Your ability to love others will directly affect the quality of the relationship you have with them. There are barriers to feeling loving feelings, and those are common across the board. In this episode I’ll give you 3 of the main barriers to love and why you will want to work on being aware when they are becoming barriers in your relationships.
To begin working on developing better relationships with others, join my beta test for a new program I am getting ready to launch.
In this 4-week program, you will:
- Personalized help through the one-on-one coaching sessions. We will specifically target your situation and devise a plan for you to get where you want to be.
- A greater understanding of where you are in your relationship and why. You will learn so much about yourself and about the other people in your life.
- More peace and confidence in yourself, more love and understanding for others, and more clarity about what is happening when problems arise.
- Help with emotions that seem to take you for a roller coaster ride. You will have more understanding of why you are feeling the way you are and what to do with those emotions so they aren’t running your life and your relationship anymore.
- Much more
Apply today, because I’m only accepting a few people into this beta test at this discounted price. When the full program is live, the price will be much higher. Get in now while you can!
Full Transcript
You’re listening to Parenting Through the Detour, Episode 36 Barriers That Get in the Way of Us Showing Love to Others.
Howard W Hunter said, “Your detours and disappointments are the straight and narrow way back to him.” And we know that men and women are that they might have joy. But when you get taken on a parenting detour, it feels like joy is something that other people get to feel. But not you. It doesn’t have to be this way. Join me on this podcast. And let’s find some joy through your detours. And I’ll give you some help along the way. I’m your host, Tina Gosney. And I’m a life and relationship coach, and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Hey, welcome back to parenting through the detour. I don’t know about where you live. But where I live right now in Idaho, we’re having our first spring. And then pretty soon, we’ll go to second winter, and then we’ll go to second spring. And we’d kind of go back and forth at this time of the year. It’s a little bit earlier than we usually experience we don’t usually get this warm of weather in February. So it’s kind of nice, been enjoying the warm unseasonable warm weather through this February.
I want to spread the love this February, I wanted to tell you about a program that I’m getting ready to release later this year. But right now, in just a few weeks, I’ll be doing a beta test on it. So I will be doing four weeks of a beta test for this program. And you have an opportunity to get in on this beta test, which is an extremely discounted price, what compared to what the full program will be once it’s released. So let me tell you a little bit about this beta test that I’m doing. It’s going to help you personalized one on one coaching sessions, we’ll have four of them. And we’re going to specifically target your situation. There’s one thing that I’ve heard a lot about coaching is that we hear these concepts, we hear these tools, and we consume all this information and love learning about it. But when it comes to applying it in our lives, we don’t understand how to do that. Well, that’s what we do in the one on one coaching sessions, we will get really specific in how to apply these tools specifically, to your circumstances.
The next thing you’re going to get out of this beta test is just a greater understanding of where you are in your relationship right now. And why you’re there, you’re going to learn so much about yourself. And in learning about yourself, you’re going to learn about the other people in your life. There aren’t many other things that can give you so much benefit in your life, to know yourself and to know others. And to find so much growth just in that one part of the program. Another thing you’re going to find is more peace, clarity and confidence in yourself and in your life. You’re going to find a more love and understanding for other people. And you’re going to feel so much more confident and clear about what to do for yourself when problems arise.
What’s happening for you, and how do I want to approach this problem, you’re going to find resiliency, through that ability to find that peace and clarity and confidence. Another thing we address, that is such a problem can be such a problem for parents is that we’re going to address those emotions seem to have you on a roller coaster, you know what I’m talking about. And when you feel like those emotions are out of control. I can’t get off this roller coaster. And unless somebody else stops it for me. But you’re going to learn how to get off that roller coaster, you’re going to have an understanding of why you’re feeling the way that you are and what to do with those emotions. So they aren’t running your life and your relationships anymore. And there’s so many other things.
I can’t even tell you all the things but those are some real basic, real actionable things that you will find in doing this beta program. So it’s going to be four weeks I’m putting a link to to the application because it is by application only putting a link to that in the show notes. Make sure you go and fill out that application and do it soon because doors in that application process will be closing in just a couple of weeks.
This beta program is starting in March, and I’m only accepting a few people into this beta test. So go right now and fill out that link to apply for this beta test, you’re not going to want to miss this, especially if you’ve been wanting to do some coaching. And you found like, I’m not sure if this will work for me, or I’m concerned about the price. Or I’m just not sure what this whole coaching thing is, who wants you to go and do that apply for this beta program, it’s going to be perfect for you to get your feet wet in coaching.
Now, today, I’m talking about the things that get in the way of us really loving another person. And these things I’m about to talk about today are not the only barriers that I see, but they’re big ones. And most situations will find themselves in one of these three categories. So, you know, it’s a really a problem when they talk about another person, especially when they’re talking about someone, they’re in their family. And they say, Well, I love him, but and then they qualify that love with how they want the other person to be different. And what you have to understand is when you say the word but after I love him, or I love you, it actually cancels out to the I Love You part. It qualifies just the same as if somebody was saying to you, Well, I love you. But I just wish you were different.
When somebody says that to you, you don’t hear the I Love You part, you only hear the I wish you were different parts. And if someone said to you, I love you, but I wish you were different. They pretty much only put the I love you at the beginning to cushion the blow of them telling you that they want you to be different. Think about how it feels to be on the receiving end of a statement like this. And we do this to our kids and our grandkids all the time. And when we speak like that it does not foster love, it actually makes them not want to be around us if they feel unloved and unaccepted, just as they are saying I love you but is really I want to change you I want you to be different.
And it tells the person you don’t really love them the way they are. Because that is not acceptable to you. And in order for them to really be loved by you, they have to change. That is not something that we want to communicate to our families. Because no one wants to change when they’re treated that way. Are there things that they need to change? Yes, and there’s also things that you need to change. That’s why we are here on this earth, we are all here to change, it is not your job to dictate how that change or when that change happens in another person.
So the things I’m going to talk about today are the things that get in the way of us loving other people. They really come from our humaneness from our natural man, as we try to overcome those things that come naturally to us that get in the way of us loving others. There, we’re really trying to overcome the things that our brain naturally wants us to do. That keeps us from showing love to other people. And I’m going to talk about three major ways that this shows up. And for sure, there are other ways too. But these that I’m going to talk about today are the biggies. And most problems like I said before, most problems with relationships can be found in one of these three situations.
The first one is that we do not give our full commitment to loving other people. We tend to think things like, well, they don’t deserve my love, or they haven’t earned it yet. Or if I show them love, they’re gonna think that I’m condoning the way that they’re acting. Maybe something like, well, they don’t treat me nicely. So why should I treat them nicely? I can’t love somebody like that. And when we think this way, we are miss understanding what love is. So love is an emotion that has the power to connect two people together in a relationship. And the quality of that connection has a lot to do with the quality of the relationship.
And when we think those kinds of thoughts about other people. Those are low quality thoughts. When we think that way about other people we are lowering ourselves with low quality thoughts, and those thoughts will produce a low quality relationship. Love is a feeling that comes in your body by the way you are thinking about someone else that comes from your thoughts about someone else. You get to feel the feeling the other person does not and when you love someone, you are the one that gets to feel good. The feeling does not jump out of your body and into the other person’s body. So when you say things like they don’t deserve it, they haven’t earned it. They don’t treat me nicely.
I want you to think about, you buy you feeling love, you are not giving that love to another person you might act, then with loving thoughts, if you are feeling love, you will act with loving actions when you’re feeling love. But the feeling itself does not jump out of your body and into the other person. And when you commit yourself to love for yourself, because it feels a lot better than holding on to anger, resentment, judgment, disappointment, all those negative feelings, you are the one that gets to feel it, we tend to want to relive the past and all the ways that this person has hurt us, right? We want to keep going back, our brains just want to keep reminding us of how we’ve been hurt by this other person. And we feel really right. And we feel justified for hanging on to the past wrongs that someone has done to us. And this does not help us.
This is such a barrier, it keeps us a prisoner of the past. And it keeps us tied to this person in in a negative way. Maybe it’s a relationship you need to let go of, but you can’t because you’re stuck in the past and you can’t forgive. When you keep reliving the past and the ways that you were hurt by a person, you become tied to that person through your inability to let those things go. But we need to really acknowledge that someone else’s actions have a lot more to do with them what they are thinking and feeling, then they have to do with us. We don’t look at things that way. We take things really personally. And we make them mean really negative things about ourselves, when they have really very little to do with us, and a lot to do with the other person.
And when we are not acknowledging that the other person’s actions have more to do with them than with us. We also aren’t acknowledging that other people are feeling a lot of pain. And that pain hurts so much sometimes that it comes spilling out in so many ways. And one of those ways is the way that they treat us. And when we don’t commit to love, we really end up trying to control the other person. It shows up in really controlling ways and we want them to be different, and we want them to change before we can love them. And you think well, if they would just take out the trash, if they would just make this choice, it would be easier for me to love them. I have a newsflash for you. It’s not supposed to be easy for you to love some people. If it were easy, it would not require any change on your part. And that would defeat the whole purpose that you’re here on the earth. Sometimes, yes, we need to set up boundaries to protect ourselves.
Especially if a person is causing us harm emotionally, spiritually, physically, or, or in any other way. Boundaries, though, are not about controlling another person they are about taking care of ourselves. And doing that in a responsible way. Taking steps to protect yourself is not a selfish act. In fact, it’s necessary in certain situations. But it doesn’t ever require the other person to change. It just says you can be however you want to be. But this is what I’m going to do. And what I need to do right now to take care of me.
And we can still commit ourselves to love even when we’re putting boundaries into place. And boundaries actually can be a very loving way to approach a relationship. It can be loving for yourself and it can be loving for the other person. Okay, so that is the first way that we put up barriers is that we’re not committed to loving other people for commitment to love others. The second way it shows up is we have such this human need. And our human brains have this need to be right. In fact, it’s so prevalent, and our brain is just programmed to think that it’s right it thinks thoughts and then it thinks it’s right about everything that it thinks its own thoughts, whether or not they are true without even questioning them.
And we believe our own brains, even though they spend a good portion of our lives lying to us about the people around around us, and about who we are ourselves. It’s really crazy the way that we believe what our brain tells us, we believe the stories that our brain makes up, and how much damage that can do to relationships. But I want you to realize that the brain thinks that it’s right all the time. And it’s going to filter out things around you that don’t prove your point of view to be true. When you think about the fact that everybody has a human brain, and that other people also have this same biological programming does DNA in their brains to think that they’re right? They also have human brains that filter out information that doesn’t prove their thoughts true, then you have two brains pitted against each other, who both are totally convinced that they are right.
And that’s a problem when they don’t agree with each other. Did you see that Netflix show last year, that social dilemma when it talked about the social media sites and how they filter out things, the information, they filter out things that we don’t agree with, and that we don’t interact with, and they start showing you more things that you do interact with, it just reinforces to you and your brain that the way that you are thinking is true, and that other people are wrong. If you haven’t seen the social dilemma, go watch it, it’s totally eye opening. Another thing that it does is it’s creating more and more fractions, in relationships between people, people in general, and people, specifically, relationships in general, we are not as kind and understanding with other people, and specifically in relationships, maybe in your own home.
We’re not as kind and loving and understanding with people. That’s what happens when we start believing our brain. And we don’t question our thoughts. And we let our brain dictate to us and tell us stories without questioning them. Think about when you have two people, though, that they both think they’re right. And they both have a need to prove their right to the other person. And they’re with opposing points of view. There’s a lot of tension there. Think of a tug of war game. And it’s similar to a tug of war game, where both sides are pulling against each other Think of how much tension there is in a tug of war game. And for one side to win, the other one has to be falling flat on their face. Well, this is not a good way to show love. Or to foster a good relationship with another person, you can gently drop that rope, and you can give up the need to prove to the other person that you’re right.
It doesn’t mean that you have to admit that you’re wrong. It doesn’t mean that you have to tell them that they’re right just means that you respect their opinion without having to make them your opinions unless you want to. But you can love them even though you don’t agree. And this is possible. When you drop the rope, you drop the tension. Okay, so that’s the second second Perrier to us loving each other is we have this human need to prove that we’re right, that we think that we’re right all the time.
The third way that I see this happening is that is that we don’t take 100% of the responsibility for ourselves. Now how you feel in any relationship is your responsibility, not the other person’s. And we want to put blame on the other person for their lack their lack in all the ways that we could probably list that keep us from loving them. But this has everything to do with ourselves and really not much to do to do about the other person. Because how you feel comes from the way that you are thinking. And yes, it is easier to think good thoughts about someone when we like them, or when we like how we’re treated by them. And it’s harder to think good thoughts about someone when we don’t like them, that we’re we don’t like the way that we’re treated by them.
But just the knowing in that we have a choice in how we think about someone else is very freeing. And it puts the ball in your own court and it keeps you out of the victim court. Because you don’t need to be a victim of anyone else. You are in control of your own emotions. And by acknowledging this that you are the one who feels the way that you do because of the way that you’re thinking is freeing and it’s taking responsibility for yourself. It also doesn’t mean that you don’t make requests of another person or voice what’s true for you, and how you’re feeling in a relationship that has nothing to do with taking responsibility for yourself.
But when you do take responsibility for yourself and realize that all that is within your own control, it’s where you will find your power to stand up for yourself, and to speak, what’s true for you. And your ability to love, someone else doesn’t have anything to do with them, it has to do with your own capacity for love. We call this love ability, what is your ability to love another person, and that is about how big your love muscle is not about whether they are worthy of your love. And it’s not about how big their love muscle is, either. It’s only about your own. Because if someone doesn’t love you, that tells you a lot about their lovability not about your own worth. It tells you about their capacity to love others, it says nothing about your own worth or whether you are a lovable person or not.
So when should think about how big your love ability is? How big is your ability to love others? How big is your love muscle? How much have you exercised it, it’s gonna tell you a lot about yourself. Another part of taking responsibility for ourselves is forgiving. We don’t want to forgive unless we get an apology from the other person. Think about it. We want to be able to voice all of the ways that we were hurt to another person. And we want to just get it all out and dump it all on them. And have them say yes, you’re totally right and justified.
And I am so sorry. But how often does this happen? Very rarely, we don’t need to have that happen to forgive another person. And we don’t need to have that happen to apologize to another person. And when we have trouble apologizing or forgiving, we’re really living in the past and letting someone else rule our thoughts. And it keeps us in victim mode and out of our own responsibility. And really, most situations are not 100% responsible. There’s not 100% responsibility on one side or another. But the responsibility is usually shared between two people. What we really like to focus on is what the other person did wrong, and not what our own responsibility is in the situation.
So take responsibility for yourself, even its if it’s 10%. Or even if it’s 5%. Take a good look at yourself and see where your responsibility lies, and then own it. And when you do this, you will be able to find your strength in a relationship. Maybe for the first time, you probably got some things going around in your head, like this is hard. It’s hard to do these things. Yeah, it’s supposed to be hard. It’s not supposed to be easy to love people that you think are hard to love. But by exercising that love ability, you are increasing your capacity for your own love ability. You’re increasing and strengthening that love muscle.
And when someone doesn’t look, speak or act in a way that you find acceptable, that is an opportunity for you to increase your love ability. You are the one invited to grow through the experience. And if you choose to judge, criticize, find fault shun or anything other than to love them. You’re actually hurting yourself. And you’re missing out on the opportunity that life and God has given you to grow your spirit and to live in a higher way.
When you say it’s too hard to love other people. It’s the same as if you told someone who’s offering you a million dollars. No thanks. That’s going to be too much work I’ll pass because that opportunity you have to love somebody that’s hard to love is your million dollar gift from God. And if you turn that down, are you kidding me? That seems crazy. But that’s really what you’re doing. Except this thing that you’re getting through choosing to love someone that’s hard to love. This thing that you’re getting is not going to be spent and disappear like money would because if you keep fostering that love muscle inside of you it keeps growing and increasing. It doesn’t dissipate it doesn’t go away until you stop working on it.
And when you find love and you feel it and you express it you are the one who is feeling the love and growing from the experience. You are not falling into a small version of yourself you are becoming more expansive and mature. through loving someone who might be hard to love, that you might not agree with, and that you can’t control. Now, it’s not hard to love someone who does everything that you want them to do. And you don’t grow by showing love to that person. You grow and become a bigger person and a better version of yourself, when you will love someone that’s hard to love. What should I think of this word that we’ve been hearing in the church lately of metanoia, in reference to repentance, metanoia is a change of heart, it’s to change your mind to leave behind the small self, and turn to a better self. This is what you’re being invited to do when you find someone in your life that is hard to love, and you choose to do it anyway. So this is what I want you to take away.
When you love someone else, you are the one that benefits the most. By not loving someone else, you’re hurting yourself more than you’re hurting the other person. Also, loving someone doesn’t mean you have to keep them in your life. Sometimes you need to set boundaries. And sometimes you need to let them go. And this is something I really want you to think about. If you want to influence someone else to be better, the best way to do that is to love them, and to model the behavior that you would like to see in them, period. That’s it. That’s what I have for you today.
But I do want to remind you about this beta launch that I have coming up. You have a couple weeks to get an application in. It’s for a new coaching relationship coaching program that I am will be launching later this spring, but during March you have an opportunity to go through the four weeks of the beta program. There’s a limited number of spots and they are going to go fast. So click the link in the show notes to apply because we’re starting in just a few weeks.
I look forward to seeing you there and have a great week.
