Hello, Thrivers. This is Laura Monk with Thrive Therapy and Counseling. And in this podcast I wanted to talk about love and ego and why we say that love hurts. Well, in all actuality, it's not really love that hurts. It's ego love that hurts. It's our ego that gets in the way. I talk about this a lot in my podcasts and in my sessions that the number one killer to love, or the number one enemy to love, is the ego
Laura Monk
@ThriveLauraMonk · 4:53
So my goal with this audio is to help you to understand that when you're feeling a tremendous amount of pain from what you think is love, just know that that's your ego not love. And I don't want you to ward off and completely decide to never ever love again because you think love hurts. It's not the love that hurts. It's the ego love that's causing the pain. So don't close yourself off to love
Laura Monk
@ThriveLauraMonk · 3:20
And by no means am I saying that those needs are bad or wrong and you shouldn't have them. Absolutely not. What I was saying is that those needs come from the ego which we have, and pure love doesn't have those needs. And because we can't reach pure unconditional love, I don't want people to think that love is the culprit and the enemy of our pain. It's actually the ego that's the culprit and the enemy of our pain
StephStyle +
@StephStylePlus · 4:58
And I just think about how I think about him being the ex boyfriend, and I just think about how hurt he has left me. But after I listen to your swellcast, I got to be a little honest with myself. It is it's my ego. It's my ego that's causing, I think, the pain to last. Yeah. The way I was treated and all that sure, that hurts and rightfully should be hurt
So I sit down and I actually talk about these things like what they mean to me. And my responsibility is not to make you happy. And plus, if I can make you happy, I should be able to make you sad. If I can control your relationship, your emotions that I can't even control my own. I manage them sometimes that's why you wake up on the wrong side of the bed let alone giving somebody else the responsibility of our happiness
And in relationships I was just mentioning in another swell, the biggest advantage I have in relationships now is and I don't know if this is ego is the fact that I believe that I can work in family relationships now because I'm not afraid. I've been through some stuff. I went through some stuff. I've created natural storms. I've been through natural disasters one after another
Laura Monk
@ThriveLauraMonk · 4:08
First, I wanted to say that I definitely believe that we need to feel our feelings, like fully, fully and completely feel our feelings of, to say, sadness or anger or frustration because we don't want to disown, deny, repress or suppress feelings because when we do that, we bury them and buried feelings never die. So we want our feelings to dissipate. And in order for feelings to dissipate, we have to fully and completely feel them
Laura Monk
@ThriveLauraMonk · 3:58
So that would not me be having the attitude, if you're not happy, I'm not happy. And that's what love really is. So it really has nothing to do with making the person happy. Like you said, that's too much of a burden. I 100% agree with that. We're not trying to always constantly, every single day be trying to make our loved ones happy. But we have this sense of if you're not happy, then I'm not happy
Laura Monk
@ThriveLauraMonk · 4:40
We can use whatever words we want, but it's essentially the opposite end of the spectrum. And for those who do believe in God. And your comments about I don't think God would give us negative or bad characteristics for those who do believe that God created us god? They could say that God gave us jealousy and envy and hatred and selfishness and shame and spite and a plethora of other, quote unquote, negative characteristics. Why did he give us those seemingly detrimental characteristics?
Laura Monk
@ThriveLauraMonk · 4:39
Love is not just a feeling, it's a noun, a verb and an adjective. And it takes action, it takes a decision, it takes work very often. So you're correct. Now, I'm not saying that people should get complacent in their relationships or take their partner for granted or start ignoring them. That's not what coming out of the honeymoon phase means
You may get out there once a year and hit it with the power washer, but that's about it. But two people in that garden, a whole lot can go wrong. Like, yo, I'm responsible for all the fructose in this garden. Everything else is yours. You better get those weeds because this thing needs to be taken care of. You know what I mean? That's your stuff. You planted the greens, not me
Real quickly. I know I talked too much, but never sit down and talk about what relationships mean to them or what at least if I'm having unrealistic expectations, I can tell her, and she says, that's not realistic. You know what I mean? Or basically, no, I can't do that. Okay, well, then we don't have to waste each other's time or vice versa
Laura Monk
@ThriveLauraMonk · 5:00
So we have to realize the honeymoon phase is not supposed to last forever. Now, that's not to say that we can't remain kind and considerate and polite and courteous to our partners forever, but those feelings will often dissipate, fade or change, hopefully into stronger, more deep feelings as the relationship goes on. And yes, duality and contrast, that is very important for people to understand. Everything that anyone says, or even that I say has a caveat to it
Laura Monk
@ThriveLauraMonk · 1:14
You. And we all live in a different world. There's this great phrase that the entire universe is seven inches wide, or the entire world is seven inches wide. And you're like, what are you talking about, seven inches wide? It's because the world is in between our two ears. It's our brain. Our brain perceives our world, and inside our head is about seven inches wide, give or take, and that is our world. So our world is seven inches wide