“Begin to source your inner light from your inner flame, instead of the external remedy.”

Becoming ‘hooked’ or ‘addicted’ on your partner within a love relationship is easily done. 

We can become addicted and dependent on others for our emotional well-being, and we may feel completely lost or overwhelmed when a relationship changes or ends.

Often, we haven’t learned how to truly connect with another – and the ways we go about attempting to do so often contribute to the problem.

We hide, pretend and defend instead of being authentic.

Connection is the doorway to being fully alive, and it is only one vulnerable step away in any given moment.

We must learn to connect to ourselves first, then we can learn to connect to another.

Many of our struggles in life are relationship struggles.

Depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, divorce and all the myriad ways we explain our pain are often the result of the lack of connected relationships.

Over time, we begin to believe that it is our inherent right to be cared for by our partner.

We can grow dependent on others – rather than ourselves – to take care of our emotional needs. We can effectively become ‘hooked’ on outside sources to provide us with emotional fulfillment.

When a relationship goes on and on for a long time in a such a way, one or both members of the relationship can forget how to love ourselves and how to generate loving feelings and situations in our lives on our own.

Some people see their love like a pie that can be sliced and exchanged in a variety of ways – a large slice for my partner, perhaps a similar-sized one for children, a smaller one for work, and maybe even a smaller one for friends.

If you live your life in this way, you keep your eye on the proportions of attention served to each of the parties in the relationship and on how much is returned. You may be become anxious when you believe that you are not be given your ‘fair’ (meaning – ‘expected’) share.

Your feelings of anxiety may increase over time – fear of losing the share of love that you now believe you deserve and need. You (or your partner) may seek as much attention as possible to satisfy their craving to fill their sense of emptiness.

Your own measure of self-worth becomes tied to the relative size of the love pie that is given to them by their partner, children or friends.

Operating within this theory of love contributes to the feelings of addiction to others.

One or more people within the relationship, no longer operate from their own centre – instead their centre is moved from within themselves to somewhere between themselves and others – or in the extreme, completely in the other person.

Your capability to love another is replaced with a desperate need to be loved by someone else – and you also lose touch with your capacity to love yourself – you just don’t know how.

You may have abandoned yourself within your relationship – and believe that the love you need comes from another person – and you may not have realized it yet.

Within our relationships, we become fearful of abandonment – a fear of aloneness that is leftover from childhood.

As a child, some of us become obsessed with the parent, trying to capture the parent’s attention, in order to avoid feeling abandoned. The pattern of trying to capture attention in a relationship becomes set – and as each of us establishes relationships later in life – the desire to capture the partner in this way will still be operating.

Such obsessions give rise to driven activities, such as calling a partner numerous times in a day.

For some of us, the deep roots of love means ‘dependency’ in relationships – so they are natural precursors to the establishment of addiction and co-dependency.

The Wholeness Theory of Loving

The theory of wholeness in relationship involves personal responsibility with the self and in relationship. It’s possible to embody new ways of being within yourself and in your relationship, and allow yourself to generate all of your own feelings – the hurts as well as the loving ones, in response to what they perceive and interpret.

Even though it may feel as though you are empty inside of yourself, and would be emotionally bereft without your partner, you are always truly complete.

What you may not know if that you keep much of yourself dormant as unrealized potential within your relationship.

We always have the capacity to generate some love within a relationship – even though we may not do so out of fear or insecurity.

There is not a finite amount of the love pie that can be divided among loved ones and friends, instead, each relationship is a full pie unto itself, into which people are capable of contributing all of their current feelings for the other person. This doesn’t lessen, in any way, loving feelings for their primary partner or children.

Instead of being diminished or exhausted by loving – people can feel refreshingly expanded.

As you begin to learn how to tap yourself more deeply, develop a sense of and a confidence about your own wholeness, and are prepared to generate and share your own feelings with other, you will find an increasing sense of self-esteem and autonomy.

In your relationship, you must be true to yourself. Control strangles growth within the relationship, when you expect others to become what you want them to be, rather than who they really are.

When you begin to open your relationship towards a new curiosity – new awareness and understanding will arise. It is most beneficial when each partner is prepared to openly acknowledge any attempts at control, all the while holding feelings of self-compassion close by.

If you are able to use the Four ‘A’s’ – Awareness, Acknowledgement, Acceptance (for the self and other) and Action (required to move beyond existing patterns and fixations) – you will be able to develop a healthy, open environment within your relationship where each person can be nurtured towards growth.

Create Mindful Awareness & Understanding in Your Relationship

When working with couples, I walk alongside them, without judgement about what’s happening now or what has happened before. My heart is open – and I offer unconditional support, while letting go of control the outcome.

We need others to help create better relationships – we can’t do it alone. We need others to hold space for us – so that we can be vulnerable, without fear of being judged – and can grow and become stronger as a result.

Here’s what couples can expect when working with me:

1. Learn to cultivate a loving relationship with yourself first (there are three parts in every relationship, you, your partner and the relationship).
2. Understand negative patterns and how to interrupt them.
3. Learn how to communicate using a Communication Model that includes curiosity, openness, acceptance and compassion.
4. Navigate conflict and move through difficult conversations.
5. Get unstuck – heal longstanding patterns, arguments and resentments and clear the air to begin anew.

By creating more awareness, we create more choice in how we respond, rather than unconsciously reacting. As we move into living our deepest values, cultivating wisdom, and planting the seeds of an open heart, our relationships can improve day by day.

There’s a road map back to living a fully connected life for everyone who has suffered in isolation.

Discover the joy of being fully alive through a deeper level of authentic, vulnerable connection.

Individual and couples sessions are available in-person or by Skype – and allow you to let go, open your heart, access true freedom, and feel truly alive again.

It takes courage to step forward, reach out and open a new door.

Move beyond fear and live as love in this moment.

love Kim, xo.

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“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor Frankl