Lessons From Loving: My Recent Relationship and What it Taught Me About Life (Part 1)
The past few months have been some of the best months of my entire life. And they've also been some of the most challenging.
They involved a love story that began 10 years ago. With… let’s call them Alex, for the sake of this blog.
Our relationship lasted for over a year. We were together through my transition to grad school and some big changes for Alex. We were in love and happy… when my fear of abandonment wasn’t getting in the way.
The relationship ended on a loving note while I was away for a summer internship. It became clear that we were better off apart, so with Google’s help I ended the relationship over the phone.
Fast forward ten years to November of 2022:
I found myself reflecting on the relationship and its end and decided to reach out to Alex to see how they were doing. I was surprised to find that Alex had been thinking about me, too. In fact, they were planning to spend a month near me in California (a surprise, since I knew from our intermittent conversation of the years that they’d lived out their dream of buying a plot of land in the Deep South).
We connected over FaceTime and the conversation flowed easily and naturally. The chemistry was undeniable; I would have crawled through that screen if I could. We’d both grown in some similar ways. Both of us were meditating every day and it was apparent that we’d both done a lot of self-work over the years. It seemed like our social desires and family desires might match. And neither of us had found the same level of connection with anyone else.
My inner-horny-twenty-something and inner-referee-keeping-track-of-my-biological-clock joined forces with the news that Alex was flying solo. I started future tripping like I was training for a competition.
I thought, maybe we'll have an amazing month-long fling. But what if, even better, Alex has also become vegan and decided they were over the isolated mountain life? That month-long fling could turn into a lifelong commitment. My mom had recently reminded me about how I’d once told her how I wanted to have Alex’s babies, and I couldn’t get that out of my head.
As we began to talk more it was clear to me that I still loved Alex.
That had never really stopped, we'd just gone our separate ways. I was future tripping on my excitement about the possibility of us coming back together. At the same time, I was also future tripping on the idea that despite our shared feelings, some big things stood in our way of being together. I couldn’t imagine them uprooting from a small town and moving to California, and there was no way my social self would thrive in as remote a place as they live.
I admitted to Alex that my mind had traveled to crazy places and unrealistic scenarios. Alex shared that they had experienced the same thing and I lit up. We FaceTimed again and got deep, real deep. We spoke openly and honestly about our desires and our non-negotiables. We uncovered it all and saw there were some gray areas, but no red flags. Both of us were feeling biological pressure to work toward starting a family, so there was no time to waste. We felt aligned and decided to focus on getting to know each other again and see where it went from there.
The focus of Alex’s trip shifted from being a break from winter to being a chance to explore our relationship. Thus began what I thought would be the longest three weeks of my life: the three-week wait for Alex to arrive.
The biggest challenge during this phase was to stay present.
Throughout these long three weeks, I began practicing the skills I've developed as a coach. Including energy healing and my favorite, PQ. They were extremely helpful during this time when my mind was constantly future tripping in the unknown.
At first, I would constantly find myself future tripping. Both about how wonderful it would be if it all just went right… And about how awful it would be if it all went wrong.
I realized that I had some trapped emotions and limiting beliefs (which I wrote about in a previous blog that you can access here). I used energy healing to release them.
The negative spirals (what if it doesn’t work out between us?) significantly decreased after the healing, but the positive ones (I’m about to connect with my future life partner!) continued to overtake my mind. As fun as some of them were, they interfered with my ability to do one of my favorite things: enjoy the present moment, as is. They were distracting me from work, life, and my friends.
Little did I know, these distractions would turn out to be a gift.
With two weeks left before Alex’s visit, I began an already-scheduled 7-week program designed to build my mental fitness (and coach others in building theirs). It’s called Positive Intelligence ® also known as PQ, because one of the metrics is the positive intelligence quotient.
The goal of PQ is to strengthen “three critical mental muscles to shift the balance of power from your inner Saboteurs (your negative self) to your inner Sage (your positive self)”. Lucky for me, one of these muscles is self-command. In other words, the ability to command your mind to focus on what you want it to focus on. In other words, to tame it to stop future tripping, worrying about unnecessary things (will Alex and I have the connection we’re both hoping for?), and holding on to any emotions that aren’t serving it.
I was fortunate to start the 6 week program when I did. It helped me stay accountable to my emotions and wandering mind. I committed to doing a minimum of 36 "PQ reps" each day. This meant I was to focus my awareness for 10 seconds on a physical sensation, like touch, sound, or hearing… coming back to the present each time."
The program comes with a highly motivating app that made sure I kept returning to the present
A screenshot of the app’s daily “focus” page
It tracks your daily reps, your PQ muscle building, and even notifies you to check in throughout the day. It also includes a “PQ gym” full of different PQ exercises that come in 2, 5, and 12-minute options. The app creators assume that your mind will wander for half of each exercise, so it gives you 3 PQ reps per minute. The rigorous practice therefore just takes about 12 minutes a day, spaced out over the course of the day. (Plus a weekly 1 hour lesson).
As a former mostly-A student I committed myself to getting over the minimum requirement of 36 PQ reps per day. I saw the magic within the first couple of days. Pausing to focus my awareness in the middle of the day would result in regained focus. And it would stop my mind from future tripping on the “what if’s” about Alex.
The results didn’t surprise me; I’ve meditated each morning for years and know that that has a huge impact on my focus. What did surprise me was how easy it was to pause for PQ reps throughout the day. These exercises are way more accessible than a sitting meditation (some don’t even require you to be still) so I had no problem doing them (and returning to presence) all day long.
Once I understood how helpful it was I leaned into PQ to support me in staying focused during that exciting time. When I’d catch myself daydreaming about meeting Alex for the first time in 10 years I’d pull up the app. Spending 2 or 5 minutes doing PQ reps actually put time back into my day, because it would pull me out of lala land and get me back to what I needed to do.
That focus went out the window on February 1st when I got the message that Alex was in town. But for that story you’ll have to read my next blog!
Curious about this PQ stuff? In addition to sharing it with my one-on-one clients I’m starting to take small groups through the same program, using the same incredible app, that had this outstanding impact on my life. Send me a message if you’d like to learn more.
