How Do You Have a Heart-Centered Relationship Recovery?

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In this solo-episode Aaron talks about recovering from harmful relationship patterns with his Heart-Centered approach.

Show Notes

0:25 min 

Relationship recovery! What does it take? What are the steps? Are you trying to recover from a relationship with yourself or are you a partnership where you’re trying to recover the partnership? Is it a family member? Are you worried about a friendship relationship that you have? What’s the recovery about and what’s it gonna take to recover that? 

For couples and for your relationship with yourself, and really, if we’re talking real which we always are talking real here on TKOL podcast. Real talk. That’s what we do… 

Your relationship fell apart one unloving behavior at a timeYour relationship fell apart one unloving behavior at a time. And it can be put back together one loving behavior at a time. So what’s it going to take to put yourself back together? T o come to center and say to yourself, “oh there you are true self, there’s the real me.” I don’t have to put on a disguise or perform in a relationship or live in this like survival mentality mindset in my relationship I don’t have to “put up with that” anymore. 

When you come back to your heart centered self that’s when you find meaningful love. It always starts with you. 

2:10 min

In this episode I’m going to be talking about the four pillars or these four stages or movements that I walk people through in relationship recovery. But before we get to that I want to talk about the thing that drove my brain crazy. After trying to recover from a relationship myself I think it was an ex partner of mine and maybe a friend, it doesn’t really matter who it was, but I was told that all expression that “people don’t change.” And I was so frustrated by that sentence that now its my life mission to go no actually you either are evolving forward into more of who you are or you’re devolving, or you’re changing, back into something you don’t want to be.

If you don’t believe that you’re kind of the main character in your own story, or the common denominator in your relationships this episode might not be for you because you’re gonna get mad. The first thing you have to understand is how you show up in relationships and what’s the ripple effect of what you create in your relationship. So in a way you’re kind of always attracting the kind of love that you want. You’re always teaching people how you wanna be treated anyway. 

3:45 min

Now, let’s talk about these four pillars alright.  I’m gonna talk about them. I’m gonna say them all at the front now and walk you through here we go. The 4 pillars are.. 

1- Perspective 

2- Centering 

3- Reframing 

4- Thriving 

So you can kind of see what we’re going to move through here. And how step by step, one baby step at a time,  getting yourself back to a heart heart centered self, a heart centered relationship. Learning how to put yourself back together one step at a time. Learning how to put your relationship back together one step at a time. Your Relationship is that third identity in your relationship. There is you, the other person and then there’s the stuff that you put in the relationship. 

4:50 min

So, PERSPECTIVE. Pillar number one. You can really only change what you’re aware of, right ? So when you know better than you do better and you don’t spiral out in the same shame cycle. Stop shaming yourself when you change the pattern. You start to see those thoughts behaviors habits that you teach people how you wanna be treated, and by changing your perspective and becoming aware of what’s happening, you can then shift those thoughts behaviors patterns and start creating and experiencing the kind of love that you do want.

The way we move through perspective is by telling yourself the truth. Often there’s some kind of proverbial Band-Aid that you have to rip off like a disguise, maybe. Or just a change in boundaries or behavior or maybe a commitment that you’ve made. And then acknowledge what the thing is that you’ve done that’s created the love that you don’t want. Often times there is a loss in a relationship. So, giving yourself the space and time, patience to grieve like you would if someone passed away in your life. Sometimes you just need to feel through and grieve the death of a relationship. 

6:30 min 

Pillar number two, centering. How do you replace the unloving behaviors with loving ones? Well, you do that by getting to know yourself better, by learning to trust your intuition more, setting up support around you. You need to have great communication. Have people on your side. Maybe new habits that are serving you better than some habits that are broken and dysfunctional. When you set up these new habits and better communication, you prevent yourself from self sabotaging or living in that survival state. 

Ultimately ever relationship is just a dance that you decide to join. You’re like, “Well I was doing tango with this person for a little while and that was exhausting, so I think I’m gonna go over here and do swing that’s a lot more fun with this person.” Whatever it is, it’s just a pattern, a movements that you continue to do. it’s a loop that you’re in that is supportive or it’s not supportive. It’s harmful or it’s helpful. Is this dance helpful that I’m in?

So you learn to trust yourself again and you learn to replace those unloving behaviors with loving behaviors.

8:00 min

Pillar number three, REFRAMING. You’ve got to understand your fears. Your fears impose limitations on you and then you have to define your values and your boundaries. And those might be new values and new boundaries. Get in touch with your core motivation and find out what your story looks like with meaningful love rather than the harmful patterns that you chase right? 

If you’re that person that’s in a love addiction like I used to be. You like chasing an idea of what you think a relationship should be. You get into that idea, you might even date that idea, and then you realize that’s not reality. And, it’s not meaningful and you’ve got to kick yourself out of that relationship.

And, it also comes down to her interactions with people.  I was sitting there in therapy, trying to unpack a certain situation. My therapist looked at me and said, “Well Aaron is that a stick or a snake?” Like, that emotional button that got pushed was that the end of the world? Did you need to catastrophize that? Or was that just a stick lying in the ground ?When you get close, you realize actually that wasn’t a big deal. And therefore you reframe. And you look at those emotional buttons and fears, those highly charged moments, those triggers, and you look at them for just what they are. They’re just an event that happened. 

You see our nervous system generalize things. Our brain.. because we dated one jerk. maybe we dated three jerks (I don’t know what your story is). But, the brain just wants to generalize that all the people that you date are jerks because you had three bad experiences. That’s not necessarily true, but your brain, your nervous system, all want to protect you from not being in a relationship with a jerk ever again if that’s your story. But the truth is there’s people, there’s someone out there, that can love you for who you are and not be a jerk that’s reframing. 

10:30 min 

Pillar number four, THRIVING. You see we’ve gone through all of these other pillars. Once you stepped through door number three, you want a pay off. You want to be thriving, and that’s it you’re number four!  That’s where you really want to be. You want to feel confident and free and loved in a relationship. Maybe there’s other emotions that you want to feel. The question is, how do you wanna feel I consistent basis in your relationship? And, what do you have to do? Maybe it’s something you have to change about yourself. Maybe it’s reframing someone else’s behavior. Maybe it’s changing your environment, or your circumstance altogether so you can step into a space of thriving. 

You want to be untethered from the past. You want to be interdependent in your relationships, rather than codependent in your relationships. That’s the short of it. Those are the doors that you have to walk through those are the pillars in which you need to anchor into your life if you want to shift and change. 

Perspective Centering Reframing and then Thriving. 

Most of us are living in a survival mode just trying to make it to the next day. We’re trying to exist and we’re striving in our little ways that we love to strive, instead of waking up every day feeling something better. Replacing our negative emotions like anger and sadness or depression and going from strive to thrive. Knowing the tools to shift from deep striving or deep struggle, before you completely spiral out. Or, if you do completely spiral out, what are the tools to get you back as a heart centered person?

12:45 min - Wrap Up

If you have any thoughts, if you have any feedback, if you have a-ha moments even just in this short episode, I’d love to know about them.

Please write in the review section maybe some way that you feel like you’re striving right now, instead of thriving. Tell me something that you want to change your perspective on. Tell me something that feels out of control in your life that you would love to get back at center. 

This is what I’m passionate about doing. Helping people center themselves. Giving themselves the permission to love not only others, but themselves. 

You can always connect with me at thekindoflove.com or on my Instagram @aarontosti Those aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Send me a direct message. Apply to coach with me. Tell me about your life in the review section. 

Whatever feels more comfortable with you. Share this episode with someone who might be going through a rough time. Let me know if this has been helpful. This is TKOL podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you’re looking for relationship recovery please find help like a friend, a mentor, a therapist, a coach, someone you trust. You don’t have to go at this alone. 

I’m Aaron. Best of love to you.