There are no failed relationships.

By Staci Welch-Bartley 

Anyone over the age of 30 has more than likely been involved in a significant romantic relationship with someone they believed was their soul mate. Only later to have life take a sharp turn, finding themselves single with a shattered perception of love, a broken heart, and a heavy feeling within that allows them to begin carrying around a lot of guilt, shame, and anger into all of their future relationships. I myself spent many years wondering why I could not find the right person to love for a lifetime.

I definitely experienced times where I would feel the thing that told me I had found the one and only person I was going to love forever. Only to realize months or years later that I needed to get the heck out of the relationship and that it wasn’t going to work. It appeared to me back then that everyone else seemed to be great at relationships and I was the only one failing.

I have now come to a larger understanding of this whole love thing.   

I realized one day while asking “why me?” once again, that all of my relationships contributed to my life, and taught me something about who I am. They had given me increased clarity about what I truly wanted out of relationships, and showed me a real demonstration of what worked and what didn’t in regards to my behavior. 

When I made this realization, I asked myself how my past relationships could possibly be considered failures when they had contributed so much to my life? Who and what says my past relationships are a failure? What is the measuring stick that is used to judge successful relationships? Perhaps these questions would give me insight into why I was not hitting the mark.

After this research, I realized it was time! Time is the measurement we use to determine success in relationships. How long did the relationship last? People always ask, "How long were the two of you together?" If it lasts for a lifetime, we say, “Great job, you’ve succeeded!” And if it doesn’t, “You failed, try again!” It is crazy when you really think about it, isn’t it?

Here are a few more things we believe about relationships that I have found are just not true:

1. When you have chemistry and attraction with someone it does not mean you are in love.

2. When you find someone that you want to build a relationship with it does not mean that it will work out forever.  Things change.

3. We expect to get relationships right the first time we fall in love. And yet, to become masterful at any task or skill, we have to practice, practice, practice and practice some more.  Why would building healthy foundational relationships be any different? 

When we throw out the time measurement and look for the contributions of valuable experiences and new growth a relationships is given us, there is no such thing as a failed relationship.  There is only personal growth and evolution.  Which are two very good things!

Stop, Look & Listen

By Staci Welch-Bartley

What if we could just show up and observe ourselves as a third person looking in?  I have always felt that would be an amazing experience. Guess what? We can do this through observing our feelings inside. Wayne Dyer encourages us to, “stop, look, and listen to our body, minds, and spirit”. 

By checking in with this internal guidance system that all of us have, we can see many things. We can tell how we are doing, observe what is going on, and most important, see what we need to do next in our evolution. This guidance system will communicate with us, but only if we listen. 

How does this relate to love, you ask? Well here is the deal. All we ever do in a relationship is get to know ourselves. All of us suffer from the feelings of not being lovable, good enough, or worthy. We question our value, get curious about who we are, and wonder what the heck we are doing here on this planet. We criticize ourselves countless times a day, and come to believe a story that is not always true. We tell ourselves things like “if I were skinnier, smarter, didn't have kids, finished college, or had a good job I could find love.” But, when we can step back and observe, we would find that people that do not have it all together find love every day. So this belief cannot be true. There is not a level of beauty, intelligence, or success that ensures that you or anyone else will find love. 

The best way for you to find love is to get involved with listening and actually doing the things that make your heart sing. You and only you know what you need to do next. The act of doing will take you where you need to go to find love.

Are you listening?

Where is the f&*%$#@ manual?!

By Staci Welch-Bartley

It only took my first experience of falling in love and having that relationship blow up like Chernobyl, to ask where the f&*% is the bloody manual?! After that experience I began down the road of thinking things like, I don’t know how to do these things called love and romance! I have no idea what just happened, let alone a clue about how I am supposed to manage it. I kept asking myself why I felt so ashamed of my failure. My religion and society imposed on me the idea that I was supposed to be good at this, and that once I experienced true love I should be able to hang onto it forever.  So, I asked myself what does it mean about my relationships do not work out? Am I a bad and wrong person?  Am I doomed to fail for the rest of my life?

After the shock and pain of it all rained down on me, how was I ever going to be brave enough to try again? I had no idea what I should do differently, because I was not sure what had just happened! And I was supposed to learn from the past? It was so difficult to get past the emotions to see the lessons in the experience, I just wanted to bury my head so deep that I couldn't breathe!

Looking back now, I can see that it took me seven serious relationships of practice to finally fall madly in love and marry someone that I know was custom designed for me! Practice, I just needed practice.

I remember things started to change for me during my relationship with Number Four. Number Four was a husband, not just a lover, and I was then in my 10th year of marriage with him at the age of 30. At that point, having had four lovers was a HUGE deal given my background of being raised a good Mormon girl in Utah. I kept this little secret close to my heart for many years feeling like a total “slut”, until one day, I had the wonderful experience of being in a room of amazing women who liberated me. 

A group of us gathered in a hotel room after an incredible empowerment workshop to spend more time together, and to share our personal experiences with one another about the workshop. Someone had gifted the group a glorious box of wine for the occasion. It was decided that we were going to go around the room with a question. And much to my discomfort, the question was: how many lovers have you had? I swallowed hard, and literally broke out in a sweat! I was horrified at the thought and decided I would need to do one of two things. Either chose to be honest and confess that I had four lovers at the ripe age of 32, or lie and say only two.  (The two lovers that the room full of women were aware of already.) And if that were not stress enough, the group’s eyes landed on me sitting closest to the door, and said "Staci, why don’t you go first!"

Shit! Was my first thought followed by a hard swallow, and a long pause! “Four” I eeked out, “Four, I have had four lovers.”  I said with my head down awaiting my dreadful judgment. Instantly the room was filled with a roar of laughter and a voice blasted through the laughter says “Are you serious, only four? Girl you don’t even have a clue! You need to discover yourself!"

That word "only" used to describe my number of lovers was a huge moment that allowed me to let go of my internal shame for my past experiences. I was even more relieved as the group sharing continued around the room, and the women confessed numbers of 15, 28, 54, and 72! Finally, I gave myself the permission to explore and learn about relationships as well as to observe how I show up in them. Oh and to practice, practice, practice. 

I was given the manual of shared experiences for love and relationships and the insights to evaluate them from a room of glorious women. Thank you for rescuing me beautiful women.  Thank you.

That "Crazy In Love" Feeling

By Staci Welch-Bartley

“Here I go,” you notice yourself saying, "I am falling in love again!" In this moment, some of us run.  Because we feel like if we can avoid the feeling of being in love, we can avoid the pain that we believe are sure to come quickly after the love fades away.

For others, we let go of everything that means something to us to be sure that the love we have attracted “this time” will last forever.  We find ourselves believing things like if we can just give up all that is important to us, and focus on “them”, it will all work out!  So we no longer up hold our personal boundaries, or ask for what we need and want in the relationship. We let it all go, and get taken for a ride until we wake up feeling empty, depleted, and useless!

What I have discovered about this amazing thing called love, is it is truly what makes the world spin. It is our most conscious and powerful state. It is truly the magic that penetrates our lives. And it is why we will do almost anything for it and miss it terribly in our lives when it is not present!

Finding and experiencing love is about using and enjoying this most amazing power.

When we fall in love with someone we feel truly feel aligned with, two things happen without much thought.  First, our vibrational energies converge and our energy becomes harmonious.  Meaning that both people are vibrating at the same level.

Second comes the smell connection.  Pheromones.  Studies show that couples will stand the test of time if they enjoy and sometimes crave the smell of their partner.

And all at once you are crazy in love. Why do you instinctually feel in love when this occurs? Because another person is matching where you are internally. It does not matter what your mind is saying or what your “vision board “displays in that moment. What matters is that someone is vibrating at the same level and if they smell good to you, game over!  It has nothing to do with your logic until you have time and space to reflect.

Love happens more below the radar, or subconsciously.

Our subconscious is not concerned with whether or not a relationship will last forever.  What matters to us intuitively is that we will evolve.  We will put ourselves in unbelievable circumstances to give ourselves an experience to grow. 

This idea is based on the principal that all living things need to push against something to grow. And we are constantly finding circumstances and people to help us “grow” forward. There is a physics equation for this which is: force = mass x acceleration.  

So you see, falling in and out of love is the ultimate process of life! It is all about learning, practicing and moving forward. And when we find a partner that is aligned with us, and is willing to do the same learning, practice, and evolution, we have what author Bruce Lipton, PhD, calls, "Heaven on Earth." In his book the Honeymoon Effect, he speaks about how we can create this heaven every day of our lives. 

Let’s get evolving!

Need Connection

By Staci Welch-Bartley

If I had a quarter for every time someone in my sphere of influence said to me after a romantic break-up, “I am done!  I will never get married, have a partner, or fall in love with the opposite sex again!” I would already be retired on the beach! The power and their conviction when saying “I am done!” is intense and believable to boot! In the moment, they really, really mean it. Of course, my answer to them all is always the same, “give it time, give it time.” Because, without fail every one of them finds themselves looking for love again.

So what is this irresistible, uncontrollable urge for connection that takes us from the most heartbreaking love experiences, to being willing to do whatever we have to do to jump back in?  Science calls it instincts and hormones. We humans have a basic need to feel connection with others.  Evolutionary speaking, our survival as a species has relied on this drive. So, whether you like it or not, chances are, regardless of your past experiences, stated convictions, and commitments to never falling in love again, you are going to!

There is good news in all of this.  Each and every time we do fall in love again, it give us some great awareness and insights into ourselves.  If you ever want to know how you are treating yourself on the inside, take a look at who is showing up in your life as a potential candidate for love.

To illustrate this bold statement, I have an activity that I invite you to play around with. Use this activity anytime that you want to do a self refection evaluation about how you show up in relationships.

1. As soon as you can after being with your past partner, write down a list of qualities that you found favorable or admired about them;
2. Next, write down the things that rubbed you the wrong way for some reason, or things that were not favorable;
3. Now in your mind’s eye, picture yourself telling this person with brutal honesty the items on your list by stating their name, followed by the thing that you found to be favorable.  Example: (Persons name) “you are” (something from your list); 
4. Next, repeat this activity with the things you found unfavorable as well;
5. Next, repeat this list you have created to yourself.  Start with the things you admire first. For greatest impact, go to a mirror and look at yourself, really look at yourself, and then while looking in the mirror state your name and something from the list.  Take a moment and notice how it feels after each item mentioned. Does it bring up your emotions? Do this with the entire list of words that you wrote down for both favorable and unfavorable items; and last
6. On a separate piece of paper, write down the words that bring up your emotions.  This is where the gold lies. Notice how these words might be true for you somehow. This activity will show you where you feel you are internally. The things that you love about yourself, and the things that you are wanting to work with.

The bottom line is, connections and commitments to others are what we use to learn about and develop ourselves. The most important thing that we can do to find the love we are looking for is to first build and cultivate a romance with ourselves.

What are you doing to build and cultivate romance?  We would love to hear…