Life Notes


Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before.
Eric Fromm

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15th September 2011

LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES…an excerpt from my latest book; It’s funny I always considered myself ill equipped to write on the topic of love but I had a ‘lightbulb’ moment before I sat down and began writing when I realised how can you know what a subject is truly about unless you also know what it truly is not? Moral dilemma over, let’s continue. Please do me a favour; if you’re happily married, engaged in a loving meaningful relationship or even just engaged in a loving committed relationship with yourself, then step away slowly and continue with your merry life. Yes I’ll admit jealousy although no doubt you have other life themes to work on, however I would’ve gladly swopped at birth, had you just asked. Now I’m pretty much talking to the rest of you; yes that 92% of the population who’ve read “Eat, Pray, Love” and “Committed”. I’m talking to you who thought that life is like “Dirty Dancing”. I’m talking to you if you cried in “Titanic” or “Pride and Prejudice” when Mr Darcy finally kisses Elizabeth Bennett. I’m talking to the rest of you who threw yourself into a relationship only to come out with clothes intact and little else. I’m talking to you if you believe in true love but end up settling for true love for right now. I’m talking to you if you’ve lay down on your bathroom floor or bed or your best friend’s kitchen howling from the pain of love lost. I’m talking to you have experienced the enduring and uncompromising pain that sears away at one’s heart and self worth after having been let down yet ANOTHER time by someone who said they loved you. Lastly I’m talking to you if you’ve believed in true love all your life only for you to feel like you failed or let it down in some way and are being punished because it abandoned you a long time ago. I’m talking to you if you’ve spent hours and weeks agonising over that someone special only to bump into them having a jolly good time or even if you’ve just felt like you’ve never found it. I’m talking to those of you who’ve been searching for true love ever since you were eight years old and believed that Daniel (insert appropriate name here) from next door and you were destined to get married and have 3 children….that was until he left for boarding school and came home gay. And don’t worry I’m not talking only to you females. I’m also talking to you guys. You think I don’t know but I know that Tracy (insert name of first girl ever loved) broke your heart. I know that when you found out she was actually dating or worse, shagging, George (insert appropriate name here) your heart broke and even though you know boys don’t cry, you ended up howling like a baby. It hurt like hell and at that point both of us (boys and girls included) bar those special few mentioned in the first paragraph, decided deep inside that love wasn’t worth it. We decided maybe to settle because we thought if we set our hopes too high, we’d just be let down all over again. We decided that we’d either totally avoid true love by looking for it in the places we knew we’d never find it (don’t tell me you haven’t looked for it at the bottom of an ice cream tub) or we decided to settle for love we knew wasn’t right but at least it was safe….and safe kinda worked for a while until you resented your partner. Welcome to my world! It’s the reason I wrote this book…because I spent a lifetime (well 32 years to be exact) looking for love in all the wrong places. For a long time I thought it was just me. I thought that only I was screwed up and everyone else happy. I delved into therapy and self help and even decided to switch careers to work with others in their quest for love. And that’s how I came to realise it wasn’t just me. It wasn’t just me who felt alone. It wasn’t just me who had screwed up my marriage by mistake on purpose. It wasn’t just me who’d settled for about 10% of what I believed love to be because I thought that’s all I’d ever get. It was me who sabotaged my own efforts for love or looked longingly at couples who walked on the beach. It wasn’t only me who ended up dating the recovering cocaine addict, commitment phobe or the unavailable other because I thought it better to be with a loser than be alone. Along my magnificent path I also tried looking for love in infinitely many tubs of Hagen Daazs. I looked for it in trying to achieve superhuman sporting feats and then I even looked for it in the pleasing of God. As I worked through therapy I began to blame my complete inability to find love on my parents. I mean you’ll know that if you’ve worked through your issues with your parents then pretty much everything dates back to them right?….. TO READ MORE ORDER A COPY OF LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES

LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES…an excerpt from my latest book;

It’s funny I always considered myself ill equipped to write on the topic of love but I had a ‘lightbulb’ moment before I sat down and began writing when I realised how can you know what a subject is truly about unless you also know what it truly is not?

Moral dilemma over, let’s continue. Please do me a favour; if you’re happily married, engaged in a loving meaningful relationship or even just engaged in a loving committed relationship with yourself, then step away slowly and continue with your merry life. Yes I’ll admit jealousy although no doubt you have other life themes to work on, however I would’ve gladly swopped at birth, had you just asked.

Now I’m pretty much talking to the rest of you; yes that 92% of the population who’ve read “Eat, Pray, Love” and “Committed”. I’m talking to you who thought that life is like “Dirty Dancing”. I’m talking to you if you cried in “Titanic” or “Pride and Prejudice” when Mr Darcy finally kisses Elizabeth Bennett. I’m talking to the rest of you who threw yourself into a relationship only to come out with clothes intact and little else.

I’m talking to you if you believe in true love but end up settling for true love for right now. I’m talking to you if you’ve lay down on your bathroom floor or bed or your best friend’s kitchen howling from the pain of love lost. I’m talking to you have experienced the enduring and uncompromising pain that sears away at one’s heart and self worth after having been let down yet ANOTHER time by someone who said they loved you.

Lastly I’m talking to you if you’ve believed in true love all your life only for you to feel like you failed or let it down in some way and are being punished because it abandoned you a long time ago. I’m talking to you if you’ve spent hours and weeks agonising over that someone special only to bump into them having a jolly good time or even if you’ve just felt like you’ve never found it.

I’m talking to those of you who’ve been searching for true love ever since you were eight years old and believed that Daniel (insert appropriate name here) from next door and you were destined to get married and have 3 children….that was until he left for boarding school and came home gay.

And don’t worry I’m not talking only to you females. I’m also talking to you guys. You think I don’t know but I know that Tracy (insert name of first girl ever loved) broke your heart. I know that when you found out she was actually dating or worse, shagging, George (insert appropriate name here) your heart broke and even though you know boys don’t cry, you ended up howling like a baby.

It hurt like hell and at that point both of us (boys and girls included) bar those special few mentioned in the first paragraph, decided deep inside that love wasn’t worth it. We decided maybe to settle because we thought if we set our hopes too high, we’d just be let down all over again. We decided that we’d either totally avoid true love by looking for it in the places we knew we’d never find it (don’t tell me you haven’t looked for it at the bottom of an ice cream tub) or we decided to settle for love we knew wasn’t right but at least it was safe….and safe kinda worked for a while until you resented your partner.

Welcome to my world! It’s the reason I wrote this book…because I spent a lifetime (well 32 years to be exact) looking for love in all the wrong places. For a long time I thought it was just me. I thought that only I was screwed up and everyone else happy. I delved into therapy and self help and even decided to switch careers to work with others in their quest for love. And that’s how I came to realise it wasn’t just me.

It wasn’t just me who felt alone. It wasn’t just me who had screwed up my marriage by mistake on purpose. It wasn’t just me who’d settled for about 10% of what I believed love to be because I thought that’s all I’d ever get. It was me who sabotaged my own efforts for love or looked longingly at couples who walked on the beach.

It wasn’t only me who ended up dating the recovering cocaine addict, commitment phobe or the unavailable other because I thought it better to be with a loser than be alone. Along my magnificent path I also tried looking for love in infinitely many tubs of Hagen Daazs. I looked for it in trying to achieve superhuman sporting feats and then I even looked for it in the pleasing of God.

As I worked through therapy I began to blame my complete inability to find love on my parents. I mean you’ll know that if you’ve worked through your issues with your parents then pretty much everything dates back to them right?…..

TO READ MORE ORDER A COPY OF LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES

Tagged: loveunlovedpaingrowthhappinessEat Pray Love

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