If you have a tendency to rush in when you start developing feelings for someone, you’ve probably also experienced the intense emotional fallout that often comes from doing that. It’s a natural thing to do and I think we’ve all done it at one point or another and yet, the more we learn about conscious relationships, the more we start to realize that rushing things is the opposite of what actually works to create long-term lasting love.
When we rush, there are some forces driving the boat that we usually are not consciously aware of. We’re caught up in the feelings and excitement, our dreams and fantasies about what it could become. Often, it’s been a long time since we’ve felt this way and that feeling alone convinces us that it is right. Especially, when that person is reciprocating those feelings and there’s an incredible rush of hormones and endorphins flooding our systems, the idea of slowing things down is the last thing on our minds.
But as quickly as we rush into love can often be as quickly as we fall out of it and if you’re reading this article, it’s likely you’ve experienced that a time or two. That incredible rush we feel eventually wears off for one or both partners and when we lose that without having built something else in its place, we fall into disillusionment and start to question everything.
This post is written to help you understand exactly what is happening when we rush in and also give you some guidance on how to approach a relationship more consciously to create the lasting love that you desire.
Relational Trauma and Cultural Influences
By the time we reach adulthood, most of us are carrying some form of relational trauma. Perhaps this came from our parents, our friends, or our early romantic experiences. Trauma doesn’t always mean that we were severely beaten or abused in some way, although that certainly is trauma as well. Trauma is an open loop of pain in our consciousness that hasn’t been completed. This can show up as feelings of insecurity, anxiety, unworthiness, ways in which we doubt our true value or lovability, and avoidant tendencies that restrict us from intimacy.
If your childhood was inconsistent or unpredictable, if you were bullied or left out among your peers, if you’ve been cheated on or heartbroken, if people have broken promises to you, if your parents divorced, if you were neglected in some way, or maybe it’s as simple as not having your childhood emotional needs recognized and validated, all of this can equate to trauma and if you experienced things like this, it’s likely you’re carrying some incomplete trauma that becomes a driving force in your romantic life.
When we carry things like this, we subconsciously seek love as a way to validate our worthiness and heal our wounded self-esteem. This isn’t something we say out loud to ourselves, it’s a feeling inside. The unconscious idea is that, “If someone will love me, it will make up for all the pain and disappointment in the past. By finding that special someone who will care enough to meet all of my emotional needs, I’ll never have to feel that way again.”
Because almost everyone is feeling this on some level, this misguided idea is constantly reinforced by our culture. Everywhere we look—songs, movies, TV shows—love is portrayed as the ultimate solution to loneliness and pain. These messages are so ingrained that we often don't even realize how deeply they've influenced our thinking. Almost everyone is looking for love as the solution to their pain and loneliness and we are all encouraging this thinking in each other.
These unconscious assumptions cause us to quickly rush in when the possibility of love becomes available to us and when all of this remains unconscious, it sets us up for a painful fall time and time again.
The Conscious Approach to Creating Love
You’ve probably noticed that these intense feelings are temporary. Even if you feel they haven’t been temporary for you, you’ve probably noticed the feelings of the other person change after some time. It’s astounding how quickly we can go from feeling intensely in love with someone to feeling completely misunderstood or neglected by them. From one day to the next, the person we thought was our greatest gift becomes the source of all of our pain.
It doesn’t have to happen this way but when we rush into a relationship unconsciously, we're often unprepared for the inevitable challenges ahead. This lack of preparedness leads to a cycle of sabotage—either clinging to the relationship or withdrawing quickly when things get tough. Unfortunately, when we seek love to heal our wounds, we often end up in relationships that only reinforce those wounds, despite some exciting moments in between.
You simply can't know enough about someone in just a few months to realistically expect a lifetime with them. Creating a conscious relationship means going into a relationship with this awareness, having all of the feelings as they come but remaining grounded within them. Rather than getting lost in fantasy, you have real conversations with the person about what you’re feeling, what you want, your boundaries, values, and expectations.
When we're emotionally healthy, we enter relationships slowly. We're willing to give it our all but are also prepared to walk away if necessary. Instead of quickly attaching, we approach with curiosity and interest, discovering the true potential of the relationship.
We don’t avoid the uncomfortable areas or the things that may lead to disappointment, we face them head on. We don’t naively assume that the relationship will somehow work out, we know that if it works it will be because of what we intentionally create together. We lean into our inherent worthiness and know that this relationship can only work if it aligns with our deepest truth and values.
We don’t fear losing it because we know that to lose something that’s not in alignment is not really a loss and yet we are willing to vulnerably work at it and give it a real chance to succeed. This is not an easy approach but it is the only way to build a relationship that is truly fulfilling on the deepest levels. Those of us who are tired of pain and disillusionment in relationships commit to the personal healing work and learn the necessary skills to create a conscious relationship.
Courage and Vulnerability
Most people will simply not approach relationships in this way. Our fear of rejection, our resistance to vulnerability, and our need to attach to someone for many of us is simply too strong. All of this is driven by the trauma I spoke about earlier.
If you take one thing away from this article, please understand that this can only lead to a never ending series of crash and burn relationships or at best, someone you settle with but feel deeply unfulfilled by. This is why so many marriages end in divorce, this is why even less relationships make it to marriage to begin with, a conscious approach is the only way to create true love.
When we approach love consciously, we sacrifice some of the immediate gratification and excitement for long term potential. We avoid falling into fantasy and instead deal with reality. We challenge and test the relationship in respectful ways to see if it’s truly something worth investing our time and energy into. And when we fall in love, we do it in a relationship that is not going to let us down but something that can truly meet our needs and bring us the happiness that we always hoped we could find in love.
If you’d like to explore working together to create conscious love or deepen your relationship with your partner in the most beautiful ways, click here to book your intro call and learn more.
In love,
Shane
Shane Kohler has worked in personal development and transformation for over a decade. He has led seminars throughout the US, coached thousands of people through his various platforms, and created The Inspired Love Program, a guided process to attract and sustain the conscious relationship of your dreams.
Shane is the co-founder of The Living Relationship, author of Our Life Together: A Couples Journal, and creator and host of The Conscious Love Show podcast. He is a husband, a dog dad, and spiritualist and is passionate about helping people heal the pain of their past and create a future filled with love.
He teaches that only by accessing and sustaining the vibration of love, can love be realized externally in partnership. Shane guides you to remove the blockages you’ve built against love so you can be ready for and call in the authentic partnership you've been seeking.
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