by The dissatisfaction in love It seems to be something so common that it almost seems to have become a mental health plague nowadays, according to psychologist and couples therapist Emma Ribas (@emmaribas_psicologia) at the beginning of her book ‘Mindful Love’. … (Editorial Platform). And this could be due, as the author points out, to the profusion of a type of relationships based on a priori and myths about romantic love that prevail in society, which are what have led many people to internalize a set of beliefs about “what love is supposed to be”, about “what it should offer us” or about the way in which we should or should act to live up to it. But the truth is that all of this, as Ribas warns, leads us to a “deep disconnection between what in the depths of our being we really desire in love and what our environment tells us we should desire.”
That is why what he proposes in ‘Mindful Love’ is an approach to couple relationships from the neuroscience through resources and practices that help to relate from the full attention to stop repeating patterns and learning to live love from a more authentic and balanced way. Let’s see how…
In your previous work, ‘Mindfulsex’, we learned to apply mindfulness to sexual practice and now with ‘Mindful love’ you address the importance of going further, in what way?
Yes, applying mindfulness in the area of the couple has been a great revolution for me both in consultations and in my personal life because it has helped me see that love is not an emotion, but a state of awareness. ‘Mindful Love’ is mindfulness in the area of love.
When we introduce mindfulness into our relationships, changes, as neuroscience has shown, at a functional and structural level in the brain. And this implies that we can change our perception and learn to live from the pleasure.
But then, how do you think we live love if not from pleasure?
We often think that love is what we have been told in the movies and it is something that we unconsciously try to project and we get very frustrated. He infatuation It is the projection of my own shortcomings and needs, either of what I longed for or of what I did not receive. But when the infatuation ends is when the great opportunity to learn to work appears. He conscious love It is a journey to the center of your heart and it is a path of personal transformation.
It’s curious because in couples therapy we often find complaints about what we don’t like about our partner, but the truth is that we should realize that what moves me about my partner has nothing to do with that person, but with me. . It’s my mirror. And that helps us become aware and evolve as people.
When they tell me that their partner doesn’t listen to them, or isn’t affectionate, or doesn’t see them, I like to tell them to ask themselves the question: Do I listen to myself? Am I loving to myself? Do I see myself? And that is the mirror effect: Are you giving yourself what you ask your partner to give you? And what happens is that we often ask our partners for what I don’t have in myself or what I didn’t have in childhood. And this is revolutionary because this fight to pursue what I believe was not given to me and what I am not giving to myself ends. I can give it to myself now!
«When the infatuation ends is when the great opportunity to learn to work appears. Conscious love is a journey to the center of your heart and is a path of personal transformation.”
Emma Ribas
Psychologist and couples therapist
Why is self-knowledge so important? Can’t you love if you don’t love yourself?
We can love, but we will not love well because we will be searching from lack. It is important that that person love themselves and what ‘Mindful Love’ proposes is to develop the ability to love themselves and love life from compassion and personal growth. It is not, therefore, about generating a state of love for oneself, but rather a love for everything that happens in your life.
When you see life from this perspective, it is easier to build healthy relationships. And we live a purer and more authentic love because we do not look for what we lack or what we want, but rather we build from the freedom of being love.
And how can we build from that place in the era of hyperconnection, stress, speed and little real interpersonal connection?
It is true that we are constantly releasing cortisol, the stress hormone, and that makes us live in a state of alert. And when this happens, it is normal for that reactivity mechanism to be activated that leads us to react instead of responding, for example, when our partner tells us something.
What I propose with ‘Mindful Love’ is to incorporate moments in our daily lives that provide that real connection. And hugging is one of them. Hugging your partner daily generates oxytocin and allows a deep connection with her. And that welfare, that state of more presence and consciousness helps us communicate from another place. It generates the feeling that our partner is ours. homeit’s home, it’s not just another fight, but a safe place. And from there it is much easier to relate and communicate. And not only that, but it allows us to sleep and rest better.
I recommend you integrate the conscious hug in your daily life with your partner. You can integrate it as a habit, when you finish seeing each other, when you say goodbye, before going to sleep while looking into each other’s eyes. In fact, looking into each other’s eyes is also a beautiful practice that allows a great transmission of energy and produces beautiful situations. You have to look more into your eyes.
Another interesting practice that is also nourishing for couples is daily gratitude. Thanking your partner is a way to generate abundance in the relationship, to generate greater Connection and to provide greater well-being.
And these practices are what can lead to vital ecstasy, deep connection and privacy in the couple, especially when they have a joint future project.
What happens when communication seems broken with a couple and how can it be repaired or reactivated?
The most important is communicate from the heart and learn to release from judgment everything that makes us angry about our partner. And it is also important to point out what bothers me about my partner to do that mirror work that we mentioned before because that can make us realize that a wound of our own is actually being activated.
To improve the communicationTherefore, I like to work on the topic of wounds because we can use certain tools if we realize that certain wounds are being activated in a specific situation because that allows us to be aware that this actually comes from something that we have vivid. For example, it is not that my partner rejects me, but that there has been something that has caused a rejection wound that I perhaps felt in childhood or at another time in my life to be activated in me. And when we are aware of the wounds that are activated in us, we can realize the cause, see what is behind it and focus on it to learn to generate conscious communication.
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Believe that love can do everything
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To think that it will change
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Establishing a relationship with incorrect or unequal roles
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Getting carried away by the desire to have children
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Being afraid of loneliness
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Pretending to be someone you are not when you are with your partner
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Not establishing life projects and common exit values
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Forget that what starts badly ends badly
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To think that one does not decide who one falls in love with
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Get lost in the other
What defines or characterizes a solid relationship?
A conscious and authentic relationship is born from the person’s own authenticity. In fact, there are many couples who have been in a relationship for years and have a shared identity but do not each have their own developed identity. And when I don’t know myself and I don’t know who I am without you there is a difficulty. A path of personal transformation in which each person knows who they are and is free from the “I am me” because from that authenticity is where they can choose a good partner.
Also important is what I call “the acceptance radical in the couple«. Sometimes we want to change the other person and when the infatuation has passed we stop liking what we loved. But radical acceptance implies that one has chosen that partner for a reason and that while in that relationship the key is not to try to change the other but to work on oneself, to work from authenticity and from freedom so that each one feels comfortable. as it is and can be built together by learning to work and grow.
We must remember, however, that who we are going to be with all our lives is ourselves, so we cannot forget that we are the most important person in our life. We are interested in taking care of ourselves and also the relationships we have, but always from our center, from ourselves.
