I was working with a client last night and something dawned on me:

While they were talking about how much they loved this other human and would do anything for them, I asked if they would be willing to love them as they were even if they could not change the bits that were unsavoury. With a pause, they said, yes.

I asked if they would be willing to let them go if they knew their true love was in love with someone else.

The look of horror that spread over their face was not what I had expected.

The reality: even if they are unhappy, most people will stay in their relationships. People manifest exes back even though they were abusive, inattentive… even if they were cheated on!

Why?

It is not the person that they want, really, but the safety of the relationship that they are dreaming of. That person is just the placeholder in that said relationship.

If you loved that person, you would want them to be happy – even if it was not with you.

That also gives you a bit of an idea of what is going on inside of you. If you know, deep down, if you do not have the love you desire – you are not the love you require.

If you cannot wish for the collective happiness of the people around you, and yes, that includes your boo, then you are not very happy yourself.

You are going to attract more happiness and love into your life by wishing for these things for others. And not because you want those things – but because you are these things.

A pro tip from my own life: I have been worrying about others for so long that I am making myself sick. All of this “trying to protect them” has created negative outcomes for me. Thinking I was helping others by neglecting myself has not only hurt me, but by proxy has harmed them too.

What you wish for others is what you truly want for yourself.

“One day, a poor villager happens upon a magic-talking fish that is ready to grant him a single wish. Overjoyed, the villager weighs his options: “Maybe a castle? Or even better—a thousand bars of gold?
Why not a ship to sail the world?”

As the villager is about to make his decision, the fish interrupts him to say that there is one important caveat: whatever the villager gets, his neighbour will receive two of the same. Without skipping a beat, the villager says,

“In that case, please poke one of my eyes out.”