It Took Me 10 Years to Find Love. This is What I Learned

today's video is going to be slightly different we are going to talk about relationships something that we don't do very often on this channel but given that it's February the month of love it kind of feels appropriate Now relationships specifically romantic relationships correlate directly to your long-term health and happiness in fact choosing a partner is one of the most important decisions that you will take in your life and despite that especially in India it is not treated with this much importance dating is just looked down upon you're not supposed to do it and marriage is

just seen as a right of passage and I hate that with a passion because over the years I have seen so many people around me suffer in love suffer in relationships suffer in marriages without ever being able to figure out what to do or how to make it better now I myself come from a broken home and this is why very very early in life I began reading learning about healthy relationships I just did not want to be in the same boat as the people around me I did not want to repeat the same mistakes

that people around me were making and all of this reading learning and daating over the last decade taught me a lot about things like understanding acceptance change vulnerability honesty and letting go and it's because of these learnings it's because of these lessons that I have been able able to find someone who truly makes a great partner for me but enough talking let me share what these lessons and these rules are with you the first thing you need to understand is that love alone is not enough no matter what the movies tell you or the Romantic

novels tell you love does not automatically translate into compatibility in fact some people may feel love very deeply and yet lack any sort of compatibility with their partner the whole as as long as we love each other in all workout mentality does not actually work in real life what works is compatibility this compatibility matters so much more than just love and yet nobody seems to focus on it but this doesn't mean that love is not important it is which is why you need to create checklists checklists of the kind of life that you want to

have and of the kind of partner that you want but the catch is that it cannot have anything about looks or physical appearance on that list your checklist is strictly about your potential Partners values their behaviors and how they show up in the relationship for you and what you want out of that relationship often people get so blinded by the physical they just don't look at anything else to give you an example a few things on my checklist were loyal to a fault treats me with respect communicates very well is patient Pampers me a lot

and so on and so forth now creating this list does two things the first thing is that it acts as a lens so when you meet somebody you date them for a while if they are not exhibiting these qualities they automatically become a no for you studies also support this the more clarity you have about what you want in a relationship the more likely you are to find a satisfying relationship and a partner who meets those needs another thing that this list can potentially do is be used to manifest exactly the kind of love that

you want for your self because it gives you Clarity that is in fact exactly what I did now the reason that I didn't want you to focus on the looks or the physical attributes of your partner in your previous checklist is because physical attraction often becomes a hindrance when it comes to building deeper connections this is why the concept of blind dating exists see the thing is that physical attraction definitely matters and you are not shallow for wanting or rejecting someone on the basis of how they look but in my experience and after reading a

lot of studies over the last 10 years I have found that when it comes to compatibility physical attraction is just the tip of the iceberg what is significantly important is whether you are emotionally and intellectually on similar wavelengths AKA are you attracted to their mind and their personality apart from just their looks even research says that emotional attraction actually lasts longer than physical attraction so if you are not attracted to someone on an emotional level or on a personality level that physical attraction will not last very long in most cases so if you create your

checklist from the earlier point this will actually become quite clear to you and you will become more open to exploring a person before rejecting them outright because of their looks coming to the fourth rule intimacy is key if love is the foundation of a relationship intimacy is the glue that keeps it together and how you get intimate with each other is a huge part of whether you are compatible or not sometimes it just doesn't work you are not able to get intimate with each other but sometimes you need to put in a little bit of

effort to make it work to reach a point where you are both comfortable being intimate with each other and I'm not just talking about physical intimacy because real connection happens on multiple levels there is emotional intimacy which is feeling safe enough to share your deepest thoughts and fears with that person then there's intellectual intimacy just like different types of attractions there is different types of intimacies so intellectual intimacy is the ability to challenge and Inspire each other's minds and then of course there is physical intimacy which turns out is the Cornerstone of building on every

other type of intimacy studies show that people who prioritize intimacy couples who prioritize intimacy actually report higher levels of relationship satisfaction admittedly it's not always very easy to do especially because couples might have different styles of intimacy different levels of libido or sexual arousal and sometimes just different schedules which is why intentionality also plays a huge role in building intimacy and keeping that spark alive good relationships do not just stay exciting on their own now one way to build intimacy and to keep things exciting is to experiment intentionally set time aside for each other experiment

with how you explore each other try something different from how you normally do things experiment with how you express your love for each other use tools like personal massages on each other to see what you both like and enjoy you can even try intimacy games where you dive into awkward questions with your partner but in a fun setting and it is so easy to do these things nowadays especially with Brands like my muse who are also kindly sponsoring a portion of this video my muse has so many different options for couples massages oils intimacy games

all designed to help bring couples closer together and to make intimacy a priority you can check them out using the link in the description and bring more connection intimacy and play into your relationship now while compatibility and intimacy can often take time to figure out to build something that is very obvious from the first instance from the get-go is interest if somebody is interested in you and if they're interested in pursuing you interested in making things work with with you you will know it there is going to be no ambiguity no confusion there is going

to be absolute Clarity they are not going to play games it's one of the simplest relationship truths if they wanted to they would and yet it just gets ignored almost all of the time now a good way to figure out if somebody is interested in you is to notice consistency someone who genuinely wants to be with you does not do hot and cold does not ghost you and then reappear does not make grand gestures occasionally they actually show up consistently in the little things that matter like checking on how your day went making time to

listen when you're upset or putting in the effort to make you feel loved if you really want the kind of love you deserve you need to stop trusting potential and you need to start trusting actions look at how that person shows up in the relationship and not just what he or she says and if somebody is telling you in as many words that they are not in that place or they may develop feelings for you later stop waiting for them they are just keeping you as an option and that's not what you deserve now one

thing that can really help you gauge interest gauge the person that you are with is learning more about relationships in general learning about what makes a good relationship learning about healthy communication learning about attachment Styles learning about how to resolve conflict properly and we live live in the information era not knowing something should not be an excuse to not having a fulfilling relationship I talked about how I started learning about relationship pretty early on in life and I'm going to recommend a few books that are absolutely golden and absolutely game changers for having better relationships

first is attached by Amir LaVine and Rachel Hela it teaches you about attachment Styles specifically and how people show up for each other bases those attachment Styles it's crucial if you want to understand compatibility better second is women who love too much this one teaches you about self-love and detaching from male validation very very important next how to be an adult in relationships which admittedly a lot of people just don't know in fact I know two or three people who know how to be adults in relationships rest are just wounded children creating wounds further the

Insight that this book gives on mindfulness in relationships is amazing next is fight right this is one of my favorites it teaches you how to use conflict to strengthen your bond instead of just end up breaking it and one more thing that I want you guys to learn about when you are learning about relationships is just red yellow and green flags in relationships these again pretty much work like a checklist that help you navigate the dating space and not let yourself fall for toxicity Dr Anna who makes psychology bagged videos here on YouTube has a

wonderful video on this and I highly recommend that you go check it out next coming on to rule number seven understanding the three pillars of relationship success a good way to figure out if a person is right for you and this works 99% of the times mind you is to see how they Faire on these three pillars respect this I believe is even more important than love because when there is respect in a relationship you hold that person in very high regard you value them you value their opinion and you do not take them for

granted second is communication 90% of relationship problems come from poor communication if your communication is not at par it will act like a broken GPS taking you nowhere in your relationship and anybody who tells you to not communicate your desires and see if your partner can automatically pick up on them because you deserve princess treatment is giving you bad advice the third pillar is emotional safety do they make you feel emotionally safe do they hold space for you do they listen do they reciprocate with vulnerability this of course is part of the emotional intimacy discussion

that we were just having meaning can you share the most vulnerable parts of yourself with them without fearing judgment or without feeling ashamed now these three pillars matter more than you think and a lot of people are so addicted to the highs and lows of toxic relationships that they spend their whole lives in relationships where all of these three pillars are absent and you have to remember that it's equally important for you to provide these things in a relationship to your partner it goes both ways but when a relationship lacks any of these it is

not actually a relationship it is a situation where you are being taken advantage of but despite that and sometimes despite knowing that we continue to settle and we continue to stay in doomed relationships we use our own dependence on toxic patterns to excuse inexcusable behavior and mind you it is is very very easy to fall into this trap to ignore the red flags and more often than not it's either because you don't know better or because you don't want to face the truth but like aldus Huxley said facts do not cease to exist because they

are ignored facing the truth that this relationship is not working out can be very scary to do but if you want to truly have the life that you deserve it is the only option this means building the strength to let a familiar relationship go because it is not fulfilling you it is toxic it means being okay with being uncomfortable in your loneliness it means putting yourself out there again now fear is another big reason why so many people are so afraid to leave toxic relationships the fear of being alone primarily and that happens because you

are not whole by yourself yet as a result you make someone else the center of your life you live through them but healthy relationships good relationships are not about to incomplete people coming together to make one whole they are about two whole fulfilled individuals coming together in a mutual partnership this means that you're not dependent on somebody else for fulfillment for happiness it means you have your own life your interests your hobbies your dreams keep pursuing them keep maintaining your friendships keep working towards your goals if you love painting don't stop because your partner isn't

into it if you enjoy girls nights out keep having them this also stands true for pleasure and for arousal so you need to continue to explore your own body to figure out what it is that you like and what you don't like learn more about yourself by prioritizing your own pleasure again you can use personal massages and other tools from my muse to help you here and if you're worried about ordering something like this at home they have discrete shipping and packaging so you're in safe hands a healthy relationship will support your growth and your

individuality and when you approach relationships like this is by prioritizing self-love first you also attract a partner who is on the same frequency the best relationships out there don't just happen they are built with respect with communication vulnerability and the right kind of effort so stop chasing Clarity in people who leave you confused prioritize love that feels easy safe and exciting and above all Choose Yourself first now tell me which of these rules and lessons spoke the most to you drop it in the comments and if this helped share it with a friend who needs

to hear it and of course check out this video next because YouTube says that you are going to love it