Day 5 – Where do conflicts come from?

Create a vision and never let the environment, other people’s beliefs, or the limits of what has been done in the past shape your decisions. Ignore conventional wisdom.

Anthony Robbins

What I wish for right now, is to be with you on an esplanade with a beautiful view, and look at your enthusiasm and hope. I wish to notice how your eyes reflect the first changes of your soul. It takes only one day to fuel positive energy for the first lasting changes to be visible. Can you imagine what your life will be like in a month? Or after six months? Did you think about what your life will be like after five years in which your relationship exceeds any hope and desire regarding the relationship you described at the beginning of this journal? If you haven’t thought about it yet, I invite you to think about it now. What would your future self tell you about your life? Although I am not near you, so that I can receive an answer from you, let me tell you what might be possible for your future self to tell you. “Five years ago, when you accepted the challenge of doing all those exercises proposed in the book, you made the best decision of your life. Since then things have gotten better and better and, as it was written in the book, the changes have been appearing in your romantic relationship, as well as in all your relationships, even in the financial area of your life, and also your health is much better than ever before”. She may tell you many other wonderful things, but each one of us will hear these things. Why do I include myself? Because of my project, my journey began a few years ago, and my changes are exactly as I described them above.

After this short journey into the future, it is time to return to the present moment. I have already asked you questions about your relationship, and now it’s time to deepen our discussion. On the first day you described what the perfect relationship looks like. I’m sure you’ve already known for a long time what the perfect relationship looks like, according to your definition. If this is true, I have another question: If you already know what the perfect relationship looks like, why didn’t you check all the points in this list that describes this relationship? Have you ever wondered why, even though you know what you want in your romantic relationship, something overshadows your happiness together? I know that every relationship is different, and that my questions may be inappropriate for your current situation. Don’t let a question that bothers you, block you from analyzing the quality of the relationship you wish to have. When you had fallen in love, did you, as I did, feel butterflies in your stomach? Did you feel that you couldn’t breathe, that you couldn’t live without the person you love? You had dreams about what your relationship would be like and you rolled over and over in your mind the “and they lived HAPPILY EVER AFTER” story, until it turned into something like “I will give him one more chance until XX/XX/XXXX, and if he doesn’t prove to me that he loves me, I will break up with him”. Unfortunately, what you do is that you move those XXs over and over again, resigning into an unhappy relationship or you end up taking the final step toward the divorce, even though your deepest wish was for him to prove to you his love.

When and why did the “HAPPILY EVER AFTER” movie break up? I have read a lot of books, trying to understand when and why people stop loving each other. A friend of mine told me that love lasts 3 years, and when his relationships got up to three years, his relationships ended. Kids see their parents become roommates, having platonic relationships, and experiencing lack of passion. In some families, there is a constant state of tension, with disputes, even violence. Such families have laid the foundations of the beliefs that we take from those around us. Parents want the best for us, they never imagine the negative impact of their beliefs on us. Your parents teach you what they know. Their life is as they know it, and their life lessons will always relate to their previous experiences. If you question the quality of the information received from your family, it is your duty to look for answers and clarity from those who can provide a different perspective, one that contributes to your life, instead of making it harder.

For example, my mother used to tell me not to get under the ladder on the street, because I would remain little; not to sit at the corner of the table, because I will not get married; not to drink too much water, because the frogs will sing in my stomach. I considered her worries absurd. I sought the logic of her advice. The logical answers for me are: it is dangerous to go under the ladder in the event that something may fall from above; if I sit on the corner of the table, I may be injured (children may be careless and have many accidents due to lack of attention); water should not be drunk too much before going to bed, so that the bladder isn’t full overnight (in the past there were no modern diapers, even in the case of older children it was preferable to avoid such incidents).

My mother’s fears were meant to protect me. If I had asked her about the source of her fears, she would have told me that everyone knows them, they are also present in Romanian stories. I totally agree with her, indeed they are present, many people know them, but are they universally valid? I know I started to sit at the corner of the table. When the moment came, I got married. How many frogs have you heard in your stomach or in someone else’s stomach? 

There are two powers that come into action: the conscious and the subconscious mind. In some descriptions a third power appears – the unconscious. 

A lady went to couple therapy. The therapist told her, “Ma’am, we’re going to have to work with your unconscious”. The lady, bewildered, replies: “My husband will never agree to come see you”. The unconscious is not the husband, it is that part of the mind that we perceive as being on autopilot – all the functions of the body for which we do not have to consciously act. The unconscious knows everything it has to do for our life. 

The conscious works through the five senses, uses logic in decisions and perceives linear time, i.e. past, present and future. The subconscious, on the other hand, works through emotions. The language of the subconscious is represented by emotions, and to reach it, you need to listen, identify and transform the emotions. All experiences are stored in the subconscious. All the decisions you make in life come from the stock of information in the subconscious. The information stored in the subconscious has different names: mental images, mental programs, beliefs, seeds. No matter how much you consciously want something, if at the subconscious level there is a belief that opposes your conscious desire, you will see that your desire does not become reality. 

I found a perfect logic in all the information given in the movie The Secret. I had already experienced many miracles in my life. However, when Rhonda Byrne wrote her second book, The Power, she shared that some people had difficulty in experiencing these results using the law of attraction. Only in 2020, when I participated in an online program with Florin Păsat, I understood which is actually the law behind the law of attraction. With this, I strongly recommend you to read Florin’s book “WOW Now!: The New Guide to Reclaim an Abundant and Spectacular Life” to find many more ideas on how you can create the life you wish for and deserve. Attraction works when two “somethings” resonate. 

Do you remember the saying “like attracts like”? This is exactly what happens in the law of attraction. When you want something, when you focus your attention on what you want, that something comes into your reality. The problem arises when you consciously want a fulfilling relationship (I honestly think you wanted this from the moment you met your partner), but you don’t have it. You wish for a fulfilling relationship. THen why isn’t your relationship the way you want it to be? Because there is a belief in your subconscious that prevents you from enjoying the relationship you wish for. We will call this a limiting belief. To make sure we are at the same level of understanding it, let me give you an example. You might have a belief that sounds like, “Married men cheat on their wives”. It is very possible to hurry and tell me this is not true: “Not all men cheat on their wives”. And I will immediately confirm – that’s right. But if you have such a belief in your subconscious, you will have either relationships that confirm your belief, or short-term relationships, because of your fear that your belief will be confirmed. Such beliefs prevent you from having the relationship you wish for. 

Other limiting beliefs about relationships can be: I lose my freedom in a romantic relationship, I don’t have time for myself if I have a boyfriend, if I have a boyfriend I have to clean up after him, sexual attraction disappears after XX time of relationship, the relationship becomes monotonous after XX time, after marriage the spouses no longer love each other, love disappears after having children, romantic relationships are boring, I don’t want to be faithful to my partner, it’s tedious to offer love, marriage is a cage, marriage stops me from living my dreams, women have to take care of the house, men have to financially support the household, etc. Please keep in mind that these beliefs are not divided into true or false, because they are neither true nor false. Your beliefs lead your life. 

You have beliefs that take you away from your goals, block you, and do not allow you to fulfill your dreams. These are called limiting or unproductive beliefs. 

You have beliefs that bring you closer to your goals, motivate you, help make your dreams come true. These are called positive or productive beliefs.

From my personal experience and as a therapist I can confirm that, even a step away of divorce, your relationship can change, if at least one of the partners wants to take the necessary steps for change. Your beliefs have led your life so far. They are not bad in themselves. And you are not to be blamed for having lived with these beliefs. Now it’s time to be aware of them. Awareness is the first step to change. Because I like to go step by step forward, today we focus only on awareness.

This may certainly have happened to you in the past when after an argument in a relationship, you made the decision to change from that moment on. You read books, took notes, saw happy ending movies and decided that such an ending is possible for you as well. After all, this is what the law of attraction is: you think about what you want, until it becomes reality. You thought loving thoughts about your husband and you said you will wipe the slate clean. In case he was not at all responsive to your changes, in a short time you forgot the sincere promise you made to yourself: that your relationship will never be the way it was before. If for a while everything seemed rosy, things came back to the normal life before your promise, namely fights, disputes, lack of appreciation and lack of love. 

This is happening because you made the promise on a conscious level. You did not analyze what your beliefs are on a subconscious level. For example, I had a strong belief that was always confirmed in my life that after every moment of joy comes a wave of sadness. My opinion was that this is the way life is. The way my life was was convincing me that this was real. To your delight, things are exactly the opposite. 

Your beliefs cause you the experience of the solid reality that seems to create your beliefs.

What is different in this book? After checking out what is happening on a conscious level, we move on to the subconscious. Even if you apparently think about what you consciously observe, you will be focused on what draws your attention in your romantic relationship and in others’ relationships. For example, if you see couples divorcing, question your beliefs about how long a marriage should last. In case you find out the reasons for the divorce of those couples, you discover other beliefs of your own. The object you focus on is what needs to be studied. Even though there are many people who get divorced, I see many couples who have more and more beautiful marriages as the years go by. This confirms the change in my beliefs about relationships.

Your relationship today corresponds exactly to the beliefs you and your partner have about relationships. Before you want to contradict me, I want us to do an experiment together. 

Imagine that you wear sunglasses with green lenses. You wear them from birth and you don’t know that you have them on. You don’t know you’re wearing sunglasses, but you’re wearing them. They are part of you. Every time you went to the mountains you saw green snow. Today I tell you that the snow is white, immaculate white. You do not know what color is immaculate white and you will not be able to believe that the snow is white, until you accept that you wear glasses through which you see the snow as green and decide to take them off. As fierce as you are to contradict me in terms of snow color before taking off your glasses, you will be just as happy when you discover the true color of snow. Today is about finding the “glasses” that prevent you from seeing the snow as white in terms of romantic relationships.

Analyze your relationship and think about the relationships of others. Write down in your journal the beliefs you identify regarding romantic relationships. Listen to your instinct when writing down your beliefs. Make sure you write your beliefs as they are, not as you would like to see romantic relationships. You have already described the way you want your relationship to be on the first day of this journey. If you want to add to the list proofs of your desired relationship, you can do it after this introspection. As for the beliefs, I invite you to watch them with maximum attention. Identifying them will ease and fasten your journey. Focus on the beliefs that don’t support you, don’t help you, limit you in having the relationship you want. Don’t be afraid to write down everything that comes to mind. I tell my clients during the sessions: if it popped into your mind right now, it means it’s important. Allow yourself to listen to your intuition, your subconscious wants to help you on this journey. Finish these sentences to find your beliefs. Help yourself by using the examples in parentheses, without limiting yourself to them:

• Marriage is … (a cage).

• Romantic relationship means … (deprivation of liberty) (suffering) (compromise).

• I can’t be happy in a relationship because … (neither my mother wasn’t happy).

• After marriage … (love disappears).

• A monogamous relationship is … (boring).

• Better single than alone in a bad relationship.

• Single men are … (loosers) (frivolous).

• I can’t find a man … (how? and why?).

• Rather than being disappointed, I’m better off alone.

• It’s hard to maintain a relationship.

• Unconditional love is a myth.

• All good men are already taken.

• I feel really good when I’m alone by myself.

• I don’t know any happy couples.

Exercises for Day 5:

□ Whenever you have the opportunity, repeat the Ho’oponopono mantra:

I LOVE YOU. I’M SORRY. PLEASE, FORGIVE ME. THANK YOU.

□ Make a list of what you think about relationships, your beliefs about your relationship, how your relationship should be, all the negative aspects that come to the surface.

□ Write at least 10 reasons of gratitude for your partner and / or 10 reasons of gratitude for people with whom you interacted today or in the past.

Reread the intention set on the first day so that you can remember daily what the goal is for these 28 days; visually scroll through the lists of benefits and sufferings.

Challenge of the day:

After writing down your beliefs about relationships, take each belief and give it a score, from 1 to 10, 1 meaning you don’t really believe that, 10 meaning you’re sure it’s 100% true. Today is just about awareness. Now you know what your beliefs are and how strongly you identify with them.

Recommendation of the day:

The movie The Shift (2009), a combination of documentary and movie, is an interview with Wayne Dyer, one of the personalities that influenced America and the world. Our beliefs change over a lifetime, so the choices we make also change.

Statement of the day:

I believe in myself and I believe in the change of my beliefs