The Idea of Fierce Love and How it Can Enrich Your Relationship
What is fierce love, why do we want it, and how can we achieve it?
No matter what we may have accomplished in our lives, happiness only comes when love is present. We know that love can be beautiful, powerful, and transformative or “love” can be toxic, manipulative and painful. We all want the good kind of love, so how do we get it?
This is what I explore in my upcoming book, Fierce Love: Creating a Love That Lasts – One Conversation at a Time. This book dispels five myths about love that derail relationships and it guides us through eight essential conversations that can get our relationships out of a rut and back on track to a healthy, lasting partnership.
I dive deep into conversations because our relationships succeed or fail, gradually then suddenly, one conversation at a time. In fact, the conversation is the relationship so we need to get a whole lot better at having them.
Too often, couples wake up when they arrive at “suddenly”. The most painful “suddenly” is when you or your partner announces that the relationship is over. I don’t want this to happen to you.
Embracing the idea of fierce love means we stay awake throughout gradually (where we spend most of our lives) and don’t have to experience a “suddenly.”
Fierce love is about discovering more of yourself, more of your partner and more of your relationship by having conversations that create a fierce and passionate bond with each other.
To learn more about the idea of fierce love and how it can change your life, keep reading.
Love vs. Fierce Love
Love is created by you, by me. How much love we have or don’t have is up to us. It is our choice what we make of love. We can hold on to it, cling to it, starve it or suffocate it. Or, we can give it, share it, open up to it, and grow it.
The problem is not love, it’s our idea of love and the way we treat it.
As hard as we might try, we can’t make others love us. What we can do is embody love. We can be love, speak love. We can learn to ask ourselves, “What would love do or say in this moment?” We can be the person love wants to hang out with. We can learn to be receptive, open, and inviting to love.
If you can do this, then the amount of love you have in your life is entirely up to you.
The difference between love and fierce love is the way you act on it.
Fierce love is the passionate pursuit for more than a typical flat-lined relationship with not much more to say than your typical pleasantries. It’s knowing that there is a depth, a well of love, that is waiting to be touched inside you and your partner. And you are ready and willing to do what it takes to swim in the oasis.
Fierce love is not settling, it’s not toxic and it’s not always comfortable. Fierce love is courageous and glorious.
Fierce love is what I’m here to talk about. In Fierce Love, Creating a Love That Lasts – One Conversation at a Time, I’ll guide you through the conversations that will get you to a place of better engagement, deeper intimacy, and closer connection with your partner.
How to love more deeply
Fierce conversations are the essential ingredient to fierce love.
If you stop for a moment and think about it, you can probably recall relationship conversations that furthered your marriage or partnership and made you love each other even more. You can probably also recall relationship conversations that pushed you further apart and caused you to withdraw or shut down.
In my first book, Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life – One Conversation at a Time, we get deep and detailed on what it means to have a fierce conversation so that you can have better relationships at work and with your family.
Fierce Love is focused entirely on our romantic relationships and the conversations you’re having (or not having). One conversation at a time, your relationship is enriched, flat-lined or damaged.
The key to having fierce conversations is to be real. To have a fierce love, some conversations will be difficult. They will feel like something you don’t want to do, a truth you don’t want to speak. That’s how you know it’s time.
If we can do our best to express what we are really thinking and feeling, it opens up the opportunity for our partner to do the same. And before you know it, progress is made!
Maya Diamond says in her Ted Talk that “We are wired for relationships. Our ability and our partner’s ability to be responsive to each others needs and emotions is fundamental in creating a healthy and thriving relationship.”
To be real doesn’t mean to share everything about every experience you’ve ever had. It means to be honest. It means you don’t suffocate, stifle, or suppress what you’re feeling and instead, share honestly what you have to say.
You can share things like how that one thing they said or did really make you feel this way, or why you might have reacted a certain way in that moment, or how you’re feeling and what you’re thinking at this very second. In an open and honest relationship, you can share and express whatever is on your heart or mind without fear of damaging, ending, or “messing up” the relationship.
One conversation at a time
We weren’t taught in school how to show up authentically and encourage others to do the same, so it’s a skill we have to learn as an adult. And to learn, we must practice.
The time is now for these conversations. The longer your thoughts go unspoken, the more worn down our senses and sensitivities become and we settle for comfort and complacency instead of the life we were meant to live and the relationship we long for.
Here’s the thought I want to leave you with today. While no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a relationship, any single conversation can. And if you want to learn how to love more deeply, it starts with the conversations you’re having in your relationship.
What if you could have the conversation that you’ve been avoiding in a way that enriches your relationship, rather than shuts it down? You can. Fierce Love will show you how.
If you’d like to learn more about how to better your relationship conversations through the idea of fierce love, visit my website.
© Copyright Susan Scott. All rights reserved.