Have ever been in a relationship where your partner consistently complains about you and/or about the things that you do? Or, did they maybe just make subtle comments but you knew they really meant it? These careless acts play on your insecurities and you may have found that you were changing the things about yourself that they were complaining about or commenting on in an effort to avoid the criticism and/or comments. They might have also threatened to end your relationship if you didn't change.

You may have convinced yourself because you love the person it is a valid and good enough reason to want to change for them. The bottom line is that it is fear on some level that causes you to change for someone else and not love. Changes, no matter how big or small, are not appropriate if they are for someone else. Any time you change anything about yourself to please another, it will have negative consequences. The moment you change one thing, you may be asked to change another and another and another until there comes a point when nothing you do or say is good enough. You will find that a relationship where you are required to change in an effort to make it work will not survive long term.

Whatever you do from here on out, don't change for anyone else but yourself! If you do, it will backfire at some point because you are, essentially, squashing the spirit of your true self. Eventually, those aspects of yourself that you thought you had changed will be doing whatever it takes to express themselves. The essence of your true nature cannot and will not be held down for long.

More than likely, these changes that you initially made from "love" will manifest as anger and resentment towards your partner for whom you did the changing for in the first place. If they don't like who you are, that is not your problem, it is theirs. Remind yourself that you choose who you want to be with and vice versa. And gently remind them that if those things bother them so much, maybe you both should consider the possibility that the relationship won't work out because you respect yourself. And that means that you won't change to fit someone else's idea of what the perfect partner should be like. You are who you are and if they don't like it, they don't have to be with you. If they don't love and accept you just as you are, don't be afraid to tell 'em to take a hike.

Above all else, be true to yourself body, mind and soul. You will find that honoring and respecting yourself in that way will more quickly result in attracting and experiencing a healthy, loving and fulfilling relationship like you never even dreamed possible.

Warmest Regards,

Lisa Stuart

About The Author


Lisa Stuart is dedicated to showing you how to attract the love of your life. Discover the secrets to attracting and experiencing a relationship with the love of your life! Sign up for Lisa's Attracting Love Newsletter ($100 Value) just by visiting her website at www.HowToAttractLove.com.

Copyright © 2006 The Love Attraction Expert

lisa@howtoattractlove.com

THERE ARE indications that the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bole/Bamboi, Hon. John Dramani Mahama, would soon break the silence on his political future.Ghana: John Mahama for President? (AllAfrica.com)

The death of Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay raises questions about the impact of his recent trial and conviction on his health, but the link between stress and heart disease is not clear-cut, experts said.Effects of stress on heart disease still unclear (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

The Party in Power waited for applications from members like Generals IBB and Marwa, and Vice President Atiku but none was forthcoming, no doubt a deep-cutting disappointment.Nigeria: Of Elephants, Grass And the PDP (AllAfrica.com)

Katie had not been in a relationship in ten years, and she was scared to death. In her last relationship, she had lost herself completely and then felt devastated when her boyfriend of three years left her for another woman.

After working on herself emotionally and spiritually for a number of years, Katie, now 48, felt she was ready for a new relationship. So she joined an online dating service and promptly met Sean, who seemed too good to be true. Warm, compassionate, intelligent, and also on a personal and spiritual growth path, Sean, 55, was an available man! Now Katie's fears that she would not meet someone turned to fears of being in a relationship again.

Katie had learned how to take loving care of herself when she was alone or with friends, but doing this with a man was another matter. She had never actually taken care of herself in any of her relationships, and she was very worried that she would let herself down again.

Katie wanted some guidelines regarding loving actions she could take for herself as she started to explore the relationship with Sean, and she wrote to me asking me for these loving actions. So here they are some loving actions to take when first exploring a new relationship:

1. Stay focused inside your own body, noticing your own feelings rather than just being tuned into the other person's feelings. Stay conscious of NOT taking responsibility for the others person's feelings of worth or security, and NOT making the other person responsible for your feelings of worth or security.

2. Make a solid decision before getting together with the other person that you are willing to lose the other person rather than lose yourself. Make a conscious decision to NOT make the other person's wants, needs and feelings more important than your own.

3. Stay clear on your own truth, NOT letting the other person talk you in or out of what feels good and right for you.

4. Be willing to take full, 100% responsibility for behaving in a way that makes you feel worthy, safe and powerful. Be willing to be who you really are rather than trying to impress. Make a conscious decision that being in integrity with who you really are, is more important than getting the other person's approval.

5. Do NOT disregard the big or small things that you find difficult, intolerable or unacceptable. If something is unacceptable or intolerable to you early in the relationship, the chances are that it is not going to get better. Do NOT convince yourself that, because there are so many good things about this person, you can overlook the problems or get the other person to change. This NEVER works!

Fears of rejection can emerge very early in a relationship. Some people are terrified of doing something wrong and being rejected, because they make they other person responsible for their feelings of worth and lovability. The fear of rejection can lead a person to give him/herself up to the other person, thereby touching off fears of engulfment of loving oneself and being controlled or consumed by the other person. Thus, fears of loss " loss of self or loss of other " often surface quickly and people find themselves either giving in or pulling away in their efforts to protect themselves from their fears.

If you allow fear to guide you, you will likely either pull away or end up in an unsatisfying relationship. The most important thing to remember as you move into exploring a new relationship is: LET LOVE BE YOUR GUIDE, NOT FEAR. This means that you need to be open to learning about what is most loving to YOU " what is really in your highest good " rather than trying to have control over not being rejected or controlled by the other person. So, number six is:

6. Keep asking your inner wisdom, "What is the loving action toward myself right now? What is in my highest good right now?"

If you keep asking this vital question, you will find your way through exploring a new relationship without losing yourself and without getting hurt by the other person.

About The Author


Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You? and "Healing Your Aloneness." She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner bonding now! Visit her website for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or email her at mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone sessions available.

DEAR ABBY: I am a 20-something male who is madly in love with my girlfriend. That being said, I do have one concern. She dated a friend of mine for a short while prior to dating me. Their relationship was physically intimate, something I have reserved for only our relationship.GIRLFRIEND'S PAST INDISCRETION GNAWS AT MAN IN HERE AND NOW (Dear Abby via Yahoo! News)

DEAR ABBY: I am a twentysomething male who is madly in love with my girlfriend. That being said, I do have one concern. She dated a friend of mine for a short while prior to dating me. Their relationship was physically intimate, something I have reserved for only our relationship.DEAR ABBY: Past puts crimp in new relationship (Contra Costa Times)

US $0.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Thursday Jul-13-2006 17:29:36 PDTBid now Add to watch listAre You Normal About Sex, Love, and Relationships?

Relationships, love and in particular jealousy and present each of us with a unique opportunity to better understand ourselves. Jealousy is most often the result of attachment and expectations, beliefs, projections, delusions, envy, guilt and low of self-esteem.

What do you do when you're jealous? You may try to find out if your lover has been with someone else. If he or she has, you might go into a rage. It is a fairly common and immediate response. You are angry. You feel violated. You want revenge. You want to stop what is happening, control the situation, and manipulate whatever you can to protect yourself.

If you can cool down, if you can control this internal, knee jerk reaction, you just might discover that you have an alternative. Often, what feels like jealousy really is a lack of communication. When we leave our needs unspoken, they can lie in wait like a crouching tiger until someone, something or some event exposes them. It is essential to communicate very clearly and explicitly with your partner about your needs and expectations.

It is important to understand the distinct difference between loving and being attached. It is an important distinction because so frequently what we call love is really attachment.

Loving someone means loving the uniqueness of that person. Attachment is quite different. You can love your partner and want to see them thrive, enjoy, and grow. You want to see them become more of who they are. That's the truth of love. On the other hand, you may want your partner conform to a preconceived idea of what you think they should be or perhaps to what is convenient or comfortable for you. That is Attachment. This is a distinction that needs to be understood before you can understand your relationship or what needs to be done.

If your relationship is based on Attachment, you will quickly discover and experience the pain of jealousy. Our life, our surroundings and the people around us mirror what is going on inside us. If you are angry, you will find yourself living in an angry world. You will see the anger in all the people around you and you will feel it. Perhaps in your situation it isn't anger, but instead it is depression or fear or jealously. What you focus on is what you get. Wouldn't it be far more enjoyable to feel and focus on joy, happiness, fulfillment and love?

Mirrors are a good thing because they give us an opportunity to observe what is going on in ourselves and take care of it. Whatever illusions you may have as to who is to blame or who is at fault, the jealousy is within you, a mirror of what is going on inside you.

Attempting to manipulate and control your lover is a poor solution. Manipulation of your partner is an external attempt to fix an internal problem. Looking inward, you can use the situation that caused the jealousy to bubble up into your consciousness as an opportunity to clarify communication between the two of you, to better understand yourself and your partner.

Jealousy is like an onion, layers of misunderstanding, misperceptions and misleading which can be overwhelming and so difficult that it makes you cry. When you attempt to blame and control your partner, you refuse to acknowledge that these layers are within you. If you work at peeling off the layers, you can reach the core of the problem, you can achieve the possibility of self-understanding and freedom from the hurt and pain.

The first layer is your subconscious ideas and feelings about how one is supposed to act in a relationship. What do you believe and where does this belief come from? Do you believe that your partner is your possession? Can one person actually be the possession of another? Should they be? If you believe that you must possess the other person, then you are not in a loving relationship. Whatever control you think you exert over your partner, you cannot really touch the inner uniqueness that comprises a human being. You may occasionally control your partner, but you cannot make a person love you.

As you continue to go deeper inside you reveal even more layers of this "onion" including projection, envy and guilt. By peeling away these layers, you can reach awareness. Projection, envy, and guilt are nothing more than pointers to the truth behind your feelings. Becoming aware of what you are actually feeling and discovering the source behind it can give you the power to alleviate the pain. If you can reveal the true feelings, separate them from the perceived jealously, it is possible to relieve the pain.

If you would like to read this article in its entirety, visit www.newhynotherapy.com and remember, you do not need to experience jealously. You do not need to control another and you do not need to be afraid. You can choose to move away from those feelings. You can experience love itself deeper and deeper within its own fullness.

Linda Simmon, C.Ht.

Notice: All contents of this article are © Copyright 2003, NewBeginnings.

This article may be reprinted, reposted or republished in any format or forum, without prior consent, provided it is given away for free, all links and notices are kept intact, and that proper credit is given for authorship. In the event you are reading this article from a third-party website, you may subscribe to our newsletter for free at: http://www.newhypnotherapy.com/ .

About The Author


Linda Simmon is a Certified Hypnotherapist; member of the American Hypnosis Association, American Counseling Association, Hypnotherapists Union, AFL CIO, and a Blue Cross Alternative Medicine Practitioner. http://www.newhypnotherapy.com/contact.html

articles@newhypnotherapy.com

The front page of The Sun highlights the diversity of the victims. A year after the London bombings, moderate Muslim and non-Muslim Britons are determined to deal with home grown radicalism. But, James Button reports, the danger has not passed.Terrorism's legacy (The Age)

The art of kumara (Stuff)The kumara a mere root vegetable? Not on your life, says artist Hamish Palmer who has fashioned the humble vege into innumerable fascinating shapes.

In Japan, a city with designs on being different (International Herald Tribune)Travelers in Japan often complain that every big city resembles Tokyo, with its ills: congestion, pollution, high prices and a general lack of private space. But Fukuoka, in southern Japan, has tried to think differently.

When it comes to fighting and disagreeing with men, women frequently make a critical mistake which ends up causing them to feel hurt and lonely. Here is the scenario that typically happens. During a routine conversation there is a disagreement between the woman and her husband/boyfriend. It starts out in a logical manner with two competent speaking adults simply talking about a problem or disagreement. Then at some point in the discussion that woman gets her feelings hurt and responds in an emotional manner. All of a sudden the entire dynamic of the conversation has changed and the man feels he has been betrayed.

While the discussion was logical and factual, it had the similar feel of a business meeting where everyone has the sole goal of finding the answer to the problem. No one would dare interject their feelings into such a discussion for fear they would be viewed has weak and childish. In the business world, accomplishing the task is the primary goal, not making everyone feel good. This is how a man views a discussion that is logical and factual. He believes that if her idea is so good then she should be able to prove it. "She wants to prove her point so I'll prove mine. May the best man win," is how he thinks and has no idea that she only wants to be heard/understood. When women interject their feelings into a discussion that has become competitive, it makes men feel as though they are being blamed for being logical which causes them to react in anger. Men say to themselves, "She ask me to prove my point and when I do she gets her feelings hurt!" He has been blind sided by the one thing that makes him feel powerless, a woman in pain. The man feels tricked by acting strong only to pull the feelings card out when she was starting to loose the argument so now he feels entitled to punish her. That really is how most men think in that scenario.

If you are a woman, a practical rule when discussing a topic is that if you want to debate, prove or compete with your boyfriend/husband then stay in that role throughout the discussion. If you want to be understood or nurtured, then relate to him by sharing how you feel about the subject. Don't switch to becoming a soft, feeling and vulnerable woman after you have presented yourself logically. All that will do is encourage him not to discuss things with you in the future. He'll be afraid of you dropping the feelings bomb. Most of the time I would suggest that you start off softly by speaking to him about how you feel concerning the issue so he can recognize your feelings which will signal to him that you are not trying to be competitive. On the occasions you do need to prove your point, hold your ground regardless of how you feel. Remember it doesn't matter as much which way you relate to him, the most important thing you can do is not to combine the two.

Copyright by Bob Grant, L.P.C. 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this article may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission. Permission is given to article city users for reprint rights.

About The Author


Bob Grant is a licensed counselor who spealizes in working with women to improve and/or create the relationship of their dreams. You can find out all about how to Captivate a Man, make him fall in love with you--and give you the world, by visiting http://www.relationshipheadquarters.com.

relationshiphq@aol.com

Doherty says he'll always love Moss (USA Today)British rocker Pete Doherty said he will always love model Kate Moss, but acknowledged their relationship was "up and down" in comments released Wednesday. "It's right and wrong, up and down," said Doherty, 27, when asked by a British Broadcasting Corp. interviewer about the status of the relationship.

Pete Doherty says he'll always love Kate Moss but admitted their relationship has 'ups and downs.'Pete Doherty Says He'll Always Love Kate Moss (Fox News)