Lack of Attraction
Our culture places physical/sexual attraction and the feeling of being “in love” at the top of the non-negotiable list of relationship needs, so when these experiences are lacking you might think there’s something wrong with you, your partner, or your relationship. “What if I’m settling?”, “What if we don’t have enough chemistry?” and “I love my partner but I’m not in love” are common statements from people who find their way to my work.
As a culture predicated on the romantic ideal, we are tragically misguided about real attraction and real love. We don’t understand that friendship, safety, and trust form the foundation of healthy relationship and that, with accurate information and tools, attraction and feelings of love can be grown.
To receive the roadmap on how to grow love and attraction, join my Open Your Heart course here.
Love is a Bowl of Oatmeal
Originally published on The Huffington Post *** One of my favorite authors and mentors, Jungian analyst Robert Johnson, says that good love is like a bowl of oatmeal. A bowl of oatmeal? How unromantic, you may say. How prosaic, you think. Love should be an ice cream...
What If I’m REALLY Not Attracted to my Partner?
The following question is one I often receive from my clients who are struggling with the specific spoke of relationship anxiety that contains the longing to feel more love, connection, and attraction for their partner (and let's remember that I use attraction or lack...
For Men: When You’re Not Attracted to Your Partner
Over the years I've worked with many men who struggled with the attraction issue. In fact, whereas women tend to focus on a variety of spikes from intelligence to social fluency, when relationship anxiety hits for a man it almost always focuses on some aspect of their...
I Love You Go Away
Among the many misconceptions that people have about love - that it's only a feeling, that the feeling of being "in love" should exist from day one, that attraction is static and based on external attributes - the faulty belief that often gets swept under the rug...
When You’re Not Attracted
Attraction is an umbrella word that I use to describe any time you're in a projection about your hot topic. This could be lack of physical attraction, doubting if there's enough intellectual stimulation, struggling with sexual connection, or criticizing your partner's...
Falling in Love with Other People
Let's blow the cover off of another taboo topic in our culture, one that causes my clients to barely be able to whisper their experience loud enough to share it with me: "falling in love" with people other than your partner, including bosses, celebrities, religious...
What Does It Mean To Be In Love?
Inspired by a member of my May 2013 Open Your Heart Program A significant portion of my work is dedicated to dismantling and deconstructing the pervasive and dysfunctional messages our culture propagates about love, myths most people have absorbed by osmosis since the...
The Unsung Ingredient of a Healthy Relationship
We worship passion. We equate love and longing. We lay prostrate to the belief that "chemistry" is at the heart of sustaining a relationship. We chase after the golden idol of attraction in all of its forms. And yet, we live in a cultural that has an abysmal success...
When Infatuation Leads To Dead Butterflies
Love is a verb. This is one of the great truths about love that our culture fails to teach, one that, even when we understand the principle, we need to remember it and practice it over and over again. I think of marriage or any long-term, committed relationship with a...
The Awkwardness of Love
One of the most pervasive unrealistic messages propagated by our culture about love is that it should be easy. Brainwashed by Hollywood and Disney, we expect to fall into the arms of our beloved upon first sight and remain there, blissfully happy, for all the days of...