The Science of the Heart

Some people are not able, willing or ready to meet the depth required for a relationship to thrive with you. Some people will do their best to meet your needs, yet they will not have the capacity to at this point in time. It does not make that person 'wrong' or 'bad', it simply makes them incompatible in this chapter of your life.

You cannot depend on someone else to love you and make you feel confident in order to feel “whole”. You cannot let your self-worth be dependent on somebody else. It can be easy to say and hard to do, especially if you are someone with an insecure attachment style. However, every relationship you will have will help you learn something new about yourself, and it will help you meet a different version of you.

I believe the most important quality to have in a relationship to blossom is admiration for your partner. Beside loving your partner, do you truly like them? Do you like their personality, their mind, their heart?

Your relationship should make you feel excited about life. If your partner inspires you to be a "fuller" version of yourself, to be more present and more courageous, you can consider yourself to have a strong pillar for a healthy relationship.

What you admire about your partner is a quality that you probably possess, just like things you dislike in someone else is something you haven’t accepted in yourself…Challenging concept isn’t? Love is an invitation to meet ourselves more deeply.

Every breakup will have a lesson. When someone leaves, they teach you how to be okay without them. They give you the space to experience life on your own. You have to figure out who you are outside of those relationships to have a foundation to build a love that is sustainable. 

A relationship is a daily commitment to yourself and to the other person, and you cannot convince someone to commit to you. Learn to differentiate between attachment and connection.

Attachment is based on needs, desires and expectations. Attachment can trigger a fear of loss, and is often rooted in past emotional wounds.

A healthy attachment will provide consistency and stability. It will not leave you breathless, afraid of facing consequences for speaking your truth. It will hold space for disagreements, doubts and worries. It will not use ultimatums, but there will still be needs for boundaries. Connection is emotional alignment, shared moments of closeness and intimacy, and it requires us to stay attuned to each other. Connection brings a sense of meaning and a sense of feeling understood and seen. Connection is not about ticking all the boxes off of a checklist.

A healthy relationship has three main components : mutual respect, trust and affection. Love is the outcome of a healthy relationship, but it is not the foundation.

For a relationship to thrive, each individual must be willing to grow independently and as a "team". They must be willing to work through the challenges together. No matter how strong the connection is, a relationship cannot survive without proper communication. Real love meets you halfway.

You need to ask yourself if you are holding on to a version of this person that only exists in a fantasy. Let me explain, there is a difference between loving someone as who they are now vs. who they could be.

Only loving someone’s potential is being careless with your heart. Only loving someone because of the way they love you is selfish.

What do you appreciate about them? What makes them unique & special?

At the same time, if they make you doubt the relationship, if they make you question their feelings for you...It’s an indicator they’re just not that into you. You both deserve to feel chosen, cared for, valued and loved. How you feel when you’re not with them is as important as how you feel when you’re with them. 

We cannot build a house with walls made of paper…without emotional intimacy it will eventually collapse. You deserve better than to settle and be unhappy about a situation just because it is comforting and easy - you deserve better than the bare minimum, and you deserve better than minimizing your needs. As scary as change can be, it’s okay to be alone, and truly feel alone. If you feel like you are continuously putting in more effort than the other person, it might be an indication that the relationship cannot survive long-term. Both partners need to prioritize the connection, and have the same level of commitment for a relationship to grow through life’s challenges. There is a difference between effort, convincing and forcing. 

You should never have to convince someone of your worth. 

When a relationship ends, we might have the impression that a part of us dies, the part that we allowed ourselves to share with them - the version of us when you were together - the part that no one else could see. It’s grieving the relationship and at times, the person we wanted to be. Remember, each person that you encounter and connect with teaches you something valuable. When we go through a rupture we can have the tendency to be hard on ourselves, having old limiting beliefs resurface. We might be thinking “I should have known” or “I wasn’t good enough”. But the thing is, love is about trust. We cannot love another fully if we keep our hearts sealed. We cannot bond on a soulful level with someone if we act solely from a place of fear, and if someone is unable to see you in all of your shades and colours, then they do not deserve a seat in the home of your heart. You deserve to be surrounded by people that make you feel like the best version of yourself, they cheer you on and hold you accountable to your mistakes, with gentleness and kindness. They show consideration and interest for your feelings, your insecurities and your dreams.

No one should make you feel like you are hard to love. 

I like to think that after every heartbreak we find a new part of ourselves - a new hobby, a new quality or strength, even hope for something different. We know a little bit more about what we want and what we don't want. I am grateful for each version of love I had the chance to experience; each one bringing me closer to a more authentic version of me. No relationship is simple, but with the right person, it’s worth the risk. 

It’s painful to lose someone when you feel like you poured your soul into growing a dead flower. People come and go, and as difficult as it might sound, that’s part of life. You have plenty of opportunities to find the ones that are worth keeping… The others are there to help you grow into a version of you that wasn’t ready to bloom yet.

Rarely but sometimes - two people cannot coexist in a relationship in the version of who they are now and they both need to go their separate ways to find the pieces of themselves that were hidden below surface before being able to come back together stronger. However, reconnection should not be based on regrets only. We are humans after all, and each individual acts from a place of hurt and assumptions. We cannot make a relationship work after a period of separation unless there is a shift in perspective, accountability taken, a willingness to forgive, a renewed commitment to healing and being clear about what both partners want. Aligned actions need to take place for a relationship to change. 

Healing from heartbreak is going through the stages of grief, it is a loss. A loss of someone we love, of a potential future together. Closure is the acceptance that our path was meant to cross and separate, that in this timeline, in this universe, we are no longer attached. “Lovers to strangers” as they say. Going back to love after a heartbreak is like learning to walk after healing from a broken bone. It's wobbly, fragile and we might not trust ourselves not to get hurt at first. No need to rush the process, we usually find the people that are meant for us when we’re not looking and we take a leap of faith. 

Love is knowing when someone truly sees all of you.  And that’s when it clicks - what someone else couldn’t accept in us…someone else will love regardless. 

In Egypt, they believed the heart was the portal to the soul. The heart was usually left inside the body because the ancient Egyptians believed it was essential for the afterlife…Be sure of who you trust with your soul.