a relationship of unconditional love with Ole “because that is what love does.”

I knew we loved each other heart and soul but until I read that line I really could not have told you why or how. Now I can.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

I have told you that we had a perfect relationship. I have never said we didn’t argue or get angry with each other. We are real people in a real world with real trials and triumphs. But our love was perfect because that is what love does.

I believe in our society we have many broken people. Okay, maybe more bruised and beat up. We grow up with our bruised and battered ideas of what a perfect relationship would look like, feel like. We have our fantasies of the perfect lover, husband or wife.

Then we meet that person that resembles our fantasy lover and we say YES! Dreams do come true. But when the veil of ‘new love’ is lifted and the real world starts to pounce on our perfect relationship. Then the dreams and fantasies are punished, caged or slaughtered and the love dies. Or what we thought was love.

It never happened with Ole and me. When we were married, a friend of Ole’s said to me that even if we get 5 good years together, at least we had that. There was no way I was getting married for just 5 good years. Neither was Ole. We were in this for the long haul, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

Even when we were arguing, we still loved each other. There were times in the early days when we had many arguments that I would think I could not continue. But then I would think of the alternative of living without Ole….I would cry so hard. I could not imagine my life without him. I would sob almost as hard as I did when he died. So we woke up the next day and moved forward. I said FORWARD not on. We delt with our problems and grew in our love for each other.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

♥Love is forgiveness. If you hold on to the hurts there is no room for love. I was famous for holding a grudge when I was young. Hurt my feelings and I didn’t talk to you for years. Ole made me see how stupid that really was. I can’t give you specifics how he made me see that just that loving him did open my eyes.

I had put all my hurt in a cage and shut the door so it could never get out. The hurt would just sit in there and howl and bang on the walls in the very depths of my being. How could there be room for love in there? I had to open the door and let it out and move forward.

♥ Love is acceptance. We don’t all think alike and thank heavens for that. If you talked to any of my or Ole’s childhood friends, they would say the same about both of us. We were both different than the rest. The friends we had, the families we grew up in….we thought and were different from them.

In that difference we both saw a wonderful loving being in each other. I didn’t want Ole to change. Okay, I wanted him to chew with his mouth closed and put the toilet lid down. But other than that, I loved who he was and how he thought. He was the most wonderful man I have EVER met.

♥ Love is allowing. Allow the other person to be who they really are. We hide behind so many masks. We have the mask of mother, father, friend, daughter, son, employer, employee, baker, jailer, lover, alcoholic, abuser, slut… The list is endless and we choose at any given moment what mask is needed for any given situation.

We wear the masks because we are afraid. We are afraid that if people saw or knew the real person inside, maybe we would be rejected, ridiculed, abused or judged. But maybe we would really be loved, accepted and adored.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

Open the cages in your soul and let the pain and hurt escape. Put away your masks and allow the beauty of your true self to shine. Revel in your different-ness and allow other people the same courtesy.

♥ Because that is what love does ♥

Passionate regards….Brenda